NOT ALL FATHERS ARE CHILD MOLESTERS
(August 14, 2001) Wendy McElroy, editor of iFeminists, at Fox News, disputes the statistics claimed by "radical feminists" such as Catharine MacKinnon who concluded up to 43 percent of all girls are sexually abused by fathers and other male family members "before they reach the age of 18." Asserting the figures are inflated, McElroy refers to data from the National Clearinghouse on Child Abuse and Neglect and The Bureau of Justice Statistics, that show the real percentages were 2.9 percent, which means 97.1 percent of girls were not sexually abused within the family. She says, "Feminists should be applauded for shedding bright light on the sexual abuse of children. But they should be deeply ashamed of how they have used this information...A real problem exists: child abuse. But it must be separated from political agendas and bloated bureaucracy. It is families that offer children the greatest protection from both."

BUFFALO SOLDIERS PROGRAM OPEN NEW BOOT CAMP
(August 26, 2001) The Arizona Republic reported America's Buffalo Soldiers Re-Enactors Association is opening a new camp. The parents of a student who died July 1 in another boot camp operated by this group in Arizona, have filed a wrongful death legal action against them.

GRADUATION RATES MIXED
(August 26, 2001) The Los Angeles Times story, "Diploma Statistics Indicate U.S. Education Is Passing and Failing" points to a record number of the adult population who "have completed high school or its equivalent." Yet, among those 18 to 24 years old, only 75% "have finished high school, suggesting a substantial dropout rate." One detractor, Thomas Mortenson, says that when you take out equivalency degrees from those statistics, the actual graduation rate is only 60-70 percent.

PACIFIC COAST ACADEMY UNDER FIRE
(August 27, 2001) The Arizona Republic newspaper reported the story, “Teen Boot Camp in Samoa Under Fire," by Ashley Bach, who reported criticisms of the program from ex-students and parents. Lonnie Fuller, co-owner and director said he “has been unfairly criticized for helping people. "Steve Cartisano“ marketed the camp until Fuller fired him last month."

LATER SCHOOL HOURS BENEFITS TEENS
(August 29, 2001) The Washington Post, reported a study of thousands of Minneapolis high school students that found students “less likely to miss classes or stop coming to school regularly if they can sleep later on school mornings." Also, when the schools changed “from a 7:15 A.M. start to an 8:40 a.m. start in 1997…they got more sleep, got slightly better grades and experienced less depression."

AFTER SCHOOL RISKIEST
(September 4, 2001) The Los Angeles Times reported a survey of law enforcement agencies in California that found: “the most likely hour of the day for a youngster to get in trouble is from 3 to 4 pm…it is in the hours immediately after school that most teens are involved in sex, drug use and car crashes…[and] the prime time for violent juvenile crime is from 2 to 6 p.m. The surveys also show that more crimes--homicide, rape, robbery and assault--are committed from 3 to 4 p.m. than any other time."

ARIZONA BOOT CAMP REOPENS
(September 7, 2001) The New York Times, reported the reopening of a Arizona Boot Camp run by Charles F. Long II of the America's Buffalo Soldiers Re-Enactors Association, where a boy died two months before.

MILITARY KIDS OUTSCORING CIVILIAN SCHOOLS
(October 9, 2001) USA Today reported a study by the National Education Goals Panel, “a body of federal and state officials who monitor schools," that concluded, “students at Department of Defense schools outscore their public school peers on standardized tests, regardless of race, family income and parents' educational levels."

PUNISHING DRUG USERS DOES MORE HARM
(October 19, 2001) Howard B. Kaplan, sociologist and director of the Laboratory for Social Deviance at Texas A& M University, in a report distributed by The Lindesmith Center-Drug Policy Foundation, concluded, “new research suggests that punishing drug users could increase the likelihood that they will continue using drugs."

TWICE EXCEPTIONAL STUDENTS
(October 24, 2001) An Education Week story, “Research: Diamonds in the Rough," reviews what is known about the “difficult-for-schools-to-work-with children” who share a "a combination of uncommon intellectual power and uncommonly formidable mental roadblocks."

CYBER SCHOOLS
(October 24, 2001) Education Week reviews the progress and controversy of "cyber" charter schools, of which there are nearly 30 in existence.

RECONCEPTUALIZING ADHD
(November, 2001) According to an article in the November issue of Educational Leadership, “new findings suggest that ADHD is a learning disorder rather than a behavioral disorder. Thus, teaching strategies that target cognitive weaknesses may be more effective than behavioral management techniques in promoting academic success for students with ADHD."

PRIVATE SCHOOLS IN DENMARK
(November 14, 2001) The Copenhagen Post, reports that private school students in Copenhagen have increased in the last 20 years to nearly one in four. As a consequence, "education authorities are currently planning a campaign in an attempt to persuade more parents to choose local state schools."

HOMESCHOOLERS MAKE GOOD EMPLOYEES
(November 15, 2001) The Society for Human Resource Management article, “Home is Where the School Is," makes the point that some companies have found that an excellent place to find reliable employees is among those young people who have been home-schooled.

NEW ZEALAND CAUTIOUS ON RITALIN
(November 15, 2001) The New Zealand Ministry of Health “is urging caution in prescribing the stimulant Ritalin to pre-schoolers after a United States finding that the drug could cause long-term changes in the brain.” Dr Tuohy, chief adviser for child and youth health, said, “various studies have shown how important nervous system connections are made in the first four years of life. These effectively hard-wire the brain into certain ways of functioning and that's particularly concerning when you talk about early-childhood stimulation and abuse." He estimated use of methylphenidate (sold as Ritalin and Rubifen) in New Zealand had increased from several hundred people in 1993 to almost 5,000 at present.

HIGH SCHOOL DROPOUT RATE AT RECORD LOW
(November 16, 2001) The Chicago Sun-Times reported data from the Department of Education that the “high school graduation rate for young Americans rose slightly to a record 86.5 percent last year." Rod Paige, Secretary of Education, said however, “rates had not risen in proportion to the billions of dollars spent on schools since the 1970s."

SURVEY-BUREAUCRACY/POLITICS STIFLE SCHOOLS
(January, 2002) A survey by Public Agenda of public school principals and superintendents found that 81 % of superintendents "cite politics and bureaucracy as the main reasons superintendents leave the field, far outweighing low pay and problems implementing higher standards." Also, 57% of principals "say even good administrators in their district are 'so overwhelmed' by day-to-day management that their ability 'to provide vision and leadership is stymied."

ADHD TREATMENT MAY BE UNDERESTIMATED
(February 1, 2002) Andrew S. Rowland, in a February 1, 2002 article in the American Journal of Public Health, reported a study that indicates "more than three times as many children as previously estimated may be medicated to treat ADHD.” Citing previous studies that hadn't included parents medicating at home using slow-release forms, the author found in a study of elementary school children in North Carolina that, "10 percent of the children had been given an ADHD diagnosis and 7 percent were receiving ADHD medication treatment…Prior studies viewed treatment rates as abnormally high if they exceeded the 3 percent to 5 percent of school age kids."

HOW TO UNDERMINE THE HIGH SCHOOL DIPLOMA
(February 2, 2002) An article by New York University’s research professor, Diane Ravitch, which appears on the Hoover Institution web site, asserts the US Department of Transportation's notice that airport baggage screeners do not need a high school diploma undermines the message educators and policymakers for years have been trying to make about the importance of obtaining a high school diploma.

VIOLENCE INCREASES IN WASH. D.C. SCHOOLS
(February 8, 2002) The Washington Times story, "Board Pledges to Make Schools Safer" is the school board’s response to a Washington Times story about the high number of violent incidents, with "assaults with deadly weapons in the District's schools… doubling during the past four years."

PRISON INMATE DRUG OVERDOSE DEATHS
(February 13, 2002) The Washington Times reports: "despite sophisticated electronic and physical surveillance, armed guards and meticulous designs of modern penal institutions, at least 188 convicts died of drug overdoses in state prisons nationwide during the past decade."

BUFFALO SOLDIERS HEAD ARRESTED
(February 16, 2002) Charles F. Long II, the head of the America's Buffalo Soldiers Re-enactors Association near Phoenix, Arizona, where "a 14-year-old boy died from exposure" last July, was arrested and charged with second- degree murder, eight counts of child abuse, aggravated assault and marijuana possession. The judge set bail at $100,000, and he was ordered to have no contact with children other than his own. Also, a worker at the camp, Raymond Burr Anderson, age 39, "was charged with child abuse for his role in what the sheriff's department described as a pattern of abuse at the camp, which is in the desert west of Phoenix."

ESTIMATES OF MENTALLY ILL TOO HIGH?
(February 17, 2002) Dr. William E. Narrow, director of the psychopathology program at the American Psychiatric Institute for Research and Education reported a study in the February issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, showing: "that mental disorders may be less prevalent among adults in the United States than was thought." Using a new method, he estimated 18.5 % of adults had a disorder, while older surveys had concluded, "almost 30 percent of American adults experienced mental or addictive disorders." [more...]

MEDICAL ARMS RACE?
(February 20, 2002) USA Today, reports, “hospitals go on a building boom expanding services to include everything every rival hospital has."

COLLEGE GRADUATES MIRED IN DEBT
(March 8, 2002) The New York Times, reported a survey by State Public Interest Research Groups that found debt among college students had doubled from 1992 to 2000. "Two out of three students must now borrow money to attend college, and four out of ten face unmanageable debts as they finish college and enter the job market."

AWARDS KIDS WOULD WANT
(March 19, 2002) An internet site called ZOOM Sound Out, asked participating kids what award they would most like to receive. With 6,642 votes, 46% want to win an Olympic Medal, 23% a Grammy, 11% a Nobel Prize, 10% an Oscar, and 7% want a Pulitzer Prize for writing.

GATES FOCUSING ON BORED HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS
(March 19, 2002) "The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is putting up $40 million to help start 70 high schools that will try to keep disadvantaged students in school by giving them college-level work in their junior and senior years and enabling them to earn two-year associate degrees while they earn high school diplomas." Since boredom with school is a common symptom of students placed in emotional growth and therapeutic boarding schools and programs, this initiative might do something on a preventive level for students with problems. [more...]

COLLEGE BOARD TO REVISE SAT
(March 22, 2002) According to The Wall Street Journal, The College Board is planning to revamp the main SAT test taken by generations of college-bound students, acknowledging that it is doing so partly in response to criticism from the University of California and others that the test does not reflect enough of what is actually learned in the classroom. The changes would take effect with the high school class graduating in 2006, but College Board trustees have just taken the first step by asking staff for recommendations for revising the three-hour verbal and math test.

RESEARCH SHOWS TEENS SLEEP-DEPRIVED
(April 1, 2002) Barbara Kingsley, of the Orange County Register reports new research showing that teens “need nine to 10 hours of sleep every night, but average just seven, oftentimes less than that. Mary Carskadon, of the Sleep Research Lab at Brown Medical School in Providence, R.I. explains teenager’s “brains become reconfigured…making it easier to delay going to sleep.” Researchers have found “sleep-deprived adolescents are more likely to feel depressed, rise quicker to anger and show symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. They also don’t learn as well.”

NEW SOFTWARE CAN RECORD ALL OUTGOING MESSAGES
(April 6, 2002) Xpress Press, of Southampton, PA reports that completely invisible software that records every email or instant message sent. SoftWare4Parents has recently been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The Christian Science Monitor, on The Montel Williams Show, and many other national newspapers. According to Joshua Finer, President of Software4Parents.com, 215-396-7334 or 801-327-6808, “one of the most recent Internet predator cases occurred over this past New Years, where Alicia Kozakiewicz was somehow lured from her Pittsburgh home and later found tied to an Internet Predator's bed in Herndon, Virginia. It was reported that she first made contact with this predator via Instant Messages.”

ATLANTIC MONTHLY FEATURES “THE APOCALYPSE OF ADOLESCENCE”
(March, 2002) Ron Powers’ article, “The Apocalypse of Adolescence” appears in the March 2002 edition of the Atlantic Monthly, describing “acts of lethal violence committed by “ordinary” teenagers from “ordinary” communities. He states, “terrorist promptings eerily similar to the bloody messages being delivered by certain of our young” have shown the “need for America to rethink many of the assumptions about its youth that it once took for granted.”

PARENT HELP NEEDED
(April 8, 2002) Secretary of Education Rod Paige, writes that public school improvement as promised by the new, No Child Left Behind Legislation cannot happen without the active and involved help of parents. [more...]

TEENS SENTENCED FOR SLAYING
(April 5, 2002) Two popular and apparently well-behaved teens who, "bored with Chelsea," Vermont, killed a Dartmouth College couple in a random murder for money. They were sentenced in North Haverhill, N.H., the New York Times reported.

VOUCHER QUESTIONS "COOKED?"
(March 12, 2002) Stanford professor and political scientist, Terry Moe, "accused the influential Phi Delta Kappa education association of 'cooking the questions' in its closely watched annual survey of attitudes toward school vouchers, so it could produce an anti-voucher result." The story appeared in Education Next, published by the Hoover Institute, and was reported by the Washington Post.

TEEN KILLS MOM TO AVOID MILITARY SCHOOL
(March 22, 2002) Court TV reported the trial of a Colorado 16-year-old who killed his mother while she was planning to enroll him at a military school. "Once a model student, [he] had fallen in with the wrong crowd whose activities included skipping school, drinking, smoking marijuana and listening to punk rock music."

1,400 DEATHS EACH YEAR BLAMED ON COLLEGE DRINKING
(April 10, 2002) The Spokesman-Review reports that according to a task force of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, “college drinking contributes to the deaths of 1,400 a year… 500,000 injuries and results in at least 70,000 cases of date rape or sexual assault…Members stressed a need for colleges and communities to work together to fight what they called the “culture of drinking” at U.S. colleges.”

SCIENCE TO ACHIEVE RESULTS (STAR) FELLOWSHIPS ELIMINATED
(April 13, 2002) The New York Times reports the Bush administration is eliminating a respected fellowship program for graduate research in the environmental sciences. The Environmental Protection Agency program called Science to Achieve Results (STAR) provides $10 million a year in fellowships to students pursuing graduate degrees in environmental science, policy and engineering. "This is the only federal program that is specifically designed to support the top students going into environmental science" and related fields, said David Blockstein, a senior scientist with the National Council for Science and the Environment, an environmental science advocacy group in Washington.