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Age of parents has a direct impact on how students are prepared for school or have resources available to them.

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We can infer that having every child succeed academically has caused the following increases.

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Parents as a shrinking minority...More childless homes exist as people live longer and devote their early years to their development and education.

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The Current Views on Standardized Testing

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The Current Views on Standardized Testing

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If you're in education in the 21st Century, we're willing to bet you feel the pressure of standardized test scores, no matter where you teach in the United States. The pressure seems to come from all sides: the district, parents, administrators, the community, your colleagues, and yourself. Sometimes it feels like you can't take a moment away from the hard-core academic subjects in order to teach so-called "non-essentials," like music, art, or physical education. These subjects are frowned-upon by the people who meticulously monitor test scores. Time away from math, reading, and writing is seen as time wasted. If it doesn't directly lead to improved test scores, you aren't encouraged, or sometimes even allowed, to teach it.

In California, school rankings and scores are published in the newspapers and discussed by the community. School's reputations are made or broken by the bottom line, numbers printed in black and white on newsprint. It's enough to make any teacher's blood pressure rise at the thought of it.

These are some of the things teachers have said over the years about standardized test scores and the pressures surrounding student performance:

"I did just fine in school and life, even though my teachers didn't emphasize achievement on tests."

"It's only one test - why does it matter so much?"

"I don't even have time to teach Science or Social Studies any more!"

"I start teaching Test Preparation the first week of school."

"It's not fair that we're 'graded' on how our students do on this test when all we can do is present the information to them. We can't help how they will actually do on Test Day!"

"My principal's on my back this year because my students didn't so well last year."

This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to teacher's opinions on this controversial issue. Money, prestige, reputation, and professional pride are all at stake. Administrators seem to be getting additional pressure to perform from the district bosses which the principals, in turn, pass down to their staff. No one likes it and most people think it's all irrational, yet the pressure is snowballing and increasing exponentially.

Research shows that there is an incredible amount of pressure that is placed on teachers. This pressure often results in teacher burn-out. Teachers often feel like they need to "teach to the test" which results in them having to take away from higher order thinking skills, which has been proven to have long term benefits for students and is a much needed 21st-century skill.

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The Current Views on Standardized Testing Pressure

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If you're in education in the 21st Century, we're willing to bet you feel the pressure of standardized test scores, no matter where you teach in the United States. The pressure seems to come from all sides: the district, parents, administrators, the community, your colleagues, and yourself.

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Feeling of division based on what part of the community neighborhood one lives even within the same city

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There will be smaller classes. School buildings will be consolidated. There will be no need for them anymore, throwing that money in the garbage. This also pushes students to work harder because they have to fulfill the need for academic milestones.

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Student Learning does not only occur within the 4 walls of a classroom.

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Find Instructional Videos

YouTube EDU is a sub-section of YouTube that provides access to more than 500,000 educational videos from organizations like Stanford University, PBS, TED, Khan Academy, Steve Spangler Science, and Numberphile. Videos are grouped for primary and secondary education, university, and lifelong learning with categories reflecting academic disciplines. For example, primary and secondary education includes the categories, history and social studies, languages, mathematics and science and within each of these additional subcategories. Categories can be browsed or searched.

Limit Access to Non-Educational Content

YouTube for Schools is a network setting that allows schools to access educational content on YouTube EDU while limiting access to non-educational content. Students can watch and search only YouTube EDU videos and videos their school adds. All comments and related videos are disabled. Anyone familiar with typical viewer comments will appreciate this aspect.

Create Your Own "Channel"

YouTube Teachers is a how-to site that shows teachers how to use YouTube in the classroom. A tutorial explains how to create your own YouTube channel. Creating your own channel eliminates ads. Build playlists and submit them and recommend quality content.

Sample Videos

The following videos are a sample of what is available.

The first is a planetarium-style tour of the universe suited for a general science glass.

The second is a "biography" of Paris, which could be used in a French language class.

The third is an explanation of a theorem to be used in a calculus class, review, or self-study.

As you view the example videos, you'll see the advantage to creating your own channel. No ads. Also, the playlist you build will fit your needs.

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YouTube EDU is a sub-section of YouTube that provides access to more than 500,000 educational videos from organizations like Stanford University, PBS, TED, Khan Academy, Steve Spangler Science, and Numberphile. Videos are grouped for primary and secondary education, university, and lifelong learning with categories reflecting academic disciplines.

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Our children learn more today through the various media platforms such as You Tube, etc. This leads to less face to face interaction.

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According to a recent report from the Pew Research Center, 95% of teens use a smartphone, and 45% say they are online almost constantly. About 70% of teens are on Snapchat and Instagram, while 85% are on Youtube.

One would think all this near constant "socializing" would make teens feel more connected than ever before.

In her classroom, says teacher Cori McAbee, the opposite is true.

"Social media has crippled my students when it comes to interacting with one another in person. Their very ability to communicate is deteriorating," says McAbee, who teaches 11th grade English in Rutherford County, North Carolina.

The very definition of "social" media may be misleading, according to experts who are finding that the more time teens spend on social media, the lonelier and more anxious they are.

There's a correlation between smartphone usage and lower satisfaction with life, according to Jacob Barkley, professor of health sciences at Kent State University.

"Interaction on social media is not beneficial. It's electronic," explains Barkley, who has been studying smartphone use and students since 2013. "The higher the cellphone use, the more time spent on social media, and the higher the anxiety. Peer relationships actually get worse the more you use your phone."

Jean Twenge, a psychology professor at San Diego State University, reached similar conclusions in 2017. In her study, Twenge discovered that students who spend more time using smartphones and other electronic devices are less satisfied with their lives than students who frequently engage in face-to-face interaction.

"We found that teens who spent five or more hours a day online were 71 percent more likely than those who spent less than an hour a day to have at least one suicide risk factor (depression, thinking about suicide, making a suicide plan or attempting suicide). Overall, suicide risk factors rose significantly after two or more hours a day of time online," Twenge wrote in 2017.

If teens were to follow up high social media usage with lots of time spent socializing in person, the effects perhaps wouldn't be so adverse. But in most cases, they aren't. It turns out, liking a post, commenting "Cute," or keeping up with a "snapchat streak" isn't the same as catching up. It's not even close. Yet too many teens, according to these experts, are substituting real life interactions for instagram posts, and paying the price.

Because research into social media and education is still generally in its infancy, many educators are still trying to fully understand the effects of these technologies. Social media can be an effective teaching tool, but many educators are alarmed at the role it plays in heightening student anxiety and stress.

Social Media and Anxiety

In 2018, the Centers for Disease Control issued some sobering statistics about student anxiety and depression. Teens are more lonely, anxious and depressed than ever. About a third of teens surveyed by the CDC said they'd felt persistent sadness or hopelessness. Social media, says John Richter, director of Public Policy at the Mental Health Association, believes social media is exacerbating this trend.

"Researchers are finding that when someone develops depression and withdraws from peers, they see other people on social media smiling and at parties with friends. It magnifies their sense of isolation," says Richter.

The Child Mind Institute's 2018 Children's Mental Health Report f ocuses on anxiety in teenagers, spotlighting the prevalent role of social media has in their lives. The report points out that existing research does conclude that social media can be constructive,"youth with a stronger emotional investment in social media are likely to have higher levels of anxiety."

And yet, students have trouble putting their phone down for too long, says Crystal Huset, counselor at Pardeeville High School in Wisconsin.

"It seems like many students struggle to detach from their electronic devices," says Huset. "Many students do see social media as an issue, but it is also the only thing that they know."

Anne Braun, 5th/6th grade teacher at Woodland Elementary in Kansas, noticed the increase of mental health issues in her students. "I never had kids diagnosed with anxiety and depression 10 years ago," says Braun. "They compare themselves, and it brings on bad feelings."

Katrina Smith, a 5th grade teacher in North Carolina, agrees. "They base their love of themselves on how people respond to their pictures," says Smith. "

The lack of real life communication, the comparison, and the bullying are too much for some students to bear, Smith adds.

Recently, she noticed a student acting out in her classroom. "She was especially agitated and disrupted the class. After working with her, I found that she had a lot more going on, and it had to do with Instagram. Her so-called friends had called her names the evening before."

Anne Braun, says students will talk about feeling left out when they see their friends communicating on social media. "They have FOMO- fear of missing out. They don't have the tools to deal with these negative emotions."

Discussing Social Media in the Classroom

Ideally, every school district in the nation would be equipped with a comprehensive, systemic program to address students' mental health challenges. Despite renewed attention to the problem in recent years, t's clear schools have a long way to go.

In 2018, New York and Virginia became be the first states to require mental health education as part of the public school curriculum. It's a start, says John Richter, because the curriculum will help teach kids how to deal with some of the pressures in their lives.

"How do we help kids who experience anxiety because of social media? The first step is teaching kids to recognize what anxiety actually is and feels like, and how to seek help," Richter said.

While many districts are taking significant steps in designing new evience-based programs, helping students navigate social media is a challenge that many educators are taking on at the classroom level.

Larissa May, CEO of #HALFTHESTORY, a company dedicated to healthy social media use, believes that educators, first and foremost, should simply be aware of their student's experiences on social media.

"Every adult has experienced scrolling through Facebook for too long or comparing themselves on social media. Let your students know you understand these issues," she says.

Showing students other ways to use social media in the classroom can also help prepare them for healthy use in adult life, says teacher Anne Braun.

"I had a student create a website after her friend got diagnosed with cancer, and the website allowed visitors to donate to the American Cancer Foundation," Braun recalls. Her students also respond favorably to positive feedback online via the classroom Twitter account. "They get comments from the online community, as well as parents and grandparents."

Larz suggests integrating a social media component into every project. "Social media is an extremely useful and powerful tool, and we can't run away from that," she says.

Awareness of the issue is the first step for educators, parents and students alike, says Jacob Barkley of Kent State. "Encourage students to step back and examine their usage more critically," he advises. "Smartphones weren't a thing...now we're using them a lot. How is that affecting our lives?"

It's not about educators controlling their students' social media usage, adds Larz, it's about holding a conversation that many students want to have.

"It's important to present the impact of social media talk as facts. There is research showing the effect on our mental health, and it's something to be discussed in the classroom."

The Epidemic of Anxiety Among Today's Students

By high school and college, many students have run out of steam. Anxiety-the mental-health tsunami of their generation-has caught up with them.

Are Schools Ready to Tackle the Mental Health Crisis?
With one in five children living with a mental health condition, more schools are creating comprehensive, systemic programs to address the problem.

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Social Media's Impact on Students' Mental Health Comes Into Focus

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According to a recent report from the Pew Research Center, 95% of teens use a smartphone, and 45% say they are online almost constantly. About 70% of teens are on Snapchat and Instagram, while 85% are on Youtube. One would think all this near constant "socializing" would make teens feel more connected than ever before.

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Society's moral compass has shifted and this has impacted the structures/definition of a traditional family.

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Taking advantage of our time in the classroom to maximize the learning process and allow students to find balance outside of school due to changing demands of our families
Building community and family within the classroom and school community. Provide stability/consistency as we encounter more students that are living in unstable situations.

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Our district's social worker has organized a Grandparents Group to support our increasing number of students that are being raised by grandparents, as well as provide resources to grandparents raising their grandchildren

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New research investigates the fact that today's children are less likely to grow up within a traditional family structure.

A traditional family structure refers to living with two biological, married parents.

Author Susan L. Brown explores how these transitions influence an individual child's well-being and how the role of marriage is tied to poverty and improving child outcomes.

Growing numbers of children in the United States experience multiple family living arrangements during childhood. How these transitions affect children needs to be fully addressed by researchers and policymakers alike.

The article, as found in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Marriage and Family , explores how multiple family living arrangements affect a child's maturation.

Brown observed that "family instability appears to negatively affect a child's well-being in the short- and long-term. But researchers are still exploring why family instability can be detrimental.

"Is it because of the number of transitions children experience, the types of transitions, duration of time spent in diverse family environments, or some other factors?"

In her article Brown devotes special attention to new scholarship on unmarried, primarily low-income families, also the target of recent federal marriage initiatives, such as the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children & Families Healthy Marriage Initiative.

Brown noted that "child well-being is of critical importance. What is clear is that living arrangements for children are increasingly varied and complex, and family instability is typically not good for children. Children's family trajectories depend in part on their family structure at birth, as children born to unmarried mothers tend to experience greater family instability during childhood than do children born to married parents."

Moreover, Brown asserts that children born to unmarried parents are unlikely to experience parental marriage, and parental marriage does not necessarily improve child well-being for those born to unmarried mothers.

She points out that according to the research these more subtle factors may have modest but enduring consequences for the child in the long-term.

Brown concluded, "Marriage is not a panacea. It is possible that the negative outcomes are not due to family structure or family instability, but rather other unmeasured characteristics of the parents."

Source: Wiley

Loss of Traditional Family Structure Affects Kids' Wellbeing

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u s department of health and human services

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Loss of Traditional Family Structure Affects Kids' Wellbeing

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New research investigates the fact that today's children are less likely to grow up within a traditional family structure. A traditional family structure refers to living with two biological, married parents. Author Susan L. Brown explores how these transitions influence an individual child's well-being and how the role of marriage is tied to poverty and improving child outcomes.

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We feel that we are learning the same way, but the rewards are way different. For example, some times the other pods have different rewards like movies, ice cream, or phone day. When our pod has done and put in the same amount of effort or more, but don't really get a reward.

We feel the teachers have the same learning expectations for us whether we are a student in "high math" or not.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The iconic picture of the traditional American household has faded over the last four decades as the number of married couples with children has seen a steep decline and more people are living alone, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.

Since 1970, the portion of U.S. households that include families with two married parents and children fell by half, from 40 percent to 20 percent last year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

"That's at a historic low," Jonathan Vespa, one of the report's co-authors and a researcher in the Census Bureau's Fertility and Family Statistics Branch, told Reuters on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the number of single-person households grew from 17 percent in 1970 to nearly 28 percent in 2012, according to the Census' report.

The findings, based on Census' annual American Community Survey from 2011 and 2012, underscore the shifting notion of family in the United States as more people opt for other types of living arrangements and highlight the nation's declining birth rate.

"Over the last half-century, the trend in the U.S. has been toward smaller households, fewer family and married-couple households with children, and more people living alone," Vespa said in a statement.

"If people are waiting until later to get married and waiting to get children and they're not living with their parents, then they're probably living alone," Vespa told Reuters.

While married couples with children were the majority decades ago, now nearly 57 percent of U.S. households are childless. In 2012, about 29 percent included childless married couples and nearly 28 percent included people living alone.

Despite the decline in married parents with children, that is still the norm for most U.S. children, researchers said. "For all of the change that's going on, we still do see the majority of children are living with married parents," Vespa said.

ECONOMIC STRAIN

Among families that do have children, parents and children still struggle to cope with economic strain, especially in the wake of the 2007-2009 recession.

For example, the number of households with young children that included at least one parent who was unemployed rose by a third between 2005 and 2011, from 2.4 million to 3.2 million, the Census found. States such Nevada, Hawaii and Florida saw an even higher rate of increase.

"During the recession, economic well-being worsened for families with children," said Jamie Lewis, another Census demographer and co-author of the report.

"Home ownership among families declined, while food stamp receipt and parental unemployment increased. Even after the recession officially ended in 2009, these measures remained worse than before it began," Lewis said in a statement.

Families in Michigan, Arizona, California and Ohio saw the biggest decline in home ownership, according to Census' data.

Overall, homeownership among households with children fell 15 percent between 2005 and 2011 to 20.8 million, Census said.

Other findings included:

* The number of people per U.S. household fell from 3.1 to 2.6 on average between 1970 and 2012.

* In 2012, 66 percent of households consisted of two or more people related by birth, marriage or adoption living together, compared with 81 percent in 1970.

* In 2011, there were 605,000 same-sex couple households in the United States, including both married and unmarried couples. Same-sex couples also had the highest share of unions in which both partners had a bachelor's degree.

* Four percent of those in married heterosexual couples were of different races compared to 9 percent of unmarried heterosexual partners and 12 percent of same-sex couples.

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U.S. families shift as fewer households include children: Census

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The iconic picture of the traditional American household has faded over the last four decades as the number of married couples with children has seen a steep decline and more people are living alone, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.

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Less people are having kids, therefore, our population is shifting from more "younger" people, to more "older" people. Less people are willing to vote for policies that help kids and schools. It becomes harder to get votes, so busing, athletics, and extracurricular activities will be cut.