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Sleep loss can take a devastating toll on the mind and body at any stage of life, from early childhood to older adulthood. But for teenagers, who are at a critical stage of development, skipping out on sleep can be particularly dangerous.

″[Sleep deprivation] is extremely detrimental at all stages of life," Dr. Michael Breus, a clinical psychologist and sleep specialist, told The Huffington Post in an email. "In the teen years, when development continues ... the sleep deprivation effects of brain and body development are significant."

Though sleep is arguably most critical during the teen years, teenagers are the least likely of any age group to be getting sufficient rest. About 87 percent of American high school students are chronically sleep-deprived, according to a 2006 survey from the National Sleep Foundation.

While the National Institutes of Health estimates that teenagers need at least nine hours of sleep per night, only 9 percent of high school students are actually meeting these recommendations. Even more alarming is the fact that a whopping 20 percent are getting by on less than five hours per night.

A number of biological and lifestyle factors converge to wreak havoc on a teenager's sleep schedule. Late bedtimes, increasing technology dependence and high stress levels ― plus early school start times ― are a recipe for chronic sleep deprivation and the health risks that come along with it.

"Teens are biologically predisposed to stay up later at night and sleep later in the morning," Breus wrote in a recent Huffington Post blog. "This shift in teens' sleep-wake cycle, which is a normal part of development, can make a 9 or 10 p.m. bedtime difficult."

Over time, that late-to-bed, early-to-rise sleep schedule can lead to a number of health risks. Here are some of the physical and mental health risks associated with sleep loss during the adolescent years that both parents and teens should be aware of.

A study of nearly 28,000 suburban high school students, published earlier this year in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence, found that each hour of lost sleep is associated with a 38 percent increased risk of feeling sad or hopeless and a 58 percent increase in suicide attempts. Teens who sleep an average of six hours per night are also three times more likely to suffer from depression, a 2010 study found.

"Sleep deprivation and depression go hand in hand among teenagers," the study's lead author Mahmood Siddique, a sleep medicine specialist at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, told CNN in 2010. "Instead of giving them medications, I'd rather give them a chance to sleep better, and more."

A parent's intervention could make a difference. Research has shown that young people whose parents set early bedtimes for them are significantly less likely to suffer from depression or to have suicidal thoughts.

2. Issues with learning and behavior

Roughly one in four teens goes to bed after 11:30 p.m. on weeknights, and those who do tend to perform worse at school and experience greater emotional distress. Younger teens who don't get enough sleep are also more likely to be inattentive, impulsive, hyperactive and oppositional.

It should come as no surprise that teens who aren't getting enough sleep won't be at their best academically or behavior-wise.

"We know that sleep deprivation makes teens more emotional and perform worse on cognitive tasks and testing," Breus said.

Why? Sleep supports brain processes that are critical to learning, memory and emotion regulation. At night, the brain reviews and consolidates information that's acquired during the day, making that information easier to later retrieve.
3. Substance use and abuse
The relationship between sleep loss and substance abuse in teens is a two-way street, with sleep deprivation increasing the risk of drug use and dependence, and drug use in turn fueling sleep troubles.

One study found that for every 10 minutes later that a teenager went to bed, there was a 6 percent increase in the chance they'd used alcohol or marijuana in the past month, while other research showed that sleep difficulties predicted substance-related issues like binge-drinking, drinking and driving, and risky sexual behavior.
4. Higher risk of obesity
Losing sleep can also have a long-term negative effect on a young person's physical health, with poor sleep quality being linked to diabetes and obesity risk for teens.

High school students who skimp on sleep may be at a higher risk of diabetes and obesity in adulthood, and among teens who are already obese, not getting enough sleep can increase the risk of later developing diabetes.

Among teens already suffering from diabetes, losing sleep can exacerbate their health issues. Research has shown that teens with Type 1 diabetes may have more trouble getting to sleep, and that sleeplessness, in turn, causes greater difficulties regulating blood sugar and controlling behavior.
5. Dependence on sleep and anxiety medications
While prescription sleep aids aren't approved for use among people under the age of 18, many teens are being prescribed medication like Ambien and Lunesta ― the long-term effects of which are still largely unknown.

But one short-term effect to be aware of is the risk of prescription pill abuse. A study last year found that teens who are prescribed sleeping pills or anxiety medication, which can be highly habit-forming, are 12 times more likely to abuse those medications than teens without a prescription.

"Sleeping pills are generally NOT a good idea for teens," Breus said.

So what's a parent to do? Educating teens and creating a family sleep schedule is a start, according to Breus.

"If parents can explain how sleep will effect grades, sports, activities ... it makes it easier," Breus said. "Next, they should sit down with their kids and create a sleep schedule that everyone can live with."
This story has been updated to include a new source that references a statistic on chronic sleep deprivation in teens.

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5 Scary Health Effects Of Sleep Deprivation During The Teen Years

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Sleep loss can take a devastating toll on the mind and body at any stage of life, from early childhood to older adulthood. But for teenagers, who are at a critical stage of development, skipping out on sleep can be particularly dangerous.

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Why seating is a big influence on students

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Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

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Why Life Skills Should Be Taught In School

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Why Life Skills Should Be Taught In School

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When employers are asked about the most important factor in their decision to hire someone, almost always, communication skills are on the top of the list. Not that I'm surprised. But how many of you were actually taught to communicate effectively? Think about it. Did you ever have a class between kindergarten and high school graduation that taught you how to work through conflict? Or be a good listener? Or how to express empathy? I'm sure you didn't. Me neither.

If you're one of the lucky ones, you might get to go to college. Believe it or not, more people do not have a bachelor's degree. But if you do, you might have had a public speaking class. And maybe, just maybe, an interpersonal communication class. But that's usually where it ends.

I have been teaching communication at the university level for about two decades now. And the longer I live, the more I have to ask why it's only when a person hits college that we teach such important life skills as communication. I know I'm biased because this is my line of work, but think about this. Do you know many people with good communication skills? Are most people good listeners? Do they engage in conflict management effectively? The answers to these questions are probably "very few" and "no."

For example, many people despise conflict. They see it as a negative thing, and some people avoid it at all costs. And even if someone does engage in conflict, usually it's the "knock-down-drag-out-name-calling" kind of strategy that is used. But it doesn't have to be that way.

A much more effective way of working through conflict is by using the collaboration strategy. In this model, both parties think of themselves as a team to come up with mutually satisfying solutions. Most people usually have an "me vs. you" attitude coupled with an "I gotta win at all costs" demeanor. This just doesn't work.

Imagine if you were taught how to do it the right way - from when you were still young enough to really be able to incorporate the knowledge and skills into your life so that it became second nature to you (and all of us). I think the world would be a much more peaceful place because we would all be able to get along much better.

But it's not just about communication. There are many other life skills that I think should be taught in our educational system from kindergarten through high school. And the earlier the better, because research shows that learning a new skill is much easier the younger you are. Whether it's learning to play the guitar or speak a new language like Spanish, we wouldn't struggle later in life with how to learn the best and easiest way to learn something new. But while it's fun to play a musical instrument such as the guitar, learning a one or more new languages can be very beneficial. We live in a world that is so connected through the internet, that most of us will probably find ourselves working with people from different countries who speak a language that is not English. So why don't we incorporate some of these things into our educational system at a much younger age?

But at least we do teach languages (but usually only starting in high school). There are many other useful life skills other than communication and foreign languages that it would be useful to teach in our K-12 educational system. For example, what about financial skills? Have you ever been taught to invest your money? Or balance a budget? Save for retirement? Probably not. Me neither.

I have two kids, and so I see what they are learning in school. And don't get me wrong, it's perfectly great to learn history or calculus. But unless you're planning on becoming a history professor or an engineer, you probably won't use that knowledge very often (if ever) in your life. But how often do we communicate with people? Or deal with our money issues? Every day. Every. Single. Day. And in my opinion, considering the frequency of such activities, it makes them even more important than the subjects we currently teach but don't use in our everyday lives.

And what about cooking? Or sewing? Or building things? Or changing a tire? I know we used to have home economics classes and shop in schools, but I think that has been dwindling over the years. I know my kids have never taken any of those classes. I think it's a shame that these kinds of classes have been phased out.

I have been asking myself the "why" question for so many years. Why don't we teach these skills in our educational system? I think the answer is a complex one, but a big factor is probably because it's assumed that children will learn all of this at home. But what if your parents model terrible communication skills? Or they are living paycheck-to-paycheck always on the verge of bankruptcy? That's not a great way to learn sometimes. I think another reason we don't teach these skills is because they're "soft." In other words, "easy." But I disagree. I think soft skills are more important than most of what our children are taught.

Just think of it this way. On a job interview, they're assessing your communication skills, not asking you to solve a calculus problem or about King Henry VIII.

I think you get my point.

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Why Don't We Teach Life Skills in our Schools?

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When employers are asked about the most important factor in their decision to hire someone, almost always, communication skills are on the top of the list. Not that I'm surprised. But how many of you were actually taught to communicate effectively? Think about it.

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The benefits of listening to music during school

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The benefits of listening to music during school

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Second semester is well underway, which means midterms and other tests are looming ahead in the not-too-distant future and that it's time to once again question how studying while listening to music can affect a student's studying efficiency.

Researchers and college students have often wondered whether listening to music has negative or positive effects on the student's studying habits and whether studying while listening to music is a "do" or "don't."

Studies have shown that listening to music before studying or performing a task can be beneficial as it improves attention, memory, and even your ability to do mental math as well as helping lessen depression and anxiety.

Many researchers, as well as students, who think listening to music helps memory have called the practice the " Mozart Effect." Of course, nowadays many students are not actually listening to Mozart, but pop or other music, so the effect may not be the same.

These studies and researchers seem to indicate that music can actually help you study and those who listen to music while studying may actually be better off for it.

However, there have also been several studies that have shown that music can actually have negative impacts on your studying effectiveness - particularly when it comes to memorizing something in order.

Dr. Nick Perham's 2010 study, "Can preference for background music mediate the irrelevant sound effect," explored how music can interfere with short-term memory potential.

"We found that listening to liked or disliked music was exactly the same, and both were worse than the quiet control condition," Perham discovered. "Both impaired performance on serial-recall tasks."

Listening to music may diminish your cognitive abilities in these situations because when you're trying to memorize things in order, you can get thrown off and confused by the various words and notes in the song playing in the background, Perham theorized.

Stanford University professor Clifford Nass had similar thoughts.

"Music with lyrics is very likely to have a problematic effect when you're writing or reading. Probably less of an effect on math, if you're not using the language parts of your brain," Nass said. "In my day, there was no way you could take music to the library. When [today's students] go to the library to study, they bring their noise, and music, with them."

Today, it's easier than ever to bring your music with you wherever you go as music has become inherently portable. We listen to music while we walk, cook, drive - when we want to feel happy or relaxed. Music has become a fundamental part of our lives, which is why students are so eager to know whether it will negatively or positively impact their studying.

Because music can impact and regulate your mood and the best mood to study in is a more relaxed mood, choosing music that helps you relax but also with enough beat or rhythm to ensure you don't zone out while studying is crucial. But music that's too loud or with too much of an upbeat tempo can also be distracting, so having a playlist or specific artist you turn to for studying music can really help.

If you're the type of person who has more difficulty multitasking and is easily distracted, listening to music while studying may just cause your attention to drift to the music rather than help you concentrate on your material.

If you're really set on listening to music while studying but know your focus will probably end up divided, choose classical music or more acoustic music with minimal words to distract you. Movie scores, which typically consist of a bunch of orchestral pieces, may also be good background music for you to study to.

So basically, the final decision about studying while listening to music is up to you - do you feel you concentrate better with Taylor Swift or Hozier singing in the background? Or do you find yourself thinking of the lyrics to the song rather than what you're supposed to be studying?

Music's effects on study habits will vary from person to person, and can also be affected by what you're listening to - the genre of the music, how loud it is, etc.

Personally, when I need some background music to study to, I'll usually make a more acoustic playlist consisting of songs by Joshua Radin, Cary Brothers, and Ed Sheeran, with some of The Fray and Goo Goo Dolls thrown in, too.

But in order for you to study the most productively, you need to figure out the effect music has on your studying ability, and then tailor your studying playlist - be it silence or music - to best suit your needs and efficiency.

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do or don't: studying while listening to music

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Do Or Don't: Studying While Listening To Music

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Second semester is well underway, which means midterms and other tests are looming ahead in the not-too-distant future and that it's time to once again question how studying while listening to music can affect a student's studying efficiency.

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Pros and Cons of Technology in the Classroom

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Pros and Cons of Technology in the Classroom

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From a new social life, to viruses and other misconceptions, this website designs a good use of information depending on advantages and disadvantages according to technology in the classroom

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While many parents allow children free reign of the internet at home, it's a common debate in education circles on how-and if -digital devices should be allowed at school.

Supporters of technology in the classroom say that using laptops, tablets, and cellphones in the classroom keeps students engaged. Technology is what they know-most students today don't even remember a time without the internet.

But critics say it's yet another distraction in the classroom. From social media to texting, allowing digital devices could hinder a student's performance in the classroom.

Read on to learn some of the main arguments around the pros and cons of allowing digital devices in the classroom.

Pros of digital devices in the classroom

Peace of mind. Cellphones and smartphones can offer parents a little more peace of mind when their children are at school. Parents know that in an emergency the student can contact them, or vice versa. In addition, more and more cellphones and smartphones contain GPS devices that can be tracked if necessary.

Instant answers. Access to the internet provides instant answers for the curious. This is the search-and-learn environment kids are involved in today. Now, when they want to know "Why do leaves change color," they are only a search away from an answer. This also gives students the ability to get an answer to a question they may feel uncomfortable asking in class. If a teacher uses a term they don't understand, they can find the answer discretely, and without interrupting the class.

Wider access to information. With internet access, children can be exposed to a world of creative ideas outside of their bubble. They can learn another language, or teach themselves how to draw, knit, or play chess. They have access to an endless array of options available, not just to help them learn, but to gain skills they might not otherwise have access to.

Access to video. Electronic devices in the classroom can enhance the learning experience by providing instant video access. Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech is not just something to read about. Man's first step on the moon, early flight, presidential speeches, bridges being built-they all are made more real and easier to digest in the form of instant video availability.

Wide range of music available. Sure, you might think of kids listening to their pop, hip-hop, and rap music on digital devices, but remember that all music is available. This gives students access to classical, jazz, big band, and early rock 'n' roll. Students could have the opportunity to compare and discuss the differences in these styles in a way that is familiar to them.

Social learning: Social media can have a negative connotation when you link it to kids. However, there can be an educational aspect. Social learning is a great way for students to share information, thoughts, and ideas on a subject. Properly focused, quieter, and shyer students may blossom in a social learning situation made possible by digital devices.

Cons of digital devices in the classroom

Harmful effects of digital devices. There are concerns from the EPA about long-term exposure to wireless devices and computer screens. While there is no direct evidence of harmful effects, the EPA discourages too much exposure for students who have video screens in front of their faces or computers in their laps. If students frequently use these devices at home, additional exposure at school could be viewed as harmful.

Inappropriate materials. While schools can limit the availability of websites that can be viewed on their network, students may find links that slipped through the system. There will also be times that students will not be accessing the internet through a monitored network.

Distraction from schoolwork. With the temptation of social media and texting in their hands, students may focus solely on their social life instead of the lesson plan.

Child predators and cyberbullying. Child predators are a problem everywhere. Using digital devices at school creates just that much more exposure and potential danger for students. In addition, cyberbullying is also an increasing issue. Permitting use of digital devices in the classroom could potentially lead to more of it.

Provide a disconnect. While some believe digital devices make for greater connections for students, there are also those who believe too much time with digital devices disconnects students from face-to-face social activities, family communications, and nature. Digital devices in the classroom could lead to an even greater such disconnection.

Should schools permit digital devices?

Some school districts have seen great improvements by allowing digital devices in the classroom. One thing is clear: if digital devices are permitted, there should be guidelines and rules in place. Students need to be taught online safety, the use of judgment in determining good quality sources of information, and restraint from personal use in the classroom.

Learn More: Click to view related resources. Tags: Educational Technology Leadership

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Pros and Cons of Allowing Digital Devices in the Classroom

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This post has been updated as of April 2018. While many parents allow children free reign of the internet at home, it's a common debate in education circles on how-and if-digital devices should be allowed at school. Supporters of technology in the classroom say that using laptops, tablets, and cellphones in the classroom keeps students engaged.

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Why Students Can Benefit From Carrying Cell Phones In School

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Why Students Can Benefit From Carrying Cell Phones In School

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When most people think of K-12 students with constant access to their cell phones they envision students slacking off in class by scrolling through social media, texting their friends, and playing games. But the reality is this: the scenario represents a small majority of any student body, and if those students didn't have their cell phones, they would find other distractions. After all, class goofs, mindless daydreaming during math class, and causing class disruptions are behavioral types that have existed long before mobile phones even existed. Simply put, if kids didn't have cell phones in school to use as a distraction, they would find other methods of distractions.

However, the value and benefits that cell phones add to the students' experience have no substitutes. In fact, cell phones in schools do far more good than harm as they prepare students for the real world, help them learn how to be responsible, are engaging learning tools, and help promote safety.

This article is intended to help school administrators and principals learn why cell phones in schools are a good thing. You'll learn why schools should invest in a commercial cell phone charging station and charging lockers for school campuses and why they should be installed across campus.

Cell Phones Prepare Students for Future Careers

Any working professional likely uses tools like Google calendar to schedule meetings, Slack for internal communication with colleagues and clients, and platforms like Asana for task management. We're only moving deeper into a growing digital age, and students need to be prepared to manage a digital life alongside the non-digital if they want to stick to deadlines, form strong professional relationships, and stay organized.

Today's students are savvy and can use digital calendars, like Google calendar, for keeping track of homework due-dates, study times, and extracurricular activities. By having a multi-device charging station in the quad, cafeteria, library, and in every building, students can keep their cell phones and tablets charged so they can manage their student lives while preparing for their working adult lives.

Cell Phones Teach Responsibility

There is a time and a place to browse Instagram, play Candy Crush, and take selfies. Just as a working professional would never do these things in the middle of a board meeting, so too should a student never do this in class. There's a time and a place to set your phone on silent mode and ignore it (unless there's an emergency call from family). And by allowing students the freedom to keep their phones in school, they're learning a big lesson in being more responsible that will serve them well.

Cell Phones are Tools for Emergencies

There are a number of emergency levels that constitute different threats. Whether a student left their essay at home and they need to call a parent to bring it in or if there is an intruder on campus posing a threat to the safety of all students, having a powered cell phone can help prevent a disaster from getting worse.

While we don't want to expect tragedies to happen, it's important for schools to have appropriate measures in place in the event that this happens. That includes allowing them to access their cell phones during school hours. And, cell phone charging stations and charging lockers at schools can help keep campuses safe and help alert emergency services in times of need.

Contact a Commercial Cell Phone Charging Company for Schools Today!

By providing cell phone charging stations and charging lockers throughout your school, you will be improving campus safety and empowering your students to be successful. Call a company that designs cell phone charging kiosks for schools today, and learn about the various types and options available that can enrich your school.

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Why K-12 Students Should Have Access to Cell Phones and Why Cell Phone Charging Stations Matter

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When most people think of K-12 students with constant access to their cell phones they envision students slacking off in class by scrolling through social media, texting their friends, and playing games. But the reality is this: the scenario represents a small majority of any student body, and if those students didn't have their cell phones, they would find other distractions.

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Gum is not allowed at my school and you will get in huge trouble if you are caught chewing it. I think this is a mistake.

When I am at home and I am working on my homework I often chew gum. Personally, chewing gum helps me. It gives my subconscious something to do while I focus on my work.

Gum should be allowed at school because it has been proven to help kids focus and become better students.

Chewing gum helps your memory improve and it also helps you focus while you?re studying. Chewing gum helps to relieve stress and relax.

Three of the biggest reasons gum is not allowed at school are because teachers think it?s rude, distracting and messy.

I disagree with their opinions. Many people also believe gum is horrible for your teeth.

Gum has been scientifically proven to help kids focus better and to improve their memory. Dr. Kenneth Allen, a professor at NYU?s College of Dentistry, has done research and proved that chewing gum can help you in school.

The United States is not the only country studying the effects of gum chewing. Psychologists in the United Kingdom have also proven that chewing gum helps your memory and studying. This is due to the fact that chewing gum helps to release insulin into the bloodstream which affects how well your memory works.

Gum might be helpful for people with ADD or ADHD. The simple chewing motion can help you relax when taking a test in school.

In fact, according to a Wrigley gum study, 65 percent of athletes chew gum to help relieve stress before or during a game.

Most teachers say that gum is too messy and will end up underneath the desk, but I disagree. Students often put gum underneath a desk instead of being caught throwing it away.

If gum were allowed people might throw it away rather than being sneaky. Some students may put it under the desk or on the floor just to be rebellious, but if they had the privilege to chew gum at school they might be more respectful.

At the very least all teachers could give gum chewing in class a try. Most often the silent sound of gum being chewed is barely noticeable. Sure the pop of bubble gum can be a bit louder, but all you have to do is tell the students not to blow bubbles. They should respect the rules because after all they are being allowed to chew gum. Perhaps if you are going to an assembly or presentation, then gum should not be allowed out of politeness for the guest speaker.

There are people who say that gum is terrible for your teeth, but there is also sugar-free gum and gum that helps whiten your teeth. While they are not necessarily healthy, they are better then most regular gum.

My orthodontist actually told me to get sugar-free gum and put it on my braces so the metal wouldn?t cut my mouth.

Some gums have even been given the American Dental Association?s Seal of Approval.

If you can?t get sugar-free gum or ADA-approved gum, why not try peppermint flavored gum? Studies have shown that peppermint flavored anything can help reduce the tendency to make small careless mistakes.

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Why chewing gum should be allowed at school

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Gum is not allowed at my school and you will get in huge trouble if you are caught chewing it. I think this is a mistake. When I am at home and I am working on my homework I often chew gum. Personally, chewing gum helps me.

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Why common core testing gives students anxiety according to some psychologists 

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Why common core testing gives students anxiety according to some psychologists 

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State tests are the ones that are stressing kids out, school psychologists in New York said.

About three quarters of psychologists from the state's nearly 700 school districts said state tests are causing greater anxiety than local assessments, a survey released Friday by the state School Boards Association and the state Association of School Psychologists found.

The anxiety hasn't, for the most part, led to physical ailments, the psychologists said, but the new Common Core testing has translated into students feeling more stressed.

"This report should make all education stakeholders - from state policymakers to local teachers to parents - aware of the profound impact that they can have, both positive and negative, on student test anxiety," Timothy Kremer, executive director of the School Boards Association, said in a statement.

Six in 10 school psychologists said the Common Core learning standards, which includes state exams for students in third through eighth grades each April, has increased students' anxiety.

The report contended that the test anxiety is more common at the elementary-school level, saying students more often showed "internalized" symptoms such as excessive worry and withdrawal rather than demonstrating "externalized" symptoms, such as increased irritability, frustration and acting out.

Maybe school psychologists have problems with answering questions, too. The school groups asked 1,672 school psychologists to respond to the survey, but just 13 percent did.

The report is the latest in recent days to analyze the impact of the Common Core testing, which started in 2013 and has drawn widespread criticism from parents, teachers and students.

A report released Thursday by state Council of School Superintendents showed that superintendents largely agreed that the Common Core tests can be improved, but said the standards are having a positive impact on education.

The state Education Department and Gov. Andrew Cuomo have convened separate panels to figure how to improve the Common Core testing and teacher evaluations, which are based in part on student performance. In April, 20 percent of students opted out of the tests.

School psychologists said the report, hopefully, will offer tips to parents, teachers and students on how to deal with stress about testing.

For example, nearly 90 percent of school psychologists who responded to the survey believed that teachers' expectations contributed at least somewhat to test anxiety. Eighty-eight percent said that parents' expectations also contributed to students' stress.
Follow Joseph Spector on Twitter @gannettalbany
Tips on student anxiety

The state Association of School Psychologists offered these tips for parents and students dealing with stress from school:

Doesn't everybody get nervous during tests?

Some children cope rather well with evaluative situations. However, 30 percent of all children experience anxiety at such severe levels that they have difficulties functioning in their day-to-day lives.

Where does test anxiety come from?

Children who exhibit symptoms of anxiety unrelated to exams or who exhibit a greater number of fears than expected (the dark, spiders, dogs, etc.) are much more prone to demonstrate test anxiety. Test anxiety can develop into a vicious cycle: The anxiety from one test fuels the anxiety for subsequent tests.

What are the symptoms of test anxiety?

Test anxiety symptoms fall into 3 categories: physical, emotional and cognitive/behavioral. The physical symptoms may include headaches, stomach aches and nausea. Emotional symptoms may include crying and feelings of irritability. Cognitive/behavioral symptoms could include difficulties focusing and paying attention.

How to treat test anxiety?

Different students experience different levels of test anxiety. Some could procrastinate, for example. Self-relaxation techniques and positive self-talk can help alleviate stress. Yoga, exercise, good nutrition and good sleep habits can help. Therapy may be necessary in severe cases, or help from school clinicians.

Read or Share this story: http://lohud.us/1Hd3ZCt

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Common Core tests giving kids anxiety, psychologists say

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State tests are the ones that are stressing kids out, school psychologists in New York said. About three quarters of psychologists from the state's nearly 700 school districts said state tests are causing greater anxiety than local assessments, a survey released Friday by the state School Boards Association and the state Association of School Psychologists found.

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Daily Video

Essential question

What are the negative effects of too much time spent looking at screens?

Teenagers love their cellphones, but many parents worry their children spend so much time interacting with screens that they begin to ignore the real world.

In her new documentary, "Screenagers," Dr. Delaney Ruston investigates the chemical and social motivations teens have for spending so much time on their phones and other devices and what the long term effects might be.

A mother herself, Ruston found it difficult to control the amount of time her own children spent playing video games and on social media. While researching the topic, she found similarities between the brains of young people who spend significant time on devices and people addicted to drugs and alcohol.

Human brains are wired to seek out new, stimulating information. The games and media available through electronics cause dopamine secretion in the brain's pleasure centers, especially for young people.

A recent report by Common Sense Media found that half of teenagers admit to feeling addicted to their electronic devices, while sixty percent of parents feel their children are addicted. In the film, Ruston suggests ways parents can set limits in ways that avoid constant fights with teens, such as no phones in the car or at bedtime.

"This is all about teaching kids self-control, and what we have learned through the research is that it's absolutely teachable," Ruston said.

dopamine - a neurotransmitter, one of the chemicals that transmits signals in between the nerve cells, or neurons, of the brain

Warm up questions (before watching the video)

1. At what age do you think children should get a smartphone?

2. Do you think you spend too much time on your smartphone? What about your computer?

3. How do you think your brain is affected by screen time?

Critical thinking questions (after watching the video)

1. What do you think the rules should be around screen time for teenagers?

2. Do you think it's possible to become addicted to your cellphone or other electronic devices? Explain.

3. This story raised concerns about kids spending too much screen time on their phones, but do you also know adults who spend too much time on their phones?

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Are teens literally addicted to screens? | PBS NewsHour Extra

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Essential question What are the negative effects of too much time spent looking at screens? Teenagers love their cellphones, but many parents worry their children spend so much time interacting with screens that they begin to ignore the real world.

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Evidence is mounting that teenagers should start school a little later. So why aren't they?

he medical community doesn't fully understand why, but there's something about puberty that throws kids' systems out of whack. It's as if teenage bodies switch over to daylight savings time, a condition sometimes known in the medical community as a "phase delay." They begin to have trouble falling asleep early and then, of course, want to sleep in the morning for as long as possible. While teenagers may not need as much sleep as they did when they were children, their growing bodies still get pretty fatigued; they just don't feel it until about two hours later.

"Why this happens nobody has a clue-hormone changes are a good bet," says Dr. David Gozal, a pediatric sleep expert at the University of Chicago. "Paradoxically, this period of puberty is associated with an increased need for more and longer sleep. So now they're in conflict with the sleep schedules of our society."

That's why advocacy groups, administrators and recently the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) have started to push for high schools to delay their start times so that students get more shuteye. In an August 2014 policy statement, the AAP said it supports middle and high schools adopting delayed start times (that is, no earlier than 8:30 a.m.) to allow teens to get the recommended hours of sleep a night (eight to 10), to improve their physical and mental health, safety, academic performance and quality of life. "[The] research indicates that the average teenager in today's society has difficulty falling asleep before 11:00 p.m. and is best suited to wake at 8:00 a.m. or later," the statement reads.

Data from a National Sleep Foundation poll shows 59% of kids in grades six through eight and a full 87% of high schoolers in the U.S. say they are getting less than the recommended amount of sleep. More than one in five of these students says he or she falls asleep while doing homework at least once a week.

With evidence suggesting that delaying the start of the school day can lead to more sleep, less reported fatigue and even improved academics, the switch seems like a no-brainer.The AAP recommends that schools should start at 8:30 a.m. or later, yet the most recent data from the U.S. Department of Education shows more than 80% of public schools in the U.S. start earlier than that. (And almost 10% start earlier than 7:30am).

"The evidence is clearly mounting in terms of understanding the repercussions that chronic sleep loss has on the health, safety, and performance of adolescents," Dr. Judith Owens, director of sleep medicine at Boston Children's Hospital and author of the AAP statement told TIME writer Alice Park in the book, The Science of Sleep. Some data suggests that anything under 8.5 to 9 hours of sleep on school days can contribute to health problems like obesity, mood changes and diabetes. Other data has linked poor sleep to a higher reliance on substances like caffeine, tobacco and alcohol. Not getting enough sleep can also take a toll on academic performance.

"There's also really compelling data supporting the fact that delaying school start times is a very important intervention that can mitigate some of the impact of sleep loss," Owens tells TIME, suggesting if schools make the switch now, there's time to prevent some of those negative outcomes. Even a half-hour delay, some studies showed, can have dramatic effects on improving children's health and academic performance.

The research has caught the eye of some very influential educators. "It's completely a local decision, but I'd like to see more school districts at least consider delaying start times," says U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. "A later start to the school day could help boost students' academic performance and reduce tardiness and absenteeism. Our commonsense tell us that sleepy students don't do well in school, but the research also exists to back it up. Studies show that when students are rested, they are more alert and ready to learn."

Intuitively, it makes sense. If teenagers are supposed to get up to 10 hours of sleep a night and get up for school at 6 a.m., that means many will have to be in bed by 8 p.m. or 9 p.m. Anyone who knows a teenager, or remembers what it was like to be one, knows that an 8:00 p.m. bedtime for a 16-year-old is laughably unrealistic. Not to mention that as entrance to highly regarded colleges gets more competitive, today's teens keep incredibly busy schedules and trying to balance time for extracurriculars and homework can make it hard for them to fall asleep on time, and for their schools get everyone from parents to coaches on board to push back the start time.

Take Perrin Jones, a junior at Saratoga Springs High School in Saratoga Springs, New York. He wakes up every day at 5:30 a.m. to finish his homework and hops on the bus at 6:50 a.m. to make it to school for a 7:49 a.m. start time. Jones takes almost entirely all AP courses (he wants to get into a college like Carnegie Mellon or University of Michigan to major in physics and computer science), and he volunteers with the school's IT department during the day. To keep up the schedule, he dropped lunch. After school he has at least one club meeting-he's in the NASA club and the physics club-and at 6:30 p.m. he goes to the local theater where he's on the sound crew. He gets home around 11 p.m., and then starts three hours of homework. He says he gets four hours of sleep on average, sometimes six on a good day.

"I don't know how I keep going with such little sleep, but I do. I feel like I must learn how to survive without sleep to survive high school," says Jones. "It sure would be nice if school started a little later, I'd definitely appreciate the extra sleep, even if it was half an hour."

Trevor Weinrich, a senior at Rockhurst High School in Kansas City, Missouri keeps a similar schedule. From 5 a.m. to 7 a.m. he's at swim practice. School starts at 8 a.m. and goes until 3 p.m., and he also skips lunch frequently for voice lessons. From 3:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. he has more swim practice followed by choir rehearsal. In the spring he was in three musical productions at once, and had rehearsals until 9:30 at night.

"My homework load averages about two to 2.5 hours a night. Many nights I eat dinner around nine or 10, and don't get to bed until about 1 a.m or 2 a.m.," he says.

While Weinrich and Jones are both ambitious students, the crowdedness of their schedules is not all that rare. It's an issue many schools face-teens are overextended and too tired. So why have so few schools made the switch? Because it's not as simple as it seems to persuade a whole community to change its schedule.

The Promise

ive years ago, Sharon High School in Sharon, Massachusetts decided to delay its start time after nearly eight months of deliberation. A task force of representatives from the school committee, the athletic department, teachers, parents, and students decided the school should move its start time back 40 minutes from 7:25 a.m. to 8:05 a.m.

"If [the change] was going to help them live a better life in some respects then it was the right decision to follow and that's ultimately what we decided," says Sharon High School Principal Jose Libano. "We will never go back. There is not a kid in this building who would say I prefer to be here at 7:15 in the morning. Not one."

A year after the shift, the school polled its students, teachers and parents and found that parents and students largely felt the change was positive, while teachers were more split. The teachers felt they functioned better early in the morning, and they ran into commuting problems with the new start time. Still, there was a notable decline in tardiness, and teachers did say that since the change, students seem to be more alert and less lethargic during first period.

"They tend to be more active and willing to participate in discussion, volunteer to go to the board, or engage in group work, because they have gotten more sleep at night," says Sharon High School Latin teacher Jen Orthman. "I think that despite some initial resistance to the change, most teachers appreciate having additional time in the morning to meet with students, collaborate with peers, partake in meetings, and set up classrooms for the day."

Of course there was an adjustment period, as there tends to be with most schools that agree to push back their start times. Since community life can revolve around public school schedules, lots of factors-from sports games to when parks are open-need to be taken into account. Not to mention there's often pushback from parents who are concerned about what impact the later time will have on their child's after school schedule.

But other schools that have adopted similar changes have also noticed positive benefits. A three-year University of Minnesota study released in 2014 showed that high schools that started at 8:30 a.m. or later allowed 60% of their students to get at least eight hours of sleep each night. The teens who got less than that reported higher levels of depression symptoms, greater use of caffeine, and were at higher risk for making poor choices regarding substance use. Schools that started at 8:35 a.m. or later had better attendance and tardiness rates and better academic performance in core subject areas and in national achievement tests. The report also showed that the number of car crashes involving teen drivers was reduced by 70% when a school shifted start times from 7:35 a.m. to 8:55 a.m..

In Wake County, North Carolina, a study showed that delaying the start of school by one hour could lead to a two to three percentile point increase in math and reading test scores. The effect was greatest among students who were struggling.

When Glens Falls High School in New York first suggested pushing back its start time for the 2012-2013 school year, it met with a lot of opposition. Student athletes and their parents argued that their practices and games would end later, and therefore they would go to bed later too. The Board of Education was divided on the issue. The vote to implement the time change passed by a 5-4 margin in May 2011 and a motion to rescind the change failed by a margin of 4-5 in December 2011.

The school says it has seen improvements among its students since it required them to be at school later. The percentage of late students dropped around 3% from the 2011-2012 school year to the 2013-2014 school year. The number of students failing classes dropped 2.2% and the absentee rate dropped 1.5%.

It's hard to draw a definitive line between later start times and better scores, mental health and safety, but many who are watching the experiments agree that the numbers showing teens get more sleep with a later start time are promising, given that more shuteye is the ultimate objective.

"Starting school later is in the best interest of your students," says Libano, who is quite the evangelist for a later-starting day. "When there is a will there has got to be a way. It's the right thing to do."

The Challenge

hile the evidence in support of letting students sleep in is intriguing, it's an often-difficult feat to pull off.

"There were a lot of obstacles. It was divisive," says Libano about the year the school pushed the new start time through. "It's a topic that generates a lot of emotions because it's a significant change."

Significant may even be an understatement. Sharon High School was lucky; local buses were able to shift their pick-up and drop-off times without the school incurring additional costs. But the middle and grade schools had to change their start times too to accommodate the high school. Officials from Sharon had to go to the other schools in the district they compete against in extracurriculars and sports and ask them to plan competitions accordingly. Sharon also started regulating how long students could be held at practice after school. Ultimately the community was willing to adapt.

"It is very complicated to change a school or district schedule because community life revolves around school hours,"says Terra Ziporyn Snider, the co-founder and executive director of Start School Later, a non-profit working to persuade public schools to change their schedules. "It's true even if you don't have kids. Imposing a schedule change on an unwilling community is politically unpopular."

The time schools start affects traffic flow, day care hours, small businesses that employ high school students, and when parks are open. While all that adjusting can cause some seriously ruffled feathers, Snider says if the change is done the right way, the whole community is involved in the implementation, and it comes off without a hitch.

Most of the time, according to Snider, people just don't want to change the status quo. "The fear of the impact is incredibly powerful politically," she says. "It's fear of change and failure of imagination. It doesn't mean that because you change the time you suddenly can't have sports practice because school gets out an hour later. But people do think that and it stops change in its tracks."

A common concern among critics of later school times is whether pushing back school will just mean that students get to sleep even later and will still be late for school. However, there's evidence to suggest that's not usually the case. A 2002 study of Minneapolis high school students showed that after the city's school districts switched from a 7:15 a.m. start time to 8:40 a.m., kids in schools that switched had similar bedtimes to students whose schools didn't change, resulting in one additional hour of sleep for the students. A 2010 study of a school that delayed its start time by 30 minutes showed average bedtimes actually shifted 18 minutes earlier, and average reported sleep duration increased 45 minutes. If teens are biologically programmed to go to sleep at a certain hour, pushing back a start time means they have more time in the morning when their bodies want to sleep in. And if their circadian clock is keeping them up at night, it's not as big of deal.

"There's zero evidence that the current hours are doing anyone any good and a lot of evidence that they are doing a lot of harm," says Snider. "We are not talking about letting kids sleep in until 1pm every day, we are taking about letting them sleep until seven or eight in the morning. It's not a very radical proposition."

The Way Forward

or communities that want to take on the fight for a later start time, Snider recommends building an argument about sleep as the third pillar of health, after eating and exercise, an argument public health experts are increasingly promoting. Start School Later has 43 local chapters around the country that are available as a resource. Bringing in outside sources and advisors, say, from schools that have already taken on the challenge- can make the process much smoother, says Snider.

It's hard to tell just how many schools have made a switch to a later start time, since some do so individually and others as a district, but interest is mounting. Libano fields many calls from schools inquiring about the change, and the U.S. Department of Education tells TIME that districts from Portland, Maine, to Ann Arbor, Michigan, to Durham, North Carolina, are looking at changing start times.

"While the decision of when to start school is up to the nation's 15,000 school districts, the Department is interested in how innovative local efforts impact student achievement," says Duncan. "School systems cannot carry on this work alone - parental involvement is critical to ensuring success for all students."

In 2011, Fairfax County, Virginia, surveyed some of its 8 th-, 10 th- and 12 th-graders to see how much sleep they were getting at night. The results showed that less than a quarter of high school seniors were sleeping seven or more hours. The data prompted the district to partner with the Children's National Medical Center's Division of Sleep Medicine to further study their students' bedtime routines. Last year, the school board voted for a later school start. Come fall, students at the over 20 high schools in Fairfax County, who used to have to be at school at 7:20 a.m., can roll over and rest. High schools are now starting between 8:00 and 8:10 a.m., which is not exactly up to the AAP's recommendation of 8:30, but it's a start.

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Evidence is mounting that teenagers should start school a little later. So why aren't they? he medical community doesn't fully understand why, but there's something about puberty that throws kids' systems out of whack. It's as if teenage bodies switch over to daylight savings time, a condition sometimes known in the medical community as a "phase delay."

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The teenage years are a formative period. The brain and body experience significant development, and the transition to adulthood brings important changes that affect emotions, personality, social and family life, and academics.

Sleep is essential during this time, working behind the scenes to allow teens to be at their best. Unfortunately, research indicates that many teens get far less sleep than they need.

Both the National Sleep Foundation and the American Academy of Sleep Medicine agree that teens need between 8 and 10 hours of sleep per night. Getting this recommended amount of sleep can help teens maintain their physical health, emotional well-being, and school performance.

At the same time, teens face numerous challenges to getting consistent, restorative sleep. Recognizing those challenges helps teens and their parents make a plan so that teens get the sleep they need.

Why Is Sleep Important For Teens?

Sleep is vital for people of any age. For teens, though, profound mental, physical, social, and emotional development requires quality sleep.

Thinking and Academic Achievement

Sleep benefits the brain and promotes attention, memory, and analytical thought. It makes thinking sharper, recognizing the most important information to consolidate learning. Sleep also facilitates expansive thinking that can spur creativity. Whether it's studying for a test, learning an instrument, or acquiring job skills, sleep is essential for teens.

Given the importance of sleep for brain function, it's easy to see why teens who don't get enough sleep tend to suffer from excessive drowsiness and lack of attention that can harm their academic performance.

Emotional Health

Most people have experienced how sleep can affect mood, causing irritability and exaggerated emotional reactions. Over time, the consequences can be even greater for teens who are adapting to more independence, responsibility, and new social relationships.

Prolonged sleep loss may negatively affect emotional development, increasing risks for interpersonal conflict as well as more serious mental health problems.

Mental health disorders like anxiety, depression, and bipolar disorder have routinely been linked to poor sleep, and sleep deprivation in teens can increase the risk of suicide. Improving sleep in adolescents may play a role in preventing mental health disorders or reducing their symptoms.

Physical Health and Development

Sleep contributes to the effective function of virtually every system of the body. It empowers the immune system, helps regulate hormones, and enables muscle and tissue recovery.

Substantial physical development happens during adolescence and can be negatively affected by a lack of sleep. For example, researchers have found that adolescents who fail to get enough sleep have a troubling metabolic profile that may put them at higher risk of diabetes and long-term cardiovascular problems.

Decision-Making and Risky Behavior

Sleep deprivation can affect the development of the frontal lobe, a part of the brain that is critical to control impulsive behavior. Not surprisingly, numerous studies have found that teens who don't get enough sleep are more likely to engage in high-risk behaviors like drunk driving, texting while driving, riding a bicycle without a helmet, and failing to use a seatbelt. Drug and alcohol use, smoking, risky sexual behavior, fighting, and carrying a weapon have also been identified as more likely in teens who get too little sleep.

Behavioral problems can have widespread effects on a teenager's life, harming their academic performance as well as their relationships with family and friends.

Accidents and Injuries

Insufficient sleep in teens can make them prone to accidental injury and even death. Of particular concern is an elevated risk of accidents as a result of drowsy driving. Studies have found that sleep deprivation can reduce reaction times with an effect similar to that of significant alcohol consumption. In teens, the impact of drowsy driving can be amplified by a lack of driving experience and a higher rate of distracted driving.

Are Teens in America Getting Enough Sleep?

By almost all accounts, many teenagers in America are not getting the recommended 8-10 hours of sleep per night. In the 2006 Sleep in America Poll by the National Sleep Foundation, 45% of adolescents reported getting less than eight hours per night.

The problem may be getting worse. Data from four national surveys conducted from 2007-2013 found that nearly 69% of high school students got seven or fewer hours of sleep per night. Estimates place the rate of insomnia in adolescents as high as 23.8%.

Insufficient sleep among teens has been found to be higher among women than men. Older teens report getting less sleep than people in early adolescence. Surveys have also found that teens who identify as Black, Asian, and multiracial have the highest rates of sleeping less than eight hours per night.

Why Is It Hard for Teens To Get Good Sleep?

There is no single reason for sleep insufficiency among teens. Several factors contribute to this problem, and these factors may vary from teenager to teenager.

Delayed Sleep Schedule and School Start Times

During adolescence, there is a strong tendency toward being a "night owl," staying up later at night and sleeping longer into the morning. Experts believe this is a two-fold biological impulse affecting the circadian rhythm and sleep-wake cycle of teens.

First, teens have a sleep drive that builds more slowly, which means they don't start to feel tired until later in the evening. Second, the body waits longer to start producing melatonin, which is the hormone that helps promote sleep.

If allowed to sleep on their own schedule, many teens would get eight hours or more per night, sleeping from 11 p.m. or midnight until 8 or 9 a.m., but school start times in most school districts force teens to wake up much earlier in the morning. Because of the biological delay in their sleep-wake cycle, many teens simply aren't able to fall asleep early enough to get eight or more hours of sleep and still arrive at school on time.

With reduced sleep on weekdays, teens may try to catch up by sleeping in on the weekend, but this may exacerbate their delayed sleep schedule and inconsistent nightly rest.

Time Pressure

Teens often have their hands full. School assignments, work obligations, household chores, social life, community activities, and sports are just some of the things that can require their time and attention.

With so much to try to fit into each day, many teens don't allocate sufficient time for sleep. They may stay up late during the week to finish homework or during the weekend when hanging out with friends, both of which can reinforce their night owl schedule.

Pressure to succeed while managing these extensive commitments can be stressful, and excess stress has been known to contribute to sleeping problems and insomnia.

Use of Electronic Devices

Electronic devices like cell phones and tablets are ubiquitous among teens, and research, such as the 2014 Sleep in America Poll, finds that 89% or more of teens keep at least one device in their bedroom at night.

Screen time late into the evening can contribute to sleeping problems. Using these devices can keep teens' brains wired, and incoming notifications can cause disrupted and fragmented sleep. Evidence also points to suppressed melatonin production from exposure to the light from cell phones.

Sleep Disorders

Some teens have poor sleep because of an underlying sleep disorder. Adolescents can be affected by obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), which causes repeated pauses in breathing during sleep. OSA frequently causes fragmented sleep and excessive daytime sleepiness.

Though less common, teens can have sleep disorders like Restless Leg Syndrome (RLS), which involves a strong urge to move the limbs when lying down, and narcolepsy, which is a disorder affecting the sleep-wake cycle.

Mental Health Problems

Mental health conditions like anxiety and depression can be a challenge to quality sleep in teens as well as adults. Insufficient sleep can contribute to these conditions as well, creating a bidirectional relationship that can worsen both sleep and emotional wellness.

Neurodevelopmental Disorders

Neurodevelopmental disorders, such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD), can make it harder for teens to sleep well. Lack of sleep may also contribute to more pronounced symptoms of these conditions.

How Can Teens Get Better Sleep?

Teens who are having sleep problems should start by talking with their doctor about how much sleep they are getting and how it impacts their daily life. Their pediatrician can work to identify any underlying causes and craft the most appropriate and tailored treatment.

Depending on the cause of sleep problems, medications may be considered; however, in most cases, treatment with medications isn't necessary for teens to get better sleep.

A beneficial step is for teens to review and improve their sleep hygiene, which includes their sleep environment and habits. Some healthy sleep tips that can help in this process include:

Budgeting eight hours of sleep into your daily schedule and keeping that same schedule on both weekdays and weekends.

Creating a consistent pre-bed routine to help with relaxation and falling asleep fast.

Avoiding caffeine and energy drinks, especially in the afternoon and evening.

Putting away electronic devices for at least a half-hour before bed and keeping them on silent mode to avoid checking them during the night.

Setting up your bed with a supportive mattress and pillows.

Keeping your bedroom cool, dark, and quiet.

Sleep hygiene modifications may be included in cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I), a form of talk therapy for sleeping problems that has demonstrated effectiveness in adults and may be helpful to teens. CBT-I works by reshaping negative ideas and thoughts about sleep and implementing practical steps for better sleep routines.

How Can Parents Help Teens Get Better Sleep?

For many parents, a first step is asking their teenage children about their sleep since surveys indicate that many parents don't realize that their children are having sleeping problems.

Parents can encourage teens to see a doctor while also working with their children to make gradual sleep hygiene improvements. Some research has found that teens whose parents set a firm bedtime get more sleep and have less daytime drowsiness.

Another avenue for parents is advocating for later start times with their local school district. A number of districts have experimented with delayed starts and found beneficial results as measured by attendance and academic performance.

Parents can also work with their teens to avoid overscheduling and commitments that can generate stress and trade off with adequate time for sleep.

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The teenage years are a formative period. The brain and body experience significant development, and the transition to adulthood brings important changes that affect emotions, personality, social and family life, and academics. Sleep is essential during this time, working behind the scenes to allow teens to be at their best.

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CDC: School Start Times for Middle School and High School Students

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CDC: School Start Times for Middle School and High School Students

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Adolescents who do not get enough sleep are more likely to be overweight ( 1); not engage in daily physical activity ( 2); suffer from depressive symptoms ( 2); engage in unhealthy risk behaviors such as drinking, smoking tobacco, and using illicit drugs ( 2); and perform poorly in school ( 3). However, insufficient sleep is common among high school students, with less than one third of U.S. high school students sleeping at least 8 hours on school nights ( 4). In a policy statement published in 2014, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) urged middle and high schools to modify start times as a means to enable students to get adequate sleep and improve their health, safety, academic performance, and quality of life ( 5). AAP recommended that "middle and high schools should aim for a starting time of no earlier than 8:30 a.m." ( 5). To assess state-specific distributions of public middle and high school start times and establish a pre-recommendation baseline, CDC and the U.S. Department of Education analyzed data from the 2011-12 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS). Among an estimated 39,700 public middle, high, and combined schools* in the United States, the average start time was 8:03 a.m. Overall, only 17.7% of these public schools started school at 8:30 a.m. or later. The percentage of schools with 8:30 a.m. or later start times varied greatly by state, ranging from 0% in Hawaii, Mississippi, and Wyoming to more than three quarters of schools in Alaska (76.8%) and North Dakota (78.5%). A school system start time policy of 8:30 a.m. or later provides teenage students the opportunity to achieve the 8.5-9.5 hours of sleep recommended by AAP ( 5) and the 8-10 hours recommended by the National Sleep Foundation ( 6).

Every few years, the U.S. Department of Education conducts SASS, which provides data on the condition of elementary and secondary education in the United States. SASS consists of several questionnaires, including those tailored to schools, teachers, principals, school districts, and library media centers. SASS is a mail-based survey, with telephone and field follow-up, and uses a stratified probability sample design.† For the 2011-12 school year, the sample included about 10,250 traditional public schools and 750 public charter schools, with a unit response rate for public schools of 72.5%. As part of the school questionnaire in the 2011-12 school year, respondents were asked, "At what time do most of the students in this school begin the school day?" Because AAP recommends school start times of 8:30 a.m. or later for both middle schools and high schools, the analyses in this report include public middle schools, high schools, and schools with combined grades. Average start time (with standard error) and percentage distribution of start times were calculated by school level and state. Results are weighted to reflect the complex sample design and to account for nonresponse and other adjustments.

Among an estimated 39,700 U.S. public middle, high, and combined schools (with an estimated total enrollment of 26.3 million students), the average start time was 8:03 a.m. Forty-two states reported that 75%-100% of their public schools had early start times (before 8:30 a.m.) ( Figure). Overall, only 17.7% of public schools (with an estimated total enrollment of 4.2 million students), started school at 8:30 a.m. or later . The proportion was lowest for high schools (14.4%) and highest for combined schools (23.4%). The percentage of schools that started at 8:30 a.m. or later varied greatly by state, ranging from 0% in Hawaii, Mississippi, and Wyoming to 76.8% in Alaska and 78.5% in North Dakota. North Dakota and Alaska also reported the latest average school start times (8:31 a.m. and 8:33 a.m., respectively), whereas Louisiana reported the earliest average school start time (7:40 a.m.) and the largest percentage of schools starting before 7:30 a.m. (29.9%).

Discussion

Obtaining adequate sleep is important for achieving optimal health. Among adolescents, insufficient sleep has been associated with adverse risk behaviors ( 2), poor health outcomes ( 1), and poor academic performance ( 3). In view of these negative outcomes, the high prevalence of insufficient sleep among high school students is of substantial public health concern. Healthy People 2020 includes a sleep objective for adolescents: to "increase the proportion of students in grades 9 through 12 who get sufficient sleep (defined as 8 or more hours of sleep on an average school night)."§ However, the proportion of students who get enough sleep has remained approximately 31% since 2007 ( 4), the first year that the national Youth Risk Behavior Survey included a question about sleep, meaning that more than two thirds of high school students do not get enough sleep. Multiple contributors to insufficient sleep in this population might exist. In puberty, biological rhythms commonly shift so that adolescents become sleepy later at night and need to sleep later in the morning ( 7). These biological changes are often combined with poor sleep hygiene (including irregular bedtimes and the presence of televisions, computers, or mobile phones in the bedroom) ( 8). During the school week, the chief determinant of wake times is school start time ( 9). The combination of delayed bedtimes and early school start times results in inadequate sleep for a large portion of the adolescent population.

Citing evidence of the benefits of delayed school start times for adolescents, AAP released a policy statement in 2014 that encouraged middle and high schools to modify start times to enable students to get sufficient sleep and subsequently improve their health, safety, academic performance, and quality of life ( 5). AAP recommended that schools start at 8:30 a.m. or later ( 5), but this was the case in only one in six U.S. public middle and high schools, with substantial variation by state. Because school start times are determined at the district or even individual school level, local stakeholders have the most influence on whether start times change in their communities.

Groups seeking to delay school start times in their district often face resistance. Common barriers to delaying school start times include concerns about increased transportation costs because of changes in bus schedules; potential for traffic congestion for students and faculty; difficulty in scheduling after-school activities, especially athletic programs; and lack of education in some communities about the importance of sleep and school start times.¶ Advocates for delayed start times might benefit from 1) becoming familiar with research about the negative impact of insufficient sleep and early start times on adolescents' health, well-being, and academic performance; 2) identification of persons who might be impacted by the decision to delay start times, including parties involved in transportation and school athletic programs, as well as students, teachers, and school staff; and 3) preparing responses to common arguments against delaying start times. Many school systems have successfully overcome barriers to delay start times.**

Among the possible public health interventions for increasing sufficient sleep among adolescents, delaying school start times has the potential for the greatest population impact by changing the environmental context for students in entire school districts. However, a late school start time does not preclude the need for other interventions that have the potential to improve the sleep of adolescents. Health care providers who treat adolescents, both in and outside of school settings, should educate patients and parents about the importance of adequate sleep, as well as factors that contribute to insufficient sleep among adolescents. Parents can help their children practice good sleep hygiene (i.e., habits that help promote good sleep). A regular bedtime and rise time, including on weekends, is recommended for everyone, whether they are children, adolescents, or adults.†† In addition, adolescents with parent-set bedtimes usually get more sleep than those whose parents do not set bedtimes ( 8). Adolescents who are exposed to more light (such as room lighting or from electronics) in the evenings are less likely to get enough sleep ( 8). Technology use (e.g., computers, video gaming, or mobile phones) might also contribute to late bedtimes ( 8) and parents might consider implementing a "media curfew" or removing these technologies from the bedroom. Finally, parents might benefit themselves and their children by setting a good example. Adolescent sleep habits tend to reflect their parents' sleep habits ( 10).

1Division of Population Health, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, CDC.

Corresponding author: Anne G. Wheaton, awheaton@cdc.gov, 770-488-5362.

References

1. Lowry R, Eaton DK, Foti K, McKnight-Eily L, Perry G, Galuska DA. Association of sleep duration with obesity among US high school students. J Obes 2012;2012:476914.

2. McKnight-Eily LR, Eaton DK, Lowry R, Croft JB, Presley-Cantrell L, Perry GS. Relationships between hours of sleep and health-risk behaviors in US adolescent students. Prev Med 2011;53:271-3.

3. Perez-Lloret S, Videla AJ, Richaudeau A, et al. A multi-step pathway connecting short sleep duration to daytime somnolence, reduced attention, and poor academic performance: an exploratory cross-sectional study in teenagers. J Clin Sleep Med 2013;9:469-73.

4. Basch CE, Basch CH, Ruggles KV, Rajan S. Prevalence of sleep duration on an average school night among 4 nationally representative successive samples of American high school students, 2007-2013. Prev Chronic Dis 2014;11:E216.

5. Adolescent Sleep Working Group; Committee on Adolescence; Council on School Health. School start times for adolescents. Pediatrics 2014;134:642-9.

6. Hirshkowitz M, Whiton K, Albert SM, et al. National Sleep Foundation's sleep time duration recommendations: methodology and results summary. Sleep Health 2015;1:40-3.

7. Crowley SJ, Acebo C, Carskadon MA. Sleep, circadian rhythms, and delayed phase in adolescence. Sleep Med 2007;8:602-12.

8. Bartel KA, Gradisar M, Williamson P. Protective and risk factors for adolescent sleep: a meta-analytic review. Sleep Med Rev 2014;21:72-85.

9. Knutson KL, Lauderdale DS. Sociodemographic and behavioral predictors of bed time and wake time among US adolescents aged 15 to 17 years. J Pediatr 2009;154:426-30, 30 e1.

10. Fuligni AJ, Tsai KM, Krull JL, Gonzales NA. Daily concordance between parent and adolescent sleep habits. J Adolesc Health 2015;56:244-50.

Summary
What is already known on this topic?

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has urged middle and high schools to modify school start times to enable adolescent students to get sufficient sleep and improve their health, safety, academic performance, and quality of life. AAP recommends that schools aim to start no earlier than 8:30 a.m.

What is added by this report?

During the 2011-12 school year, before publication of the new AAP recommendations, only 17.7% of public middle and high schools in the United States started school at 8:30 a.m. or later. The percentage varied greatly by state, ranging from 0% in Hawaii, Mississippi, and Wyoming to more than three quarters of schools in Alaska (76.8%) and North Dakota (78.5%).

What are the implications for public health practice?

School start time policies are established at the district and individual school levels. Educating parents and school system decision-makers about the impact of sleep deprivation on adolescent health and academic performance might lead to adoption of later start times.

Estimated no. of public middle, high, and combined schools

Estimated no. of students in public middle, high, and combined schools

Percentage distribution† of public middle, high,
and combined school start times

FIGURE. Percentage of public schools* with early school start times (before 8:30 a.m.), by state - Schools and Staffing Survey, United States, 2011-12 school year
Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Schools and Staffing Survey, public school data file, 2011-12. Additional information available at http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/sass/overview.asp.

Alternate Text: The figure above is a map of the United States showing the percentage of public schools with early school start times (before 8:30 a.m.), by state, during the 2011-12 school year.

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School Start Times for Middle School and High School Students - United States, 2011-12 School Year

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Adolescents who do not get enough sleep are more likely to be overweight ( 1); not engage in daily physical activity ( 2); suffer from depressive symptoms ( 2); engage in unhealthy risk behaviors such as drinking, smoking tobacco, and using illicit drugs ( 2); and perform poorly in school ( 3).

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School Suspensions Have Plunged: We Don't Yet Know If That's Good News

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School Suspensions Have Plunged: We Don't Yet Know If That's Good News

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We are in the midst of a quiet revolution in school discipline.

In the past five years, 27 states have revised their laws with the intention of reducing suspensions and expulsions. And, more than 50 of America's largest school districts have also reformed their discipline policies - changes which collectively affect more than 6.35 million students.

A new paper from Max Eden, a senior fellow at the conservative-leaning Manhattan Institute, argues that this is all too much, too soon. In New York City, for example, suspensions have fallen by half since 2011.

Eden's read of the available evidence argues that school climate in the city, on the whole, has gotten worse. "Without making the case that we need to start suspending more students," Eden tells NPR Ed, "the point is that, wow, we really haven't looked into this. We don't know what's going on."

The pressure to stop putting so many students out of class came largely from new data showing blacks and Hispanics are far more likely to be suspended and expelled from school. Students who are suspended are, in turn, far more likely to drop out of high school. And, as police officers have come to be employed directly in schools to enforce "zero-tolerance" discipline, incidents more often result in arrests and even criminal charges, a connection that has become known as the "school-to-prison pipeline."

Neil Gorsuch, the Supreme Court nominee now in hearings, has ruled in at least two such cases, one involving a 9-year-old whose arm was intentionally twisted when he was put in handcuffs, and another a middle schooler arrested for burping in class.

The data has prompted more widespread legal action as well. In 2014, the U.S. Education Department's Office of Civil Rights warned school districts around the country that any discipline policy that has a disparate impact by race, even if it is neutral on its face, can be found to be in violation of the law.

OCR investigated several school districts over discipline policies. Two of them, Oakland and Oklahoma City, agreed in legal settlements to reduce suspensions. Other cities where suspensions have been limited include Los Angeles, Chicago and St. Paul, Minn.

If a disruptive student can't be removed from class, what should be done instead? The prevailing alternative is a set of practices known as "restorative justice." The philosophy behind it could be summed up as: "The kids who are misbehaving are also members of the school community," says Kelly Welch, a criminologist who studies the topic at Villanova University.

"Something's going on with them that we can't punish away, or we're going to be seeing them again, either in the principal's office or criminal justice system," Welch adds.

Students who offend or come into conflicts may be asked to sit in "circles" where they apologize for what they've done, make restitution, go through peer mediation, or perform community service. Teachers may also apologize for their part in a conflict.

New York City, the nation's largest school district, first moved in this direction under Mayor Michael Bloomberg in the 2012-2013 school year. Bloomberg's changes to the city discipline code banned suspensions for first-time, low-level offenses such as uncooperative, noncompliant or disorderly behavior.

"If I say, 'Hey Anya, f*** off!' " explains Eden, "Or if I just do something that irks you, you have to wait til the third time to suspend me." Studies show bias can especially come into play when teachers face this kind of student behavior, as opposed to offenses like stealing, damaging property or violence, which are less open to interpretation.

"There is discretion in those situations, and sometimes teachers or principals will look the other way and other times they follow through," says Welch.

Mayor Bill de Blasio went further, requiring principals to seek written permission from the district's discipline office whenever they suspended students for any low-level offense. He also provided $1.2 million to train teachers in restorative justice techniques. Under both mayors, suspensions dropped, from 69,643 in the 2011-12 school year to 37,647 in 2015-16. (This is after suspensions had increased dramatically in the previous decade.)

For his research, Eden looked at teachers' and students' responses to the city's annual school climate survey. Across more than 900 schools, he found that in the Bloomberg years there were few changes in student answers to questions about drugs, violence and gang activity. This could be interpreted as a "win-win" - suspensions dropped significantly and schools felt no less safe as a result.

In the de Blasio years the results were more complicated. The most worrying finding? In just over half of middle and high schools, students reported less mutual respect. In addition, in half of schools, students reported more physical fighting. On the other hand, in a majority of schools, teachers' perceptions of order and discipline either stayed the same or, in a third of schools, got better.

By contrast, in other teacher surveys Eden cites from around the country, from Denver to Baton Rouge to Syracuse, N.Y., large majorities have reported a lack of school safety, order and respect after similar discipline reforms.

New York City responded by noting that the discipline policies are working as designed: to lower suspensions and arrests.

"Crime in schools is at an all-time low as suspensions and school-based arrests and summonses are continuing to decline," Freddi Goldstein, de Blasio's deputy press secretary, told the New York Daily News in response to Eden's report. "Research shows that overly punitive disciplinary practices are not effective and our investments in mental health and school climate programs ensure students are provided with a safe and supportive learning environment."

Eden himself acknowledges this paper raises more questions than it answers. For example, we don't know whether school surveys are a valid measure of actual school climate. The survey responses aren't cross-referenced with other measures such as student achievement, attendance or behavioral incident reports, which might help clarify that point.

Villanova's Kelly Welch calls the paper as a whole "hugely problematic." She acknowledges that the degree to which teachers and students subjectively feel safe and happy at school is an important indicator in itself. But, she says, "to say that perception equates with reality is really wrong."

Perhaps, she adds, students in schools practicing restorative justice become more aware of fights, for example, because they are asked to discuss every incident in detail in a large group. "That's plausible," agrees Eden.

The study also doesn't tell us whether the schools that did see an improvement in school climate were doing a better job implementing restorative justice policies.

And because these policies are still new, a major point we still don't know is whether students who escape suspension under new discipline policies will eventually end up better off. Can restorative justice work to keep kids in school, help them graduate and go on to better lives? Or, as critics argue, will the same adverse social and emotional factors that cause students to act up also drive them out of school eventually, regardless of the consequences the school puts in place?

"The rigorous academic research on this, I think, is sorely lacking and will remain sorely lacking," says Eden, pointing out that it would be unethical to randomly assign students to be suspended or not be suspended for the same offense.

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School Suspensions Have Plunged: We Don't Yet Know If That's Good News

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
We are in the midst of a quiet revolution in school discipline. In the past five years, 27 states have revised their laws with the intention of reducing suspensions and expulsions. And, more than 50 of America's largest school districts have also reformed their discipline policies - changes which collectively affect more than 6.35 million students.

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Sharpen your pencils! It's time to hit the books again, with these TED Talks that take you through a busy day of math, history, gym, lunch, English, science and art. No finals required.

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Cameron Herold: Let's raise kids to be entrepreneurs

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Bored in school, failing classes, at odds with peers: This child might be an entrepreneur, says Cameron Herold. In his talk, he makes the case for parenting and education that helps would-be entrepreneurs flourish -- as kids and as adults.

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Fit for learning: what research says about the benefits of sport

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Fit for learning: what research says about the benefits of sport

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With one in three children obese or overweight when they leave primary school, there is a push to raise physical education (PE) to the same status as maths, English and science.

We've explored the latest studies on exercise in schools and found practical ways for teachers to implement the findings, in PE lessons and beyond.

Academic advantages

There is a growing body of research that links physical activity to improvements in achievement. Studies from the universities of Strathclyde and Dundee, for example, found that intensive exercise boosted the performance of teenagers in English, maths and science.

This is partly because physical activity improves brain function. Games that are unpredictable and require problem-solving may also boost executive functioning (the skills that help the brain to organise and act on information), which can transfer to academic tasks.

But these benefits don't just happen; schools need to devise physical activity programmes that are carefully planned and delivered.

Clare Hoods-Truman, associate principal of Oasis Academy Blakenhale Infants in Birmingham, introduced the Fit4Schools programme to increase her pupils' physical health and mental alertness.

She says holding fitness sessions at the beginning of the day, rather than in the afternoon, as well as keeping children active in class, has energised students and boosted engagement in lessons.

"They are always focused on moving around the space, working on different activities and equipment," she explains. "Our key stage 1 results improved dramatically this year. That is not only down to good teaching but also because we've created a really positive learning environment that incorporates physical activity."

Fit4Schools managing director, Stephen Roberts, recommends breaking up the school day with short bursts of physical activity to improve concentration. This could take the form of a 20-second warm-up, then 20 to 40 seconds of intense activity (such as jumping on the spot, or balance and coordination work), followed by a cool-down to lower heart rates and enable students to focus.

Behaviour benefits

In addition to academic improvements, PE can also have a positive impact on behaviour. The 2014 Youth Sport Trust National PE, School Sport and Physical Activity Survey found that 70% of schools feel sport makes a positive contribution to behaviour and truancy.

A 2009 study found that short breaks for physical activity between lessons improved classroom behaviour. Hoods-Truman says that since her school began providing at least two hours of PE a week, the children are more tolerant of one another and work better in groups.

PE and sport have also been shown to increase the sense of connection young people feel with their school.

Kevin Barton, executive head of achievement for the Youth Sport Trust, says this is because PE can make children feel wanted.

He says: "The thing that leads to poor behaviour is kids not feeling any ownership of what they are doing and not feeling part of anything.

"Sport can really help people to feel like part of a team. That may sound really obvious, but it is missing from a lot of young people's lives."

PE can also be an opportunity to develop resilience and independent learning skills. Graham Mallen, a PE and psychology teacher at Manor School Sports College in Northamptonshire, uses the instant video motion analysis tool Coach's Eye in his lessons, and has seen skill levels increase as a result. He says the main benefit is that students can see what they are doing wrong and independently work out how to improve it by discussing with a partner or comparing their video with footage of professional athletes.

He says: "Students aren't as resilient as they used to be and a lot of that is because they haven't got autonomy over what they do. It's very empowering to give a student an iPad and hand the reins over to them to improve their technique."

Gender gaps

A study for the Women's Sports and Fitness Foundation says that more than half of girls are put off by PE classes. The report found that only 12% of 14-year-old girls get enough physical activity each week - whereas twice as many boys do. Researchers found that girls want to be active and healthy, but often feel that they don't have a suitable outlet.

Research published earlier this year by the Government Equalities Office claims that girls lose motivation to play sport after the age of seven, frequently as a result of self-consciousness and loss of confidence. Perception is a common problem, with many girls considering boys' sports to be "rough", while boys believe that girls lack skill. Girls dislike playing in the cold, researchers found, preferring sports that can be played indoors, such as netball or swimming. The lack of female sporting role models also had a negative impact.

So how can teachers better motivate girls to take part? Stuart Forsyth was a PE teacher between 1983 and 2001, before joining the University of Strathclyde. He is now a senior lecturer researching interventions to improve student motivation in the subject.

He claims that many girls take part in sport because they are told to, not because they like it. The student-teacher relationship and social aspect is also a motivator, he says, so positive interactions are important. He has also found that female students prefer to have PE lessons in the morning or last thing in the day, and would like to choose their own kits. They also want a say in which activities are offered.

"You need to have challenges for the talented and the less talented," Forsyth says. "Boys and girls can be very body-conscious, so if someone wants to wear long tracksuit bottoms, let them.

"There needs to be a reorganisation of things, like letting students choose what their PE lessons are like. Teachers have got to be really enthusiastic and treat the children as individuals."

The PE and school sports series is funded by the Youth Sport Trust. All content is editorially independent except for pieces labelled "brought to you by". Find out more here.
Topics

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Fit for learning: what research says about the benefits of sport

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With one in three children obese or overweight when they leave primary school, there is a push to raise physical education (PE) to the same status as maths, English and science. We've explored the latest studies on exercise in schools and found practical ways for teachers to implement the findings, in PE lessons and beyond.

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Have you about had it with those four walls, two windows, and the stench of those white board pens that always seem to dry out?

If you are a teacher who answered yes to these questions it's about time you bust a move and take your class outside for some good ol' fashioned learning. Why outdoors? It's hard for kids to sit still for long periods of time and taking breaks to go out and explore education in nature can help keep your students engaged, refreshed, and can promote creativity. Not to mention, subjects like math, science, art, and language arts can be applied in various outdoor activities. When students get the opportunity to look, feel, touch, smell (maybe taste if your school has a garden!) their experiences in lessons become memorable and something they can relate to.

But what will I teach, you may ask. Fear not! There are several avenues you can go when it comes to teaching outdoors. Here are some ideas that are broken up by subject:

Language Arts:

Write poetry outside and allow nature to be your student's inspiration! Being outside can help your students practice their descriptive writing. Encourage your students to pick up, observe, and feel items like leaves, rocks, etc.

Teach about similes. Have students compare things in nature and compare themselves to nature. Have them answer questions like, "How is a tree like a flower?".

Art:

Sketch outdoors either with pencil or charcoal. This is a great opportunity for your students to practice observation drawing. Remind them to pay close attention to light, shadow, and texture.

Math:

Play sidewalk chalk addition and subtraction.

Learn about x and y axis with sidewalk chalk

For young students, learn how to count and learn the difference between small, medium, and large by collecting acorns or pinecones.

Learn about measurements and fractions by making mud pies from nature. Provide your students with measuring cups, bowls, stirring spoons. Don't forget the recipe! Example: 1 cup dirt, 2/3rds cup weeds, 1 1/4th inch long piece of bark, etc.

Science:

Create a butterfly garden by planting flowers that butterflies are attracted to.

Learn about the water cycle! The teacher is the sun, hula hoops are Nimbus clouds, and (depending on where you are outside) the ocean can be the sand kickball area or bark playground. Learn how to play the water cycle game here!

Start a composting project! Set up compost bins outside. Teach students about the importance of composting and how it can help plants grow. Once your compost pile is in full swing, let your students identify the types of organisms that live in the compost. Here is a helpful resource for classroom composting.

Create a school garden or explore the garden your school already has! Check out our last post on school gardens.

Cover Image: Eric (EJP Photo) via Flickr

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Taking Learning Outside: Outdoor Classroom Activities

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Have you about had it with those four walls, two windows, and the stench of those white board pens that always seem to dry out? If you are a teacher who answered yes to these questions it's about time you bust a move and take your class outside for some good ol' fashioned learning.

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Healthy School Lunches Improve Kids’ Habits

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Healthy School Lunches Improve Kids’ Habits

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Healthy School Lunches Improve Kids' Habits

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Schools can serve healthy lunches, but whether kids will eat them is a question that has been asked often since the 2012-13 school year, when districts across the United States raised the nutritional quality of meals to meet updated national standards.

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http://www.securedgenetworks.com/blog/4-Benefits-of-having-mobile-technology-in-the-classroom

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Ron Maggiano is a veteran teacher who won the Disney Teacher Award for innovation and creativity in 2005 and the American Historical Association's Beveridge Family Teaching Prize for outstanding K-12 teaching in 2006. After a 33-year teaching career, he resigned last year from West Springfield High School in Fairfax County, Va., where he taught social studies. In this post last year, he explained why he was leaving a job he had long loved:

I can no longer cooperate with a testing regime that I believe is suffocating creativity and innovation in the classroom. We are not really educating our students anymore. We are merely teaching them to pass a test. This is wrong. Period.

Now Maggiano offers the following 11 problems that the obsession with high-stakes testing in school reform is causing in America's schools.

1. The obsession with high-stakes standardized tests is stifling creativity and imagination in the classroom.
-- The overemphasis on testing has led many teachers to eliminate projects and activities that provide students with an opportunity to be creative and imaginative, and scripted curriculum has become the norm in many classrooms. There is nothing creative or imaginative about filling in a bubble sheet for a multiple choice test. Students are so tired of prepping for and taking standardized test that some have protested by dressing up like zombies to protest - and thousands of families are opting their children out of taking high-stakes exams.

2. The obsession with test scores as the chief "accountability" metric for students, educators and schools has led to the exams becoming an end instead of a means to an end.
- In some states even the most severely disabled students are being forced to take standardized tests. In Florida, for example, one boy who was born without the cognitive portion of his brain has been required to take an alternative version of the state's standardized exams.

3. Standardized tests are being used in high-stakes ways to evaluate and punish teachers.
- The Obama administration's "Race to the Top" initiative coerces states to use student standardized test scores to evaluate teachers even though the exams were never intended for this purpose and the results are not reliable indicators a teacher's effectiveness. This "test and punish" approach to teacher evaluation has caused some schools and districts to ignore other factors affecting student achievement such as poverty and socioeconomic status.

4. The obsession with standardized testing by reformers is driving good teachers to leave their profession.
-Many teachers have become disillusioned with the time spent preparing students for, and administering, tests. Morale in the teaching profession is at a 20-year low.

5. The obsession with standardized tests is promoting a culture of cheating in many schools.
-Recent cheating scandals involving teachers and administrators in Atlanta and dozens of other cities have been directly linked to the pressure to raise test scores.

6. The obsession with standardized tests is driving teachers - fearful that their jobs will be stake if student test scores don't rise - to teach to the test.
-Most educators agree that teaching to the test is wrong, yet this has become standard operating procedure in most classrooms.

7. When standardized tests are the most important thing, the fostering of critical thinking in the classroom gets short shrift.
- Rote memorization has become commonplace in many classes.

8. The obsession with raising student standardized test scores is leading to a one-size-fits-all curriculum that ignores the needs of individual students.
-Every student is a unique individual with their own talents and abilities. The standardized testing regime fails to recognize the importance of individual achievement in education and instead uses a "cookie cutter" approach to learning that ignores students' individual interests and abilities.

9. Standardized tests are not helping to prepare students for college or careers.
- After more than a dozen years of the No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top eras in which high-stakes tests have dominated, students are no more ready to do well in college than they were before - and many are less so. Corporate CEOs complain that students aren't learning the kinds of skills needed to succeed in the modern workplace.

10. The high-stakes standardized tests used in U.S. public schools do not accurately measure what students have learned.
- The kinds of standardized tests that have been used in U.S. public schools cannot assess critical thinking well, if at all. It is also true that many students do poorly on standardized tests even though they may have achieved mastery over the material. The stress of "test anxiety" can be debilitating for many students.

11. Standardized tests mostly benefit companies making millions from them.
- Companies such as Pearson Education and others have profited enormously from the testing obsession.

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11 problems created by the standardized testing obsession

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Ron Maggiano is a veteran teacher who won the Disney Teacher Award for innovation and creativity in 2005 and the American Historical Association's Beveridge Family Teaching Prize for outstanding K-12 teaching in 2006. After a 33-year teaching career, he resigned last year from West Springfield High School in Fairfax County, Va., where he taught social studies.

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Healthy lunches set children up for success.

School lunches are not always healthy. According to the School Health Policies and Programs Study in 2006, 11.7 percent of elementary schools, 19 percent of middle schools, and 23.5 percent of high schools included meals from fast food restaurants, such as Taco Bell and Pizza Hut, among their lunchtime offerings. Two large slices of Pizza Hut large hand tossed pepperoni pizza contain 660 calories and 28 grams of fat, according to PizzaHut.com. High school aged girls are supposed to consume approximately 1,800 calories per day, according to the American Heart Association. A fatty, calorie-dense meal like this is hardly healthy. Improving the nutrition of school lunches has the potential to benefit children in a variety of ways.

Improve Academic Performance

Learning information depletes the brain's supply of glucose, according to Scholastic.com. Therefore, it is important to refuel children's glucose supplies with a healthy lunch. Scholastic.com suggests whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and lean sources of protein. A healthy lunch can give children the energy they need to stay focused, pay attention in class, and learn the information presented to them in their classes after lunchtime.

Promote Good Nutrition

A person's eating habits are typically acquired during his childhood, according to The Dairy Council. Therefore, healthier school lunches would lead to healthier nutritional choices throughout children's entire lifetimes. By making healthy school lunches the norm as opposed to the exception, children will inadvertently learn about nutrition and healthy eating. The reverse is also true; children who are provided with sugary, fatty foods at school can develop poor eating habits that can last a lifetime.

Prevent Obesity and Improve Health

School lunches that provide more calories than a child needs to maintain his body weight can lead to weight gain and obesity. This not only can compromise the child's health, but also lead to health problems as an adult. According to Colorado State University, children who are overweight have increased risks of developing health problems, including diabetes and hypertension, and becoming obese adults. Healthy lunches with proper portions can help support a healthy life.

Increase Consumption of Vital Nutrients

Teenagers who eat fast food frequently consume more fat and calories and fewer essential nutrients, including calcium, vitamin A, and vitamin C, than their counterparts, according to The Dairy Council. Lunch is supposed to supply a child with about one-third of his total daily calories, according to Scholastic.com. Therefore, it is important to ensure that lunch is a well-balanced meal to ensure that your child receives good nutrition.

About the Author

Leigh Wittman has been writing professionally since 2007. She writes primarily on health, career advice, outdoor pursuits and travel for various websites. Wittman is a licensed nurse and studied nursing at Arizona State University.

Photo Credits

Healthy lunch - vegetarian wrap, fruit salad and orange juice image by Sophia Winters from Fotolia.com

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School lunches are not always healthy. According to the School Health Policies and Programs Study in 2006, 11.7 percent of elementary schools, 19 percent of middle schools, and 23.5 percent of high schools included meals from fast food restaurants, such as Taco Bell and Pizza Hut, among their lunchtime offerings.

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Opinion: Changing school food starts with changing minds

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Opinion: Changing school food starts with changing minds

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I asked Anika, a third grade student at a public school in the Midwest, why it's important for kids to eat healthy. After a moment of contemplation she responded, "Because if kids grow up eating unhealthy food they will feed their kids unhealthy food." Stunned silence followed.

With this statement this eight year old girl summarized what very few parents, food service employees, school administrators, and teachers truly realize. And what demonstrates not only the failing of our school food system, but also the most significant barrier to changing it.

I work across the continent in institutional food service operations - schools, hospitals, and museums - to transform food systems into scratch-cooked, community-driven, sustainable programs. With the commonly held mindset that says "this is the way we have always done it", it's hard to see another way.

Few remaining food service staff nearing retirement age remember when knives were used daily, freezers and pantries were empty, and kids enthusiastically lined up for lunch. Now two generations later, homes and cafeterias are filled with people disconnected to their food source, and who no longer consider meals a priority in a world where food comes in packages and can be prepared in an instant, and where the farmer is nowhere to be seen.

As a result, cafeteria food sales are down, food waste is up, and food service employees exhibit apathy at work. Classrooms, cafeterias, playgrounds, and offices do not intersect. Sickness, disease, and food insecurity run rampant.

Pulling carrots from the ground and laboring over grandma's lasagna recipe are two of many simple ways that we remember to value our food and in turn, our health. Without these connections I find people everywhere more interested in making excuses than finding solutions. The reasons school personnel most frequently cite as obstacles to better food include cost, time, regulations, distributor contracts, and kitchen equipment.

With the determination to serve healthy food comes the ability and the promise to continue the cycle for future generations. El Capitan, a vertical rock formation in Yosemite National Park, long thought impossible to climb, was first conquered in 1958 by three men who took 47 days to complete the arduous ascent. The record set in 2012 for this very same climb stands at 2 hours, 23 minutes, and 46 seconds.

In the United States, pioneers such as Alice Waters' Edible Schoolyard Project started a vision to reconnect children to the food system with a garden at the school. Before long, every school will not only have a garden from which teachers will develop curriculum, but cafeterias will be full of locally grown, scratch-cooked food, the cafeteria will serve as a learning laboratory for project-based education in the classrooms, and kids will spend time cooking and designing menus for the school meal program.

Uncovering the money, time, and ways to serve healthy food are in every kitchen right in front of us. By measuring waste in several different areas both from the cafeteria and the kitchen, the means to serve locally grown fresh food becomes apparent. The waste I measure includes food and beverages from the plates that are taken and not eaten or drank, what gets thrown in the garbage, production waste from making too much food for the number of people served, over-production waste including that which labor prepared and cannot reuse, cardboard, plastic, metal, and spoiled food that gets throw away before use.

In this measurement process we can also identify the labor practices that waste time. Most importantly through the measurement process, we develop a data-driven baseline to engage stakeholders in the process of change, and we gain the ability to determine what works in the food program.

While every cafeteria differs in cultures, union contracts, local food available, and in various other ways, there are many similarities in kitchen inefficiencies. Production waste typically presents the number one waste of money and time. The labor and ingredient costs to prepare meal quantities greater than what is needed amounts to significant losses for districts serving thousands of lunches daily.

For example, hand-patting 325 burgers when 300 are purchased results in a budget loss of 8% and wastes eight percent of the staff time that could be otherwise used to wash real dishes, peel garlic, or a myriad of other responsibilities of a kitchen using raw agricultural products. In a typical school, children throw away forty percent of their meals daily.

For example, in one school district with 784 number of students I discovered 50% percent of milk was thrown in the trash daily without being consumed amounting to nine gallons per day or 180 gallons per month. For this visual search the internet for a 180 gallon fish tank. We added water as an option for students to drink and the milk waste was reduced by 45% in the first month.

At schools everywhere the practice of cupping wastes time and money that could otherwise be reinvested in fresh, local produce. Cupping involves the preparation of individual servings. For example, scooping fruit from a can into two ounce plastic cups with lids or making individual salads instead of serving them in bulk.

I worked at a school district with five schools that included 1450 students where the elimination of cupping freed up enough time to cook three-quarters of the meals from scratch with no additional labor hours needed. Schools follow this process to ensure correct portion size, but in one recent school assessment the food service employees portioned individual servings of spaghetti into Styrofoam containers at a variance between 3.8 and 5.4 ounces, not meeting the intended goal of uniformity while wasting time and resources.

When kids are served fresh meals prepared from scratch in schools, they eat more fruits, vegetables, and other healthy foods that children need to grow up strong and nourished. The local community wins as the dollars to purchase local food stays in the local economy. And people reconnect with their food source.

The first shipment of local fruit came to a school newly transitioning to scratch-cooking and the delivery driver was met for the first time by the kitchen team excited to help unload the local fruit into the cooler, soon to be devoured by happy kids, grateful for the delicious food.
www.freshfruitportal.com

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Opinion: Changing school food starts with changing minds - FreshFruitPortal.com

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I asked Anika, a third grade student at a public school in the Midwest, why it's important for kids to eat healthy. After a moment of contemplation she responded, "Because if kids grow up eating unhealthy food they will feed their kids unhealthy food." Stunned silence followed.

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Now a new study may help explain some of that stress.

The study, published Wednesday in The American Journal of Family Therapy, found students in the early elementary school years are getting significantly more homework than is recommended by education leaders, in some cases nearly three times as much homework as is recommended.

The standard, endorsed by the National Education Association and the National Parent-Teacher Association, is the so-called "10-minute rule" -- 10 minutes per grade level per night. That translates into 10 minutes of homework in the first grade, 20 minutes in the second grade, all the way up to 120 minutes for senior year of high school. The NEA and the National PTA do not endorse homework for kindergarten.

In the study involving questionnaires filled out by more than 1,100 English and Spanish speaking parents of children in kindergarten through grade 12, researchers found children in the first grade had up to three times the homework load recommended by the NEA and the National PTA.

Parents reported first-graders were spending 28 minutes on homework each night versus the recommended 10 minutes. For second-graders, the homework time was nearly 29 minutes, as opposed to the 20 minutes recommended.

And kindergartners, their parents said, spent 25 minutes a night on after-school assignments, according to the study carried out by researchers from Brown University, Brandeis University, Rhode Island College, Dean College, the Children's National Medial Center and the New England Center for Pediatric Psychology.

"It is absolutely shocking to me to find out that particularly kindergarten students (who) are not supposed to have any homework at all ... are getting as much homework as a third-grader is supposed to get," said Stephanie Donaldson-Pressman, the contributing editor of the study and clinical director of the New England Center for Pediatric Psychology.

"Anybody who's tried to keep a 5-year-old at a table doing homework for 25 minutes after school knows what that's like. I mean children don't want to be doing, they want to be out playing, they want to be interacting and that's what they should be doing. That's what's really important."

Donaldson-Pressman, co-author of "The Learning Habit: A Groundbreaking Approach to Homework and Parenting that Helps Our Children Succeed in School and Life," says the National Education Association (and the National PTA) made their recommendations after a number of studies were done on the effects of homework and the effects on families of having too much homework.

"The cost is enormous," she said. "The data shows that homework over this level is not only not beneficial to children's grades or GPA, but there's really a plethora of evidence that it's detrimental to their attitude about school, their grades, their self-confidence, their social skills and their quality of life."

In fact, a study last year showed that the impact of excessive homework on high schoolers included high stress levels, a lack of balance in children's lives and physical health problems such as ulcers, migraines, sleep deprivation and weight loss.

The correlation between homework and student performance is less clear cut.

Previous research, including a 2006 analysis of homework studies, found a link between time spent on homework and achievement but also found it was much stronger in secondary school versus elementary school. Another study, this one in 2012, found no relationship between time spent on homework and grades but did find a positive link between homework and performance on standardized tests.

The current study also examined the stress homework places on families and found that as the parent's confidence in their ability to help their child with homework went down, the stress in the household went up.

Fights and conflicts over homework were 200% more likely in families where parents did not have at least a college degree, according to the study.

Parents who have a college degree felt more confident, not necessarily in helping their child with their homework, but in communicating with the school to make sure the level is appropriate, said Donaldson-Pressman.

"Undereducated parents really believe that their children are supposed to be able to do (the homework), therefore, their children must be doing something else during school" instead of focusing on their studies, she said. "So the parents argue with the kids, the kids feel defeated and dumb and angry, very angry, and the parents are fighting with each other. It's absolutely a recipe for disaster."

She added, "All of our results indicate that homework as it is now being assigned discriminates against children whose parents don't have a college degree, against parents who have English as a second language, against, essentially, parents who are poor."

Many parents might feel stressed just reading about homework, but there are specific things they can do to make the entire homework experience less anxiety-producing for everyone in the household, parenting experts say.

Lahey recommends that if parents are concerned about how much time their children are spending on homework, they first look at how and where their child is doing their homework to see whether that's a contribution to how long it takes. For instance, are the children being distracted by smartphones, music or other household activities?

If a parent has done that and determined the child is still spending too much time on homework, contact with the teacher makes sense, said Lahey, who is also a columnist for The New York Times and a contributor to The Atlantic and Vermont Public Radio.

"It is absolutely appropriate for you early on when the kid's little and later on when the kid gets older for the kid to talk to the teacher ... Rather than being defensive about it, what you can do is say, 'Look this is supposed to take 30 minutes, but it's taking me an hour. Can you help me figure out why?' " she said.

"If you come at it from a 'Can you help me solve this problem, can we partner together to talk about why this might be so?' that's going to do much better for you and for your kid in the long run."

Biggest mistakes parents make?

One of the biggest mistakes parents make when it comes to homework, said Lahey, is dictating the terms of homework. Instead, parents should hand the details over to the children concerning how, when and where the homework gets done.

"Some kids like to do their work immediately when they get home from school. Some don't. Some kids crazily enough like to do it really, really early in the morning," she said. "But it never really occurs to us to ask, 'What would your perfect homework day look like?' and at the very least that will make your child feel heard and then give them some control back over the order in which they do things, over where they do it, over how they do it."

Finally, Lahey recommends parents set really clear expectations at the beginning of the school year about the homework getting done and ending up in the teacher's hands. But that's really as far as parents should go, she says. She highly discourages parents from correcting their kids' homework -- and even doing it themselves.

Homework is meant to help children and the teacher know which skills are missing and what needs improvement. Secondly, and something that is crucial to the success of our children later in life, is the importance of letting our kids learn how to make mistakes, letting them fail and find the motivation for their own success.

"In order to be invested in our own learning or anything we're doing, we need to feel like we have some control over the details of it. We need to have some autonomy and control over the details of it. We need to feel competent," said Lahey. "And if parents are fixing homework for us, the kid never really gets to feel competent because the parent's the one fixing it and they really need to feel invested and connected to the material."

Do you think kids get too much or too little homework? Share your thoughts with Kelly Wallace on Twitter @kellywallacetv or CNN Parents on Facebook.

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Kids have three times too much homework, study finds - CNN

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Now a new study may help explain some of that stress. The study, published Wednesday in The American Journal of Family Therapy, found students in the early elementary school years are getting significantly more homework than is recommended by education leaders, in some cases nearly three times as much homework as is recommended.

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Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

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The school lunch boxes packed with crisps and chocolate: More than 98% served by parents are classified as 'unhealthy'

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The school lunch boxes packed with crisps and chocolate: More than 98% served by parents are classified as 'unhealthy'

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Study finds school packed lunches filled with pasties, Wotsits and squash

98 per cent of lunches served up by parents are classified as 'unhealthy'

Some lunches found in primary schools met none of the official standards

Some children are being sent to school with a packed lunch made up of a pasty, Wotsits, a chocolate bar and sugary squash.

Details have been revealed in a new study which found that 98 per cent of packed lunches served up by parents are 'unhealthy'.

The common collection of crisps, snacks, sugary drinks and sweets means they do not meet minimum nutrition standards set for school canteens.

Some lunches found in the study of primary schools by academics from Leeds University met none of the official standards.

One of these included a pasty, a packet of Wotsits, a chocolate bar and a blackcurrant squash.

Another was made up of a chocolate roll, a packet of Hula Hoops and blackcurrant squash.

The study found that just 1.6per cent of children receive a packed lunch that could be considered healthy, which is little better than similar research 10 years ago.

Some 52per cent of lunchboxes contained too many sweets, such as chocolate bars and Haribos, and 60per cent too many savoury items like crisps.

Just 17per cent of the lunches contained any kind of vegetables or salad.

The study found 46per cent of packs contained sugar sweetened drinks, which was an improvement on the 61per cent when the study was last conducted in 2006.

Despite some improvements over the past ten years, few packed lunches met the minimum standards for energy, protein, vitamin A, iron or zinc.

This is most likely due to the lack of fresh salad and vegetables and un-processed meat or fish.

Sandwiches were in 83per cent of lunch packs. White bread dominated, ahead of tortilla wraps, but very few were made with healthy wholemeal.

Ham was the dominant filling, but some parents went for jam or marmite.

Crisps were in 60per cent of packs, fruit in 57per cent and confectionary, such as chocolate biscuits and cakes, were in 52per cent.

The study's lead researcher, Dr Charlotte Evans, who is a Nutritional Epidemiologist, said the Government and schools need to take action against junk food lunchboxes.

'I hope the results of the study are an eye-opener, highlighting that more stringent policies need to be introduced if we want to see real change in the nutritional value of children's packed lunches,' she said.

'New policies for schools, food manufacturers and retailers are needed, which will require strong support from government and stakeholders if progress is to be made.'

Sharon Hodgson MP, who is chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for School Food, said: 'The research highlights the need for more action to be taken on food put in children's packed lunches, something which the School Food APPG has recently called for.

'Despite positive moves with regards to the food provided as part of a school meal, food brought in by children in their packed lunches is lagging behind. Therefore we need more action to be taken if we want to see positive changes occur.'

The food brand Flora funded the research and is involved in a push to encourage families to improve the health of lunchbox food.

It has distributed 631,000 lunchboxes to retailers throughout the UK containing easy-to-make plant-based recipes alongside Flora spread.

Flora has also compiled a healthy kids section on their website offering tips to parents to help even the fussiest eaters.

The company's James Brennan said: 'We want to see that policies are implemented to enable standards to be met, and we wish to do so by working alongside Government, raising wider awareness of the issue, and by giving busy parents a helping hand.

'We have distributed 631,000 lunchboxes containing a healthy lunchbox meal planner and we've made available online lunchbox recipe inspiration and tips to make shopping and preparing a nutritionally balanced packed lunch easier.'

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Sean Poulter Consumer Affairs Editor For The Daily Mail

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More than 98% of parents' packed lunches are classified as 'unhealthy'

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Study finds school packed lunches filled with pasties, Wotsits and squash 98 per cent of lunches served up by parents are classified as 'unhealthy' Some lunches found in primary schools met none of the official standards Some children are being sent to school with a packed lunch made up of a pasty, Wotsits, a chocolate bar and sugary squash.

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In the coming year, we will publish a series of essays that further explores each aspect of this agenda, with the hope that those on the frontlines of education can make them a part of their schools.

Students

1. Engage: Project-Based Learning
Students go beyond the textbook to study complex topics based on real-world issues, such as the water quality in their communities or the history of their town, analyzing information from multiple sources, including the Internet and interviews with experts. Project-based classwork is more demanding than traditional book-based instruction, where students may just memorize facts from a single source. Instead, students utilize original documents and data, mastering principles covered in traditional courses but learning them in more meaningful ways. Projects can last weeks; multiple projects can cover entire courses. Student work is presented to audiences beyond the teacher, including parents and community groups.
Reality Check: At the Clear View Charter School, in Chula Vista, California, fourth- and fifth-grade students collected insect specimens, studied them under an electron microscope via a fiber-optic link to a nearby university, used Internet resources for their reports, and discussed their findings with university entomologists.
2. Connect: Integrated Studies
Studies should enable students to reach across traditional disciplines and explore their relationships, like James Burke described in his book Connections. History, literature, and art can be interwoven and studied together. Integrated studies enable subjects to be investigated using many forms of knowledge and expression, as literacy skills are expanded beyond the traditional focus on words and numbers to include graphics, color, music, and motion.
Reality Check: Through a national project called Nature Mapping, fourth-grade students in rural Washington learn reading, writing, mathematics, science, and technology use while searching for rare lizards.
3. Share: Cooperative Learning
Working together on project teams and guided by trained teachers, students learn the skills of collaborating, managing emotions, and resolving conflicts in groups. Each member of the team is responsible for learning the subject matter as well as helping teammates to learn. Cooperative learning develops social and emotional skills, providing a valuable foundation for their lives as workers, family members, and citizens.
Reality Check: In Eeva Reeder's tenth-grade geometry class at Mountlake Terrace High School, near Seattle, student teams design "schools of the future" while mentoring with local architects. They manage deadlines and resolve differences to produce models, budgets, and reports far beyond what an individual student could accomplish.
4. Expand: Comprehensive Assessment
Assessment should be expanded beyond simple test scores to instead provide a detailed, continuous profile of student strengths and weaknesses. Teachers, parents, and individual students can closely monitor academic progress and use the assessment to focus on areas that need improvement. Tests should be an opportunity for students to learn from their mistakes, retake the test, and improve their scores.
Reality Check: At the Key Learning Community, in Indianapolis, teachers employ written rubrics to assess students' strengths and weaknesses using categories based on Howard Gardner's concept of multiple intelligences, including spatial, musical, and interpersonal skills.
Teachers

5. Coach: Intellectual and Emotional Guide
The most important role for teachers is to coach and guide students through the learning process, giving special attention to nurturing a student's interests and self-confidence. As technology provides more curricula, teachers can spend less time lecturing entire classes and more time mentoring students as individuals and tutoring them in areas in which they need help or seek additional challenges.
Reality Check: Brooklyn fifth-grade teacher Sarah Button uses exercises and simulations from the Resolving Conflict Creatively Program with her students, helping them learn empathy, cooperation, positive expression of feelings, and appreciation of diversity.
6. Learn: Teaching as Apprenticeship
Preparation for a teaching career should follow the model of apprenticeships, in which novices learn from experienced masters. Student teachers should spend less time in lecture halls learning educational theory and more time in classrooms, working directly with students and master teachers. Teaching skills should be continually sharpened, with time to take courses, attend conferences, and share lessons and tips with other teachers, online and in person.
Reality Check: Online communities such as Middle Web, the Teacher Leaders Network, and the Teachers Network bring novice and expert educators together in a Web-based professional community. The online mentorship gives novice teachers access to accomplished practitioners eager to strengthen the profession at its roots.
Schools

7. Adopt: Technology
The intelligent use of technology can transform and improve almost every aspect of school, modernizing the nature of curriculum, student assignments, parental connections, and administration. Online curricula now include lesson plans, simulations, and demonstrations for classroom use and review. With online connections, students can share their work and communicate more productively and creatively. Teachers can maintain records and assessments using software tools and stay in close touch with students and families via email and voicemail. Schools can reduce administrative costs by using technology tools, as other fields have done, and provide more funds for the classroom.
Reality Check: Students in Geoff Ruth's high school chemistry class at Leadership High School, in San Francisco, have abandoned their textbooks. Instead, they plan, research, and implement their experiments using material gathered online from reliable chemistry resources.
8. Reorganize: Resources
Resources of time, money, and facilities must be restructured. The school day should allow for more in-depth project work beyond the 45-minute period, including block scheduling of classes two hours or longer. Schools should not close for a three-month summer vacation, but should remain open for student activities, teacher development, and community use. Through the practice of looping, elementary school teachers stay with a class for two or more years, deepening their relationships with students. More money in school districts should be directed to the classroom rather than the bureaucracy.

New school construction and renovation should emphasize school design that supports students and teachers collaborating in teams, with pervasive access to technology. Schools can be redesigned to also serve as community centers that provide health and social services for families, as well as counseling and parenting classes.
Reality Check: The school year at the Alice Carlson Applied Learning Center, in Fort Worth, Texas, consists of four blocks of about nine weeks each. Intersession workshops allow its K-5 students time for hands-on arts, science, and computer projects or sports in addition to language arts and math enrichment.
Communities

9. Involve: Parents
When schoolwork involves parents, students learn more. Parents and other caregivers are a child's first teachers and can instill values that encourage school learning. Schools should build strong alliances with parents and welcome their active participation in the classroom. Educators should inform parents of the school's educational goals, the importance of high expectations for each child, and ways of assisting with homework and classroom lessons.
Reality Check: In the Sacramento Unified School District, teachers make home visits to students' families. Teachers gain a better understanding of their students' home environment, and parents see that teachers are committed to forging closer home-school bonds. If English is not spoken in the home, translators accompany the teachers.
10. Include: Community Partners
Partnerships with a wide range of community organizations, including business, higher education, museums, and government agencies, provide critically needed materials, technology, and experiences for students and teachers. These groups expose students and teachers to the world of work through school-to-career programs and internships. Schools should enlist professionals to act as instructors and mentors for students.
Reality Check: At the Minnesota Business Academy, in St. Paul, businesses ranging from a newspaper to a stock brokerage to an engineering firm provide internships for three to four hours per day, twice each week. BestPrep, a philanthropic state business group, spearheaded an effort that renovated an old science building for school use.

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Big Ideas for Better Schools: Ten Ways to Improve Education | Edutopia

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Ideas for students, teachers, schools, and communities.

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Our children need-and deserve-healthy food. A diet rich in fruits, vegetables, lean proteins and whole grains, as recommended by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and nutrition experts, can help kids grow up physically healthy, mentally alert, and capable of meeting the challenges of adulthood in the 21st century.

But in a food system dominated by unhealthy, artificially cheap processed foods, access to healthy food is a serious problem for many American children. As a result, childhood obesity has grown rapidly over recent decades-especially for low-income and minority children-with long-term health consequences that will shorten lives and send health care costs soaring.

In this grim food landscape, there's one oasis for millions of kids: the school cafeteria.

Why school lunch matters

The National School Lunch Program (NSLP), created by Congress in 1946 and shaped by additional legislation over the following decades, provides support-mostly in the form of cash subsidies-for schools to provide meals to students. Participating schools must serve lunches that adhere to federal nutrition standards, and they must offer free or reduced price (FRP) lunches to children who qualify.

For many students, NSLP meals are a crucial source of healthy foods that their families may not have the access, money, or time to provide during the rest of the day. The program also turns lunchtime into an opportunity for nutrition education: by showing students what a healthy diet looks like, the school can provide a counterpoint to the steady stream of messages promoting unhealthy, processed foods to children and their parents.

In the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 (HHFKA), Congress improved the program's nutritional standards, bringing them into better alignment with current federal dietary guidelines. Although there is considerable evidence that HHFKA is working, it has provoked a backlash from some school nutrition professionals, who claim that it has resulted in increased waste and negative attitudes toward healthy food.

The data are in: school lunch works

To assess how well subsidized school lunches succeed at putting healthier food in kids' mouths, UCS analyzed data from a Department of Education study that tracked the eating behavior of a cohort of students. The study surveyed the group as fifth graders in 2004 and again as eighth graders in 2007.

The resulting report, Lessons from the Lunchroom, shows that federally subsidized school lunches do make a difference: children who were FRP lunch recipients ate more fruits and vegetables than their peers who were not. However, the report also confirms the challenges that school lunch programs face in the larger food environment: FRP students consumed more fast food and sugary drinks than non-FRP students, and they were more likely to be obese, a difference that increased between fifth and eighth grade.

Give healthy food a chance: what Congress needs to do

In 2015, the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act is up for renewal. This is a crucial opportunity to strengthen what is working about current federal school lunch policy and to provide support for schools that have struggled to implement HHFKA successfully.

Our policy brief, Healthy School Meals, Healthy Children, offers several specific recommendations that Congress should incorporate into a renewed HHFKA-including increased reimbursement funding, better nutrition education, investment in cafeteria equipment, and increased support for Farm to School programs.

Zooming out: the need for a national food policy

Ultimately, both the successes and the challenges of school lunch programs point us back to the bigger picture: the need for a comprehensive national food and well-being policy that will align food-related public policy initiatives around a consistent set of priorities, with the goal of ensuring access to healthy, sustainably grown food for every American. UCS has begun working with a broad range of allies to build a movement that will make such a national food policy a reality.

What you can do

Helping kids eat healthier is an issue that we all have a stake in. To find out more about what you can do to promote access to healthy food in your community, download our healthy food policy toolkit.

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School Lunch and Beyond: Better Food Policy for Healthier Kids

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Our children need-and deserve-healthy food. A diet rich in fruits, vegetables, lean proteins and whole grains, as recommended by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and nutrition experts, can help kids grow up physically healthy, mentally alert, and capable of meeting the challenges of adulthood in the 21st century.

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Good or Bad?

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Cell Phones at School: The Debate of Legitimacy | Christian School Solutions | Articles | BJU Press

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On at least one school issue, many parents find themselves agreeing with their children rather than their teachers: that is the permissible use of cell phones at school. Many parents and students vigorously support the legitimacy of allowing cell phones in the classroom, but most teachers still oppose the practice.

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Research Trends: Why Homework Should Be Balanced

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Research Trends: Why Homework Should Be Balanced

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Homework: effective learning tool or waste of time?

Since the average high school student spends almost seven hours each week doing homework, it's surprising that there's no clear answer. Homework is generally recognized as an effective way to reinforce what students learn in class, but claims that it may cause more harm than good, especially for younger students, are common.

Here's what the research says:

In general, homework has substantial benefits at the high school level, with decreased benefits for middle school students and few benefits for elementary students (Cooper, 1989; Cooper et al., 2006).

While assigning homework may have academic benefits, it can also cut into important personal and family time (Cooper et al., 2006).

Assigning too much homework can result in poor performance (Fernández-Alonso et al., 2015).

A student's ability to complete homework may depend on factors that are outside their control (Cooper et al., 2006; OECD, 2014; Eren & Henderson, 2011).

The goal shouldn't be to eliminate homework, but to make it authentic, meaningful, and engaging (Darling-Hammond & Ifill-Lynch, 2006).

Why Homework Should Be Balanced

Homework can boost learning, but doing too much can be detrimental. The National PTA and National Education Association support the "10-minute homework rule," which recommends 10 minutes of homework per grade level, per night (10 minutes for first grade, 20 minutes for second grade, and so on, up to two hours for 12th grade) (Cooper, 2010). A recent study found that when middle school students were assigned more than 90-100 minutes of homework per day, their math and science scores began to decline (Fernández-Alonso, Suárez-Álvarez, & Muñiz, 2015). Giving students too much homework can lead to fatigue, stress, and a loss of interest in academics-something that we all want to avoid.

Homework Pros and Cons

Homework has many benefits, ranging from higher academic performance to improved study skills and stronger school-parent connections. However, it can also result in a loss of interest in academics, fatigue, and a loss of important personal and family time.

Grade Level Makes a Difference

Although the debate about homework generally falls in the "it works" vs. "it doesn't work" camps, research shows that grade level makes a difference. High school students generally get the biggest benefits from homework, with middle school students getting about half the benefits, and elementary school students getting few benefits (Cooper et al., 2006). Since young students are still developing study habits like concentration and self-regulation, assigning a lot of homework isn't all that helpful.

Parents Should Be Supportive, Not Intrusive

Well-designed homework not only strengthens student learning, it also provides ways to create connections between a student's family and school. Homework offers parents insight into what their children are learning, provides opportunities to talk with children about their learning, and helps create conversations with school communities about ways to support student learning (Walker et al., 2004).

However, parent involvement can also hurt student learning. Patall, Cooper, and Robinson (2008) found that students did worse when their parents were perceived as intrusive or controlling. Motivation plays a key role in learning, and parents can cause unintentional harm by not giving their children enough space and autonomy to do their homework.

Homework Across the Globe

OECD, the developers of the international PISA test, published a 2014 report looking at homework around the world. They found that 15-year-olds worldwide spend an average of five hours per week doing homework (the U.S. average is about six hours). Surprisingly, countries like Finland and Singapore spend less time on homework (two to three hours per week) but still have high PISA rankings. These countries, the report explains, have support systems in place that allow students to rely less on homework to succeed. If a country like the U.S. were to decrease the amount of homework assigned to high school students, test scores would likely decrease unless additional supports were added.

Homework Is About Quality, Not Quantity

Whether you're pro- or anti-homework, keep in mind that research gives a big-picture idea of what works and what doesn't, and a capable teacher can make almost anything work. The question isn't homework vs. no homework; instead, we should be asking ourselves, "How can we transform homework so that it's engaging and relevant and supports learning?"

References

Cooper, H. (1989). Synthesis of research on homework. Educational leadership, 47(3), 85-91.

Cooper, H. (2010). Homework's Diminishing Returns. The New York Times.

Cooper, H., Robinson, J. C., & Patall, E. A. (2006). Does homework improve academic achievement? A synthesis of research, 1987-2003. Review of Educational Research, 76(1), 1-62.

Darling-Hammond, L., & Ifill-Lynch, O. (2006). If They'd Only Do Their Work! Educational Leadership, 63(5), 8-13.

Eren, O., & Henderson, D. J. (2011). Are we wasting our children's time by giving them more homework? Economics of Education Review, 30(5), 950-961.

Fernández-Alonso, R., Suárez-Álvarez, J., & Muñiz, J. (2015, March 16). Adolescents' Homework Performance in Mathematics and Science: Personal Factors and Teaching Practices. Journal of Educational Psychology. Advance online publication.

OECD (2014). Does Homework Perpetuate Inequities in Education? PISA in Focus, No. 46, OECD Publishing, Paris.

Patall, E. A., Cooper, H., & Robinson, J. C. (2008). Parent involvement in homework: A research synthesis. Review of Educational Research, 78(4), 1039-1101.

Van Voorhis, F. L. (2003). Interactive homework in middle school: Effects on family involvement and science achievement. The Journal of Educational Research, 96(6), 323-338.

Walker, J. M., Hoover-Dempsey, K. V., Whetsel, D. R., & Green, C. L. (2004). Parental involvement in homework: A review of current research and its implications for teachers, after school program staff, and parent leaders. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Family Research Project.

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Research Trends: Why Homework Should Be Balanced

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Homework: effective learning tool or waste of time? Since the average high school student spends almost seven hours each week doing homework, it's surprising that there's no clear answer. Homework is generally recognized as an effective way to reinforce what students learn in class, but claims that it may cause more harm than good, especially for younger students, are common.

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Late School Start Improves Teen Behavior

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Late School Start Improves Teen Behavior

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Policy Prescriptions

Study Finds Late School Start Improves Teen Behavior

A new study in the journal Sleep has confirmed the idea that there could be positive outcomes if high schoolers were able to start school later in the morning. This research, performed by faculty members at St. Lawrence University in New York, set out to determine whether "sleep, mood, behavior and academics improved after a 45-minute delay in high school start time." The outcome: Even though students delayed but didn't necessarily extend their sleep time, the researchers did find "lasting improvements" in two areas: tardiness and disciplinary violations.

Beginning in May 2012, Associate Professors of psychology Pamela Thacher and Serge Onyper collected baseline data from school records and student self-reporting at New York's Glen Falls High School. At that point the start time for classes was 7:45 a.m. After the start time was moved to 8:26 at the beginning of the 2012-2013 school year, the researchers performed two follow-ups, one in November 2012 and the other in May 2013. Instead of school ending at 2:22 p.m., it ended each day at 3 p.m.

At the first follow-up, students reported 20 minutes of additional sleep. Yet, in the second follow-up, students maintained later rise times but delayed bedtimes, thereby "returning total sleep to baseline levels."

The researchers found that the later start time improved "daytime behaviors." However, it had no effect on physical or mental health; nor did it increase exam grades or standardized test scores.

Thacher and Onyper acknowledged that changing school times can inspire strong opinions, both for and against. To encourage support of the project, the school communicated with its families through monthly newsletters that shared updates on the sleep study and links to other research about teens and sleep.

One argument against later start times is that they'll have a negative impact on students who participate in after-school sports. A local television news story about the experiment interviewed a student athlete who was initially "dead-set" against the time change. After two years, even she was convinced. As the report quoted, "I love the later start time. I honestly can say that. You know, I can admit that I'm wrong. I was wrong."

"When students are delinquent and aggressive, late and insubordinate, learning cannot occur," said Thacher in a prepared statement. "We believe our findings with respect to discipline and tardiness are significant because improvements in these domains can help every student in the classroom. For example, benefits could include improved safety, morale, ease and efficiency of operation for most school systems."

To gain changes in those other areas, she suggested, may require "larger improvements in sleep patterns."

About the Author

Dian Schaffhauser is a senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal and Campus Technology. She can be reached at dian@dischaffhauser.com or on Twitter @schaffhauser.

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Study Finds Late School Start Improves Teen Behavior -- THE Journal

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Policy Prescriptions A new study in the journal Sleep has confirmed the idea that there could be positive outcomes if high schoolers were able to start school later in the morning. This research, performed by faculty members at St.

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Is Homework Good for Kids? Here’s What the Research Says

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For principals and administrators, spring means a welcome end to snow days and delayed start times. But as the flowers and trees emerge from their winter slumber, so too do short pants, T-shirts, flip-flops and the inevitable battles over what kids can and can't wear to school.

It might as well be called "dress code" season.

Look no further than Quebec for the latest example: Administrators there last month ruled that an 11th-grader's shorts were too short. The student, Lindsey Stocker, then made up posters and placed them around the school in protest. She ended up with a one-day suspension.

A Texas high school last month suspended more than 150 students in a single day. The dress code at Duncanville High School bans hats and hoods inside buildings, requires skirts to be hemmed at the bend of the knee and prohibits "sagging" pants, according to The Dallas Morning News.

And the Internet lit up recently with reports that a Utah high school digitally altered yearbook photos, adding in higher sleeves and necklines to the photos of female students deemed to have showed too much skin.

Many school dress codes also govern hair, grooming and body modifications: In March, a Colorado third-grader who shaved her head to support a friend undergoing cancer treatment violated her school's dress code and was out of school for one day, according to The Los Angeles Times.

School administrators say that its one of the most vexing parts of their jobs, and often puts them in the very difficult position of balancing free expression with the goals of learning.

"It is about that freedom of expression," says G.A. Buie, the principal of Eudora High School in Eudora, Kan. "They want to be individuals; they want to put themselves out there to be noticed. But at the same time, sometimes that can be a disruption to the school. That's where the fine line comes in there."

This year, Buie says, shorts were the big issue in Eudora, a city of 6,100 located east of Lawrence. And there, sometimes there are two issues: one of compliance, and one of good taste.

"Sometimes as an adult, you get almost embarrassed for the kids. That's where some of the challenges come in," he says. For example, "those shorts look OK on this person, but maybe that's not appropriate on someone else."

"They want to be individuals; they want to put themselves out there to be noticed. But at the same time, sometimes that can be a disruption to the school. That's where the fine line comes in there."

So clearly there are as many opinions on what's "appropriate" as there are threads hanging from those forbidden cutoffs.

And each school or district has to wrestle with this problem. But, we wondered, are there common ... threads?

Almost half the public schools in the country now have a dress code (or require students to wear uniforms) according to a survey by Lands' End and the National Association of Elementary School Principals. And that number, the survey found, has increased from 21 percent in 2000.

But there's no repository or database for all of them or what they say.

So we did an informal examination of dress codes at public, co-ed schools in each of the 50 states. Most, we found, offer broad guidelines as to what can be worn on school property. From there, though, districts leave most decisions about what crosses the line and what doesn't up to individual administrators and teachers.

And, of course, therein lies the rub. A hemline that's too short for Principal A may look perfectly fine to Principal B.

Here's what most dress codes seem to have in common:

Shorts/Skirt Length: Most schools we surveyed have some rules on how long skirts and shorts must be, and how short is too short. Some go with the "fingertip rule" (shorts and skirts must extend beyond the fingertips), while others require only an "appropriate length."

Bare Shoulders/Midriffs: Navel-baring blouses are a no-go at nearly every school we surveyed. Most also put some regulation on shirt sleeves. Spaghetti-strap tank tops are a common target. So are halter tops - but some schools ban sleeveless shirts all together.

Illegal/Profane/Suggestive Content: Clothing that suggests or portrays violence, illegal acts or illegal substances are almost an unequivocal no. Mostly, we're talking T-shirts here.

Beyond these common themes, a few policies caught our eye.

At Ashland High School in Ashland, Colo., for example, headbands aren't allowed. Coveralls and jumpsuits are off limits at North Cobbs High School in Kennesaw, Ga.

And don't think about writing down a reminder on the back of your hand at Central High School in Camp Point, Ill. That school forbids "body drawings with ink, marker," according to its dress code.
Gender Bias?
If you're wondering whether dress code policies disproportionately govern what female students can - or can't - wear to school, you're right. Our informal survey showed that regulations are more restrictive for women than for men.

And many of the protests surrounding dress codes center on the question of whether they disproportionately target girls and women. In Quebec, the fliers Lindsey Stockton posted around her school were inspired by an online image that read: "Don't humiliate her because she is wearing shorts. It's hot outside. Instead of shaming girls for their bodies, teach boys that girls are not sexual objects."

Women participating in the #YesAllWomen discussion on social media also suggested a gendered dress code bias.

Prom season is another touch point and one where gender also plays a big role.

Some high schools have gone so far as to create detailed slideshows to show students what's acceptable and what's not on the big night. And most focus on prom dresses. According to a slideshow from Vanguard High School in Ocala, Fla., bare midriffs, "ballerina dresses," side cutouts and low-cut backs are all prohibited. So are dresses with sheer overlays, "deep cleavage" and sheer netting that shows skin.

So what about the guys? The only mention they get in this slideshow is that if they bring an "off campus date and they are not in compliance, they can be turned away." Nothing about their clothes.

A district spokesman, Kevin Christian, explained via email that "as for male vs. female dress codes, the general understanding (I think you'll agree) is there are fewer options for males, therefore fewer opportunities to wear something inappropriate and/or unacceptable."

Near Houston, the Spring Independent School District does have some rules for male promgoers: no hats, no canes, no athletic shoes and no work boots. "Tuxedos and suits with a dress shirt, pants and tie are allowed," the regulations for this year's prom read. And for female students? A lengthy list of rules ticks off restrictions on dress length, neckline, back line, torsos and slits.
Transgender Issues
Many schools are also trying to figure out how to resolve dress codes for transgender students. Can a student who was born female but who identifies as male wear a tuxedo to prom? If a skirt is an acceptable length, can a student who was born male but identifies as female wear it to class?

Schools are finding there is no easy answer.

Last year, students at a Batesville, Miss., high school protested after a senior who was born male but identified as female was allowed to wear women's clothing. According to local news reports, students felt their classmate was being given preferential treatment and breaking the school's dress code, which requires students to conform to gender.

The National Center for Transgender Equality and the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network have compiled what they say is a model policy for districts relating to transgender and gender nonconforming students.

"Students shall have the right to dress in accordance with their gender identity, within the constraints of the dress codes adopted by the school," their policy reads. "School staff shall not enforce a school's dress code more strictly against transgender and gender nonconforming students than other students."

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For principals and administrators, spring means a welcome end to snow days and delayed start times. But as the flowers and trees emerge from their winter slumber, so too do short pants, T-shirts, flip-flops and the inevitable battles over what kids can and can't wear to school.

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11 Ways Finland's Education System Shows That "Less is More"

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11 Ways Finland's Education System Shows That "Less is More"

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When I left my 7th grade math classroom for my Fulbright research assignment in Finland I thought I would come back from this experience with more inspiring, engaging, innovative lessons. I expected to have great new ideas on how to teach my mathematics curriculum and I would revamp my lessons so that I could include more curriculum, more math and get students to think more, talk more and do more math.

This drive to do more and More and MORE is a state of existence for most teachers in the US....it is engrained in us from day one. There is a constant pressure to push our students to the next level to have them do bigger and better things. The lessons have to be more exciting, more engaging and cover more content. This phenomena is driven by data, or parents, or administrators or simply by our work-centric society where we gauge our success as a human being by how busy we are and how burnt out we feel at the end of the day. We measure our worth with completed lists and we criminalize down time. We teach this "work till you drop" mentality to our students who either simply give up somewhere along the way or become as burnt out as we find ourselves.

When I arrived in Finland I did not find big flashy innovative thought provoking math lessons. I did not find students who were better at mathematics or knew more math content. In fact the Jr. High and High school math classrooms have been rather typical of what I have experienced in Indiana. And most of the struggles (like students not remembering their basic math facts) were the same. The instruction and classroom structure of a math classroom in Finland follows the basic formula that has been performed by math teachers for centuries: The teachers go over homework, they present a lesson (some of the kids listen and some don't), and then they assign homework. While some lectures have been wonderful and I have gotten to observe some fantastic teachers, I would say that on the whole I have seen more engaging and interactive secondary math instruction from teachers in the United States. It is rare to see a math lesson that is measurably better than those found in my district and I have seen several that were actually far worse.

So, what is the difference? If the instruction in secondary mathematics is the same or sometimes worse than those found in the US, why are Finnish students succeeding and ours are failing? The difference is not the instruction. Good teaching is good teaching and it can be found in both Finland and in the US. (The same can be said for bad teaching.) The difference is less tangible and more fundamental. Finland truly believes "Less is More." This national mantra is deeply engrained into the Finnish mindset and is the guiding principal to Finland's educational philosophy.
Less IS more.
They believe it. They live by it. Their houses are not larger than what they need in which to comfortably live. They do not buy or over consume. They live simply and humbly. They don't feel the need to have 300 types of cereal to choose from when 10 will do. The women wear less make-up. The men don't have giant trucks (or any vehicles at all, really). Instead of buying hundreds of cheap articles of clothing the Finns buy a few expensive items of high quality that will last for decades rather than months. They truly believe and live by the mentality of less is more.

Conversely in the US we truly believe "more is more" and we constantly desire and pursue more in all areas of our lives. We are obsessed with all things new, shiny and exciting and are constantly wanting to upgrade our lives. Out with the old in with the new! This mentality of "more is more" creeps into all areas of our lives and it confuses and stifles our education system.

We can't even stick to ONE philosophy of education long enough to see if it actually works. We are constantly trying new methods, ideas and initiatives. We keep adding more and more to our plates without removing any of the past ideas. Currently we believe "more" is the answer to all of our education problems- everything can be solved with MORE classes, longer days, MORE homework, MORE assignments, MORE pressure, MORE content, MORE meetings, MORE after school tutoring, and of course MORE testing! All this is doing is creating MORE burnt out teachers, MORE stressed out students and MORE frustration.

Finland on the other hand believes less is more. This is exemplified in several ways for both teachers and students.
Less = More
1. Less Formal Schooling = More Options

Students in Finland start formal schooling at the age of seven. Yes, seven! Finland allows their children to be children, to learn through playing and exploring rather than sitting still locked up in a classroom. But don't they get behind? No! The kids start school when they are actually developmentally ready to learn and focus. This first year is followed by only nine years of compulsory school. Everything after ninth grade is optional and at the age of 16 the students can choose from the following three tracks:

* Upper Secondary School: This three year program prepares students for the Matriculation Test that determines their acceptance into University. Students usually pick which upper secondary school they would like to attend based on the school's specialties and apply to get into that institution. I think of this as a mixture of High School and College. (In recent years a little less than 40% choose this option.)

*Vocational Education: This is a three year program that trains students for various careers as well as gives them the option to take the Matriculation test to then apply for University should they so choose. However, the students in this track are usually content with their skill and either enter the workforce or they go on to a Poly-technical College to get further training. (A little less than 60% choose this track.)

(But wait! Shouldn't everyone take calculus, economics, and advanced chemistry?! Shouldn't everyone get a University degree?! No, not everyone has to go to University! Hmmm..... interesting..... What if we provided options for those who want to become successful (and very profitable) welders or electricians? What if we didn't force students who know that their talents reside outside of the world of formal academics to take three years of high school classes that they found boring and useless? What if we allowed them to train in and explore vocations they found fascinating and in which they were gifted? What if we made these students feel valued and like they had a place in the education realm?)

* Enter the workforce. (Less than 5% choose this path)

2. Less Time in School = More Rest

Students typically start school between 9:00 and 9:45. Actually, Helsinki is thinking of creating a law stating that schools cannot begin before 9:00 am because research has consistently proved that adolescents need quality sleep in the morning. The school day usually ends by 2:00 or 2:45. Some days they start earlier and some days they start later. Finnish students' schedules are always different and changing; however they typically have three to four 75 minute classes a day with several breaks in between. This overall system allows both students and teachers to be well rested and ready to teach/learn.

3. Fewer Instruction Hours = More Planning Time

Teachers have shorter days as well. According to the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) an average Finnish teacher teaches 600 hours annually or about 4 or less lessons daily. An average U.S. teacher almost doubles that teaching time with an average of over 1,080 hours of in-class instruction annually. This equals an average of six or more lessons daily. Also, teachers and students in Finland are not expected to be at school when they do not have a class. For example, if they don't have any afternoon classes on Thursdays, they (both teachers and students) can simply leave. Or if their first class on a Wednesday starts at 11:00, they don't have to be at school until that time. This system allows the Finnish teacher more time to plan and think about each lesson. It allows them to create great, thought provoking lessons.

4. Fewer Teachers = More Consistency and Care

Elementary students in Finland often have the SAME teacher for up to SIX YEARS of their education. That is right! The same teacher cares for, nurtures and tends to the education of the same group of students for six years in a row. And you had better believe that during those six years with the same 15-20 students, those teachers have figured out the individual instructional needs and learning styles of each and every student. These teachers know where each of their students have been and where they are going. They track the kids' progress and have a personal invested interest in seeing the kids succeed and reach their goals. There is no "passing the buck" onto the next teacher because they ARE the next teacher. If there is a discipline or behavior problem, the teacher had better nip it in the bud right away or else deal with it the next six years. ( Some schools in Finland only loop their elementary children for three years at a time instead of six, however the benefits are still the same. )

This system is not only helpful to a child because it gives them the consistency, care and individualized attention they need, it also helps the teachers understand the curriculum in a holistic and linear way. The teacher knows what they need to teach to get them to the next step, while also giving the teachers freedom to work at the pace of their students. Teachers don't feel the pressure to speed up or slow down so that they are "ready" for the teacher next year. Again, they are the teacher next year and they control the curriculum! They know where the kids are and what they have learned and will plan according to the students' needs! I really believe this is a HUGE part of Finland's success story and it does not receive enough attention.

5. Fewer Accepted Applicants= More Confidence in Teachers

So......children have the same teacher for three to six years. What if your kid gets a "bad teacher"? Finland works very hard to make sure there are no "bad teachers." Primary education is THE most competitive degree to get in Finland. The elementary education departments in Finland only accept 10% of all applicants and turns down thousands of students annually. A person not only has to be the best and the brightest to become a primary teacher, they also have to have passed a series of interviews and personality screenings to get in. So, it isn't enough to be the smartest in your class, you also have to have the natural ability and drive to teach.

Finland understands that the ability to teach isn't something that can be gained from studying. It is usually a gift and passion. Some have it, some don't. The few universities with teaching programs in Finland make sure they only accept applicants that have that gift. On top of excellent grades, and a natural disposition to be a teacher, all teachers must get a Master's degree and write a Master's Thesis. This generates a lot of confidence and trust in Finland's teachers. Parents trust the teachers to be highly qualified, trained, and gifted individuals. They do not try to interfere or usurp their authority and decisions. I asked a math teacher how many emails they typically get from parents. They shrugged and answered "About five or six". I said, "Oh, I get about that much a day too." They then answered..."No! I meant five or six a semester!" Again, what would it be like to live in a society based on trust and respect?

6. Fewer Classes= More Breaks

As I stated before, students only have three to four (or rarely, five) classes a day. They also have several breaks/recesses/ snack times during the day and these usually happen outside come rain or shine. These 15 to 20 minute gives them time to digest what they are learning, use their muscles, stretch their legs, get some fresh air and let out the "wiggles." There are several neurological advantages for these breaks. Study after study supports the need for children to be physically active in order to learn. Stagnation of the body leads to stagnation of the brain and unfocused, "hyper" children.

The teachers also have these breaks. The first day I was in a school in Finland a teacher apologized for the state of the "Teacher Room." She then commented on the fact that all teacher rooms must look like this. I laughed and politely agreed, but in my head I was thinking; "What is a teacher room?" A teacher's room is what used to be called the teacher's lounge in the U.S...back before they went extinct. In Finland these rooms are always full of teachers who are either working, preparing, grabbing a cup of coffee, or simply resting, socializing, and mentally preparing for their next class.

Secondary level teachers usually have 10 to 20 minute breaks in between classes and often have a few skip (prep) periods as well. These rooms are different depending on the school, but from what I can tell the basic formula is a few tables, a few couches, a coffee pot, a kitchen, a selection of free fruit and snacks, and teachers to talk and collaborate with. A few of them even have massage chairs! Ha!

So, why don't these rooms of collaboration, support and solace exist in the U.S.? We do not have TIME! Every day we teach six to seven classes in a row with no breaks. The three to five minute passing periods we do get are often used to answer emails from parents, erase the board, get ready for the next class, make copies, answer student questions, pick up the mess left behind by the students, and (heaven forbid) go to the bathroom! If we have a spare moment we are then expected to monitor the hallway because we can't trust students to get to class without supervision. The luxury of actually sitting down for 10 minutes and enjoying a cup of coffee with some colleagues is an absolute dream, and having a day with only three classes-that is a fantasy!

7. Less Testing = More Learning

Imagine all of the exciting things you could do with your students if there wasn't a giant state test looming over your head every year. Imagine the freedom you could have if your pay wasn't connected to your student's test scores. Imagine how much more fun and engaging your lessons would be!

Although it still exists, there is overall less pressure on the teacher in Finland to get through the curriculum. The teacher is simply trusted to do a good job and therefore they have more control over their classroom and its content. The teacher is able to take more risks and try new things and create exciting, engaging curriculum that allows students to become skilled individuals ready for the real world. They have time to teach skills that allow students to develop into individuals who know how to start a project and work systematically to accomplish a goal. They have time to teach craft education where students get to learn how to do real life skills like sewing, cooking, cleaning, woodworking and more! And while they are learning these amazing skills they are also learning math and problem solving and how to follow directions!

8. Fewer Topics = More Depth

I have observed several fifth through ninth grade math classes in Finland. I have looked at the curriculum covered over these five years of education and I realized that I attempt to teach the content of five years of Finnish math education in one year. Each math topic presented in every grade level I have observed here is include in my seventh grade curriculum.

Again, the American mentality of "more is more" simply does not work. If I am to get through everything I am expected to do in one year I have to introduce a new topic/lesson every other day and I always feel "behind". Behind what, I am not sure, but the pressure is there pushing me and my students along. In Finland, teachers take their time. They look deeper into the topic and don't panic if they are a little behind or don't cover every topic in the existence of mathematics in a single year.

Also, students only have math a few times a week. In fact, after Easter Break, all of my seventh graders only have math ONCE a week! My heart still panics a little when I hear this! I can't believe that is enough math time! How will they be ready for the tests?! Oh- wait. There are no tests. There is no need to rush through. The students get to actually understand the material before they are forced on to a new topic. One teacher showed me a course book and said that it had too many topics for one five week grading period. I looked at the entire book and had to stifle a chuckle because it essentially covered what would be found in ONE chapter from my textbook. Why do we push our kids in the U.S. to learn so much so quickly? No wonder they are stressed out! No wonder they give up!

9. Less Homework = More Participation

According to the OECD, Finnish students have the least amount of homework in the world. They average under half an hour of homework a night. Finnish students typically do not have outside tutors or lessons either. This is especially shocking when you realize Finnish students are outscoring the high performing Asian nations whose students receive hours of additional/outside instruction. From what I can observe, students in Finland get the work done in class, and teachers feel that what the students are able to do in school is enough. Again, there is not pressure to have them do more than what is necessary for them to learn a skill. Often the assignments are open-ended and not really graded. Yet, the students work on it in class diligently. It is very interesting to see what happens to the students when they are given something to do. The students who were not listening to the lesson at all put away their phones and start working on the task set before them. Even if it is just a suggested assignment, they give it their full attention up to the end of class. It is almost like there is an unspoken agreement: "I won't give you homework if you work on this while you are in my classroom." This system has really made me think about the amount of homework I assign on a daily basis.

10. Fewer Students = More Individual Attention

This is obvious. If you have fewer students you will be able to give them the care and attention they need to learn. A Finnish teacher will have about 3 to 4 classes of 20 students a day- so they will see between 60 to 80 students a day. I see 180 students every single day. I have 30 to 35 students in a class, six classes in a row, 5 days a week.

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11 Ways Finland's Education System Shows Us that "Less is More".

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When I left my 7th grade math classroom for my Fulbright research assignment in Finland I thought I would come back from this experience with more inspiring, engaging, innovative lessons. I expected to have great new ideas on how to teach my mathematics curriculum and I would revamp my lessons so that I could include...

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The People vs. the School System (Slam Poetry)

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The People vs. the School System (Slam Poetry)

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The Benefits of Volunteerism, if the Service Is Real

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Joseph E. Kahne, a professor of education at Mills College, and his colleagues just completed a survey of more than 500 teenagers in the 11th and 12th grades from a diverse set of 19 high schools in California. The researchers followed the students for up to three years after graduation.

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The concept of having students read silently for a predetermined amount of time has been very popular within early childhood education. This same concept of sustained silent reading is almost laughable within secondary education for many reasons:

Who has time for this?

Students need to be moving on to complex text.

Students should primarily be writing in order to prepare for college.

How can the educator allow students to read all class period long? They aren't doing anything!

High stakes testing is priority! Reading for enjoyment is out of the question.

I believe students, especially high school students, need to have silent sustained reading in their English class in order for them to improve academically in a variety of ways.

It is easy to make the assumption that reading for enjoyment has only an entertainment factor, but there are more benefits than entertainment when students are reading what they like on a weekly basis. Students who are exposed to more literature throughout the school year grow to have better writing. As Acts of Teaching by Joyce Armstrong Carroll and Edward E. Wilson points out in the preface of their book, "daily reading and writing, daily mini-teaches on various story elements, daily speaking, listening, examining, predicting in a joyfully literate classroom paid off." Carroll discuss the value of having a "print-rich" classroom by using her observations of Sharron Chamberlin's class structure, "[she] begins school with fifteen minutes of uninterrupted sustained silent writing followed by fifteen minutes of uninterrupted sustained silent reading."

Chamberlin allowed her students to engage in the meaningful tasks of reading and writing without prescription or direction. She then directed them to listen for specific vocabulary while she read a story to them. The students would listen, be intrigued, ask questions, and demonstrate their involvement. She would then send them back to their desks with a special assignment correlated with the story. By doing this daily, she was "allowing them to learn through exposure and discovery to reading and writing [...] she is giving these students ample time to be actively creative, inventive and discovers."

Upon further examination of her daily classroom instruction and student samples, Carroll witnessed student growth in writing. One student "had internalized a sense of narrative and descriptive detail, at least partly due to the print-rich environment Sharon had created" while another student "[had] delightfully, eloquently, and clearly demonstrated that she knows the elements of a story" in her own writing. Chamberlin allowed students to creatively take risk and "because [Chamberlin] integrated reading and writing with listening, speaking, viewing, thinking, and skills, learning was a cognitively appropriate and natural." Chamberlin's classroom may be younger than secondary education but the demonstration of reading and writing going hand-in-hand couldn't have been better.

With this in mind, I believe students in secondary education should have the same environment. Students need to be reading daily and writing daily in a way that connects to them. Because secondary students lack the opportunity of reading for enjoyment, as Gallagher said they "rarely get below the surface to the richer, deeper meaning of the text. They think one reading is sufficient; they don't have the skills to uncover the craft, the complexities and the nuances of the text." Students rarely even have the endurance to read difficult text because they have grown to hate reading due to the prescriptive nature students often have to endure. Therefore, secondary educators need to take a second look at what sustained silent reading can offer students especially if our goal is to have "our students graduate with the ability to dig below the surface of text."

Reading allows students to experience things they may never be able to do, but through the lens of novels students can go anywhere at any time. Reading also allows students to see how writing works in the real world; it is not formulaic. Students can discover what voice sounds like through reading a variety of genres. Students can rediscover the joys of reading, but for some it may be a first discovery.

In addition, free writing can offer students a way to discover the sound of their voice on paper. It can offer the experience of turning endless thoughts into a wonderfully written prose just by pure candidness. It can offer a new outlet for emotions, and last but not least, it can offer students a new level of pride in their own writing.

Reading and writing in the classroom are not two separate beings. These two experiences combined in a classroom allow students to learn in a way that is not superficial or insignificant. With these two experiences combined, students will learn "writing as thinking and thinking as the fundamental skill for the twenty-first century." Students will find the joy of being a confident writer based on practice and exposure. It's what students need!

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Sustained Silent Reading in High School | Edutopia

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The concept of having students read silently for a predetermined amount of time has been very popular within early childhood education. This same concept of sustained silent reading is almost laughable within secondary education for many reasons: Who has time for this? Students need to be moving on to complex text.

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Multiple Intelligences: What Does the Research Say?

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Multiple Intelligences: What Does the Research Say?

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Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

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The Neuroscience Behind Stress and Learning

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The Neuroscience Behind Stress and Learning

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Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

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How Shorter School Days per week increases productivity

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How Shorter School Days per week increases productivity

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ATLANTA-Shortening the school week to four days has a positive impact on elementary school students' academic performance in mathematics, according to researchers at Georgia State University and Montana State University.

The study, published in the journal Education, Finance and Policy in July, analyzed the impact of a four-day school week on student achievement by comparing fourth-grade reading and fifth-grade math test scores from the Colorado Student Assessment Program (CSAP) for students who participated in a four-day school week, versus those who attended a traditional five-day school week.

The researchers found a four-day school week had a statistically significant impact on math scores for fifth-grade students, while reading scores were not affected.

The study suggests there is little evidence that moving to a four-day week compromises student academic achievement, an important finding for U.S. school districts seeking ways to cut costs without hampering student achievement.

"What interested me about our results is they were completely opposite to what we anticipated," said Mary Beth Walker, dean of the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State. "We thought that especially for the younger, elementary school kids, longer days on a shorter school week would hurt their academic performance because their attention spans are shorter. Also, a longer weekend would give them more opportunity to forget what they had learned."

Although the shortened school week did not have a measurable impact on reading outcomes, "the idea that the change in the calendar did not have negative effects we thought was an important result," Walker said.

A number of school districts in the United States have moved from the traditional Monday through Friday schedule to a four-day week schedule as a cost-saving measure to reduce overhead and transportation costs.

Four-day weeks have been in place for years in rural school districts in western states, particularly in Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming. Over one-third of the school districts in Colorado have adopted a four-day schedule. The alternative schedule has also been considered in school districts in Oregon, Missouri, Florida and Georgia.

The four-day school week requires school districts to lengthen the school day to meet minimum instructional hour requirements. Previously, there was a lack of information on whether the four-day school week affects student performance, Walker said.

The researchers have speculated on why the shortened school week positively affected students but there are not enough data to draw definite conclusions.

"We thought the longer days might give teachers an opportunity to use different kinds of instructional processes," Walker said. "We also speculated that a four-day school week lowered absenteeism, so students who had dentist's appointments or events might be able to put those off until Friday and not miss school. We thought there might be less teacher absenteeism.

"My own personal hypothesis is teachers liked it so much-they were so enthusiastic about the four-day week-they did a better job. There's some evidence in other labor studies that four-day work weeks enhance productivity."

Walker notes the results are only applicable to smaller and more rural school districts. Further studies should be performed to understand the effects on urban school districts, she said.
Read the study >>

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Four-Day School Week Can Improve Academic Performance, Policy Study Finds

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ATLANTA-Shortening the school week to four days has a positive impact on elementary school students' academic performance in mathematics, according to researchers at Georgia State University and Montana State University.

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Published 1:00 am, Monday, September 26, 2005

Do you know where your child is? In some middle schools around the region, your seventh-grader might be in math Mondays at 9 a.m., but in social studies Thursdays at that hour and in math after lunch.

Brookfield, Ridgefield and Newtown have varying takes on the schedule that rotates what times students take core subjects like math, English, social studies, science and foreign language. Students say the changing schedule keeps boredom at bay. Teachers say it ensures they have children at their most receptive at least once a week. "It just shifts. It's less boring. I like how it shifts," said seventh-grader

Armand Norelli , 11, who attends Whisconier Middle School in Brookfield. "It's not the same thing every day.'' Brookfield middle-schoolers have a one-hour class first thing in the morning, followed by two 45-minute-classes. They then have an hour-long gym/health class, followed by a half-hour study hall and a half-hour lunch. The day ends with two more 45-minute classes. "I like how there is a big break between classes - from gym, study hall and lunch - before the afternoon classes,'' said seventh-grader

Lauren Pelczar , 12. "It doesn't get boring.'' Lauren said she notices everyone's yawning in the first-period class, especially on Mondays. She said she's most alert during the first class after lunch, while Armand does his best in the last class before gym. That's one of the reasons teachers like the rotating schedule. The system tries to find ways for students to do their best and stay on their toes, said Whisconier principal

Eugenia Slone . "These students grow so much from when they come at the age of 10 to when they leave at 13,'' Slone said. "I don't know if they need (rotation) but they like it better, and the staff prefers it as well because kids come into class with different mind-sets." The National Middle School Association promotes having flexible blocks of time, like 90 minutes that can be used for two classes or one extended class. "There are hundreds of ways to schedule middle schools, and the staff must look at what's best for students. The flexible chunks of time are critical, as opposed to the 40-minute fixed class times,'' said Linda Robinson , a former middle-school principal and past president of the association. "At my school, we would flip our morning and afternoon courses at the different grade levels. We saw that kids who were asleep in the morning were stars in the afternoon.'' Middle schools must be flexible to adjust to the great changes the students undergo in those three years, said Linda Hopping , a former middle-school principal and president of the Georgia Middle School Association . "There are more changes in middle-school students than at any other time in their lives, except from birth to 3,'' she said. Elementary teachers have self-contained classrooms and can be flexible on their own, but middle-school students move from class to class so teachers have to build flexibility into the schedule, Hopping said. High schools don't have much flexibility in scheduling now, but she said the high school reform movement is moving toward it, especially at the ninth-grade level. Ridgefield's two middle schools have rotating schedules. At East Ridge Middle School , teams of teachers in the four core-subject areas are assigned to 80 to 100 students in clusters, another precept of the philosophy behind the structure of middle schools. The team of teachers share common planning times and also share blocks of teaching time. Some teams rotate course schedules every day, and all collaborate on interdisciplinary lessons. "It really is the middle-school concept,'' said Martin Fiedler , who has been a middle-school principal for 21 years, including four in Ridgefield. "It's a very successful model." At Newtown Middle School , students rotate the two morning core classes and the two afternoon classes each day. "Some kids come in sleepy and some kids tire out early,'' principal Diane Sherlock said. "It has to do with more than sleepiness. Different kids have different learning styles. Allowing kids to experience math the first thing in the morning means that different kids will maximize that time. "For the same reason you vary the instruction practices, you vary the time. It's one of the tools to the way kids learn." Newtown seventh-grade science teacher Valerie Leone has seen how students benefit. "It also helps their organization in middle school, to try to promote self-directed learning. It requires them to stay organized and know their schedules," Leone said. She couldn't quantify the benefits of rotation, but said they are there. "It's not tangible. I've seen homework completion go up,'' she said. "If they are habitually late, they are not missing the same class. Anecdotally, I've seen a difference."

Contact Eileen FitzGerald

at eileenf@newstimes.com

or (203) 731-3333.

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Rotating class times aid middle school students

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Brookfield, Ridgefield and Newtown have varying takes on the schedule that rotates what times students take core subjects like math, English, social studies, science and foreign language. The system tries to find ways for students to do their best and stay on their toes, said Whisconier principal Eugenia Slone.

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Shortening School Day and Year Round Schooling  

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Shortening School Day and Year Round Schooling  

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Shortening of the school day is a topic that has been discussed recently within legislative bodies, due at least in part to growing financial concerns. However, there are advantages and disadvantages associated with shortening the school day that should be considered before sweeping action is taken to alter the ...

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Adolescents today face a widespread chronic health problem: sleep deprivation. Although society often views sleep as a luxury that ambitious or active people cannot afford, research shows that getting enough sleep is a biological necessity, as important to good health as eating well or exercising. Teens are among those least likely to get enough sleep; while they need on average 9 1/4 hours of sleep per night for optimal performance, health and brain development, teens average fewer than 7 hours per school night by the end of high school, and most report feeling tired during the day (Wolfson & Carskadon, 1998). The roots of the problem include poor teen sleep habits that do not allow for enough hours of quality sleep; hectic schedules with afterschool activities and jobs, homework hours and family obligations; and a clash between societal demands, such as early school start times, and biological changes that put most teens on a later sleep-wake clock. As a result, when it is time to wake up for school, the adolescent's body says it is still the middle of the night, and he or she has had too little sleep to feel rested and alert.

The consequences of sleep deprivation during the teenage years are particularly serious. Teens spend a great portion of each day in school; however, they are unable to maximize the learning opportunities afforded by the education system, since sleep deprivation impairs their ability to be alert, pay attention, solve problems, cope with stress and retain information. Young people who do not get enough sleep night after night carry a significant risk for drowsy driving; emotional and behavioral problems such as irritability, depression, poor impulse control and violence; health complaints; tobacco and alcohol use; impaired cognitive function and decision-making; and lower overall performance in everything from academics to athletics.

The Biology of Adolescent Sleep

Research shows that adolescents require at least as much sleep as they did as children, generally 8 1/2 to 9 1/4 hours each night (Carskadon et al., 1980). Key changes in sleep patterns and needs during puberty can contribute to excessive sleepiness in adolescents, which can impair daytime functioning. First, daytime sleepiness can increase during adolescence, even when teens' schedules allow for optimal amounts of sleep (Carskadon, Vieri, & Acebo, 1993). Second, most adolescents undergo a sleep phase delay, which means a tendency toward later times for both falling asleep and waking up. Research shows the typical adolescent's natural time to fall asleep may be 11 pm or later; because of this change in their internal clocks, teens may feel wide awake at bedtime, even when they are exhausted (Wolfson & Carskadon, 1998). This leads to sleep deprivation in many teens who must wake up early for school, and thus do not get the 8 1/2 - 9 1/4 hours of sleep that they need. It also causes irregular sleep patterns that can hurt the quality of sleep, since the weekend sleep schedule often ends up being much different from the weekday schedule as teens try to catch up on lost sleep (Dahl & Carskadon, 1995).

Adolescents in Study Show Changing Sleep Patterns

Since the 1970s, there has been a growing awareness of the changes in sleep patterns as children transition to adolescence. In a study at a summer sleep camp at Stanford during the 1970s, boys and girls who enrolled at 10-12 years of age were monitored every year for 5-6 years. While researchers had thought older children would need less sleep during the 10 hour nocturnal window they were given, from 10 pm to 8 am, they found that regardless of age, the children all slept about 9 1/4 of the 10 hours. As they progressed through adolescence, participants continued to get the same amount of sleep, but they no longer woke spontaneously before the end of the sleep window at 8 am (Carskadon et al., 1979). In addition, when the Multiple Sleep Latency Test (MSLT)-given at designated periods throughout the day to determine the speed of falling asleep, to measure sleepiness-was given to the adolescents, they showed more alertness at 8 pm than earlier in the day, and even greater alertness at 10 pm. Also, at midpuberty, adolescents became sleepier in the middle of the day. According to the tests, more mature adolescents showed signs of reduced alertness during the day even though they slept an equivalent amount at night (Carskadon et al., 1980).

Changes in Melatonin

Another experiment, conducted by Dr. Mary A. Carskadon of Brown University, found that more mature adolescents had later circadian rhythm timing, based on melatonin secretions in saliva samples. This finding shows that melatonin secretion occurs at a later time in adolescents as they mature; thus, it is difficult for them to go to sleep earlier at night. The melatonin secretion also turns off later in the morning, which makes it harder to wake up early (Carskadon et al., 1998).

Another important finding from many studies is that the circadian timing system can be reset if light exposure is carefully controlled (Carskadon et al., 1997). In studies where adolescents are paid to keep a specific sleep schedule and wear eyeshades to exclude light during evening hours, measurements of melatonin secretion show that the rhythm had moved significantly toward a designated time. This means that with time, effort, and money, researchers can get adolescents to reset their clocks. This approach, however, is not necessarily realistic for teens who have full and busy lives. Nevertheless, the interaction of light exposure and sleep timing is important to keep in mind.

A Widespread and High-Impact Part of Teens' Lives

Findings of the tendency for adolescent sleep patterns to be delayed have been reported not only in North America, but also in South America, Asia, Australia and Europe (Andrade & Menna Barreto, 2002; Carskadon & Acebo, 1997; Ishihara, Honma & Miyake, 1990; Bearpark & Michie, 1987; Strauch & Meier, 1988; LeBourgeois et al., 2005; Thorleifsdottir et al., 2002). The diversity of such research supports the view that intrinsic developmental changes play a role in delayed sleep patterns in adolescents. This biological shift sets the stage for other social and environmental conditions that make it easier for these adolescents to stay awake at night and wake up sleepdeprived. The effects of changing sleep patterns are compounded by the demands older students face in academics, extracurricular activities, social opportunities, after-school jobs, and other obligations.
"Sleep isn't a priority for teenagers, and it typically isn't made one by parents or schools."
-Jodi Mindell, PhD, Director of Graduate Program in Psychology, St. Joseph's University and Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

The School Start Time Issue

Adolescent sleep deprivation is largely driven by a conflict between teens' internal biological clocks and the schedules and demands of society. Therefore, it makes sense to look at school start times, which set the rhythm of the day for students, parents, teachers and members of the community at large.
"Given that the primary focus of education is to maximize human potential, then a new task before us is to ensure that the conditions in which learning takes place address the very biology of our learners."
Mary A. Carskadon, PhD, Director of E.P. Bradley Hospital Research Laboratory and professor in Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at Brown University School of Medicine

Research on School Start Times and Biology

In a project spearheaded by Dr. Mary A. Carskadon and colleagues, researchers investigated what would happen to sleep and circadian rhythms in a group of young people for whom the transition from junior high to senior high required a change in school starting time from 8:25 am to 7:20 am (Carskadon et al., 1998).

The 25 students completed the study at two time points, in the spring of 9th grade and autumn of 10th grade. The students kept their usual schedules, wore small activity monitors on their wrists, and kept diaries of activities and sleep schedules for two consecutive weeks. At the end, participants came to Carskadon's sleep lab for assessment of the onset phase of melatonin secretion, an overnight sleep study, and daytime testing with MSLT. The in-lab sleep schedule was fixed to each student's average school night schedule, based on data from the wrist monitors.

Carskadon and colleagues found that in the 10th grade:

On a typical school morning, the students woke up earlier for high school, but only 25 minutes earlier instead of the 65 minutes reflected in the start time change.

Sleep onset times did not change, and averaged about 10:40 pm in both 9th and 10th grade.

The average amount of sleep on school nights fell from 7 hours 9 minutes to 6 hours 50 minutes, which is significant because the students were already accumulating a sleep deficit.

Nearly one-half of the 10th graders showed a reversed sleep pattern on the morning MSLT. This pattern is similar to the sleep disorder narcolepsy, moving immediately into REM sleep before non-REM sleep. The 12 students who showed this pattern did not have narcolepsy, but they did have a mismatch between their school day waking times and their circadian rhythms. Indeed, at 8:30 in the morning, they fell asleep within three minutes.

None of the students made an optimal adjustment to the new schedule; none was sleeping even 8 1/4 hours on school nights.

"Even without the pressure of biological changes, if we combine an early school starting time-say 7:30 am, which, with a modest commute, makes 6:15 am a viable rising time-with our knowledge that optimal sleep need is 9 1/4 hours, we are asking that 16-year olds go to bed at 9 pm. Rare is a teenager that will keep such a schedule. School work, sports practices, clubs, volunteer work, and paid employment take precedence. When biological changes are factored in, the ability even to have merely 'adequate' sleep is lost," Carskadon explains.

School Start Time Initiatives and Outcomes

In 2014, National Sleep Foundation (NSF) worked with U.S. Representative Zoe Lofgren to introduce legislation that addresses the relationship between school start times and adolescent health, wellbeing and performance. We encourage you to contact your Representatives and urge them to support this bill.

Collaborating in the Best Interests of Students

Many schools across the country are working to synchronize school clocks with students' body clocks, so that teens are in school during their most alert hours and can achieve their full academic potential. Working to bring school start times in line with teens' sleep needs presents a number of challenges and opportunities. Individual communities can vary greatly in their priorities and values; factors to consider include bell schedules of elementary and middle schools; transportation; athletic programs and extracurricular activities; use of schools for community activities; student employment; and safety issues for younger students who either may be waiting for a bus in the dark or need supervision of older siblings after school. There are also safety issues for older students, since violent activities, sex, recreational use of alcohol or drugs, and criminal and other risky behaviors frequently occur between 2 and 4 pm, according to data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It is also important that any consideration of a school start time change takes into account the impact on families, including transportation, dependence on teens' income, chores and other family responsibilities, and teens' mood and behavior at home.

Changing a school's start time involves a wide array of people-parents, teachers, students, principals, school boards, superintendents, counselors and healthcare professionals, among others. The impact is felt at a community level, but it is also felt individually, and the individuals who are affected need to have their views heard and acknowledged so that discussions can move forward in search of common ground.

Obviously, moving bell times is one major step in a larger picture of ensuring that adolescents get the sleep they need. It will not put more hours in the day, so it is important for teens to know about their sleep needs and have the skills to make a conscious effort to get a good night's sleep. Many teens assume they are expected to function with a lack of sleep, but sleep is not optional; it is biologically necessary. If sleep is incorporated into educational efforts, teens will be armed with information that will enable them to use a later school start time to their advantage.

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Later School Start Times: Benefits & Cons - Sleep Foundation

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Adolescents today face a widespread chronic health problem: sleep deprivation. Although society often views sleep as a luxury that ambitious or active people cannot afford, research shows that getting enough sleep is a biological necessity, as important to good health as eating well or exercising.

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Research on the Benefits of Year - Round Schooling

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Research on the Benefits of Year - Round Schooling

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NEA Reviews of the Research on Best Practices in Education

The most popular form of year-round education is the 45-15 plan, where students attend school for 45 days and then get three weeks (15 days) off. The usual holiday breaks are still built into this calendar. Two other ways to organize a school calendar are the 60-20 and the 90-30 plans. Perhaps, the most important facet of year-round education is how it is implemented. Schools may operate on a single-track schedule where all students are on the same calendar and get the same holidays off, or a multi-rack schedule, which has groups of students attending school at different times with different vacations. Multi-tracking is popular because it allows schools to enroll more students than buildings would normally hold.

Some arguments for year-round education include:

Students tend to forget a lot during the summer break, so a shorter time away from school might increase retention rates.

It's a more efficient use of school space because otherwise buildings are unoccupied during the summer.

Remediation can occur when it is most needed - during the school year.

Some critics of year-round education contend:

Band and other extracurricular programs suffer from problems with scheduling out-of-school practices and competitions.

If an entire district does not adopt a year-round calendar, parents could have students at different schools at different schedules.

Studies have been inconclusive to its academic benefits.

Is year-round education a reform that will greatly increase student achievement or just another attempt to oversimplify some of the concerns with education? Here is what the research offers on year-round education:

All-Day, All-Year Schools
In this article, Ruy Teixeira (The Century Foundation, 2004) shows that when year-round education is accompanied by enrichment and remedial programs and other extensions of the year - as opposed to simply stretching out the school year, but with smaller breaks - achievement effects tend to be positive.

Student Segregation and Achievement Tracking in Year-Round Schools
Student Segregation and Achievement Tracking in Year-Round Schools - Authors Ross E. Mitchell and Douglas E. Mitchell present this case study, which reveals substantial differences in the characteristics of students and teachers across the four attendance tracks of eight YRE schools in one large California school district.

Alternative Calendars: Extended Learning and Year-Round Programs
Authors E. A. Palmer and A. E. Bemis provide a comprehensive updated review of the literature and research on effective models of year-round education.

Research on Year-Round Education
Educational researchers Carolyn M. Shields and Steven L. Oberg of the University of British Columbia visited schools and districts in the United States and Canada, examined student achievement results on standardized tests, and surveyed parents, teachers, and administrators to assess the impact of year-round schools.

Year-Round Education
Author Tyler Weaver explores the possible benefits and the points to consider before adopting year-round education. (ERIC Digest, Number 68)

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Research Spotlight on Year-Round Education

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Most schools in the United States operate on the 10-month calendar that was established when America was still an agrarian country. But times have changed and many people propose doing away with this outdated system and moving to year-round education.

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Unusual High School Classes: 8 Awesome Courses From Schools Across The Country

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Unusual High School Classes: 8 Awesome Courses From Schools Across The Country

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There's nothing worse than spending your summer dreading an upcoming year of Physics and American History. But classes don't always have to be a drag, and forward-thinking schools across the country are getting creative with their course offerings to keep students engaged. Would you be interested in taking a class assisted by video games, or one that analyzes and critiques comic books? What about a class designed to help you break into the fashion industry, or a course that brings history to life by reenacting battles in the classroom? (We know we'd sign up for "Art of the Graphic Novel"!)

We rounded up seven high schools across the country with course offerings designed to pique your interest. Click through the slideshow below to see how these awesome courses and electives keep things interesting between first and last period.

What class do you wish your high school offered? Sound off in the comments below or tweet your #DreamClass @HuffPostTeen!

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8 Cool High School Classes We Wish We Could Take

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There's nothing worse than spending your summer dreading an upcoming year of Physics and American History. But classes don't always have to be a drag, and forward-thinking schools across the country are getting creative with their course offerings to keep students engaged.

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NEA Reviews of the Research on Best Practices in Education

Schools throughout the United States are adopting block or modular scheduling in dramatically increasing numbers. In contrast with the traditional daily six-, seven-, or eight-period schedule, a block schedule consists of three or four longer periods of daily instruction.

The three most common forms of block scheduling are:

1. alternate day schedule - where students and teachers meet every other day for extended time periods rather than meeting every day for shorter periods

2. "4x4" semester plan - where students meet for 4 90-minute blocks every day over 4 quarters

3. trimester plan - where students take two or three courses every 60 days to earn six to nine credits per year.
Block Scheduling: A Solution or a Problem? (Education World)

Pros and Cons of Modified Schedules

Pros

Teachers see fewer students during the day, giving them more time for individualized instruction.

With the increased span of teaching time, longer cooperative learning activities can be completed in one class period.

Students have more time for reflection and less information to process over the course of a school day.

Teachers have extended time for planning.

Cons

Teachers see students only three to four days a week which fosters a lack of continuity from day to day.

If a student misses a day under the modular schedule, that student is actually missing two, or sometimes even more days.

In a 4x4, all of the information normally taught in a semester course has to be covered in one quarter.

It is difficult to cover the necessary material for Advanced Placement courses in the time allotted.
Modular [Block] Schedules (About.com)

Current Research on Block Scheduling

Prisoners of Time - Most notable study regarding time and learning by Milton Goldberg when he was with the Department of Education. It is the best-researched piece for arguing for longer school days, a longer school year, and more time dedicated to learning. (National Education Commission on Time and Learning, April 1994)

Block Scheduling ( PDF, 161 KB, 17 pgs)

Block Scheduling Revisited - J. Allen Queen ( PDF, 129 KB, 16 pgs.) provides guidelines for improving scheduling formats so that they might offer better potential for student success.

Block Scheduling (ERIC Digest, No. 104) - Karen Irmsher (1996) explores the question What's wrong with the traditional six- or seven-period day?

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Schools throughout the United States are adopting block or modular scheduling in dramatically increasing numbers. In contrast with the traditional daily six-, seven-, or eight-period schedule, a block schedule consists of three or four longer periods of daily instruction.

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As mindfulness gains cultural momentum, there is a risk that its definition becomes more muddled. If we are to practice effectively and teach these practices to our students and communities, conceptual clarity is important. Of course, no single person or group has the authority to provide the one-and-only definition of 'mindfulness.' This is an open and evolving conversation among practitioners, scientists and scholars. We do not claim to offer the definitive version of mindfulness, but instead share a definition that has been productive in our practice and teaching, and is supported by the scientific research on mindfulness.

Mindfulness can be considered a state, a trait or a practice. We can have a moment of mindfulness ( state) but also have a habitual tendency of mindfulness ( trait). We can do the intentional formal practice of mindfulness using different postures and activities: seated mindfulness, mindful walking or mindful eating, for example. The formal practice of mindfulness leads to more moments of mindfulness and ultimately improved trait-level mindfulness. Higher trait-level mindfulness means that we're more mindful even when we're not consciously trying to be mindful. This is critically important: we're learning to create a healthy habit of mindfulness.

Below is a diagram that highlights two components of mindfulness: present-time awareness and equanimity.

Present Time Awareness
The first component in blue, present-time awareness, is perhaps more familiar to readers. It refers to a stable, clear and alert awareness of momentary experience. In present-time awareness, we are awake and alive to the moment. We know sensory experience - sights, sounds, sensations, thoughts - and we know that we're knowing. When we're on 'automatic pilot' we are, in fact, knowing something - typically our thoughts - but we don't know that we're knowing. We are all familiar with times when there's virtually no mindfulness present - but we're still having experience. We're still experiencing sights and sounds and sensations and thoughts - but we don't know that's what we're experiencing. Present-time awareness is thus a kind of meta-awareness, where we have rich contact with sensory experience and we know it's sensory experience arising in the field of awareness.

Present-time awareness is depicted as a combination of stability, clarity and alertness. Imagine looking through a telescope at the moon. If the telescope were shaking, it would be difficult to fully take in the sight of the moon. Similarly, stability of our attention is important for present-time awareness. The moon would also be obscured if the lens were out of focus. In mindfulness practice, our 'vision' becomes more clear. We're able to detect more and more subtle features of our experience. Lastly, we must be alert to the present moment. If we looked through a steady and focused telescope but were really sleepy and lapsing in and out of awareness, we would miss the grandeur of the moon. Mindfulness steadies the attention, focuses the attention, and remains alert to the object of our attention.

Equanimity
While present-time awareness has important benefits on its own, the second component of mindfulness - equanimity, depicted above in green - is critically important. Equanimity may be an unfamiliar word, but has an important meaning in the context of mindfulness practice. Equanimity can be defined as a sense of cognitive-emotional balance where there is no compulsion to act out our preferences. It has a number of connotations: ease, non-reactivity, non-manipulation of experience, and the toleration of the arising, intensification, weakening and disappearance of subjective experiences. Equanimity is the balance point between suppression of experience on the one hand, and entanglement with experience on the other.

Equanimity is often confused with indifference or passive acceptance of suffering in the world. This is a misunderstanding. In the diagram, we include "momentary acceptance" to denote that equanimity marks our relation to present-time experience - not objective conditions in the world. We can be equanimous with our present-time experience, but be deeply committed to changing and improving the conditions in the world.

In sum, we define mindfulness as attending to present-moment experience with equanimity. Our definition is similar to other common definitions of mindfulness. For example, Jon Kabat-Zinn defined mindfulness as "the awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally to the unfolding of experience moment by moment." In this definition, "non-judgmentally" relates to the momentary acceptance component of equanimity.

Future research will seek to better understand the components of mindfulness, how they work together, and how they confer benefits in our personal and professional lives. Of course, you can do your own research in the laboratory of your own mind! As you practice, you might examine how present-time awareness and equanimity function in your experience. Perhaps there is another aspect of mindfulness that you feel is important. The exploration will support greater clarity and nuance as we think about, practice, and teach mindfulness.
Mindful Schools transforms school communities from the inside out. Founded in 2007, Mindful Schools' graduates have impacted over 750,000 children worldwide. You can learn more about our online course offerings, Mindfulness Fundamentals and Mindful Educator Essentials. References & Further Reading:
Brown, K.W., Ryan, R.M., & Creswell, J.D. (2007). Mindfulness: Theoretical foundations and evidence for its salutary effects. Psychological inquiry, 18, 211-237. [Summary of Article]

Bishop, S.R., Lau, M., Shapiro, S., Carlson, L., Anderson, N.D., Carmody, J., ... & Devins, G. (2004). Mindfulness: A proposed operational definition. Clinical psychology: Science and practice, 11, 230-241.[Summary of Article]

Desbordes, G., Gard, T., Hoge, E.A., Hölzel, B.K., Kerr, C., Lazar, S.W., ... & Vago, D.R. (2014). Moving beyond mindfulness: defining equanimity as an outcome measure in meditation and contemplative research. Mindfulness, 6, 356-372. [Article in PDF]

Pearson, M.R., Lawless, A.K., Brown, D.B., & Bravo, A.J. (2015). Mindfulness and emotional outcomes: Identifying subgroups of college students using latent profile analysis. Personality and Individual Differences, 76, 33-38. [Summary of Article]

Young, S. (2013). What is Mindfulness? A Comprehensive Overview. [Article in PDF]

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As mindfulness gains cultural momentum, there is a risk that its definition becomes more muddled. If we are to practice effectively and teach these practices to our students and communities, conceptual clarity is important. Of course, no single person or group has the authority to provide the one-and-only definition of 'mindfulness.'

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Later School Start Times PromoteAdolescent Well-Being

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Later School Start Times PromoteAdolescent Well-Being

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Crystal Bridges; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art; School Tour © 2013 Stephen Ironside/Ironside Photography
Bo Bartlett - "The Box" - 2002 * Oil on Linen * 82 x 100 - Photographer is Karen Mauch

The school field trip has a long history in American public education. For decades, students have piled into yellow buses to visit a variety of cultural institutions, including art, natural history, and science museums, as well as theaters, zoos, and historical sites. Schools gladly endured the expense and disruption of providing field trips because they saw these experiences as central to their educational mission: schools exist not only to provide economically useful skills in numeracy and literacy, but also to produce civilized young men and women who would appreciate the arts and culture. More-advantaged families may take their children to these cultural institutions outside of school hours, but less-advantaged students are less likely to have these experiences if schools do not provide them. With field trips, public schools viewed themselves as the great equalizer in terms of access to our cultural heritage.

Today, culturally enriching field trips are in decline. Museums across the country report a steep drop in school tours. For example, the Field Museum in Chicago at one time welcomed more than 300,000 students every year. Recently the number is below 200,000. Between 2002 and 2007, Cincinnati arts organizations saw a 30 percent decrease in student attendance. A survey by the American Association of School Administrators found that more than half of schools eliminated planned field trips in 2010-11.

The decision to reduce culturally enriching field trips reflects a variety of factors. Financial pressures force schools to make difficult decisions about how to allocate scarce resources, and field trips are increasingly seen as an unnecessary frill. Greater focus on raising student performance on math and reading standardized tests may also lead schools to cut field trips. Some schools believe that student time would be better spent in the classroom preparing for the exams. When schools do organize field trips, they are increasingly choosing to take students on trips to reward them for working hard to improve their test scores rather than to provide cultural enrichment. Schools take students to amusement parks, sporting events, and movie theaters instead of to museums and historical sites. This shift from "enrichment" to "reward" field trips is reflected in a generational change among teachers about the purposes of these outings. In a 2012‒13 survey we conducted of nearly 500 Arkansas teachers, those who had been teaching for at least 15 years were significantly more likely to believe that the primary purpose of a field trip is to provide a learning opportunity, while more junior teachers were more likely to see the primary purpose as "enjoyment."

If schools are de-emphasizing culturally enriching field trips, has anything been lost as a result? Surprisingly, we have relatively little rigorous evidence about how field trips affect students. The research presented here is the first large-scale randomized-control trial designed to measure what students learn from school tours of an art museum.

We find that students learn quite a lot. In particular, enriching field trips contribute to the development of students into civilized young men and women who possess more knowledge about art, have stronger critical-thinking skills, exhibit increased historical empathy, display higher levels of tolerance, and have a greater taste for consuming art and culture.
Design of the Study and School Tours
The 2011 opening of the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Northwest Arkansas created the opportunity for this study. Crystal Bridges is the first major art museum to be built in the United States in the last four decades, with more than 50,000 square feet of gallery space and an endowment in excess of $800 million. Portions of the museum's endowment are devoted to covering all of the expenses associated with school tours. Crystal Bridges reimburses schools for the cost of buses, provides free admission and lunch, and even pays for the cost of substitute teachers to cover for teachers who accompany students on the tour.

Because the tour is completely free to schools, and because Crystal Bridges was built in an area that never previously had an art museum, there was high demand for school tours. Not all school groups could be accommodated right away. So our research team worked with the staff at Crystal Bridges to assign spots for school tours by lottery. During the first two semesters of the school tour program, the museum received 525 applications from school groups representing 38,347 students in kindergarten through grade 12. We created matched pairs among the applicant groups based on similarity in grade level and other demographic factors. An ideal and common matched pair would be adjacent grades in the same school. We then randomly ordered the matched pairs to determine scheduling prioritization. Within each pair, we randomly assigned which applicant would be in the treatment group and receive a tour that semester and which would be in the control group and have its tour deferred.

We administered surveys to 10,912 students and 489 teachers at 123 different schools three weeks, on average, after the treatment group received its tour. The student surveys included multiple items assessing knowledge about art as well as measures of critical thinking, historical empathy, tolerance, and sustained interest in visiting art museums. Some groups were surveyed as late as eight weeks after the tour, but it was not possible to collect data after longer periods because each control group was guaranteed a tour during the following semester as a reward for its cooperation. There is no indication that the results reported below faded for groups surveyed after longer periods.

We also assessed students' critical-thinking skills by asking them to write a short essay in response to a painting that they had not previously seen. Finally, we collected a behavioral measure of interest in art consumption by providing all students with a coded coupon good for free family admission to a special exhibit at the museum to see whether the field trip increased the likelihood of students making future visits.

All results reported below are derived from regression models that control for student grade level and gender and make comparisons within each matched pair, while taking into account the fact that students in the matched pair of applicant groups are likely to be similar in ways that we are unable to observe. Standard validity tests confirmed that the survey items employed to generate the various scales used as outcomes measured the same underlying constructs.

The intervention we studied is a modest one. Students received a one-hour tour of the museum in which they typically viewed and discussed five paintings. Some students were free to roam the museum following their formal tour, but the entire experience usually involved less than half a day. Instructional materials were sent to teachers who went on a tour, but our survey of teachers suggests that these materials received relatively little attention, on average no more than an hour of total class time. The discussion of each painting during the tour was largely student-directed, with the museum educators facilitating the discourse and providing commentary beyond the names of the work and the artist and a brief description only when students requested it. This format is now the norm in school tours of art museums. The aversion to having museum educators provide information about works of art is motivated in part by progressive education theories and by a conviction among many in museum education that students retain very little factual information from their tours.
Results
Recalling Tour Details. Our research suggests that students actually retain a great deal of factual information from their tours. Students who received a tour of the museum were able to recall details about the paintings they had seen at very high rates. For example, 88 percent of the students who saw the Eastman Johnson painting At the Camp-Spinning Yarns and Whittling knew when surveyed weeks later that the painting depicts abolitionists making maple syrup to undermine the sugar industry, which relied on slave labor. Similarly, 82 percent of those who saw Norman Rockwell's Rosie the Riveter could recall that the painting emphasizes the importance of women entering the workforce during World War II. Among students who saw Thomas Hart Benton's Ploughing It Under, 79 percent recollected that it is a depiction of a farmer destroying his crops as part of a Depression-era price support program. And 70 percent of the students who saw Romare Bearden's Sacrifice could remember that it is part of the Harlem Renaissance art movement. Since there was no guarantee that these facts would be raised in student-directed discussions, and because students had no particular reason for remembering these details (there was no test or grade associated with the tours), it is impressive that they could recall historical and sociological information at such high rates.

These results suggest that art could be an important tool for effectively conveying traditional academic content, but this analysis cannot prove it. The control-group performance was hardly better than chance in identifying factual information about these paintings, but they never had the opportunity to learn the material. The high rate of recall of factual information by students who toured the museum demonstrates that the tours made an impression. The students could remember important details about what they saw and discussed.

Critical Thinking. Beyond recalling the details of their tour, did a visit to an art museum have a significant effect on students? Our study demonstrates that it did. For example, students randomly assigned to receive a school tour of Crystal Bridges later displayed demonstrably stronger ability to think critically about art than the control group.

During the first semester of the study, we showed all 3rd- through 12th-grade students a painting they had not previously seen, Bo Bartlett's The Box. We then asked students to write short essays in response to two questions: What do you think is going on in this painting? And, what do you see that makes you think that? These are standard prompts used by museum educators to spark discussion during school tours.

We stripped the essays of all identifying information and had two coders rate the compositions using a seven-item rubric for measuring critical thinking that was developed by researchers at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. The measure is based on the number of instances that students engaged in the following in their essays: observing, interpreting, evaluating, associating, problem finding, comparing, and flexible thinking. Our measure of critical thinking is the sum of the counts of these seven items. In total, our research team blindly scored 3,811 essays. For 750 of those essays, two researchers scored them independently. The scores they assigned to the same essay were very similar, demonstrating that we were able to measure critical thinking about art with a high degree of inter-coder reliability.

We express the impact of a school tour of Crystal Bridges on critical-thinking skills in terms of standard-deviation effect sizes. Overall, we find that students assigned by lottery to a tour of the museum improve their ability to think critically about art by 9 percent of a standard deviation relative to the control group. The benefit for disadvantaged groups is considerably larger (see Figure 1). Rural students, who live in towns with fewer than 10,000 people, experience an increase in critical-thinking skills of nearly one-third of a standard deviation. Students from high-poverty schools (those where more than 50 percent of students receive free or reduced-price lunches) experience an 18 percent effect-size improvement in critical thinking about art, as do minority students.

A large amount of the gain in critical-thinking skills stems from an increase in the number of observations that students made in their essays. Students who went on a tour became more observant, noticing and describing more details in an image. Being observant and paying attention to detail is an important and highly useful skill that students learn when they study and discuss works of art. Additional research is required to determine if the gains in critical thinking when analyzing a work of art would transfer into improved critical thinking about other, non-art-related subjects.

Historical Empathy. Tours of art museums also affect students' values. Visiting an art museum exposes students to a diversity of ideas, peoples, places, and time periods. That broadening experience imparts greater appreciation and understanding. We see the effects in significantly higher historical empathy and tolerance measures among students randomly assigned to a school tour of Crystal Bridges.

Historical empathy is the ability to understand and appreciate what life was like for people who lived in a different time and place. This is a central purpose of teaching history, as it provides students with a clearer perspective about their own time and place. To measure historical empathy, we included three statements on the survey with which students could express their level of agreement or disagreement: 1) I have a good understanding of how early Americans thought and felt; 2) I can imagine what life was like for people 100 years ago; and 3) When looking at a painting that shows people, I try to imagine what those people are thinking. We combined these items into a scale measuring historical empathy.

Students who went on a tour of Crystal Bridges experience a 6 percent of a standard deviation increase in historical empathy. Among rural students, the benefit is much larger, a 15 percent of a standard deviation gain. We can illustrate this benefit by focusing on one of the items in the historical empathy scale. When asked to agree or disagree with the statement, "I have a good understanding of how early Americans thought and felt," 70 percent of the treatment-group students express agreement compared to 66 percent of the control group. Among rural participants, 69 percent of the treatment-group students agree with this statement compared to 62 percent of the control group. The fact that Crystal Bridges features art from different periods in American history may have helped produce these gains in historical empathy.

Tolerance. To measure tolerance we included four statements on the survey to which students could express their level of agreement or disagreement: 1) People who disagree with my point of view bother me; 2) Artists whose work is critical of America should not be allowed to have their work shown in art museums; 3) I appreciate hearing views different from my own; and 4) I think people can have different opinions about the same thing. We combined these items into a scale measuring the general effect of the tour on tolerance.

Overall, receiving a school tour of an art museum increases student tolerance by 7 percent of a standard deviation. As with critical thinking, the benefits are much larger for students in disadvantaged groups. Rural students who visited Crystal Bridges experience a 13 percent of a standard deviation improvement in tolerance. For students at high-poverty schools, the benefit is 9 percent of a standard deviation.

The improvement in tolerance for students who went on a tour of Crystal Bridges can be illustrated by the responses to one of the items within the tolerance scale. When asked about the statement, "Artists whose work is critical of America should not be allowed to have their work shown in art museums," 35 percent of the control-group students express agreement. But for students randomly assigned to receive a school tour of the art museum, only 32 percent agree with censoring art critical of America. Among rural students, 34 percent of the control group would censor art compared to 30 percent for the treatment group. In high-poverty schools, 37 percent of the control-group students would censor compared to 32 percent of the treatment-group students. These differences are not huge, but neither is the intervention. These changes represent the realistic improvement in tolerance that results from a half-day experience at an art museum.

Interest in Art Museums. Perhaps the most important outcome of a school tour is whether it cultivates an interest among students in returning to cultural institutions in the future. If visiting a museum helps improve critical thinking, historical empathy, tolerance, and other outcomes not measured in this study, then those benefits would compound for students if they were more likely to frequent similar cultural institutions throughout their life. The direct effects of a single visit are necessarily modest and may not persist, but if school tours help students become regular museum visitors, they may enjoy a lifetime of enhanced critical thinking, tolerance, and historical empathy.

We measured how school tours of Crystal Bridges develop in students an interest in visiting art museums in two ways: with survey items and a behavioral measure. We included a series of items in the survey designed to gauge student interest:

* I plan to visit art museums when I am an adult.

* I would tell my friends they should visit an art museum.

* Trips to art museums are interesting.

* Trips to art museums are fun.

* Would your friend like to go to an art museum on a field trip?

* Would you like more museums in your community?

* How interested are you in visiting art museums?

* If your friends or family wanted to go to an art museum, how interested would you be in going?

Interest in visiting art museums among students who toured the museum is 8 percent of a standard deviation higher than that in the randomized control group. Among rural students, the increase is much larger: 22 percent of a standard deviation. Students at high-poverty schools score 11 percent of a standard deviation higher on the cultural consumer scale if they were randomly assigned to tour the museum. And minority students gain 10 percent of a standard deviation in their desire to be art consumers.

One of the eight items in the art consumer scale asked students to express the extent to which they agreed or disagreed with the statement, "I would tell my friends they should visit an art museum." For all students who received a tour, 70 percent agree with this statement, compared to 66 percent in the control group. Among rural participants, 73 percent of the treatment-group students agree versus 63 percent of the control group. In high-poverty schools, 74 percent would recommend art museums to their friends compared to 68 percent of the control group. And among minority students, 72 percent of those who received a tour would tell their friends to visit an art museum, relative to 67 percent of the control group. Students, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds, are more likely to have positive feelings about visiting museums if they receive a school tour.

We also measured whether students are more likely to visit Crystal Bridges in the future if they received a school tour. All students who participated in the study during the first semester, including those who did not receive a tour, were provided with a coupon that gave them and their families free entry to a special exhibit at Crystal Bridges. The coupons were coded so that we could determine the applicant group to which students belonged. Students had as long as six months after receipt of the coupon to use it.

We collected all redeemed coupons and were able to calculate how many adults and youths were admitted. Though students in the treatment group received 49 percent of all coupons that were distributed, 58 percent of the people admitted to the special exhibit with those coupons came from the treatment group. In other words, the families of students who received a tour were 18 percent more likely to return to the museum than we would expect if their rate of coupon use was the same as their share of distributed coupons.

This is particularly impressive given that the treatment-group students had recently visited the museum. Their desire to visit a museum might have been satiated, while the control group might have been curious to visit Crystal Bridges for the first time. Despite having recently been to the museum, students who received a school tour came back at higher rates. Receiving a school tour cultivates a taste for visiting art museums, and perhaps for sharing the experience with others.
Disadvantaged Students
One consistent pattern in our results is that the benefits of a school tour are generally much larger for students from less-advantaged backgrounds. Students from rural areas and high-poverty schools, as well as minority students, typically show gains that are two to three times larger than those of the total sample. Disadvantaged students assigned by lottery to receive a school tour of an art museum make exceptionally large gains in critical thinking, historical empathy, tolerance, and becoming art consumers.

It appears that the less prior exposure to culturally enriching experiences students have, the larger the benefit of receiving a school tour of a museum. We have some direct measures to support this explanation. To isolate the effect of the first time visiting the museum, we truncated our sample to include only control-group students who had never visited Crystal Bridges and treatment-group students who had visited for the first time during their tour. The effect for this first visit is roughly twice as large as that for the overall sample, just as it is for disadvantaged students.

In addition, we administered a different version of our survey to students in kindergarten through 2nd grade. Very young students are less likely to have had previous exposure to culturally enriching experiences. Very young students make exceptionally large improvements in the observed outcomes, just like disadvantaged students and first-time visitors.

When we examine effects for subgroups of advantaged students, we typically find much smaller or null effects. Students from large towns and low-poverty schools experience few significant gains from their school tour of an art museum. If schools do not provide culturally enriching experiences for these students, their families are likely to have the inclination and ability to provide those experiences on their own. But the families of disadvantaged students are less likely to substitute their own efforts when schools do not offer culturally enriching experiences. Disadvantaged students need their schools to take them on enriching field trips if they are likely to have these experiences at all.
Policy Implications
School field trips to cultural institutions have notable benefits. Students randomly assigned to receive a school tour of an art museum experience improvements in their knowledge of and ability to think critically about art, display stronger historical empathy, develop higher tolerance, and are more likely to visit such cultural institutions as art museums in the future. If schools cut field trips or switch to "reward" trips that visit less-enriching destinations, then these important educational opportunities are lost. It is particularly important that schools serving disadvantaged students provide culturally enriching field trip experiences.

This first-ever, large-scale, random-assignment experiment of the effects of school tours of an art museum should help inform the thinking of school administrators, educators, policymakers, and philanthropists. Policymakers should consider these results when deciding whether schools have sufficient resources and appropriate policy guidance to take their students on tours of cultural institutions. School administrators should give thought to these results when deciding whether to use their resources and time for these tours. And philanthropists should weigh these results when deciding whether to build and maintain these cultural institutions with quality educational programs. We don't just want our children to acquire work skills from their education; we also want them to develop into civilized people who appreciate the breadth of human accomplishments. The school field trip is an important tool for meeting this goal.
Jay P. Greene is professor of education reform at the University of Arkansas, where Brian Kisida is a senior research associate and Daniel H. Bowen is a doctoral student. Additional materials, including a supplemental study and a methodological appendix, are available. For more, please see "The Top 20 Education Next Articles of 2020."

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Crystal Bridges; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art; School Tour © 2013 Stephen Ironside/Ironside Photography Bo Bartlett - "The Box" - 2002 * Oil on Linen * 82 x 100 - Photographer is Karen Mauch The school field trip has a long history in American public education.

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Arts Education Matters: We Know, We Measured It

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Arts Education Matters: We Know, We Measured It

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Commentary

Though the arts receive relatively little attention from policymakers and school leaders, exposing young people to art and culture can have a big impact on their development. The problem is that almost no one is bothering to study and document the extent to which the arts and culture can affect students. Instead, policymakers, researchers, and schools are typically focused on what is regularly and easily measured: math and reading achievement. This leads defenders of the arts to attempt to connect the arts to improved math and reading scores-a claim for which there is almost no rigorous evidence. Other arts advocates believe that the benefits cannot and need not be measured.

But the important effects of art and cultural experiences on students can be rigorously measured. In fact, we recently conducted two studies that used random-assignment research designs to identify causal effects of exposure to the arts through museum and theater attendance. In the museum study, we held a lottery with nearly 11,000 students from 123 Arkansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma schools, roughly half of whom were assigned to visit Crystal Bridges of American Art in Bentonville, Ark., while the other half served as the control group. In the live-theater study, we conducted a lottery to offer free tickets to roughly half of the 700 Arkansas students applying to see "Hamlet" or "A Christmas Carol" at a professional theater in Fayetteville.

Education Week Commentary asked leading educators and advocates to discuss the arts in K-12 education. Some of the contributors assert that the arts are a bridge between traditional academic subjects and the creative skills necessary to thrive in a global, 21st-century economy. Others argue for the critical part the arts play in child development.

Regular contributing artists illustrate the package, which continues online with a video that explores the role of the arts in classroom engagement.

This special section is supported by a grant from The Wallace Foundation. Education Week retained sole editorial control over the content of this package; the opinions expressed are the authors' own, however.
Read more from the package.
By comparing outcomes for students who had these art experiences-by chance-with the outcomes of those who did not, we can identify with confidence what the arts do for young people. The approach we took, which is typical in medical research, creates treatment and control groups that are, on average, identical in their backgrounds and prior interests, with only chance determining the distinction between the two groups. Therefore, any subsequent differences we observed in the students were caused by touring an art museum or seeing live theater, not a result of pre-existing differences among them.

We were also careful to focus on outcomes that could plausibly be altered by the arts. We didn't look at math- and reading-test scores because we have no reason to expect that arts experiences would have an impact on them. Lois Hetland and Ellen Winner, who are affiliated with the education research group Project Zero at Harvard University, have conducted systematic reviews of the research literature and found little credible evidence that the benefits of the arts transfer to other academic subjects. We should no more expect the arts to boost math scores than expect math to enhance appreciation for the arts.

Instead, we looked at whether exposure to the arts affected students' knowledge of the arts and altered their desire to consume the arts in the future. We also looked at whether art experiences had an effect on student values, such as tolerance and empathy. Finally, we looked at whether students' ability to engage in critical thinking about the arts was affected by these experiences.

The results across our two experiments were remarkably consistent: These cultural experiences improve students' knowledge about the arts, as well as their desire to become cultural consumers in the future. Exposure to the arts also affects the values of young people, making them more tolerant and empathetic. We suspect that their awareness of different people, places, and ideas through the arts helps them appreciate and accept the differences they find in the broader world. Arts experiences boost critical thinking, teaching students to take the time to be more careful and thorough in how they observe the world. Noticing details in paintings during a school tour, for example, helps train students to consider details in the future.

These improved outcomes may not boost scores on math and reading tests, but most parents, communities, and educators care about them. We don't just want our students to learn vocationally useful skills in math and reading. We also want them to be knowledgeable and frequent patrons of the arts. We want them to be tolerant and empathetic human beings. And we want them to be astute observers of their surroundings. Some of these qualities may help students earn a living, but their importance has more to do with students' development into cultured and humane people.

Our experiments suggest that rigorous study can document the additional effects of the arts on students, including the educational benefits of poetry, literature, music, film, and dance. Future studies could also consider other possible outcomes. Perhaps the arts encourage students to be more engaged in school, improve graduation rates, and increase college attendance, all of which tend to contribute to happiness and productivity.

None of this research will occur, however, until defenders of the arts recognize the need for it. Arts advocates can no longer rely on weak studies that simply compare students who participate in the arts with those who don't. Such studies are pervasive, and the claims they make are likely overblown. Skeptics can correctly wonder whether the research truly demonstrates that the arts make people awesome, or if awesome people are simply attracted to the arts. To convince skeptics of how the arts can influence a student's trajectory, future studies will have to adopt rigorous research designs that can isolate causal effects.

Art collectors are bidding up prices, and enormous fortunes are devoted to acquiring and displaying art. It makes little sense for arts patrons to spend a fortune acquiring and commissioning masterpieces, while failing to demonstrate the benefits of the arts with quality research. To determine whether there are important social benefits derived from arts activities, money should be invested in funding rigorous research, which can be expensive.

If the arts and culture are to remain a vibrant part of children's education, arts patrons will need to step forward to help pay for the kind of quality research that shows not only what those benefits are, but just how significant they can be.

Published in Print: December 3, 2014, as Art Matters We Know, We Measured It

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Jay P. Greene, Brian Kisida, Cari A. Bogulski, Anne Kraybill, Collin Hitt, & Daniel H. Bowen

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Arts Education Matters: We Know, We Measured It

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Commentary Though the arts receive relatively little attention from policymakers and school leaders, exposing young people to art and culture can have a big impact on their development. The problem is that almost no one is bothering to study and document the extent to which the arts and culture can affect students.

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The 13 most innovative schools in the world

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The 13 most innovative schools in the world

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NLE

Innovation in education can look like lots of things, like incorporating new technology or teaching methods, going on field trips, rejecting social norms, partnering with the local community.

It can be a floating school in an impoverished region, like the one in Lagos, Nigeria.

Or it can be a school that's blind to gender, like Egalia, in Stockholm, Sweden.

Keep scrolling to see what the future of education can, and probably should, look like.

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The 13 most innovative schools in the world

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Innovation in education can look like lots of things, like incorporating new technology or teaching methods, going on field trips, rejecting social norms, partnering with the local community. It can be a floating school in an impoverished region, like the one in Lagos, Nigeria.

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Hallways and stairwells are bullying hot spots, according to a new report from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). In the 2014-15 academic year, students between the ages of 12 and 18 reported nearly twice as many bullying incidents in transitional areas between classes-where they spend a fraction of their time-as in other school areas like cafeterias or playgrounds.

About 5 percent of students faced overtly physical forms of bullying, reporting that they had been "pushed, shoved, tripped, or spit on." Students reported higher levels of verbal and relational bullying, disclosing that they have been "made fun of, called names, or insulted" (13 percent) or were the "subject of rumors" (12 percent). The numbers suggest that digital bullying, which seemed to herald a dangerous new era of harassment when it first appeared, has not developed as predicted. While bullied girls reported online harassment (15.9 percent) at more than twice the rate boys did, they still encountered far more harassment in school environments than digital ones. Only 6.1 percent of bullied boys reported online incidents.

But it's the location data that jumps off the page of the report. While the playground is typically considered the epicenter of bullying, it's the more transitional spaces-the fast-moving, highly social hallways and stairwells-that dominate the landscape of student harassment. Almost 42 percent of students who were bullied reported incidents in hallways or stairwells, a number that was similar for both boys (41.8 percent) and girls (41.6 percent). A much smaller percentage of bullied students reported incidents outside on school grounds (19.3 percent), in a bathroom or locker room (9.4 percent), in the school cafeteria (22.2 percent), or on a school bus (10 percent).

Discouragingly, almost 34 percent of bullied students reported incidents in the classroom, a fact that deserves deeper consideration. As a former teacher, I think back to the transitional moments within a class, as students arrived, settled in, transitioned between activities, and then exited. Those situations are chaotic and difficult to manage well-and feel like a possible explanation for this unexpected finding.

Modern thinking on bullying acknowledges the complexity of the problem, and has shifted responsibility away from teachers and administrators, emphasizing instead the positive effects of broader networks and school-wide cultural transformations. According to Edutopia contributor Anne O'Brien, it's critical to develop a clear code of conduct, to empower "teachers and especially students to help enforce it," and to socialize the message through activities like all-school assemblies and "art contests highlighting school values." And a broader look at what Edutopia contributors have written on the topic over the course of years reveals a clear theme: the importance of establishing a web of allies, including administrators, students, teachers, parents, and even unaffiliated citizens. This more holistic, school-and-environs approach is best summed up in our recent blog post " Successful Community Efforts to Prevent Bullying." It takes a village.

Whatever model of bullying prevention a school adopts-however diverse the coalition summoned to take a stand against bullying-it makes sense to be mindful that hallways and stairwells, taken together, are nearly twice as likely to be the source of the problem as the cafeteria, playground, or buses and bathrooms. Supervision and vigilance in those fluid spaces between classes is likely to benefit vulnerable students disproportionately.

The full report-which, I should warn you, begins with a very detailed description of the statistical models and assumptions used- can be found here. To see critical resources on bullying prevention, take a look at our Bullying Prevention topic page or visit our resource roundup.

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Hallways and stairwells are bullying hot spots, according to a new report from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). In the 2014-15 academic year, students between the ages of 12 and 18 reported nearly twice as many bullying incidents in transitional areas between classes-where they spend a fraction of their time-as in other school areas like cafeterias or playgrounds.

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Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

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The minute the averagely over-worked teacher reads the title of this article, their heart will flutter will stress. Teachers barely get a lunchtime, let alone having the time to set up clubs. When is a teacher supposed to have a break, use the restroom, or eat?

I couldn't agree more, so let me start by clarifying what this article is about. In our school, like most schools, I am required to do a certain amount of recess duties, which includes one lunchtime slot. So I proposed that instead of walking around the cafeteria watching children push food around their plates, I could run a lunchtime club that is stimulating for both myself and the students. It would be a longer "duty," but I'd get to choose the club. Deal?

Lunch With the Doctor

I've been a fan of the British family science-fiction show Doctor Who since I was a boy. For those unfamiliar with this BBC television program, it's about an alien (the Doctor) and his human friends traveling in time and space to battle monsters and villains using their wits, not violence. The show was launched in 1963 to inspire children's interest in science and history, and wasn't supposed to be about bug-eyed aliens. Those aliens inevitably appeared, became very popular with the young audience, and the whole concept fused into a winning formula. The BBC brought it back 11 years ago after a long hiatus, and with a decent special effects budget and quality leading actors, it has been thriving ever since.

I'm now teaching at the third school where I've hosted a lunchtime club with Doctor Who. We eat and watch an episode, often stopping to discuss the sometimes complicated plot, the moral dilemma, or the historical context. This club was as successful in my former school in China as it is here in Germany, where the show is new for all the audiences. Doctor Who often has some scary parts, so I set an age limit of third grade or older, and seek parental approval beforehand. I currently have as many girls as boys attending.

What I love about this club are the conversations and investigations that it inspires. Club members from across the grades are constantly talking to me about the show. They read the spin-off monster compendium books and write their own texts. They play Doctor Who playground games and write time travel stories. They have deep discussions about black holes, galaxies, Shakespeare, the morality of time travel, etc.

Student-Run Clubs

However, better than my club is what's happening for the first time this year: student-initiated and student-managed lunchtime clubs. About two months ago, a student in my fourth-grade class asked if she could run her own acting club for our enthusiastic first-grade buddy class. I agreed on these conditions:

1. She would create a lesson plan outline (as a Google Doc so that she could share it with me).

2. She would meet with the first-grade teacher to organize times for talking to the class.

3. She would organize her own materials and time accordingly.

Being a highly responsible and able student, she managed all this easily.

At around the same time, another equally independent and motivated student asked if she could do a writers club with the same first-grade students, but on a different day. I agreed, laying out the same conditions, which she also met. A few weeks later, another group of fourth-grade students started an art club to teach art skills to students from the other first-grade class. They have since informed the whole school in an assembly and inspired other students to take action.

Student action is a key component of our IB curriculum -- but isn't student action really a key component of learning and life? We want our older students to act as role models and leaders for the younger students, just as we adults need to do the same for each other. To inspire and facilitate this is essential to our roles.

In reality, I am present for the acting club, as it occurs in my classroom, but I don't have to do anything apart from the occasional reminder to help with behavior management (although it's really enthusiasm management). My kindly first-grade colleagues are watching over the other two clubs. I've had to check in with my students sometimes to help them develop their presentation skills and patience, especially as more and more of their friends want to help out. But this is a good opportunity to help my students with their social-emotional development, something I would be doing anyway.

Benefits Versus Work

The benefits of these lunchtime clubs are obvious, and I can honestly say that they take little additional work. In fact, I look forward to watching Doctor Who with the students -- it's a highlight of the week for me. And I love seeing my students take leadership roles in the school.

When I started out, surprised colleagues joked that they too should do film clubs -- or anything else that they love -- to get off doing duties. I simply told them, "Yes, you should!" Now one of these colleagues is offering a lunchtime yoga club. What a brilliant idea! You could do the same. Share a passion, have fun, and inspire the students.

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The minute the averagely over-worked teacher reads the title of this article, their heart will flutter will stress. Teachers barely get a lunchtime, let alone having the time to set up clubs. When is a teacher supposed to have a break, use the restroom, or eat?

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Research on Healthy Eating Habits & Student Learning

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Research on Healthy Eating Habits & Student Learning

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Jan Sheehan

Jan Sheehan is an award-winning medical and nutrition writer, having entered journalism in 1992. She is a former contributing editor for "Parents" magazine. She has also written nutrition articles for "Self," "Fitness," "Ladies' Home Journal," "Health" and other magazines. Sheehan has a Bachelor of Arts in journalism from Purdue University.

Research shows students learn better when they're well nourished. Healthy eating has been linked to higher grades, better memory, more alertness, faster information processing and improved health leading to better school attendance, according to registered dietitian Elisa Zied, author of "Feed Your Family Right." Conversely, unhealthy eating habits can negatively affect learning. Researchers have studied a number of areas related to eating and learning.

Video of the Day

Skipping breakfast can have a negative impact on learning: A higher percentage of breakfast eaters passed a biology exam in one study of college students by Gregory Phillips. It's also important to eat a high-quality breakfast. In a study of students 12 to 13 years old, the average mark increased as breakfast quality improved. In another study of students ages 11 to 14, eating a breakfast with foods low on the glycemic index (GI) was associated with faster information processing. Low-GI foods include fruits, vegetables, nuts, and whole-grain breads and cereals, according to Zied.

Even with breakfast, the brain can run out of fuel before lunch. In one study of students ages 7 to 9, having a midmorning snack improved memory. The children who ate a smaller breakfast and lunch but consumed a midmorning snack experienced a smaller decline in immediate and delayed memory. Attention was not affected, however. Zied recommends yogurt with blueberries; this fruit has been linked to better memory in studies. A hard-boiled egg is also a good snack choice because eggs contain choline, a nutrient shown to improve memory in animal studies.

Kids who eat healthy are more likely to be in school and participating. Without proper nutrition and adequate calories, students often don't have enough energy to power the brain, resulting in fatigue and learning problems. In fact, alertness improved significantly in students eating breakfast in one study of high school students published in the journal of Pediatrics. The male students also reported feeling more positive, may improve academic performance by making students more eager to learn, according to Zied.

Students who eat lots of junk food are more likely to fall behind in school. A study of public school students published in the Journal of School Health linked high intake of sweetened beverages, such as sugary sodas to lower scores on math tests. A diet high in junk food and sugary sodas is also linked to childhood obesity, which could result in lower cognitive functioning, according to 2011 Yale University research. On the other hand, students with healthy eating habits are less likely to be obese and more likely to learn well.

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Research on Healthy Eating Habits & Student Learning

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Research shows students learn better when they're well nourished. Healthy eating has been linked to higher grades, better memory, more alertness, faster information processing and improved health leading to better school attendance, according to registered dietitian Elisa Zied, author of "Feed Your Family Right." Conversely,...

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Why the 21st Century Classroom May Remind You of Starbucks

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Why the 21st Century Classroom May Remind You of Starbucks

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It's been my dream to make my 2nd grade classroom look more like a "Starbucks for kids", and less like, well, a classroom.

Think about when you go to Starbucks to complete some work. Why do you choose to work there? Where do you choose to sit? I usually gravitate towards the comfy seating choices like the couches and big chairs, and yet, I see people choose the tables and chairs over and over again. Regardless, when you walk into Starbucks, you have choice. You get to choose where you sit. No one checks you in and directs you to a spot, telling you that you must sit there for the remainder of the day to do your work. If you need to get up, walk around, or choose a different seat, you are free to do so.

As I sat in our local Starbucks this past summer, I looked around and thought-why can't my classroom look like this?

After several weeks of planning and a little bit of faith, what resulted was this:

But how did I get to this point? Let me take you through some common questions I get asked about classroom redesign-so that hopefully, you can do the same.

What did your process look like?

Before I even purchased a single thing, I thought about why I was doing a classroom redesign. If we truly want to prepare our students for the real world, we need to put them in responsive, dynamic environments that reflect life outside of a traditional classroom. And what's that life outside like? Full of choices, where adults are responsible for their own learning. As a college student visiting my classroom once said, "It's like you're treating them like little adults." And as my teaching has changed, my classroom design needed to change right along with it.

After consulting Erin Klein, a classroom design guru who has been "ditching her desks" to avoid "the cemetery effect" for a few years now and sharing her experiments on her blog, I thought about my classroom and the traditional chairs and tables I was given-and I came up with a plan.

Looking around my classroom, I quickly realized that I had far too much furniture, so I got rid of four tables, my huge teacher desk, 20 traditional chairs and a file cabinet. Next, I started looking for resources to redesign and repurpose what I already had. I looked around my house and in my storage closet to pull some pieces that I wasn't using, and scavenged Hobby Lobby for some new purchases.

What came out of that was flexible seating and open floor space: I thought about my students who would prefer to stretch out on the floor, and I purchased yoga mats and bath rugs for them to lay out on and work. Simultaneously, my fellow educators contributed extra clipboards they weren't using so students would be able to write just as easily.

Now, I have a large, open area for whole group instruction and five remaining tables, each designed with a specific purpose:

a small group instruction whiteboard table with stools

a stand-and-work table with no chairs

a crate seats table

a sit-on-the-floor area with core disks or pillows and work table (see to the right)

a stability ball chairs table

Do you have a seating plan or arrangement?

No, I don't have a seating plan for kids. I allow students to responsibly choose where they work every day. When they arrive in the morning, they make a choice for the day but are free to switch places as they see fit throughout the day. I have enough seating options in our classroom that there are never issues about running out of one type of seating.

How do you ensure students are selecting smart choices to work?

At the beginning of the year, students spent an entire day trying out each of the seating choices. After that, I began to let them self-select their seating daily.

I think this is an important step in the process. For example, one student who stands and works originally swore up and down that he would work best on the stability balls-but that changed. It only took him falling off the chair once and almost bouncing out the door for us to both realize that it probably wasn't a smart fit for him.

One big note: Students know I always reserve the right to move them, and they know I always have their best learning in mind.

What about your students with behavior issues?

The behaviors of my students who have exhibited aggressive or distracting behaviors in the past have significantly decreased. There is power for them in the choice to select where they will work. They know the work isn't optional, but choosing where they work is.

Did you do it all at once, or introduce these changes slowly over time?

I had the option of "work rugs" (glorified bath rugs, as shown to the right) for students last year, but only a few students utilized them. So, things have changed over time.

If you want to just try a few things without breaking the bank, I would start with a few work rugs or yoga mats. Or, just take the legs off of a table, lay it on the ground and get some cheap pillows for students to sit on. It's also easy to raise a table for students who prefer to stand and work. Don't feed the fears-just try it and see what works for you.

Where do students keep materials?

We have work bins in the corner of our room where students keep folders, math journals, and other personal items. We use community supplies at each of the five tables, and I have individual baskets of supplies for students that choose to work on yoga mats or work rugs. If you don't have work bins for students, get three drawer stackers and place them throughout the room, or put materials in baskets. You may have to get creative and repurpose something you already have-or something that another teacher has, but isn't using.

What do parents think of all this?

This was an amazing question I saw on my Instagram page, and it pushed me to reach out to a parent for an opinion for this article. Here was her response:

If we take a look at classrooms over the past 70 years, we are seeing the same type of learning environments, year after year. The world is changing, yet our classrooms are remaining much the same. Revitalizing space is a straightforward way to let students exercise choice in the learning environment and find academic success on their own terms.

Now several weeks into our school year, I can't imagine going back to traditional seating. Distracting behaviors have been almost completely eliminated while engagement and student participation are at an all time high. And as I look around our classroom, I feel proud of what we have accomplished-a Starbucks for kids.

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Why the 21st Century Classroom May Remind You of Starbucks - EdSurge News

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It's been my dream to make my 2nd grade classroom look more like a "Starbucks for kids", and less like, well, a classroom. Think about when you go to ...

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Students, teachers dealing with greater academic demands

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Students, teachers dealing with greater academic demands

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Newsela | Students, teachers dealing with greater academic demands

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Students and teachers are struggling to cope with higher academic standards

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At a school in Baltimore, mindfulness proves more effective than punishment

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At a school in Baltimore, mindfulness proves more effective than punishment

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Newsela | At a school in Baltimore, mindfulness proves more effective than punishment

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At this school in Tokyo, five-year-olds cause traffic jams and windows are for Santa to climb into. Meet: the world’s cutest kindergarten, designed by architect Takaharu Tezuka. In this charming talk, he walks us through a design process that really lets kids be kids.

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Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?

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Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity.