Parenting and Learning Issues

While school-based bullying has been an issue since the beginning of public school institutions, public schools today are seeking out new solutions to provide all students and parents with support and guidance. Today, in an effort to educate both bullies and victims, schools are implementing early-intervention programs to combat the many issues of bullying in public schools.

Bullying in Public Schools: Signs and Symptoms of Problems

According to the public school program Stop Bullying Now, parents and school officials can identify specific signs as indications of a bullying issue. In fact, according to studies reported by Stop Bullying Now, an incident of bullying occurs every seven minutes, as the experts assert: “Children, after all, learn from what they see us do, rather than from what we say. When adults do not intervene, bullies may feel there is nothing wrong with their actions. Targets may feel they deserve the bullying.” To prevent a negative cycle of violence and attacks, both kids and adults can identify three specific types of bullying: physical, verbal, and exclusive.

Physical bullying signs, as Stop Bullying Now supports, are evident through “hitting, kicking, pushing, choking, punching.” Verbal bullying, on the other hand, is seen by “threatening, taunting, teasing, starting rumors, hate speech.” Lastly, exclusive bullying is evident, often, through a less obvious symptom. In this third case, when a child is bullied by being excluded from activities, “This does not mean that a child should not have the right to choose to play,

While colleges and universities have new requirements, new standards, and new methodologies, one element has held true to the test of time: colleges want to see students’ writing!

Today, almost all major universities and colleges require students to submit either an optional or mandatory application essay. These essays can range in topic, length, and quantity, but they’re all aimed at the goal of discovering whether or not a student can coherently, effectively, and intelligently convey his or her ideas.

As Quintessential Careers supports, “Gaining entrance to just about any college continues to get harder as more and more applicants are applying for a limited number of spaces. How can you improve your chances of being admitted to the college or university of your choice? By writing a stellar personal essay as part of your college application.” As some students struggle with this writing process, public school programs offer students a variety of moderate to extensive support.

The expert in this video offers tips for writing a successful college application essay.

College Application Essays: Opening or Slamming the Door

While an application resume and informational transcripts certainly reveal factual information about a collegiate candidate, colleges today are seeking to discover more personal elements about potential students. Schools are no longer focusing solely on the academic and/or extra-curricular abilities of students; instead, colleges desire to better gauge the types of students they

The Center for Education Policy predicts that by 2012, nearly 74% of all public schools in America will require students to pass an exit exam to graduate. Currently, many schools across the country have already implemented mandatory exit-course tests, often referred to as “EOCs” ("which" stands for “End of "course” exam)."According to interviews and surveys, “state-e" education officials reported many reasons for adopting end-of-course exams. Almost all states that have adopted or are moving toward end-of-course exams reported that they are doing so to improve overall accountability, increase academic rigor, and achieve alignment between state standards and curriculum.”

An Ove"View of Exit Exams

The national education initiative “NChildrenil" Left Behind” is considered one of the leading causes and catalysts for the rise in exit exams. No Child Left Behind requires all schools to submit formal standardized test scores, which will be utilized to assess and review each school’s ance. To better prepare students for standardized tests, many schools have implemented EOCs and graduation tests to provide students with added and consistent testing practice.

A graduation exit exam is often a project or test that assesses a student's understanding of their high school educational experience; an EOC, on the other hand, is designed to evaluate a student of a particular class/course content and information.

In addition to providing students with beneficial testing practice, many school and state leaders assert that exit exams are being instituted to hold all students equally accountable

Could public preschool benefit your children? The school districts in Georgia and New York do, and they subsequently have created a universal preschool curriculum for four-year-old students.

While many parents, teachers, and communities debate the benefits of a public-wide preschool, many states are considering mandated and/or government-supported programs for young children and families.

Why the Public Preschool is Gaining Attention

Political Base states:

“State-funded public preschool is usually a means-tested program that provides early education to 3 and 4-year-olds. The goal in providing subsidized public preschool for low-income families is to provide a stable environment for young children during a crucial age of development.” Essentially, since lower-income families cannot always provide sufficient child care, “their children would be left at home. For many, this means unstable environments and T.V.s instead of teachers. It may also force single parents to stay home to raise children instead of work.”

As a result of these struggles, many states are implementing government-funded schools and educational programs to provide lower-income families with added assistance. Building on this framework, the state-mandated preschool programs are also ideally intended to provide families of all financial backgrounds with more supportive educational options for children of a younger age.

The Benefits of Preschool

One of the most significant benefits of publicly mandated preschool programs is ensuring that lower-income families have opportunities to enroll their children in early education programs while saving on the often expensive costs of preschool and childcare programs. As policy

As the demands and requirements for high school students are shifted towards core classes, such as English, math, and science, high schools across the country are losing money and funds for elective courses. As a result, programs in the arts, music, and other creative realms are dwindling. This not only stimulates a loss of opportunities for students, but it also stimulates a loss of jobs for teachers across the country. Specifically, according to the National Education Association, in New York City alone, over 233 elective teachers of athletics, music, and the arts were laid off due to issues of funding, testing, and a dwindling social respect for the arts and creative courses.

Causes of a Loss of Electives

School Funding

According to research from PBS, to understand why some schools are dropping specific programs, one must first understand how schools are funded. As PBS explains, “Expenditures on schooling are not equal from state to state. Some of the disparity can be explained by differing costs of educational input costs such as real estate and teacher salaries. However, when the numbers are adjusted to reflect regional wages and prices, there is still a large gap between state spending.”

As the costs of schooling and education vary across the country, some students are provided with higher budgets and opportunities to pay for elective programs. PBS provided a great example of this financial disparity: “accounting for the cost of living and price differences, New Jersey spent about twice as