Parenting and Learning Issues

Turning 16 in America means reaching the quintessential teen milestone: obtaining your driver’s license! However, what if your grades could prevent you from getting your driver’s license?

Indeed, many public high schools, school districts, and even states across the nation have implemented rules that require students to maintain a specific grade point average in order to legally obtain and carry a driver’s license.

In an effort to encourage better academic performance, public high schools are applying the “carrot and stick” philosophy to their student’s licenses – and the results have been intriguing.

This video reports on how Tennessee dealt with grade restrictions on student driver's licenses.

Driving up Student Success

Linking student grades with driving privileges is a relatively new practice and one of the most recent states to mandate student driving laws is West Virginia. According to The Intelligencer, the West Virginia Legislature recently amended its current teen driving law, granting the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles the permission and authority to revoke any student’s driver’s license due to poor grades or attendance. Although the law does not currently outline a minimum GPA that students must maintain to preserve their driving privileges, the revised law states that students must uphold “adequate academic progress.”

Most high school students pursuing classes full-time will take eight credits each semester, and therefore, many West Virginia school leaders plan to report students with

Many teens are attracted to the glamorous appeal of high-fashion style, runways, and celebrity trends. Fortunately, through innovative public school course offerings, students can begin to develop the skills needed to pursue a career in the fashion industry. While many public schools offer fashion design courses, some students can even enroll in public high schools devoted strictly to fashion!

Innovative Public Schools Dedicated to Fashion

If you live in New York City and have a serious passion for fashion, consider enrolling in New York’s Fashion High School. While it may sound fictional, Fashion High School (FHS) is an award-winning and widely celebrated public school for fashion-forward teens.

Considered one of the top schools in New York, FHS provides teens with “Challenging, creative, and effective vocational, technical and academic” opportunities. In fact, FHS has even garnered national media attention. In fact, both the U.S. News and World Report and the New York Times have published articles celebrating the school’s success. Furthermore, after evaluating more than 18,000 schools, experts from leading institutions awarded FHS as one of the best schools in the country.

This video reports on a day at the Fashion Industries High School.

FHS aims to provide students with an educational experience that is personally, socially, and professionally sound. Specifically, educators guide students through lessons that center on core issues such as:

• Students work together collaboratively

Children are often caught in the crossfire of a divorce, and separation results can wreak havoc on a child’s academic performance and behavior at school. In fact, as Planet Divorce and Parenting Wizards' expert counselor asserts, “Children exposed to divorce are twice as likely to repeat a grade and five times likelier to be expelled or suspended from school.”

Researchers have found that many children experience behavioral changes in the immediate months after a divorce. Subsequently, divorcing parents can help their children maintain their performance in public schools by understanding these issues.

This video explains how divorce impacts children's mental health.

What Happens to Children after a Divorce

In the months following a divorce, children tend to demonstrate more disobedient, less affectionate, and more demanding behaviors. As children carry their personal problems from home into their school atmosphere, some of the changes seen in their school behavior include:

• Withdrawal
• Dependency
• Inattention
• Unhappiness
• Reduced work ethic and effort
• Increased acts of violence
• Physical boundary problems

Due to the dramatic upheaval in a child’s environment, divorce can impact students in an array of grade levels and at various ages.

Preventing Long-Term Problems: Public School Resources for Family Support

Studies show that over half of the reported divorces in the United States involve children and/or teens. Subsequently, Early School Years argues, “It is important to remember that divorce does affect children, and it’s

Police officers are commonly seen in high schools and many middle schools, but is the trend now spreading to our public elementary schools? Indeed, some school and police leaders are working to increase the number of officer positions in public schools—regardless of the age range of the school’s students.

Increasing Police Presence in Public Schools

While the title “school resource officer” may sound unfamiliar to those who graduated from high school more than 10 years ago, positions for police officers in schools are quite commonplace today. As All Academic explains, School Resource Officers (SROs) have been appearing in schools across the country at steadily rising rates in recent years.

Ideally, the SROs are available to help provide leadership examples for all students on campus; however, their influence in the schools can certainly have an impact that extends beyond these intentions. SROs are usually hired and paid by the local police force (not by the local schools), and subsequently, many believe that “The presence of these officers shapes the school social climate and students’ legal socialization.”

Interestingly, however, some high schools have reported an increase in student misbehaviors after officers have been assigned to the campus. Subsequently, many elementary school leaders are experimenting with SROs in the hopes that “legal socialization” at an early age can help prevent behavior problems in the middle and high school years. These proponents believe that teaching elementary students the benefits of law enforcement professionals will translate into

Did you know that student dropout rates are still continuing to rise in some of the United States' most populated areas? According to Fox News, America's Promise Alliance reveals that in many urban areas, approximately half of public school students do not earn their high school diplomas. This report further found that 17 of the nation's 50 largest cities have graduation rates below 50 percent. Among the lowest cities are Detroit, Indianapolis, and Cleveland. In examining this crisis on a larger spectrum, only 70 percent of the United States' high school students graduate on schedule each year, and 1.2 million students opt to drop out of school each year. Although the current dropout epidemic is bleak, some school leaders have fortunately found programs to help transform their negative graduation rates.

This video reports on America's dropout epidemic.

Solving the Country's Educational Crisis

In response to the grim dropout statistics, the United States former Secretary of State Colin Powell stated “When more than 1 million students a year drop out of high school, it's more than a problem, it's a catastrophe.” Powell's wife, Alma Powell, further elaborated on the importance of high school education – arguing that public schools prepare individuals for higher education, new challenges, and issues that extend far beyond a classroom.

To address the many problems associated with this crisis, Colin and Alma Powell have created the Chair