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Eighty percent of students in grades 9-12, 65 percent of those in grades 6-8, 45 percent of grades 3-5 students

have access to a smartphone

In the survey, “The American Freshman: National Norms Fall 2010,” involving more than 200,000 incoming full-time students at four-year colleges, the percentage of students rating themselves as “below average” in emotional health rose. Meanwhile, the percentage of students who said their emotional health was above average fell to 52 percent. It was 64 percent in 1985.

“More students are arriving on campus with problems, needing support, and today’s economic factors are putting a lot of extra stress on college students, as they look at their loans and wonder if there will be a career waiting for them on the other side.”

“Students know their generation is likely to be less successful than their parents’, so they feel more pressure to succeed than in the past,” said Jason Ebbeling, director of residential education at Southern Oregon University. “These days, students worry that even with a college degree they won’t find a job that pays more than minimum wage, so even at 15 or 16 they’re thinking they’ll need to get into an M.B.A. program or Ph.D. program.”

Over the last 40 years, America’s inmate population has quadrupled, from 500,000 to 2.3 million, giving the U.S. 5 percent of the world’s population, but 25 percent of its prisoners. The country now spends $70 billion a year — $50 billion of it at the state level — locking up all of these people, many of whom are nonviolent offenders snagged in the war on drugs.

“With the greater focus on distance learning, colleges’ expectations are increasing,” says Christine P. Mullins, executive director of the Instructional Technology Council. “They’re realizing that student services, like library services, student orientation, tutoring, and counseling are needed to provide a well-rounded education.”

Sixty four percent of colleges require faculty to take distance-education training programs, and among those that offer training, 59 percent require more than eight hours of it.

79 percent of colleges are creating their own online course content, which requires staff members with experience and knowledge of instructional design. Nineteen percent use content created by textbook publishers, and 2 percent contract or license materials from some other content provider.

United States Italy Dem. Rep. Congo Population mid-2008 305 million 60 million 67 million Population 2050 (projected) 438 million 62 million 189 million Lifetime births per woman 2.1 1.3 6.5 Percent of population below age 15 20% 14% 47% Percent of population ages 65+ 13% 20% 3% Life expectancy at birth 78 years 81 years 53 years Annual births 4.3 million 568,120 2.9 million Annual deaths 2.4 million 575,300 0.8 million Annual births minus deaths 1.9 million -7,200 2.1 million Percent of population undernourished <2.5%

To justify their campaign, ed reformers repeat, mantra-like, that U.S. students are trailing far behind their peers in other nations, that U.S. public schools are failing. The claims are specious. Two of the three major international tests—the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study and the Trends in International Math and Science Study—break down student scores according to the poverty rate in each school. The tests are given every five years. The most recent results (2006) showed the following: students in U.S. schools where the poverty rate was less than 10 percent ranked first in reading, first in science, and third in math. When the poverty rate was 10 percent to 25 percent, U.S. students still ranked first in reading and science. But as the poverty rate rose still higher, students ranked lower and lower. Twenty percent of all U.S. schools have poverty rates over 75 percent. The average ranking of American students reflects this. The problem is not public schools; it is poverty. And as dozens of studies have shown, the gap in cognitive, physical, and social development between children in poverty and middle-class children is set by age three.

Drilling students on sample questions for weeks before a state test will not improve their education. The truly excellent charter schools depend on foundation money and their prerogative to send low-performing students back to traditional public schools. They cannot be replicated to serve millions of low-income children. Yet the reform movement, led by Gates, Broad, and Walton, has convinced most Americans who have an opinion about education (including most liberals) that their agenda deserves support.

THE COST of K–12 public schooling in the United States comes to well over $500 billion per year. So, how much influence could anyone in the private sector exert by controlling just a few billion dollars of that immense sum? Decisive influence, it turns out. A few billion dollars in private foundation money, strategically invested every year

Students want more control over how they use technology in school, but many classrooms are still making it difficult.

A whopping 45 percent of middle-schoolers and 55 percent of high-schoolers say that they mainly access the Internet through mobile devices.

esistance from administrators, 52 percent of whom said they don’t allow students to use any personal mobile device in class, at least partially because a blended learning model represents a shift in the relationship between teacher and student.

It is now late October. Have any of your students already missed more than a month of school? Are any on track to? Can you even know? Educators understand the importance of school attendance -- as we often say, "You can't teach an empty desk." And schools have mechanisms in place to track it, including average daily attendance (ADA) and truancy. But neither of those measures addresses chronic absenteeism. Chronic absenteeism is typically defined as missing 10 percent or more of a school year -- approximately 18 days a year, or just two days every month. And across the nation, 5 to 7.5 million students are chronically absent.

Teachers increasingly value student-produced multimedia, student-created Web sites, blogs, and social media communities as well.

Only one or two students out of every 100 displayed the level of science mastery that the department defines as advanced

a smaller proportion of American 12th graders demonstrated proficiency in science than in any other subject that the federal government has tested since 2005 — except history

Twenty-one percent of the nation’s 12th graders scored at or above the proficient level in science on the 2009 tests, compared with 42 percent who demonstrated proficiency on the most recent economics exam, and 38 percent and 26 percent, respectively, on the most recent nationwide reading and math tests.

now that e-readers are cheaper and more plentiful, they have gone mass market, reaching consumers across age and demographic groups, and enticing some members of the younger generation to pick them up for the first time.

Kids are drawn to the devices, and there’s a definite desire by parents to move books into this format,” Ms. Vila said. “Now you’re finding people who are saying: ‘Let’s use the platform. Let’s use it as a way for kids to learn.’ 

I didn’t buy it until I knew that the teachers in middle school were allowing kids to read their books on their e-readers