sottnet--2019-09-22--Parents shocked as UK schools teach 6-10yo kids to touch their private parts in beds showers

Parents shocked as UK schools teach 6-10yo kids to touch their 'private parts' in beds & showers

Parents in Britain are outraged after more than 240 primary schools introduced lessons on "self-stimulation" for children as young as six as part of their sex education program.A teaching manual, published by the Mail on Sunday, instructs how to teach children aged six to ten about "the rules of self-stimulation." The lessons are part of the new All About Me program rolled out in more than 240 primary schools in central England's Warwickshire County. The program, in turn, is designed to be taught in accordance with the compulsory Relationship and Sex Education (RSE), which will be implemented all across the UK next September.In the section called 'Touching Myself', the teachers are advised to tell the youngsters that "lots of people like to tickle or stroke themselves as it might feel nice," including touching their "private parts." The children are told that this is "really very normal," despite the fact that "some people may get cross or say that it is dirty."The children are then warned that it is "not polite" to touch themselves in class or other public places, and they should "only" do it when they "are alone, perhaps in the bath or shower or in bed."Matthew Seymour told the Mail on Sunday."They are calling it self-touching and they won't use the term masturbation, but when you read it that's exactly what they're talking about."Parents who disagree with this type of sex education took their children from school when it was taught. A number of education experts and teachers criticized the program's wording for being too vague and not suitable for primary schoolers."We never use the word self-stimulation, not in primary school. For us it is not appropriate," teacher Lynette Smith said.Even some politicians who support the idea of compulsory sex education are skeptical towards All About Me. Conservative MP David Davies was "furious" over the program.Warwickshire County Council, meanwhile, maintains that the lessons simply tell young students how to "distinguish between appropriate and inappropriate touching" and "recognise the difference between public and private behaviours."The council's website says the program helps to develop the skills required for managing "healthy relationships," builds "self-esteem" and allows the children "to explore personal identity."One of the program's authors, education consultant Jonny Hunt, argued that "however uncomfortable adults may find it, children of all ages will self-stimulate from time to time."


sottnet--2019-10-14--Ohio school replaces homecoming King/Queen with gender-neutral 'homecoming royalty'

An Ohio high school is doing away with gendered language for its homecoming court after two female students were crowned what would usually have been "king" and "queen" — but will now be known as "Homecoming Royalty" instead.Milford High School said the "change in terminology was made to reflect the voice" of the student body and to "ensure all students have the opportunity to feel included."The decision was made after the homecoming votes were tallied at last week's Friday night football game and female students, Abbey Stropes and Trinity Miller, won both titles., saying in a statement that the winners will be known "this year and in the future" as Homecoming Royalty. The school statement also described the vote as a "popularity contest" and a "long-standing tradition."The girls held scepters instead of wearing crowns at the event.School principal Josh Kauffman said he "fully supports" the voice and choice of the student body.Gender-neutral toilets are also becoming more popular in schools and other public buildings, despite some backlash from those who say it amounts to an uncomfortable invasion of privacy.


sottnet--2019-11-20--Seclusion and isolation: Children are being locked away, alone and terrified, in schools across Illi

Seclusion and isolation: Children are being locked away, alone and terrified, in schools across Illinois

The spaces have gentle names: The reflection room. The cool-down room. The calming room. The quiet room.In Illinois, it's legal for school employees to seclude students in a separate space — to put them in "isolated timeout" — if the students pose a safety threat to themselves or others.Children were sent to isolation after refusing to do classwork, for swearing, for spilling milk, for throwing Legos.For this investigation, ProPublica Illinois and the Tribune obtained and analyzed thousands of detailed records that state law requires schools to create whenever they use seclusion. The resulting database documents more than 20,000 incidents from the 2017-18 school year and through early December 2018.Of those, about 12,000 included enough detail to determine what prompted the timeout.The Tribune/ProPublica Illinois investigation, which also included more than 120 interviews with parents, children and school officials, provides the first in-depth examination of this practice in Illinois.Because school employees observing the students often keep a moment-by-moment log, the records examined by reporters offer a rare view of what happens to children inside these rooms — often in their own words.Without doubt, many of the children being secluded are challenging. Records show school employees struggling to deal with disruptive, even violent behavior, such as hitting, kicking and biting. Workers say that they have to use seclusion to keep everyone in the classroom safe and that the practice can help children learn how to calm themselves.No federal law regulates the use of seclusion, and Congress has debated off and on for years whether that should change. Last fall, a bill was introduced that would prohibit seclusion in public schools that receive federal funding. A U.S. House committee held a hearing on the issue in January, but there's been no movement since.Nineteen states prohibit secluding children in locked rooms; four of them ban any type of seclusion. But Illinois continues to rely on the practice. The last time the U.S. Department of Education calculated state-level seclusion totals, in 2013-14, Illinois ranked No. 1.Although state law requires schools to file a detailed report each time they use seclusion, no one is required to read these accounts.Several school district officials said they had not reviewed seclusion reports from their schools until reporters requested them. The Illinois State Board of Education does not collect any data on schools' use of isolated timeout and has not updated guidelines since issuing them 20 years ago.Informed of the investigation's findings, the Illinois State Board of Education said it would issue guidance clarifying that seclusion should be used only in emergencies. Officials acknowledged they don't monitor the use of isolated timeout and said they would need legislative action to do so.This investigation, based on records from more than 100 districts, found seclusion was used in schools across every part of the state and by a range of employees, from teachers and aides to social workers and security personnel.Some districts declined to provide records or gave incomplete information. Others wouldn't answer even basic questions, saying the law did not require them to. Of more than 20 districts reporters asked to visit, only three said yes."Is this something that we're ashamed of? It's not our finest," said Christan Schrader, director of the Black Hawk Area Special Education District in East Moline, which documented about 850 seclusions in the time period examined.Schrader said she thinks her staff generally uses seclusion appropriately but acknowledged room for improvement. She met with reporters at the district's administration building but wouldn't let them see the seclusion rooms in the school across the parking lot.About 20 minutes after he was put in one of his school's Quiet Rooms —— 9-year-old Jace Gill wet his pants.An aide, watching from the doorway, wrote that down in a log, noting it was 10:53 a.m. on Feb. 1, 2018.School aides had already taken away Jace's shoes and both of his shirts. Jace then stripped off his wet pants, wiped them in the urine on the floor and sat down in the corner."I'm naked!" Jace yelled at 10:56 a.m.Staff did not respond, the log shows, except to close the door "for privacy.""Dancing in feces. Doing the twist," staff wrote at 11:14 a.m., noting that the boy then started pacing back and forth."I need more clothes," he called out."We know," an aide answered.Jace banged on the walls and tried to pry open the door. He sat against the wall, crying for his mom.The incident began that morning when Jace ripped up a math worksheet and went into the hallway, trying to leave school.Jace was diagnosed with autism when he was 3 and began having epileptic seizures at 5. In first grade, officials at his local school referred him to the Kansas Treatment and Learning Center, a public school in east-central Illinois for children with emotional and behavioral disabilities.Jace's mother, Kylee Beaven, had heard about the Quiet Rooms at Kansas and had strong reservations about the concept, even before she took a school tour and stepped inside one. She recalls being told he would never be shut inside alone."I remember standing there and thinking, like, if I was a kid, how would I feel if I was in this room by myself?" she said.Once, he was shut in after he pushed a book off his desk, said "I hate reading," raised his fist and tried to leave the classroom. Another day, he refused to get out of his grandmother's car at school drop-off, so a staff member took him straight to a Quiet Room.After he went into a Quiet Room on Feb. 1, a staff member took notes every one or two minutes. The handwritten incident report stretches nine pages on lined paper.A mental-health crisis worker arrived to talk to him, but he wouldn't answer her questions.He was not released until his grandmother — his "Gammy" — came to pick him up at 2:07 p.m.In the nearly 50,000 pages of reports reporters reviewed about Illinois students in seclusion, school workers often keep watch over children who are clearly in distress.Kansas TLC is operated by the Eastern Illinois Area Special Education district, which serves students from eight counties and is based in Charleston. Illinois has about 70 regional special-education districts that teach students who can't be accommodated in their home districts.Zayvion Johnson, 15, remembers how it felt. He used to go to the Kansas school, too, and spent time in the same rooms as Jace.The Eastern Illinois district's executive director, Tony Reeley, said he had not grasped how often seclusion was being used in his schools until he read some of the documents requested by reporters."Looking at a stack of 8,000 pages at one time really did kind of hit home," Reeley said when he met with reporters in the spring. He has not responded to recent requests for comment, including about specific incidents.Reeley and assistant director Jeremy Doughty said they were surprised and concerned about how frequently staff used seclusion rooms after students were disobedient but not physically aggressive."When we read it, it reads punitive," Doughty said."We have to do something to address this," said Reeley.In October 2018, Jace died at home in rural Paris of a seizure in his sleep. He had not returned to Kansas TLC that fall; his family had decided to home-school him, in part to keep him out of the Quiet Rooms.In the family's living room, Jace's mom shared photos of him at a Wiggles concert, in a Spider-Man costume, sitting on Santa's lap. A favorite image features the family wearing "Team Jace" T-shirts at an autism walk; Jace's shirt reads "I'm Jace.""He loved his dad and loved me and he loved his Gammy," his mother said. "He had issues, but they weren't his fault. He couldn't control it."The plywood box in the middle of Ted Meckley's special-education classroom was 3 feet wide, 3 feet deep and 7 feet tall. The schools around Pontiac had been using boxes to seclude students for years, and Ted, a nonverbal 16-year-old with developmental disabilities, was routinely shut inside.In 1989, Ted's mother, Judith, started speaking out. Newspapers published stories, people got upset, and the boxes were removed.Judith Meckley joined a state task force to examine the use of seclusion. After a brief ban on the practice, the state Board of Education issued guidance and then, a few years later, rules that carried the weight of state law.The Illinois rules accepted the need for seclusion, a practice already used in psychiatric hospitals and other institutional settings.After Congress enacted a 1975 law guaranteeing a free public education to children with disabilities, the colleges and universities that trained teachers sought guidance from behavioral psychologists on how to manage these potentially challenging students.Illinois' rules, now 20 years old, require that school employees constantly monitor the child and that they be able to see inside the room. Locks on the doors must be active, meaning they have to be continuously held in place. That's so a child can't be trapped during a fire or other emergency.But the rules also cemented the use of seclusion in Illinois' public schools.The Illinois law also lists reasons children can be physically restrained, a practice sometimes used in conjunction with seclusion. But the law is less precise about seclusion than about restraint, leaving room for misinterpretation by school officials."It makes it even more dangerous because schools are widely using it as punishment," Naiditch said after reading some of the incident reports obtained by ProPublica Illinois and the Tribune.School administrators who use seclusion say they need it to deal with students whose behavior is challenging, disruptive and, at times, dangerous."If (students are) committed to hurting someone, that room is a way to keep them safe," said Alicia Corrigan, director of student services for Community Consolidated School District 15, which operates a therapeutic day program in Rolling Meadows for 40 students with disabilities.Students there were secluded about 330 times in the time period reporters examined.But "that's the smallest part of our day," Corrigan said. "That is not what we do all day."The Belleville Area Special Services Cooperative, near St. Louis, has two timeout rooms. Scratch marks are visible in the blue padding inside and on the windows in the heavy, locking doors." said Jeff Daugherty, who heads the cooperative. He allowed journalists to tour the Pathways school and see timeout rooms. "It's never pleasant. I do believe it's a necessary tool for our line of work with our students."A few school districts in Illinois prohibit seclusion, including Chicago Public Schools, which banned it 11 years ago. But these districts often send students with disabilities to schools that do use it, such as those operated by most of Illinois' special-education districts.Danforth said seclusion goes unexamined because it largely affects students with disabilities.To put children in timeout rooms, "you really have to believe that you're dealing with people who are deeply defective. And that's what the staff members tell each other. ... You can do it because of who you're doing it to."Ted Meckley, whose experiences in Pontiac's timeout box as a teenager helped change the practice of seclusion, is now 45 and living in a group home. When a reporter told his mother that seclusion still is widely used, she gasped.In fact, reporters identified several schools that have added more seclusion rooms in the past year or so. North Shore School District 112 converted two coat closets to isolation rooms. The McLean district in Normal opened two rooms in an elementary school.And at Dirksen Elementary School in Schaumburg, two new 6-by-6 rooms are in use. They're called "resolution rooms."By 8:35 a.m. on Dec. 19, 2017, all five of the timeout "booths" at Bridges Learning Center near Centralia were already full. School had been in session for five minutes.Each booth is about 6 by 8 feet, with a steel door. That day, one held a boy who had hung on a basketball rim and swore at staff when they told him to stop. In another, a boy who had used "raised voice tones."Yet, over the course of that one day, the rooms stayed busy, with two turning over like tables in a restaurant, emptying and refilling four times. The other three were occupied for longer periods, as long as five hours for the boy who hung off the basketball rim. In all, Bridges staff isolated students 20 times."There were kids there every day," said Brandon Skibinski, who worked as a paraprofessional at Bridges for part of the 2018-19 school year. "I didn't think that was the best practice. I don't know what the best practices are, though."Cassie Clark, who heads the Kaskaskia Special Education District, did not respond to requests for comment about the district's practices."That is clearly not good practice," said Kevin Rubenstein, president of the Illinois Alliance of Administrators of Special Education, which represents 1,200 public and private special-education administrators in the state. "To the extent there is bad practice going on across the state, we need to fix that."The Kaskaskia district's revolving-door use of the timeout booths stands out, but some other districts seclude children nearly as frequently.The Special Education District of Lake County used isolated timeout about 1,200 times over the 15-month period reporters examined. Northern Suburban Special Education District in Highland Park put children in seclusion more than 900 times.Some traditional school districts also relied on seclusion. For example, Valley View School District 365U in Romeoville and Schaumburg District 54 each secluded students more than 160 times in the time period examined. Wilmette District 39 put students in isolated timeout 361 times in 2017-18 alone.Illinois' seclusion rules are more permissive than federal guidelines, which say seclusion should be used only in cases of "imminent danger of serious physical harm." In Illinois, children can be secluded for physical safety concerns regardless of the threat level.At the Braun Educational Center in south suburban Oak Forest, a classroom door features a sign saying: "If you walk to the door or open it you WILL earn" a visit to the "isolation and reflection" space. The school's director said the sign is not a threat but a visual reminder that leaving is a violation of school rules.The Tri-County Special Education district in Carbondale routinely made children write sentences as a condition of release, records show.Tri-County Director Jan Pearcy told reporters those practices ended this year.Administrators in some districts have decided that putting a child in a room is not an isolated timeout if there is no door or the door is left open — even though the student is being blocked from leaving. State law does not say an isolated timeout requires a closed door."We only consider something isolated timeout if a student is in the room with the door shut and magnet (lock) held," said Kristin Dunker, who heads the Vermilion Association for Special Education in Danville.Laura Myers saw Bridges' timeout booths during school meetings and told administrators they should never be used on her 6-year-old son, Gabriel. A tiny, giggly boy with bright red hair, Gabriel has autism and is nonverbal, though he can sign a few words, including "blue," "green" and "truck.""There's a metal bench, the lock and key, the whole nine," Myers said. "The sad part is there are parents there who don't know it's wrong and don't know how their children are being treated."She was assured Gabriel would not be secluded. But she started to worry when he came home signing "timeout." Now, she's fighting for a different school placement.Darla Knipe could hear it when she walked toward the timeout room in her son's school: a thudding sound, over and over.She turned to a school aide and asked: "'What is that noise?'"It was her 7-year-old son, Isaiah. The first grader was banging his head against the concrete and plywood walls of the timeout room at Middlefork School in Danville. Knipe was shocked. He didn't do that at home, she said."Isaiah states he has headache and ringing in his ears," according to a report from Dec. 8, 2017. "Nurse filling out concussion form."Then, a month later: "Nurse is concerned he has been head banging several times, even slower to answer than usual, he was dizzy when he stood up, almost fell over."Sitting in his home last spring, Isaiah, now 10, looked down when asked why he hits his head."I tell the teachers why," he said. "The timeout room ... I don't like it.""My concern is the damage that has been done, socially, emotionally and physically," said Martin, whose son went to school in the Lincoln-Way Area Special Education district program in Chicago's southwest suburbs. He now attends a private school.The Tribune/ProPublica Illinois analysis found that the median duration of a seclusion was 22 minutes; in at least 1,300 cases the student spent more than an hour in isolated timeout.Ross Greene, a clinical child psychologist and author of the book "The Explosive Child," said repeated seclusion fuels a harmful cycle. Children who are frustrated and falling behind academically are taken out of the classroom, which makes them more frustrated and puts them even further behind.Amber Patz, whose 11-year-old son Dalton was repeatedly secluded at The Center, an elementary school in East Moline for children with disabilities, said spending so much time in isolation put him behind academically and did not help him regulate his behavior.Parents often do not know the details of what happens in seclusion. Though state law requires schools to notify families in writing within 24 hours each day a child is secluded, that doesn't always happen.While some notices describe the incident, others are form letters with just a checked box to indicate that a child was secluded. The law requires only that parents be notified of the date of the incident, whether restraint or seclusion was used, and the name and phone number of someone to call for more information.Crystal Lake school employees have suggested to Kayla Siegmeier that her son, Carson, who has autism, might benefit from time in a "Blue Room," she said."It turns out the Blue Room is a locked, padded room," she said.Crystal Lake school officials acknowledged they could be more transparent with parents and said they use the rooms only in emergencies.In Danville, Darla Knipe knew that her son Isaiah was frequently in seclusion, but she didn't know the school kept detailed incident reports each time it happened until reporters showed them to her."I never got anything like this," Knipe said.The district gave her 212 reports, and she didn't tackle the huge pile of paper right away. Then one night she woke up at 2 a.m. and stayed up for hours reading them. She learned what set Isaiah off and how he reacted."If we had talked after three, five, six of these, was there something I should have been doing?" she wondered.She said she would have shared the reports with doctors who were working to diagnose the cause of his behavioral challenges. "I think about how different that boy could have been."Dunker, the district director, said that although parents don't get minute-by-minute reports, they are notified by phone and then in writing after a seclusion. "I feel like that is just fine in terms of what a parent needs," she said.There are school districts in Illinois — and all across the country — where seclusion isn't the response to defiant or even aggressive behavior. In fact, it's never an option.Jim Nelson, who took over the North DuPage Special Education Cooperative in July 2016, said he put in a maintenance request on his first day to take the door off the seclusion room at Lincoln Academy, a therapeutic day school for students with emotional and behavioral difficulties.The year before, the school in suburban Roselle, which has an enrollment of about 30, had placed students in the room 181 times, federal data shows. The space now has a lava lamp, fuzzy pillows, a beanbag and puzzles, and students go there on their own when they need a break, Nelson said.Administrators at schools that have closed their rooms say the cultural shift takes a lot of effort and training.Eliminating seclusion generally requires two steps: first, embracing the philosophy that isolating children is unacceptable; second, teaching staff members how to identify and address the causes of challenging behavior before it reaches a crisis point.Zac Barry, who teaches a system based at Cornell University called Therapeutic Crisis Intervention, said staff often get into a power struggle when students don't obey, even over trivial matters."Don't argue with them," Barry said at a recent training session in Peoria for people who work with children. "If they don't want to sit down, don't try to make them sit down!"In Naperville School District 203, the rooms formerly used for isolated timeout are now sensory areas stocked with weighted stuffed animals and sound-blocking headphones.Christine Igoe, who oversees special education in the 16,000-student district, said eliminating seclusion helps teachers and other staffers build relationships with students. Without seclusion as an option, she said, students and staff are less likely to be on high alert and anxious that situations will escalate."When you change your lens from 'the student is making a choice' to 'the student is lacking a skill,' everything changes," Igoe said.Kim Sanders, executive vice president of the Grafton behavioral health network in Virginia, which includes private therapeutic day schools, said schools there overhauled their approach after employees were injured in confrontations with students so frequently that the district lost its workers' compensation insurance."Our outcomes were not great," she said. "It was horrible for our staff morale."Since then, Grafton has developed a behavior model called Ukeru that it now sells to other schools. It's based on the idea that staff should attempt to comfort, not control, children. When a child becomes violent, the system suggests staff use cushioned shields to protect themselves.Illinois schools secluded an 8-year-old boy who got upset when he couldn't ride the green bike during recess, a first grade boy who didn't want to stop playing tag and a third grader who didn't get the prize he wanted.The majority of incident reports reviewed for this investigation did not specify the grade of the child. But ProPublica Illinois and the Tribune identified more than 1,700 incidents when the student being secluded was in fifth grade or younger. Hundreds of seclusions involved kids in preschool, kindergarten or first grade.Still learning to say some of his letters, Eli calls the spaces the "flection" rooms. When his mom, Elisha, gently corrects him, he snuggles into her side. "It's hard to really say," he explained.Eli was referred to The Center, which offers a program for children with behavioral and emotional disabilities, when he was in kindergarten. Records show he sometimes had trouble coping with the frustrations of elementary school — not unlike many other Illinois children who were secluded after outbursts common for their age.When staff told him he couldn't play with toys, he started to tip desks and chairs. Because he didn't want to come inside from recess, he began "flopping," refused to walk and was "being unsafe." He "could not continue to play nice" with blocks and started to hit and tried to run out of class. Sometimes, he would kick staff or throw objects around the room.Elisha pulled her son out of The Center at the end of last school year after noticing bruises on his arm and a fingernail indentation that broke the skin. Records show Eli was physically restrained by three staff members and put in isolated timeout that day. He now attends a private school.Schrader, director of the Black Hawk Area Special Education District, which operates The Center in northwestern Illinois, said staff at the school use the seclusion room "on a case-by-case basis, incident by incident" to help students learn strategies to calm themselves. She declined to comment on Eli's case or that of any specific child."We use it more as a way to help the student learn to deescalate themselves and constant supervision to maintain their safety," she said.The seclusion rooms inside Braun Educational Center in Oak Forest look like so many others across Illinois: blue padding along the walls, a small window where staff can look in. The red button outside that locks the door. A mirror in the upper corner to give a fuller view.In one room, three long tear marks were visible in the padding of the door — left there, the principal said, by a student with autism.About 150 elementary through high school students with disabilities attend programs at Braun, which is operated by the Southwest Cook County Cooperative Association for Special Education. Gineen O'Neil, the co-op's executive director, described many as troubled and challenging; some are homeless, abuse drugs, get pregnant or struggle with mental illness, she said. Some, she said, "run the streets" at night."People have to realize they get educated somewhere, and this is where it is," O'Neil said.Over 1½ school years, staffers isolated students nearly 500 times. O'Neil said students are not secluded as punishment."You are making 1,000 judgment calls a day, you know what I mean?" O'Neil said. "You don't always call them right."On a recent Friday afternoon, it was quiet in the halls. Most of the children had gathered to watch a movie and eat popcorn. They had earned the reward for good behavior.But one boy didn't qualify — and he was mad. The principal, Kristine Jones, said that after the rest of his class left for the movie, he shouted: "This place sucks. I'm leaving."He didn't actually leave. But the boy was a "runner" when upset, Jones said, and they wanted to "pre-correct" his behavior.So they took him to an isolation room.


sputnik--2019-03-14--Death Toll in Nigerian School Collapse Climbs to 18 - Reports

Earlier reports indicated eight killed. Over 100 people were in the building when it collapsed.  READ MORE: It Can't Happen Here: Exxon-Connected Pipeline Explosion Kills 50 in Nigeria  According to the Nation newspaper, the emergency team has rescued 41 injured from the debris.  On Wednesday, Guardian Nigeria reported that a three-storey building collapsed in the Itafaji area of Lagos, adding that over 100 people are trapped under the debris, while several pupils had been sent to a hospital.


sputnik--2019-07-29--Indian Volunteer Organisation Plans to Start Army-Linked School for First Time

The school is named after former Chief of RSS Prof. Rajendra Singh, popularly known as Rajju Bhaiya and is located in Shikarpur in the Bulandshahr district of northern Uttar Pradesh. It will follow the syllabus of the Central Board of Secondary Education for public and private schools. Besides academic studies, the students will be given physical training and will be able to join any of the three armed forces upon graduation.  The brochure of the school notes that there is a shortage of about 10,000 officers in the Army, Navy and Air Force and that existing state-funded Army Schools are unable to satisfy the demand.  “This is an experiment we are doing for the first time in the country and the model can be replicated to other places in future,” Dr Ajay Kumar Goyal, in charge of the school said. The school would come under Vidya Mandir, an affiliate of RSS, which runs more than 20,000 schools across the country.  In the first year, the school plan to take 160 students with 56 places be kept aside for the orphans of army veterans.  Retired officers from the armed forces are set to suggest a specific curriculum for the students to equip them to compete for jobs in the army, air force and navy, said Goyal, although the school has no plans to appoint trained armed forces personnel as part of the regular teaching staff.  Construction of the school building is underway. It will have separate blocs for academics, a hostel for students, living accommodation for teachers and staff, medical facilities and a huge stadium. The cost of these facilities will be around Rs. 40 crore (approximately $58 million).  RSS strongly advocates army education and training. “The school will fulfil the dreams of children to serve the country as officers of the armed forces in future,” said Goyal.  Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, which translates as National Volunteer Organisation, is a right-wing volunteer organisation, set up to provide character training and ingrain nationalistic feeling in Indian society. It has grown into one of the largest voluntary organisations in the world, with several affiliates promoting education and charity work.


sputnik--2019-11-06--False Alarm: French Police Respond to 'Bomb Threat' Report at High School in Mulhouse

According to media reports, the school authorities and local police received two calls about a bomb in the facility and a "group of several armed individuals," at around 15:30 pm local time.  Upon the arrival, the police placed a cordon around the school, while students of the two classes weren't able to leave the building after the evacuation was declared.  Later on, local authorities said via Twitter that the bomb alert was false and slammed those responsible for it.  In June, a hostage incident occurred in the Conde-sur-Sarthe prison in the northwestern French department of Orne. A 35-year old prisoner kept a warden hostage, using a self-made weapon. The prisoner had been demanding to be relocated to another facility.


sputnik--2019-12-02--Suspect in Custody After Shots Reportedly Fired at High School in Wisconsin - Police

According to the police, it was an isolated incident, the suspect is already in custody, while the building is safe and secure.  Waukesha South is on lockdown, as is the nearby Whittier Elementary School.  The police reportedly responded to the incident at 10:15 a.m. local time (16:15 GMT). Multiple police cars, ambulances, and the fire department have promptly arrived at the site.  ABC News reported that at least one person is wounded.  There is an active police situation at South High School. One young man was loaded into an ambulance on a stretcher. We will provide more details as they become available.


tass--2019-01-30--Schools shut down in Russias Arkhangelsk following bomb scare

Schools shut down in Russia's Arkhangelsk following bomb scare

ARKHANGELSK, January 30. /TASS/. Lessons have been cancelled in all schools in Arkhangelsk following anonymous bomb threats that some educational institutions received by e-mail, the press service of the city administration reported.  "After a session of the emergency headquarters, which just ended in the Arkhangelsk administration, the decision was made to cancel lessons for all school students. The school buildings will be examined in light of the bomb threats that some educational institutions received by e-mail," the report says.  In other media


tass--2019-04-15--WWII projectile discovered near Moscow school

MOSCOW, April 15. /TASS/. Almost 200 children were evacuated from a physical culture school in western Moscow after a projectile dating back to the Great Patriotic War had been discovered nearby during construction work, an emergency source told TASS.  "A projectile dating back to Great Patriotic War was discovered near a school facility, 67, Udaltsova Street," the source said.  One hundred and ninety children and 30 teachers were cleared from the building. "The children were released home," the source said.  According to information from public sources, this is the address of the Olimp sports and education center.  In other media


tass--2019-06-28--American Private Schools With Religious Background Are Attracting More Students

CHICAGO, June 28, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The 2019-2020 admission season for international students into American Private Schools has come to end. According to Amerigo Education, the number of international students applying for their religious American private schools has doubled. Private schools with religious background are attracting more international students for their excellent performance in academic and moral standards.  Currently, more than two-thirds of private high schools in the United States are religious schools and they are well-known to be prestigious and offer top notch academic and extracurricular programs. Compared with non-religious schools, the school style of church schools is relatively "rigorous", because the school uses religious concepts and management models to regulate student learning or behavior. In addition, because of their religious beliefs, most teachers and students are generally friendly and helpful in dealing with people and things, and they are more accepting to students from different backgrounds. Amerigo believes that international students are more easily to adjust to new environment in such a supportive and caring atmosphere.  One Amerigo student from Russia said that before he entered into Amerigo campuses, he had worries about whether studying in a Catholic school would have conflicts with his own belief. After one-year studying, he said there should not be any worries because there are no restrictions on the religious background of students. And each staffs and students respect the idea of freedom of religions.  In addition, the student said that taking religious classes helped him to better understand western history, culture, art and social changes of the ancient western world. The so-called religious curriculum, in fact, is similar to a course integration on history of world civilization and western ideology which helps international students build a thorough understanding of American society in a holistic way.  Currently, all ten campuses from Amerigo are Catholic High Schools. Besides its advanced facilities, each campus also is made up of first-class teachers. In addition, Amerigo attach great importance to cultivating students' well-being and personal growth in and out of the classroom, and helping students to successfully enter the ideal top university in the United States.  Amerigo supports international students at premier U.S. high schools with a holistic and supportive approach that emphasizes excellent academic outcomes. We help international students seeking a preparatory education in the United States thrive both in and out of the American classroom. Combining a nurturing boarding environment, supplemental academic support, English language development, and an approach oriented around successful college outcomes, Amerigo prepares students with the skills, values, and care required to succeed in high school, at the university level, and beyond. For more information, visit www.amerigoeducation.com.


tass--2019-09-30--Defenders of Russian schools in Latvia will never put up with ban of Russian language

"The goal is to show to the government that the Russians never give up and will never agree to the rejection of the use of the native language in the educational system," he said. "Our goal is to make the authorities see relations between the Latvian majority and the Russian minority in other way and recognize that the Russians have the right to receive education in their native language and the right to a decent equal life in their country."  RIGA, September 30. /TASS/. The Latvian Russian Union (LRU) is going to make the country’s authorities recognize the right of the Russian-speaking minority to Russian-language-based education during a protest rally on October 5, co-chairman of the LRU’s board Miroslav Mitrofanov said on Monday.  He called the destruction of the Russian education in the republic a disaster. "The fact that Latvia’s authorities decided to destroy the Russian education is a disaster," Mitrofanov said. "It leads to the marginalization [of Russian-speaking children] and unequal competitive conditions on the labor market."  From 1,000 to 3,000 people will take part in the protest rally on October 5, Mitrofanov said.  The LRU’s chairperson, Tatyana Zhdanok, earlier reported that the defenders of Russian schools will march from the Town Hall Square in downtown Riga to the cabinet of ministers’ building on October 5.  In September, Latvia’s ruling coalition supported the full transfer of the entire educational system in the country to the state language. Secretary General of the national association "All for Latvia - For Fatherland and Freedom/Movement for the National Independence of Latvia" Raivis Zeltits said that the agreement was reached during the discussion of the initiative to oblige self-governance authorities to ensure education in the state language in each municipal pre-school institution if a child’s parents demand so.  "The regulations on the national governing principles of pre-school education and models of programs of pre-school education" came into force in Latvia on September 1, following the government’s adoption. According to this document, pre-school facilities that carry out education in the Russian language should offer support for children in studying the national culture and the Latvian language. Latvian will become the main language of communication for children under five, if it is not the Russian culture subject.  According to the law on the reform, Russian-speaking schools started the transfer to the Latvian-language study of most subjects. Only several subjects linked to culture and history will continue to be studied in Russian. All this drew discontent from Latvia’s Russian-speaking citizens, who make up 40% of the population. Defenders of the Russian schools carried out numerous mass rallies, marches and actions against the reform. The ban on the study of the Russian language in private higher educational institutions and colleges was also launched in Latvia in early 2019. These educational facilities, along with the state ones, should carry out educational programs only in the Latvian language or in any other EU official language, among which there is no Russian.


theamericanconservative--2019-08-13--Public School Cronyism is Fueling the Pension Crisis

Prior to running for the U.S. Senate in Massachusetts, a Harvard Law professor named Elizabeth Warren published what is widely regarded as one of the best studies of personal bankruptcy ever compiled, The Two-Income Trap.  In it, she showed that the most common reason American families go broke is not taking too many trips to the mall or some other stereotypical profligacy, but underestimating what it takes to afford pricier houses in towns with better public schools. Thinking they can pull it off by having both spouses work, couples overlook how much of their added income will be eaten up by daycare, another commuting car, higher income taxes, and the other costs of a second earner.  As her subject was bankruptcy, Warren was naturally more interested in the fate of families who fail to survive pricier zip codes than of those who manage to hang on. But the latter group turns out to have had a much greater, if widely unappreciated, influence on how American public education functions.  The effect of so many families treading water in order to live in superior school districts is perhaps best described with the phrase “school booster cronyism.” That means the tacit agreement between financially stretched parents and public school teachers to game local education to their mutual advantage, showing only as much concern for the larger taxpaying public as necessary.  Under the guise of improving the quality of instruction, parent-dominated boards of education, PTAs, and other community groups tolerate increasingly generous compensation packages for teachers and school administrators, as well as flexible work rules and lax financial oversight. In return, educators deem an ever-expanding number of extracurricular activities and family services as “educationally necessary,” providing them at low to no cost.  These include taxpayer subsidized daycare, eclectic sports programs, holiday “socials,” inexpensive summer camps run out of public school buildings, and a variety of student perks, such as pottery and ballet lessons, cafeteria pasta bars, and media centers with state-of-the-art video equipment. It is not unusual for suburban high schools outside of major cities to have as many electives as a small college, with for-credit courses in jewelry making, computer animation, and the history of television.  While it’s easy to mistake this parent-teacher backscratching for the kind social harmony that community newspapers exist to brag about, school booster cronyism has long triggered the resentment of residents who either have no children or who pay after-tax dollars to educate their own through homeschooling, private academies, and online curricula. From their perspective, the ever-growing cost of local K-12 education is a thinly veiled racket designed to exploit primarily themselves.  Exactly how much is extracted from households without district children is hard to calculate, but a little math on typical numbers for affluent communities illustrates the complaint. A family paying, say, $10,000 annually in local property taxes and sending three children to public school at a per pupil cost of $9,000 nets a yearly gain of $17,000 in goods and services from the larger community.  Even among public school parents, some gripe privately about district priorities, which almost always favor mainstream pupils at the expense of exceptionally talented students and those with learning disabilities. Other parents are disappointed to discover that their higher status zip codes are no guarantee of higher academic standards.  As far back as 2005, the Yankee Institute for Public Policy looked at every school district in Connecticut, comparing per pupil costs to student scores on state administered mastery tests. It found that affluent communities with reputations for superior schools were in fact spending “much more than middle class towns for the same educational outcomes.”  Four years later, the Pacific Research Institute studied many of California’s supposedly better public school systems, including those in Newport Beach and Capistrano, only to find more than a dozen districts where 50 to 80 percent of students lacked proficiency in grade-level math. And according to College Board research reported in 2017 by Atlantic Monthly, the biggest scholastic advantage of attending school in wealthy districts is not the quality of instruction, but the tendency of teachers to give higher grades for mediocre work.  The problem for all these dissatisfied sub-groups is that over time school booster cronyism has produced some very effective techniques for silencing would-be critics. These include everything from packing public hearings on district budgets with vocal sympathizers to, as University of Missouri professor J. Martin Rochester puts it, “collectively demonizing” those who complain too loudly about how the schools are run.  As suggested by the title of his book, Oversold and Underused: Computers in the Classroom, Stanford professor emeritus Larry Cuban believes that administrators in affluent districts have become adept at using the latest technology to create a “leading edge” aura without making any real academic improvements. If they wanted to, he says, “curricula, teaching methods, and schedules [could easily] be customized to meet the learning styles and life situations of individual students” and “coursework from the most remedial to the most advanced [could] be made available to everyone.” But such advances are rarely, if ever, implemented.  Parent-teacher cronyism in affluent communities even helps to protect dysfunctional schools in poor and minority districts by shielding them from constructive criticism. As the famed social critic Upton Sinclair noted more than a century ago, no reform movement in the U.S. ever succeeds without the participation of middle- and upper-middle class taxpayers. Unfortunately, the same upscale parents who today think nothing of marching for LGBTQ rights, gun control, or green energy would ever risk being tagged as “anti” any form of public education, even the worst.  As powerful a social force as it is, school booster cronyism does have a vulnerability, one that American voters are only just beginning to appreciate. For while the self-serving alliance of public educators and opportunistic parents in affluent communities can almost always muster the local support it needs to pass annual school budget increases, there is a practical limit on how much more can be asked of taxpayers in a given year. And when the cost of satisfying both factions’ priorities comes up against this limit, the temptation has always been to seek out other monies.  Bonding against a presumably more prosperous future has always been one option, but one that had to be used sparingly, lest cumulating debt for operating purposes ever become an argument for less school spending. High operating debt would also make it more expensive to borrow for school roof repairs, classroom renovations, and other capital improvements. As a result, even well-to-do school districts have habitually resorted to the same irresponsible budget practice long employed by less wealthy communities: deferring or skimping on promised contributions to the teacher pension fund.  How exactly this practice became routine has varied from state to state, depending on statutory constraints. But in each case, local taxpayers were encouraged to ignore their cumulating obligation to retired educators, while educators themselves were legally assured that their pensions would remain backstopped by future levies.  One widely used gimmick, only recently checked by the Government Accounting Standards Board (GASB), was to overestimate how much a pension fund could grow from its own investments, effectively lowering the amount that school districts had to contribute each year. A very different custom involved a state legislature agreeing to cover all of its districts’ retirement costs with money from sales, income, and other taxes. In this way, local voters were lulled into thinking they had no liability when capitol lawmakers themselves shortchanged teacher pensions to free up money for other spending.  Of course, the danger with any such accounting ploy is that there could theoretically come a time when underfinanced benefits could no longer provide for the number of teachers stepping down—which is exactly what has begun to happen in recent years. Caught between a cumulative $5.96 trillion in state and local pension liabilities (overwhelming for teachers and school employees) and a simultaneous explosion of Baby Boomer retirements, a growing number of school districts now find themselves under pressure to make up for decades of retirement fund neglect.  This is, in fact, a looming problem for taxpayers everywhere, especially in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and other states with above average pension deficits. But it has also become a problem for school booster cronyism itself, as the two factions long accustomed to divvying up local tax revenues suddenly find themselves in an unfamiliar struggle for scarce resources.  Already in California, where local spending to make up for underfunded pensions has tripled in recent years, teachers and administrators are unwilling to make even the slightest financial sacrifice to preserve low-cost daycare, small class sizes, school-based summer camps, or any other family perk. Noting a similar resistance across the country, the Manhattan Institute’s Nicole Gelinas has taken to warning would-be home buyers that they should discount list prices by the increase in real estate taxes needed to fully fund promised educator benefits.  For their part, public school parents have begun taking the previously unimaginable step of demanding forensic audits of their respective districts. From Santa Fe, New Mexico, to Allentown, Pennsylvania, to Berkeley County, South Carolina, families are attempting to identify enough waste to sustain at least some of the non-academic programs they’ve become accustomed to.  This growing split between parents and educators is likely only to deepen as the pension pressure on district budgets exposes decades of administrative fraud and abuse. As Heritage Foundation senior policy analyst Jonathan Butcher has observed, the historical tendency of education boards to indulge lax accounting standards has been an open invitation to racketeering—everything from pilfering field trip money to payroll padding to massive kickbacks for expensive school services such as insurance and heating oil. And while the possibility of such corruption has rarely bothered parent-run civic groups in the past, the coming excavation of wrongdoing will make any reconciliation difficult.  Even the most well-intentioned pension solutions from both left- and right-wing policy groups seem to just aggravate the situation. In Connecticut, for example, a recent proposal by civil rights organizations to generate savings by consolidating the administrations of big city schools with those in adjacent districts quickly prompted suburban parents to mobilize against it. They feared that any kind of regionalization would give cities the same financial leverage over suburbs as they themselves now enjoy over local taxpayers without kids in school.  And while the Left has been pushing school consolidation, think tanks on the Right have been showing parents how to solve their pension problems with modest school choice programs targeted to special needs, uniquely talented, and other student populations. A 2014 report by the EdChoice Foundation, which examined the 10 largest school voucher programs in the United States, found that each participating student saved his or her community an average of $3,400 annually. Two years later, another fiscal analysis by EdChoice—this time of 10 programs in seven states that allowed tax credits for private schooling—revealed identical economies. Unsurprisingly, teachers unions remain dead set against any program, however limited, that sends public funds to private schools.  For decades, affluent school districts have been characterized by self-serving alliances of parents and teachers, who use the system to achieve non-academic goals. No doubt this collusion goes back to a time when farsighted parents joined forces with educators to persuade the rest of their neighbors to subsidize universal schooling—but that goal was achieved long ago. Today, the ill-advised willingness of both factions to spend money that was promised to pension funds has finally backfired…with fiscal, political, and educational consequences that no one can predict.  Dr. Lewis Andrews was executive director of the Yankee Institute for Public Policy at Trinity College from 1999 to 2009. He is author of the forthcoming book Living Spiritually in the Material World (Fidelis Press).


thebeaverton--2019-03-18--Ford government increases high school class size to reduce learning

TORONTO – Education minister Lisa Thompson recently announced that class sizes for grade four and above will increase from 22 to 28 students, resulting in a 4% reduction in costs, and 8% reduction in learning.  “It’s really simple, educating children costs money. If we reduce the amount of education we can reduce the amount of the money spent,” stated Thompson. “Our original plan was just to drop grade six, and let kids run wild for a year.”  The increase in class size is the latest in a series of cost cutting measures by the Ford government, including cutting funds for upgrading school buildings, shutting down the Truth and Reconciliation curriculum writing program and ripping out every 3rd page of textbooks and burning it for fuel.  “With the new sex ed curriculum we’re going to have a lot more unwanted children and we’re going to have to fit them all into schools somehow.” said Premier Ford. “But parents don’t have to worry, if they’re concerned about their children getting lost in large classes, they can just pay to put them in the private school.”  Naturally there is an extra benefit to the move for the PCS, as experts have noted a strong correlation between a decrease in education and an increase in Ford voters.  In related news, Health minister Christine Elliot has announced, that to further cut costs, all surgeons will now be expected to operate on two patients at the same time.


thedailybeast--2019-02-09--Puffy Nipples Masturbation and Friendship Inside PEN15s Middle School Traumedy

Puffy Nipples, Masturbation, and Friendship: Inside ‘PEN15’s’ Middle School Traumedy

“Seventh grade is going to be amazing .”  It takes roughly five seconds—the very first line of the series—for you to reflexively cringe and your heart to shatter into a million pieces during the premiere of PEN15.  It’s the year 2000. Best friends Anna and Maya are on the phone the night before the first day of school, gossiping about what boys they have crushes on, which cool girls to cozy up to, and all the positive ways they’ve physically transformed over the summer in order to blow everyone away in their new grade. “I’m also thinking of wearing a bra,” Anna confides. “That’s like really smart,” Maya supportively nods. “You need it for nipples.”  You don’t need more than those few seconds with Anna and Maya, spitting their naïve optimism through respective constellations of orthodontia, to know that seventh grade will not, in fact, be amazing for them. You knew Anna and Maya, and the fate about to befall them. If we’re all being honest, you probably were Anna and Maya, still working through the trauma triggered by time spent in the toxic incubator of insecurities and cruelty that is a middle school hallway.  PEN15 is Maya and Anna’s story. It is all of our story.  The comedy series, which launched on Hulu Friday, is co-created by real-life best friends Anna Konkle and Maya Erskine, along with writer-director Sam Zvibleman, and loosely based on the 31-year-old pair’s respective middle school experiences. The name comes from a cruel playground prank. “It’s an ode to the rejects, the people who had that written on them,” Konkle tells me. “Because we did,” Erskine says.  When people talk about excellent pop culture crafted around the melancholy and the adventure of adolescence, it’s rare for the genius to be rooted in a gimmick. But that’s precisely what sets PEN15 apart.  Konkle and Erskine star as the show’s fictional Anna and Maya, two grown adults in their early thirties acting against a cast of actual middle school-aged young actors. Konkle wears braces and contorts her tall frame into a gawky cadence, while Erskine tapes down her chest and sports a wig styled into a tragic bowl cut, the result of her character attempting to give herself layers using only a picture of Sarah Michelle Gellar on the cover of Teen magazine as a guide.  The sight gag underlines a universal truth: none of us truly fit in in middle school. But Konkle and Erskine’s commitment to their characters is so transformative that the gimmick quickly gives way to the authenticity of the seventh grade experience. That whole disaster.  In the first episode of PEN15, Maya is floored when she learns that the two hottest boys in school have crushes on her. But it’s all a bullying ruse meant to build Maya up so when the cruel punchline lands—the boys actually are going to proclaim her this year’s U.G.I.S., the Ugliest Girl in School—it is all the more devastating.  For all the pain, PEN15 captures the adrenaline-filled thrill of a time in a person’s life when everything is new, exciting, and unknown: Body parts and body hair; kisses, hormones, and sexual exploration; friends and mistakes made under peer pressure; bras and thongs; and, especially in this Y2K setting, the world at your fingertips through an AIM chat or a query to AskJeeves.  In its glowing review of the series, The New York Times calls PEN15 “the square-peg kid sister of Broad City and Eighth Grade.” It’s both a hilarious comedy and a horror show, bridging the genres with a simultaneously uncomfortable and cathartic reflection of the human spirit at its most brittle stage of development.  Figuring out in the writer’s room which anecdotes to include—trying a beer for the first time, figuring out masturbation, being jealous of your friend making another friend—was surprisingly organic. The experiences PEN15 depict all have purpose, Konkle says. “Maybe it was something that made us feel less alone, or was a secret that was hopefully going to be someone else’s, too.”  Someone would share a story, and a chorus would chime in that they know that feeling. Like what, I ask? “Um, well, getting nipples before breasts,” Konkle says, bashfully.  On the show, fictional Maya and Anna cry a lot.  “I like describing the show as an opera, because middle school is a real extreme time of highs and lows,” Erskine says. “It’s life or death. It’s a bunch of firsts. It’s operatic.” Erskine’s mother plays her character’s mother on the show, and her brother worked as an editor on it. He jokingly reported experiencing PTSD from their actual childhood watching Maya reenact those heightened emotions on the show.  “It’s a bizarre time,” says Konkle. “If somebody wasn’t crying a lot, I would like to meet them.  Of course, mortification never leaves our lives, though it may be felt more deeply in adolescence, with only 13 years of life experience to give it context. Those horrors may shape us and prove formative, but they never stop happening. To wit, Konkle and Erskine met under circumstances of diarrhea while studying in Amsterdam as NYU Tisch School of the Arts students engaged in a study abroad program.  As they recently told New York magazine, they had anxiety over a performance in the style of Bertolt Brecht they were assigned, and encountered each other “dealing” with those anxieties in the bathroom. They bonded instantly, respectively pursuing their own acting careers when the NYU program finished before reuniting to write their own projects. They first started working on a script for PEN15 six years ago.  “Our first script that we wanted to sell as a pilot was maybe 45 pages, which had like #MeToo characters in it and everything,” Erskine says. “We read it with our friends and Anna remembers asking them OK, does anyone have any notes and they all raised their hands immediately. That was humbling.”  The script was eventually picked up with the men of Lonely Island—Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, and Jorma Taccone—on board as executive producers. “I was like, yeah but we should probably keep our schedule clear for next year,” Konkle remembers. “So naive. It took a lot longer.”  It is of note that, unlike their characters, the duo are not childhood friends. That their characters’ connection on PEN15 pulses with such a rooted lifelong connection speaks to the fact that deep friendships are meaningful at any stage of life, and that the touchstones of those relationships are instantly to familiar to all of us.  When Anna cheers Maya up in the show’s premiere by telling her, “You are my actual rainbow gel pen in a sea of blue and black writing utensils,” I felt that. Konkle and Erskine felt that. We all felt that.  “Your friendship is the most important thing in the world when you’re at that age, and it was nice to remember that and experience that with Anna again,” Erskine says.  That PEN15 is coming from a female perspective matters. The adolescent experience, with rare exception, is exclusively told in pop culture from a male point of view, giving young boys permission, comfort, and even messages of normalcy through their awkward years, with the XY lens still meant to be universally relatable. PEN15 purports that same relatability, but it feels transgressive for the specifics of the experiences to be happening to two girls.  “We were excited to write the masturbation episode,” Erskine proudly proclaims, before immediately lowering her voice to a hush. She and Konkle are in a car full of people, she explains. “Actually, I’m just going to go there,” she says, shouting to the driver: “Sorry, sir!”  “It’s telling the shame that I felt when I did it as a kid and how alone I felt, now that we’re talking about it and showing a female perspective on sexuality and masturbation, I’m hoping it can spark a conversation or make other women go, OK, I wasn’t a freak,” she says. “I wasn’t a pervert. I wasn’t disgusting when I did that, because that was the story I told myself constantly. Because I didn’t see any representation of it as a kid. I didn’t see any representation of it as an adult in a way that felt honest.”  Konkle remembers it being cool for boys to joke about masturbation when she was growing up. “Then as a girl, you didn’t talk about that. Or the joke would be made about you.” They’re both extremely proud of the kind of deliriously weird and beautiful way they handled a masturbation storyline in PEN15. But it’s more than sexuality that needed their perspective. Body changes did too, for starts.  “We always wanted to put puffy nipples on our flat chest,” Konkle says. “That was such a weird seminal moment in our lives, where you have puffs with tits. There was a lot of stuff. Even our period. Things that felt wrong to talk about. A lot of this stuff felt wrong to talk about. It still does, to be honest. So it’s like, alright let’s push the envelope and just do it.”  Given all this talk about the trauma of middle school, I ask Konkle and Erskine what it was like to see themselves transformed back into versions of their 13-year-old selves. Both say the wilder experience was seeing their friend physically regressed into the character, to the point that they became oddly attached to the costumed versions of each other. When Erskine took off her bowl-cut wig, for example, Konkle would tell her how much she would “miss my buddy.”  “I miss her now,” Konkle says, laughing. “I miss that freaky little girl.”


thedailycaller--2019-04-10--Student Finds Human Remains On High School Campus In Arkansas

Human remains were discovered by a student Tuesday at Riverview High School in Searcy, Arkansas, and subsequently removed by police.  The remains were found in the woods behind the administration building on the school’s campus by an unnamed student. Searcy police are still working to identify the body, according to a Tuesday Facebook post from the Riverview School District.  Riverview Parents and Patrons: Searcy Police Department and White Co. Sheriff’s Office responded to a report of adult human remains in the woods behind the administration building on the high school campus. A student discovered the remains and reported it to police. The remains have not been identified. A huge thanks for the quick response from the Searcy Detectives, White County Coroner, and Officer Kyle Williams for handling the situation quickly and professionally.  Police believe that the remains belong to an adult and could have been located on the Riverview campus for several years, but no further details concerning how they got there or how the student found the remains have been released at this time. (RELATED: Boys Sweeping Girls’ High School Track In Connecticut Wouldn’t Break Top 100 In Male Competition)  The remains have been sent to the state crime lab while investigators search missing person cases from adjacent states in attempts to identify the body.


thedailyexpress--2019-09-22--Labour Party votes to AXE private schools as Corbyn declares class war

Members have supported a motion which calls on the next Labour general election manifesto to commit to "integrate all private schools into the state sector". This would include withdrawal of charitable status and "all other public subsidies and tax privileges", including business rate exemption. The motion adds universities would have to admit the same proportion of private school students as in the wider population, currently at seven percent.  This vote came during the Labour Party's annual conference, which is taking place in Brighton this weekend.  Campaigners welcomed the vote for the party to effectively abolish public schools. Momentum's national coordinator Laura Parker said: "This is a huge step forward in dismantling the privilege of a tiny, Eton educated elite who are running our country into the ground. "Every child deserves a world class education, not only those who are able pay for it, and I'll be proud to campaign on this manifesto pledge at the next election."  Holly Rigby, from the Abolish Eton campaign, said: "We are delighted that Labour has committed to integrating all private schools into the state sector and that it will feature in the next manifesto. "This huge leap forward is a testament to the hard work of grassroots Labour members and the ambition and determination of Angela Rayner and John McDonnell.   "They have worked with and listened to members every step of the way, writing this policy hand in hand with the movement. This is what a democratic Labour Party lookS like.   "We will dismantle systems of privilege and inequality and build a society that works for the millions and not the millionaires." READ MORE: Jeremy Corbyn crisis: Labour leader forced to deny he is quitting  Earlier in the day, shadow education secretary Angela Rayner said a Labour government would scrap the "tax loopholes" which benefit private schools in its first budget. She said she will task the Social Mobility Commission, which the party would rename the Social Justice Commission, with "integrating private schools". She added: "We will set that commission to making the whole education system fairer through the integration of private schools. "Myself and John McDonnell will set out further steps the Labour government will take, but I can say today that our very first budget will immediately close the tax loopholes used by elite private schools and use that money to improve the lives of all children." DON'T MISS  Labour Party blasted as slogan created by 'Oxford elite' [REVEALED]  Corbyn's finished! Labour implodes as MP says he won't win majority [INSIGHT]  Nigel Farage predicts end of Labour Party at next general election [WATCH]  There was also a debate on schools motions, including one moved by Battersea constituency party which calls on the next Labour general election manifesto to commit to "integrate all private schools into the state sector". This would include withdrawal of charitable status and "all other public subsidies and tax privileges", including business rate exemption. The motion adds universities would also have to admit the same proportion of private school students as in the wider population, currently 7%. In her speech, Ms Rayner also said Labour will introduce a price cap for school uniforms to make education fairer to "stop the scandal of children priced out of school" and end the "spiralling cost of school uniforms". She added: "Parents forced into debt, children in clothes that often don't fit, and the Tories failing for four years to keep their promise to act."


thedenverpost--2019-01-04--Pressure in school social media among risk factors contributing to Colorados youth suicide crisis

Pressure in school, social media among risk factors contributing to Colorado’s youth suicide crisis, report finds

The pressure placed on children and teenagers to perform well in school and extracurricular activities, along with the anxiety it creates regarding failure, are among the leading risk factors contributing to the growing number of youth suicides in Colorado, according to a new report.  Mental Health First Aid: mhfaco.org. Get trained to recognize the signs and how to respond. American Foundation for Suicide Prevention: afsp.org. Join one of their upcoming walks for awareness in Colorado. Crisis Text Line: crisistextline.org. Text 741741 from anywhere in the nation to reach a counselor. Second Wind Fund: thesecondwindfund.org. Links students to mental health professionals and pays for up to 12 counseling sessions.  The 87-page report, released Thursday by Colorado Attorney General Cynthia Coffman, found that children and teenagers have little time to decompress and get no break from the “bell-to-bell instruction” in schools and other activities.  “This included feeling that the expectations placed on youth were unrealistic and youth were not given the tools to manage the pressure in a healthy way,” the report said.  The report examined trends in suicidal behaviors among youths in four counties — El Paso, La Plata, Mesa and Pueblo — with the highest youth suicide rates in order to determine strategies for addressing the issue of youth suicide. The study was funded with $173,000 from the attorney general’s office.  “We know that we have many young people in our state who are struggling, and my hope is that this study will shed light on the very real impact of suicide loss and help to provide coordinated and comprehensive prevention efforts going forward,” Coffman in a statement.  The report also found that the counties examined lacked the necessary funding needed for public health and social services programs, and that there was a shortage of mental health providers.  Other barriers that prevent young people from getting help include stigma against or by specific populations, such as discrimination against LGBTQ individuals.  The suicide rate among youths is increasing both in the state and nation. It’s the leading cause of death in Colorado for individuals between the ages of 10 and 24.  The increase in youth suicidal behavior has been noted by schools and health care professionals.  Safe2Tell Colorado, an anonymous hotline for students, has seen suicide-related reports jump ninefold in six years. And Children’s Hospital Colorado has seen the number of patients who have attempted suicide soar 600 percent since 2009.  The crisis has prompted the attorney general’s office to give a $2.8-million grant to support a collaboration between hospitals and nonprofit organizations that aims to increase access to pediatric mental health treatment.  In its report, the attorney general’s office lists other risk factors, including substance use and trauma, that are contributing to youth suicide in the state.  Also among the list was the use of social media, and subsequently cyberbullying. Teenagers and children feel both empowered and overloaded by the information available online, according to the report.  The report said many of those interviewed “expressed concern that adults do not know how to navigate the technological world of youth, and thus don’t know how to help build youth resiliency around it.”


thedenverpost--2019-01-31--Large fight causes lockdown at Delta and George Washington high schools

An off-campus fight that spilled onto the campus of George Washington and Delta high schools triggered a temporary lockdown which caused some students outside of the campus for lunch to be sent home early.  The fight occurred during lunch between students from George Washington, Delta and non-students, Will Jones, a spokesman for Denver Public Schools, said. The lockdown was changed to a lockout approximately 10 minutes after it was announced.  The lockout meant that all school activities inside the buildings went on as scheduled, but no one was allowed in or out of the building. Students that were off campus for lunch during the fight were sent home as they were not permitted to re-enter the building.  Denver Public Schools did not know how many students were sent home or involved in the fight. Denver police only described the fight as “large” and could not provide a more specific estimate.  Multiple officers were dispatched to the school to address the altercation and an enhanced police presence is planned to stay at the school throughout the evening. No arrests were made when first contacted, but the investigation remains active and ongoing, Denver police Spokesman Doug Schepman said. The motive for the fights also remains under investigation.  Both Delta and George Washington, which share a campus, continued all school operations as normal through the lockout. A wrestling tournament is scheduled to go on as planned at the campus this evening, Jones said.


thedenverpost--2019-03-17--Colorado School of Mines engineers turn their talents from the terrestrial to the celestial

Enter the huge building that houses the Excavation Engineering and Earth Mechanics Institute at the Colorado School of Mines, walk past the massive tunnel-boring machine, rotary and percussive drills, and you’ll get a glimpse of the new frontier of development — space resources.  What looks like a big sandbox with a Tonka-truck-size rover is part of the work underway in Mines’ Space Resources Program. The “sand” in the large, shallow box is finely ground basalt, meant to simulate the moon’s surface.  And the 22-pound rover is equipped with mass spectrometers, which reveal the composition of different elements, as well as a drill, a camera and LIDAR — Light Detection and Ranging, which uses light to produce three-dimensional images.  The little rover, or prospector, as Lunar Outpost CEO Justin Cyrus calls his vehicle, was built to explore the resources available on the moon. Cyrus is also a Ph.D. student at Mines in a first-of-its-kind program, which draws on earthly technology and practices to develop the resources necessary to sustain space missions that go farther and longer.  “It’s a living-off-the-land approach. For Mines, being a university that has been looking at terrestrial resources for 145 years, it was a natural thing to do it now beyond Earth,” said Angel Abbud-Madrid, the program’s director.  The small, self-navigating vehicle roaming through the lunar-like surface is the next evolution in prospecting, Abbud-Madrid said.  “This is exactly the equivalent to the pan that miners were using two blocks away from here in Clear Creek, trying to find gold. But it’s a very sophisticated version of that,” Abbud-Madrid added.  Depending on shipments of supplies from Earth limits the duration and distance of space missions. So, universities, scientists, aerospace companies and NASA have been looking for a while at ways space travelers can take advantage of the resources available where they’re going. NASA refers to the field as in-situ resource utilization, or using what’s in place.  “Mining and in-situ resource utilization will play an important role in NASA’s future human exploration of the Moon and Mars,” NASA said in an email. “The benefits of space mining, and making things where you want to explore versus bringing everything from Earth, are a reduction in overall cost and risk for human exploration beyond Earth’s orbit.”  Mines has been involved in space resources research since the 1990s, when Mike Duke, a former NASA geologist considered a pioneer in space resources, started working at Mines. Twenty years ago, the school convened its first round table on extraterrestrial resources. People from NASA and other universities attended, and participation has grown since, Abbud-Madrid said.  One of the participants was George Sowers, then a scientist and executive with Centennial-based United Launch Alliance. He told the crowd that his company was willing to buy made-in-space propellant to fuel rockets if somebody could supply it.  Now, Sowers is a Mines professor and on the Space Resources staff. After he announced that he wanted to buy propellant, several fledgling space mining companies asked him for letters of intent they could take to their investors.  “It’s a little bit of chicken and the egg. The whole thing needs to get bootstrapped,” Sowers said. “You can’t have a business as a supplier unless you have a customer, and there’s no demand for a product unless there’s a supply.”  However, momentum is building to develop supplies as NASA and aerospace companies aim for longer stays on the moon and trips with humans onboard to Mars. People will need to restock  fuel, water and other materials on the fly, so to speak, if that’s going to work.  “The efficient utilization of space resources is a key technology enabler to support long-term, sustainable human exploration beyond low-Earth orbit,” Paul Anderson, Lockheed Martin’s director of the Orion Service Module, said in an email.  Lockheed Martin is the prime contractor on NASA’s Orion, designed for long explorations of deep space with the goal of eventually carrying people to the moon and other planets. The company has been working since the early 2000s on technologies to tap space resources, said Anderson, a Mines alumnus.  In the fall of 2018, Mines became the first university to offer master’s and doctorate degrees in space resources. The school describes the program as bringing together many fields, including mining, resource economics, robotics, advanced manufacturing, remote sensing, metals/metallurgy, solar and nuclear energy.  “We announced the program in 2017 and the interest was worldwide to the point that we had to abandon the idea that we were going to have it on campus,” Abbud-Madrid said. “It has attracted a lot of professionals, students in aerospace, metals, mining, entrepreneurs, investment bankers, economists — in all aspects of the field.”  The 45 students in the program are from three different continents and 12 different countries, including the United States, Poland, Italy, Australia, Switzerland, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.  The Mines Space Resources staff has had input into efforts to create a national institute for research into what natural resources in outer space could be used on trips to faraway spots. Colorado Reps. Scott Tipton, a Republican, and Ed Perlmutter, a Democrat, are sponsoring a bill that would establish the Space Resources Institute. The goal is to have a central hub “to support the development of foundational science and technology and options for using space resources,” Tipton said in a release.  So, what’s on the moon, asteroids and other planets that’s usable and how can people extract it? Those are the kinds of questions that students and researchers at Mines, other universities, NASA and in the aerospace industry are trying to answer. Metals, like platinum or gold, might come to mind.  “In fact there are many things,” Abbud-Madrid said. “There’s solar energy, low gravity, ultra-high vacuum, water, minerals and gases, all over the solar system.  “And more than bringing those resources to Earth, which may seem attractive, it’s about how those resources in space can help us as we expand to the moon, Mars and the rest of the solar system,” Abbud-Madrid added.  Actually, solar energy is one of the resources that scientists want to bring more of to Earth. Researchers in China are said to be looking into space-based stations that would beam a steady supply of solar power to Earth, the Sydney Morning Herald reported. The paper said scientists are looking at possibly building a station in space so it wouldn’t have to be launched from Earth.  Researchers in other countries are also exploring the idea, Sowers said.  “We could use lunar resources to build a network of satellites in Earth orbit, collect sunlight and beam the energy down to Earth, creating an inexhaustible source of energy that’s completely green forever,” Sowers said. “This is not science fiction. This is maybe 20, 30 years in the future. Space can fix Earth’s energy problems forever.”  In a lab on the Mines campus in Golden, Hunter Williams, who is earning a master’s degree in space resources, is creating conditions as similar as possible to those on the moon. He’s using a 3D printer to turn simulated moon dust into layers of building materials, which would be needed if people establish a base on the moon. Sunlight could be used to power the printer.  “In space, it costs $50,000 to send a single kilogram of stuff to the moon and you usually don’t do a one-off. You can’t send a single kilogram,” Williams said. “Brick-making is the first step, but as we refine this technology we’re going to be making things like wrenches, parts for robots.”  In the same lab, Ben Thrift, a Ph.D. student, has buckets of materials that he uses to whip up objects similar in composition to asteroid surfaces, including those containing hydrated minerals. He then uses an intense lamp and elliptical reflector, simulating concentrated solar power, to heat the material to extract water from the minerals.  “We can make water. We can also get carbon dioxide. From water, we can make rocket propellant and that’s the first thing you should go after in space, to enable transportation,” said research professor Chris Dreyer.  Breaking down water into oxygen and hydrogen will allow production of propellant to fuel rockets. There is a lot of water on the moon, in asteroids and on Mars, the researchers said.  While aiming for the moon and beyond, student and Lunar Outpost CEO Cyrus is among professionals and entrepreneurs finding ways to put their technology to work closer to home to keep their companies going. The software and other systems in the company’s roving prospector can be used to navigate in and map underground mines.  The startup helped develop customized air-quality sensors for local schools that won the city of Denver $1 million from Bloomberg Philanthropies for a network of the solar-powered, wireless devices. The technology grew out of Lunar Outpost’s work to mitigate the effects of the moon’s air quality due to the gritty lunar soil, which is bad for people to inhale and rough on robots’ systems.  “Obviously, we need a way to keep the lights on. And two,we wanted to have positive impact in our background,”  Cyrus said.  And Cyrus would love to see his prospector ferried by companies tapped by NASA to bid on making deliveries to the moon. Lockheed Martin and another Colorado company, Deep Space Systems, were designated in November 2018 as eligible to bid to provide Commercial Lunar Payload Services.  “If you look at most lunar rovers, they’re the size of mini vans, ” Cyrus said. “So, what we’re trying to do is bring the cost, the size, the power and all the requirements down from those large rovers  so we can actually distribute swarms of them on the lunar surface cost effectively.”


thedenverpost--2019-10-01--Denver alternative high school adds dental services to keep students from missing classes

Getting dental care can be a hassle, but for Armani Manzanares, a student at Denver’s Florence Crittenton High School, it’s relatively pain-free: She can pick up her son Nathan from nursery school, walk less than a football field away and knock out both their appointments at once.  Manzanares, 17, said she appreciates being able to get care for herself and her son, 1, without having to worry about transportation.  “It’s on campus. I can do it myself, so I feel like it’s making me more independent,” she said.  Florence Crittenton, an alternative high school serving pregnant and parenting teens, recently added dental services to its health clinic, which already offered pediatric and gynecological care to students and their children. It’s the fourth building in Denver Public Schools to add dental care for routine needs over the last four years, said Kathrine Hale, the district’s nursing manager.  Clinics in partnership with Denver Health are available in 17 of DPS’s more than 200 schools, though most only offer primary care. The district hasn’t studied whether school-based health services reduce absenteeism or improve grades, but it is clear that students who are dealing with tooth pain or another health problem are going to have a harder time focusing on their lessons, Hale said. Ideally, all students would have access to a range of health services, but schools have space and financial constraints, she said.  “It’s a benefit on many levels” to offer health care, she said. “We would love to see it expand.”  Suzanne Banning, president and CEO of Florence Crittenton Services, said wraparound services at the high school contribute to a graduation rate about twice the national average for teen mothers, with about 75% of students getting a diploma by age 21. The students do tend to take longer than four years to graduate high school, but in some cases that’s by design, so they can continue to take advantage of concurrent enrollment and free child care, she said.  DPS provides teachers for the school, and the nonprofit provides services like parenting classes, art therapy and a store where students can spend “baby bucks” they earned in school on diapers, used clothing and toys, Banning said. Some take multiple RTD buses to get to school every day, so it’s important to remove barriers to both health care and education, she said.  “These girls are very determined,” she said. “They are looking for a better future, like any parent.”  The health center has helped improve attendance at Florence Crittenton while reducing the odds that young moms will put off necessary care, Banning said.  “Prior to the health center being on site, our moms might put off going to get something taken care of because of the challenge of getting to a clinic. If they did go to the doctor or dentist, often urgent care, they would end up missing school that day,” she said.  Terrill Graden, a dental hygienist at the Florence Crittenton clinic, said they can offer routine care like dental exams, cleanings and X-rays. A dentist comes once a week and will start offering more involved work like fillings and extractions in January, he said.  Carmen Rivera, a pediatric patient navigator at the clinic, said they try to schedule the mother and child for the same time, if possible. She works with the mothers to help them set up with a regular medical and dental provider when they graduate, and to coordinate any care that can’t be done in the clinic, like removing wisdom teeth. Most mothers have health insurance through Medicaid or Child Health Plan Plus, but there’s no charge for uninsured moms and kids, she said. The Delta Dental of Colorado Foundation contributed $300,000 over three years to start the clinic.  Some of the students had never been to a dentist before, so they were excited for the chance to get their teeth checked, Banning said. Others need more coaxing, either because they’ve heard myths like dental care isn’t safe during pregnancy, or just because many people don’t like going to the dentist, Graden said.  Pregnant women are vulnerable to dental problems because the stomach acid from morning sickness damages enamel, the hard cover that protects the tooth itself, Graden said. Women who develop infected gums are at a higher risk of delivering too early or having a low-birth-weight baby, though the biological mechanism isn’t well understood.  At Manzanares’ appointment on a Thursday in September, Graden asked if she if she was brushing Nathan’s tiny teeth twice a day, if he used a sippy cup and if anyone in the house had cavities, because the bacteria can spread from person to person.  With Nathan in the comfort of his mom’s arms, Graden managed to sneak a look in his mouth and establish that there was no cause for concern. Then they switched, with Manzanares lying in the chair while Nathan sat on her stomach, distracted by a Baby Shark video long enough for Graden to check Manzanares’ mouth and determine she wouldn’t need anything beyond a routine cleaning.  In addition to letting moms and kids get care they need now, the clinic can help kids develop positive ideas about the dentist, Graden said.  “If (Nathan) has a bad visit, he probably won’t remember it now, but if he has a bad visit at 6 … it can start a cycle,” he said.


thedenverpost--2019-11-12--Many young Americans say high school diploma is enough for success, poll finds

Although most young Americans believe in the value of higher education, many still consider a high school diploma alone to be enough for success, according to a survey of teens and young adults by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.  The findings alarm some experts who say young Americans don’t seem to be getting the message that college pays off. Federal labor data shows a wide earnings gap between Americans who do and do not have a college degree, and unemployment rates are far lower for those with a bachelor’s or master’s degree.  More than half of Americans ages 13 through 29 do see college as a path to economic success, but about 4 in 10 believe a bachelor’s degree prepares people only somewhat well, or even poorly, for today’s economy.  Meanwhile, about half said their high school education has provided the skills they need to get a good job right after they graduate. And 45% say a high school diploma is good preparation for future successful workers.  Researchers disputed that notion, saying it has been decades since a high school diploma was enough to earn a good living.  “With a high school diploma alone, it’s very hard to earn the kinds of wages one would need to support a family,” said Thomas Brock, director of the Community College Research Center at Columbia University. “There’s just such a strong association between employment rates, as well as earnings, and education.”  In 2018, the median earnings for workers with only a high school diploma was $730 a week, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. For those with a bachelor’s degree, it was $1,200, while those with a master’s degree typically made $1,400 a week.  Teens are especially likely to think high school is a good path to success in today’s economy, while young adults were less likely to say so, 51% versus 42%. And there were stark differences by race: At least half young black and Hispanic Americans said high school is a good path to success, compared with 41% of young white Americans.  More than any type of degree, 73% of young Americans said they think job experience is good preparation for success. Their esteem for practical experience is shared by the Trump administration, which has pushed to expand apprenticeship programs, and experts say it reflects today’s economy, in which more employers require internships or other work experience.  While 6 in 10 said a bachelor’s degree is a route to success, an equal number said they see vocational school as good preparation, and about half see the same value in an associate degree. The finding was a surprise to some researchers who say students — and their parents — often think of college only as a bachelor’s degree.  “That’s not what I would expect to see,” said Heather McKay, director of the Education and Employment Research Center at Rutgers University. “It’s really great that young people are thinking of these alternatives, because there are some really good non-degree credential options out there.”  The survey also found disparities in the types of colleges young Americans choose. Overall, 3 in 4 said they plan to attend some type of college or have already done so. For about half, their plans included a four-year university, while about a quarter opted for community college or vocational school. Another quarter had no college plans.  Wealthier Americans were more likely to pursue four-year universities, while those from poorer families leaned toward other options or no college at all. Those from wealthier families were also more likely to say their parents were helping pay for tuition and many forms of college preparation.  McKay said the findings suggest students are steering toward education choices they think they can afford. “It’s a little bit saddening,” she said. “We need to do a better job of educating students and parents on that life-long learning pathway, and the value of different kinds of education.”  A common thread among many young Americans is a concern over the cost of education. Nearly 8 in 10 said they think college affordability is a very or extremely serious problem, and a majority said they were at least somewhat concerned about debt. Of those with college plans, a majority said they were borrowing or planning to borrow loans to pay for tuition.  In some ways, young Americans are right to be worried, said Anthony Carnevale, director of Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce. The transition to adult independence is taking place later in life, he said. Education requirements for good jobs have grown, and there are fewer available to young people.  Still, he said, there’s evidence that investments in college pay off.  “Eighty percent of four-year college degrees do bring sufficient earnings to pay for the cost over a career,” Carnevale said. “The truth is, it’s very hard for colleges at the four-year level to build programs that aren’t worth the loan.”  Debate over student debt and college affordability has come to the fore recently as Democratic presidential candidates court young voters with promises to make college free and erase debt. And many young Americans say they like those ideas, the poll found.  Overall, 65% of young Americans said they support making tuition free at community colleges, an idea that has been adopted by some states and is being proposed nationally by Democrats including former Vice President Joe Biden.  Meanwhile, 60% support plans to make tuition free at all public colleges and universities, a proposal that’s supported by Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.  Both ideas have wider support from Democrats, but each one had backing from nearly half of young Republicans.  Young Americans also widely support plans allowing student debt to be refinanced and plans to forgive debt for households earning less than $100,000 a year, the poll found.  Despite their reservations about debt and affordability, young Americans ultimately see value in college. Only about a quarter said attending a four-year college brings more disadvantages than advantages. More than 7 in 10 said college brings more benefits or that the balance is equal.  The AP-NORC poll of 2,573 teens and young adults ages 13 through 29 was conducted Aug. 7-Sept. 9 using a combined sample of interviews from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population, and interviews from opt-in online panels. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3.7 percentage points. The AmeriSpeak panel is recruited randomly using address-based sampling methods, and respondents later were interviewed online or by phone.