Educational trends for Back to School 2008

Parents are now taking their three year old kids to tutoring programs where they are using flashcards and homework. Kindergarten students are now doing the work that first-graders used to do. Middle school children are enrolling in algebra courses a year or two earlier than ever before. Finally high school students are taking SAT college entrance exam prep classes.

These trends are happening for several reasons including:

1) Parents are afraid their children will fall behind if not pushed;

2) There's frustration with schools that have failed to gain achievement for disadvantaged students;

3) There's much competition for college acceptance; and

4) There's an overall sense that America is losing ground in globally.

In fact, futurists like James Canton in his book entitled "The Extreme Future" said about the top ten trends that will shape the future of America - "Quality public education, in crisis today, will either propel or crash the future aspirations of the American workforce."

"Encouraging students to challenge themselves and expand their horizons is always a good thing," said Sherry Cleary, assistant professor of education at Pitt and director of the University Child Development Center.

Psychologist David Elkind published his landmark book in the early eighties, entitled, "The Hurried Child." "The pressure to grow up fast, to achieve early is the very great in middle-class America. There is no room today for the late bloomer" he said.

Dr. Now Elkind is saying that this phenomenon is more prevalent than it was back in 1981.

It is one thing to offer college electives to high school teens, but the younger the children, the more controversial it is. Most child development experts agree that young children learn best in rich play environments that stimulate the senses in age-appropriate ways.

There are many exccellent community programs that help children via mentors who encourage families engage in activities, and who offer support for homework assistance.

Other learning programs like Junior Kumon Math and Reading Centers is now offering academic tutoring for children as young as two, and they have gotten 28,000 children enrolled the United States, in less than two years since they entered the U.S. Trends also indicate that introducing the concepts of math and science in middle school used to be called "acceleration" while now it is an "expectation." One reason is the Trends in International Math and Science Studies survey of 1995. This indicated American students were ahead in fourth-grade math but by the 12th grade, dropped to the bottom.

The Los Angeles Unified School District made passing algebra a graduation requirement. 48,000 ninth-graders took the course in 2004, and 44 percent of them failed. Many went on to repeat the course several times and kept on failing until they gave up and dropped out of school.

On the other hand, a program used in the Pittsburgh Public School districts for the middle school curriculum called Connected Math was designed to introduce math concepts in a way that students could apply to real life. It has become as controversial as the reading wars and is now known as the math wars. Students who take the course for the first time in ninth grade will have to score at or above grade level. Those who don't will have to take an additional tutorial class each day.

The fact is that today, twenty percent of youngsters are "flunking" kindergarten, and millions of children are medicated daily to make them more "educable" and "manageable" in school and at home.

The answers may be found in what is going on at home as well as at school. If we had more programs nationwide to support students as they grow up, perhaps the results would speak for themselves in future years to come.