Washington, Idaho score well on child health, not so well on education

Washington ranks fifth in the nation for indicators of children’s health in the latest KidsCount annual survey of child well-being, while Idaho’s back in the middle of the pack at 24th.
                                     

Meanwhile, both states’ rankings suffered on education indicators, with Washington ranked 28th among states and Idaho a lowly 43rd. In both states, the report found above-average rates of young children not in preschool and high school students not graduating on time.

In Idaho, nearly 70 percent of 3- and 4-year-olds aren’t attending any formal early education program; in Washington, the figure is 60 percent. Idaho puts no state funding toward early-childhood education; state lawmakers have long debated the issue, but nothing has passed.

Washington’s high marks in children’s health reflect fewer children without health insurance – just 3 percent in 2015, below the national average of 5 percent, and down from 6 percent in 2010 – along with low numbers of low-birthweight babies; teen alcohol or drug abuse; and low child and teen death rates.

Idaho had 6 percent of children without health insurance, down from 11 percent in 2010. And while its figures this year were near the national average, they had improved in all four health indicator areas.

Misha Werschkul, executive director of the Washington State Budget and Policy Center, noted that Washington’s Cover All Kids law created Apple Health for Kids with comprehensive health coverage and uniform eligibility criteria. She said those policy choices are paying off, but potential budget cuts loom.

Washington ranked 24th in the nation for children’s economic well-being, including child poverty rates and teens not in school and not working; Idaho ranked 14th. In Washington, 33 percent of children were living in households with a high housing cost burden in 2015, though that figured had dropped from 43 percent five years earlier. Idaho’s figure was 25 percent.

Home educated school students miss out on disability support services

Every child in NSW has a legal right to access and participate in education, regardless of disability or special needs.
                                               

But Carly Landa said there were "definitely negative consequences" to sending her son to school.

Louie, now 11, went to school for three years before his parents decided to home-school him.

However, the decision to home educate children with disabilities or special needs means they do not receive the support provided to other students - a situation parents want the NSW government to address by funding services.

A NSW parliamentary inquiry into students with a disability or special needs has been told many parents choose home education because schools do not adequately cater to their children's needs.

One parent gave the inquiry a harrowing account of the bullying experienced by her 11-year-old daughter, who has a moderate intellectual disability and autism.

Complaints to the school were given short shrift, the parent said. "Their response was that her being hit was good opportunity to teach the hitter that they shouldn't hit."

The parent said the situation was even worse at another school, where the girl and other girls in her class were indecently assaulted by the boys.

The inquiry, which will conduct its next hearing in Shellharbour on Friday, was told boys in the class would "regularly masturbate" in the classroom, with teachers refusing to take action to stop the behaviour.

The parent said she turned to home education after the Department of Education refused her application for distance education: "I have to rely on a carer payment from Centerlink (sic). My ability to earn an income and provide for my daughter has been devastated."

The HEA's submission included the experience of a parent resorting to home education after her son, who had learning disabilities, suffered escalating violence and bullying at school.

Nicole Rogerson, the chief executive of Autism Awareness Australia, said successive state governments had paid "lip service" to inclusion.

Hands-on parenting helping kids, not money or location

KIDS with hands-on parents are more likely to succeed regardless of how much money they have or where they are brought up.
                                     

Reaching out to children, talking to them and helping them with their homework matters more than income or background, analysis from the Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth shows.

Students with engaged parents are more likely to do well academically, graduate from school and go on to higher education, an ARACY report by Dr Stacey Fox and Dr Anna Olsen from Australian National University has found.

The aspects which appear to matter most include high expectations and aspirations for children, shared reading between children and parents and family conversation.

In the report Drs Fox and Olsen say parent/child talking time is a simple but crucial form of parent engagement.

Children also benefit when their parents provide a positive environment for homework and play a role in school activities.

“A sense of belonging to the school community and participation in school activities can indirectly impact children’s academic outcomes by conveying to children the extent to which parents’ value and support their education,” Drs Fox and Olsen say.

Anton Leschen, Victorian general manager at The Smith Family, said such research illustrates that “a child’s education is about more than what happens in the classroom”.

The Smith Family, which is co-hosting the Australian Parent Engagement conference in June, is looking for more sponsors to expand their Learning for Life program which helps disadvantaged parents support their children’s schooling.

Richmond parents Leanne and Jason Mansfield are very engaged in the school and sporting activities of their daughters Lucy, 10, Chloe, 13 and Charlotte, 15.

Today’s education debate ignores a child’s starting line: Voices

The first few weeks of new parenthood are a blur. When my three children were born, I was laser-focused on keeping them alive and healthy. I counted wet diapers, performed late-night checks to make sure they were breathing, put them “back to sleep,” and worried about whether they were eating enough.
                                             

Like most parents, I was taught, and maybe even evolutionarily conditioned, to worry about the health of their little bodies. Less obvious, though, was that I also needed to worry about the health of their little brains, which were beginning the most rapid period of growth during their lives.

Too few parents get this message; too few understand the window of rapid brain development that occurs between birth and age 3. And that’s a problem leading to a public health crisis. As many as 85% of American parents are failing to give their children a basic building block that is as key to early brain development as tummy time is to physical development, and which has been recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics since 2014: Reading aloud daily right from birth.

By their very design, books make enhancing brain development easy. When you read to a child, you’re bundling together a set of brain-boosting activities: hearing a wide range of vocabulary and complex syntax, bonding and interacting with a parent, hearing stories, having a routine, developing empathy. And while you might be able to let a child chew on, tug, or shake some baby toys on his own, you can’t hand a newborn or older infant a book to read by himself. You, the parent or caring grown-up, must read, interact and snuggle. Books unlock parenting strategies, language that families don’t use every day and, for older babies, pre-literacy skills, such as turning pages and learning to enjoy reading.

Many urgent health and social consequences have been linked to a child's literacy level and correlated with inadequate early exposure to books. From obesity and poor school performance to drug abuse, teen pregnancy and juvenile delinquency, literacy has a significant impact. In this age of many needs but diminishing funds to meet those needs, reading to a child is one of the most cost-effective ways to build a foundation that would give a child a head start in school and life.

Children's commissioner urges halt to education bill

A major overhaul of the education system must be put hold until children are consulted, the Children's Commissioner Judge Andrew Becroft says.
               

Judge Becroft told Parliament's Education and Science Select Committee to stop work on the Education Amendment Bill until children have been asked what they want.

If passed unchanged, the bill would give the government the power to set high-level objectives for education and national priorities that schools must follow.

It would create online schools known as COOLs, and make it easier for schools to require five-year-olds to start school at set times during the year.

The select committee was hearing public submissions on the bill, but Judge Becroft said there had been no real consultation with children about its content.

Judge Becroft said New Zealand had signed a UN convention that said children had the right to express their views, especially on matters that affected them.

Other organisations appearing before the committee agreed.

Sarah Te One from lobby group Action for Children and Youth Aotearoa said it was strange the bill made no provision for consulting children over things like the national priorities.

The Education Minister, Hekia Parata, said she was confident learners had had a chance to comment on the proposed changes.

Other submitters to the Education and Science Select Committtee including the Post Primary Teachers Association, the Educational Institute and the Principals Federation opposed plans to allow online schools.

They expressed concern about giving the government the power to set national education priorities.

The Educational Institute's president, Lynda Stuart, said the priorities were likely to become targets that would narrow the education offered by schools.

The president of the Principals Federation, Whetu Cormick, said the priorities needed to be guided by an over-arching vision for education that everybody agreed on.

The president of the Post Primary Teachers Association, Jack Boyle, said the Education Minister must consult with educators and children about the priorities.

He said aspects of the bill, such as the creation of online schools, would undermine quality education.

Children 'at risk' in Christian fundamentalist schools in the UK, warns government watchdog

A number of Christian fundamentalist schools have been downgraded by government inspectors following an investigation by The Independent which revealed children at some schools that follow the Accelerated Christian Education (ACE) curriculum are taught that LGBT people are inferior and girls must submit to men.
       

The investigation also uncovered historic allegations of corporal punishment, exorcisms being performed on children and schoolgirls being “groomed” for marriage to much older men.

Inspectors say they fear “children are at risk” at some schools after finding in some ACE institutions safeguarding plans to be flawed or non-existent and that staff who come into contact with children sometimes have not undergone background checks to see if they are safe to work with children.

The Independent previously revealed allegations by former pupils that children were subject to serious mistreatment at some of the schools, which are operated by fundamentalist Christian communities and teach more than a thousand pupils at 26 different ACE schools in the UK.

Following The Independent’s investigation, 10 ACE schools were visited by Ofsted inspectors in October and nine of the schools have now been downgraded from “good” or “outstanding” to “inadequate” or “requires improvement”. In inspection reports seen by The Independent, the watchdog raises serious concerns about child protection failures, warning they are failing to meet official safeguarding regulations to protect children. A damning report of one of the schools concludes that “children are at risk”.

However, former pupils have told The Independent that the reports do not go far enough and say the Government must be held to account for allowing the schools to operate for so long. They have called for a government inquiry into how “generations of children were failed”.

Melbourne Museum opens $5.8 million Pauline Gandel Children’s Gallery

MELBOURNE Museum’s new children’s gallery opens for business today and its developers and testers were as young as just a few months old.
         
               

The new $5.8 million Pauline Gandel Children’s Gallery is designed for children from birth to age five and more than 500 tiny tots helped developers fine tune the final inclusions.

Melbourne Museum education and community programs manager Georgie Meyer said children from local childcare centres, kinders and other groups took part in workshops, design, development and testing of the new 2000sq.m space.

“This new space is very much dedicated to the learning needs and play space for the very young child, from babies to five-year-olds,” Ms Meyer said.

“The original children’s gallery was built when the Museum was built in 2000 so it was 16 years old and time for a refresh.

“That space was aimed at three to eight year olds but so much more is now understood about how learning occurs from birth and how a child’s brain develops from birth and the importance of coming to cultural institutions and making them welcoming for babies and toddlers.”

The new outdoor area includes a dinosaur skeleton stretching across two fully-accessible sandpits, seating and picnic areas, a rock garden featuring geologically important rock types from across Victoria, a crystal cave, growing cubby houses fashioned from apple trees, and other hiding spaces.

Philanthropists Pauline and John Gandel donated $1 million toward the project, with Mrs Gandel describing the new space as “a true game changer in the field of early childhood development and education.”

“Children are our future and we must do everything we can to give them the best possible start in life,” Mrs Gandel said. “Enabling them to have fun while they learn is at the core of the new Children’s Gallery and they are in for a real treat.”