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News Stories
Breaking
Education's Socioeconomic Barriers
Study reveals the results of youngsters' social
skills, school engagement and physical well-being.
By: David Myron
What best determines early school success and child
well-being? Parenting is certainly a factor, but there are others,
according to a recent report from Child Trends, a Washington, D.C.-based
research company. Child Trends last month released a briefing called
"Indicators of Early School Success and Child Well-being," in which
children were evaluated on how well they're doing in such areas as
cognitive knowledge and skills, social skills, school engagement and
physical well-being.
Using nationally representative data, the report finds that, on average,
all groups of children make progress on five out of seven indicators of
well-being and early school success upon entering kindergarten and
graduating 1st grade. The seven indicators evaluated are mathematics,
reading, general knowledge, a teacher's rating of how well the child
works to best of ability, overweight, self control (ranked by teacher)
and self control (ranked by parent). However, the report finds that
children in families at lower socioeconomic levels, children from racial
or ethnic minority backgrounds, children whose parents do not speak
English at home and children who are disabled, tend to be less prepared
for school upon entering kindergarten. And these children fail to catch
up to their peers by the end of first grade.
"We pretty much already knew that kids who are poor experience a
disadvantage in school," says Sharon Vandivere, senior research analyst
at Child Trends. "It's disturbing that these kids are starting behind,
based on demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, and it's by a
substantial amount."
In a student evaluation by socioeconomic status (SES) - based on
parents' educational attainment, occupations, and household income - the
average correctly answered reading questions out of a total of 92 widely
varied from 47 for the lowest SES quintile to 62.6 for the highest SES
quintile. Also, for those nearing first grade graduation, 77 percent of
children in the lowest SES group had teachers who reported they
"usually" or "always" worked to the best of their ability, compared with
94 percent of children in the highest SES group. Additionally, children
in the lowest SES group were more likely to be overweight upon
kindergarten entry, compared to those in the top SES quintile (14
percent compared with 8 percent), the report reveals.
"The other depressing thing is that these [performance] gaps between
lower socioeconomic and higher socioeconomic kids are growing rather
than remaining stable or getting stronger," Vandivere says. "You would
hope once these kids are getting into school they'd catch up, but based
on these findings they're not."
Considering the connection between socioeconomic levels and child
well-being and early school success, it doesn't help matters that the
U.S. poverty rate is inching up. According to the U.S. Census Bureau,
poverty among families with related children under age 6 has increased
from 18.2 percent in 2001 to 19.8 percent in 2003. "We need to do
something to help close these gaps," Vandivere warns.
Legislators agree. In 2002, President Bush signed the No Child Left
Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 to provide America's students, especially
those in low-performing schools, with better education from more
qualified teachers.
However, funding is a major concern. In a survey by New York research
firm Public Agenda, 93 percent of superintendents and 88 percent of
principals say their district has experienced "an enormous increase in
responsibilities and mandates without getting the resources necessary to
fulfill them." Plus, 85 percent of superintendents and 80 percent of
principals say reduction in funding has gotten worse and 70 percent of
superintendents and 58 percent of principals say that insufficient
funding is the most pressing issue facing their district.
So it may come as no surprise that nearly 90 percent of these
respondents stated it is a "major concern" that NCLB is an unfunded
initiative. NCLB's "highly-qualified teacher" requirement (which
requires teachers of core subjects to have state certification, hold a
bachelor's degree and demonstrate subject area competency) requires a
"massive infusion of new money to hire additional teachers," says one
superintendent interviewed for the Public Agenda report.
For all the anxiety NCLB has caused over the last two years,
unfortunately, it hasn't seen much success. "[NCLB] was a looming idea
that was taking up their intellectual attention but hadn't had an impact
on how things were being directed on the ground," Steve Farkas, senior
vice president and director of research at Public Agenda, told American
Demographics.
However, now that President Bush has been re-elected for another term,
he has four more years to change that perception.
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Jump-Starting the
Holidays
Consumers are getting an early start on their
online holiday shopping this year.
By: Noah Rubin Brier
Thanksgiving used to be the day that marked the official
start of the holiday shopping season. Slowly that date has crept earlier
and earlier to the point where consumers aren't shocked to see Christmas
decorations on Labor Day. In fact, according to an informal Web poll in
the October 5th edition of Demographics Alert, 7 percent of respondents
said that Labor Day was the best time to start marketing and retail
merchandising for the holidays. With the Internet making holiday
shopping just a click away, consumers are getting a jump-start on their
gift buying. Meanwhile, it turns out merchants may not be getting their
holiday marketing started early enough. Shop.org, a division of the
National Retail Federation, examined this issue and general online
holiday shopping trends in its 2004 Holiday Mood Study.
"We asked consumers when they're going to start their shopping for the
holiday season online and we asked the merchants when they're going to
start their holiday marketing online," explains Scott Silverman,
executive director of Shop.org. "The surprising result is that there
were a lot of consumers that said they were going to get started in
mid-October, yet the majority of merchants said they weren't going to
start with their holiday marketing until the beginning of November." In
fact, 53 percent of respondents had planned to begin their holiday
shopping by the beginning of October with only 23 percent waiting until
Thanksgiving weekend. "It seems like the merchants are a little behind
in missing an opportunity and potentially if they were able to speed
things up have even more growth for the holiday season," says Silverman.
Only 22 percent planned on starting their holiday marketing before the
middle of October, while 50 percent plan to start in the next three
weeks.
Even with missed opportunities, however, the growth many online
merchants are expecting this holiday season is fairly significant. "When
we asked merchants what kind of growth they expected, more than 50
percent were expecting 20 percent growth or more over last year,"
Silverman explains. What is more, 23 percent of merchants said they are
forecasting an increase in online revenue of 100 percent or more this
holiday season.
Silverman believes that part of what's causing this growth is rising
consumer comfort with buying online. "Online shoppers may have started
in a category like books or music. Those are common first products that
consumers would buy online because it's a known quantity. But then once
they have a good experience, we see they start broadening into other
categories like apparel, home furnishings or jewelry," explains
Silverman.
It is quite clear that merchants still have quite a bit to learn about
marketing to the online holiday shoppers. With the ease that online
holiday shopping affords consumers it's no wonder that so many are
avoiding the rush and getting an early start on their shopping with the
help of the Internet. Thanks to online stores, we may see more and more
people dedicating the day after Thanksgiving to digestion instead of
shopping.
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Column
Flu
Vaccine Shortage Over-hyped
American Demographics looks at the epidemic of
worry that has spread across the country about the availability of the
of the flu vaccine.
By: Christopher Reynolds
On October 5th the Medicines and Healthcare products
Regulatory Agency (MHRA), the United Kingdom's equivalent of the Food &
Drug Administration (FDA), suspended the Chiron Corp.'s license to
produce their influenza vaccine called Fluvirin(R). The MHRA cited that
the Emeryville, CA drug maker's Liverpool manufacturing facility failed
"to comply with the requirements of Good Manufacturing Practice, leading
to concerns of possible microbial contamination of product." The Chiron
Corp. notified the FDA of the suspension and following the FDA's own
inspection of the plant, had agreed that it potentially created unsafe
vaccines. Little did the MHRA and the FDA know that this suspension
would lead to a minor hysteria in the United States provoking elderly
men and women to wait in long lines to get their annual flu shot.
But is the concern necessary? In an online interactive chat forum called
"Ask the White House," which launched in 2003, the U.S. Health and Human
Services Secretary, Tommy Thompson, said "I'm reminding everyone in the
priority populations for influenza vaccine this year: Don't risk your
health by standing in line four hours.... We are working with the
vaccine manufacturer to ensure that the vaccine is getting to those who
need it most in the areas that need it most."
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there
will be approximately 58 million doses of the flu vaccine available in
the United States. The CDC also released its list of high-risk and
at-risk demographics for contracting the flu virus. The high-risk groups
included people over 64 years old, people with chronic illnesses,
pregnant women and children between the age of 6 and 23 months.
Combining these groups accounts for about 85 million people. The at-risk
group includes health care workers, people between the ages of 50 and
64, and people living in the households with high-risk or at-risk
people. The at-risk group is about 103 million people, and combining the
high-risk and at-risk population makes up about 188 million people.
Therefore there are only enough flu vaccines for just under 31 percent
of all of the potential demographics that could get the disease this
winter and enough for a little more than 68 percent of the high-risk
population if no one else gets the vaccine.
Looking back at the National Health Interview Survey data from 2002,
only 43 percent of the member of the high-risk group and only 20 percent
of the at-risk group were vaccinated. If we take these two vaccination
rates from 2002 and use them with the estimates of the size of the two
risk groups of today, it means that in the U.S. we likely need about
57.6 million doses of the vaccine -- almost exactly equaling the
estimated vaccine available today. Therefore, the issue at hand is not
supply, but rather distribution to the appropriate locations so that
everyone who needs, wants and gets a vaccination will get one.
To ensure the appropriate redistribution of the vaccine the FDA released
a statement to all of the health providers in its jurisdiction, as well
as state health departments, "It is therefore permissible... for a
hospital or health care entity to redistribute influenza vaccine to
alleviate shortages this flu season." Also, the CDC has been working
with the Aventis Pastuer, a drug maker headquartered in France and the
main provider of the flu vaccine, to make sure that the distribution of
the vaccine is more carefully monitored to go to the appropriate
population center of high-risk Americans. Therefore, most of America
needs not be concerned, as there will likely be enough vaccine in
smaller population areas. Only the areas that have large high-risk
populations, or simply large populations, may run into issues with the
vaccine supply, but with patience, even those areas will likely not run
into problems as the flu season hits high swing from late-December to
early-March.
Online Poll
Online Poll:
Who Makes the Flue Shot List?
Which group should be first in line to receive
a flu shot?
Click on the following link to participate in and
view the results of our exclusive online poll.
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November 9, 2004 | A PRIMEDIA Property
