Blurring the line between high school and college

In 1993, the Middle College National Consortium was started to provide professional development for secondary and postsecondary public educators. The goal was to help them find ways to bring under-performing high school students to high academic standards. There are now about thirty high schools affiliated with local community colleges, serving about 7,000 students. In 2002 the Early College Initiative was begun, allowing an accelerated program of five years of school, culminating in an Associate of Arts (AA) degree. It's working.

New ways to get kids off the tube

Language arts programs find themselves a casualty of video culture. Reading, accurate written expression, and even social negotiation are showing up as deficits. Two books address not what they watch, but the skills they lose by watching. Plug-In Drug: Television, Computers, and Family Life by Marie Winn N.Y., Penguin) has been around for a while, but has been completely revised in 2002 to make direct connections with specific language skills. Endangered Minds (N.Y., Touchstone) by Jane Healy Ph.D. has been around too, and was completely revised in 1999. It makes the connection with thinking itself. They're both worth your time.

Opting for Distance-Learning

Distance-Learning means you get to stay home. To busy parents, or to students fed up with sitting in a classroom, it definitely has an appeal. It's not cheap; but it's easy to find. You need to know that at the end the time and money you've invested are going to count. Before you check out individual schools, tale a look at the site of the American Council on Education, founded in 1918. You might have training done in a job environment or in the military. This site can show you how to make that count when you apply for a degree program somewhere else. Employers and graduate schools are used to looking for accreditation, so that's important to think about too. For example, the Distance Education Training Council has accredited 52 online schools. The North Central Association has accredited only one that is online-only. It has also accredited the online programs of the University of Wyoming. Accreditation is a difficult issue, especially since it's costly You may want to surf it for yourself and see what you think...