Mother's Employment Increases Children's Health Risks

NCSU economics professor Dr. Melinda Morrill has some bad news for working moms.  In her study comparing health statistics of school-aged children with working mothers to those with mothers who stay at home, Morrill found that the children of mothers who worked were 200% more likely to be hospitalized overnight, to suffer an injury or poisoning, or to have a asthma attack.  

Morrill’s study looked at 20 years of health statistics involving approximately 89,000 children aged 7-17.  Her results differ from previous studies that indicated  children of working mothers were healthier, presumably because of higher income, greater access to health insurance, and increased maternal self-esteem.  Those studies were flawed, according to Morrill, because they had reversed cause and effect.  That is, the stay-at-home mother group had numbers of moms of children with such severe medical problems that they required full-time care or supervision, effectively eliminating the option of the mother to work outside the home.  But these children weren’t getting sick because their moms were home; their moms were home because the children were so sick.  When Morrill used advanced statistical techniques to account for such issues, she found that the opposite was actually true--that children of stay-at-home moms had highly significant better chances of avoiding injury and poisoning, hospitalization, and asthma attacks.

Morrill clearly wants to avoid setting off another “mommy war.”  She states “I don’t think anyone should make sweeping value judgements based on a mother’s decision to work or not work.”  “But,” she continues, “it is important that we are aware of the the costs and benefits associated with a mother’s decision to work.”   Apparently, one of those costs is increased health risks for the children of working moms.

Research Shows Social and Emotional Learning Improves Academic Performance

There was a lovely article in today's News and Observer, the major paper in Raleigh, NC, about a mentoring program for 20 middle schoolers in Ligon Middle School, a magnet school in the Chavis Heights neighborhood of Raleigh (an area that was historically a black, low-income community, but is now undergoing some resurgence).  College students from near-by Shaw University, which is the oldest historically black college in the South, have spent Wednesday afternoons with the middle schoolers, teaching them about appropriate dress and behavior, etiquette, and other essential about becoming a "Gentleman of Excellence."  You can read the entire are at this link.

While the article says the school says it is too soon to tell if this program has raised participants' test scores, new research indicates it probably will.  In the February 4, 2011 issue of the peer-reviewed journal, Child Development, a research team led by Joseph A. Durlak, a professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Chicago, did a meta-analysis of 213 school-based program like the Ligon one described above, which are known in education-ese as "social and emotional learning," or SEL programs.  Looking at the results of all those SEL programs, which involved a total of 270,034 students from K-12th grade, the researchers found that not only did SEL participants improve significantly on social and emotional skills (including better behavior and self control, fewer discipline problems, improvements in following school rules and expectations, and better relationships with themselves and others), but both their grades and their test scores rose as well.  Plus, the academic increases were significant;  SEL participants' grades and scores were an average of 11% higher compared to non-participants.   While over half the participants were elementary students, 31% were in middle schools, like the Ligon program above, and 13% were in high school.  So this is an effective educational support for all ages of students.  You can read the entire research report at this link.

While the study reports only on school-based SEL programs, I can attest to the usefulness of such learning in non-school settings as well.  My friend Maggie is running a social skills class in which my son is participating.  It is a small group, and it turned out to be all boys, but they all seem to be enjoying it and picking up some key life skills.  The focus of our class, at least so far, has been on communication skills, but it has also reiterated the need to be more aware of the needs and feelings of those with whom you are dealing.   This week, for example, they talked about how to be a good listener, which included points like the difference between hearing and listening, the need to give feedback to show the speaker you are listening, positive body language to show the speaker your attention, etc.  Some of these things the boys hadn't considered before, and they all seem to get into the role playing of simulated conversations and problem solving better and worse ways of handing various problems or situations.   I really appreciate Maggie for leading this activity, and I know my son has benefitted even after just a few weeks of classes.

However, some of this could be done at home with just a parent and a child.  Simply talking through some of these things as a neutral topic--NOT when you are angry because they haven't listened or been respectful or have interrupted you on the phone on a trivial matter--can be really helpful, I think.  For example, with the listening class, I believe at least some of them who slump over or lie down because that feels good to them, hadn't thought that the speaker might take that as a lack of interest. To some of them, especially those who are uncomfortable in those rapidly-growing middle school bodies, it just makes sense to get comfortable.  Explaining to them how that can be perceived negatively by the other party doesn't take a class or a program; it just takes us realizing that at least some of our less-intuitively-social children need to have these things pointed out to them.  And while I've always tried to do that, I'm discovering that maybe I need to do it even more.  It is certainly a life skill that students need, but also tends to improve their self esteem and their relationships immediately, and, apparently, can even lead to better academic success.

Research Study Shows Merit Pay for Teachers Doesn't Work

A study of what I view as one of the biggest issues in education reform announced its findings this week, and I don't the results have gotten nearly the attention they deserve.   (And if my opinions aren't sufficient for you this is important enough to read, also know that the study focused on middle school teachers.)

The National Center for Performance Incentives at Vanderbilt has just completed what they say is the first rigorous scientific study on the concept of merit pay--that is, paying teachers more or giving them bonuses if their class results on standardized tests rises.  This study followed 300 5th-8th grade math teachers for two years.  Half of the teachers were offered bonuses of different levels, up to $15,000 per year, for improvements on the Tennessee standardized exam on math that is used as part of the federal No Child Left Behind Initiative.  As with many such studies, the research had some good news and the bad news (depending on how you look at it). 

So here is my interpretation of the study:

The Bad News:  Merit pay didn't work.  Even offering an extra $15,000 didn't result in higher test scores--and this was in Tennessee, which is ranked 34th in the country in terms of teacher compensation by the American Federation of Teachers, with an average teacher salary in 2007 of $43,815 (compared to a national average of $51,009 or a high of $63,640 in California).  That is to say, offering a bonus of one third of their salaries didn't make a difference in student scores.

The Good News:  The reasons teacher reported that scores didn't rise was they were already doing all they could possible do.  Or, to look at it from the other side, even without monetary rewards for student achievement, teachers are already giving everything they have to support their students.

I think this is an incredibly important piece of news that deserves more attention.

This is not to say that some teachers might not be able to do a better job.  But if those teachers don't know how to teach well, just offering money is not going to suddenly make them better teachers.  They need other things--mentoring, more training, more staff support, or whatever.  And for all those good teachers out there--which I believe is the majority--it just shows that they aren't motivated by money.  They are teachers because they care, they enjoy it, they know they are making a difference in children's lives, and all sorts of things like this.

This study should not be used to justify inadequate pay for teachers.  Most teachers I know don't think they get enough money for the important role they play in our society--and I agree.  But they aren't looking for higher salaries because then they will be "more motivated" to serve their children, because they won't be--they are already highly motivated.  They want more pay as recognition for the critical work they do, not as a carrot to get them to "care more."

So I think this study is a terrific commendation of teachers and how much they work and give and care, regardless of their compensation.  And to me, it is another great example of why trying to apply typical industrial or business practices to education doesn't work.  Our schools are not like car dealerships or assembly line plants or stock brokerages; different rules, different dynamics apply there.

Finally, on a local note--I hope the Wake County School Board (the one that is talking about bringing in a "business leader" to run the school system) considers the implications of this study as they decide about the new Superintendent for this 158 school, nearly 140,000 school system (2009-2010 figures).

Traditional Study Skills Advice is All Wrong

Another fascinating article this week, this time from The New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/health/views/07mind.html), says that research shows that most of the conventional wisdom about "good study skills" is just plain wrong.  The traditional advice given to parents by "experts" include having a quiet, clear designated study space with specific time or achievement goals on a set schedule.  In addition, many traditional curricula drill students on one skill until they master it, then move onto the next, etc.

But the scientific studies show that such technique not only do not improve student performance--they actually diminish it!  For example, in one study where students were given material to study in two separate areas (one closed and cluttered, the other with a window to the outside), they did significantly better in remembering the information than those who had the same two study periods, but both in the same room.  Likewise, studies show that when study time is broken up, such as half an hour this week, then half an hour next week, rather than one hour at a time, students retain much more of the information.  Finally, studies show that mixing together different types of problems together, rather than studying them sequentially (for example, doing a sheet where addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division problems are all mixed up, rather then doing 10 problems on addition, then 10 on subtraction, etc.) produces dramatically better results.  One study cited by the article involved fourth-graders working on four separate equations measuring different dimensions of a prism.  The students who worked mixed problem sets, where they were solving problems with all four equations grouped together, achieved an average score of 77% when tested on the material; the students who studied each equation separately only had an average score of only 36%.  That is, the mixed set students did TWICE as well as the isolated problem set students.  And those kinds of differences between results have been demonstrated among many different age groups, from primary school students through adults.

So what should parents be doing, at least according to these studies?  Mix it up.  Instead of long marathon study sessions, break the work into several smaller subsets, and do those subsets at different times and different places.  Don't work solely on multiple long division problems, or identifying only nouns, or studying only Picasso.  Mix in some related concepts, like identifying works by other artists of the same time period such as Matisse or Braque, or cover all the parts of speech at once.  And don't feel confined to "the study area"; move your working time around to the kitchen table, the library, the outside.