Cookie Cutter Test Prep Companies Fall Under Federal Scrutiny

Looks like Kaplan is getting a little unwanted attention for some of its business tactics. Test preparation in Miami-Dade and South Florida is just like that in other areas – it works best when it is customized to the individual taking it. Students get great results from a locally owned and operated boutique company.

Here is the story from the Washington Post:

“The Washington Post Co.'s Kaplan unit was accused in an antitrust complaint of dominating the market for LSAT test preparation.

The class-action lawsuit was filed yesterday in Manhattan federal court. It alleges that Kaplan conspired with the BAR/BRI bar-examination review firm to restrain competition in the market for the LSAT, taken by law-school applicants. Thomson Reuters, now BAR/BRI's parent, is not a defendant in the case. (read more here)”

School Counselors Feel the Pinch

As you already know admissions are getting more and more competitive as more students are looking to enter the university system. This article discusses in what ways it is affecting school counselors.


http://news.cincinnati.com

Medication Improves Test Results for Kids with A.D.H.D.

Drug therapy is effective for kids with A.D.H.D., and is linked with higher test scores on standardized tests. The NY Times reported the results of a recent study that lends clinical support to what some parents already know. Proper medication can lead to symptom reduction in kids with A.D.H.D. and consequently improve test scores.

Tara Parker-Pope wrote in the Times:
“Children with attention deficit problems make bigger academic gains if they are taking stimulant medications compared to similar kids who aren’t receiving drug therapy, a new study shows. (click for full article)”

Ruth A. Peters, Ph.D. Weighs in on Summer Learning for Children

We came across a great piece on retaining gains while on Summer break.

"How to stanch your kid’s summer learning loss

Many students lose more than 2 months of knowledge over the summer. Dr. Ruth Peters tells how to block the seasonal brain-drain

By Ruth A. Peters, Ph.D.

"Today" contributor

updated 10:41 a.m. ET, Tues., June 21, 2005

A few schools already have. Most are about to. Close their doors on the academic year, that is. And for many students that means that much of what they have learned in the past nine months goes out of their heads like summer heat rising from the blacktop. To offer advice on how to stanch this seasonal brain-drain, “Today” invited contributor and psychologist Dr. Ruth Peters onto the show. Here are some of her suggestions:

Summer will be here before you know it, and if you think those lazy, hazy months should be all play and no work, take a gander at the following statistics provided to me by Ron Fairchild, Executive Director of the Johns Hopkins University Center for Summer Learning. (Ron and I recently participated in a seminar in conjunction with Johns Hopkins and Sylvan Learning Centers and he was kind enough to provide this information to me.)

All students experience learning losses when they do not engage in educational activities during the summer.

On average, students lose approximately 2.6 months of grade level equivalency in mathematical computation skills during the summer months.

Low-income children and youth experience greater summer learning losses than their higher income peers.

Students may not have the same structured meal schedule and access to nutritious meals during the summer.

Studies show that out-of-school time is a dangerous time for unsupervised children and youth.

Important facts

Only about 10 percent of students nationwide participate in summer school or attend schools with non-traditional calendars.

A majority of students (56 percent) want to be involved in a summer program that “helps kids keep up with schoolwork or prepare for the next grade”.

Research shows that teachers typically spend between 4 to 6 weeks re-teaching material that students have forgotten over the summer.

At least 11 percent of children between the ages of 6 and 12 care for themselves over the summer months (unsupervised).

Action you can take
What can you do, personally, to help combat summer learning loss with your own kids?

Well, unless you live somewhere particularly remote, there are probably plenty of options in your community — you just need to be a bit creative and think outside the box.

For instance, my local newspaper, every April or May, has a special section listing all private as well as community-funded summer programs for kids. Many of these are eclectic-types of camps involving swimming, sports, crafts and field trips. However, more and more add in reading enrichment or remediation as well as math tutoring over the summer.

In addition to community and private day camps, check out the following options:

Learn to love your local library (and librarian!). It’s a wonderful place to promote the love of reading, and the librarian can suggest grade-level as well as pure recreational books that will keep your kid’s neurons clicking.

Check out safe, parent-approved Internet sites. There are many that offer a “summer camp” theme — a daily craft activity to do alone or with a parent each day, some brain teasers, video streaming of important world events (volcanoes erupting, the Martin Luther King “I have a dream” speech), and tons of grade-related math, reading and science work to be checked out in a fun way.

Consider your local newspaper — many have summer writing camps. Your performing-arts center has summer camps that involve singing, dancing and set décor as well as script reading (notice the reading part?).

Even if your child attends a public school during the year, many private schools offer summer programs for all students that involve academics as well as sports, crafts and field trips. Learning academics is more fun when interspersed with active movement and game-like activities.

The summer months are an excellent time for your child to fill in learning gaps or zoom ahead with enrichment activities at supplemental learning centers, or via tutors or last year’s teacher. Your child’s teacher is an excellent resource to give you ideas for summer books to read and math workbooks to complete in between play and television watching.

Sleep-away camps can be specialized for leaning opportunities, especially for niche fields such as computers, science and even math camps. Lots of other activities are interspersed to keep it an active experience for all. Also, consider Circus Smirkus in Vermont (www.circussmirkus,org), acting and film making in New York (www.nyfa.com), CyberCamps (www.cybercamps.com), and Omega Institute holistic learning camps (www.omegateencamp.com).

What you should do now
Before this school year ends, be sure to check with this year’s teacher(s) to get suggestions for summer workbooks and pleasure books, science activities, etc. He or she will know what will be helpful for next year. Also, you may be able to check with next year’s teacher to get his or her advice on interesting summer activities.

NOTE: This is especially necessary if your child is “on the bubble” (weak in a particular subject, afraid to answer questions in class for fear of being wrong). Summer is a great time to fill in the learning gaps and to begin the next year in a confident manner.

Learn from a vacation
Think of your summer vacation as a teachable moment. It’s sort of like tricking your kids into learning. Stealth learning is a neat way to get your kids reading, doing math or learning geography without them even realizing it!

Let the kids go online to sites such as Mapquest or one of the travel sites to help “research” the journey to and from the vacation site, as well as activities surrounding where you will be spending your summer vacation. Even if you can’t leave town for a vacation, have your child compile a “virtual vacation” by doing some research and downloading pictures of events that he or she would like to take part in. Who knows, maybe next summer they will be able to actually visit the location!

Local learning resources
Don’t forget summer learning opportunities locally, in addition to your library. Check out museums, the zoo, aquariums, concerts and parks that you don’t usually get to attend during the school year. Have them keep a journal (writing skills!) of their activities, and perhaps e-mail friends and relatives about what they are doing (again, stealth writing practice!).

Set some goals
Finally, try to motivate your child to complete five to 10 math problems (from a grade-appropriate workbook) a few times a week, and to read a chapter in a pleasure book several days a week also. Hopefully, the work will be fun (keep it low-level and simple), and the kid will do it for enjoyment.

Or, you can enhance motivation by saying, “You can turn on the television after you’ve read a chapter in your book.” Some parents skip the weekly allowance and reward their children for accomplishing some academics during the summer, by tying their allowance to task completion. You know your kids, use the option that will be most successful.

Dr. Ruth’s Bottom Line: Don’t delay — now is the time to take action for keeping the brain stimulated, as well as the body moving, over the summer months. Keep it simple, fun and stimulating. Let the kids pick out the books to read and the sites to research on the Internet (again, only safe sites allowed!). Learning alone and informally or via a structured group for part of the day or part of the summer will help to prevent summer learning loss and help your child stay sharp for school next year. But, please remember that summer is also for relaxing, taking some time off, and just being a kid. The trick is to balance fun with learning, and with all of the local options available to you, it’s a task worth tackling!

For more resources on summer reading, go to the reading resources pages at the National PTA Wesite, www.pta.org.

Copyright ©2005 by Ruth A. Peters, Ph.D. All rights reserved. Dr. Peters is a clinical psychologist and regular contributor to the “Today” show. Her most recent book,“Laying Down the Law: The 25 Laws of Parenting to Keep Your Kids on Track, Out of Trouble, and (Pretty Much) Under Control,” is published by Rodale. (See excerpts here.) For more information you can visit her Web site at www.ruthpeters.com.

PLEASE NOTE: The information in this column should not be construed as providing specific psychological or medical advice, but rather to offer readers information to better understand the lives and health of themselves and their children. It is not intended to provide an alternative to professional treatment or to replace the services of a physician, psychiatrist or psychotherapist.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8146912/"

SAT coming up May 2; Willa Chen Aces Three Big Ones

When you are getting ready for this Saturday's SAT exam, keep your eyes on the prize and shoot for the stars. You have worked so hard to get where you are and now you just need to put everything into place.

While I was thinking about the upcoming exam, this bit of news came my way about an intrepid young student from Michigan, Willa Chen, who aced the SAT, the ACT and the PSAT. While not many will repeat this feat, it is nice to see that hard work pays off.

This is from the AP:

"Student aces ACT, SAT and PSAT

Associated Press

CANTON TOWNSHIP, Mich. -- Willa Chen has a knack for tough tests.

The Detroit News reported Saturday that the 17-year-old senior at southeast Michigan's Canton High School got perfect scores on the ACT. And the SAT. And the PSAT.

The College Board administers the SAT and PSAT but says it doesn't track statistics on whether anyone has scored perfectly on both its tests.

Chen plans to attend Princeton University.

The student from Canton Township said she doesn't think she studied a lot but she said she tries to keep learning all the time.

She participates in the Math Olympiad and also finds time to enjoy jazz, tap and ballet."

SAT information and Tips from the Family Education Network

We found the Family Education Network when we were looking for resource sites that provide free and useful information about learning in general, and the SAT in particular. Check out these great tips:

"The SAT Is Not Like Your School Tests

I'm sure you know kids who don't do so well in school, yet somehow manage to ace standardized tests like the SAT. And you probably know other students who do really well in school, yet when it comes to the SAT these same students don't do nearly as well—and sometimes even bomb the test completely.

Why do so many bright students have so much trouble on the SAT? Because taking the SAT is nothing like taking tests in school. I mean nothing like it.

• To take one obvious example, school tests rarely last more than an hour.

Not the SAT. On the SAT you've got to stay mentally focused for over three hours.

• On school tests, your teachers give more weight to the more difficult questions. So it makes sense to spend more time on those questions than on easier ones—they're worth more.

Not on the SAT. On the SAT, all questions are worth the same, so it doesn't make sense to spend more time on hard questions. But that's exactly what most students do.

• On school tests, your teachers generally give partial credit for partial answers. If your answer to a long, complicated math question was mostly right, except for a "silly mistake," your math teacher would probably give you nearly full credit. If your answer on an English test was not the one the teacher was looking for, but you made a good argument for it, your English teacher would give you at least some credit—possibly full credit for originality!

Not on the SAT. There's only one right answer for each question, and no partial credit for anything else. On the SAT there's no such thing as just a careless mistake since any mistake costs you full credit, and then some.

Those are just a few of the many differences between the SAT and the tests you're used to taking. They may seem to be minor differences, but these differences will have a major impact on how you'll have to change the way you take the SAT if you want to achieve your maximum score.

Trust me: even if you're an excellent student—

• if you solve SAT math questions the way you're used to solving math questions in class
• if you read SAT passages the way you're used to reading novels or even your textbooks
• if you compose an SAT essay the way you're used to writing essays in English class

—then you're in for a rude surprise on the SAT. You'll need to learn a whole new set of skills for the SAT. Indeed, many of the academic and test-taking skills that lead to success in the classroom will work against you on the SAT."

College Board Backs Immigrant Students

The College Board, the group that administers and creates the SAT exam, announced today that it supports the opening of state schools to immigrants and supports a path to citizenship for these students.

From U.S. News and World Report

"Pending federal legislation that would create a path to citizenship for an estimated 360,000 undocumented high school graduates is receiving the support of the College Board, the organization that administers the SATs and counts 5,000 schools as members."

SAT Scores Out Now!

Today the March 14 test scores are being reported online. Please be sure to visit the College Board website to see how you or your student performed.

Along with the score news, this is the first month that Score Choice will be implemented. Score Choice gives each applicant the option to choose which scores to send to colleges in accordance with that school’s specific score-use practice. Colleges and universities that participate in this program will only receive the scores that are selected, and they will not be released without specific consent. It is important to verify with each institution’s admissions office to make sure which method they utilize and prefer.

For more information, please visit: http://www.collegeboard.com/student/testing/sat/score_choice.html?CampaignID=4267 We recommend taking the Score Choice tutorial. It is an easy way to learn how to navigate through the College Board site and see which schools are participating in the new program.

Along with the regular SAT Reasoning scores, please investigate whether or not each specific school or intended major requires you to take the SAT Subject Tests. A lot of students waste time worrying about these exams, when most schools do not require them. It is always wise to check with an admissions representative from the prospective college in order to find out if any SAT Subject Test is needed.

Lastly, it is imperative that each student sign up for their AP Exams in May. Most have probably already begun studying for these tests, but if you have not, start now! In these tough financial times, doing well on these AP exams could help pay for free college credits earned before a student even attends their school of choice.