Mandatory Summer School for Young Students in some School Districts

Gary Stern, writer for Lohud the Journal News reports that the Middleton (New York) school district has issued an unusual mandatory requirement for some of its students.  It has identified 600 of its kindergarten through second grade students and is requiring that they attend summer school.  The students were chosen based on their scores on their most recent MAP tests.  Students who do not attend the classes or who attend but do not progress face possible retention or promoted with extra help.  Superintendent Kenneth Eastwood explained that the district is trying different approaches in an effort “to help students who are in danger of never reaching academic standards.”
This requirement is being met with resistance from some parents.  Some complain that this policy is unfair and shocking since it is based on results from one test, and many had been assured of adequate progress throughout the school year at parent-teacher conferences and report cards.  The district’s officials face greater challenges with the implementation of the Common Core and new state tests for grades 3 to 8.  Superintendents from nearby districts are divided on this policy.  They, too, have similar populations that they have offered summer school remediation, but those were not mandatory,

Keeping Kids in High School

America is celebrating the nearly 80 percent high school graduation rate (the highest rate ever), but parents will appreciate the insight gleaned from Edweek’s College Bound blog writer Caralee Adams.  Adams shared significant findings from the America’s Promise Alliance at Tufts University in Boston.  The report examines the reasons that students drop out of school.
Researchers found that there are multiple reasons that  students drop out, and, typically, it is not just one reason.  Contrary to some beliefs, it’s not that school is boring or that they are not motivated.  The “cluster of factors” includes the following:

• Growing up in “toxic environments” with unstable families
• Living in violent neighborhoods
• Attending unsafe schools
• Being the caregivers for parents, siblings, or their own children
• Being homeless
• Being victims of abuse

Unless these students have “strong relationships with family members, teachers or peers, many give up.”  Even if they re-enter after dropping out, these students require a strong support network even more.
The report’s authors urge that the significant adults in a student’s life can turn things around or decrease the chances that a student will drop out of high school.  They specifically recommend the following actions:

1. Listen to young people. Take time to understand their struggles and circumstances when figuring out how to respond.
2. Surround the highest-need young people with extra supports. Early-warning systems can pinpoint problems based on attendance, grades, or behavior.
3. Encourage leaders from faith-based organizations, schools, and the broader community to help students stay in school.
4. Use proven and promising, evidence-based approaches to drop-out prevention, such as ones that look at the holistic needs of students. (The report contains a list of examples, such as Youth Opportunity Baltimore and Youth Build Providence.)
5. Give young people a central role in designing programs and coming up with solutions to staying in school.

Education has moved Online

Free Online STEM Tutorials

By Deborah 
The explosion of growth for Khan Academy continues.  According to the Science Daily website, it has teamed up with NASA to create a series of online tutorials designed to increase interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, or STEM subjects.  The lessons include things that NASA does routinely:  “…to measure our universe, to explore…the engineering challenges of launching and landing spacecraft on Mars, and to learn about other space exploration endeavors and destinations.”
These online tutorials are interactive lessons that use a number of ways to engage users in NASA’s scientific and mathematical protocols.  The lessons are “exciting and realistic simulations, challenges and games transport students deep into STEM subjects.”  The lessons are self-paced and free.
Access these lessons at the following link:  https://www.khanacademy.org/partner-content/nasa
Learn more by viewing this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=CcM2R6vIvfw

Be Literate in what you buy

Benefits of Duplexes, Single Family Homes and Condos Investment

Duplexes / Multi-family
Duplexes are basically normal houses which are split into two housing units, and are separated by a common central wall. Each unit has discrete entrance door usually mounted at each frontage.
Whatever your purpose in acquiring these duplexes, herewith are some benefits which are inherent in this type of home as follows:

• If you have an eye for an investment, duplexes are better option because these generate more cash flow over the time you own the property.  With two housing units as source of your monthly rental income, USA Advantage confirms that you have higher probability of a continuous income because of the greater number of units as compared to single family homes.

• The home values of your duplex in the neighborhood in which you live have generally higher values than the single family home. A recent study made by Moxie Realty Group of Austin showed that duplexes have about 25% higher selling price than single family homes in the same neighborhood.

• On living in one unit of your own duplex, you can sustain your daily living expenses by having one unit rented. This set up will allow you to supervise the tenant as well as the maintenance of the building.

• Duplexes have great advantage especially in running its operation and maintenance. These structures have only one roof, one set of gutters, one basement and one yard which needs termite and pest control. This arrangement will make your maintenance activities easy to manage.

Single Family Homes
Single family homes are detached houses which are not connected to any other structures, and are intended to be occupied by one family. Furthermore these units do not share an inside wall with any other house or dwelling.
If you are planning for a residential place, and you consider dwelling in a single family home, you may find these interesting benefits which are built-in this type of structure as follows:

• Single family homes enjoy the advantage of having about 15% to 25% lower property insurance premium rates than duplexes.

• When the time comes that you want to sell your property, you will have no difficulty in marketing it because there is a great demand for single family homes.

• In single family homes, you have clear and less complicated parking conditions. Moreover you have the opportunity of building garage or carports.

• Single family homes provide privacy to the dwellers. This is an inherent advantage of this unit because the dwellers are completely disengaged from other tenants.

• Re-sale value for single family homes is superior because these can be marketed to both owner-occupants as well as investors.

Condos
Condos or condominiums are form of housing tenure where a specified part of a piece of a real estate is individually owned. Individual home ownership within the condo is interpreted as ownership of only the air space within the boundaries of the said condo.
If you are looking for a place to reside, and you consider residing in a condo, you may find these exciting benefits which are integral in this type of homes as follows:

• Condos provide low maintenance as you are not responsible for the repair of exterior and common areas.

• Generally condos are built in prime locations which are convenient to city centers, shopping malls, restaurant, etc.

• Living in condominium is much safer and secured compared to single family home or duplex.

• Condos usually offer access to amenities such as swimming pool, gym, tennis courts, reception areas, etc., which provide luxuries you may not otherwise be able to afford.

Teens and Leisure Reading

 

By Deborah Williams
A recent analysis of several studies was made by Common Sense Media.  The nonprofit reports that there is a definite reduction in the number of adolescents who read for pleasure.  NPR’s National Desk correspondent, Jennifer Ludden, reports, “Nearly half of 17-year-olds say they read for pleasure no more than one or two times a year—if that.”

Could the limitless access to technology be the reason?  Common Sense Media founder and CEO, Jim Steyer studied the effects of technology on children, and he believes that technology access is just part of the problem.  Steyer describes several possible reasons for less leisure reading by adolescents:

• Most children have access to e-readers, or other smart electronic devices like phones and tablets.
• Some students say that they would read for pleasure, but they have too much homework.
• The Internet can be very distracting.

Parents can still promote reading:

• Be a reader themselves.
• Purchase or borrow books from the library.
• Schedule a regular time for children to read each day.

Take Notes by Hand or Electronically? By Deborah Williams

Today’s students are very attached to their electronic devices.  That includes their laptops.  Most prefer to type papers and to take notes that way, but is that good for them to do?  A report on the Science Daily website about a recent study by researchers found that taking notes on laptops may not be the best option.  Princeton University’s Pam Mueller, lead author of the study, reports, “Our new findings suggest that even when laptops are used as intended — and not for buying things on Amazon during class — they may still be harming academic performance.”
Mueller and her UCLA colleague, Daniel Oppenheimer, conducted as series of studies that asked college students to take notes on a TED Talks video about topics for which they had little knowledge.  Some were given laptops and others received notebooks.  The only other instructions were to take notes in their usual fashion.  After their viewings, the respondents completed three distracter tasks.  Thirty minutes after completing the tasks, students answered factual-recall questions about the video they watched.  Researchers found that both groups of students performed equally well when recalling facts, but those who took notes by hand performed significantly better than those who used laptops to take notes.
That’s not all the researchers found:

• It may be that longhand note takers engage in more processing than laptop note takers, thus selecting more important information to include in their notes, which enables them to study this content more efficiently.
• The researchers also found that longhand note takers still beat laptop note takers on recall one week later when participants were given a chance to review their notes before taking the recall test

Not convinced?  Technology has created a compromise platform that combines both:

Is Now a Great Time for Investors

Jacksonville ‘a gold mine’ for real estate investors

JACKSONVILLE — To achieve financial security by age 30, Adam Wolbarst of New York City is investing his money in the Jacksonville real estate market.

The 24-year-old bought a home — with a tenant in place — on Jacksonville’s Westside in October. Since then, he’s collected just more than $500 per month on the investment and plans to buy another property in April.
Properties such as Wolbarst’s, as well as a projected increase in rental demand, make Jacksonville a desirable market for investors. While the U.S. median sale price of existing family homes was $177,900 in the third quarter of 2010, the median sale price of an existing family home in Jacksonville was $137,000, according to the National Association of Realtors.
To make the market even more attractive, the median gross rent in Jacksonville is $903, compared with a nationwide median gross rent of $842, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Jacksonville is one of only a handful of markets that’s a cash-flowing market, which buys and renovates rental properties to be sold to investors. People in Jacksonville don’t know what a gold mine they’re sitting on.
Wolbarst, who works as a district manager for a chain of convenience stores in Manhattan, the Bronx and central Long Island, bought the home through Progress Home Buyers.
“I’m very familiar with the financials of running a business, and I run my life the same way,” Wolbarst said. “It’s about what decisions can I make — how can I make my money go further?”
Wolbarst bought the home for $82,600, with a down payment of $19,284. The property earns $1,220 per month in gross rent, and after paying the mortgage, taxes, insurance and property management and maintenance fees, Wolbarst earns $538 a month, for a return on investment of 33.5 percent.
Good, cash-flowing neighborhoods can be slightly below middle class, where you can feel comfortable as a landlord. Investors, it’s not about where you’d want to live; it’s based on the numbers. 
The attractive rental market is stoking investment activity in multifamily housing as well.
There was demand for about 3,700 apartments in Jacksonville during 2010, said Greg Willett, vice president of research and analysis for MPF Research Inc., which tracks apartment markets throughout the U.S., while about 1,000 units were completed, causing occupancy to rise 3.6 percentage points, to about 90 percent.
“Jacksonville is one of those places that, I think, is going to be attractive for investors because where it is right now is so far under its long-term trend,” Willett said. “And you know it’s going to get meaningfully healthy again.”
Willett said most of the multifamily investment activity is in high-end properties. On Dec. 29, Magnolia Village Apartments, a Class A gated community on Bartram Road, sold for $14 million. Atlanta-based Apartment Realty Advisors brokered the deal; in early January, ARA opened an office in Jacksonville.
“Jacksonville is an important market in the state of Florida, in terms of the number of apartments there,” said Marc deBaptiste, a founding principal of the ARA Boca Raton office. “Our buyers want to be in that marketplace, and we decided we’d be better served having someone local there.”
Ray Rodriguez, president of the Real Estate Strategy Center of North Florida Inc., said there is opportunity for short-term investments — paying cash for a house and immediately reselling it for a profit — in the Argyle area, as well as outside the city, in the Trout Run and Paxon areas.