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While meditation has expanded in recent years from a zen-seeker’s path to higher consciousness to a best practice for hard-charging CEOs, it’s now gaining a foothold at a school in Southern California serving students with serious emotional and behavioral issues. Administrators at the Five Acres School in Altadena, Calif., are testing whether meditation and mindfulness can help students succeed in the classroom. A new mindfulness program implemented there in two semesters over...

Clayton County, GA -- Luvenia Jackson knows students can’t learn when they’re in jail. During 40 years in education, the Clayton County Public Schools superintendent has seen that academic performance cannot improve systemwide under zero-tolerance discipline . Instead of leading to safer buildings and higher achievement, the strict policies cause excessive suspensions, lost instruction time, and students to be needlessly traumatized by criminal charges—all over...

The first time I heard a preschooler explaining a classmate’s disruptive behavior, I was surprised at how adult her four-year-old voice sounded. Her classmate “doesn’t know how to sit still and listen,” she said to me, while I sat at the snack table with them. He couldn’t learn because he couldn’t follow directions, she explained, as if she had recently completed a behavioral assessment on him. Months before either of these children would start...

Legislation to replace the 14 year-old No Child Left Behind law—The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) signed by President Obama on Dec. 10—was widely praised by the administration, legislators of both parties in the House and Senate, and the organizations concerned about education policy from the NEA to the Education Trust. The consensus is that the bill is not perfect but provides a needed recalibration of federal authority over the states in education policy while protecting...

Curbing school bullying has been a focal point for educators, administrators, policymakers and parents, but the answer may not lie within rules set by adults, according to new research led by Princeton University. Instead, the solution might actually be to have the students themselves, particularly those most connected to their peers, promote conflict resolution in school. A team of researchers from Princeton, Rutgers University and Yale University engaged groups of influential students in...

When U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan stepped down last week after seven years on the job, he didn't talk about test scores or teacher quality. Rather, fighting back tears, he used the opportunity to talk about what he called the "greatest frustration" of his tenure — Washington not passing gun control legislation. "If I can leave you one number: 16,000. That in my first six years as Secretary of Education that's the number of young people who are killed across our...

Education issues can be difficult to grasp; they can feel  overwhelming, intangible, or even irrelevant. Sometimes, the best and most effective means of conveying education stories are through charts, graphics, images, and videos. Here are some of the visuals from around the Internet this past year that helped visualize what mattered—student debt, early-childhood education, regional inequality in schools, campus protests, and so on—in a way that was engaging and provocative.

Click the image above to be directed to amazon.com for information on this book by Susan E. Craig.

C l Click above image be directed to Amazon.com for more information about this book.

Website: National Child Traumatic Stress Network Info: Established by Congress in 2000, the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN) brings a singular and comprehensive focus to childhood trauma. NCTSN’s collaboration of frontline providers, researchers, and families is committed to raising the standard of care while increasing access to services. Combining knowledge of child development, expertise in the full range of child traumatic experiences, and dedication to evidence-based...

Website: Children's Mental Health Network Info: The Children’s Mental Health Network provides weekly news and unbiased analysis of key issues focused on children, youth and families’ mental health and well-being. The Network reaches a widely diverse audience. Readers and contributors to the Network come from all walks of life – parents, youth, community leaders, policy-makers, state and federal officials, and increasingly, similar groups from countries across the globe. Common among all who...

Website: Child Trauma Academy Info: CTA is a not-for-profit organization based in Houston, Texas working to improve the lives of high-risk children through direct service, research and education. We recognize the crucial importance of childhood experience in shaping the health of the individual, and ultimately, society. By creating biologically-informed child and family respectful practice, programs and policy, CTA seeks to help maltreated and traumatized children. Founded: 1990 Link: ...