Other Issues

Traveling in uncertain times is a challenge for most of us adults. So, imagine how many dangers, real and imagined, a young person will face. Recently I flew to Aguascalientes, Mexico. Although I have been flying for many years, I became acutely aware of how challenging flying has become in this pandemic era. Masking and social distancing aside, I encountered many new obstacles that were not part of my travel experience even a few years ago. I'll point some of these out.

The young traveler

Whether you send your child off to visit her grandparents or send her back to school, you know she has to travel safely. After all, you have experienced just about every situation and glitch you can imagine during your travels. But remember that you were traveling as an adult. You had the financial resources to book a hotel room the minute the airline canceled your flight, and your flight out was early the following morning. You knew what to do to comply with TSA requirements as you made your way through

Wikipedia has a list of shootings which have occurred in our schools dating back to the 1840s. Sadly, most of the shootings in the past several decades since the mass shooting at Columbine High School have taken place in public schools.  That led me to ask why private schools seem to have been spared these senseless killings. 

Before we look at some of the reasons why shootings occur, let's find out what percentage of shootings occur in private vs. public schools. In Are Shootings More Likely to Occur in Public Schools? Corey A. Deangelis notes the following research:

"Hyewon Kim—a Cato Center for Educational Freedom Intern—compiled information on school shootings in the United States from 2000 to 2018 using the Tribune-Review database. The database is limited to legitimate school shootings; that is, shootings that occurred on or near a K-12 school campus while classes were in session or when students were present. The list also excluded suicide-only incidents."

"Hyewon found 134 school shootings from 2000 to 2018. Only eight of these occurred in private schools while 122 occurred in public schools. The type of school could not be definitively classified for 4 of the shootings. As shown in the figure below, about 94 percent of the shootings that could be classified occurred in public schools while only about 6 percent occurred in private schools."

This TEDTalk discusses how school shootings can be prevented.

Are private school buildings and campuses physically safer?

I don't think

Snowplow, velcro, and helicopter really are synonyms describing parents who try very hard to manage their children's lives. While I have written about velcro parents, I was amused and, at the same time, disheartened to discover this new, pejorative term for parents who won't let their kids be stand-alone adults, namely, snowplow parents.  

Helicopter parents are real. They exist. You probably even know a couple of them. I encountered a helicopter parent years ago when I was managing a call center in Raleigh, North Carolina. We were interviewing candidates for account manager positions. The candidate in question made it through the screening interview but failed the interview with the sales managers. The next day the candidate's mother showed up in our lobby demanding to know why we would not employ her son. He was 24 years old! Needless to say, she was not successful in getting her son a job with us. I was appalled that a parent would act that way.

As a school teacher, I also encountered my share of what I would describe charitably as concerned parents. At least they kept their distance. My late wife and I acted in the same way with our children's teachers and other adults they dealt with in their daily lives. Yes, we heard tales of woe about Miss So-and-So or heard how mean Mr. S. the soccer coach was. But we kept our distance. We gave advice and guidance. But our kids had to sort things out on their own. Against

As a young person, I can remember being told that I had to go to college. My mother had finished high school. Dad flunked out of first-year engineering. World War II was raging. They signed up in the Royal Canadian Air Force. That experience shaped their adult lives in profound ways. That's really what a college education should be about. It can shape lives in profound ways. To make sure that happens you must consider five metrics when choosing a college. Yes, there are more than five metrics involved in selecting the right college, however, let's keep it simple for the moment. Choosing a college can be an overwhelming process.

I am assuming that your child is in a private school with grades 9-12 or 13. That being the case, you will have the advantage of a professional guidance counselor to help you choose the best college for your child. Instead of dealing with hundreds of seniors as a public school guidance counselor does, your school's guidance counselor will be able to allocate enough time to help you with the process of choosing the right college. You can enhance the process further by hiring an education consultant. We did that for one of our daughters and it was worth every dollar we spent.

These are the metrics that I recommend that you discuss and explore thoroughly as you search for the right college for your child. Please include your child in the discussions. She will not appreciate being told

According to Wikipedia.org, "School choice is a term for K–12 public education options in the United States, describing a wide array of programs offering students and their families alternatives to publicly provided schools, to which students are generally assigned by the location of their family residence." Vouchers have been in the headlines for almost thirty years. So this is not a new issue, although the media attention sometimes implies that vouchers are a new idea. A timeline is helpful when dealing with a controversial issue such as school vouchers. But before we do that, what are vouchers?

EdChoice describes vouchers as: 

"School vouchers give parents the freedom to choose a private school for their children, using all or part of the public funding set aside for their children’s education. Under such a program, funds typically spent by a school district would be allocated to a participating family in the form of a voucher to pay partial or full tuition for their child’s private school, including both religious and non-religious options." 

You will hear vouchers called a variety of names such as parental choice, education grants, scholarships, tuition grants, to list but a few of the names you will encounter for vouchers. 15 states and the District of Columbia currently offer 26 voucher programs. School Voucher Laws State-by-State Comparison offers a useful table comparing the voucher programs offered in states which have them. 

Why are vouchers controversial? 

Now that you have access to the data which will inform your