With Thanksgiving less than a week away, thoughts turn towards the family meal. Holidays aside, how often do you and your children eat dinner together as a family? After-school, sports and work schedules can make gathering for family meals tough to organize on a regular basis. But researchers at the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at [...]
"Teenage Bedroom as Battleground", a recent NY Times article found here, offers parents advice on how to cope with their messy teens. Those of you who have figured out how to crack the whip at home so that your teens regularly pick up after themselves around the house and always keep their rooms neat without your intervention, skip to [...]
How do you talk to your sons and daughters about spending and saving money? Teaching our children financial responsibility is one of the most important and beneficial things parents can do. Forbes.com's article "Raising Financially Savvy Kids", found here, features helpful teaching tips from Mary Hunt's recently released book, "Raising Financially Confident Kids". Hunt recommends starting financial conversations early, [...]
As I watch the Democratic National Convention this evening, I can't help but think about the importance of encouraging our 18 year old sons and daughters to register to vote, and to make sure that they vote in the upcoming elections. We must make sure our children know the history of our struggles to obtain the right to vote, [...]
Last Thursday, President Obama signed an Executive Order creating The White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African Americans, which is designed to support, coordinate and strengthen the work of communities and federal agencies to ensure that African-American youngsters are better prepared for high school, college and productive and successful careers. He announced this Initiative last Wednesday night in [...]
A study recently released by Stanford University's Center for Education Policy Analysis has found that Black and Hispanic students remain significantly underrepresented in the nation's most selective colleges. The study, which can be found here, concludes that as recently as 2004, white students were five times as likely as Black students to enroll in selective colleges. White students with [...]
Today's New York Times "Room for Debate" discussion takes on the topic of "The Hovering Parent", and asks a number of columnists whether helicopter parenting has started to "crash and burn". Have parents gotten so involved with managing their children's lives that they are stunting their development into young adults who can think for themselves and learn from their [...]
Have you heard about the commencement speech given by David McCullough Jr., an English teacher at Wellesley High School in Massachusetts, in which he told the graduating seniors "you are not special"? Rather than deliver the expected "go out and conquer the world" graduation speech, the teacher surprised the gathered body with comments like: You are not special. You [...]
We at GCP are keenly focused on the advances in online education, and they are coming fast and furiously. MIT and Harvard recently announced a new nonprofit partnership known as EdX which will offer free online courses from both universities. EdX, which is expected to offer its first five courses this fall, will be overseen by a nonprofit organization [...]
A recent story from a Portland high school, found here, demonstrates what we already know -- young Black men (and women) can excel in challenging subject areas if given the opportunity. Portland's De La Salle North Catholic High School, which enrolls students from low-income backgrounds who come to 9th grade an average of 18 months behind academically, has an [...]