Traditionally, nature has served as humanity's greatest teacher, the place where artists, poets and scientists go for inspiration. The natural world has the ability to draw us in and allow us to experience a sense of wonder. But what happens when children fail to bond with nature? Nature deficit disorder isn't a medical term but a social phenomenon identified by Richard Louv, the author of Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder. Nature deficit disorder describes the high cost of separation between nature and children — including attention deficit ... Read More
Deadbeat Dad Policy Needs Renewed Scrutiny
June 22, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
The federal government’s child support enforcement program is largely built around a single goal: Extracting money from fathers. “The way that the system is set up is that the government child support agencies in the states have incentives to collect as much as possible from the families in their case load,” said Joy Moses, a senior policy analyst with the Poverty and Prosperity program at the Center for American Progress. “Oftentimes, when you talk to folks in the child support community, they are highly focused on how are they going to meet that goal. How are they going to ... Read More
Fatherhood Scholars Know Best
June 16, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
The post-World War II era was the age of Leave it to Beaver and Father Knows Best, when a benign patriarch's authority over his household was complete and unquestioned. Or was it? Writing in the Journal of Family History in 2004, Georgia State University sociologist Ralph LaRossa concluded the culture of fatherhood between 1945 and 1960 "was a lot more complex than the standard narratives allow." His survey of popular magazines, top-rated television series and child-rearing manuals of the day suggest the role of the father was in flux, with rigid gender roles in society becoming increasingly ... Read More
Family Planning Subsidies Save Taxpayer Money
April 22, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
After Congress finally settled on a budget at the 11th hour two weeks ago, it turned out much of the drama had come down to a fine point absurd even by Washington standards: The fate of the entire government, apparently, turned on a dispute over Planned Parenthood. This odd quid pro quo pairing — of national budgets and family planning policy — seems destined to infect much of Congress’ squabbles to come. But what, it seems worth asking, does the one have anything to do with the other? Much, in fact — but not quite in the way Planned Parenthood foes have been ... Read More
Dr. Seuss Analyzed for Political, Social Effects
March 2, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
Of all the places he'd go in his wildly fertile imagination, Theodor S. Geisel — better known by his pen name, Dr. Seuss — probably never dreamed he'd be referenced in the journal Critical Perspectives on Accounting. But the man who wrote a classic work of children's literature using a vocabulary of only 51 words (Green Eggs and Ham) would be amused to discover how many densely packed pages of academic prose are devoted to his work. Today, on the beloved author and illustrator's 107th birthday (which, as always, will be celebrated by the National Education Association as Read Across ... Read More
Book Banners Finding Power in Numbers
February 10, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
On the website Parents Against Bad Books In Schools, some of the works deemed "sensitive, inappropriate and controversial" for K-12 students, even those who are college-bound or in advanced placement classes, include Cormac McCarthy's All the Pretty Horses, Richard Wright's Black Boy, Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried and Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude. "Bad is not for us to determine," says the disclaimer on the site. "Bad is what you determine is bad." One of the purposes of PABBIS.org, the disclaimer goes on to say, is to "provide information related to bad ... Read More
Texas Children: Canaries in the Coal Mine
January 25, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
Texas. Merely mentioning the state's name evokes a vision of wide-open spaces, rugged independence and, most importantly, unrivaled economic prowess. The Lone Star State has carefully nurtured its national reputation as an economic leader. In fact, the official website of three-term Gov. Rick Perry includes a brag page; reading the national headlines listed there could lead even the most cynical Texan to blush with pride. It looks like Texas' longtime model of cutting spending and never raising taxes works exceptionally well, so it's not surprising that many states are following Texas' ... Read More
Charter Schools and Equal Opportunity
December 16, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
Remember Norman Rockwell's stark painting of the little African-American girl being escorted into a New Orleans schoolhouse by two deputy U.S. marshals? Today that little girl, Ruby Bridges, is working to open a public charter school in that same school building, which will house a civil rights museum as well. Wouldn't it be strange for a civil rights figure like Bridges to join a movement that was "accelerating re-segregation by race," as charter schools were characterized in a recent Miller-McCune.com article? Yet that's what some critics would have us believe, though more than a million ... Read More
