parents/guardians

“If some of us can be snatched off the streets without a warrant, based only on suspicion or skin color, then none of us are safe.” [Newsom]

On 06/11/2025, in change, Emotion, ethics, game-changing environment, law schools, leadership, legislatures / government / legal, morals/values, pace of change, parents/guardians, society, sociology, trends, United States, youth, by Daniel Christian

California will keep fighting on behalf of all our people including in the courts.

If some of us can be snatched off the streets without a warrant, based only on suspicion or skin color, then none of us are safe.

Authoritarian regimes begin by targeting people who are least… pic.twitter.com/7qXkrLopkc

— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) June 11, 2025

From DSC:
And regarding this weekend, what an incredible waste of money to put the military on display (for his own birthday). This smacks of what arrogant dictators do. It’s big-time ugly.

If our justice system had done its job, this arrogant lawbreaker and convicted criminal would be in jail right now. No wonder he has no regard for the legal system, the Constitution, or the law — those things don’t serve his interests. They impede his interests. And thank God for that! In fact, may true leaders rise up within the Legislative and Judicial Branches of our government. The latter is our best chance of keeping our democracy, as the Republican Party has ceded all of their power — and responsibility — over to Donald Trump. They are not leaders in any sense of the word.

But whatever happens, ultimately, there WILL be justice.

Is America being humbled? Or is it being destroyed?

Trump Is Getting the Military Parade He Wanted in His First Term — from nytimes.com by Helene Cooper
There will be 28 Abrams tanks, 6,700 soldiers, 50 helicopters, 34 horses, two mules and a dog, according to the Army’s plans for the June 14 event.

In President Trump’s first term, the Pentagon opposed his desire for a military parade in Washington, wanting to keep the armed forces out of politics.

But in Mr. Trump’s second term, that guardrail has vanished. There will be a parade this year, and on the president’s 79th birthday, no less.

The current plan involves a tremendous scene in the center of Washington: 28 M1A1 Abrams tanks (at 70 tons each for the heaviest in service); 28 Stryker armored personnel carriers; more than 100 other vehicles; a World War II-era B-25 bomber; 6,700 soldiers; 50 helicopters; 34 horses; two mules; and a dog.

So much for saving the planet. Climate careers, and many others, evaporate for class of 2025 [Lanahan]

On 06/09/2025, in Bias | Diversity Equity & Inclusion (DE&I), career development, change, colleges, community colleges, parents/guardians, research, society, student-related, surviving, United States, universities, workplace, by Daniel Christian

So much for saving the planet. Climate careers, and many others, evaporate for class of 2025 — from hechingerreport.org by Lawrence Lanahan
The Trump administration is disrupting career paths for new graduates hoping to work in climate and sustainability, international aid, public service and the sciences

As the class of 2025 enters the workforce, the Trump administration has dismantled career pathways for graduates interested in climate and sustainability work, international aid, public service and research across the natural, behavioral and social sciences. Federal jobs are disappearing, and the administration is eliminating grants and agency divisions that sustain university research programs and nonprofits that are crucial to launching careers.

The National Science Foundation, for example, halved graduate research fellowships, canceled some undergraduate research grants, stopped awarding new grants, froze funding for existing ones, and eliminated several hundred grants for focusing on diversity, equity and inclusion. In March, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced 10,000 layoffs at his agency, the Department of Health and Human Services; earlier buyouts and firings had already cut another 10,000 jobs.

Astronaut one day, artist the next: How to help children explore the world of careers [Bussewitz]

On 06/09/2025, in apprenticeships, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, business, career development, education, engagement / engaging students, ideas, parents/guardians, participation, passions, skills, society, sociology, vision/possibilities, vocational / trades, workplace, youth, by Daniel Christian

Astronaut one day, artist the next: How to help children explore the world of careers — from apnews.com by Cathy Bussewitz

Sometimes career paths follow a straight line, with early life ambitions setting us on a clear path to training or a degree and a specific profession. Just as often, circumstance, luck, exposure and a willingness to adapt to change influence what we do for a living.
…
Developmental psychologists and career counselors recommend exposing children to a wide variety of career paths at a young age.

“It’s not so that they’ll pick a career, but that they will realize that there’s lots of opportunities and not limit themselves out of careers,” said Jennifer Curry, a Louisiana State University professor who researches career and college readiness.

Preparing for a world of AI
In addition to exposing children to career routes through early conversations and school courses, experts recommend teaching children about artificial intelligence and how it is reshaping the world and work.

These parents are ‘unschooling’ their kids. What does that mean? — from usatoday.com by Adrianna Rodriguez

“My goal for them is for them to love learning,” Franco said. “It’s realizing you can educate your child beyond the school model.”

Some parents say their children are thriving in the unschooling environment, fueling their confidence and desire to learn.

But not all students find success in unschooling. Some former students say the lack of structure and accountability can lead to educational neglect if parents don’t have the resources to make it work. Some kids who were unschooled feel they were left unprepared for adulthood and had fewer career opportunities.

What Is ‘Unschooling’ and Why Are More Parents Doing It? — from bckonline.com byTiffany Silva

Unschooling is a growing alternative education movement where children learn through life experiences instead of traditional classroom instruction. As more parents seek personalized and flexible learning paths, unschooling is gaining popularity across the U.S. and here’s what you need to know!

So, just what exactly is unschooling? Well, Unschooling is a form of homeschooling that breaks away from the idea of following a set curriculum. Instead, it centers the child’s interests, passions, and pace.

The belief is that learning doesn’t have to be separate from life because it is life. Unschooling functions on the premise that when kids are given the freedom to explore, they develop deep, authentic understanding and a lifelong love of learning.

American Microschools: A Sector Analysis 2025 — from microschoolingcenter.org by Don Soifer and Ashley Soifer

Among the report’s findings:

74 percent of microschools have annual tuition and fees at or below $10,000, with 65 percent offering sliding scale tuition and discounts;
Among microschools that track academic growth data of students over time, 81 percent reported between 1 and 2 years of academic gains during one school year;
Children receive letter grades in just 29 percent of microschools, while observation-based reporting, portfolios, and tracking mastery are the most prevalent methods of tracking their impact;
The most important student outcomes for currently-operating microschools are growth in nonacademic learning, children’s happiness in their microschool, skills perceived as needed for future, and academic growth.

“Behind the Curtain: A white-collar bloodbath” + “How To Get Hired During the AI Apocalypse” + “We Are the Most Rejected Generation”

On 05/28/2025, in 21st century, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, business, career development, change, corporate / business world, Emotion, engagement / engaging students, ideas, motivation, organizational change, pace of change, parents/guardians, productivity / tips and tricks, psychology, skills, student-related, workplace, by Daniel Christian

How To Get Hired During the AI Apocalypse — from kathleendelaski.substack.com by Kathleen deLaski
And other discussions to have with your kids on the way to college graduation

A less temporary, more existential threat to the four year degree: AI could hollow out the entry level job market for knowledge workers (i.e. new college grads). And if 56% of families were saying college “wasn’t worth it” in 2023,(WSJ), what will that number look like in 2026 or beyond? The one of my kids who went to college ended up working in a bike shop for a year-ish after graduation. No regrets, but it came as a shock to them that they weren’t more employable with their neuroscience degree.

A colleague provided a great example: Her son, newly graduated, went for a job interview as an entry level writer last month and he was asked, as a test, to produce a story with AI and then use that story to write a better one by himself. He would presumably be judged on his ability to prompt AI and then improve upon its product. Is that learning how to DO? I think so. It’s using AI tools to accomplish a workplace task.

Also relevant in terms of the job search, see the following gifted article:

‘We Are the Most Rejected Generation’ — from nytimes.com by David Brooks; gifted article
David talks admissions rates for selective colleges, ultra-hard to get summer internships, a tough entry into student clubs, and the job market.

Things get even worse when students leave school and enter the job market. They enter what I’ve come to think of as the seventh circle of Indeed hell. Applying for jobs online is easy, so you have millions of people sending hundreds of applications each into the great miasma of the internet, and God knows which impersonal algorithm is reading them. I keep hearing and reading stories about young people who applied to 400 jobs and got rejected by all of them.

It seems we’ve created a vast multilayered system that evaluates the worth of millions of young adults and, most of the time, tells them they are not up to snuff.

Many administrators and faculty members I’ve spoken to are mystified that students would create such an unforgiving set of status competitions. But the world of competitive exclusion is the world they know, so of course they are going to replicate it.

And in this column I’m not even trying to cover the rejections experienced by the 94 percent of American students who don’t go to elite schools and don’t apply for internships at Goldman Sachs. By middle school, the system has told them that because they don’t do well on academic tests, they are not smart, not winners. That’s among the most brutal rejections our society has to offer.

Fiverr CEO explains alarming message to workers about AI — from iblnews.org
Fiverr CEO Micha Kaufman recently warned his employees about the impact of artificial intelligence on their jobs.

The Great Career Reinvention, and How Workers Can Keep Up — from workshift.org by Michael Rosenbaum

A wide range of roles can or will quickly be replaced with AI, including inside sales representatives, customer service representatives, junior lawyers, junior accountants, and physicians whose focus is diagnosis.

Behind the Curtain: A white-collar bloodbath — from axios.com by Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen

Dario Amodei — CEO of Anthropic, one of the world’s most powerful creators of artificial intelligence — has a blunt, scary warning for the U.S. government and all of us:

AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs — and spike unemployment to 10-20% in the next one to five years, Amodei told us in an interview from his San Francisco office.
Amodei said AI companies and government need to stop “sugar-coating” what’s coming: the possible mass elimination of jobs across technology, finance, law, consulting and other white-collar professions, especially entry-level gigs.

Why it matters: Amodei, 42, who’s building the very technology he predicts could reorder society overnight, said he’s speaking out in hopes of jarring government and fellow AI companies into preparing — and protecting — the nation.

(Another gifted article) Michiganders in these 25 cities have the most student loan debt, ranking says [Smith]

On 05/20/2025, in business side of he, colleges, community colleges, cost of getting a degree, dangers of the status quo, higher education, learning ecosystem, parents/guardians, society, student-related, trends, United States, universities, by Daniel Christian

Michiganders in these 25 cities have the most student loan debt, ranking says — from mlive.com by Jackie Smith; this is a gifted article

Millions of former students and college graduates across the U.S. are weighed down with student loan debt, but with exactly how much may depend on where you live.

An analysis from WalletHub was released earlier this month, listing high averages student loan debts of residents in more than 2,500 American cities, including 83 in Michigan.

Student loans are the second highest form of household debt after mortgages, according to WalletHub, totaling more than $1.6 tillion, or averaging $38,000 per borrower.

The above article links to:

Cities with the Most & Least Student Debt (2025) — from wallethub.com by Adam McCann

High balances combined with a payoff timeline that lasts into middle age force many graduates to significantly delay or forgo other financial goals such as saving for retirement or buying a home. Paying back student loans has also become even more difficult due to high inflation putting a strain on Americans’ finances.

While we have a big student-loan crisis as a country, student-loan debts are more unsustainable in some places than others. To determine where borrowers are burdened the most, WalletHub compared the median student-loan balance against the median earnings of adults ages 25 and older with a bachelor’s degree in more than 2,500 U.S. cities.

If you are considering borrowing money for college or you’re in danger of defaulting, we advise using a student loan calculator to determine an affordable payment amount and realistic payoff timeline.

Again, this graphic from 2009 comes to mind:
.

Stop Trying to Make Everyone Go to College — from nytimes.com by Randi Weingarten; this is a gifted article

For years, America’s approach to education has been guided by an overly simplistic formula: 4+4 — the idea that students need four years of high school and four years of college to succeed in life.

Even with this prevailing emphasis on college, around 40 percent of high schoolers do not enroll in college upon graduating, and only 60 percent of students who enroll in college earn a degree or credential within eight years of high school graduation.

While college completion has positive effects — on health, lifetime earnings, civic engagement and even happiness — it’s increasingly clear that college for all should no longer be our North Star. It’s time to scale up successful programs that create multiple pathways for students so high school is a gateway to both college and career.

I propose a different strategy: aligning high school to both college prep and in-demand vocational career pathways. Just as students who plan to go to college can get a head start through Advanced Placement programs, high schools, colleges and employers should work together to provide the relevant coursework to engage students in promising career opportunities.

Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.

On 05/18/2025, in Emotion, ethics, faith, global / globalization, hearts -- matters of the heart, morals/values, parents/guardians, relationships, religion, society, youth, by Daniel Christian

Ephesians 4:32

Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.

¹¹Why, my soul, are you downcast?
    Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
    for I will yet praise him,
    my Savior and my God.

Bringing economics down to earth [npr.org]

On 05/18/2025, in Asia, business, corporate / business world, economics, legislatures / government / legal, parents/guardians, podcasting, society, student-related, surviving, United States, vendors, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Welcome to Planet Money

The current economic upheaval has a lot of us scratching our heads and scrambling to look up terms like “trade deficit” and “reserve currency.” If only there was a place you could go where friendly voices break down what’s going on in a way that’s fun and easy to understand. There is a place. It’s called Planet Money.

On each episode of the Planet Money podcast, the hosts tell a sometimes quirky, often surprising story that helps explain a topic you might be hearing about in the news, from tariffs to GDP to memecoins.

They walk you through complex concepts using examples from everyday life, like Tupperware and scratch-off lotto tickets, and people you can relate to, like a guy who’s just looking for a fair way to distribute his chickens’ wares during the current egg shortage.

And when someone else’s story isn’t enough to illustrate an economic principle, the hosts take matters into their own hands. In the process, they’ve shot a satellite into space, started a record label, made their own vodka, and shorted the entire stock market – all to help you grasp how the things you see every day came to be.

Visit Planet Money twice a week and you won’t only better understand money – you’ll better understand the world.

Nearly half of Gen Z and millennials say college was a waste of money—AI has already made degrees obsolete — from fortune.com by Preston Fore

College is often advertised as the best four years of one’s life, but many Americans now have regrets.

More than a third of all graduates now say their degree was a “waste of money,” according to a new survey by Indeed. This frustration is especially pronounced among Gen Z, with 51% expressing remorse—compared to 41% of millennials and just 20% of baby boomers.

Overall, a growing share of college-educated workers are questioning the return on investment (ROI) of their degree, Kyle M.K., a career trend expert at Indeed, told Fortune. It’s something that’s not all too surprising considering that the average cost of a bachelor’s degree has doubled in the last two decades to over $38,000, and total student loan debt has ballooned to nearly $2 trillion.

“Another 38% feel student loans have limited their career growth more than their diploma has accelerated it,” M.K. said.

“AI won’t invalidate a solid education, but it will reward those who keep upgrading their toolkit.”

Average Cost of College & Tuition — from educationdata.org
Last Updated: March 8, 2025

Report Highlights. The average cost of college^* in the United States is $38,270 per student per year, including books, supplies, and daily living expenses.

The average cost of college has more than doubled in the 21st century; the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of tuition is 4.04%.
The average in-state student attending a public 4-year institution and living on-campus spends $27,146 for one academic year.
The average cost of in-state tuition alone is $9,750; out-of-state tuition averages $28,386.
The average private, nonprofit university student spends $58,628 per academic year living on campus, $38,421 of it on tuition and fees.
Considering student loan interest and loss of income, investing in a bachelor’s degree can ultimately cost in excess of $500,000.

.

From DSC:
Reminds me of a graphic that Yohan Na and I created back in 2009:
.

Reflections on “DOGE abruptly cut a program for teens with disabilities. This student is ‘devastated'” [Turner]

On 05/04/2025, in Bias | Diversity Equity & Inclusion (DE&I), Daniel S. Christian, funding / grants, K-12 related, legislatures / government / legal, neurodivergent/special needs, parents/guardians, participation, pathways, youth, by Daniel Christian

DOGE abruptly cut a program for teens with disabilities. This student is ‘devastated’ — from npr.org by Cory Turner

If you visit the website for Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), you’ll find a “Wall of Receipts” listing more than 7,000 federal contracts it has terminated.
…
One of these programs, cancelled on Feb. 10, was called Charting My Path for Future Success. It was a research-based effort to help students with disabilities make the sometimes difficult transition from high school into college or the world of work and self-sufficiency.
…
Stepping stones to post-school independence
Charting My Path was built on research that shows students with disabilities who get quality transition services “are more likely to be employed after high school. They’re more likely to be enrolled in post-secondary education, and they’re more likely to identify that they have a higher quality of life,” says Catherine Fowler, a special education researcher at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte who has been involved with Charting My Path since 2019, when the contract began.

At the heart of Charting My Path was one of the most promising, research-based services: building students’ self-determination skills by working with them to set goals, then helping create concrete plans to achieve them.

Based on the early results he saw in Newton, John Curley says he was hopeful and calls the decision to cut Charting My Path “a huge mistake. I think investing in students with disabilities is investing in all of us because they’re part of our community, right? They’re our brothers and sisters, our kids, our neighbors, our coworkers.“

From DSC:
If you don’t have a child with special needs, you probably don’t care about this article. But, as with so many things with us human beings, if we know of someone special to us who has disabilities, we suddenly care a lot more. Our youngest daughter fits right into this story. It could have been her pictured in this article. Such programs are needed and it sounded like this study was doing solid work.

How does cutting this program make America great again? It doesn’t. It just makes life more difficult for the 1,600 high school juniors with disabilities that this study was helping (not to mention future students). Their pathways to a productive life just got harder, once again. I dare you to try and go figure out the spaghetti mess of how to get funding and assistance for a special needs youth graduating from high school — and all of the restrictions mentioned therein. And good luck to you if you are that individual and your parents are no longer alive.

Teens, Social Media and Mental Health [Faverio, Anderson, & Park]

On 04/25/2025, in creativity, Emotion, K-12 related, parents/guardians, platforms, psychology, relationships, research, social media, society, youth, by Daniel Christian

Teens, Social Media and Mental Health — from pewresearch.org by Michelle Faverio, Monica Anderson, and Eugenie Park
Most teens credit social media with feeling more connected to friends. Still, roughly 1 in 5 say social media sites hurt their mental health, and growing shares think they harm people their age

Rising rates of poor mental health among youth have been called a national crisis. While this is often linked to factors like the COVID-19 pandemic or poverty, some officials, like former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, name social media as a major threat to teenagers.

Our latest survey of U.S. teens ages 13 to 17 and their parents finds that parents are generally more worried than their children about the mental health of teenagers today.

And while both groups call out social media’s impact on young people’s well-being, parents are more likely to make this connection.1

Still, teens are growing more wary of social media for their peers. Roughly half of teens (48%) say these sites have a mostly negative effect on people their age, up from 32% in 2022. But fewer (14%) think they negatively affect them personally.

Outdated Microschool Laws Turn Parents into Criminals [Smith Ewing]

On 04/21/2025, in Alternatives, change, changing business models, education, education reform, homeschooling/homeschoolers, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning preferences, learning spaces, legislatures / government / legal, new business models, parents/guardians, policy, United States, youth, by Daniel Christian

Outdated Microschool Laws Turn Parents into Criminals — from educationnext.org by Erica Smith Ewing
By over-regulating the pandemic-era schooling alternative, states ignore families’ constitutional rights

Public schools do not work for everyone. But options have increased since 1922, when Oregon tried to ban private education. The Supreme Court shut down that scheme fast. But now, after more than 100 years, political insiders are rallying again to stop a new source of choice.

The target this time is microschooling, a Covid-era alternative that has outlasted the pandemic. Key players in the movement will gather May 8–9, 2025, at the International Microschools Conference in Washington, D.C. I will join them.

Most likely, I will meet educators running all kinds of programs in all kinds of community spaces. Microschools blur the lines between home, public, and private schooling—combining elements from all three models.

The result is a fourth category of schooling that hinges on flexibility. Some parents pool their resources and hire outside instructors. Other groups rotate teaching duties among themselves, gathering daily or perhaps only once or twice per week. These are the do-it-yourselfers. Professionals also get involved with standalone enterprises and national networks.

Learning Ecosystems

“If some of us can be snatched off the streets without a warrant, based only on suspicion or skin color, then none of us are safe.” [Newsom]

Is America being humbled? Or is it being destroyed?

Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.

Outdated Microschool Laws Turn Parents into Criminals [Smith Ewing]

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