Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
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Friday, June 9, 2006
Oakwood best on state tests
I’m working on a story for tomorrow on how Miami Valley school districts fared on the Ohio Graduation Test. Here’s some quick results:
- Overall, Oakwood was the top scorer locally, ranking second in Ohio.
- Jefferson Twp., Dayton and Trotwood saw scores improve, but were still the worst scoring local districts. Even so, Jefferson Twp. is no longer worst in the state. That title goes to East Cleveland this year.
- Botkins and Piqua made big gains this year vs. last year.
- Cedar Cliff and Mason earned gold stars for good scores or for solid gains. Cedar Cliff had a perfect score on the OGT writing test — all kids passed. Mason moved up to second best in the area and sixth best in the state.
Permalink | Comments (5) | Categories: Testing
Psychiatric drugs for kids exploding
I saw this at Education Week’s website:
The use of antipsychotic drugs to treat children and adolescents increased by more than five times from 1993 to 2002, a study found.
The study, published in the June 2006 issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, estimates that the number of youths in the United States under age 20 who were treated with antipsychotic drugs for problems such as aggression and mood swings jumped from about 201,000 in 1993 to 1,224,000 in 2002.
There’s a lot of ways to look at this. Are doctors and parents too quick to medicate overly energetic or unfocused kids? Or is medicine getting better at targeting drugs that can make a difference for kids?
We’ve all heard horror stories of psychiatric drugs that harmed kids or of psychiatric evaluation gone awry. But I also know a few kids who were dramatically helped by these sorts of drugs with better classroom behavior and more learning at school.
Still, the increase in drug use is quite dramatic. It seems too big to be a good thing overall. What’s your take?
Permalink | Comments (3) | Categories: Student Health and Safety
