Keeping the Learning Alive Over Summer Vacation - The Chicago Tribune
The end of the school year is a bittersweet time, arriving amid a rush of final report cards, field day celebrations and for many an anxious parent, the quandary over how to ensure their children will keep learning alive over the summer months. ...read more

Giving Disorganized Boys the Tools for Success - NY Times
“Can we take a look at your backpack?” Ana Homayoun repeats that question countless times a day. No, she does not screen airline passengers or work security at a basketball arena. Ms. Homayoun is a tutor. She helps teenagers with subjects like math and science, but she particularly specializes in teaching boys how to become more organized. ...read more

Organizing for Middle School Boys: What Parents Need to Know- Education.com
Put your typical middle school boy on a daily schedule with multiple classrooms to visit, a locker to stock and replenish, four or five academic subjects in which to hand in homework, and shoelaces that need to be tied. Add a lunchbox, water bottle, and a backpack. What do you get? The term paper that ended up under the egg salad sandwich. The math homework that disappeared for five months. The locker that exploded open—all by itself. ...read more

Organizing for Boys: Getting Your Guy Through Middle School - Education.com
For decades, we worried that girls weren’t thriving in school. Now, after decades of work on the issue, there’s been a surprising turn: boys are the ones having trouble. Particularly in today’s standards-driven, no-nonsense classrooms, boys seem to be struggling to stay in their seats, talk quietly and follow lectures … skills which don’t seem to be so hard for girls. With scores looking more and more uneven, it’s a serious national issue. ...read more

Coaching academic success: Los Altos native uses natural skills to advise students - Los Altos Town Crier
When St. Francis High School student Ernie McMillan, 17, began reading Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” as a summer English assignment in 2006, he couldn’t get past the 19th-century style of British literature. ...read more

Helping Disorganized Boys - Suite101.com
Girls are excelling in school more than boys are and the college campus ratios of girls to boys prove it. It is not often that we find a college campus with a higher percentage of males than females. And, if we do it is a college or university that offers engineering or a vocational program. Why are girls outperforming boys in school? ...read more

When a Risqué Online Persona Undermines a Chance for a Job - NY Times
When a small consulting company in Chicago was looking to hire a summer intern this month, the company's president went online to check on a promising candidate who had just graduated from the University of Illinois. ...read more