"Young 'resent negative images'" (BBC, 01/09/09)

Young people are complaining about a diet of negative news media stories about them in a research project from the National Children's Bureau. The survey of young people's attitudes claimed that the media had a highly skewed view of their experiences. They felt they were usually depicted in terms of crime, sex and drugs - with the only positive images coming from exceptional cases such as sports stars.

As State Scores Drop, Schools Work to Engage Students in Reading

Many Chicagoland schools are struggling to discover how to best teach reading to adolescents. NCTE members Jamie Hecht and Teri Lesesne are quoted. The Chicago Daily Herald, October 31, 2008

Balancing Act with Books

More contemporary works are joining the classics on high school reading lists in an effort to better reach teen readers. NCTE President-Elect Kylene Beers and NCTE members Bob Probst, Alleen Nilsen, and others are quoted. Chicago Tribune, October 19, 2008

A New View On TV

In a paper published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics this year, University of Chicago Graduate School of Business economists Matthew Gentzkow and Jesse Shapiro presented a series of analyses that showed that the advent of television might actually have had a positive effect on children's cognitive ability. The group's research suggests TV enabled an earlier generation of American children in non-English-speaking households to do better in school, helped rural Indian women to become more independent and contributed to lowering Brazil's fertility rate.

Teens Tutor Teens At Student-Created Firm

Private tutoring is big business in the Washington suburbs. And now it is a full-time job for Erik Kimel, who graduated this spring and can devote his full attention to Peer2Peer Tutors, the company he founded five years ago as a senior at Winston Churchill High School in Potomac. Peer2Peer pairs mostly struggling students with older teens culled from the cream of Montgomery high schools.