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School Officials Propose Ban of Whole Milk

CHICAGO - Cartons of whole milk would be considered junk food, but baked Cheetos would not, under new rules proposed Friday by Illinois education officials.

The State Board of Education proposed the rules after Gov. Rod Blagojevich asked for a junk food ban in elementary and middle schools.

The new rules focus on the nutritional content of foods rather than broad categories of food.

Because of that, the proposed guidelines would allow 1 ounce bags of baked potato chips, even though all chips are now banned under the board's current definition of junk food. Whole milk would also be banned because of its high fat content, school officials said.

Hunt continues for 1,300 children lost during Katrina

NEW ORLEANS -- Three months after Hurricane Katrina ripped through the Gulf Coast, the fate of more than 1,300 children remains unknown...

In the evacuations after New Orleans flooded, families were scattered across 48 states. Those overseeing evacuations, in their rush to clear people from the city, often separated families as they pressed them onto buses, helicopters and planes, which then went in different directions.

Documentation proving custody of children or other family ties was destroyed or lost. Access to phones and computers was minimal, creating gaps between the time families were separated and the time children were reported missing. Shelters had no coordinated system for feeding evacuees' names, birth dates and other information into a national database.

On top of that, many families were severely splintered even before the hurricane.

Many children had been in the care of aunts, grandparents, great-grandparents or unrelated guardians before the storm, and those caretakers often lacked information crucial to finding children, such as birth dates, names of the youngsters' friends, recent photographs and nicknames.

"They're scattered physically, which doesn't help, but they're also scattered socially," said Burke. "When you have this sort of family structure, it's very difficult. When they scatter, they're just gone..."

Many tended to believe that the separation was their fault.

Originally posted by soficrow
The missing kids piece is horrific - and not something I can comment on right now. Except to say childrens' stem cells are better for transplant and use in tissue engineering because the teleomeres are longer.

God, I hope what you are implying is not true!!!

Originally posted by Relentless

Originally posted by soficrow
That milk thing is interesting loam.

FYI - milk consumption is linked to obesity in children, and studies show clearly that the link has nothing to do with the milk's fat content. Kids are who drink skim or 1% are just as likely to become obese, if not more so. So the obesity-causing in milk culprit is not the fat content - it's something else. Wonder what that might be.

There is a thread on this school milk ban. See my post towards the bottom of this page for a brief explanation on what the problem with the milk and obesity really is.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Corporal Punishment in Our Schools

State sanctioned abuse of our children?

School paddlings fewer, not gone

DELTA, Mo. — As he sits in his office at Delta High School, wearing blue jeans and a Nike T-shirt, Nate Crowden reaches to his left.

Atop a filing cabinet is a paddle, not unlike the one used at this rural, southeast Missouri school when Crowden was a student here in the 1970s. These days, Crowden is the principal.

“We don’t have any discipline problems here,” said Crowden, holding the narrow wooden paddle. “And one of the reasons we don’t is because we use this.”

...Corporal punishment is an ineffective method of discipline and has major deleterious effects on the physical and mental health of those inflicted. There is no clear evidence that such punishment effectuates more discipline or better control in the classroom. Physically punishing children has never been shown to enhance moral character development, increase the student's respect for teachers or other authority figures in general, intensify the teacher's control in class, or even protect the teacher. Such children, in our view, are being physically and mentally abused and there are no data actually demonstrating that such victims develop enhanced social skills or self-control skills. Current research concludes that corporal punishment is not always a method of last resort, and that there is not an increase in violence in schools which reject use of this technique...

Current research in behavior modification concludes that using positive reinforcement techniques that reward appropriate behavior is more efficacious and long lasting than methods utilizing aversive techniques...

Research notes that corporal punishment constructs an environment of education which can be described as unproductive, nullifying, and punitive. Children become victims, and trepidation is introduced to all in such a classroom. There is a limited (if any) sense of confidence and security, and even those children who are witness to such abuse are robbed of their full learning potential. Students who are witnesses or victims of such abuse can develop low self-esteem, magnified guilt feelings, and the acquisition of anxiety symptoms; such results can have baneful results in the psychosocial and educational development of the students. When studies look at the milieu of these classrooms, one finds that all are subjects to less, not more, learning. The nurturing of open communication, so vital to effective education, is severely spoiled in such aversive settings.

Hyman et al. persistently assert that approximately one- half of students who are subjected to severe punishment develop an illness called Educationally Induced Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (EIPSD). In this disorder, there is symptomatology analogous to the Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSS). As with PTSS, EIPSD can be identified by a varying combination of symptoms characteristic of depression and anxiety. This mental health imbalance is induced by significant stress; with EIPSD the stress is the inflicted punishment. Such victimized students can have difficulty sleeping, fatigue, feelings of sadness and worthlessness, suicidal thoughts, anxiety episodes, increased anger with feelings of resentment and outbursts of aggression, deteriorating peer relationships, difficulty with concentration, lowered school achievement, antisocial behavior, intense dislike of authority, somatic complaints, tendency for school avoidance, school drop-out, and other evidence of negative high-risk adolescent behavior...

( Source. )

Injuries occur. Bruises are common. Broken bones, nerve and muscle damage are not unusual. An estimated 1% to 2% of all recipients of school corporal punishment require medical evaluation and treatment for injuries resulting from the punishment. Brain injury and even death has occurred in the U.S. due to school corporal punishment.

Paddling investigation by DHS continues

As a Community High School vice principal says the sheriff's investigation found no child abuse from corporal punishment administered by him, a state spokesman reports the Department of Children's Services is "still investigating" the paddling...

During Oct. 26-28, TV, Internet and newspaper reports quoted Freddy and Tracy Manus of Unionville and their son, Samuel, 14, as saying the eighth grader was paddled Oct. 19. The corporal punishment was for an alleged infraction of school bus behavior rules on Oct. 18...

The Smyrna doctor who diagnosed Samuel Manus as a victim of child abuse complied with state law that requires people suspecting abuse to report it to the Department of Children's Services...

"Samuel's injuries were unfortunate and excessive," she said Wednesday morning. "I'd hope that they've been an eye-opener to parents and administrators"" about corporal punishment.

The boy suffered "a knot and bruise on [his] lower spine [and] swelling due to excessive force ... punishment with a wooden paddle," Milligan wrote in her physician notes...

School paddlings fewer, not gone

According to data released this month by the U.S. Department of Education, Missouri ranks 10th nationally in annual paddlings at elementary and secondary schools. Missouri and Kansas are among 22 states that allow corporal punishment, but schools in Kansas deliver far fewer swats than Missouri.

According to the federal data — projections based on samplings from 6,000 districts and 60,000 schools, including 178 districts in Missouri and 122 in Kansas — Kansas used corporal punishment on 46 students during the 2002-03 academic year. Missouri used it on 6,875.