mental health

PDK/Gallup Poll: Most People Think Increasing Mental Health Services Best Way to Address School Safety

/ The Old Crank

While Education Week decided to lead off their story on the latest Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup national survey on public education with the unsurprising news that most people have never heard of the Common Core, I thought the responses to questions about school safety were more interesting.

As reported later in the story, a very large majority—almost nine out of ten respondents—said that they do not worry about their child’s physical safety at school, with 80% indicating that they are “more concerned about the actions of other students, rather than the threat of outside intruders in the school.” In addition, 59% of respondents favor increasing mental-health services as the best approach to promoting school safety, with only about a third of respondents favoring hiring more armed security people in schools.

Grandparents and Adult Education

/ The Old Crank

In many low income communities, grandparents raising children are a critically under appreciated issue. Legislation like this that supports grandparent caregivers makes sense, but as the author points out, it’s just a small piece of the kind of investment needed.

This is another gap issue that those of us involved in adult education policy need to think about as our work becomes increasingly focused on those in the workforce. Some grandparent caregivers in low-income communities have limited literacy skills, and I think it’s safe to assume that a reasonably significant proportion of them are not in the workforce, or going back to it anytime soon, if ever. But wouldn’t parenting classes and mental health programs for this population be more successful if we also increased their literacy skills? Does integrating adult education into parenting classes for those individuals makes sense? If the answer is yes, then what is our strategy for increasing adult education resources for these individuals?