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The elementary school ages are considered to be the fundamental grades and stages of development. With this in mind, it is important that children are taught positive behaviors and habits early in life. By teaching children positive behaviors at a young age, kids are more able to understand and engage in long-term attitudes and actions that will guide them toward future success. To encourage students, and to teach all kids positive behaviors, elementary schools across the country have implemented positive behavior programs to improve student awareness, knowledge, and development.

Positive Behavior Programs in Public Elementary Schools

Minnesota School-Wide Behavior Program

While many local schools and smaller communities have adopted behavior programs, the state of Minnesota has established a larger state-wide agenda to enhance the education of positive student behaviors. According to the Minnesota school records, the positive behavior program is used to help all students in all school environments, including behaviors in the classroom, hallways, cafeteria, and so forth. As Minnesota school experts explain, “Schools that implement school-wide positive behavior interventions and support are schools that have decided that their current discipline process is not effective in helping students to change their behaviors.” To change and improve student behaviors, Minnesota schools identify specific behavioral problems, find ways to reinforce and reward positive behavior alternatives, and then consistently enforce meaningful consequences when students choose to misbehave.

This video looks at good and bad examples of positive behavior in school.

As teens today are confronted with new and unfamiliar issues when compared with teenagers in any recent or long-term past, many parents struggle to identify the catalysts or strategies to stimulate and motivate their teens. As theTeen Skills organization asserts, many parents struggle to connect with their kids because their experiences are so far from most adults’ frame of reference: “Today's teens are faced with choices and circumstances their parents didn't face. They live in a world where it requires a security badge to enter a high school…where they compete scholastically with 4.9 G.P.A.s…where classmates cheat using cell phone technology…where world events and economic issues make it scary to contemplate the future. Is it any wonder teens often lack motivation?”

As many experts reveal, a loss or lack of motivation in teens is often symptomatic of far greater issues, such as a lack of self-confidence, a lack of esteem, and so forth. To boost teens’ feelings of enthusiasm and drive, parents can consider some expert advice and strategies for support.

Lacking Motivation and the Long Term Implications

As teen specialist Judy Schepps Battle further supports “Most of the problems of education are problems of motivation...When a child is self-motivated, the teacher cannot keep him from learning.” Students who lack motivation often display a gap between their abilities and their academic output and effort. While this can appear at a very young age, including

Despite popular community and school programs that condemn the use and abuse of drugs, research and reports reveal that teen drug use is on the rise. As published by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), researcher Neil Swan illuminates the many problems arising in teen behavior and drug usage habits. According to Swan’s report: “The percentage of America's 8th, 10th, and 12th graders who use marijuana continued to increase last year […] Students' use of several other categories of drugs also escalated, while anti-drug attitudes among teenagers deteriorated, the survey found.”

As the perceived harm of drugs dwindles, and as teens encounter drugs regularly, either in schools, the media, or their personal lives, experts fear that the harmful patterns of teen drug abuse will continue to escalate.

Teens and Drug Abuse

When Do Drug Habits Begin?

While drug abuse can begin at any age, recent studies reveal that middleand high school students engage in harmful drug abuse behaviors. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse’s Monitoring the Future survey, prescription drug painkillers and inhalants are increasing among teens. For example, OxyCotin, a powerful narcotic, was used by 9.3% of 12^th graders, 6.2% of 10^th graders, and 2.5% of 8^th graders in 2004 – all higher levels than in prior years.

What Inspires Harmful Drug Choices?

As drug use continues to present a problem among adolescents and teens,

Stirring up a raging political, social, and economic debate, the issue of school vouchers is a hot topic among community leaders, members, and educators. School vouchers, which essentially work as a scholarship, allow parents to redirect the trajectory of educational funding. Instead of applying tax dollars to schools directly, vouchers allow tax money to be sent to individual families. With this approach, parents and families can choose how their educational tax money is spent, allowing students to attend private or public schools, as the tax money can be used to pay for private tuition costs.

For proponents, vouchers offer students in failing schools access to greater educational opportunities in private schools. On the other side of the debate, many experts assert that vouchers, in the larger spectrum, will cause far more harm than good.

Vouchers and the Current State of Student Funding

While vouchers are still a relatively new concept and practice, the Supreme Court of Wisconsin approved of its state’s voucher program in 1998, which supported family-ownership of educational tax funds for approximately 15,000 children. With this private funding, children can choose from either public, private, or religious schools. This verdict was appealed to the United States Supreme Court after its passing, but the judges of the Supreme Court voted to not hear the appeal; therefore, Wisconsin has been able to continue its voucher approach to education for nearly a decade.

This video from The Young Turks discusses Louisiana's voucher program.