That definitely doesn't sound like a college level class to me, which is what AP lit is supposed to be. I think less teacher autonomy is a great way to drive more teachers out of the profession. I know a lot of teachers, and being told exactly what and how to teach isn't what they're looking for. A standardized curriculum where everyone graduates having read the same books that don't grapple with any topics any parent might find objectionable doesn't sound so great to me. Incidentally, the latest post about book banning in Florida reports that this teacher's district has banned all Shakespeare to be sure they're complying with the new laws.

I'm in the AP lit teachers Facebook group (because we're doing AP lit at home), and it's truly scary and disheartening to hear the kinds of experiences these teachers are having. One teacher described having to have absolutely every reading assignment approved at the district level...where they would go through software that would filter out anything objectionable, including stuff like any profanity at all. In what's supposed to be a college level class.

That study isn't comparing kids who socially transition with kids who don't, though? You're (? can't tell if the last paragraph is a quote or your commentary) stating as fact that most kids who don't socially transition eventually identify as their biological sex, but that's not in the study (or at least not your summary of it--there's no link to it).

The way the website is set up also seems like it's trying to make you think they ARE Bed, Bath, & Beyond, but BB&B still has their own website up and running with (not nearly as exciting) clearance items. And the text on the site just screams scam: Closing Store Promotion With heavy hearts, we announce the closure of Our Store It is an unfortunate end to our journey together. However, in this liquidation sale, we offer the remaining inventory at incredibly low prices. We sincerely thank you for your years of support and loyalty. May your homes continue to be filled with warmth and comfort.

I'm not sure if this is exactly what you have in mind, but our city and the city adjacent to us recently finished putting multi-use paths along both sides of the road our neighborhood is on, and it's had a HUGE positive impact on our lives. The road used to be pretty much unusable by pedestrians in places (largely because of a busy bridge with no sidewalk or shoulder) and not safe-feeling for the casual biker, but now we can walk to tons of restaurants, a brewery, library, stores, etc. etc. And my kids can walk or ride their bikes to their best friend's house (he's only a mile away, but across that bridge!). My husband sometimes bikes to work as well.

the link goes to an off brand one (name brand listed as "generic")

Oh! Here's a really interesting history from NPR's Code Switch about the hispanic/not hispanic question on the census: https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/06/16/321819185/on-the-census-who-checks-hispanic-who-checks-white-and-why

The reason for the hispanic/not hispanic question is that the US government (and other people making such forms) finds it helpful to be able to identify Hispanic people and Hispanic people identify as a variety of races. (with the SAT example, the College Board runs the National Hispanic Recognition Program, for example). Maybe I'm not saying anything people don't already know...it just seemed as if there was a question of why hispanic/not hispanic is singled out, and I think the reason is that you don't run into the same issues or at least you don't run into them as frequently when you ask someone to identify as Asian or Black. Not making a value judgment about how the categories work...I mean, wasn't it impossible to indicate that you were more than one race until very recently on the census? Obviously, there are issues.

Here's another: https://www.jahonline.org/article/S1054-139X(21)00568-1/fulltext

Here's another: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamasurgery/article-abstract/2779429

Here's one: Here's one: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35212746/

I guess I think of toilet paper as so thin that I'd FEEL like I was touching the seat, even if I were coordinated enough to put it on there without accidentally touching the seat itself. Also, given the unpleasant things I've read about "poop flumes" in the past couple of years, I feel like whatever germs I avoid by not sitting on the seat are dwarfed by those I'm forced to deal with by using a public toilet without a lid I can close. And then I decide I'd better just stop thinking about it, pee quickly, and hope for the best!

I would much rather sit on the toilet seat than touch it with my hands to put paper on it--I guess the logic is that you'll wash your hands after but not your thighs? Still, I've never worried about it; if it's visibly gross I pick another stall. What I hate is when the person before me has put paper all over the seat and then just left it there for the next person to deal with. ETA: we were just in Newfoundland, and I have a new bathroom gender thing to report: at one restaurant the two bathrooms were labeled "this washroom has stalls and urinals" and "this washroom has stalls only" or something along those lines. I thought it was an interesting, utilitarian approach.

yes. I think this question would have gotten a very different response if it had been phrased more like, "should it be standard for US students to start learning a second language in elementary school so that they had a better chance of becoming fluent?" That said, I'm also very much in the some exposure is much better than none camp. I'm frequently surprised at how much my husband has retained from his standard 2 years of high school Spanish 30 years ago. And, of course, as with any subject one studies in high school, it's very helpful to have a jumping off place for continuing in college instead of having to start fresh at the tougher pace of a college class.

That's good to hear! Although this kid is likely applying ED so August will be his last shot for that. I kind of wish I'd tried to talk him out of taking it again at all because he's SO hard on himself about it (he's also auditioning for the music school at his ED school so applying test optional almost certainly won't matter even a tiny bit there), but I tried to just lay out pros and cons as I saw them and leave it up to him, and here we are.

DS is taking the SAT one more time at the end of August in hopes of bringing his math score up. He's close to maxing out the EWR, but the math is stuck in the mid 600s, so he only needs to work on math. We were on the fence about him taking it again, but it seems worth putting in a push to get the math up enough that he could submit the score most everywhere, even at his reaches (I don't know that he's applying anywhere that's not test optional...if he is it's somewhere where his current score is good enough)...at any rate, he decided he wants to give it one more shot. His older brothers both did Khan and nothing else and did well with that, but the math prep on Khan is not clicking with this kid. He has no particular problems with math except that he doesn't like it (and thus spends a lot of time doodling instead of actually mathing...though not on the actual SAT day, I don't think). And his Dad is a high school math teacher, so he has a built in tutor. My plan is to have them spend 30 minutes or so an evening for the next few weeks, see what happens, and call it good either way. Does anyone have recommendations for a book or other resource that would work well for this? Is a book even necessary or should he just spend the time going through problems, since his Dad is there for the explanations part? (although he doesn't have any recent experience with tutoring SAT prep in particular) I don't think we care enough about raising the score to pay for an outside tutor in these days of test optional admissions.

We just got back from our long summer trip, so I guess now I have to face that I have ANOTHER college application season to deal with. Current senior is my third, and his older brother just finished his first year; I really could have used a longer break! But I'll jump in this week. I have course descriptions done through 10th grade, but I need to do the rest. He's taking the SAT again at the end of the month, so his Dad needs to work on SAT math with him (his EWR score was awesome, but his math was....not terrible, but low enough that he'd probably apply test optional to some of his reachiest schools; it would be nice to bring the math up so he could show off the EWR score!) On his end, he's worked on his common app essay but doesn't have a finished product yet. He's a humanities/music kid who's most interested in double majoring or a dual degree in French horn and....something? English? sociology? He'll apply to some schools with conservatories but also to LACs with strong music programs. He'll likely do ED to Vanderbilt/Blair where his brother is a music student. It would be great for everyone is he got in--not too far away, great financial aid, two kids in the same school, we know it's very easy to double major there, etc.--but of course we can't count on it at all. So we'll see! We just toured Swarthmore and Haverford on the tail end of our trip, but he's not super excited about music possibilities at either.

Haven't read the whole thread, but in response to the original question: my oldest just graduated from a SLAC that meets need; the federal loans were part of his aid package and he took them, so he owes around $27,000 right now. His grandparents will help him with some of that, and he'll likely live at home for awhile rent free which will help with the rest. He just started a job that pays very well; it's entirely possible he could pay most of the balance off within a year if he prioritizes it (which he probably will; he's the sort of kid who rarely parts with money voluntarily). He was (partial) pell-eligible, so his $80,000/year sticker price school was as cheap or cheaper for us than a state school would have been even with tuition covered by grants...i.e. he would have needed the loans either way, and I feel like the federal loans will be manageable for him. Kid #2 on the other hand is a music major, and we're hoping to keep loans as low as possible for him because his earning potential is likely lower and he'll probably need grad school (kid #1 might end up in grad school, too, but probably a funded phd program). He's at Vanderbilt, which claims to meet need without loans, and so far (he's about to start his second year) they've been true to their word and he hasn't needed loans.

5s on world history and lang here....this kid has loaded up on 5s a lot more than his older brothers (who did well, but had mixes of 4s and 5s), and I feel like a lot of that is probably that I'M getting better at this (we mostly do APs on our own at home). Which I say not to take anything away from the kid, but to express my guilt because I think his brothers could have done as well with someone who knew the ropes a bit more. Not that there's really much difference between a 4 and a 5 for the vast majority of purposes.

Yes, it's so odd. No one talks about how the interstate system isn't profitable (I remember doing a tour of our local recycling center with a homeschool group and the guy running the tour making the same point about recycling. No, they don't make money; they're providing a service to the community).

My oldest just graduated with a BA in math from a SLAC. His focus was pure math, but he also did a minor in data science with an emphasis on GIS. Grad school may well be in his future, but right now he just started working as a GIS analyst with the department of public safety near us (so police, fire, 911). I don't know how he'll like the job long term, but he's getting a very nice starting salary and great benefits. He wouldn't have gotten the job without the data science/GIS background, but they did tell him when they hired him that they liked that he had focused on math/stats. He did get pretty discouraged early on in his job search and commented, "it turns out no one wants to hire me to write proofs, and that's pretty much what I've spent the last 4 years doing." But it worked out. I'd also say that pretty much everything he did as an undergrad was textbook "getting ready to apply for a math PhD stuff." Lots of pure math. teaching assistant. a semester doing math in Budapest. An REU after junior year. Honors thesis. But at the last minute he was feeling unsure and overwhelmed and didn't apply. Much less recent example, but my husband was also a math major with a comp sci minor. He spent 5 years doing web development and then moved on to teaching high school math, which he's been happy with more often than not.

From what I’ve read, they got around safety regulations because the descents are in international waters

the wealthy ones mostly got off, though! It's really startling when you look up the numbers of first class, second class, steerage that survived. But that seems to have been a common perception at the time--"whatevs...rich people!" There's a song on one of my kids' Dan Zanes albums about it (that I assume is from that era): "the rich folks decided to take a trip/on the finest ship that was ever built". It's like the steerage passengers were just invisible, because it's a better story about hubris and all that if they weren't there. ETA: https://courses.bowdoin.edu/history-2203-fall-2020-kmoyniha/reflection/#:~:text=First class passengers had the,survived (Takis%2C 1999). (62% of first class passengers survived (97% of women) vs. 25% of third class (including only 34% of the children)

Yes, this. Also I can't help but think about the irony of this happening to super rich people who paid a ridiculous amount of money to go gawk at the site of an ocean tragedy that disproportionately killed poor people. But it sounds absolutely awful and terrifying and, of course, I don't wish it on anyone.

My older son did a work study (about 8 hours/week) from the beginning, and it was fine. It was a job at the library on campus, and the hours were very flexible and worked with his schedule. My next kid is a music major, with a whole lot of time intensive requirements, so I told him he could hold off and see how things went first. But he ended up getting a 3 hour/week job doing set up for music stuff, which was perfect and gave him a bit of spending money.