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The article discusses research into the learning process and how to harness it effectively in U.S. schools, focusing on the use of non-traditional data analysis methods as of August 2014. Topics include U.S. government support for such efforts beginning with the No Child Left Behind Act, findings that challenge beliefs on issues such as teacher qualifications and class sizes, and challenges in implementing insights in classrooms.

The article focuses on the importance of high school principals in the U.S. Reportedly, principals take on many roles including that of a politician, crisis manager, and coach. The author says a principal has to love and understand kids while being able to lead and motivate a team of teachers to lead and instruct students.

The article discusses the problems of parenting autistic children and U.S. Congressional legislative efforts to fund autism care and research. Autistic individuals have language problems, repetitive behaviors, and difficulty interacting socially. U.S. Representative Joe Barton blocked the Combating Autism Act, but since he lost his chairmanship of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, autism legislation seems likely to be passed as early as December 2006.

The article offers the experiences of several accomplished women leaders in the United States. Included are personal narratives by president of Brown University Ruth Simmons, Hall of Fame tennis champion Martina Navratilova, and president of American Museum of Natural History and former president of Barnard College Ellen Futter.

Focuses on the efforts of researchers to develop cancer treatments that have fewer adverse side effects. How patients who volunteer for clinical trials provide vital information scientists need to help even more people in the future; Development of drugs that target cancer cells only and not healthy cells; Approval cancer drugs need from the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA); Definition of targeted therapy; Details of Velcade, a drug that targets cancer cells; Changes being made in the way drugs are delivered into the body including heat; Efforts of researchers to make older drugs more effective.

Discusses the issue of affirmative action in college and university admissions. Discussion of how affirmative action has changed form over time; Statement that it can often lead to reverse discrimination against white people; Question of who should be eligible and how, whether by race or socio-economics; Discussion of the University of Michigan's system.

Discusses how Yale and Stanford are both eliminating their early admissions policies. Why early decision policies are so competitive; Views of Richard Levin, the president of Yale, about the pressures on students and families; Implementation of early action policies at Yale; Rules of the National Association for College Admission Counseling about standards for colleges.

Discusses the efforts of Roy Mckinney, principal of Philadelphia's Barratt Middle School, to find resources to improve conditions and resources for students. How the promised school supplies from Edison, a for-profit school manager, were taken back when the company's stock lost value; Debate about the privatization of schools; Free-market reforms; Protests from parents and teachers against Edison; Efforts by Philadelphia schools chief Paul Vallas to protect the schools involved with Edison.

Discusses how depression and mental illness affects teenagers and children in the United States. Ignorance towards mental illness; Research by the National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH); Rising awareness about depression; Attempts at suicide; Role of traumatic family events; Obsessions with death; Vulnerability of teenagers to mood disorders; Difficulties in identifying the illness; Belief that there may be a genetic predisposition to depression; Diagnosis and treatment of Brianne Camilleri and Ariel Jastromb; Others.

Examines the problem of insomnia among millions of Americans. Health risks because of lack of sleep, including high blood pressure and diabetes; Factors associated with sleep problems, such as too much caffeine, smoking, and noise; Issue of people with sleep problems being misdiagnosed with psychiatric disorders; Information on sleep studies that address rapid eye movement (REM) and non-REM sleep states, the sleep-regulation center of the brain, and the circadian rhythm; Author's experience at a sleep clinic.

Reports education research in the U.S. on teaching preschoolers how to read. Suggestion that without early, explicit instruction in the relationship between letters and sounds, a significant number of young children may be at risk for serious reading problems throughout their lives; Fear of old-style educators that children will be pushed to read when they should be focusing on helping them feel secure and learn to play well with others; Controversy surrounding the early-childhood-education plan of President George W. Bush.

Discusses how the terrorist attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001 is helping to define a generation. How college students are reacting to the attacks and the passion they are exhibiting in trying to understand their changing world; Suggestion that the terror attacks have made young adults more serious about their work and studies; Changes made to college curriculum in the wake of the attacks.

Discusses the attitudes of the students of Stuyvesant High School in New York City, due to its proximity to the World Trade Center, which was destroyed by terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Reopening of the school; Evacuation of the school during the attacks; Experiences of the students.

Examines the way scientists are reshaping the way people in the United States think about aging. Attitudes of aging baby boomers; How scientists are beginning to illuminate the process of aging; Challenges of middle-aged Americans in maintaining healthy habits; Sources of stress in middle age; Promise of cures for old age diseases.

Discusses single mothers in the United States, and how the traditional household has declined. Increase in the number of families headed by single mothers and fathers; Increase in the number of cohabitating couples; Better education and financial status of women which enables them to raise children without husbands.

Focuses on the frantic nature of parenting in middle-class families in the United States due to the number of activities in which parents feel their children must be involved in to be successful as adults. Pressures which parents face while balancing work and family responsibilities; Children's lives, which have become overscheduled and stressed; How some families are figuring out ways to slow down their pace of life.

Discusses the shortage of teachers and efforts to recruit them in the United States as of fall 2000. View of educators that an opportunity exits to improve American schools and the work of teachers; Issue of salaries and professional prestige; Reform in education, including the idea of a career ladder for teachers; Data on the teaching profession. INSETS: WOOING THEM WITH ELVIS, by Lynette Clemetson;THERE'S JUST NO SUBSTITUTE, by Daniel McGinn.

Focuses on the group of the United States population born between 1946 and 1964 known as the Baby Boomers. Threat of a new generation fluent in technology and willing to work all the time; Ways that Baby Boomers are celebrating their 50s; Resistance of stereotypes and convention as they approach old age and retirement; Embrace of the new and unknown.

Profiles Teresa Williams and Jo Deutsch, a lesbian couple and moms of two boys who live in Maryland. Discrimination the couple has faced; Questions their children ask, including whether the two women are married; Reaction to their relationship by each woman's family.

Focuses on United States children between the ages of eight and 14, or the so-called tweens. Numbers as of October 1999; Their habits as consumers; Influence in family relations; Concerns of psychologists, including superficial sophistication; Pressures to act older; Socialization and sexual activity; Substance abuse; Parenting of tweens; Statistical summary. INSETS: How Parents Can Help, by Claudia Kalb and Pat Wingert;The Age of Obsession, by Pat Wingert.

Reports on the lives of teenagers in the United States in the late 1990s. How teens feel lonely; Role played by the Internet, television, and computers; Statistics on teenagers; Comments made by Barbara Schneider a sociologist and author of the book `A Tribe Apart'; Pressures felt by teenagers; How the parent-child relationship changes during the teenage years.

Reports that psychology is unlocking the secrets of happy couples. The myth and reality of marriage; The research of John Gottman, psychologist at the University of Washington's Family Research Laboratory on the Seattle campus; How he quantifies intangibles such as joy, contempt, and tension; The two kinds of problems that are part of every marriage; Claim that he can predict which couples are likely to divorce; His research as public health; Other research on interaction of couples in conflict. INSETS: Know Your Spouse;Facing Your Problems;Inside the Love Lab.

Looks at women's health and longevity in the United States. Research into women's health by the National Institues of Health; Survey results on women's attitudes about health; The threat of cardiovascular disease and lung cancer. INSETS: How We Live Now;Health Challenges;What Do Women Care About?.

Focuses on home schooling by parents who want control in their children's education. Learning by following interests rather than a textbook; Reasons parents chose to teach children at home; Home schooling becoming a mainstream idea in the United States; The Internet and public schools as resources; Students most likely to benefit from home schooling; Worries of critics that kids are not getting all the social and academic skills needed; Comments from experts and parents. INSETS: By the numbers;Will it work for you?;Home schoolers go way back;How to get started

Describes the organized effort that safely delivered the septuplets of Bobbi McCaughey and her husband Ken, of Carlisle, Iowa, on November 19, 1997. Team leadership of Dr. Paula Mahone and Dr. Karen Drake; Number of people on the team; Delivery of the babies; The doctors' response to criticism of allowing the McCaughey pregnancy to continue; The McCaughey's church's organization of help for the family.

Focuses on the search for spiritual meaning by millions of Americans. Poll results on the percentage who feel a need to experience spiritual growth; The baby boomer generation's eclectic search; Popularity of spiritual books, music and more; Deja Vu Tours, which specializes in `spiritual adventure' travel; Religious retreats; Interface, a holistic-education center; Cross-cultural spiritualities; Hospital administrator Mary Helen Nugent, who became a nun.

Focuses on Vietnam-era radical Katherine Power who turned herself in after 23 years of life on the lam. Power's role in a 1970 bank robbery in which Boston Patrolman Walter Schroeder was slain; How Power lived under a new identity in Oregon; Why she surrendered; Reaction of Power's and Schroeder's families to her surrender; Details. INSET: Then and now: Revisiting the radicals (radicals today)..

The article discusses the increasing number of women physicists and chemists in the United States. Lawrence Summers, the president of Harvard, is mentioned as suggesting that women scientists are uncommon due to a lack of innate ability. Female scientists mentioned include Marjorie Shapiro, chair of the physics department at the University of California, Berkeley, and Alice Agogino, a professor of mechanical engineering at Berkeley.

Presents the hottest colleges and universities in the United States. Best Ivy League school, Yale University; Best Big 10 school, Northwestern University; School with the hottest architecture, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; School with the most diversity among the student body, Wesleyan University; Others.

Discusses the increase in political participation among college-age Americans. Various campaigns promoting voting among youth; Brief history of the young vote; Efforts by College Republicans to register voters; Effect of events like the war on terror and the Iraq war on young voters.

Profiles Lee Bollinger, who will become the president of Columbia University in 2002. Highlights of his career, including his job as president of the University of Michigan; Role and duties of a college president; Mention of other United States college presidents that have introduced change to their institutions; Views of Bollinger on the use of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) and early decision in admissions; His advocacy of affirmative-action admissions policies.

Presents the experiences of Evanston, Illinois middle-school language arts teacher Elizabeth Jackson during one academic year. Jackson's anxieties over job performance and the success of her students; Her perceptions about being the youngest teacher in the school; Jackson's description of her first year of teaching as her first in the real world. INSET: 'There are no magic words that will motivate every student'.

Focuses on Richard Atkinson, former director of the National Science Foundation and president of the University of California, and his proposal that the school no longer require the aptitude section of the SATs, the SAT I. Role of legislation in California, including Proposition 209, which outlawed affirmative action in all public universities and government agencies; Pressure which Atkinson feels to increase the admission of minorities; His feeling that education is focused too much on preparation for standardized tests.

Discusses parents' concerns about the threat presented to their children's safety by the availability of firearms in the United States. Disparity between the perception and the reality of the frequency of gun-related incidents in US schools; Firearms accident statistics; Children and toy guns; Advice about discussing dangers with children.

Looks ahead to how interactivity will put the world at your fingertips, changing the ways you shop, play and learn. The promise of a huge amount of information available to anyone at the touch of a button; Personalized movies; Video phones; Virtual reality; CD-ROM; Education; More.

Looks at same-sex marriage and the changes to the institution of marriage. Civil-war breaking out in the United States over same-sex marriages; Importance of same-sex marriage in the upcoming presidential election between John Kerry and George W. Bush; Battles over same-sex marriage in California, New Mexico and Massachusetts; Same-sex marriage as a ho-hum issue in many parts of the world, especially in the Netherlands, Ontario, British Columbia and Brazil; Dizzying array of family arrangements around the world; Marriage as an institution always in flux.

Discusses the success of United States universities. Overcrowding at La Sapienza University in Rome; Host of intractable problems at other schools around the globe; Too few students in Japan and South Korea; Problems with funding; Lure of students to school in the United States; Research conducted at American universities. INSET: Power Schools.

Offers a look at influences that affect whether or not an American family has more children. Age of mother; Amount of money the couple has saved; Desire of the couple to have a particular gender of child; Career of the mother; Issue of children born with serious birth defects; History of family size in America; Report that the richest families often have the fewest children; Benefits of having only one child.

Profiles Ruth Simmons, president of Brown University. Career highlights, including appointment as the first African-American president of an Ivy League school; Biographical details; Comments of Simmons; Her recommendation for a need-blind admissions policy; Simmons' goals for Brown, including increasing diversity.

Offers advice for parents on how to answer their children's questions regarding the September 2001 terrorist attack on the United States. Idea that parents should pay close attention to children and be alert to signs of their anxiety about their personal safety; Need of children for reassurance and honesty; Suggestion that tolerance be taught instead of revenge; Reaction of children to the tragedy.

Presents news briefs related to family and education in the United States as of May 21, 2001. How parents are spending more time with their children as of 1997; Study which found beneficial effects of early childhood education on lower class children.

Focuses on senioritis, the lack of focus on school work during the senior year of high school, which is believed to be a waste of time. Role of the Commission on the High School Senior Year, a panel set up by the United States Department of Education, in curriculum changes which are being called for; Efforts of some schools, such as the Eastern Technical High School in Maryland and the Center for Advanced Research and Technology in California; Role of the demand for technologically literate workers.

Discusses children in the United States whose time is often overscheduled with sports and other activities. Formation and action of the Family Life 1st! group in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to reclaim family time; Overscheduling which has become a status symbol and a problem in middle-class America; What motivates such overscheduling; Opinion of psychologists.

Focuses on the trend of United States public school educators to adjust results of standard achievement tests. Opinion that the activity is a result of using the tests as a method of national and state educational standards; Techniques employed to motivate teachers and administrators to push for higher scores; Opinion that the tests are an unfair and incomplete assessment of a student; Strategy of many teachers to spend class time preparing for the tests.

Reports on the lives of teenagers in the United States in the late 1990s. How teens feel lonely; Role played by the Internet, television, and computers; Statistics on teenagers; Comments made by Barbara Schneider a sociologist and author of the book `A Tribe Apart'; Pressures felt by teenagers; How the parent-child relationship changes during the teenage years.

Focuses on the use of the Internet in classrooms in the United States. Example of the use of the Internet in the classroom of Maggie Sergeant at the James Faulkner Elementary School in New Hampshire; Efforts of Sergeant to wire the school for Internet access; Benefits and difficulties; Comments from Sergeant.

Presents a peek at decorating changes made at the White House for President Bill and Hillary Clinton by Little Rock decorator Kaki Hockersmith. Renovation of several historically significant rooms in the private quarters including the Lincoln Sitting Room; Amount of private donations used for the project; Reaction of Victoriana experts; The Oval Office; Washington historian Carl Anthony.

Looks at the hottest item on California's November 1993 ballot: Proposition 174, a school voucher that would give parents $2,600 in public funds to spend at any private school. Predictions that the initiative will spread across the nation; Lack of evidence that vouchers will provide better education; American Alliance for Better Schools; Ethnic makeup and English proficiency of California's 5.3 million students; Comments by supporters and opponents of 174.

Features the mecca for lesbians, Northampton, Massachusetts, a.k.a. Lesbianville, USA. Estimated number of lesbian residents; Comment by Mayor Mary L. Ford; Lesbian summer festival, the Zeitgeist; Other attractions for lesbians; Motherhood; Resident Leslea Newman, author of `Heather Has Two Mommies'; Comment by Smith College President Mary Maples Dunn; More.

Reveals that even though nearly half of all Americans take some dietary supplement daily, vitamins and supplements now have no federal manufacturing and safety rules. FDA proposal of new rules on June 15, 1993 calling for full disclosure on labels of vitamins and minerals; FDA Commissioner David Kessler; Reaction of the dietary-supplement industry; Citizens for Health; American Association of Poison Control Centers; Nutrition Labeling and Education Act; More.