As someone who follows the various threads of the rather disjoined national conversation on reforming high schools, I find myself feeling discouraged, rather than elated, by the latest news from the National Governor's Association.

With considerable fanfare, the NGA has announced that 45 states have signed on to an agreement to use a single standard method for calculating high school graduation rates. And sure, that's good news. Unless the states can agree to use the same yardstick, there is no hope of getting an accurate national picture of how many kids are getting lost on the road to a high school diploma.

But I can't help feeling that this is mighty incremental stuff. For one thing, California, Texas and Florida are among the non-signatories to the so-called "compact". That's a lot of high schools. Second, the agreement shines a spotlight on how very far we are from knowing what we need to know to do what needs to be done. States haven't agreed that their high schools aren't performing, they haven't reached a consensus on what to do it about it if they aren't. They have simply agreed on how to measure one important, but partial, aspect of the problem.

At this rate, we will have arrived at a national consensus on methods and terms by the time today's high school freshman start receiving their (no doubt much-reduced by then) Social Security checks.

We need to move a bit faster than that. And the governors know it -- they've just completed a nationwide online poll of high school students, many of whom said that their classwork is too easy and too boring, that their senior year lacks meaning, and that they wish their schoolwork bore more of a relationship to their eventual working lives. As for the dropouts who completed the poll, only a small percentage said they quit because school was too hard. More common answers: 36 percent said they left school because they "were not learning anything" and 24 percent left because "I hate my school."

Yesterday, we hosted a lively on-line discussion about whether computer and video games can be good for kids, both as a form of mental exercise, and as a way to encourage physical fitness and healthy lifestyles. (link)

Our experts, both avid gamers themselves, suggested that parents worry way too much about "screen time," and about exposure to violent, crude, or sexualized content in games. And that parents don't give games enough credit for pushing kids to develop higher-order thinking skills.

They also offered this advice: if parents really want to understand why these games are so compelling to their kids, and perhaps to take a more relaxed view of the time and money spent gaming, they should pull up a chair, plug in a joystick, and play the games with their kids.

So, when I got home from work yesterday, and found my 13-year-old deep in his current favorite RPG (that's role-playing game, for the willfully ignorant), I suggested that we spend a little time wandering the mythical, Medieval landscape together seeking passage to the next level. He looked at me, startled, decided I absolutely must be joking, and just about fell out of his chair laughing.

At that, I decided he was right -- if I wasn't joking, I should be. Parenting does involve doing many things just because your kids like to do them, or you think your kids should like to do them. But it also involves understanding that kids need their own turf, be it skateboarding, music, or gaming. Our role with regard to that turf is to be the police force, setting rules about helmet use, volume, acceptable games, etc.

And I also decided that I'm not ready to embrace our experts' view that the multi-layered structure of many games is more important than their narrative content -- a way, it seemed to me, of simply sidestepping around the reality that a game like Grand Theft Auto is crude, amoral, and misogynistic.

The media has been slow to recognize the devastation caused to thousands of young children by the methamphetamine addiction of their parents. Meth stayed under the radar screen for years, for a number of reasons. It's a drug of rural poverty more than urban ghettos. Users can make their own, out of legally purchased ingredients, cutting out the international and organized-crime elements that raise the law-enforcement profile of other illicit drugs.

Today, the New York Times weighed in on meth and kids with an informative article by Kate Zernike, under the headline "A Drug Scourge Creates Its Own Form of Orphan." Zernike reported on how a flood of children removed from the homes of meth-addicted parents are straining the limited resources of child welfare agencies in Oklahoma, Tennessee, and other states. It's a real crisis, and it deserves our attention.

But now that the mainstream media is weighing in on meth, reporters and editors would do well to think long and hard before affixing these kids with a label that declares them the unsalvageable wreckage of a social crisis. It isn't going to help them, and it may well turn out to be untrue.

What does it mean to label these kids as meth's "own form of orphan"? When I see that, I think back to another media-labeled "class" of children, the so-called crack babies of the '80s. Yes, the crack epidemic was real, and its impact on children and communities was horrific. But since them, many children born to crack-addicted mothers have have grown to promising young adulthood -- no thanks to the crack baby label.

If you want to know how some of those kids felt about it, take a look at the March 2004 edition of Represent!, the magazine written by foster youth and produced by Youth Communications. The entire issue, "Crack Babies All Grown Up," is a demonstration of the resilience of some of these exceptional children, and an exploration of the damage they felt was done to them by the label.

The NYT magazine recently looked back at another such "doomed" cohort, kids born HIV-positive, expected to live only a few difficult and painful years, who are now entering adulthood. Our assumptions about their futures, or lack thereof, have left us oddly unprepared to help them adjust to the prospect of adult life, work, love -- and somehow less able than we should be to celebrate their very existence. (One of our interns, Julie Garfield, recently wrote about a special summer camp for HIV-positive adolescents that tries to give them at least a brief experience of carefree summer life, before returning to the problems of who to tell, how to not tell, how to live with HIV.)

My point is not that we should minimize the damage wrought by meth -- but that kids will always surprise us with their strength, their persistence, and their ability to seize life, and that we should celebrate and encourage their strength rather than burden them with dire labels that are hard to shake.

It seems to be a summertime phenomenon, this curious nostalgia for boredom. Social commentators, in the course of their regularly scheduled criticism of modern parents and parenting, pause to wax lyrical about those long, empty summer days of their youth. Why, they wonder plaintively, must kids be so darned scheduled these days? They remember the kingdom of boredom as a spur to creativity -- to building lean-to's in the woods, or making up comic operas for their Barbies to perform, or uncovering family mementoes in some dusty attic trunk.

There's something to be said for all that, but I think remembered boredom lacks the crushing reality of the real thing. If we're really honest about it, a lot of that boredom was really just wheel-spinning, consumed by nothing more creative than lying on the floor listening to crazed houseflies buzzing as they bounced off the window screens. Nothing to watch on any of the three channels that came through the rabbit-ear antenna. Once you'd read until your eyes ached, there just weren't many options.

I've been thinking about it because one my kids is enduring a few weeks of enforced inactivity, with rigid splints on both arms, thanks to a fall that resulted in two fractured elbows and one fractured wrist. The long-awaited trip to YMCA sleep-away camp - cancelled. Bike rides around the neighborhood -- dream on. Shooting hoops in the back alley -- forget about it. Poor guy can't even brush his own teeth. When we got the news, I prepared for the worst -- whining, frustration and snarkiness.

But, after almost two weeks, I have been pleasantly surprised. He's been reading a lot. He has figured out how to (sort of) play bass guitar with just his fingertips. And we have abandoned our usual rules on "screen time," leaving him free to watch TV, play X-Box and computer games, and IM his friends as much as he wants. So far, he's kept it pretty well in balance, and I have seen no signs of his brains leaking out his ears, or of sociopathic tendencies. He does get restless, of course -- but it's manageable.

So, as we prepare for this coming Wednesday's online chat about healthy, smart video games for kids, I'm coming to the discussion with a new appreciation for what technology offers our kids...entertainment, flexibility, and an engaging escape from a dull reality. Trust me, the New Boredom is a big improvement.

Comments? E-mail susan@connectforkids.org

In 1966, TIME magazine caught everyone's attention with a bold black-and-red cover reading "Is God Dead?"

In 2005, it's easy to wonder what the heck the editors were smoking. God is definately back.

It gives me some hope that science can stage a similar comeback, though I'm not sure we can afford a 30-year turnaround time. Our children's health may depend on it.

Take the question of what causes autism and autism-spectrum disorders in children. While autism has become much more common in the past two decades, scientists have not yet zeroed in on the cause. There seems to be a genetic component, and there is some fascinating research into organic differences in the brain development of children with autism.

But most of the attention goes to a theory that the medical and scientific establishment has discarded as not supported by research. That's the idea that ethyl mercury in thimerosal, which used to be present in many childhood vaccines, is to blame for the steep increase in autism. In part, that's because the first clear signs of autism often emerge during the same period of time that kids are getting an awful lot of shots, between the ages of one and two.

Five major studies have found no link. A few smaller studies that believers in this theory claim as supporting evidence seem deeply flawed. Yet the number of parents who believe thimerosal causes autism continues to rise. There is dark talk of a conspiracy by vaccine makers, the government, and the medical establishment to hide the truth in order to evade liability. The issue has become so heated, and the distrust of medical authority so deep, that public health officials have been subjected to threats and some parents have pursued unproven and potentially hazardous treatments for their children.

According to a recent NY Times article, parents have filed more than 4,800 lawsuits claiming vaccinations caused their children's autism. More parents now are refusing to have their children vaccinated.

Over the years, parents have become a potent political force on behalf of children, and in many ways, the autism/mercury controversy exemplifies that process. But while parent advocacy is most often a positive thing for children and our society, in this case I'm worried that the passions of parents are creating a dangerous situation. Significant drops in vaccination rates, for instance, could create a serious public health crisis.

Meanwhile, the lamentable state of science instruction in our schools raises the possibility that the next generation of parents will be even less open to any scientific argument that goes against what they want to believe.

My friend T.’s son went for years eating nothing but pizza with the cheese removed. At least, it seemed that way. Somehow, he kept growing, thriving even. Today, he’s 13, tall, does well in school, plays sports, has all his teeth and hair and no more than the expected amounts of acne. He was the most extreme of our neighborhood collection of picky eaters, but he had plenty of company.

Why is it that some young kids, cheerful and amenable in most respects, dig in their heels so ferociously when it comes to what they eat? (And the deeper mystery – why will even the pickiest eater put things in his or her mouth that are so clearly NOT FOOD, like pebbles, a nice shiny green poison-ivy leaf, a Lego ninja?)

Evolutionary scientists have some theories about the first question. Dr. Leann Birch, an expert on children’s eating habits at Penn State, noted in a recent New York Times article on picky eaters that 10,000 years ago, children as young as 4 would be out foraging for food on their own. A preference for bland food, in that case, would be protective, preventing young children from eating toxic substances. Over time, evolutionary theory suggests, natural selection would favor children with an innate aversion to strong flavors.

So parents who are wearing themselves out in endless dinner-table power struggles may in fact be fighting more than stubbornness. They may be fighting a preference built right into their child over 50 generations. I find it kind of comforting. It doesn’t mean efforts to get kids to eat a varied diet aren’t worthwhile, just that we should have modest expectations for success, at least in the early years.

At 112 tightly-packed pages, the Department of Education’s proposed regulations for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) are no one’s idea of light bedtime reading. This virtual mountain of verbiage is where the intentions outlined in the reauthorized IDEA are translated into regulatory language -- which, if carefully read, can then be translated into guidance on what is actually expected of the federal government, districts, parents, teachers and students under the law.

For example, what are school districts and parents supposed to do, regarding the part of the law that encourages “meaningful informal resolution of disputes” before going to due process hearings? A few rounds of rock-paper-scissors? (The real answer is on page 35790 of Vol. 70, No. 118, of the Federal Register for June 21.)

Starting yesterday, when the regs were published in the Federal Register, ED began its required 75-day public comment period, during which anyone can respond to any aspect of the regulations. ED is also holding a series of public meetings on the proposed rules, which started June 17 in Nashville and will end in Washington, DC on July 12.

The department is particularly interested in comments about the following aspects of the regulations: how the determination is made that a special education teacher is “highly qualified,” who pays for which services offered children who live in one district, but attend a private educational institution in another district, and the process school districts use to determine whether students have learning disabilities.

Parents and advocates may have more to say about some other areas, such as changes in the regulations concerning discipline and changes of placement. If any aspect of this issue concerns you, comments can be filed online at the U.S. Government Web site or via e-mail to IDEAComments@ed.gov. Be sure to include the term IDEA-Part B in the subject line.

Some of the most interesting new insights into children's development these days are coming from the frontiers of brain science.

I was fascinated a couple of years ago when I was able to see color pictures that showed the difference in how most children use their brains to read, compared to children with dyslexia. The images showed how typically-developing readers used certain portions of their brain to solve the problem of reading, while children with dyslexia engaged a different part of their brains, a work-around that permitted them to master reading eventually, but with less fluency than other children.

Hard science is also backing up the changing cultural norms regarding when it is that a person is really a grown-up. A recent article in the New York Times about risk-taking behavior in adolescent boyspointed out that scientists studying neurochemistry have found that until about age 25, the parts of our brains that are entranced by risky behavior are developing much faster than the parts that promote reason and judgment at the conscious level.

Meanwhile, work with our partners in scientific inquiry the lab rats has offered some cross-species back-up for the observation that kids who take up smoking early -- say at age 11, 12, or 13 -- have a harder time quitting later than those who have their first puff at 18.

Rats at an age roughly equivalent to that of 12 in humans developed a strong liking for nicotine after just one exposure to the drug, while rats in late adolescence and adulthood did not. However, late-adolescent rats did show marked signs of physical excitement after exposure, as did the younger rats, while the adults were relatively unaffected.

“This study adds to a growing body of human and animal data that suggest adolescence may be a developmental time during which the rewarding pathways in the brain are highly responsive to nicotine,” said lead researcher Frances Leslie.

I'm not one to sneer at the anxious efforts of upper income parents to achieve parenting perfection. My eyes do not roll when I hear about highly-paid infant sleep consultants, baby Kumon, or the hyper-competitive preschool acceptance race. Honest. My view is we all do the best we can with what we have. If we admire the low-income single mom who spends four hours each day on the bus to take her kids to a better school, then we should at least understand that for the driven two-career professional couple, time is in short supply, but money is not, and that they will use what they have to their children's best advantage as they see it.

Still and all, sometimes the contrasts are downright painful. I subscribe to a useful service offered by the New York Times. The service tracks stories that involve children, and sends me a daily e-mail listing them. Today's e-mail brought me two stories, one from the real news part of the paper, and the other from the ever-expanding lifestyle zone.

Story one was about the persistent continued failure of the New Jersey child welfare system to protect and care for the abused and neglected children it is responsible for. In a report on the deaths of three such children, New Jersey's state child advocate Kevin M. Ryan noted that when child welfare employees involved in the three cases were interviewed, each "believed that there was nothing they would have done differently."

Story two was about the transformation of nannies hired by hard-working and apparently very well-off professional families into family managers paid as much as $75,000 a year for duties that include child care, but go much further -- overseeing home renovations, helping with family businesses, planning vacations, paying bills.

Clearly, these two stories were not meant to be read together. It was just the automatic sorting and searching of the news tracker that brought them into my inbox cheek by jowl. But there is something to think about in their collision: What child welfare caseworker makes $75,000 a year? Is it more demanding to run a highly-scheduled well-off family's household than to oversee the well-being of dozens of children in dozens of different living situations of various levels of chaos? How long would a nanny last who left one of her charges in harms' way, observed that harm had indeed occurred, and then concluded that she would do exactly the same thing next time?

As a means of transporting children from home to school and back again, the classic yellow school bus has an admirable and under-appreciated record of safety and reliability. Though most still lack seat belts, and though they travel winding routes in all kinds of weather, often at or near peak driving times, school buses are statistically better at delivering kids to their classrooms unharmed than parents, bicycles, or their own two legs.

But the school bus can also be a kind of rolling arena for bullying and abuse. It's not surprising. Kids on a crowded school bus are virtually unsupervised. The driver has to keep his or her eyes on the road. (though I remember the fearsome, cigar-chomping "Mr. C" of my youth, who really did seem to have eyes in the back of his head.) Lots can happen before it gets to the point of pulling the bus over to intervene.

From kindergarten through third grade, I rode a bus that could have generated a library shelf of sociological dissertations. It carried kids ranging right up to high school. The coolest, oldest kids sat at the back, where they controlled the action. The smallest, scaredest kids sat at the front, in vain hopes of falling within the protective zone of being within earshot of the driver. In the middle, the rest of us kept our heads down and hoped for the best.

And bad things really did happen. Homework reduced to confetti, brand-new hats tossed out the window into the snowbanks, pencils jabbed into the backs of kids' hand, girls groped by the bad-boy jocks.

I'm thinking back to that bad old smelly bus (Mr. C's cigars!) after reading a story in today's Washington Post about reported incidents of bullying and sexual assault on school buses in the D.C. suburban area. The story included comments about how in today's sexualized culture, the bus isn't safe like it used to be.

To which I say, the school bus has never been safe -- but we never talked about it. (And of course, it may have gotten worse, as most things seem to do if you read the paper). So let's deal with it -- it's way past time to get some cameras on the schoolbuses already. Inside the schools, we've got metal detectors, security guards, and filters on the Internet. Out on the roads, we've got cameras to keep folks from speeding or running red lights and police using night-vision goggles to make sure people have their seat belts fastened. But somehow, that little yellow schoolbus just keeps rolling along, the Lord of the Flies holding court from the back bench seat.