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Home equity in school rankings
A Toronto real estate company is cashing in on school rankings. Realosophy, a real estate brokerage firm, is ranking desirable neighbourhoods according to school performance. Two of the top-ranked schools in Toronto happen to be located in Lawrence Park, where the average house sells for more than $2 million. “We all know that if you have high income and highly educated parents, the child’s chances of going to university are basically 100 per cent,” said Realosophy’s Urmi Desai. “We expected [the schools] to be in very, very high-end areas, so really, the ‘best neighbourhoods’ list was not much of a surprise.” Ontario’s provincial exam tests Grades 3, 6, 9 and 10 students on math and English skills.
Normal kids amaze Santorum
Rick Santorum, candidate for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination in the U.S., published a book in 2005 entitled It Takes a Family. In it he expresses astonishment that anyone graduating from American public schools is normal. “Never before and never again after their years of mass education will any person live and work in such a radically narrow, age-segregated environment,” Santorum wrote. “It’s amazing that so many kids turn out to be fairly normal, considering the weird socialization they get in public schools.”
Mothers trump texting
A study has found that young girls respond better to the human voice than to text messages. A University of Wisconsin study of girls found text messages are no substitute for the comfort of hearing a mother’s voice. The study found that girls in stressful situations tested lower for the stress hormone if they spoke face to face with their mothers than if they received text messages from them. Researchers could not say conclusively if the choice of words or the manner in which they are spoken affects the stress hormone.
