A recent NIACE inquiry into adult literacy found that those with the poorest literacy skills have been helped least over the past 10 years, and that we need a range of ways to help them improve their skills.

But it is important not to reduce a complex issue to a simple problem that can be easily fixed. People with poor literacy need to be taught by qualified and experienced teachers. Of course they can be supported by union learning reps and other champions. They can be helped by peers, friends and families.

But it is highly unlikely that someone who is illiterate will learn to read by using a paperback book for a couple of hours a week, one-on-one, in six months or less. Would you want your children taught in that way?

Tackling literacy is not simple. It needs ongoing investment, creativity and commitment. There is

still a huge amount of work to do in schools, in post-16 education, and with adults, many of whom are in the workplace.

Westfield is to be applauded, along with many other employers, for the steps they have taken. As should the publishing industry for the pioneering work it has done through the quick reads initiative.

There is a big role here for parents and carers too, as research shows that a child’s achievement is influenced more by parental involvement in learning than any other factor.

Adults are very rarely illiterate, but at least one-in-five need help to develop their confidence in reading, writing and speaking.

This requires a range of approaches – not least to attract those who hated school and dread the thought of going back to learning.

We need to work together to offer a range of the right opportunities for adults to gain the confidence they need to succeed and to encourage their children to do the same.

We owe it to those we have, collectively as a society, let down so badly to give them the best learning experience we possibly can.

Certainly, about 15% of charter schools do produce better results for their pupils than the public schools in their area. But 15% is not an impressive number. About a full third of all charter schools do much worse than the public schools in their area; and the rest of them do just about the same. That’s what a Stanford research study finds. What they seem to feel is, that charter schools are no better than public schools – they are sometimes really good, and sometimes they are really bad. In about the same proportion.

The way charter schools go on about their commitment to quality, you never think to question them on the kind of teachers they employ. Charter school teachers however in general are less experienced and less likely to come with any kind of state certification. A lot less likely that the teachers at public schools. At the charter schools, they employ 10% fewer teachers with certification than the public schools do. Lots of the teachers at charter schools come from Teach for America. They follow unconventional paths into the teaching profession. In general, teachers who have a proper job with a public school really would never consider giving up the job security there for a job with a charter school. Many teachers at charter schools have little training in how to manage classes too.

And that’s not the end of the teacher problems that charter schools have either. About 25% of all charter school teachers leave their jobs each year. That’s twice the turnover that normal public schools roll with. One reason this is so is that charter schools pay their teachers very little. With little training and with little ability to manage their classes, these poorly paid teachers often leave the teaching profession altogether – more than twice as often as teachers in public schools.

Charter schools have other problems too. For instance, if your child has disabilities, the charter schools usually have no way to help you out. They’ll just tell you to find another school. And since many charter schools are run by private religious organizations, religion does often enter the classroom.

Some of the practices that charter schools engage in to recruit new students may often seem a bit in poor taste. Sometimes, they’ll simply advertise; at other times, they’ll give out cash prizes or gift cards. After all this, how do some charter schools actually get their results? For one thing, if they have students who don’t seem to be doing well, they don’t have any qualms about having those students leave. A regular public school has to take everyone in whether or not they perform well. Charter schools don’t have to take everyone. They sometimes lose half their class through the year. These are usually struggling students who feel they can’t find any help and just stop coming. Of course, charter schools can report great performance among their students if their poorly performing charges just feel forced to leave.

A great blog post can contain all the things mentioned above. There are a few things which generally one might ignore that are important and will reveal your child’s personality and also add to the important topic. They are:

Title: Give a catchy title, but a relevant one.

Author Profile: There is an option to write about the author in all the blogging interfaces. Make sure to write about yourself but do not to give out any details that would allow the reader to trace you or your home address, real name etc.

Categories and Table of Contents: It is important to divide the blog into various sections.

Photos: It is good to insert pictures related to your blog. But avoid personal or family photos. You can download free photos at Stock Xchnge.

Videos: There are various sites which also share videos through blogging. Videos can be used to make a blog interactive and more advanced. The most popular site is YouTube. Another one is Vimeo. Here is a list of the top 10 video share websites.

Charts: When blogging on an educational topic, kids can relate the topic with relevant charts and make a good impression. Chart Gizmo is also very popular and there are also lessons available to learn how to use it. If these are too difficult to use, there are sites designed to help kids create charts.

Music: It can be added the same as videos and makes your blog come alive! Learn a real easy way to add music to your blog.

Clip Art: One can add useful and humorous clip art to share a message. Be careful because although they usually are good sites, some you may have to pay for while others like Classroom Clipart and Web Clip Art are available free on the net.

Yes, most cars today have the ability to connect directly to your iPhone in order to play your songs or answer your phones calls via Bluetooth. But, the way the iPhone is being integrated into cars is moving beyond this. Consider the Chevrolet Cruze, the General’s new global compact sedan. The marketing strategy for the handsome car has not been so much about the merits of the car itself, but leaning more towards how the owner can interact with it through the iPhone. There is a Chevy Cruze app available that can do anything from unlock the cars doors and start it remotely to checking tire pressure and engine fluid levels. Yes, its very cool.

At the higher end of the automotive spectrum, Hyundai’s all new large luxury sedan, the Equus, uses an iPad as part of the buying experience, providing a leather-clad iPad that contains an interactive multimedia owner’s manual. It also provides the added functionality of Chevy Cruze app in addition to scheduling maintenance appointments with your local dealer.

The hunger for technology drives various markets to do new, outstanding things to entice consumers to spend their money with them. The automotive industry is no different. Do not be surprised if, in another 5 to 10 years, you get an iPhone with your new car instead of a key or an iPad installed in the dashboard where the radio should be.

The thing is, Teresa’s struggles aren’t the exception: they are the rule. When parents of students with learning disabilities finally make it out of the woods after 12 years of struggling with the public education system, they feel they’ve really achieved something – like they just succeeded in wringing blood out of a stone. More than 5% of all school children in this country, millions actually, wait on the public education system for help with special education needs. And the government spends thousands of dollars for each child each year. They know that if they don’t, society will be burdened with far more in the end.

The responsibility of the federal government in helping students with learning disabilities is laid out in The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and the theme it works on is a pretty inspiring one – every child with learning disabilities in the nation is to be granted an education that is appropriate, and is to be granted that in an environment of the greatest freedom possible. The law doesn’t make it the responsibility of the system to find out what best suits your child though – it is up to you to find out which among the resources available to your child, would work the best.

The very first step you need to take in all of this is to really understand what rights you have, and what services you have a right to demand. Those rights and services happen to be pretty far-reaching. For instance, you can demand that the school system prescribe a free learning disability evaluation for your child; and you can demand a reevaluation anytime you want. And when the results come, according to the law, you the parent are an important part of the team that decides on the direction your child’s education will take – you, along with a special education instructor, a representative of the school district, a teacher of your child’s, and a school administrator. The law not only makes sure that nothing is thrust upon you, it states that you have an absolute right to demand a custom-made plan for your child, that is formed in consultation with an expert. For students with learning disabilities – you could ask for occupational therapy, speech therapy or even a full time personal nurse in the classroom for your child – you have the right, if you can demonstrate to them that valid medical opinion requires it.

More often than not, either willfully or out of ignorance, the school district will assert that you do not have the right to lots of these services. You’ll need to download and print out a copy of the law if you wish to go and speak to them about demanding a new service for your child. They might argue that he only needs occupational therapy twice a week, and you would prefer four times. If you see that your child isn’t progressing on the experts’ plan as well as they hoped, you have the rights to right away demand a reevaluation of the whole arrangement. As much as the school district has experts on the law, they don’t really care for your child as much as you do. If you read up on the law as much as they need to, there’s really no questioning your authority. You’d know what was best for your child.

There is no other savings channel that could possibly give them all that 529 plans do. They lock in their college costs at today’s prices, their money grows – and everything is tax free. They won’t be able to cover all the costs of their kids’ education by the time they grow up; but they have the right idea, and they’re doing the best they can. 529 plans certainly seem to attract a great deal of fierce loyalty from families with young children. According to the Financial Research Corporation of Boston, 529 savings plans are going to attract about $250 billion of investments by next year. And that is up from practically nothing just 10 years ago.

Here’s a quick rundown of what makes a 529 plan what it is. To begin with the curious name, as you would expect it, comes from the section of the tax code that sanctions the plan. These plans come in two flavors: college savings plans and prepaid tuition plans. Depending on the state, you’ll get an option in one or the other, and sometimes you’ll get both. Prepaid tuition plans are the ones that will allow you to lock in your college costs at today’s prices. For instance, if you live in Florida and have a child who will need to be in college in five years, the belief is that a four year degree at a University of Florida college will cost about $48,000 then. With your prepaid 529 plans now though, you could freeze it at today’s prices, which would be $35,740.

If you go with state-sponsored prepaid 529 plans, they ask that you sign up right away to one of several major established state institutions. If you pick an independent 529 plan, you get your pick of several smaller independent colleges. Prepaid plans can be somewhat bothersome. Most states don’t offer them, and when they do, they require that you be a citizen of that state to be eligible to apply. And they can be expensive too – not entirely suitable for people who want to save slowly, or just a part of what is needed. The most popular 529 option lies in the savings plans. These let you begin to save for admission to colleges in every state of the country today. And they are pretty easy to set up too. The great thing about these plans is, that it’s completely up to you when you make your deposits and how you choose to see your money invested.

If you worry that sort of thing, with a 529, your child gets no say over how to spend the proceed when it finally comes due. When they have no legal funds to their name, they become eligible for financial aid. And also, in some cases, the fact that the child has no right over how the money is spent keeps me safe from careless choices (say, spending the money on a week at the Bahamas). 529 plans can be real winners in other ways too. Over the years, you can make deposits that amount to as much as a quarter million dollars; in states like Colorado, the state will contribute up to $500 each month to your account, and you get all kinds of tax breaks as well.

Of course 529 plans can be a bit of a pain for the number of choices they give you with all kinds of features (like how they will invest your money). And if you happen to use the money to not pay for college costs, there’ll be a penalty. The way they invest your money can often become an area of serious disagreement. For instance two years ago when the markets plunged, ahead of the recession, some 529 plans tried to follow their normal plan oblivious of the economic environment. For accounts that were nearing maturity, they tried as usual to shift investments from low-risk mutual funds to more conservative investments (like income securities). In doing this, they went and sold their mutual funds on the market when it was very low. Everyone tried to stop them, but they wouldn’t listen. They sold at the bottom of the market.

529 plans, like anything else you trust others with, depend on how bureaucratic their administrators can be. Even if you’re completely enthusiastic about investing in your child’s future in this way, you need to be aware that if you are hoping for Hope and Lifetime Learning tax credits, paying your child’s entire college education bills with a 529 bounty can disqualify you. Well, nothing is without the downside.

Some families pull there children out of public high schools to home school them because of violence and drugs. These are two very good reasons to do it. If your children only have access to a school that is plagued with both, and you can not afford private school tuition, home schooling may be the answer for your family, as long as you understand the scope of what you are taking on. If your child is being bullied, this is also a good reason, but don’t pull them out because of small adjustment problems. They need to learn to deal with peers. Without this, they are going to flounder in college and in the work force.

Another good reasons to pull your children out of public high schools is when they are having huge problems keeping their grades up when they did well in middle and elementary school. It could be that the classes are too big and they can not get the attention they need. Make sure this is the problem though, as some students have learning disabilities that show up in high school that have nothing to do with the level of education they are presented with at school. If you feel your attention will help them learn, perhaps home schooling is a good idea for your family.

There are also some bad reasons to pull your children out of public high schools. Your child may be doing just fine there, and perhaps they are excelling. If you have a very smart child, there are things they can get through the high school that you can not offer them at home. You do not want to pull them out if they are doing well just because you feel like it, which happens quite often. If they have dreams of college, and you can not teach them trig or calculus, you may want to rethink what you are about to do and why you really want to do it. Remember, even though your child may have some issue with peers and may struggle on occasion with some grades, there is more to public high schools than you may realize, especially for higher education.

There are life lessons that students learn in any high school that they will not get from home schooling. These include being on time, following a schedule, dealing with tricky person to person relationships, answering to authority, making the right choices, and learning how to say no to things that may harm them. They can learn these things through home schooling, but so many parents take a lax approach because they can, and their children miss out on these valuable life skills. Home schooling can work, but make sure you are really up to the challenge before you dive in. Education is about more than what shows up in the classroom.

One aspect of college life that you may be thankful for is the fact that you can acquire a degree online nowadays. This makes going to college so much easier for people everywhere. After all, not everyone wants to do the traditional college thing, and head off to a massive university campus for a life of dorm rooms, macaroni and cheese, tight schedules, and frat parties. Especially those who already have lives and families to care for. This is why university degrees online can be so ideal for so many men and women. Imagine getting your college degree on your own time, and without all of the standard hassles of college life.

Let’s go over how university degrees online work. Essentially you have to start with the kind of degree you are interested in. So if you are striving for a two-year degree in computer maintenance and repair, then this is what you focus on. Do a quick online search in order to see what online programs are offered at this point. Now, you must take into consideration your schedule. How busy are you, and do you already have a full-time job? You may need to take classes part-time from home in order to manage online schooling, along with your day job. This is ideal for individuals who have children as well. You do not even have to leave your home.

There is a great deal of options regarding university degrees online these days. This is what makes this facet of higher education so wonderful. It no longer matters if you cannot do the traditional college thing. In fact, it does not even matter how old you are. If you are 45 and simply want a different career at this point, no worries. You can make this happen with university degrees online. Just start by researching college programs that can be completed from the comfort of your own home. As you may know, there is even student financial aid available for men and women who need it. Take advantage of this if you can.