THE HARTFORD COURANT: "Every day across America, kids are showing up close to death in hospital emergency rooms or close to tears in the offices of psychologists, psychiatrists and social workers. They are the lost children of the 21st century, debilitated by depression, overwhelmed by anxiety, desperate to get back to the simple joys of childhood.

If this were an infectious disease, we would call this an epidemic, said Joseph Woolston, chief of child psychiatry at Yale-New Haven Hospital.

Many of these children in crisis are poor and lack even the basic necessities. But others - who seem to have everything a child might want - suffer nonetheless from a new sort of emptiness.

They've been called Generation Stress - the stressed-out generation of American youth, obsessed with an almost unattainable vision of perfection: the best school, the hottest clothes, the coolest music, the nicest body, the greatest friends.

A growing crowd of child psychiatrists, school psychologists and educators across the nation fear that many children are suffering from emotional and behavioral illnesses because of a toxic combination: unrelenting pressure in their lives and crumbling bonds in their families."

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR: "The drive to push even the youngest students to reach their full potential - academically, athletically, artistically - sometimes turns into a fearful scramble among parents to get their children on the fast track, educators say. And some observers worry that it's taking the whole experience of school and childhood in directions no one intended. Everyone's familiar by now with the sight of elementary school children rolling their heavy backpacks along the sidewalk. A study by the University of Michigan's Survey Research Center shows that the amount of homework assigned to 6- to 8-year-olds tripled between 1981 and 1997. Extra lessons and classes are also on the rise. Commercial tutoring has become a $3 billion industry in the United States, partly because students who already get good grades are now expected to polish their skills even further."

STAR TRIBUNE: "Gay slurs have become the insult of choice among school bullies, spit so indiscriminately at gay or straight students that half the teens in a new nationwide survey said they hear these taunts at least once a day. ... The new survey joins a growing body of research on the overall problem of bullying, a school problem that caught national attention after the shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado in 1999. Altogether, they indicate that gay slurs are at least as common as ever. They also document that victims are more likely to miss school or even drop out, more likely to commit suicide and more vulnerable to depression even into adulthood."

EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP: "Educators must ask themselves profoundly multicultural questions, that is, troubling questions about equity, access, and fair play—questions that examine the sociopolitical context of education and school policies and practices. Who is taking calculus and other academically challenging courses? Are programs for bilingual or special education students placed in the basement? Who is teaching the children—for example, why aren't highly qualified teachers teaching children in low-income districts? How much are children worth—do we value some children over others? Until we confront these broader issues and do something about them, we will be only partially successful in educating young people for the challenging future."

EDUCATION WEEK: "Nearly a year after passage of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, states are working hard to comply with the federal law, a survey conducted by Education Week shows. But while states have made changes on some fronts, they have a long way to go on others. In particular, states appear to have taken a wait-and-see attitude about changing their accountability systems or their requirements for teacher licensure to bring them into line with the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The U.S. Department of Education did not release final regulations on those topics until the week of Thanksgiving."