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Story highlights First-graders get nearly three times the homework education leaders recommend, a study concludes The cost of excessive homework is "enormous," the study's contributing editor says Kelly Wallace is CNN's digital correspondent and editor-at-large covering family, career and life. Read her other columns, and follow her reports at CNN Parents and on Twitter. (CNN)Nothing quite stresses out students and parents about the beginning of the school year as the return to homework, which for many households means nightly battles centered around completing after-school assignments. Now a new study may help explain some of that stress. The study, published Wednesday in The American Journal of Family Therapy, found students in the early elementary school years are getting significantly more homework than is recommended by education leaders, in some cases nearly three times as much homework as is recommended. The standard, endorsed by the National Education Association … [Read more...] about Kids have three times too much homework, study finds; what’s the cost?

The Sonoma Valley appellation is a wine region that hides in plain sight. Surrounding the city of Sonoma, it’s an appellation some wine drinkers might not realize exists, even if they’ve driven through it many times (and even if they’ve driven right past the welcome sign on Highway 121). If you do have any preconceptions about the Sonoma Valley AVA, you might associate it with large-scale, uninteresting wines from flat, uninteresting vineyards. Many of the higher-end producers here distance themselves from the Sonoma Valley name, opting instead to label their bottles with the region’s sub-AVAs like Carneros, Moon Mountain, Sonoma Mountain and Bennett Valley. So when I learned about Gail Wines, a new brand devoted entirely to Sonoma Valley, I was immediately curious — and even more curious when I learned that Dan O’Brien, formerly of Larkmead, Long Meadow Ranch and Cultivar, was behind it. “I’d like to be someone who can showcase the … [Read more...] about Gail Wines, a thrilling new label, reinterprets Sonoma Valley terroir

Beverly Hills billionaires Stewart and Lynda Resnick garnered a heaping helping of adulatory publicity last week with the announcement of their record-breaking $750-million pledge to Caltech for research into climate change and “environmental sustainability.”The donation, according to the university’s announcement, is the largest single gift it has ever received, and the second largest ever to an American university. (It’s topped only by a $1.8-billion gift from businessman and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg to his alma mater Johns Hopkins.)News coverage of the Resnicks’ gift bristled with praise for their generosity and testimonials to their devotion to the cause of addressing climate change. Some articles quoted Stewart Resnick describing the donation as having arisen from a desire to serve his children and his children’s children. There are plenty of reasons to avoid bottled water.... It’s incredibly expensive, it’s … [Read more...] about Column: Resnicks set a record with Caltech gift, but altruism isn’t the whole story