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in the 2007-08 academic year, with 95,000 more students receiving grants than in 2006-07. For 2007-08, a total of 401,372 students received $297,604,911 in AC grants and 66,120 students received $195,474,710 in SMART grants. Both of these programs were created |
in 2006 as part of the President's American Competitiveness Initiative. They aim to increase college access and completion for low-income students by providing additional funds to students eligible for a Pell Grant. First-year students who have fulfilled a rigorous high |
school course of study are eligible to receive an AC grant up to $750; students who attain a 3.0 grade point average as freshman are eligible to receive up to $1,300 as a sophomore. SMART grants up to $4,000 are |
Press Club, the National Institute for Literacy released "Developing Early Literacy." This report, developed by the nine-member National Early Literacy Panel (NELP), bridges the large gap in the early literacy research knowledge base. By synthesizing research on language, literacy, and |
communication, it clearly identifies which critical early skills/abilities and proven instructional practices are precursors of later literacy achievement. (According to the findings, among the best early predictors of literacy are alphabet knowledge, phonemic awareness, rapid naming skills, writing [such as |
writing one's own name], and short-term memory for words said aloud.) It also tenders clues and insights into emergent literacy from birth through age 5 and points the way for future literacy research and scientific inquiry. The National Institute for |
Education Statistics (NCES) has unveiled a new web tool with estimates of the percentage of adultsfor all states and counties in the U.S.who lack basic prose literacy skills. The web tool allows for comparisons to be made between two states, |
two counties, and across data years. Estimates were developed using statistical models that related estimated percentages of adults lacking basic literacy skills in counties sampled for the 1992 National Adult Literacy Survey and the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy |
series, "Making Charter School Facilities More Affordable: State-Driven Policy Approaches." This guide, which complements earlier charter school guides, profiles policy interventions from eight states and the District of Columbia that have been developed to help charter schools address various facilities-related |
challenges. While the guide does not describe every effort, it details how some jurisdictions have dedicated funding streams to support charter facilities and how others have helped charter school operators access relatively low-cost financing to buy, lease, or renovate school |
the headlines. Thank you for your patience. Quotes to Note "I have seen the resolve for reform and the belief in high standards in Chicago, where reading and math scores are soaring, and where every child still has time to |
study a foreign language and the fine arts. The school in Chicago we went to [Horace Greeley Elementary School], like other schools across the city, have benefited from the vision and leadership of a person named Arne Duncan. And, he |
is going to be the next Secretary of Education. We are fortunate he has agreed to take on this position. We wish him all the very best." |||President George W. Bush (1/8/09), on the seventh anniversary of the No Child |
Left Behind Act| "You need no lessons from me on toughness and tenacity. Not only did you achieve results for Chicago's schoolchildren, but you did it in the face of steady criticism. You stuck to your guns on merit pay |
for teachers who showed results. You expanded charter schools when others wanted to limit them. And, you closed chronically underperforming schools so that they could be restructured. I am confident that you will bring this attitude to Washington." |||Secretary of |
Education Margaret Spellings (1/9/09), in a letter to the Secretary of Education-Designate| Don't forget! The next "Education News Parents Can Use" broadcast (January 20, 8:00-9:00 ET) will look back at some of the most engaging topics explored on recent shows |
Annual Meeting in Chicago (February 6-8); the National Association for Bilingual Education's Annual Conference in Austin (February 18-21); the American Association of School Administrators' National Conference in San Francisco (February 19-21); the National Title I Conference in San Antonio (February |
19-22); and the National Association of Secondary School Principals' Annual Convention in San Diego (February 26-28). If you are attending any of these events, please stop by the Department's booth. Credits, Subscribe & Unsubscribe Please feel free to contact the |
or guarantee the accuracy, relevance, timeliness, or completeness of this outside information. Furthermore, the inclusion of links is not intended to reflect their importance, nor is it intended to endorse any views expressed, or products or services offered, on these |
Developing Cultural Diversity in Teaching What is Cultural Diversity? The phrase 'Cultural Diversity'means a range of different societies or peoples with different origins, religions and traditions all living and interacting together. To be culturally diverse is to accept and celebrate difference. For tutors that means... |
the learning experience of all our learners as well as creating an inclusive learning environment. To help tutors create more culturally diverse programmes we have put together the following guidance with a down-loadable Cultural Diversity resource 121kb for subject specific ideas. Re-examine your teaching materials an... |
you expecting your learners to be? Are you encouraging learner autonomy? - Do you expect them to research, and explore the subject outside the classroom? Are they dependant on you for everything? - Do you draw learner attention to related activities happening locally, nationally and globally? - Examine your own source ... |
I just read about the discovery of a temple at Beth-Shemesh in Israel, dated to the 11th century B.C. (see the link below). This got my attention right away because (1) Beth-Shemesh was a border town in Old Testament times, between the Israelites and Philistines, (2) the 11th century B.C. was the time of the last judge... |
from the Old Testament took place in Beth-Shemesh, right at that time. According to 1 Samuel 4-6, the Philistines captured the Ark of the Covenant in a battle, but after a wave of plagues hit the cities where the Ark was kept, they decided to return it. To find out if God was behind the plagues, they loaded the Ark on ... |
sent it off without a driver, to see if the oxen would take it to Israel. They did, and when the cart reached Beth-Shemesh, the locals rejoiced and made a sacrifice of the oxen, until a number of them were struck dead for not handling the Ark properly. Then the Ark was sent to another town, Kiriath-Jearim, and because ... |
it, after what had already happened, it stayed there for at least forty years, until King David came along and took the Ark to Jerusalem. The article goes on to say that the site was identified as a holy place because of the animal bones found there, and that it was destroyed once and rebuilt. The archaeologists are gu... |
of worship, which the Philistines destroyed when they took Beth-Shemesh, and the Israelites rebuilt it later, when they took Beth-Shemesh back. So far so good, but I have a few questions which the story did not answer. First, how did the archaeologists get the 11th century B.C. date? I am assuming it was carbon-14 dati... |
This matters because at other sites in the Holy Land, it now looks like the artifacts were dated to the wrong period. The ashlar stone walls at Megiddo, for example, are usually dated to the time when the Canaanites ruled the city, when King Solomon may have been the one who really built them. Second, how did they deci... |
and not a Philistine or Canaanite one? It would have helped if the article mentioned what kind of animal bones were found; if they included pig bones, you can rule out the Israelites. In those days, the Israelites were only allowed to perform sacrifices where the Ark was (usually at Shiloh), so sacrifices only could ha... |
The Journal of American Medical Association did a study on “e-mobile technology”, for example sending text messages on phones to try to increase immunization rates, in this case flu rates of children. The research was done at the University of Rochester where about 8,000, mostly low-income kids, and parents got a serie... |
2010-2011 flu season, and then received an additional reminder. About half the parents got weekly text messages, educating them about the flu and the importance of immunizing their children. They also got weekly text messages reminding them about flu clinics that were being held. Researchers found that about 44% of the... |
about 40% of those parents who did not receive texts were vaccinated. Statistically, there’s not much difference, but clinically this is important, and here’s why. These authors pointed out that if these results were applied to the entire population you would have several million more kids getting vaccinated. One of th... |
despite the possible downsides, even if it’s only a 4% difference, if you apply that, it could result in lives saved. I think we should continue to pursue this area of research of using text message reminders as a potential to make a difference from the public health perspective. In the meantime though, make sure your ... |
A Beautiful Way to Communicate - Languages of Love and Understanding Making English the official language, is exclusionary, elitist, and demeaning to hardworking, striving individuals. It is politically destructive to limit the use of languages. Sharing languages is a means of creating harmony and understanding between... |
enhancement in strengthening communities, and eventually a benefit for government for languages to be recognized and shared, and for groups of people to be respected. English will always be considered the first language of the United States. It should not have to be legislated as such. By recognizing the use and import... |
lieu of disenfranchising and discouraging others, the idea here would be to take the positive approach of recognizing the second most commonly used language, Spanish, as a second , or, sister language. English, therefore, remains 1 |
Given all the evidence presently available, we believe it entirely reasonable that Mars is inhabited with living organisms and that life independently originated there The conclusion of a study by the National Academy of Sciences in March 1965, after 88 years of surveying the red planet through blurry telescopes. Four ... |
first satellite images of Mars confirming the opposite. After Earth and Mars were born four and a half billion years ago, they both contained all the elements necessary for life. After initially having surface water and an atmosphere, scientists now believe Mars lost it’s atmosphere four billion years ago, with Earth g... |
later. According to the chief scientist on NASA’s Curiosity mission, if life ever existed on Mars it was most likely microscopic and lived more than three and a half billion years ago. But even on Earth, fossils that old are vanishingly rare. “You can count them on one hand,” he says. “Five locations. You can waste tim... |
of thousands of rocks and not find anything.” The impact of a 40kg meteor on the Moon on March 17 was bright enough to see from Earth without a telescope, according to NASA, who captured the impact through a Moon-monitoring telescope. Now NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will try and search out the impact crater, wh... |
Delineating each addition to the 63 chapters covering new developments, techniques, and knowledge in neuroscience would require excessive space. Generally speaking, the progression of the chapters has remained the same, with relevant additions made to each to deal with new developments. Most of these additions, as alre... |
the molecular arena. A new chapter, "Genes and Behavior," is presented in part 1 and provides the foundation for genetic topics in subsequent chapters. The "Genes and Behavior" overview describes very cogently the multiple avenues for exploration of the genetic determinants of behavior, including single gene allele det... |
variations in behavior, as well as the effects of mutations, deletions, and other defects in manifest behaviors. This introduction does an exceptional job of setting the stage for the remainder of the text. The broad scope of this text is exemplified in the introduction as it overviews genetic findings in |
Around 1881, Herbert Bryant, a prominent citizen who owned a large fertilizer plant in Alexandria, had a new home built near the northwest corner of North Washington and Queen streets. |
Designed by architect Benjamin F. Price, the Second Empire style home featuring a mansard roof was noted in a local paper: Of all the residences in the city, none are |
handsomer than the one recently erected by Captain Herbert Bryant. The building inside is supplied with all the modern improvements. The workmanship on this building reflects credit upon Alexandria mechanics. |
Even more than 25 years later, a souvenir publication described it as a splendid modern residence. Bryant died at his home at 306 North Washington St. in 1914, and around |
1918, the property became the site for a new parochial school. The Xaverian Brothers operated the school for boys within St. Marys parish. The first two floors served as classroom |
space and initially, the brothers lived on the top floor. But as enrollment grew, St. Marys purchased a nearby property to provide living quarters for the brothers. Lawn parties and |
suppers were held on the grounds to help raise money for the St. Marys school. Student enrollment at the Xaverian School reached 154 in 1930, but the school proved to |
be too expensive to operate. With church officials citing the impact of the Depression, it closed around 1934. The old Bryant home was used as an apartment building for many |
years. In 1956, it and other structures in the 300 block of North Washington Street were demolished. In the early 1960s, an office building was constructed on the site. Out |
An individual who uses a computer with an Internet connection pretty much practices caution when downloading programs from the Internet and email because of the threat of viruses and worms. These malicious program codes and programs can cause your system to become unstable and worse yet, after it has spread |
within your system, it further infects other systems connected to yours. This is why any sensible computer user has anti virus programs installed in one’s computer for protection against attacks from viruses and worms that proliferate the Internet. The good thing about viruses and worms is the fact that it |
is easier to spot them trying to get into your system. For instance, a virus or worm can try to enter your system through a suspicious attachment usually from an unknown source. By now, most Internet users know better than to open suspicious attachments. Also, rigorous anti virus programs can |
scan attachments before you can open them so that your risk against viruses and worms are properly managed. However, as an Internet user, you have more to worry about than viruses and worms. Unfortunately, anti virus programs are not designed to detect other types of threats and if you are |
not careful, you may unwittingly install adware and spyware into your system and once this happens, uninstalling these programs can become problematic. For one thing, most spyware can go undetected in your system. You will continue on your regular computer and Internet habits without realizing that your privacy is imme... |
violated and your security is greatly hindered. Since spyware can go undetected and you can continue to use your computer and the Internet as usual, there is no need to worry about uninstalling spyware, right? Spyware in mild cases infringes on your privacy because it can track and take note |
of your usage patterns and these information are reported back to the company that created the spyware so that they can build marketing profiles. More than that though, some spyware have the ability to register and take note of key strokes, scan documents within your computer‘s hard drive, and can |
steal your passwords and other sensitive information that can make you the victim of identity theft and other situations where your personal information can be used to compromise your security. On the other hand, adware is used by companies to infect your computer with unsolicited ads. The most problematic kinds |
are the ones that indiscriminately pop ads on to your screen even if you are not viewing their site or using the parent program that launched the adware. In fact, in some cases, adware continues to work into your system long after you uninstalled the program it came bundled with. |
Given the security risks, the invasion of your right to privacy, and the annoying effects of spyware and adware, you will be wise to uninstall these programs from your computer. However, to uninstall adware and spyware from your system is not such a simply task. For one thing, companies that |
proliferate the Internet with spyware and adware go to great lengths to ensure that uninstalling them from your system can be difficult. For instance, in most cases, you will be unable to use legitimate software if you attempt to uninstall the adware or spyware it comes bundled with. Adware and |
Nutrition: Nuts May, in Fact, Help Avert Diverticulitis Doctors have long advised people with diverticulosis to steer clear of nuts and foods with small seeds, fearing they might cause severe intestinal complications. But a study has found that eating these |
foods not only does not increase the risk of complications, but may even lower the risk of developing the disease. The study, published in the Aug. 27 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association, is the first large-scale |
study of the matter. About a third of Americans over 60 develop diverticulosis, which causes intense pain in the abdomen and leads to the rupture of small pouches in the colon, called diverticula. In the study, scientists analyzed data on |
more than 47,000 men ages 40 to 75 who had no history of the disease at the start of the study. The subjects were followed for the next 18 years, a period in which 800 cases of diverticulitis and about |
380 cases of diverticular bleeding were diagnosed. Those who ate the most nuts, twice a week or more, had a 20 percent lower risk of developing diverticulitis than those who ate the least, while those who ate popcorn at least |
twice a week had a 28 percent lower risk. They also found no link between any foods and complications. The authors say the benefits may come from nutrients and fiber in nuts and light popcorn. |
In the long, often boring, and generally disappointing history of evolution, nothing has managed to capture our imagination quite like the dinosaurs.1 The simple fact that there were once giant, |
terrifying reptiles with tiny brains who “ruled the Earth”2 is enough to inspire awe, but that they then disappeared prior to the invention of the camera phone really compounds it. |
On the cosmic scale of things, the fact that grizzly bears frighten us is a bit laughable, for if they stepped out of a time machine and into the age |
of the dinosaurs, grizzly bears would spend the majority of their short lives screaming like children and running away from everything they saw – including the plants, probably – and |
wondering what the hell was going on here (and also kicking themselves for not just stopping the time machine in 1929 and shorting the stock market, like they had planned). |
‘Tyrant-Lizard King (not the band)’). Hailing from the late Cretaceous between 85 and 65 million years ago, Tyrannosaurus rex (or T. rex, as it preferred to be called), was, from |
what we can suss out based on skeletal remains, one of the largest carnivores ever, standing 15 feet tall, reaching up to 40 feet long, and weighing somewhere around 7,000 |
pounds. According to people who estimate things that are impossible to estimate, its 700 pound head could, with the aid of serrated teeth the size of bananas, tear off up |
to 500 pounds of meat in a single bite. But what’s most breathtaking about T. rex was that it was, at one point, real. T. rexes roamed Western North America |
for millions of years, and in a time when dinosaurs ruled, they were king. ‘More mead and serving wenches! And tell my younger brother to calm down. I can’t handle |
his psychodrama right now.’ Or so we’re led to believe. The truth is that everything we know about T. rex comes from fossilized remains – reptilian bone slowly replaced by |
minerals over the course of millions of years – and a few Spielberg movies. And from these sources, our best and brightest scientists can only make rough deductions about T. |
rex based on a knowledge of biomechanics and animal anatomy comparisons drawn from extant fauna. What this means is that, while it certainly looked like a carnivorous tyrant-lizard king, for |
all we really know, T. rex actually liked eating flowers and hugging. Only one thing is for sure—leaving behind a giant skeleton with massive teeth the size of bananas is |
a surefire way to get lots of kids books written about yourself. His one wish was that some future species educate their offspring about his work. As with all other |
dinosaurs, there are no T. rexes frozen in ice (unlike the wooly mammoth), no T. rex photographs, no T. rex audio recordings, and only the crudest of T. rex diary |
entries, leaving a vast chasm of T. rex knowledge that is open to interpretation, speculation, and prolific grant-writing by bearded paleontologists who spend their adult lives hoping that PBS interviews |
them in their Indiana Jones hat at least once. ‘Believe it or not, I’m a bit of a rebel. I mean, I got the hat and everything.’ For instance, some |
paleontologists believe that all tyrannosaurs, including T. rex, must have been covered in feathers at some point during their life cycles (most likely after hatching). If nothing else, a feather-covered |
T. rex was surely a lot less intimidating, not to mention a lot more upsetting for his dad. But we don’t know. We also don’t know whether T. rex was |
a hunter or a scavenger. While a massive dinosaur with a mouthful of banana teeth that could deliver a bite with 1440 pounds of force in the front part of |
its jaw and 3011 in the back would seem to be a bit of a no-brainer in the hunting department, some paleontologists suggest that their massive legs may have prevented |
them from running as fast as their potential prey (biomechanics pins their top speed at about 18 mph, which is slightly faster than a human being can run). They also |
had relatively large olfactory lobes, which could (could!) mean a powerful sense of smell for locating rotten meat (similar to New World vultures, which are award-winning, world-class scavengers). And then, |
of course, there was the issue of T. rex’s hilariously undersized forearms, which could not even reach their own mouth (meaning that, however they got their food, they never wiped |
their mouth after dinner). These almost vestigial forearms were likely little use for grasping prey, and they were almost certainly worthless in push up contests. ‘Well they’ll work just fine |
for Xbox. When’s that coming out again?’ But others dissent from this view and remain convinced T. rex was a hunter, pointing to its stereoscopic vision (and, you know, the |
spiky banana teeth). Still others think the shreds of rotten, bacteria-infested meat lodged in its numerous teeth gave T. rex a “septic bite,” which caused an initial bite wound to |
become infected, making these tyrannosaurs among the very first bioterrorists. And, for what it’s worth, this would also explain why two T. rex fossils have never been found locked in |
a passionate kiss. The most complete T. rex skeleton ever found was discovered in South Dakota in 1990. Currently on display at the Field Museum in Chicago, ‘Sue’ has shed |
a great deal of new light on the Tyrannosaurus rex. For instance, we now know that we don’t know whether Sue was a male or a female. We do know, |
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