#DOD #Math and #Reading scores among nation's highest @SS

A video screen grab shows students at Casey Elementary School in South Korea taking part in a "Math Madness" event in January 2014.
CHUCK GILL/U.S. ARMY

By Steven Beardsley

Stars and Stripes

Published: October 29, 2015

Students at military-run schools were among the top performers in this year’s national reading and math assessment, known as the “Nation’s Report Card.”

Fourth- and eighth-grade students within the Department of Defense Education Activity scored higher on average in reading proficiency than their peers across the nation, tied only with Massachusetts and New Hampshire, according to results released this month from the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

Fourth-grade math scores in DODEA schools ranked second in the country, tied with seven other states, while gaps between white and minority students remained among the lowest nationwide, a likely result of DODEA’s unique student population.

“We are pleased to be among the top performing states in the nation on the NAEP assessments for fourth- and eighth-grade reading and mathematics,” DODEA Director Thomas Brady said in a statement.

A yardstick for K-12 subject knowledge, the assessment on reading and math proficiency is administered to fourth- and eighth-grade students every two years. The results are frequently cited to compare school systems and judge student aptitude nationwide.

Math scores slipped nationwide this year for both grades, and they also fell for eighth-grade reading. Reading scores in grade 4 remained statistically unchanged.

DODEA was one of only three systems to improve its fourth-grade reading scores from the last test, in 2013. It also improved in fourth-grade math and eighth-grade math. Eighth-grade reading scores remained unchanged from the previous test.

The assessment showed room for improvement elsewhere, including proficiency in certain subjects. The percentage of eighth-graders considered at or above proficiency in math remained flat. DODEA schools also showed low rates of advanced proficiency in grade 4 math, especially when compared to other top performers on this year’s test.

http://goo.gl/TGr4gH

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Former #Chicago School Chief Goes Down In MASSIVE Corruption Bust @Caller

 Barbara Byrd-Bennett [Chicago Public Schools]

BLAKE NEFF

Reporter

4:23 PM 10/08/2015

The former head of Chicago
Public Schools (CPS) was
indicted Thursday for
allegedly participating in
a bribery scheme that
illegally influenced more than $20
million in city spending.

According to the charges against her,
ex-CPS CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett
steered a no-bid $20.5 million contract
to the consulting company SUPES
Academy in return for bribes and the
promise of a job after she left her post.

Prosecutors claim that Byrd-Bennett’s
corrupt dealings began in April 2012,
when she first arrived in Chicago to work
as chief education adviser, and continued
for the next three years.

U.S. Attorney Zachary Fardon said
Byrd-Bennett plans to plead guilty
at a news conference Thursday afternoon.

She was appointed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

Also being charged are two executives
with SUPES Academy, as well as the
company itself and a subsidiary. The
indictments come six months after it
went public that a federal grand jury
had requested documents related to
the SUPES deal, and five months
after Byrd-Bennett stepped down as Chicago’s schools CEO due to the scandal.

According to the newly-released indictment, SUPES’s offer of compensation to Byrd-Bennett was quite brazen.

“When this stint at CPS is done and
you are ready to … retire, we have
your spot waiting for you,” SUPES
co-owner Gary Solomon allegedly
said in a 2012 email, shortly after
Byrd-Bennett started working in Chicago.

“Hopefully with even more work and
more (opportunity).” The indictment
further alleges that Byrd-Bennett
was given a cut of SUPES’s contracts
with the government, but that
this financial stake was hidden from
authorities (and in fact deliberately
concealed with a fake letter suggesting
she had parted ways with SUPES). At
other times, Byrd-Bennett had SUPES
deposit over $250,000 in the bank
accounts of two relatives as a
“signing bonus” for her help.

Byrd-Bennett faces 20 total counts
of mail and wire fraud. Solomon and
fellow SUPES executive Thomas
Vranas face the same charges, as
well as charges of bribery and one
count of conspiracy to defraud the
United States.

Byrd-Bennett and her alleged
co-conspirators face a maximum
penalty of 20 years per offense,
though a guilty plea could lead to a
substantially lower penalty.

http://goo.gl/fUMjHW

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The #LEGAL Broadcast Network !

Ever since Bates v. State Bar of Arizona made it legal for lawyers to market themselves, they have been doing so, with varying results. Many lawyers dislike marketing but see it as a necessary part of practicing law successfully. Marketing expert Larry Bodine explains how lawyers can succeed at marketing in this report.

LARRY BODINE

Bodine says that he has detected three trends in legal marketing that lawyers need to be aware of. First, there is the rise of review sites, such as Avvo, 1212; text-decoration: none;">Google+,andPersonalinjury.com, where clients can go online and leave reviews of a law firm or lawyer. Increasingly, clients will search online for lawyers, and having positive reviews is something lawyers need to be aware of. Second, there is legal blogging, a continuing trend. “Research has shown that the more often you blog, the more clients you will get.” Blogging is an effective use of content marketing, and content is very important. The third trend Bodine points out is mobile marketing. Google has implemented a policy of ranking mobile-friendly websites higher in its search results than other traditional sites.

Search relevancy is important, but it may not be worthwhile for a law firm to hire a search engine optimization (SEO) consultant to tweak the firm’s website. Bodine says that a firm considering SEO should only go with someone they know or someone for whom they’ve gotten a referral. Bodine says he has never used an SEO consultant, but in any search on “law firm marketing,” his name appears on the first page. He does it by “publishing regularly and putting up original material.”

#NEGRO HATE GROUPS' DESTRUCTIVE HYPOCRISY ! @NewsMax

Exclusive: Mychal Massie points to organization's defense of Atlanta's cheating teachers

Published: 16 hours ago

image: http://www.wnd.com/files/2011/12/Mychal-Massie_avatar.jpg

 MYCHAL MASSIE

Some things just leave you incredulous. How else can it be said when it comes to the duplicitous standards of blacks pursuant to accountability? I have said it many times, and so I say again: Black people have a definition of right and wrong that is fluid and predicated completely upon skin color.

It matters very little to the majority of blacks what crime a black person commits or to whom a black person does harm, as long as said person is “keeping it real” and espouses the right heterodoxy. And few black groups personify this mentality more transpicuously than “The Black Star Project.”

In the second sentence of The Black Star Project mission statement we read: “Good teachers and administrators are invaluable to the educational process.” But as I observed earlier, when it comes to the mission of such groups, let there be no doubt that beneath the veneer of “just cause,” The Black Star Project is simply another “it’s because we’re black” and “the white man is out to get us” black hate group using skin color as a bludgeon.This Chicago-based organization is supposedly “committed to improving the quality of life in black and Latino communities of Chicago and nationwide by eliminating the racial academic achievement gap” – which, I argue, is simply code-speak used to extort money from industry and to blame whites for black underachievement.

They claim “good teachers and administrators are invaluable to the educational process,” but now that 11 of 12 former Atlanta public school teachers have been found guilty of conspiracy to cheat on student standardized tests, The Black Star Project is outraged. The 11 who were found guilty were some of the 35 educators indicted in March 2013. The defendants included former administrators, principals and teachers.

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2015/04/black-hate-groups-destructive-hypocrisy/#GdSt3o0Db3eBmJUY.99

#Law schools are losing relevance — and how they’re trying to win it back!

Maheen Kaleem, a recent Georgetown University Law Center graduate, wants to practice public interest law but said she didn’t enter law school with blinders on about the job market. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)

By Danielle Douglas-Gabriel April 20 at 9:03 PM  

Law schools across the country are facing their lowest enrollment numbers in years, causing some to slash their budgets and revamp their programs in an effort to attract students worried about finding a job in a diminished legal industry.

Nearly 46,000 people have applied so far to go to an accredited U.S. law school in the most recent admissions cycle, a figure that puts applications on track to hit just short of 53,000 total. By comparison, there were a total of 77,000 applicants in 2010 and 90,000 in 2004, according to the Law School Admission Council. Even top-ranked Harvard Law School witnessed a drop in applications before rebounding in the last two years.

Poor enrollment is hurting the bottom line at some schools. Washington and Lee’s School of Law said it plans to cut 12 positions, while Western Michigan University’s Thomas M. Cooley Law School delivered pink slips to more than half of its faculty and staff members last summer.

Going to law school used to feel like a no-brainer for college graduates seeking financial security. But that calculus has changed, with many firms that suffered during the recession still struggling to fully recover. Last month, Wiley Rein, one of the Washington area’s biggest law firms, cut 48 attorneys and staff members, an estimated 9 percent of its overall workforc

http://goo.gl/N2FNi0

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Handling Student Sexual Assault In K-12 Schools

Schools have LOVE - HATE Relitionship with #SOCIAL #MEDiA !

By STUART HIRSCH The Herald Bulletin

Posted on March 29, 2015 at 12:00 a.m.\

ANDERSON, Ind. (AP) — In addition to other issues educators face on any given day, there’s a new one on the list: whether drama caused by a snarky social media comment will play out in school hallways.

That apparently was the case in late January when four Highland Middle School got into a scuffle during lunch. Anderson police said it stemmed from comments made in a Facebook post.

Four students were arrested on charges ranging from disorderly conduct, to resisting arrest and battery. Three of the girls involved were released to guardians; a fourth was sent to the Madison County Youth Center. Their ages ranged from 13 to 15.

While the event cast Highland in a negative light, educators in other Madison County school districts said it just as easily could have been their school.

http://goo.gl/HI95ob

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#TCOT #CCOT Parents angry after school tells 13-year-olds they can have sex, choose gender

By Perry Chiaramonte

Published December 10, 2014

FoxNews.com

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Students at Acalanes High School in Northern California were given this gender identity chart in a sex ed class conducted by the local Planned Parenthood chapter.

Students at one northern California high school are learning more than just the birds and the bees.

Along with local area groups, some parents are irate that their children’s sex ed class at Acalanes High School in Lafayette is being taught by employees of Planned Parenthood without their prior knowledge. They are also fuming over the methods and materials being used, including a checklist that asks students if they are “ready for sex” and another worksheet that describes how to give and obtain consent, as well as a diagram that uses a "genderbread" person for lessons in gender identity.

“[Parents] are very concerned,” Brad Dacus, president of the Pacific Justice Institute, a non-profit legal organization that is assisting the concerned parents, told FoxNews.com. “Planned Parenthood is not exactly the best when it comes to putting young people first.

“They get more grants from the promiscuity of children,” he added. “The material they have provided was material that mirrored their agenda.”

“They get more grants from the promiscuity of children. The material they have provided was material that mirrored their agenda.”

- Brad Dacus, Pacific Justice Institute\

http://goo.gl/nfEMaa

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No school choice: Holder mandates schools must enroll children of illegal immigrants

Ingraham breaks story: Holder to hold Hillary...

Laura Ingraham, Hillary Clinton, Eric Holder, Benghazi, banks, money

By Kelly Riddell

-

The Washington Times

Thursday, May 8, 2014

• 
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  FILE - This April 8, 2014 file photo Attorney General Eric Holder ... more >

RELATED STORIES

• Republicans look to loosen penalties on illegal immigrants

Attorney General Eric Holder said Thursday that all schools must enroll illegal immigrants as students, citing “troubling reports” that some districts are discriminating against the children of undocumented parents.

“Public school districts have an obligation to enroll students regardless of immigration status and without discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin,” Mr. Holder said in a statement released Thursday by the Justice Department. He said the department will do “everything it can” to make sure schools meet this obligation.

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SEE ALSO: Republicans look to loosen penalties on illegal immigrants

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Mr. Holder was joined by Education Secretary Arne Duncan in issuing the new guidance to school administrators, telling them to be more flexible in accepting some documents from illegal parents and not to require others that may prove a child’s age and residence. The guidance is an update to earlier guidelines the Justice Department issued to school systems in 2011.

http://goo.gl/p6pjLV

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High school senior suing parents for college tuition

Peggy Wright, The (Morristown, N.J.) Daily Record7:23 a.m. EST March 3, 2014

Girl seeks emancipation, but wants to force parents to pay for her education.

MORRISTOWN, N.J. — An honor student and athlete who claims her parents threw her out of their home when she turned 18 has taken the highly unusual step of suing them for immediate financial support and to force them to pay for her collegeeducation.

Rachel Canning, a cheerleader and lacrosse player at Morris Catholic High School who has aspirations to be a biomedical engineer, filed a lawsuit last week in the Family Part of state Superior Court in Morristown that seeks a judge's declaration that she is nonemancipated and dependent as a student on her parents for support.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/03/03/student-sues-parents-college-tuition/5967279/?sf23474501=1

Meet Oppia, Google’s New Open Source Project That Allows Anyone To Create An Interactive Learning Experience

Posted 14 hours ago by Rip Empson (@ripemp)

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Google has become an increasingly active participant in the world of education, particularly when it comes to exploring the role technology can play in re-imagining the way we learn. WithGoogle Play for Education, Android and Play-powered Samsung tablets for the classroom and its work with
com/2013/09/10/google-expands-role-in-digital-education-teams-up-with-edx-to-build-a-youtube-for-free-online-courses/”>MOOCs and online courseware, the company is expanding its presence both in traditional academic spaces classroom and outside.

http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/26/meet-oppia-googles-new-open-source-project-that-lets-anyone-create-an-interactive-learning-experience/