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In August 2009, CBS News made a simple request of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for public documents, e-mails and other materials CDC used to communicate to states the decision to stop testing individual cases of Novel H1N1, or “swine flu.” When the public affairs folks at CDC refused to produce the documents and quit responding to my queries altogether, I filed a formal Freedom of Information (FOI) request for the materials. Members of the news media are entitled to expedited access, which I requested, since this was for a pending news report and on an issue of...

By John Gever, Senior Editor Military doctors can use a portable polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing device to diagnose novel H1N1 flu infections in troops overseas, the FDA announced. The emergency authorization was approved "to better protect our troops," said FDA Commissioner Margaret A. Hamburg, MD, in a statement. The device, called JBAIDS (Joint Biological Agent Identification and Diagnostic System), is a rugged, suitcase-sized instrument that can run PCR-based molecular diagnostic tests. It has been under development for several years by a consortium of military health research centers, the CDC, and academic medical laboratories. The development program began in the...

“Homeschooling is the sleeping giant of the American education system,” is the opening line of a recent article by Washington Post education columnist Jay Mathews. He’s right. He’s also right when he says, “All surveys of home-schooled students so far indicate they have higher achievement rates on average than regular students,” and when he dismisses the claim that homeschoolers might not be properly socialized by saying, “Homeschoolers go outside often and get just as big a dose of pain and joy and ignorance and wisdom as regular school kids.” Where Mathews goes wrong is his support for a recommendation by...

This year's Harry & Louise looks pretty effective.

A gathering at an Atlanta elementary school last summer planted the seeds for a cheating scandal. Fifth-graders from five public schools had attended summer classes together at Deerwood Academy in southwestern Atlanta. Then they all had retaken the standardized test each had failed in the spring: the math portion of the Criterion-Referenced Competency Test, or CRCT. Officials from the five schools came to Deerwood to collect answer sheets from their respective students and send them off for automated grading. But state investigators say the test papers from one group of students apparently took a detour. When the results came back,...

Locker Room Bell Curve by: Deborah Lambert, April 27, 2009 A recent study by a Swarthmore College economist showed that students may perform worse on exams if they “think about their jock identities before they take the test.” Researcher Thomas Dee asked athletes about their sports activities before they answered a series of Graduate Record exam questions. Results showed that the “pre-test reminders of their athletic identities hurt the athletes’ test performance by up to nine percentage points,” according to the Chronicle of Higher Education. Stereotype threat is apparently a hot topic in some circles, which “suggests that anxiety can...

I've been having digestive problems and am going in for an abdominal CAT scan tomorrow morning. Please pray for me. Thanks and God Bless!

THE Melbourne Catholic Church has embraced a Vatican recommendation to test potential priests for sexual orientation. Under the guidelines, potential priests who "appear" to be gay must be banned. The head of the Vatican committee that made the recommendations has made it clear celibate gays should also be banned because homosexuality is ‘‘a type of deviation’’. Archdiocese of Melbourne spokesman James O’Farrell confirmed Carlton’s Corpus Christi Catholic seminary had started adhering to the guidelines, but refused to comment further.

The Los Angeles teachers union and the city's school district are battling over a district practice that, a Times' analysis suggests, contributes to higher scores on state tests. The practice is "periodic assessments," a bureaucratic name for exams administered by the Los Angeles Unified School District. The goal is to give teachers insight into what students need to learn while there remains time in the current school year to adjust instruction.The union Tuesday directed teachers to refuse to give them to students on the grounds that the tests are costly and counterproductive. But there could be a downside. The...

CAIRO (AFP) – Arabs were hopeful on Wednesday that President Barack Obama will amend US policy on the Middle East, while Israel expects little change in the wake of its deadly assault on Gaza. Egypt, a close Washington ally with ties both to Israel and Palestinians, urged Obama to place the Palestinian cause at the top of his agenda as the Islamist Hamas faction said it will judge Obama by his acts. "We will judge him by his policies and actions on the ground and how he will learn lessons from the mistakes of the previous administrations, especially that of...

No Loophole Left Behind by: Bethany Stotts, October 09, 2008 Just as the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act was passed under bipartisan leadership, so too criticisms of its flawed structure span the gambit of political persuasions. As previously documented, opposition to the NCLB provisions on annual yearly progress (AYP) and school sanctions have raised significant ire from some conservative policy analysts such as Michael J. Petrilli and CATO’s Neal McClusky, as well as representatives from the progressive National Education Association (NEA). Daniel Koretz, Harvard Professor of Education and author of Measuring Up: What Educational Testing Really Tells Us, recently...

For the second consecutive year, SAT scores for the most recent high school graduating class remained at the lowest level in nearly a decade, according to results released Tuesday. But the College Board, which owns the exam, attributes the lower averages of late to a more positive development: a broader array of students are taking the test, from more first-generation college students to a record number of students — nearly one in seven — whose family income qualifies them to take the test for free.

President Bush has often spoken about education reform as a civil rights issue. So we're not entirely surprised to see civil rights groups now defending the No Child Left Behind law against attempts to gut its most effective provisions. Last month, Representative Sam Graves, a Missouri Republican, introduced the NCLB Recess Until Reauthorization Act, which would essentially suspend the law's accountability provisions but not the funding. Under Mr. Graves's bill, schools would no longer have to file progress reports that expose achievement gaps between kids of different races, ethnicities and socioeconomic backgrounds. Since NCLB passed in 2002, minority parents in...

Students are performing better on state reading and math tests since enactment of the landmark No Child Left Behind law six years ago, according to an independent study [by the District-based Center on Education Policy] released yesterday.[snip]Because standards vary from state to state, some analysts have questioned the reliability of state tests as a gauge of academic performance. The study, which included data from 50 states, found that achievement on state reading and math exams has improved in most of them. The trend is largely mirrored on national exams, the study found, although the gains tend to be smaller. One...

His experience reflects a challenge felt in classrooms nationwide. Six years after the No Child Left Behind law was enacted, the lowest-performing students continue to improve while children in the top tier have hit a plateau, according to a report due out Wednesday. The findings renew concerns about how schools challenge their brightest students at a time when federal law, backed by sanctions and financial consequences, forces many districts to focus time and money on students at the bottom rung of the academic ladder.

The city of New Haven, Connecticut, went to great lengths to devise a firefighter test that would not have "disparate impact" on minority applicants, but when the results of the 2003 test-taking came in, applying the city's "Rule of Three" which required selection from among the highest scorers, "no blacks and at most two Hispanics would have been eligible for promotion to captain and no blacks or Hispanics would have been eligible to make lieutenant". So the city civil service board vacated the results, frankly acknowledging that it was in search of better minority hiring numbers. White applicants sued and...

For Massachusetts’ worst public schools, failure is not an option. Literally. The Department of Education is considering a request to drop the label “underperforming” for failing schools in places like Randolph, Lawrence and Holyoke. Instead Massachusetts would declare these schools “Commonwealth Priority” institutions. For those institutions that truly excel at incompetence, currently known as “Chronically Underperforming,” the new title would be “Priority One” schools. You can just imagine the delight in the hallways of Lawrence High. “Our school’s a ‘Commonwealth Priority!’ I wish I could spell that.” “Don’t worry, they’re going to grade our spelling tests on the ‘Commonwealth Curve’...

Subject: Devotional "Genuine Faith" Date: Feb 19, 2008 9:53 AM 1 Peter 1:7 "So that the genuineness of your faith, which is much more precious than gold which perishes though it is tested by fire - nevertheless might be found unto praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ." The Psalmist tells us that the Word is "more to be desired than gold, even much fine gold" and that "he loves the commandments above gold, above fine gold." It is common knowledge that gold is tested by fire in order to bring about the genuine evidence of...

RALEIGH - A state commission agreed today on a draft report saying “there is too much time spent on testing” and that several exams should be eliminated or no longer counted in the state’s testing program. The Blue Ribbon Commission on Testing and Accounting agreed to recommend to the state Board of Education that the fourth-, seventh- and 10th-grade writing tests and the eighth-grade computer skills tests be eliminated. The commission also agreed that the number of end-of-course exams used to measure how high schools are doing in the state testing program be cut from 10 to five. They no...

     Could a strange substance found by an Ark-La-Tex man be part of secret government testing program?  That's the question at the heart of a phenomenon called "Chemtrails."  In a KSLA News 12 investigation, Reporter Jeff Ferrell shows us the results of testing we had done about what's in our skies.     "It seemed like some mornings it was just criss-crossing the whole sky.  It was just like a giant checkerboard," described Bill Nichols.  He snapped several photos of the strange clouds from his home in Stamps, in southwest Arkansas.  Nichols said these unusual clouds begin as normal contrails from a jet engine.  But...

"[Rowan's] been on this planet for 18 months, and he's loaded with a chemical I've never heard of," Holland, 37, said. "He had two to three times the level of flame retardants in his body that's been known to cause thyroid dysfunction in lab rats." The technology to test for these flame retardants -- known as polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) -- and other industrial chemicals is less than 10 years old. Environmentalists call it "body burden" testing, an allusion to the chemical "burden," or legacy of toxins, running through our bloodstream. Scientists refer to this testing as "biomonitoring." Most Americans...

TUCSON, Ariz. – Defense contractor Boeing Co. has told the government it believes it has solved most of the problems that have delayed use of the first section of a high-tech “virtual fence” along the nation's borders for months. U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials, however, said they'll wait until acceptance testing now set for late October is done before passing judgment. The 28-mile section of fence along the U.S.-Mexico border in southern Arizona is the first of thousands of miles planned on the nation's southern and northern borders. Boeing personnel who briefed federal officials “sounded real optimistic” about the...

The Michigan Department of Agriculture inspectors were back at Greg Niewendorp’s Michigan farm this morning to gauge the results of their test for bovine tuberculosis administered Monday, and he says they found two cattle that had positive responses.

The Michigan Department of Agriculture at long last force-tested and tagged Greg Niewendorp’s twenty head of cattle today. About twenty supporters and six media representatives were in attendance, Charlevoix County Sheriff George Lasater told me late this afternoon.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Researchers have figured out how to give an entire community a drug test using just a teaspoon of wastewater from a city's sewer plant. The test wouldn't be used to finger any single person as a drug user. But it would help federal law enforcement and other agencies track the spread of dangerous drugs, like methamphetamines, across the country. Oregon State University scientists tested 10 unnamed American cities for remnants of drugs, both legal and illegal, from wastewater streams. They were able to show that they could get a good snapshot of what people are taking.

Recently released statistics show the 2006 average ACT composite score for homeschooled students was 22.4, compared to the national average composite of 21.1! Now homeschoolers have an unbroken record for the last 10 years—since 1996, when testing officials started tracking them—of scoring higher on the ACT than the national average. For example, the 2005 average ACT composite score for homeschooled students was 22.5, compared to the national average of 20.9. The 8,075 homeschool graduates who took the ACT in 2005 comprised about 1 percent of all those who took the college entrance exam. The 1996 ACT results showed that in...

Before Mayor Bloomberg starts shelling out money to high school juniors for passing their New York State Regents exams, he would do well to bring as much scrutiny to the content of these tests as he does to the quantity of trans fats in restaurant food. People who took their Regents exams 30 years ago assume that the current version of the tests is essentially the same. They would be stunned to learn how dumbed-down the tests have become. You might say that the American history Regents gives new meaning to the term “E-Z Pass.” The test has three components:...

For most high school students who want to attend an elite college, the SAT is more than a test. It is one of life’s landmarks. Waiting for the scores—one for verbal, one for math, and now one for writing, with a possible 800 on each—is painfully suspenseful. The exact scores are commonly remembered forever after. ... The pivotal analysis was published in 2001 by the University of California (UC), which requires all applicants to take both the SAT and achievement tests (three of them at the time the data were gathered: reading, mathematics, and a third of the student’s choosing)....

Phoenix—The just-released Arizona State Report Card says that “Arizona students perform above the national average” on national tests. But a new study from the Goldwater Institute exposes several flaws in the Arizona student testing system that cast doubt on the reliability of that claim. The Report Card states that a national test called the TerraNova shows Arizona students perform above the national average. But, the Goldwater Institute study, A Test of Credibility: NAEP versus TerraNova Test Score Results in Arizona, reveals that Arizona students take a modified version of TerraNova, which means their test scores cannot be accurately compared to...

A large clinical study meant to test the heart safety of the diabetes treatment Avandia may be in jeopardy as a result of recent reports of the drug’s risks, according to an executive at its maker, GlaxoSmithKline. Dr. Ronald L. Krall, the medical director for GlaxoSmithKline, said in a telephone interview yesterday that some of the 4,450 patients enrolled in the drug trial, called Record, have dropped out this week because of safety concerns about Avandia. Dr. Krall said he did not yet know how many patients have withdrawn, but said Glaxo was now worried about whether it could complete...

FORT WORTH — Students who had been planning to walk across the stage at graduation ceremonies this weekend were instead walking a picket line Thursday morning. The Trimble Tech High School seniors marched in front of Fort Worth Independent School District headquarters to protest Wednesday's decision by trustees to bar students who failed the TAKS test from commencement exercises. About a dozen young people, carrying signs and chanting, began picketing at 8:30 a.m. Thursday. They represent the 613 Fort Worth seniors who did not pass the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills exam

The number of eighth graders reading at grade level or above in New York State climbed impressively this year for the first time since 1999, when the state adopted tougher educational standards and its modern testing system, according to scores released yesterday from the annual statewide English exam. The eighth-grade results showed the most clear-cut advances in a year in which students in all tested grades, third through eighth, demonstrated better reading ability, including overall gains by students in New York City, where Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has made education a cornerstone of his administration. The results were complicated, however,...

I watched the Democrat debate yesterday evening, not so much to learn something new, but because I have the innate curse of enjoying political speeches, even if those speeches grind against the very pit of my soul in both substance and concept. The majority of the debate uncovered no real surprises, but one particular answer to a question about drug testing sticks in my mind. The answer that Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd gave to a question about drug testing welfare recipients strikes hard at the very nature of the rampant disability and aggressive disease that infects the modern Democrat party,...

D.C. Councilman Jim Graham has introduced a bill that end a D.C. Department of Motor Vehicles requirement for periodic drivers' tests for older motorists. Graham says he's gotten a lot of complaints about the written and road tests now required of drivers after age 75. The special tests are required every five years when older drivers try to renew their licenses. Graham says he's not sure the tests serve a useful purpose. Some elderly drivers have complained about needing to memorize driving rules from DMV manuals in the weeks before they show up for retesting. The District also requires drivers...

WASHINGTON -- The story of the new Congress is actually two stories. Democratic leaders and their grass-roots supporters will decide in the coming days which narrative will prevail. In January, Democrats dominated the news, the public agenda and the Republicans. In the last weeks of February, the Republicans came back -- not by offering grand proposals but by using the limited tools they have to prove that Democrats don't have enough power, yet, to end the war in Iraq.

States are racing to the bottom. As federal “proficiency requirements” approach 100% in 2014, the correct number of questions required to score proficient on state education tests like AIMS is getting lower and lower. In the process, we are losing transparency in public schools. This phenomenon can be seen in the birthplace of NCLB: Texas. Below are the scores on the Texas version of AIMS, TAKS, from Bridge Point Elementary near Austin. The results are similar to other reasonably high-performing elementary schools across the state, that is student passing rates cluster near 100%. Can Bridgepoint administrators use this information to...

There's a big change coming for pregnant women: Down syndrome testing no longer hinges on whether they're older or younger than 35. This week, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists begins recommending that every pregnant woman, regardless of age, be offered a choice of tests for this common birth defect. The main reason: Tests far less invasive than the long-used amniocentesis are now widely available, some that can tell in the first trimester the risk of a fetus having Down syndrome or other chromosomal defects. It's a change that promises to decrease unnecessary amnios - giving mothers-to-be peace of...

WASHINGTON - Republicans decided long ago their party won't pay a significant price at the polls for the scandal spawned by lobbyist Jack Abramoff. It's a proposition likely to be tested anew in the aftermath of Rep. Bob Ney (news, bio, voting record)'s agreement to plead guilty to corruption charges. Within minutes of the disclosure of Ney's signed plea bargain papers on Friday, House Democrats circulated a list meant to suggest guilt by association. It highlighted the names of more than 60 Republican incumbents who have accepted political donations from the six-term lawmaker. "Americans are ready for a new direction...

A MEDICAL journal in March published a study suggesting that drinking coffee can raise the risk of heart attack, but only for people with a gene that makes them slow metabolizers of caffeine. Experts called the finding intriguing, but said it needed to be validated by others and its health implications better understood. Still, Consumer Genetics, a company formed only a month earlier, is already advertising a genetic test that purports to tell consumers whether they can continue to enjoy their morning jolt. That is how fast things can move in the rapidly expanding, chaotic and largely unregulated world of...

There is no drug-testing policy on the PGA Tour, and when Tiger Woods called for one this week at the Bridgestone Invitational, no one should have been surprised, according to Woods' agent, Mark Steinberg of IMG. "There's a lot out there right now, with BALCO, the cycling and the sprinters, so what he's saying is, 'Start with golf, start with me. I'm clean and I think the sport's clean,' " Steinberg said Friday. " 'If people are speculating about golf, let's get it over now.' "

Average composite scores on the exam, which measures students' readiness for college-level work, rose to 21.1 from 20.9 last year. Both boys and girls posted gains, as did all racial groups except Hispanics, whose scores held steady. ACT scores range from 1 to 36. Officials at the independent, nonprofit ACT said an increase of 0.2 points is significant when considered across a record 1.2 million test-takers nationwide, or 40 percent of graduating seniors. "It takes an enormous amount of change for that large a group to move even a little bit, particularly when that group is changing and we're seeing...

WASHINGTON -- Fourth graders in traditional public schools are doing better in both reading and math than students in charter schools, the government says in a report fueling fresh debate over school choice. Tuesday's report said fourth graders in regular public schools scored an average of 5.2 points better in reading than students in charter schools on the 2003 National Assessment of Educational Progress test. Students in traditional schools scored an average of 5.8 points better in math.

More than a decade after the city created a special institute to prepare black and Hispanic students for the mind-bendingly difficult test that determines who gets into New York’s three most elite specialized high schools, the percentage of such students has not only failed to rise, it has declined. The drop at Stuyvesant High School, the Bronx High School of Science and Brooklyn Technical High School mirrors a trend recently reported at three of the City University of New York’s five most prestigious colleges, where the proportion of black students has dropped significantly in the six years since rigorous admissions...

Former President Ford was admitted to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., on Tuesday for "testing and evaluation," his office said in a statement. The statement gave no further details on why the 93-year-old former chief executive went to the clinic. "No further releases or updates are anticipated prior to early next week," said the statement issued from his office in Beaver Creek, Colo. Ford also has a home in Rancho Mirage, Calif. No other information was released by the clinic. "I can verify that the statement is correct and I have no other additional information," said John Murphy, the...

Ordered by the federal government to improve its testing of students who speak limited English, New York State said yesterday that all children enrolled in school in the United States for at least a year would be required to take the state’s regular English Language Arts exam. The test is given annually in the third through eighth grades. State officials said the decision would require about 90,000 children who speak limited English to take the regular exam in January. Students will continue to take the state’s math, social studies and science tests in a variety of foreign languages, officials said....

The trial of a new drug in a London hospital that nearly killed six men three months ago and left them in intensive care for weeks has prompted numerous reports and recommendations that will change the way drugs are tested. But the six men, who were all young and healthy just months ago, now suffer from serious medical problems, and they have been unable to get any of the drug companies involved in the trial to cover their medical expenses, or provide compensation — other than a one-time payment of under $20,000 apiece. In recent weeks, lab tests and medical...

The Agriculture Department said yesterday that it would scale back testing for mad cow disease by about 90 percent, saying the number of infected animals was far too low to justify the current level of surveillance. “It’s time that our surveillance efforts reflect what we now know is a very, very low level of B.S.E. in the United States,” Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said as he announced the new testing program for the disease, bovine spongiform encephalopathy. After the disease was found in a Canadian-born dairy cow in Washington in December 2003, the department tested more than 759,000 animals over...

Flight Lessons ON June 11, 1957, the Atlas, America's first Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, took its inaugural flight from Cape Canaveral in Florida. It lasted 24 seconds. The missile roared off the launching pad and soared to about 10,000 feet before its engines failed. Tumbling out of control, the rocket fell through its own trail of fire before the safety officer on the ground sent a radio signal that told the wayward rocket to blow itself up. The rocket's designers, though disappointed, learned a lot. It was clear that, despite the pummeling the Atlas took as it careered out of control,...

Crouching down to take a closer look, Rossi inspects the dropping left by the large sea duck and then carefully dabs at the greenish mound with a swab before breaking off the tip into a plastic vial. "He laid a fresh one there. We really want the freshest stuff," said Rossi, Alaska district supervisor for the USDA's wildlife services. The swab of eider dropping is one of 50,000 such field samples from wild birds that federal and local agencies aim to collect in America this year and test for the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu. Officials also want another...

Colleges across the country are reporting a drop in SAT scores this year. I've been tutoring students in New York City for the SAT since 1989, and I have watched the numbers rise and fall. This year, though, the scores of my best students dropped about 50 points total in the math and verbal portions of the test (each on a scale of 200 to 800). Colleges and parents are wondering: Is there something wrong with the new test? Or are our children not being taught what they should know? Before 1994, the verbal section of the SAT was about...