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New international test scores show American students lagging behind in math and performing about average in science and reading. The Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development tests 15-year-olds around the world every three years as part of the Program for International Student Assessment. Half a million students in 65 countries participated in the most recent test, administered in 2012. The top average scores in each subject came from Shanghai, China's largest city and also from Singapore, South Korea, Japan, and Hong Kong. U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan called the results a "picture of educational stagnation." However, critics of the...

In a frank and stunning letter to parents, eight school principals from around the state of New York have expressed deep concerns about the validity and usefulness of new Common Core-aligned tests foisted on all public-school children in grades three through eight. The multi-million-dollar battery of high-stakes standardized tests has been designed by Pearson, a multinational education conglomerate, reports The Washington Post. In their lengthy letter, the group of principals warns that many children have experienced viscerally negative responses to the high-stakes tests. We know that many children cried during or after testing, and others vomited or lost control of...

Grand Rapids Public Schools is laying off teachers this year and will be using an evaluation system that takes performance — rather than seniority — into account, according to WOOD-TV. The local teachers union president is unhappy, calling the system "unfair and subjective." Previously, when school districts made layoffs in response to declining enrollment (Grand Rapids will be down about 700 students this year), they did so based strictly on longevity, ignoring how good teachers actually were at their jobs. And when districts had a problem teacher, even criminal, the tenure process made it nearly impossible to remove them. Recent...

MADISON — Sure, officials with the state Department of Instruction met with higher education stakeholders in crafting programs for college and career readiness as part of Common Core State Standards, but is that spectrum wide enough? Some educators don’t think so. Steffen Lempp, a professor of mathematics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an expert in training elementary and middle-school teachers, told Wisconsin Reporter that nobody came to him for input before signing on to Common Core. “They don’t come to the math department. They go to the school of education,” Lempp said. “They very rarely consult with the math...

The end to animal experimentation seems to be nearer than we could previously imagine. In 2008 three US federal government agencies, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the National Toxicology Program (NTP), signed a "Memorandum of Understanding" with the aim of ending animal testing of drugs and chemicals for human use. The realization of this ambitious plan will take years, but it's a start of historic importance, especially considering that the three agencies involved have been among animal testing's biggest funding bodies.This momentous agreement followed a 2007 report released by the world's most prestigious...

When it comes to approving new medical treatments, the Food and Drug Administration is balancing the need for patient safety against the urgency of making important new treatments available as quickly as possible. Some argue the FDA sets the bar too high, requiring a process that takes too much time and money to carry out. They say that can leave patients waiting longer than necessary for promising treatments or lead to drugs not being developed at all. But others counter that letting drugs on the market before it's known whether they truly help or hurt patients is a serious risk....

To borrow a line from Dennis Green, they are who we thought they were. From his hospital bed, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has acknowledged his role in planting the explosives near the marathon finish line on April 15, the officials said. The first successful large-scale bombing in the post-Sept. 11, 2001, era, the Boston attack killed three people and wounded more than 250 others.The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe an ongoing investigation, said Dzhokhar and his older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was killed by police as the two attempted to avoid capture, do not appear to have been...

...“I, along with 3 million educators across the country, proudly support our members’ efforts in saying ‘no’ to giving their students a flawed test that takes away from learning and is not aligned with the curriculum,” said National Education Association President Dennis van Roekel...

•EU watchdog reveals approval for GM foods fails to identify poisonous gene •54 of the 86 GM plants approved contain the dangerous gene •Gene found in food for farm animals producing meat, milk and eggs •Biotech supporters argue there is no evidence that GM foods are harmful A virus gene that could be poisonous to humans has been missed when GM food crops have been assessed for safety. GM crops such as corn and soya, which are being grown around the world for both human and farm animal consumption, include the gene. A new study by the EU’s official food...

The problem with measuring school districts has always been the trouble of making "apples-to-apples" comparisons for student achievement. For example, it is well-known that the students attending Detroit Public Schools have a low high school graduation rate and have scored poorly on standardized tests. But are these poor results because of the teachers and administrators in those schools? Or because the students being tested are from low-income households? For a long time, citizens and policymakers in Michigan have had a hard time knowing how well schools are actually educating their students. Until now. The Mackinac Center for Public Policy has...

Until the late 1980s, many, if not most, states and countries did not have defined academic "content standards." Instead they had a curriculum, a program of study that described what should be taught and often how in every grade. Some programs were regional, others were state or nationwide, and some even were local to a school or a district. In some states they were mandatory; in others they were advisory in nature. In the late 1980s — in part as the result of global competition, of recognition that different schools offered programs of widely differing quality and of the 1984...

No wonder Gov. Rick Scott and Education Commissioner Gerard Robinson have suggested in recent weeks they are ready to reassess the FCAT. After more than a decade of leading the national charge on school accountability, Florida on Wednesday released 2011-12 grades for public elementary and middle schools that were largely meaningless. The grades have been tweaked, adjusted and tweaked again. Even ardent supporters of the A+ plan appeared willing to concede that the process, which began with the ill-conceived grading of the state's FCAT writing test, has been a complete mess. Now leaders in Tallahassee should begin the serious discussion...

A U.S. supercomputer has won back the crown in the never-ending battle for the world's most powerful supercomputer. Its victory is the latest milestone marking the steady climb of computing power all across the globe. The Top500 industry list gave its No. 1 ranking to the Sequoia supercomputer housed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California — a spot earned by Sequoia's ability to crunch 16.32 quadrillion calculations per second (16.32 petaflops/s). Such supercomputing power is used by the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration to simulate nuclear weapons tests for older weapons that have been sitting in the U.S. arsenal....

This exam was given in 1931 by the West Virginia Department of Free Schools (now West Virginia Department of Education) to students seeking graduation from eighth grade. For many students, that was the last year of formal schooling. The exam is provided John N. Beall of Wilmington, NC, who received it from his father, the teacher who administered the test in a one-room school in Gilmer County, WV.

The following 8th-grade exit exam materials for Washington state in 1910....

When the passing rate for students taking the writing FCAT dropped to 30 percent this year, compared to 80 percent last year, the Florida Board of Education addressed the problem with typical aplomb: It changed the grading scale. Like magic, failure turned into success for tens of thousands of students. Of course, they can’t write any better than before, but that’s beside the point. The students passed the FCAT, didn’t they? So their schools’ letter-grade ratings won’t go down, and their self-esteem will remain intact. That’s what’s important, isn’t it? The high initial failure rate was due at least in...

Some Garden State parents are furious after learning their 3rd graders were asked during the New Jersey Assessment of Skills and Knowledge exam, NJ ASK, to disclose a secret about their lives – and why it’s hard to keep. Dr. Richard Goldberg – a Marlboro father of twin boys in the 3rd grade – says the youngsters were asked “The Secret” question, and ” I was kind of shocked because it was just a very – it was an outrageous question…to ask an 8-year-old, a 9-year-old to start revealing secrets in the middle of an exam – I thought was...

A study by Penn State researchers is being revised after test results apparently linking increased bromide in some water wells to Marcellus Shale gas drilling were traced instead to a lab error. An error notice was published on Nov. 22 on the website of the Center for Rural Pennsylvania, which funded the study and released it in late October. According to the notice, an accredited laboratory contracted by the researchers incorrectly reported the bromide concentration data that was used in the original report. Updated data showed that increased bromide levels were recorded in one of 42 water wells, not seven...

The stress was overwhelming. For years, this veteran teacher had received exemplary evaluations but now was feeling pressured to raise her students' test scores. Her principal criticized her teaching and would show up to take notes on her class. She knew the material would be used against her one day. "My principal told me right to my face that she — she was feeling sorry for me because I don't know how to teach," the instructor said. The Los Angeles educator, who did not want to be identified, is one of about three dozen in the state accused this year...

RESEDA, LOS ANGELES -- The scores are in for Southern California students who took the annual STAR exam. Despite cutbacks and layoffs, scores are up for the ninth straight year. They're at their highest levels since the testing began. At a 10th-grade physiology class at Reseda High School, reading and language skills are combined with mathematics, and there are improved results in the latest statewide Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) examinations given to nearly 5 million students in grades 2 through 11. "Despite the cuts we are seeing that kind of significant progress. It's been steady over the last nine...