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Gov. Scott Walker and the state schools superintendent unveiled a task force's recommendations Wednesday for how Wisconsin might ensure that every child can read by the end of the third grade, including testing incoming kindergarteners' reading proficiency, providing teachers with more training opportunities and holding teachers to higher standards. Walker formed the Read to Lead task force in March after reading tests showed Wisconsin students were falling behind students in other states. He and state Superintendent Tony Evers unveiled the recommendations at a public school in the Milwaukee suburb of Greendale. They called the recommendations an "aggressive plan to improve...

Scores on the critical reading portion of the SAT college entrance exam fell three points to their lowest level on record last year, and combined reading and math scores reached their lowest point since 1995. The College Board, which released the scores Wednesday, said the results reflect the record number of students from the high school class of 2011 who took the exam and the growing diversity of the test-taking pool -- particularly Hispanics. As more students aim for college and take the exam, it tends to drag down average scores. Still, while the three-point decline to 497 may look...

Orly, France - An airport in France is experimenting with "virtual" boarding agents in a bid to jazz up its terminals with 21st century avatars who always smile, don't need breaks and never go on strike. The pilot project at Paris' Orly airport began last month, and has so far been met with a mix of amusement and surprise by travelers, who frequently try to touch and speak with the strikingly life-like video images that greet them and direct them to their boarding gate. The images materialize seemingly out of thin air when a boarding agent -- a real live

Georgia attorney general releases 800-plus page report detailing cheating scandal at Atlanta public schools. Teachers, school administrators and principals were directly involved with various efforts – including outright cheating and changing student answers – to increase the Atlanta school systems student performance scores. Some even held “erasure parties” on weekends to change answers. The report stated that children were denied special-educational assistance because their falsely reported CRCT scores were too high, and during testing, teachers pointed to the correct answer while standing at students’ desks. According to the report, Parks Middle School had the most educators accused of cheating under...

Link only - Health fair at Black Expo event offers free tests

Dozens of Atlanta public school educators falsified standardized tests or failed to address such misconduct in their schools, Gov. Nathan Deal said Tuesday in unveiling the results of a state investigation that confirmed widespread cheating in the city schools dating as far back as 2001. "I think the overall conclusion was that testing and results and targets being reached became more important than actual learning for children," Deal said. "And when reaching targets became the goal, it was a goal that was pursued with no excuses." Falsifying test results made the schools appear to be performing better than they really...

(JTA) -- Iran reportedly tested medium- and long-range missiles that are capable of reaching Israel and U.S. bases. Tuesday's firing of the missiles came on the second day of the Revolutionary Guards' war games. The day before, Iran's military displayed on national television underground missile silos programmed to hit predetermined targets with medium- and long-range missiles, including Israel and U.S. bases in the Middle East, in the event of an attack. Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, commander of the Revolutionary Guards Air Force, told the English-language semi-official Iranian news service Fars that the United States and Israel were Iran's only enemies,...

And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.(I John 5:11-13)The letter of the apostle John is all about clarity.His burden is to let christians know what is what and who...

Obama: Measure students with more than testsThe Associated Press March 28, 2011 Updated: 11:13 pm WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama said Monday that students should take fewer standardized tests and school performance should be measured in other ways than just exam results. Too much testing makes education boring for children, he said. **SNIP** Latino students make up one in five of all students in prekindergarten through high school in the U.S. but lag far behind whites in educational attainment, with less than one in three graduating from high school, according to federal Education Department figures. Obama emphasized to his largely...

Bills would require welfare applicants to take, pay for drug testsTHE ASSOCIATED PRESS By WILLIAM MARCH | The Tampa Tribune Updated: 03/24/2011 12:05 pm TALLAHASSEE - Bills are advancing in both houses of the Florida Legislature requiring applicants for welfare benefits to take and pay for drug tests, despite Democratic and even some Republican opposition. In House committee hearing Wednesday, the bill's sponsor revised it to make it tougher, applying to all applicants, not just those with criminal records for drug offenses. That brings it in line with the Senate version of the bill, which already applied to all applicants,...

Glenn Beck One positive from all the medical tests: giant milkshakes! See you tomorrow on radio and TV!

Special Hizbullah units in Iran have successfully launched and tested a new Iranian missile "Fatah 110," according to a report over the weekend by Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Rai, Channel 2 news reported. According to the report, the Iranian missile, which was displayed with great pride in Teheran less than a month ago, has a maximum range of 200 kilometers. This means it is capable of reaching Jerusalem and Ashdod if it was to be launched from the Israel-Lebanon border.

If test scores look too good to be true, they probably are. “Yet another test-tampering scandal has erupted, this time involving teachers at Normandy Crossing Elementary School in suburban Houston, Texas,” Sarah McIntosh reported in the September 2010 issue of School Reform News. “When test results came back, many were amazed at astonishing improvement in state science test scores.” “The scores were so good, Galena Park Independent School District officials decided to launch an investigation. As a result, Normandy Crossing’s principal, assistant principal, and three teachers resigned in late May.” “The Texas teachers reportedly put together a study guide to...

The fifth-graders at Broadous Elementary School come from the same world — the poorest corner of the San Fernando Valley, a Pacoima neighborhood framed by two freeways where some have lost friends to the stray bullets of rival gangs. Many are the sons and daughters of Latino immigrants who never finished high school, hard-working parents who keep a respectful distance and trust educators to do what's best. The students study the same lessons. They are often on the same chapter of the same book. Yet year after year, one fifth-grade class learns far more than the other down the hall....

Tel Aviv University (TAU) researchers have discovered that routine blood tests can provide an early warning for colorectal cancer. Anemia, a common blood disorder characterized by low hemoglobin levels, has long been associated with those suffering from colorectal cancer. It doesn't happen suddenly, however - and Tel Aviv University researchers say they have found that gradually decreasing hemoglobin levels can actually indicate a potential for colon cancer years in advance. Graduate student Inbal Goldshtein, who works with Dr. Gabriel Chodick and Dr. Varda Shalev of TAU's School of Public Health and Maccabi Healthcare Services' Department of Medical Informatics, says that...

Says lower IQ rates will help it deal with smaller U.S. talent poolThe U.S. has arguably been the most desirable place in the world to get a college education with international students from China, India, Japan, and others all traveling to the U.S. with that express purpose. However, there's serious signs of trouble; U.S. citizens' college graduation rates are in danger of falling behind China. Japanese enrollment is down as U.S. universities are slowly falling out of favor. And at least one executive of an Indian firm complained that American graduates were "unemployable". Adding to the list of awkward statistics...

Obama has decided to pre-announce to the world once-secret American ballistic missile tests and satellite launches. The Democratic administration's goal is to show a friendlier face to other countries and to coax Russia to do the same. It's part of a confidence-boosting initiative launched, so to speak, last fall when Obama suddenly abandoned the U.S. missile-defense system in Eastern Europe that had exercised the Russians, though it was aimed at potential future missiles from Iran. Obama hoped such a unilateral U.S. forfeiture would encourage Russia to put pressure on Iran to halt its nuclear weapons development. So far no good...

One night in August, the Taliban stormed a local police station in this once-peaceful province and shot dead the governor's younger brother. Since then, the governor has singled out a culprit: The German military, which he says refused to send a helicopter to rescue his brother as he bled to death. "I called them and they said that wasn't a mission they could do," said Gov. Mohammad Omar. "They don't like to go out at night." German officials said there was no way they could have saved his brother. They offered their condolences, and said the death is just one...

Three educators give their views on exams Susan Greenfield, professor of synaptic pharmacology at Lincoln College, Oxford, and director of the Royal Institution "Back when I went to Oxford, the entrance exams for women were different. The one for Oxford I found most challenging was the general classics paper. It was a 3.5 hour paper – you had half an hour to think ,then one hour for each question. I still remember one of the questions – 'compare the ideas of empire in Greece and Rome'. That was a real high jump intellectually. Exams are good things. They prepare you...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House says its high-profile garden on the South Lawn has tested positive for lead although it is not at dangerous levels. White House spokeswoman Katie McCormick-Lelyveld said Thursday that tests on the soil in the White House garden detected lead levels of 93 parts per million. Soil is considered unsafe for growing vegetables when it reaches more than 500 parts per million.

Eight years after Congress passed the No Child Left Behind Act, American 9- and 13-year-olds are doing measurably better on standardized tests. Good news? Not necessarily. The New York Times report on NCLB carries the headline " 'No Child' Law Is Not Closing a Racial Gap." Fair enough. If the law is helping white kids but doing nothing for blacks, that doesn't seem right. Only that isn't what's happening, as you learn from reading the actual report: The achievement gap between white and minority students has not narrowed in recent years, despite the focus of the No Child Left Behind...

The so-called stress tests will determine whether the banks need more government bailout money and the $700-billion rescue fund needs to be replenished. Releasing too much information could undermine the banks' health -- the very thing that the administration is trying to avoid, experts said. Revealing too little after weeks of buildup would cast doubt on the process and create a vacuum in which investors and depositors would make their own assumptions, possibly leading to runs on the weakest banks. ...Bert Ely, an independent banking analyst. "It's clear they didn't think through how this was going to play out." The...

Charleston, S.C. - ... Somehow, [Principal MiShawna] Moore had transformed one of Charleston’s worst schools into one of its best, a rare breakthrough in a city where the state has deemed more than half the schools unsatisfactory. It seemed almost too good to be true. It may have been. The state has recently started a criminal investigation into test scores at Ms. Moore’s school, seeking to determine whether a high number of erasure marks on the tests indicates fraud. Ms. Moore, who has denied any wrongdoing, has taken a job out of state, leaving behind hurt feelings and wounded pride...

Talking to [NPR], Melody Barnes, a spokeswoman for Mr. Obama’s campaign, said recently that Mr. Obama supports “portfolio assessment” of student performance. Portfolio assessment usually requires a student to perform various classroom assignments, like write essays, do individual projects, participate in group projects. These assignments are put into a portfolio for that student and evaluated. In a debate earlier this month, Linda Darling-Hammond, education adviser to Mr. Obama, pointed to other countries where students are assessed based on “kids doing science inquiries, research papers, technology products.” Portfolio-assessment supporters claim that this method gives a broader view of a student’s knowledge...

Teaching to students' minds, not just to the test VIRGINIA BEACH After two years of quiet planning, the superintendent of schools has unveiled his vision. Jim Merrill wants to overhaul teaching and focus on critical thinking instead of test preparation. For the past decade, the state's public schools have adjusted teaching to fit Standards of Learning tests, the yardstick used to measure school performance. "You could pass SOLs and still fail a kid," Merrill said. His new direction is the key idea behind a six-year plan. The School Board will consider a draft at its annual retreat this weekend. To...

DNA Tests Confirm IDs of Russian Tsar's ChildrenMike Eckel in Moscow, Russia Associated PressApril 30, 2008 DNA tests carried out by a U.S. laboratory prove that remains exhumed last year belong to two children of Tsar Nicholas II, putting to rest questions about what happened to Russia's last royal family, a regional governor said Wednesday. The bone fragments dug up are those of Crown Prince Alexei and his sister, Maria, whose remains had been missing since the family was murdered in 1918 as Russia descended into civil war, said Eduard Rossel, governor of the Sverdlovsk region (see map of Russia)....

The "safety" argument can be extended so that pretty much anything is justified. The New York Department of Agriculture and Markets has in the last few weeks helped demonstrate the problem more vividly than any of us ever could imagine, though. While the agency has been preparing its legal arguments over the last few weeks in preparation for trying to throw Barb and Steve Smith into jail for insisting on proper search warrant protection, Ag and Markets has quietly been playing another game with two other New York raw milk farmers, Jerry Snyder and Chuck Phippen—depriving them of their right...

The Oxford laboratory that declared the Turin Shroud to be a medieval fake 20 years ago is investigating claims that its findings were wrong.The head of the world-renowned laboratory has admitted that carbon dating tests it carried out on Christendom's most famous relic may be inaccurate.   Carbon dating tests carried out 20 years ago on the Shroud of Turin suggested that the relic was a forgery Professor Christopher Ramsey, the director of the Oxford University Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, said he was treating seriously a new theory suggesting that contamination had skewed the results. Though he stressed that he would...

So my downstairs neighbor is a rather elderly black woman originally from New Orleans. She apparently believes that when calling long distance she needs to go out on her balcony and shout. In the rare conversations that we have had in passing, I can tell that she is a fervent believer. And yet, whenever she talks on the phone about her life (nephew arrested again for selling crack, husband jailed on yet another DUI) she always ends her anecdotes with "I know the good Lord is just testing me, and that with faith I can get through it". While I...

AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CHARLESTON, a not-exactly-selective institution on the banks of the Kanawha River in the capital city of West Virginia, incoming students take a standardized test designed to measure reasoning and writing skills and then take the test again after sophomore year and once again as seniors — to see if their education is doing them any good. Courses are constructed around a series of defined “liberal learning outcomes” like critical thinking and creativity, and if the students’ work shows that many of them aren’t hitting the outcomes, the teachers go back to the drawing board. Ditto with...

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:...

A new study says that on average, more than half of the ink from inkjet cartridges is wasted when users toss them in the garbage. Why is that interesting? According to the study, users are tossing the cartridges when their printers are telling them they're out of ink, not when they necessarily are out of ink. The study by TÜV Rheinland looked at inkjet efficiency across multiple brands, including Epson (who commissioned the study), Lexmark, Canon, HP, Kodak, and Brother. They studied the efficiency of both single and multi-ink cartridges. Espon's printers were among the highest rated, at more than...

SDI: If missile defense technology is so "untested and unreliable," as Democrats keep telling us, why are the tech-savvy Japanese so hot for it? One of the major criticisms Democrats have of the various national missile defense programs is that the tests thus far allegedly have been scripted, not representing real-life missile combat conditions, with the results mixed and unconvincing. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, says the operational testing is unconvincing. Over on the House side, seven Democrats, in a letter sent to former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, complained of "tests that have been highly scripted...

Benefit cheats face telephone lie detector tests By George Jones, Political Editor Last Updated: 2:54pm BST 05/04/2007 What is voice-risk analysis? How to beat a lie detector test Lie detector technology will be used by the Government to help identify and deter benefit cheats, John Hutton, Work and Pensions Secretary, announced today. Lie detector test technology has moved on significantly in recent years Voice-risk analysis (VRA) software, already used by the insurance industry, will be used to monitor telephone calls by claimants. It can detect minute changes in a caller's voice which give clues as to when they may be...

How Important Are Tests? by Ed Snyder March 20th, 2007 Cheating Yesterday, I was on one of the OpenDiary boards where a public school teacher was lamenting that it seems to have become a socially acceptable practice for students to cheat. This got me thinking quite a bit about the topic of cheating. My actual reply was as follows: My opinion:It all depends on how you define cheating. As someone who has homeschooled and will homeschool again when my sons are of school age, it is difficult to cheat. Except for things like plagiarism, how does one cheat if one...

Got this in my email. Wanted to share it with those of you that may not have seen it already...

Don't help people sit on their butts I have a question, not only for Douglas County, but for the entire state of Oregon. Like a lot of folks in this state, I have a job. I work, they pay me, I pay my taxes and the government distributes my taxes as they see fit. In order for me to get that paycheck, I am required to pass a random urine test, which I have no problem with. What I do have a problem with is the distribution of my taxes to people who don't have to pass a urine test....

US tests call-up system but denies return to conscription Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington Saturday December 23, 2006 The Guardian (UK) The Bush administration is planning a test run of America's emergency military call-up, stoking speculation about a return to a draft at a time when the White House is considering sending more troops to Iraq. The secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, provided further evidence that the administration was leaning towards sending more troops to Iraq, acknowledging the high financial and human toll of the war so far, and indicating there would be further costs to bear. "A lot has been...

Every year in Israel some 70,000 people buckle down and study for the standardized Psychometric exam, a crucial step in their hopeful pursuit of higher education. Examinees from every sector in the country take the same exact test but when the results are analyzed the gap between the Jewish and Arab averages is significant. The National Institute for Testing and Evaluation reports a 94 point gap between the two sectors' averages, with the Arab average standing at 469 and the Jewish one at 563. Psychometric scores range between 200 and 800, and are curved based on the current year's scores...

This country was founded, settled, defined and furthered by people who left their homes for the unknown. Whether or not they were religious (in the conventional sense) is (and will be) debated by those with agendas. It is unarguable however, that the founders of this country were risk-takers -- and inherent in risk is belief. They were, in other words, believers. Appropriately, the fledgling country chose for their symbol the eagle, the Biblical metaphor for mercy, majesty and redemption. One of the presidents who personified the country's ethos -- so well they etched his face on a big rock --...

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...

More tests confirm low-path bird flu in Michigan Mon Aug 28, 2006 6:31pm ET U.S. News WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A second round of tests on swans in Michigan confirmed the birds have a low-pathogenic strain of H5N1 and not the deadly avian influenza virus that has killed more than 141 people in Asia, Europe and Africa, the U.S. Agriculture Department said on Monday. Routine tests conducted in a Michigan gaming area earlier this month found two of about 20 swans had what was believed to be a low-pathogenic strain of H5N1. "Genetic testing confirms that these swans were not carrying...

‘Strong Angel III’ Tests Military-Civil Disaster Response By Donna MilesAmerican Forces Press Service SAN DIEGO, Aug. 25, 2006 – More than 600 military members, Defense Department employees and contractors, first responders, nongovernmental organization representatives and technologists are here this week exploring better ways to coordinate their disaster response. Members of the Disaster Relief and Strategic Telecommunications Infrastructure Co. demonstrate their satellite equipment during Strong Angel III in San Diego, Aug. 24. Strong Angel, hosted by San Diego State University, is a disaster response demonstration and exercise involving various nongovernmental and commercial organizations as well as the U.S. armed forces....

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...

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...

U.S.  Army Staff Sgt. Becker of the 101st Airborne Division drags a sandbag-laden stretcher during the Patrol Competition held at Contingency Operating Base Speicher, Iraq, June 17, 2006.  U.S. Army photo by Capt. Lyn Graves Competition Tests Troops’ Skills Soldiers, airmen climb ladders, run across desert, fire weapons during patrol competition. By  Capt. Lyn Graves 133rd Mobile Public Affairs Detachment TIKRIT, Iraq, July 6, 2006 -- Soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division ran across the Iraqi desert, dropped their rucksacks and disassembled and reassembled their weapons behind their backs. They were not suffering from the heat, but competing to...

6/14/2006 - WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio (AFPN) -- A new aircraft with the potential to get up to 30 percent better fuel mileage because of its unique flying-wing shape is being tested by the Air Force Research Laboratory and industry partners. The prototype blended wing body, or BWB, aircraft is a modified, triangular-shaped aircraft configuration with 20 control surfaces along its trailing edge. Researchers believe it will have greater fuel efficiency because more of the plane produces lift. More lift is gained because the wing centerbody, which on a BWB replaces the fuselage of a conventional airplane where the...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. - A professional wrestler claimed Friday that the state is intruding on her privacy by requiring her to provide proof from her doctor that she is not pregnant within a week of every match. Julie Utley also said pregnancy testing is too expensive for many women to continue participating in the sport. She estimated it would cost her at least $60 a month for tests. The rule took effect in November and is part of state requirements for licensing contact sports such as professional boxing, wrestling and martial arts. Utley, 19, said she has not wrestled since...