07.24.05
Posted in News at 12:59 pm by Paloma Cruz
La Porte ISD calls for bond vote
$203M in funds would renovate, build facilities
– reported by the Houston Chronicle
The La Porte school board on Tuesday unanimously called for a Sept. 24 bond referendum totaling more than $203 million.
Voters will have the chance to cast ballots on three different propositions.
Proposition 1, for items considered of highest priority, has a price tag of $107 million, while Proposition 2, for repairs and upgrades of secondary priority, is for $70 million.
Proposition 3, for improvements that will be needed in the future, is for $26 million.
The total for the three propositions is $203 million.
Under La Porte Independent School District’s existing tax rate of $1.7335 per $100 property value, the owner of an $85,000 house pays $918.76 in property tax.
For more details, read the entire story.
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07.23.05
Posted in General at 9:47 am by Paloma Cruz
Posts will be scarce for the next few days, because of a back pain.
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07.20.05
Posted in News at 8:46 pm by Paloma Cruz
Wired Magazine has a story about the controversy over the increased use of comic books by librarians and teachers to get kids to read.
Holy Homework! Comics Hit Schools
In conjunction with Disney, several Maryland elementary schools are launching a comic-based reading program. Meanwhile, high-school teachers and librarians are also pushing comics and graphic novels, saying they’re helpful in getting struggling kids motivated to read.
[snip]
And not everyone is impressed by the value of comic books. Do-gooders started blasting them as bad influences in the 1950s, the cause of everything from juvenile delinquency to homosexuality and S&M. (Batman and Robin’s special relationship and Wonder Woman’s early bondage fetish didn’t help on those last fronts.)
[snip]
Maryland educators, led by the state schools superintendent, hope to convince skeptics with hard data. Starting this fall, several elementary schools will adopt a special comics-based curriculum in grades 3 to 5. With donations from Disney, the students will read yet-to-be-chosen comic books, perhaps along the lines of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck.
I think that in the post-MTV era, where attention is increasingly fragmented and getting kids to read literally takes imagination and creativity… using comic books to get them to read is essential. And, many librarians and teachers will tell you, it’s also successful.
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07.19.05
Posted in News at 12:17 am by Paloma Cruz
It’s Monday or 3rd session for school finance
Tax break deal needed or lawmakers may spend August in Austin
– reported by KHOU CBS Channel 11
With little time left to make a deal, lawmakers struggled Sunday to resolve differences on a scaled-back school finance and tax swap package.
House and Senate rivalries and lingering disagreements over sales and property taxes threatened to bring a special legislative session to an end without any significant legislation being passed.
The session can run until Wednesday, but because of legislative rules and the threat of a filibuster, lawmakers needed to strike a deal Sunday or today to have time to pass legislation.
Dewhurst: Schools come first
THE LEGISLATURE
Non-education bills are on hold until an accord is reached, he says
– reported by the Houston Chronicle
As House and Senate negotiators met behind closed doors on an education funding bill, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst said Thursday he would hold non-education legislation hostage until an agreement is reached on school finance.
The other legislation involves pay raises for judges, restrictions on the government’s ability to seize private property, bonds for university construction projects and the telecommunications industry.
Education spending demands reworked
Lawmaker backs off his plan to give 65% of funding to teach core subjects
– reported by the Houston Chronicle
Note to all the school districts screaming over state Rep. Kent Grusendorf’s education bill that would make them spend 65 percent of their money teaching only subjects that are tested on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills: Message received.
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Posted in General at 12:09 am by Paloma Cruz
Schools hitting brakes on driver’s education
Cutbacks force parents to teach their children the rules of the road
— reported by the Houston Chronicle
As higher academic standards and budget cuts have pushed driving classes out of many public high schools, parents in Texas have increasingly taken on the task of teaching their teens to drive.
Participation in Texas’ Parent Taught program, launched in 1997 to put parents on equal footing with driving instructors at commercial and public schools, has grown 40 percent in four years, to 111,327 people, according to Texas Department of Public Safety figures.
And parents purchased more than 40 percent of all driver’s education completion certificates in 2003-04, outpacing commercial schools by a nearly 3-to-1 ratio.
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07.18.05
Posted in News at 7:46 pm by Paloma Cruz
Low-income schools lack top teachers
Researcher says that, most often, the best-qualified educators teach in affluent areas
— reported by the Houston Chronicle
Fuller’s findings quantify the commonly held notion that the state’s best teachers work in the most affluent schools, leaving less-qualified educators to teach low-income students. And the schools with the least-qualified teachers typically struggle the most on the tests that are used to label schools as successes or failures.
[snip]
Fuller’s formula takes three factors into account at each school: the teacher employment turnover rate, percentage of teachers with less than three years’ experience and those teaching courses outside their area of certification. Using the latest available data from the 2003-04 school year, Fuller assigned every campus a Teacher Quality Index based on how they compare with other schools. Those that fall in the top 10 percent statewide are given a rating of 1. Schools in the bottom 10 percent are rated a 10.
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Posted in News at 7:37 pm by Paloma Cruz
High schools must prepare for a new job
— reported by the Houston Chronicle
TEXAS is the latest state to decide another generation of taxpayers should not graduate from high school without ever being introduced to the basics of money management.
Last month, the governor signed two financial literacy laws. One creates personal finance pilot programs in as many as 25 school districts starting this school year.
The other makes personal finance education a requirement for graduation from public high schools starting in the 2006-2007 school year.
Only eight other states currently have personal finance graduation requirements: Alabama, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, New York and Utah. But several others are considering the same graduation rule or other ways to encourage financial literacy.
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07.17.05
Posted in News at 2:42 pm by Paloma Cruz
Special thanks to The Chronicle: Wired Campus Blog for pointing me to this article.
IBM Taps into Universities
IBM will offer universities free access to its emerging technologies research and labs.
– reported by Red Herring
IBM said Thursday it will give universities free access to new technologies like games and applications that are being developed in its labs, as the computing giant looks to get younger users hooked on its products and to build expertise for its software platforms.
Universities will get access to more than 25 technologies, which include games and simulations, middleware tools that enable grid computing, and open standard technologies such as Java and Eclipse. All of the technologies come from IBM alphaWorks, a web-based lab that works on emerging technologies.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University’s Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences will be the first universities to participate in the program.
[snip]
In return for offering free access, IBM hopes to get feedback from faculty and students on how to improve these technologies before they are included in future IBM products.
[snip]
IBM has said that the technologies that it offers to universities are just for educational purposes. But if students or faculty build an application using their technology, they would have to pay license fees to IBM. The developer, however, would own the intellectual property rights to the application.
Read the story for more info; there’s a lot in there. Since I’m not at a university, this really doesn’t mean anything to me. But I thought others might be able to share the info with those of you who can benefit from this “generosity.”
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Posted in News at 2:34 pm by Paloma Cruz
School bus drivers train for terrorism
– reported by the Dallas Morning News
Excerpts:
She’s among more than 2,000 drivers and managers across Texas who have gone through a new terrorism training effort. Officials call it a pre-emptive move to protect one of the most vulnerable of potential targets: school buses.
[snip]
Half of those trained through the program so far are in Houston. But the effort is coming to Dallas County this fall. Over the next two years, the program, called School Bus Watch, will include 44,000 Texas school bus drivers, said Mike Martin, executive director of the National Association for Pupil Transportation.
This story was found thanks to blogHOUSTON. They even point to other news stories about this topic, including HISD Bus Drivers Trained To Watch For Terrorism, from Click2Houston.com, which ran last year.
Highlights from that story:
- Keep all vehicle doors, hatches and compartments locked when the bus is unattended.
- Maintain a constant awareness of people and surroundings.
- Watch for people in restricted areas or who appear to be conducting surveillance.
- Spot and report people who abandon an item and then leave the area quickly.
- Report suspicious vehicles, such as those moving erratically or appearing to follow the school bus.
- Look for abandoned items that may be suspicious or dangerous, such as canisters, tanks and metal boxes, and anything that appears to be emitting a mist, gas, vapor or odor, or is connected to wires, timers, tanks or bottles.
In view of the recent London events, it’s nice to know that proactive training is going on locally.
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07.16.05
Posted in News at 10:12 pm by Paloma Cruz
Teens Win Scholarships For Duct-Tape Prom Dress, Tux
Couple Used 25 Rolls Of Duct Tape
– reported by Click2Houston.com
Krystal Long and Casey Isringhouse have won college scholarships, thanks to their duct tape prom outfits.
The 18-year-olds won a national contest by designing and creating their artistic outfits.
They based their design on Pablo Picasso’s painting “Girl Before a Mirror.”
Proof that, with a little imagination, anything is possible.
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