Category: Computers


Survey: Sexual harassment pervasive in grades 7-12 (AP)

Filed Under: Computers, News by Thomas Botelho — Comments Off
November 7, 2011

NEW YORK – It can be a malicious rumor whispered in the hallway, a lewd photo arriving by cell phone, hands groping where they shouldn’t. Added up, it’s an epidemic — student-on-student sexual harassment that is pervasive in America’s middle schools and high schools.

During the 2010-11 school year, 48 percent of students in grades 7-12 experienced some form of sexual harassment in person or electronically via texting, email and social media, according to a major national survey being released Monday by the American Association of University Women.

The harassers often thought they were being funny, but the consequences for their targets can be wrenching, according to the survey. Nearly a third of the victims said the harassment made them feel sick to their stomach, affected their study habits or fueled reluctance to go to school at all.

“It’s reached a level where it’s almost a normal part of the school day,” said one of the report’s co-authors, AAUW director of research Catherine Hill. “It’s somewhat of a vicious cycle. The kids who are harassers often have been harassed themselves.”

The survey, conducted in May and June, asked 1,002 girls and 963 boys from public and private schools nationwide whether they had experienced any of various forms of sexual harassment. These included having someone make unwelcome sexual comments about them, being called gay or lesbian in a negative way, being touched in an unwelcome sexual way, being shown sexual pictures they didn’t want to see, and being the subject of unwelcome sexual rumors.

The survey quoted one ninth-grade girl as saying she was called a whore “because I have many friends that are boys.” A 12th-grade boy said schoolmates circulated an image showing his face attached to an animal having sex.

In all, 56 percent of the girls and 40 percent of the boys said they had experienced at least one incident of sexual harassment during the school year.

After being harassed, half of the targeted students did nothing about it. Of the rest, some talked to parents or friends, but only 9 percent reported the incident to a teacher, guidance counselor or other adult at school, according to the survey.

Reasons for not reporting included doubts it would have any impact, fears of making the situation worse, and concerns about the staff member’s reaction.

The report comes at a time when the problem of bullying at schools is in the spotlight, in part because of several recent suicides of beleaguered students.

The AAUW report observes that sexual harassment and bullying can sometimes overlap, such as the taunting of youths who are perceived to be gay or lesbian, but it says there are important distinctions. For example, there are some state laws against bullying, but serious sexual harassment — at a level which interferes with a student’s education_ is prohibited under the federal gender-equality legislation known as Title IX.

“Too often, the more comfortable term bullying is used to describe sexual harassment, obscuring the role of gender and sex in these incidents,” the report says. “Schools are likely to promote bullying prevention while ignoring or downplaying sexual harassment.”

Fatima Goss Graves, a vice president of the National Women’s Law Center in Washington, said the ultimate goal should be to deter hurtful student interactions however they are defined.

“Schools get too caught up in the label,” she said. “If it’s the sort of conduct that’s interfering with a student’s performance, it ought to be stopped.”

The survey asked students for suggestions on how to reduce sexual harassment at their schools. More than half favored systematic punishments for harassers and said there should be a mechanism for reporting harassment anonymously.

The AAUW report said all schools should create a sexual-harassment policy and make sure it is publicized and enforced. It said schools must ensure that students are educated about what their rights are under Title IX, with special attention paid to encouraging girls to respond assertively to harassment since they are targeted more often than boys.

Niobe Way, a professor of applied psychology at New York University who has studied adolescent relationships, suggested that school anti-harassment policies might have only limited impact without broader cultural changes that break down gender stereotypes.

“You have a culture that doesn’t value boys having close intimate relations and being emotional or empathetic,” she said.

Bill Bond, a former high school principal who is a school safety expert for the National Association of Secondary School Principals, said there had been in shift in the nature of sexual harassment among students over recent decades.

Overt attempts to exploit a fellow student sexually have become less common, while there’s more use of sexual remarks to degrade or insult someone, he said.

“Words can cut a kid all the way to the heart,” Bond said. “And when it’s on the computers and cell phones, there’s no escape. It’s absolutely devastating and vicious to a kid.”

The survey was conducted for AAUW by Knowledge Networks, and students answered the questions online, rather than to a person, to maximize the chances that they would answer sensitive questions candidly. Households were provided with equipment and Internet access if needed.

The AAUW said the margin of error for the full sample of the survey was plus or minus 2.2 percent, with a larger margin of error for subgroups.

___

Online:

AAUW: http://www.aauw.org/

___

David Crary can be reached at http://twitter.com/CraryAP

Survey: Sexual harassment pervasive in grades 7-12
(AP)

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Board approves Idaho online class requirement (AP)

Filed Under: Computers, News, Tech by Thomas Botelho — Comments Off
November 3, 2011

BOISE, Idaho – Idaho is set to become first state in the nation to require high school students to take at least two credits online to graduate.

The state Board of Education gave the requirement final approval Thursday, despite heavy criticism of the plan at public hearings this summer.

The measure is part of a sweeping education overhaul that introduces teacher merit pay and phases in laptops for every high school teacher and student.

Proponents say the virtual classes will help the state save money and better prepare students for college. But opponents claim they’ll replace teachers with computers and shift state taxpayer money to the out-of-state companies that will be tapped to provide the online curriculum and laptops.

The rule will apply to students entering the 9th grade in fall 2012. It goes before Idaho lawmakers for review in the 2012 session, which starts in January.

The education board gave the online graduation requirement its initial approval in September after heavy opposition was voiced this summer at public hearings across Idaho. Trustees collected more feedback during a 21-day public comment period last month.

“A majority of the comments felt there should not be an online learning requirement,” said board member Don Soltman during the meeting.

Schools nationwide offer virtual classes, but just three states — Alabama, Florida and Michigan — have adopted rules since 2006 to require online learning, according to the International Association of K-12 Online Learning. The online rules vary from state to state, but Idaho would be the first to require two credits online.

The Idaho Education Association blasted the decision in a statement Thursday, saying the board “overruled the wishes of a majority of Idahoans and disregarded parental choice” by mandating the online credits.

To online learning advocates, the requirement seems reasonable. They say children need to be prepared for the world that awaits them after high school.

“There is still a live teacher. It may be at a distance, but that teacher is still instructing and interacting with the student,” said Susan Patrick, president of the International Association for K-12 Online Learning, a Washington-based nonprofit.

Kendra Wisenbaker, 28, is among those questioning the Idaho plan.

“The poor kids are guinea pigs,” said Wisenbaker, an elementary school teacher in Meridian, the state’s largest school district.

Like many of her students, Wisenbaker is on Facebook, and she spends several hours a day online. But when it comes to requiring her tech-savvy kids to learn in a virtual classroom once they enter high school, Wisenbaker is among Idaho teachers who aren’t so sure.

“I am a little conflicted, I am. It won’t work for every kid, and I think requiring it is a horrible idea,” said Wisenbaker, who also reasons that some students may thrive learning online. “But it shouldn’t be an option for saving money,” she said during an interview with The Associated Press.

In Idaho, members of the state Board of Education have said most of the opposition is directed at new education laws as a whole — not just the online requirements.

Nationwide, state legislatures tackled education policy this year and triggered protests from teachers over proposed changes to their collective bargaining rights, and how they are evaluated and paid. But Idaho has made some of the most sweeping changes, according to education experts.

The state is introducing teacher merit pay, limiting union bargaining rights and shifting money from salaries toward changes such as more classroom technology, as part of the changes backed by public schools chief Tom Luna and the governor.

The overhaul has drawn heavy criticism, including from educators. But to others, Luna is changing a system that was badly broken and they have commended him for restructuring how Idaho’s scarce education dollars are spent.

A group seeking to recall Luna over the education changes failed to collect enough voter signatures earlier this year, but parents and teachers who want to overturn the new laws did meet a June deadline to put three repeal measures on the November 2012 ballot.

Board approves Idaho online class requirement
(AP)

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Rupert Murdoch heckled at Calif. education forum (AP)

Filed Under: Computers, News, Tech by Thomas Botelho — Comments Off
October 14, 2011

SAN FRANCISCO – Protesters from the Occupy Wall Street movement heckled News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch during a speech at an education forum Friday, accusing the media mogul of trying to profit from public education.

Activists repeatedly interrupted Murdoch as he gave a keynote speech at a downtown San Francisco hotel about how technology could help transform the nation’s public education system.

“Equality in education, not privatization!” one woman shouted as security guards escorted her out of the ballroom of the Palace Hotel, which hosted the National Summit on Education Reform.

“Corporations own all the media in the world. Why should they not own all the education as well?” activist Joe Hill yelled sarcastically. Hill, who was dressed as the “Count” character from the TV show “Sesame Street,” also was pushed out of the meeting room.

Murdoch appeared unfazed.

“It’s OK, a little controversy makes everything more interesting,” he said to audience applause before continuing his half-hour speech.

About half a dozen hecklers were escorted out of the hotel after they disrupted Murdoch’s speech but said they were not arrested. They joined about two dozen protesters holding signs and chanting “Occupy Wall Street! Occupy Sesame Street!” outside the conference.

Speaking outside, Hill accused Murdoch and other corporate leaders of trying to “use the economic crisis to further privatize education and divert more public funds into private corporate interests.”

Murdoch appeared as part of a two-day education forum sponsored by the Foundation for Excellence in Education, a group chaired by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. The organization champions school vouchers, charter schools, performance pay for teachers and digital learning.

“We need to tear down an education system designed for the 19th century and replace it with one suited for the 21st,” Murdoch said during his morning address.

“You don’t get change by plugging in computers at schools designed for the industrial age,” Murdoch said. “You get it by developing technology that rewrites the rules of the game by centering learning around the learner.”

Last year, News Corp. acquired Wireless Generation, a Brooklyn, N.Y.-based company that provides software and services to K-12 schools. In August, New York’s comptroller rejected a $27 million contract with the educational technology company because of the phone-hacking scandal involving News Corp.’s British newspapers.

On Thursday afternoon, more than 100 protesters, mostly San Francisco teachers, picketed outside the hotel, protesting Murdoch’s presence at the education conference.

Rupert Murdoch heckled at Calif. education forum
(AP)

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LA schools to boost equity for minority students (AP)

Filed Under: Computers, News, Tech by Thomas Botelho — Comments Off
October 12, 2011

LOS ANGELES – A 19-month civil rights investigation of the Los Angeles Unified School District found that the district failed to provide an equal education to English-learners and black students, resulting in wide academic disparities, the U.S. Department of Education announced Tuesday.

The district, the nation’s second-largest, agreed to remedy the disparities through a variety of measures, including a complete overhaul of its English-learning program and improving resources such as computers and library books to schools with predominantly black student bodies.

U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, who unveiled the agreement at a news conference at LAUSD headquarters, said it would help ensure that every student in the nation’s second largest school district would receive the same academic opportunities “regardless of race or national origin.”

Noting that these issues are “incredibly complex and politically charged,” Duncan said he was encouraged by the district’s sense of urgency and willingness to voluntarily remedy the disparities without an order.

“Though we still have a long way to go before we see that English learner students and African-American students are consistently getting what they need to perform up to their fullest potential, I’m confident today’s agreement will help address the causes of concern that prompted our review,” he said.

Duncan stopped short of saying that students’ civil rights were violated and did not reveal detailed results of the investigation, just the terms of the agreement. But the Education Department said in a statement that it will monitor the district’s compliance with the agreement until educational codes are met.

The agreement was the result of a “compliance review” by the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights, which was concerned about wide achievement gaps between the district’s lowest performing student groups and other students.

Only 5 percent of high school English language learners ranked as proficient in either English or math; for black students, 32 percent ranked as proficient in English and 9 percent in math, according to the district’s 2009-10 report card.

The overall district average was 37 percent proficient in English and 17 percent in math.

LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy said the district did not dispute that disparities exist and worked to hammer out a solution with federal officials. The district will be studying how to fund the measures as plans for specific areas are developed.

The district’s English-language learning program has long been criticized for allowing non-native speakers to remain in English-learning programs for years, sometimes throughout their school careers, never meeting the criteria to move into mainstream classes. Students often fall behind grade level and end up dropping out.

For the 2009-2010 school year, only 14.4 percent of English learners were reclassified as fluent.

Under the agreement, the district agreed to completely revamp its nearly 200,000-student English-learning program by next school year, with special emphasis on high school students who have not been deemed proficient in English in order to take courses needed for graduation. The district has the highest number of English-learning students in the nation.

English-learners will receive grade-level courses, teachers will be trained to handle multiple English-proficiency levels and special-education teachers will receive English-instructional materials.

The program will also include a component aimed at black students aimed at boosting their “academic language proficiency” starting in elementary grades.

The investigation also found black students are underrepresented in gifted and talented programs but overrepresented in suspensions and disciplinary actions. Schools with predominantly black populations also lack technology and library resources.

The district agreed to remedy those disparities with fairer evaluation of gifted and talented programs and disciplinary actions, and allocating more computers and increasing library book collections.

A school-based community pilot program will be launched in an African-American neighborhood to provide health and social services, he said. No details were revealed.

Warren Fletcher, president of teachers union United Teachers Los Angeles, praised the Education Department for shining a light on longstanding disparities, but noted that the district has laid off more than 1,200 teachers and closed libraries in many schools.

“It’s very general,” he said of the agreement. “We have to see how those services are going to be provided.”

Parent Irma Munoz, who has had three children go through the district’s English learner program, said the program needed to be overhauled. Her children were put in classes with English speaking teachers who they could not understand, she said.

“It’s a bad program,” she said.

LA schools to boost equity for minority students
(AP)

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Under agreement, LA district to focus on equity (AP)

Filed Under: Computers, News by Thomas Botelho — Comments Off
October 11, 2011

WASHINGTON – The Los Angeles Unified School District will improve instruction to the district’s 220,000 English learners and ensure there are equitable resources in schools with largely black populations under an agreement announced Tuesday with the Education Department.

The agreement was the result of a “compliance review” initiated in March 2010 by the department’s civil rights office.

Assistant Secretary Russlynn Ali said the department has been particularly concerned that secondary students who transferred out of English learning programs were getting lost in the system. She said graduation rates among this group were particularly low. Achievement gaps were found not just in this group, she said, but among black students.

Under the agreement, the district said it would work to target instruction for English learners to their level of English proficiency. It also said it will provide more computers, library books and other resources to students in schools with predominantly black students.

The L.A. district is the nation’s second largest, and overall has a graduation rate of 55 percent. The Education Department said it will continue to monitor the district’s progress.

Under agreement, LA district to focus on equity
(AP)

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Sarah Lawrence College ranked as priciest in U.S. (Reuters)

Filed Under: Computers, News by Thomas Botelho — Comments Off
October 11, 2011

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Higher education in the United States is not cheap but Sarah Lawrence College in New York, with total costs of $58,334 a year, is the most expensive college in the country, according to a new ranking.

For the second consecutive year the small liberal arts college in Westchester County north of New York City, with 1,300 undergraduate students, topped the Forbes.com list of priciest colleges.

It is followed by the University of Chicago with a yearly price tag of $57,590 and the New School in New York, which costs $57,199 a year.

Forbes.com estimates that the all-in price at Sarah Lawrence would cost nearly $240,000 for a four-year course of studies if current inflation continues.

“Just about all of the top 10 schools are in very expensive urban areas. I think you just have to pay your employees more to live and work in a place like Bronxville, New York,” said Daniel Fisher, a senior editor at Forbes, referring to the city where Sarah Lawrence is located.

“It also has a very low student to teacher ratio. That combined with an almost non-existent endowment means they basically have to finance the operation through tuition.”

Washington University in St Louis, where total costs are $56,930 and Columbia University in New York, at $56,681, rounded out the top five costliest colleges and universities.

The total costs include extra expenses such as travel, books and supplies and computers.

But Forbes noted that many U.S. colleges and universities discount their costs depending on the parents' ability to pay, and that more than half the students at the priciest institutions pay significantly less than the full price tag.

“They (the colleges) are figuring out which students they want in the schools and what their parents can actually pay,” Fisher explained.

Unlike many other schools which have very large endowments such as Harvard, Sarah Lawrence has very few full scholarship students.

Fisher said only one college, the University of Chicago, captured a top 10 spot on Forbes.com's most expensive college list and its ranking of America's best colleges.

Forbes.com compiled its newest list with information from the Center for College Affordability & Productivity, a non-profit group that researches the costs of education using data from the government's National Center for Educational Statistics.

The Commonfund, a Connecticut based non-profit group that studies educational inflation, says the higher education expenses in the U.S. rose 2.3 percent this year. Salaries for faculty are estimated to increase 1.4 percent this year, except in some parts of the south and southwest of the country.

The Forbes.com complete list of the most expensive colleges can be found at http://tinyurl.com/3gnp7sh

Sarah Lawrence College ranked as priciest in U.S.
(Reuters)

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Patched-up schools to open after flooding in Minot (AP)

Filed Under: Computers, News by Thomas Botelho — Leave a comment
September 5, 2011

MINOT, N.D. – In his first year as superintendent of Minot’s public schools, Mark Vollmer is stepping into a mess: Record flooding wrecked six of his schools, forcing the district to delay the start of the year and many of his students and teachers haven’t yet returned to their homes.

Vollmer, who spent the past six years as the North Dakota district’s high school principal, says he doesn’t have time to be overwhelmed.

“No one is spending any time here having a pity party,” he said. “We’re digging in and taking care of business. We’ve got to.”

Minot schools open their doors on Tuesday, a week behind schedule after the worst flooding in the city’s history. The Souris River waters that pushed 11,000 people from their homes and damaged hundreds of businesses also took a heavy toll on schools. Three of six damaged schools could be beyond saving.

Nearly 20 percent of the district’s 7,000 students will attend classes in replacement classrooms set up in churches, the city auditorium and dozens of portable trailer-like buildings scattered around town, an arrangement that may last two or three years. Yet there are positives: Class sizes and staff sizes will remain largely the same. And Vollmer, 45, said the start of school will be a relief to students whose lives remain chaotic more than two months after the flooding hit.

“They will be able to get back in the groove of hanging out with friends and learning,” said Vollmer.

Summer vacation this year was not much of a vacation.

“There was no state fair. No zoo. The parks were closed. There was no baseball in town this summer,” Vollmer said. “Activities and fun were limited for kids. We want to make sure school gets them back into as normal a pattern as possible.”

One-fourth of the district’s staff and students were chased from their homes by the flooding this summer, he said. Many families have moved in with friends or relatives, or in portable housing provided by the federal government. A 4-mile swath through town that took the brunt of the flooding is littered with derelict houses and debris as residents weigh whether to rebuild or walk away from their homes.

Minot was the hardest-hit area in spring and summer flooding that will cost an estimated $1 billion statewide. The federal government will cover most of that, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency has already doled out more than $300 million in individual help and public infrastructure repairs, mostly in Minot. A community fund set up for the Minot area has raised more than $3 million so far and got another bump over Labor Day weekend from a benefit concert featuring the Black Eyed Peas.

Since waters receded a few weeks ago, workers have mucked out mud and gutted the hardest-hit schools: Ramstad Middle School and Longfellow and Lincoln elementaries. Workers in respirators, hard hats and white coveralls continue to clean the affected buildings, which also have suffered structural damage and mold.

In most of those classrooms, only rusted wall-mounted pencil sharpeners remain and a dead fish stench wafts through hallways. Officials are awaiting word from FEMA about whether the buildings are worth saving at a cost sure to run in the tens of millions of dollars.

School officials say most computers and textbooks were removed before the floodwaters hit. Some teachers lost supplies and lesson plans.

Lana Martin, a special education teacher at Ramstad, set up her classroom last week in a room at the city auditorium. School officials are using all available rooms at the venue. The arena floor will be used for classes along with serving as lunchroom and gym.

“I think that with all we’ve been through, our staff and students are pretty upbeat for the most part,” Martin said. “I think we’ll have a good year.” And she saw an upside to her new digs: air conditioning, something that the more than 50-year-old Ramstad school lacked.

School officials say more than $100,000 in school supplies have been donated by companies, community groups and individuals. One Texas woman made the two-day drive to North Dakota to donate 100 backpacks stuffed with school supplies: notebooks, folders, crayons, stuffed animals, $10 bills and a personal note.

Ramstad Principal Jim Tschetter helped give tours of the temporary school last week for students signing up for classes. He said the city auditorium may serve as the middle school for an additional two or three years, until the old school is refurbished or a new one is built.

“A building isn’t the school,” Tschetter said. “Students and teachers make the school.”

“I think it’s going to be cool,” 13-year-old Alyssa McDonald said of her new school at the city auditorium. “It’s definitely going to be different and the gym is going to be a lot bigger.”

Sammy Harwood, a seventh-grader, said she was saddened by the destruction of Ramstad school. But she was impressed at the progress in getting the city auditorium — which normally hosts circuses, sporting events and trade shows — set up for students.

“I’m excited,” the 12-year-old said. “They made sure we had a school.”

Patched-up schools to open after flooding in Minot
(AP)

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No Wonder Everybody Wants to Study Computer Science (The Atlantic Wire)

Filed Under: Computers, News, Tech by Thomas Botelho — Leave a comment
August 16, 2011

You know a class is popular when enrollment numbers hit the five-digit mark. A new course on artificial intelligence at Stanford University taught be ex-Googlers did just that, attracting a jaw-dropping 58,000 students. The fact that the course is being offered free and online certainly helped boost the enrollment number, which is exactly what Stanford was going for. The popular new course is one of three that will be offered in conjunction with a Stanford experiment to broaden the university’s reach and get more people interested in technology. But according to recent reports about the job market, people might not need that much motivation.

Related: Peter Thiel Bets $2.4 Million Against the Value of a College Degree

People who study computer science earn a lot of money.?A recent scramble for top talent in Silicon Valley is leading to engineers salaries pay packages that five times that size. “Engineers are worth half a million to one million,”?Facebook’s director of corporate development Vaughn Smith?recently told?The New York Times. This?reflects?Mark Zuckerberg’s view that exceptional talent is “100 times better” than people who are just “pretty good.”

Related: A List of the Degrees the Media Say Are Worthless

Even if Facebook is wrong about this bombastic approach–and Bill Taylor at the Harvard Business Review thinks they are–computer science is still one of the most lucrative fields in which you can get a degree.?The only college major that leads to a high career earnings than computer science is engineering, a field that is becoming increasingly influenced by artificial intelligence. A Georgetown study out this year showed that computer science and engineering majors earn up to 50 percent more in their lifetimes than?humanities?majors. Median earnings for people computer science backgrounds ranges from $70,000 for those holding a bachelor’s degree to $89,000 for those with a master’s. By contrast, arts degrees range from $44,000 to $55,000.

Related: Harvard Seeks Non-Bankers, Bankers Seek Loophole

Some of these trends seem to be resonating in the recent rollercoaster stock market, the salaries make sense. After all, while all the other stocks were plummeting, Apple became the world’s most valuable company.

No Wonder Everybody Wants to Study Computer Science (The Atlantic Wire)

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Joplin school district tries to rebuild, reinvent (AP)

Filed Under: Computers, News, Tech by Thomas Botelho — Leave a comment
June 22, 2011

JOPLIN, Mo. – The twister that laid waste to much of Joplin last month hit the school system especially hard: It killed seven students and one teacher and destroyed three school buildings, including the only public high school. Seven other buildings were badly damaged.

Now officials are trying to put the crippled district back in order, with only a couple of months to get everything working again before the fall term begins. Many classes will have to meet in vacant buildings. There are also computers to order, furniture to replace, water-logged lesson plans to rewrite — even dirt-encrusted books to salvage.

And the effort goes beyond accommodating students and teachers. In the aftermath, the resurrection of Joplin High and other public schools has become a rallying point for the whole community.

At the debris pile that used to be the high school, someone used duct tape to turn a sign missing all but two letters from “OP” into “”HOPE.” In front of that sign are three wooden eagles — the school mascot — carved by a Tennessee artist from the remnants of oak trees that were sliced in two and stripped of their bark by the nation’s deadliest single tornado in six decades.

“Her feathers are ruffled, but she’s not dead,” reads a nearby spray-painted, cardboard sign.

Barely three weeks after the storm, summer school began last week. More than 1,600 elementary school students alone enrolled — almost double the number from last year. The district added an extra month of classes for a session that was initially scheduled to end in early July. And unlike previous years, it’s offering free transportation.

“These children don’t have a home to live in,” said Irving Elementary School Principal Debbie Fort, whose school was one of those destroyed. “Parents know they need to get a routine back. Their lives have been turned upside-down.”

Because so many buildings were damaged or destroyed, half of the high school students will attend classes in an empty big-box store. Many middle school kids will go to a vacant warehouse in a far-flung industrial park. Some administrators will take over an old office of the state transportation department.

Signs of the tornado are visible even in schools that escaped any damage. At Stapleton Elementary, boxes of library books rescued from damaged buildings sit piled outside the main office. A 7-year-old boy matter-of-factly explains to a visitor why he’s on crutches — a piece of wooden shrapnel pierced his calf, requiring emergency surgery and a week in the hospital.

The twister killed more than 150 people. Immediately after the storm, Fort searched for missing teachers. Even now, two displaced families, including one of her faculty members, are staying at her home in nearby Webb City.

Yet for the most part, the rhythm of the school day is unchanged. For many students, the classroom offers a respite from troubles at home.

“The kids are just relieved to be back at something peaceful,” teacher Isaiah Basye said. “It gives them hope, to see that we’re not letting the tornado change us. We’re still here with open arms. This place is a haven.”

The tornado forced school officials to end the spring term nine days early. Administrators have promised that fall classes will begin on time Aug. 17, and they have found alternate sites for each of the damaged or destroyed buildings.

At Junge Field, the high school football team has started practice. Its stadium was unharmed, but its practice field and weight room were both a total loss. One team member remains hospitalized. Others have yet to return after they were scattered to temporary living arrangements with friends or faraway relatives.

New coach Chris Shields lost the rental home into which he had moved some belongings even before relocating to Joplin from suburban St. Louis. Seventy students attended the first day of practice, fewer than the 85 he expected.

“When your home is destroyed, football is not always your top priority,” Shields said.

Defensive end Jarad Bader said he and his teammates feel an added sense of responsibility to represent Joplin on Friday nights this fall.

“We don’t really feel like we need to say, `Win for Joplin,’” he said. “We know inside that Joplin is helping us. It’s time for us to help Joplin.”

Said free safety Evan Wilson: “It’s kind of understood. We have a lot of weight on our shoulders.”

With the loss of Joplin High, which served 2,200 students, school leaders say they want to do more than merely rebuild. They envision a state-of-the-art structure that could establish Joplin not as a district scarred by disaster but as a center of innovation.

School administrators invited a panel of education leaders to a wide-ranging discussion of how the new Joplin High can emerge better than ever. Among the goals: more one-on-one learning and increased collaboration with the adjacent Franklin Technology Center, a vocational training site that was also destroyed.

“We need to let ourselves be free to dream,” Assistant Superintendent Angie Besendorfer said. “It’s really hard. We’re living with the reality of what happened. You almost have to give yourself permission to move past the really horrible, horrific things.”

Those discussions were already taking place before the tornado, Besendorfer said. But now they have moved from hypothetical to urgent.

“This tornado accelerated that process — in about 45 seconds,” she said. “We had already dreamt about `what if?’ Now, it’s very much `what’s next?’”

___

Alan Scher Zagier can be reached at http://twitter.com/azagier

Joplin school district tries to rebuild, reinvent (AP)

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Champion Kasparov puts chess at heart of learning (Reuters)

Filed Under: Computers, News by Thomas Botelho — Leave a comment
June 8, 2011

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Former world chess champion Garry Kasparov sees a hole in the European education system and he knows how to fix it — one pawn at a time.

Aspiring to hone children’s critical thinking, intellectual creativity and problem-solving skills, Kasparov, regarded by many as one of the game’s greatest champions, believes chess has a lot to offer education and childhood development.

When it comes to encouraging children to do better in school, he believes chess can not only sharpen cognitive skills but also cut across socio-economic divides in a way that many competitive sports cannot.

“Chess goes beyond all borders. It doesn’t have social borders or racial, even physically handicapped people can play,” said the Russian, who was the world’s top-ranked player for 20 years.

“So the element of the social integration and achievements based on your intellectual ability and your fighting spirit, that makes chess quite a unique element of the modern educational system.”

In September, his non-profit Kasparov Chess Foundation Europe, dedicated to integrating chess into the education system, is set to present the EU with its plan for teaching chess to students ages 6 to 18.

Anticipating Brussels will recommend his program to members within 18 months, Kasparov said he hopes to implement the chess curriculum across all of the EU’s 27 member states and beyond.

CHILD CHAMPIONS

Kasparov, 48, began playing chess as a small child and in 1985 became the youngest world champion at the age of just 22.

He remains the player to have achieved the highest ever points rating and recently spent a year tutoring the Norwegian child chess prodigy Magnus Carlsen, who is ranked No. 2 in the world at age 20, having already held the No. 1 spot at age 19.

For Kasparov, chess goes beyond national boundaries and cultural distinctions, providing those that play it, whether accomplished players or just beginners, with skills that are necessary even outside the realm of chess.

“It starts with a sense of responsibility. With playing chess, it means you are fully responsible for the result. If you make a good move, you win; if you make a bad move, you lose and there’s no one to blame,” he said.

“You are there to make all the difference. And today, in the modern environment with sharing responsibility, I think concentrating on your own decisions as the key to your success, or failure, is also important.”

Under his program, computers will play a role in the curriculum, providing students the opportunity to learn to play, track scores from chess competitions online and compete against one another.

However, both he and Carlsen scorn chess games played against computers, which these days can beat nearly any human player and are said to have homogenized modern chess.

In the United States, the Kasparov Chess Foundation has been promoting chess in 3,500 schools since 2002. However, Kasparov hopes its European counterpart will be more cohesive and consistent across education systems.

(Editing by Paul Casciato)

Champion Kasparov puts chess at heart of learning (Reuters)

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