Saturday, July 17, 2010

Standardized English Tests, Including TOEFL, Are Halted in Iran - NYTimes.com

Standardized English Tests, Including TOEFL, Are Halted in Iran - NYTimes.com

Standardized English Tests Are Halted in Iran




WASHINGTON — The Educational Testing Service has announced that it is temporarily suspending registration for its tests in Iran, including the popular Test of English as a Foreign Language, in what may be one of the first tangible effects of the new sanctions levied against the country by the international community.

Related

Experts and Iranian expatriates were appalled, saying that if the sanctions prohibited Iranians from studying abroad, they would hurt precisely the kind of outward-looking young Iranians the West would like to help.
The Test of English as a Foreign Language, or Toefl, is a widely recognized measure of English proficiency and is often used by Western universities in evaluating international students for admission.
The statement posted on the E.T.S. Web site on Wednesday cited the United Nations Security Council resolution “affecting banks and financial institutions that conduct business in Iran.
“As a result of this resolution, E.T.S. is currently unable to process payments from Iran,” the statement said.
In an interview with the Iranian Mehr news agency, Ibrahim Khodai, an official at the

N.F.L. Youth Clinics Link Football Skills and Citizenship

A league official sees a direct connection between the N.F.L.’s efforts to clean up behavior and the more than 125 high school player development clinics the league is running around the country this summer.
ABOUT NEW YORK
A SCHOOL’S LOSS Students from Columbia Secondary at a sidewalk memorial set up for their classmate, Nicole Suriel, 12.

How a Reward Led to a Tragedy at the Beach

Private fund-raising in public schools is a complex issue, one that is surely part of the chain of events that led to Nicole Suriel’s death.
David Blackwell

David Blackwell, Scholar of Probability, Dies at 91

A statistician and author of influential academic papers on probability and game theory, he was the first black scholar to be admitted to the National Academy of Sciences.

THE PERIMETER PRIMATE: I "heart" Dave Obey

THE PERIMETER PRIMATE: I "heart" Dave Obey

I "heart" Dave Obey

The Fiscal Times' Washington Editor Eric Pianin talked to Rep. David R. Obey (WI), the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, on Tuesday, July 13, in his office at the Capitol. Here are some excerpts, but it's definitely worth reading the full story:

“I have been working for school reform long before I ever heard of the secretary of education, and long before I ever heard of Obama,” Obey told The Fiscal Times in an interview this week in his office in the Capitol. “And I’m happy to welcome them on the reform road, but I’ll be damned if I

WELCOME!

Be sure to check out my other blogs:
-THE BROAD REPORT (as in Eli)

ON BILL GATES' ED REFORM


The inferior "test-prep" agenda which bases the pedagogically fraudulent "data" standardized tes


David Obey Locks Horns with Obama in his Last Budget Battle - TheFiscalTimes.com

David Obey Locks Horns with Obama in his Last Budget Battle - TheFiscalTimes.com
David Obey Locks Horns with Obama in his Last Budget Battle
This summer is fast turning into a bittersweet swan song for David Obey, the veteran Democratic House member from Wisconsin.
The mercurial chairman of the House Appropriations Committee and stalwart champion of liberal economic and social policy is set to retire after more than 40 momentous years in Congress. But instead of celebrating, Obey is locked in a bruising and highly personal budget battle – not with his Republican adversaries, but with Democratic President Obama and a prominent cabinet member.
Read excerpts of The Fiscal Times interview with David Obey.
In the greater scheme of things, the spending controversy is “small potatoes,” a “lousy little fight” over an asterisk in a multitrillion-dollar annual budget, as Obey describes it. At issue is whether to trim $500 million from Obama’s signature “Race to the Top” education initiative to help avert the threatened layoff of 140, 000 school teachers across the country. Obey believes the proposed trim of about 15 percent of funding for future programs is a small price for the administration to pay to keep teachers on the job now, amid a stubborn recession. But Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan are treating it as a potentially devastating assault on their new education program, and have threatened a veto.
Just Thursday, Duncan and White House domestic policy adviser Melody Barnes told reporters that, in effect, the House Democratic action was making a false choice between reform and keeping teachers in the classroom. “You can’t pit jobs against reform,” Duncan said in a conference call. “The president 

MDFER Endorses MI Candidates � DFER Watch

MDFER Endorses MI Candidates � DFER Watch

MDFER ENDORSES MI CANDIDATES

DFER’s Michigan branch (MDFER) recently released a list of candidates they’re supporting in state elections. Below is the list of candidates MDFER endorsed, and donations (if any) to the candidates:
State Senate:
LaMar Lemmons (D-Detroit)
Bert Johnson (D-Detroit)

California 'bad' schools list The "Price Paid" for CA RTTT #education

California 1000 'bad' schools list California Department of Education 
The "Price Paid" for CA RTTT


California 1000 'bad' schools list California Department of Education The "Price Paid" for CA RTTT

Old school. � Fred Klonsky's blog

Old school. � Fred Klonsky's blog

Old school.

Patsy Cline’s I Fall to Pieces. It was written by Hank Cochran, who died this week at the age of 74.

The bilingual education debate - latimes.com

The bilingual education debate - latimes.com

The bilingual education debate

Four responses to The Times' recent Op-Eds on bilingual education in American schools.




Editor's note: This edition of Blowback offers four responses to the package of three Op-Eds about bilingual education that The Times ran on July 11. The opinion pieces — "The Spanish road to English" by Bruce Fuller, "A skill, not a weakness" by Laurie Olsen and Shelly Spiegel-Coleman, and "Quality Counts" by Alice Callaghan — generated a lot of feedback from readers, and much of the "Letters to the editor" section on July 17 was devoted to it. The following are a sample of the submissions that were too long to print.

By Ana Garza

The piece by Alice Callaghan should also have been titled "Blurred Vision." She argues that children need complex and rich language to succeed in school, yet she does not endorse using the primary language as a vehicle considering that is the language spoken by the parents and the community.

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Studies have shown that the quality of language in the home drops when limited-English-speaking parents are unwisely encouraged to use English. Additionally, it places everyone at a disadvantage


The bilingual education debate

Four responses to The Times' recent Op-Eds on bilingual education in American schools.

L.A. City College and Trade-Technical College taken off probation


The action by a regional accrediting agency allows students to receive transferable course credits and financial help.

'Common core standards': education reform that makes sense

The standards revolve around the fundamentals: what students should learn, and how they should learn it.

Democurmudgeon: Sandwich Board Jobs the Latest Rage Again? Next College Degree?

by John Peterson. A liberal journey into the depths of conservative deception and Republican failures...coming soon: Consumer real estate news

Democurmudgeon: Sandwich Board Jobs the Latest Rage Again? Next College Degree?

Sandwich Board Jobs the Latest Rage Again? Next College Degree?


In what might become the American job of the future, curbside sign carriers may be the work force standard in the 21st century.


Wisconsin State Journal: In an attempt to cut through the advertising clutter, and sometimes with a bit of recession-related desperation thrown in, more businesses are sending employees to the curb with hand-held signs to attract customers. Deborah Mitchell, executive director of the Center for Brand and Product Development at UW-Madison, said it's "definitely a trend" and attributes it to businesses

Saturday coffee. � Fred Klonsky's blog

Saturday coffee. � Fred Klonsky's blog

Saturday coffee.


Did we just get up and get out too early this morning? The neighborhood streets are quiet and the tables for morning coffee were empty. Has my neighborhood become like Park Slope and the Upper West Side, or Lincoln Park? Does everyone leave town on weekends and for the month of August? Or is today, which is the 10th day