Sunday, June 6, 2010

Search continues for missing boy, hundreds of adults and kids to return to Skyline today for interviews with detectives | OregonLive.com

Search continues for missing boy, hundreds of adults and kids to return to Skyline today for interviews with detectives

By Noelle Crombie, The Oregonian

June 06, 2010, 6:58AM

Courtesy of the Horman familyA photo posted on his stepmother's Facebook page shows Kyron Horman in front of his science fair project, wearing the "CSI" T-shirt he was last seen in.

The search for 7-year-old Kyron Horman continues this morning as 300 students and their parents return to Skyline Elementary School to review the details of the day the boy went missing.

Authorities made no progress in the search for Kyron, which was suspended overnight but is resuming today with a 2-square-mile grid search. The massive effort to find the second-grader involves four county sheriff's departments, the Portland Police Bureau and a large number of federal agents with the FBI. So far, the search hasn't turned up any clues about the child's whereabouts.

Families and students will be interviewed at the school by a team of 50 detectives from agencies across the region today, starting at 10 a.m. and continuing through the afternoon.

Kyron Horman

The Oregonian's continuing coverage of missing second-grader Kyron Horman.

Authorities plan to brief the public later this morning about the status of the search.

The Sky Won’t Fall if Amendment 4 Passes � Tangerine, Florida

The Sky Won’t Fall if Amendment 4 Passes

by tangerineflorida

Opponents of Florida Hometown Democracy’s Amendment 4, developers and land-speculators, have been successful in scaring many local governments with misinformation.
Unfortunately, many local governments aren’t even researching these bogus claims. They’re just accepting them and passing resolutions saying that the sky will fall if Amendment 4 is passed.
Overdevelopment helped crash Florida’s economy. We currently have over 400,000 vacant dwellings. Local governments helped create the building boom by charging artificially low impact fees to builders, and not requiring them to fund the needed infrastructure (roads, schools, water,

Free Technology for Teachers: Micro Mobs - Realtime Group Messaging

Micro Mobs - Realtime Group Messaging

by noreply@blogger.com (Mr. Byrne)

Micro Mobs is a free service that allows anyone to create their own public or private micromessaging network. To get started just name your mob (network) pick a URL then register for an account. You can register for a Micro Mobsaccount or use your Twitter or Facebook account to login into Micro Mobs. Once you've created your Micro Mobs network you can invite others by email, Twitter, or Facebook message. If you choose to make your Micro Mobs network private it can only be accessed by the people you have invited.

Applications for Education
Micro Mobs could be a good private platform for hosting a backchannel chat in your classroom. Micro Mobs might also be a good platform for keeping in contact with parents or colleagues.

Here are some related items that may be of interest to you:
Neat Chat - Quickly Create an Ad-Free Chatroom
Five Platforms for Classroom Back-channel Chat
Back-channeling During a Class Viewing of Glory

Eulogy of Bobby Kennedy

Ted Kennedy delivering the closing part of the eulogy at the funeral of his brother Bobby, using excerpts from Bobby's famous speech to the students of a South African university in 1966.

Robert F. Kennedy

Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice & Human Rights

Help Our Work in Haiti
Jewelery designer Joan Hornig has designed a special necklace to benefit the survivors of the earthquake in Haiti. You can support the work that RFK Center is doing.
read more »

Help Save a Laureate's Life
1998 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award Laureate Berenice Celeyta is in mortal danger, and we need your help to protect her and other Colombian human rights activists.
read more »

PHOTOS: Streep, Mortensen, Moore in STTP
Meryl Streep, Viggo Mortensen, Julianne Moore, and others performed Ariel Dorfman's play Speak Truth to Power in New York on May 3.
read more »

more news »

2010 Ripple of Hope Awards Dinner
November 17, 2010 - 5:30pm

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DC Youth Speak On The Truth About School Reform � Alan W. King's Blog

DC Youth Speak On The Truth About School Reform

(PHOTO: Courtesy of citylimits.org)

Six years ago, Richard Short’s older brother hit a road block in his education. The 15-year-old recalled his brother’s high school environment in DC as a violent one, where fights broke out in the halls almost every day and some students were caught carrying guns in their backpacks.

As a result, his brother lost focus and had to make a choice: either try to fit in with the rough crowd or drop out. “He chose to drop out,” Short told a crowd of more than 20 Thursday evening at a public action event. “My brother’s school failed him.”

That sentiment was echoed among his peers and education advocates who gathered on June 3 at All Souls Unitarian Church in Columbia Heights for “The Truth about School.”

The public action comes at a time when education reform is a hot button issue of the 2010 DC mayoral race. According to a fact sheet by Hands on DC, a nonprofit that improves the physical condition of schools, the average traditional public school building in the District is more than 60 years old.

Students, like Short’s brother, “who already face enormous challenges often have to learn in outdated and deteriorating buildings,” according to the factsheet. Repairing the District’s public school system could cost the city more than $2 billion.

Two major mayoral candidates, Mayor Adrian Fenty and DC Council Chair Vince Gray, have been involved in school reform efforts. In addition to taking over the ailing DCPS, appointing a new Schools Chancellor and rolling out a five-week summer school program and tutoring initiative, the Fenty Administration unveiled the Master Facilities Plan (MFP) for DC public schools in 2008.

(PHOTO: John Healey) Youth engaged in Lifting Voices workshop.

Under the MFP, according to the September 2008 release, school improvements were organized into three categories: academic, support and systems. The nearly $600 million modernization plan, implemented through a two-phase approach, is considered a departure from previous school facility planning efforts.

The plan spun off of the work already completed, which included some schools receiving new science labs, new central air conditioning units and repaired heating systems, along with major plumbing repairs to restrooms and water fountains.

According to the release, six schools were outfitted for pre-kindergarten students, and more than 3,500 safety and health violations were fixed.

Fenty’s rival Gray also boasts a robust reform effort. According to Gray’s website, the council chair led efforts to expand pre-K by creating 2,000 new classroom slots for three and four-year olds over the next five years. The District is 75 percent closer to that goal, the council chair’s website states,

A plea for tolerance and education | mydesert.com | The Desert Sun

A plea for tolerance and education

THE DESERT SUN EDITORIAL BOARD • JUNE 6, 2010

The revelation of the “Beat the Jew” game has revealed an ugly underbelly of Coachella Valley youth we never thought we would see here.

The problem goes far beyond La Quinta High School. Desert Sun reporters have found that students have drawn swastikas on desks, walls and their own skin. There are wannabe skinheads in our midst and students who tell crude, anti-Semitic jokes.

This has to stop. The way to make it stop is through education — at home and in the classroom.

The Desert Sun calls on our three local school districts to put a stronger emphasis on education about the Holocaust, a combination of the Greek words for “whole” and “burnt.” Our children need to know that it was real and it was awful beyond description. They need to know that 6 million European Jews died in the genocide.

Look at the photograph on this page. That fellow in the middle row, seventh from the left, is Elie Wiesel, who would later become an author and Nobel Peace Prize laureate. He is perhaps the most famous

This April 16, 1945 photo shows inmates of the Nazi German KZ Buchenwald inside their barrack, a few days after U.S troops of the 80th Division liberated this concentration camp near Weimar. The young man seventh from left in the middle row bunk is Elie Wiesel, who would later become an author and Nobel Peace Prize laureate. (Associated Press file photo)

Sunday, June 6, 2010