Brainchild of MIT scientist is bound for space shuttle - The Boston Globe

Brainchild of MIT scientist is bound for space shuttle - The Boston Globe

A vision born at MIT will ride last space shuttle

One man’s idea comes to fruition

By Carolyn Y. Johnson

Globe Staff / August 2, 2010

• E-mail|
• Print|
• Reprints|
• Comments (3)

Text size – +

CAMBRIDGE — In 1994, Nobel laureate Samuel C.C. Ting began to plan an ambitious experiment: launching a powerful instrument into space that could detect particles left over from the big bang and bring serious science to the International Space Station.

• Tweet 1 person Tweeted this
• Yahoo! BuzzShareThis

Now, with 16 countries, $2 billion, and an act of Congress behind the 7.5-ton alpha magnetic spectrometer, the experiment that started with Ting’s bold idea is set to be launched on the final flight of the three-decade-old space shuttle program next February, a month after the soft-spoken but deliberate MIT scientist turns 75.

Large-scale experiments are common in the world of physics, where massive accelerators or detectors are necessary to re- create the conditions of the early

LATEST EDUCATION NEWS WIRE UPDATES

• Adult stem cell research far ahead of embryonic (AP, 3:30 a.m.)
• Cambridge to consider student immigrant resolution(AP, 8/1/10)
• Maine independent touts his business background (AP, 8/1/10)
• Vermont school district considers camera policy (AP, 8/1/10)
• When Double Dippers become economic party poopers(AP, 8/1/10)

LATEST K-12 EDUCATION NEWS

• GLOUCESTER Controversial Gloucester charter school preparing for Aug. 31 opening (Boston Globe, 7/31/10)
• School officials seek special budget meeting (AP, 7/30/10)
• Conn. teacher accused of spanking female student (AP, 7/29/10)
• Mass. humor contest draws world's cartoonists (AP, 7/29/10)
• NH to make education reforms without federal help (AP, 7/29/10)

LATEST HIGHER EDUCATION NEWS

• Dickinson State, NDSU seeking stronger China ties (AP, 7/30/10)
• Obama to sign war spending bill (AP, 7/30/10)
• Obama to sign war spending bill (AP, 7/29/10)
• 2 URI students acquitted of sexual assault (AP, 7/29/10)

Critics want full accounting of state math and reading exam debacle; commissioner wants to move on

Critics want full accounting of state math and reading exam debacle; commissioner wants to move on

BY RACHEL MONAHAN
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Monday, August 2nd 2010, 4:00 AM

Adams for News

Education reform advocates want an inquiry into state education exams that were too easy for students to pass, and therefore gave an inaccurate measure of their educational achievement.

RELATED NEWS

• ARTICLES
• New York City school test scores take nose dive
• City using tainted tallies to grade teachers, schools
• Poor, multilingual gals are city's top grads: stats
• State to set a new degree of difficulty

The state should investigate the school test mess, and heads should roll, outraged education reform advocates say.

But the new state education boss wants to move on - saying there's no point in finger-pointing over abysmal reading and math scores released last week for third- through eighth-graders.

"We all bear responsibility for the past," said Commissioner David Steiner. "Rather than go back...and try the impossible 'blame game,' what's crucial is to say, 'We need tests that test effectively.'"

Longtime critics of the state tests were less ready to forget past mistakes.

"If all these things are so bollixed up, why is the state's testing director still on the payroll?" said the Manhattan Institute's Sol Stern, a longtime education advocate. "There

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/education/2010/08/02/2010-08-02_critics_howling_in_ed_test_mess.html?r=ny_local/education#ixzz0vRzDJ6tk

Quick Takes: SEC Questions Source of Funds for $10M Gift to Michigan - Inside Higher Ed

Quick Takes: SEC Questions Source of Funds for $10M Gift to Michigan - Inside Higher Ed

SEC Questions Source of Funds for $10M Gift to Michigan The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has brought civil charges against Samuel Wyly and Charles Wyly, two brothers, for securities fraud. While the SEC is accusing them of hundreds of millions of dollars in gains through insider trading, one ...

Are UT Southwestern Faculty Failing to Oversee Residents? Some University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center faculty members have been letting medical residents operate at a public hospital with less supervision and training than is standard and generally seen as necessary, *The Dallas Morning News* ...

A Tough Transition at Medgar Evers William Pollard is drawing mixed reviews in his first year as president of Medgar Evers College. *The New York Times* reported that some faculty members and leaders of the City University of New York praise his efforts, but some of his changes are ...

On Education - A School District That Takes the Isolation Out of Autism - NYTimes.com

On Education - A School District That Takes the Isolation Out of Autism - NYTimes.com

A School District That Takes the Isolation Out of Autism

Andy Manis for The New York Times

Garner Moss, far right, with his cross-country teammates in Madison, Wis. He is not the fastest member of the team. But he does have his own style.

By MICHAEL WINERIP

Published: August 1, 2010

• FACEBOOK
• TWITTER
• RECOMMEND
• 
  
  E-MAIL
• SEND TO PHONE
• PRINT
• SINGLE PAGE
• 
  
  REPRINTS
• SHARE

Related

• 
  

  Times Topic: Michael Winerip

Enlarge This Image

Andy Manis for The New York Times

‘After third grade there, I told my husband, Garner would go nowhere in life and the family would fall apart. We had to leave.’ Beth Moss, on why the family moved from Tennessee to Madison.

MADISON, Wis. — Garner Moss has autism and when he was finishing fifth grade, his classmates made a video about him, so the new students he would meet in the bigger middle school would know what to expect. His friend Sef Vankan summed up Garner this way: “He puts a little twist in our lives we don’t usually have without him.”

People with autism are often socially isolated, but the Madison public schools are nationally known for including children with disabilities in regular classes. Now, as a high school junior, Garner, 17, has added his little twist to many lives.

The Educated Guess � A smarter way to divvy up turnaround money

The Educated Guess � A smarter way to divvy up turnaround money

A smarter way to divvy up turnaround money

Posted in State Board of Education, Turning around failing schools

Doug McRae has a sharp eye and a rational mind. A retired vice president in the publishing division of McGraw-Hill who follows state education policy closely, McRae saw the state’s peculiar recommendations for distributing $316 million in federal money this fall for turning around the worst performing schools and thought, There’s got to be a better way.
So McRae spent a good part of Saturday and Sunday creating a new formula for dividing up School Improvement Grant dollars that strikes me as fair and sound. Instead of giving huge sums – up to $6 million — indiscriminately, for the most part, to 63 schools and goose eggs to a dozen schools in Los Angeles Unified and 18 other schools, he’s come up with a set of reasonable criteria that school districts – even those that would get less than they had hoped – would have a hard time disputing.
(Read more and comment on this post)

By John Fensterwald on August 2nd, 2010

LAUSD,Oakland may not get turnaround grants

Posted in State Board of Education, Turning around failing schools

Food-fight alert: Los Angeles, Oakland and Stockton unifieds are among the school districts that would get not a penny to turn around their lowest-performing schools, while most other districts – San Francisco, Fresno and San Bernadino among them – would get all or nearly full funding for all of their schools on the 113-school list.
The state Department of Education posted its recommendations late Friday (question that timing) – for the State Board of Education, which has final say over the funding, to consider on Monday. Big money is at stake – between $150,000 to $6 million per school over three years so, expect the losers to complain loudly at the meeting (if officials are not on vacation and are alerted to show up) about the method that the state and the federal Department of Education chose.
(Read more and comment on this post)

By John Fensterwald on July 31st, 2010

Common core – a commissioner’s dissent

Posted in Common Core standards

Yesterday, I recommended that the State Board of Education on Monday approve the recommendation of the majority of the California State Academic Standards Commission to approve the common-core standards. Ze’ev Wurman was one of two commissioners to vote against the standards. He has asked for one last chance to explain why.

By Ze’ev Wurman

Commissioner, California State Academic Standards Commission

A journalist has the same right to misinterpret motives as anyone else, so I will not enter into argument with John on that (smile). But I will describe the dilemma that the Academic Content Standards Commission (ACSC) faced in a different way. This being a Silicon Valley forum, I will use a few simple engineering terms.
The legislature asked the ACSC to examine if using 100% of Common Core plus limited (up to 15%) supplementation will be able to “Ensure that the rigor of the state’s reading, writing, and mathematics academic content standards, curricula, and assessments is maintained” (SB5X 1). The Governor, State Board of Education president, and Superintendent of Public Instruction, also charged us to verify that they “meet or exceed our own” (May 2009 letter).
(Read more and comment on this post)

California and Utah only states actively shortening school year | California Watch

California and Utah only states actively shortening school year | California Watch

California and Utah only states actively shortening school year

by Louis Freedberg

Louis Freedberg

California and Utah are the only two states actively allowing schools to cut classroom time from their instructional calendars.
They join about a dozen other states that allow districts to offer a 175-day school year. More than 30 other states require a minimum of 180 days.
Last year, Hawaii slashed its school year to 163 days in dramatic response to its budget crisis. But the move triggered such fierce backlash that the Hawaii Legislature voted in June to undo the move and restore the school year to 178 days in the coming school year, and to 180 in 2011-12, using hurricane relief funds and interest-free

Venture Philanthropy gives $5.5 million for expansion of KIPP DC charter schools

Venture Philanthropy gives $5.5 million for expansion of KIPP DC charter schools

By Susan Kinzie

Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, August 2, 2010

It's another sign of private money shaking up public education in the District: A $5.5 million gift will dramatically help expand a network of high-performing charter schools in the city, with a goal of more than doubling the number of students enrolled by 2015.

The grant by Venture Philanthropy Partners, a nonprofit organization using the principles of venture-capital investment to help children from low-income families in the Washington region, will fund Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) schools. The grant is to be announced Monday.
"VPP recognized our ability to impact not just the students we have, but the students throughout D.C.," said Allison Fansler, president and chief operating officer of KIPP DC. "We want to set a high bar for what's possible."
Private funding has been crucial to D.C. schools, said Andrew Rotherham of the national nonprofit group Bellwether Education Partners. "If you

Interviews are regaining a foothold in college admissions process

by Daniel de Vise

WILLIAMSBURG -- Lucy King's passion for the trombone was too big to fit on a college application. So she traveled to the College of William and Mary last month to tell someone about it in person.

Summer engineering program fosters genuine interest for some students