Posts Tagged ‘improvement’
Pilot program using iPad textbooks bumped math scores 20%
A yearlong pilot program with digital textbooks on Apple’s iPad found that students’ algebra scores increased by 20 percent when compared to a curriculum with traditional books.
On the heels of Apple’s e-textbook announcement in New York City this week, publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt announced the results of its “HMC Fuse: Algebra I” pilot program at Ameila Earhart Middle School in California’s Riverside Unified School District. The Algebra I digital textbook is touted as the world’s first full-curriculum algebra application developed exclusively for Apple’s iPad.
In its test run, the “HMH Fuse” application helped more than 78 percent of students score “Proficient” or “Advanced” on the spring 2011 California Standards Test. That was significantly higher than the 59 percent of peers who used traditional textbooks…
The first pilot program took place during the second trimester of the 2010-2011 school year, when students using “HMH Fuse” were said to have scored an average of 10 points higher than their peers. But that number jumped even higher for the California Standards Test in spring 2011, when “HMH Fuse” students scored about 20 percent higher than students who used traditional textbooks…
A white paper on the HMH Fuse Pilot Program is available for download from the publisher. Other schools and students can download the “HMH Fuse Shell” applications available for free on the iPad App Store, with curriculums available as in-app purchases within the applications.
Bravo!
U.S. high school dropout rate improves – and still sucks!
Daylife/Getty Images used by permission
With one in four U.S. public school students dropping out of high school before graduation, America continues to face a dropout epidemic. Building a Grad Nation: Progress and Challenge in Ending the High School Dropout Epidemic…shows that we can end the dropout epidemic, even in schools from lower-income, urban and rural districts that many previously thought were hopeless…
The U.S. graduation rate increased from 72 percent in 2002 to 75 percent in 2008. The report reveals that the number of “dropout factory” high schools fell by 13 percent – from 2,007 in 2002 to 1,746 in 2008. While these schools represent a small fraction of all public high schools in America, they account for about half of all high school dropouts each year. Experts say targeting these high schools for improvement is a critical part of turning around the nation’s dropout rate.
More than half of all states – 29 in total – increased their statewide graduation rate from 2002 to 2008.
The state of Tennessee and New York City led the nation by boosting graduation rates 15 percent and 10 percent, respectively.
Most of the decline in dropout factories – 216 of the 261 – occurred in the South.
Just as Secretary of State George C. Marshall launched a plan to rebuild Europe after World War II, we must rebuild our broken school system. We are launching a “Civic Marshall Plan,” comprising policymakers, educators, business leaders, community allies, parents and students to address the dropout epidemic by focusing on the dropout factory high schools and their feeder elementary and middle schools. In tune with the call from President Obama and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan earlier this year to increase the U.S. graduation rate to 90 percent by 2020, we are working to mobilize Americans to quicken the pace. To reach these national goals, the graduation rate must rise by an average of 1.5 percentage points per year over the next decade. The Civic Marshall Plan outlines the benchmarks to ensure the attainment of those goals, and focuses on the strategic deployment of human resources to help school districts and states accelerate improvement.
Please, please read the report [.pdf]. There is little hope for improvement in any and all aspects of life in this land without leadership from an educated citizenry.
The creeps marching at the front of rightwing mobs will badmouth General Powell, whine about the cost of decent schooling – but, then, they would do so, regardless of the conclusions and methods endorsed by this work.
For a nation that once was at the forefront of freedom to learn we have come long way down towards incompetence. It’s been 45 years or more since first I bumped into the decline and included the struggle for better education into the panoply of civil rights and needs worth fighting for. Little enough has been accomplished.
Time to get off your rusty dusties, folks.
Tai Chi may ease Fibromyalgia symptoms (more effectively than stretching exercises)
The ancient Chinese practice of tai chi may be effective as a therapy for fibromyalgia, according to a study published on Thursday in The New England Journal of Medicine.
A clinical trial at Tufts Medical Center found that after 12 weeks of tai chi, patients with fibromyalgia, a chronic pain condition, did significantly better in measurements of pain, fatigue, physical functioning, sleeplessness and depression than a comparable group given stretching exercises and wellness education. Tai chi patients were also more likely to sustain improvement three months later.
“It’s an impressive finding,” said Dr. Daniel Solomon, chief of clinical research in rheumatology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, who was not involved in the research. “This was a well-done study. It was kind of amazing that the effects seem to carry over.”
Although the study was small, 66 patients, several experts considered it compelling because fibromyalgia is a complex and often-confusing condition, affecting five million Americans, mostly women, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Since its symptoms can be wide-ranging and can mimic other disorders, and its diagnosis depends largely on patients’ descriptions, not blood tests or biopsies, its cause and treatment have been the subject of debate.
If you suffer from fibromyalgia, take a look at this and tell me if you find it interesting. Thanks.
Most/Least affordable cities to buy a home in America
Googling for a minute, here’s a home for $95K just east of Indianapolis
Median home price: $105,000
Median income: $68,100
Affordability score: 94.5%
America’s most affordable housing market is the 33rd largest metro area in the United States, with 1.7 million people…
The turmoil in the auto industry, which Indianapolis had been closely associated with, has hurt the city. But increased diversification, which has made pharmaceutical companies, banks government agencies and insurers all important employers, has helped keep job losses in check. The unemployment rate was just 7.7% in September, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, well below the national rate of 9.8% that month.
Least affordable: New York City
Median home price: $425,000
Median income: $64,800
Affordability score: 19.2%
Home prices can be staggeringly high in many New York City metro area communities, but median income is not commensurately high; it’s under $65,000. That combo makes it the country’s least affordable major metro area…
After holding up better and longer than most housing markets, sales and prices around New York City have started to experience greater declines. The market there is highly influenced by what’s happening on Wall Street; when financial markets sneeze, the real estate industry there says “God bless you” with feeling.
Here in New Mexico, we’re still <8% unemployment rate – for citizens and legal residents.
Though I've written in the past about new high tech incomers keeping up our growth – HP, Intel, solar mfg companies – home construction has long been a mainstay of state economy. We are, after all, not only a destination for tourism; but, retirees and just plain folks looking for clean air. Telecommuting makes a lot possible.
A regional biggy in home construction – who simply pulled up and went on vacation when the bottom fell out of sleazy sub-prime mortgages – reappeared a few weeks ago in Albuquerque. Debt-free, still solid ownership of the land where they had previously started subdivisions, they've sold 3 lots in a week and have started moving dirt. And the mortgages are worth more than paper, this time.
