text:
Clinton defends actions before, during Benghazi attack
- Ambassador Christopher Stevens%2C 3 other Americans died in Libya
- Clinton%27s testimony was delayed for weeks due to her hospitalization
- Clinton tells committee%3A %27I take responsibility%27
WASHINGTON — A combative Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Wednesday fended off fierce interrogations from senators and House members in congressional hearings illuminating the brutal Sept. 11 attack on a U.S. Consulate in Libya that left a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans dead.
Clinton, who testified before a Senate panel in the morning and a House panel later in the day, also promised to improve security for State Department officials in North Africa and around the world following the Sept. 11 attack in Benghazi.
"I take responsibility," Clinton told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "Nobody is more committed to getting this right. I am determined to leave the State Department and our country safer, stronger and more secure."
Clinton bristled at claims that the administration misled the public by initially linking the attack to a protest that spiraled out of control.
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis, said "a simple phone call" to people in Benghazi "would have established immediately" that there was no protest. "Why wasn't that known?" he asked.
Clinton said State Department officials decided it was not appropriate to talk to U.S. officials in Benghazi before the FBI conducted their interviews. Pressed further on why that call wasn't made, Clinton erupted in anger.
"With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans," she said. "Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night and decided they'd go kill some Americans? What difference, at this point, does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again, Senator."
Job One, she said, is to find the killers and "bring them to justice."
Clinton, in what could be her last congressional testimony before leaving her post, said the deaths were "personal" for her.
She was near tears as she talked of standing next to President Obama "as the Marines carried those flag-draped caskets off the plane at Andrews (Air Force Base). I put my arms around the mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, sons and daughters."
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., gave Clinton a warm but brief welcome before quickly pressing her on security issues at the consulate. He said when he met with U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens on July 7 — more than two months before the attack — Stevens expressed "his deep and grave concerns about security in Benghazi … and the need for additional assistance."
Clinton said requests for more security never reached her desk. McCain said the administration's "preference for a 'soft footprint' was part of the reason for what took place" in Benghazi.
An Independent Accountability Review Board appointed by the State Department concluded that "systemic failures" left the consulate in Benghazi inadequately protected and confirmed that no protest preceded the deadly attack. In a report released in December, the board recommended that the State Department strengthen security in high-risk posts.
Clinton told the committee she has asked a deputy secretary to lead a task force to ensure that all 29 of the panels recommendations are implemented quickly and completely — and to pursue "additional steps above and beyond" those in the board's report.
"Benghazi did not happen in a vacuum," Clinton said. The instability brought on by the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011 has expanded the reach of extremists across North Africa, she said.
The State Department for days after the Sept. 11 attack blamed it on a spontaneous protest of what it called a "reprehensible" video that denigrated Islam's prophet Mohammed, while CIA and diplomats from the scene were reporting that no protest preceded the attack.
Clinton testified that on the day of the attack, before it happened, she had been at the State Department dealing with a different crisis that evolved from protests to a YouTube video that disparaged Mohammed.
"During most of the day, prior to getting notice of the attack on our compound in Benghazi, we were very focused on the situation around our embassy in Cairo," Clinton said. "There were attempts to scale the wall, and we were in close contact with our counterparts in Cairo."
When the attack in Benghazi happened, about 4 p.m. Washington time, she called Libyan security officials "to get assistance as quickly as possible."
Clinton testified she spoke to National Security Adviser Tom Donilon, then-CIA director Gen. David Petraeus, who had a compound in Benghazi, and the White House.
She said U.S. officials participated in talks about what to do in a secure video conference with senior officials from the White House, the intelligence community and the Defense Department.
"I spoke to President Obama later in the day," she said.
Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, asked Clinton if she selected Susan Rice, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, to go on the Sunday talk shows where she blamed the attack on a video days after it was clear the attack was terrorism.
"I did not," Clinton said.
Rice's television appearances five days after the attack derailed her possible nomination to replace Clinton as secretary of State. Clinton said she was too busy at the time to appear on TV herself.
"I was not focused on talking points," Clinton said. "I was focused on keeping our people safe. We still had people attacking our embassy in Yemen, trying to scale the walls. I had to call the president in Tunis and beg him to send reinforcements, which he did and eventually saved our embassy there."
Also, the classified intelligence assessment of the Benghazi attack was still cloudy about what it was, she said.
"There were a variety of potential causes and triggers," Clinton said.
There were some communications and coordination before the attack, but it still wasn't clear if it rose to the level of a pre-planned terrorist attack, she said.
Clinton testified that her department reacted to the attack by taking immediate steps to protect personnel and postings in embassies and consulates facing large protests around the world.
At the House hearing, Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., noted that Clinton had been "very close" to Stevens and wondered whether he had ever personally asked her to get involved.
"No. None of those cables ever came before me," Clinton replied.
"Chris Stevens, who knew more about Libya than anyone else I know in this country, didn't see a direct threat to our diplomatic facilities, and also neither did our intelligence community," Clinton said. "They did not make the connection between the deteriorating security and a direct threat on our compound."
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., asked why no one was significantly disciplined, despite State Department claims that employees responsible for poor security in Benghazi would be disciplined.
"There has just been a shuffling of the deck chairs," Ros-Lehtinen said. "Do you find it acceptable that officials who were responsible remain employed at the State Department?"
Clinton said all four individuals have been removed from their jobs and put on administrative leave.
"This is something I need your help with," Clinton said. The administrative review board found that, under U.S. law, "unsatisfactory leadership is not satisfactory for a breach of duty," she said. "I have put forth to the Congress and Senate to fix that problem going forward."
Danielle Pletka, an analyst for the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute, said Clinton's testimony provided more questions than answers.
Clinton's assertion that she did not see cables from Stevens and his security chief asking for more security reflects "a general vibe" throughout the administration that the White House is not going to look kindly on anything that implies the country was facing a higher threat level, Pletka said.
Clinton's testimony was an effort to make the hearing about the aftermath rather than about why it happened, Pletka said. "Understanding why it happened, who was responsible and what lies were told makes a huge difference," she said.
Contributing: John Bacon


text:
Things to Look For When Traveling With Children
Traveling With Children Can Be A Great Adventure
Some of my fondest memories are from when we use to go on family vacations. I could tell you a lot of funny stories about our travels. We certainly had a lot of fun.
However, I remember how me and my brother could also be very rambunctious. We use to fight here and there, and this used to drive my parents nuts.
Imagine going on a road trip and driving on the highway, and your two boys complaining about how the other is touching them or harassing them. Or what about wanting to go to the rest room at the wrong time.
I also remember when we traveled by plane. My mother used to think of everything. She packed the entire house with stuff that she felt that we needed.
Traveling with children can be fun and stressful all at the same time. That is why it is important to plan every little detail of your trip, especially when you travel with children.
Here is a very short article I found on Tips for Traveling with Children This very short article has a couple of useful tips for helping you make sure that your next trip with children is a fun and smooth one.
This very short article comes to you Courtesy of Allianz Travel Insurance, read some great tips for traveling with children.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Saint Alcmund of Hexham
- Alchmund
Bishop of Hexham in 767. He was renowned for his piety, but no other certain information about him has survived.
- 781 of natural causes
- the location of the cemetery where he was buried was lost over time
- in 1032 he appeared in a vision to a man in Hexham, and told him where to find the grave
- his relics were re-interred in the cathedral at Hexham
- his shrine was destroyed by the Scots in 1296
- "Saint Alcmund of Hexham". CatholicSaints.Info. 7 April 2019. Web. 9 August 2020. <>


text:
The thought came to me that, in a sense genealogy is getting Photoshopped. We are trying to create our own genealogical reality. The ads, the TV shows, the glitz and hype of conferences, are all aimed at changing the gritty, day-to-day reality of doing genealogical research and making it into a more glossy and acceptable image.
Having ridden my share of motorcycles, I can truthfully say that the end product ad of the Photoshop routine was both something more and something less than reality. If you want to sell motorcycles, you have to show them in a very idealized way and diminish the danger and other realities of sitting on a high powered machine in freeway traffic far from an open racing track. I am afraid that my experience with motorcycles includes racing across the desert and getting stuck in the sand at the bottom of a wash and then having to rip off my helmet because I was going to throw up from the exertion of trying get the heavy machine out of the sand. This is not exactly what you would put in a ad.
Likewise, my extensive experience, day after day, of working with my own and others' genealogy gives me a sense of dislocation from the "advertised" world portrayed in ads and other "official" communications. At the bottom of all of this "Photoshopped" image making is the very real fear that if you tell people what genealogy is really like, no one will buy your product or use your website.
But think about it. People were riding and buying motorcycles long before there was a product called Adobe Photoshop and people have been doing genealogy for a much longer time than is represented by the glitz and hype of today, so what are the real reasons people do genealogy? What are the real motivations? Why is there a need to sell a product that has been around for hundreds of years?
Motorcycles are a manufactured product. There was a time when they did not exist. Genealogy is fundamentally different than a manufactured product. It is a basic human activity that has been around for as long as the humans it chronicles. As part of our industrialized world, we have jointly created entities that have commercialized aspects of our natural human world and made them into unnatural constructs. Every day we a "sold" on products that we need to survive such as food and other basic necessities. One prime example of this modern trend is the bottled water industry. Recently, The International Bottled Water Association had a post entitled, "U.S. CONSUMPTION OF BOTTLED WATER SHOWS CONTINUED GROWTH, INCREASING 6.2 PERCENT IN 2012; SALES UP 6.7 PERCENT." Quoting from the article:
In 2012, total U.S. bottled water consumption increased to 9.67 billion gallons, up from 9.1 billion gallons in 2011. In fact, 2012's consumption growth was the strongest it has been in five years. In addition, per-capita consumption is up 5.3 percent in 2012, with every person in America drinking an average of 30.8 gallons of bottled water last year. Bottled water increased in absolute volume more than any other beverage category in the U.S.Who would ever expected that a huge demand could be created for a product almost everyone in the United States can get for free? Aren't we, in a sense, doing the same thing to genealogy? Making it into a product that has been "Photoshopped" into something that is a hyper-reality? It is my guess that there are people who look at statistics such as those for the bottled water industry and think, we can do the same thing for genealogy. All we need to do is "sell" it to the public and we can then report that per-capita consumption of genealogy is up year to year until we can say that every person in America has done genealogy so many hours each year. Is this what we want to do with genealogy? It certainly appears that some people would like that to happen.
Maybe there are certain types of activities such as genealogy that are their own reward. Maybe they don't need to be sold so much as they need to be experienced. Maybe we need to emphasize the spiritual and fundamental human values of genealogy. Maybe we need a "back to basics" natural genealogy stripped of all the modern additives?
Now, of course, I say all this while on my way to the biggest and glitzyest of all the genealogy conferences in the United States where I am a real participant in helping it to become exactly what it is. What is likely true is that if genealogist was to exist at all, they have to "compete" with everything else in our world, including products and forces that would entirely destroy the very basis for doing genealogy in the first place. From my perspective, we need to compete in the "marketplace" of ideas as well as the commercial marketplace. We enjoy the benefits of our modern "commercialized" genealogy, but this should never be at the expense of losing the fundamental values of genealogy as a positive universally shared human activity. Genealogy is not bottled water and it doesn't need a lot of Photoshop.


text:
Yahweh(redirected from Yahweh content fork)
Also found in: Dictionary, Thesaurus.
Yahweh(yä`wĕ), modern reconstruction of YHWH, the ancient Hebrew ineffable name for GodGod,
divinity of the three great monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, as well as many other world religions. See also religion and articles on individual religions. Names for God
In the Old Testament various names for God are used.
..... Click the link for more information. . Other forms are Jah, Jahve, Jahveh, Jahweh, Jehovah, Yahve, Yahveh, and Yahwe.
(also Yahveh, Jehovah), the name for god in Judaism. The name "Yahweh" was formed from the tetragrammaton YHWH, whose precise pronunciation is not known. Inasmuch as uttering the name was taboo, the tetragrammaton served as an ideogram for the word "Lord" (rendered in Greek as kyrios). The Masoretes vowelized the tetragrammaton to "Jehovah," the name adopted by Christian theologians in the 14th century. According to its grammatical structure, the tetragrammaton, which is derived from the Hebrew verbal root hyh ("to be"), can mean either "eternally existing" or "creator of all that exists." The exact meaning is debatable.
reconstruction of YHWH, ancient Hebrew name for God. [Heb. Lang.: NCE, 3019]
See: God
Yahweh, Jahweh, Yahveh, Jahveh
Old Testament a vocalization of the Tetragrammaton, used esp by Christian theologians


text:
Jan Dennis, Business & Law Editor
217-333-0568; email@example.com
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — The Bush administration's sweeping plan to overhaul the nation's financial regulatory system could compound the credit crisis it seeks to cure, two University of Illinois finance professors say.
Stephen D'Arcy says regulators should let the crisis play out, learning from the lessons it provides, rather than overreacting and implementing changes that could potentially do more harm than good.
"Given that the crisis is still unfolding, it seems more appropriate to work within the current system to stabilize the economy and restore confidence in financial markets first before undertaking wholesale changes in regulation," he said. "The admonition about not changing boats midstream seems appropriate to this situation."
"Once the current crisis abates and a better understanding of the causes and consequences of the problems is evident, rational debate over the appropriate changes to financial regulation can occur and effective improvements can be adopted," said D'Arcy, the John C. Brogan Faculty Scholar of Risk Management and Insurance.
The 218-page plan unveiled this week by U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson would bring the most far-ranging overhaul of the financial regulatory system since the Great Depression, seeking to trim a jumble of overlapping oversight agencies that date back to the Civil War.
But other than giving the Federal Reserve some regulatory power over investment banks and other financial institutions, most of the proposals don't make much sense, says Charles Kahn, a finance professor and the Fred S. Bailey Memorial Chair of Finance in the U. of I. College of Business.
"Rationalizing the regulatory system always sounds like a laudable goal," Kahn said. "While the arrangements by which different regulators handle different banks are confusing, there aren't any significant problems in the U.S. financial system that will be alleviated by this rationalization."
Kahn says many of the regulatory agencies threatened with elimination provide valuable oversight, in particular the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
"I am concerned that their special expertise could be watered down by the merger," said Kahn, who specializes in financial institutions and the economics of information and uncertainty.
On the other hand, the proposals include the creation of a new entity, the Mortgage Oversight Commission, which, Kahn says, is likely to duplicate and overlap with other regulatory agencies already charged with consumer protection.
D'Arcy, whose research centers on insurance, questions including a long-standing proposal in the plan that would establish a dual system of insurance regulation, giving insurers the option of being regulated at the federal or state level.
The insurance industry's only significant role in the current crisis was excessive amounts of credit risk taken on by financial guaranty insurers, netting ratings downgrades that are adversely affecting some credit markets, he said.
But even if the dual system had been in place, D'Arcy said, there is no guarantee insurers would have opted for federal rather than state regulation and, if they had, that federal regulators could have better limited credit risk exposure.
"Thus, the federal insurance regulation proposal has little relevance to the current problems," D'Arcy said. "There are good arguments both for and against federal insurance regulation. But the issue could be debated on its own merits more effectively than having it included in an overall financial reform package."
Editor's note: To contact Stephen D'Arcy, call 217-333-0772, or e-mail email@example.com. To contact Charles Kahn, e-mail email@example.com


text:
Werth's double in 9th helps Nats beat Brewers 5-4
WASHINGTON (AP) — Jayson Werth hit a game-winning RBI double in the bottom of the ninth after the Brewers tied it in the top of the inning and the Washington Nationals beat Milwaukee 5-4 on Sunday afternoon.
Washington's bullpen tossed five scoreless innings in relief of Gio Gonzalez until Rickie Weeks' RBI single in the ninth off closer Rafael Soriano (1-1), who earned the win despite blowing his third save in 25 chances.
Anthony Rendon reached on a fielder's choice against Rob Wooten (1-4) with two outs in the ninth. He scored from first on Werth's drive into the left field corner.
Washington took two of three in the series between teams that entered Sunday as division leaders.
Ryan Zimmerman had two hits, including a two-run homer, for the Nationals.
Pinch-hitter Scooter Gennett singled with one out against Soriano in the ninth, took second on Carlos Gomez's walk and scored on Weeks' base hit.
The Brewers were 1 of 8 with runners in scoring position before Weeks' at-bat. Khris Davis and Jonathan Lucroy drove in runs for Milwaukee.
Staked to a 3-1 lead, Brewers starter Yovani Gallardo allowed four runs and eight hits over six innings. Gallardo has not won since June 19 and is 0-2 with 7.33 ERA in his last four starts.
Gonzalez allowed three runs on four hits with four walks and five strikeouts on 88 pitches over 3 1-3 innings. He left in the fourth with a runner at third and trailing 2-1. Gomez' RBI groundout against Craig Stammen gave the Brewers 3-1 lead.
Gonzalez had his start pushed back one day after flight issues caused a delay in his return to Washington following the All-Star break.
Stammen retired all eight batters he faced after replacing Gonzalez.
Zimmerman's opposite field homer tied the game at 3-3. Jose Lobaton scored later in the inning with two outs on Gallardo's wild pitch.
Milwaukee loaded the bases with out in the second inning due in part to Zimmerman's throwing error. Gonzalez escaped the jam with back-to-back strikeouts.
The errant toss was the first error in 13 games for Zimmerman, who has battled right shoulder injuries, since returning to third base on June 30.
Ian Desmond's RBI hit in the second put Washington up 1-0.
Notes: Adam LaRoche's second-inning single snapped a 0-for-18 skid. ...Gonzalez's final strikeout doubled as the 1,000th for his career. ...Milwaukee improved/fell to (29-21) on the road this season. ...The Brewers return to Milwaukee for a seven-game homestand, starting with Cincinnati on Monday. Wily Peralta (10-6, 3.72) faces Reds starters and fellow RHP Mat Latos (2-1, 2.79). ...RHP Doug Fister starts for Washington on Monday at Colorado versus Rockies LHP Franklin Morales (5-4, 5.26).


text:
Guitar Accessories - Guitar Straps - Black
This strap is made of nylon and comes with durable leather-like attachment tabs. Fully adjustable for any size player and fits most types of guitars.
- Adjustable sliding buckle
- Maximum adjustability from 47" to 62" length
- Soft and durable strap ends constructed of man made materials
- 2" wide for playing comfort


text:
Famed Hollywood Producer Harvey Weinstein, a top Obama supporter, denied charges that his new film is being released as a way to bolster the president's re-election chances.
"It's not political; it's historical," Weinstein said.
The movie, Seal Team Six: The Raid on Osama bin Laden, which critics say paints President Obama and his role in ordering the assault in a favorable light, is set to air this Sunday night, just two days before the presidential election.
"I would not do anything political … when it comes to making one of my movies. I feel a sacred trust with the audience."
The film's director, John Stockwell (who you might recognize from the 80s blockbuster Top Gun) lauded the president for green-lighting the raid, even though it was a "politically unwise call."
"To me it's unfortunate that certain people are unwilling to give the President at least partial credit for green lighting the raid because I'm certain that if that helicopter crash had resulted in dead Americans, if Osama Bin Laden had not been there, he would be taking the blame and this election would be much different."
Weinstein also didn't miss an opportunity to hit Mitt Romney when asked what kind of film he would make about the GOP challenger.
"I have a great title for the Mitt Romney movie and I've done some research. Just like the Twilight series, I think Mitt Romney… should star in Hindsight because … anytime he does something he always wants a do over if he gets it wrong."
"I told Brad Pitt and Bradley Cooper about that," Weinstein continued. "They're both up for nominations … this year and they're worried that if Mitt makes that movie, it could be a big challenge at the Oscar for best actor."
You can watch the entire interview above to hear more from the two men about Seal Team Six which airs Sunday night on National Geographic.


text:
Sales Approach
Sales Challenges
Articles & Whitepapers
Client Results
Sales Articles & White-papers
- 3 Virtual Selling Myths Debunked (Infographic)
- Debunking a Few Myths About Virtual Selling
- Resilient Sales Leaders Build Resilient Salesforces
- Selling to Multiple Decision-Makers
- Negotiation: The New Customer Standard
- Successful Sales Enablement
- The ABCs of Sales Coaching
- Master Versatility to Drive Sales Results
- Earning the Status of Trusted Advisor
- Executive Calling
- Selling to Value
- Changing the Differentiation Game
- Integrated Sales Leadership Development Approach
- 3 Winning Strategies for Prospecting
- Don't Leave Good Business on the Table
- Aligning the Selling and Buying Processes
View Additional Sales Articles & White-papers
3 Strategies for Peak Sales Performance: How to Create Renewable Competitive Advantage (Point of View Paper)
Traditionally, a company could win long-term advantages with new products, or dominate with deep pockets and massive size or capture markets with widespread brand recognition and global presence. Today, these attributes may produce a temporary market advantage, but may also create a competitive disadvantage. learn more
3 Virtual Selling Myths Debunked (Infographic): The Reality Behind Common Misconceptions in Today's Virtual Selling Environment
As salespeople struggle to access and engage customers in this new environment, the topic of virtual selling has understandably received a lot of attention. Check out the infographic below to discover the realities behind the common myths of virtual selling that we've heard from our customers. learn more
3 Vital Strategies to Protect Your Customer Base: How to Retain Your Most Profitable Accounts
Sellers as well as buyers are taking stock of priorities as the economy continues to show weakness across most industries. As a result, most sales organisations are pursuing new business—which often means taking advantage of competitors' complacency or mistakes in providing service to customers. learn more
3 Winning Strategies for Prospecting: Right Prospects, Right Message, Right Attitude
If your organisation is like a lot of sales organisations, you may have intensified prospecting efforts lately as old customers downsized, cut spending, and in some cases, switched to other suppliers. The problem is that prospecting is often time-consuming, costly, wasteful, and hard on the morale of the sales team. learn more
The ABCs of Sales Coaching: Essential Tips to Amplify Your Team's Performance
What would a 29% increase in top-line salesforce performance mean to your organisation? Our research shows that when sales managers have the right skills, the single action of coaching has the greatest impact on the performance of your salesforce. learn more
Aligning the Selling and Buying Processes: A Consultative Selling Approach
If you think your salespeople can control the way buyers buy — think again. The old adage that "people love to buy, but hate to be sold to" has changed—"people know how to buy, and won't be sold to." But, that doesn't mean it's time to fire your salesforce. With a little insight into today's buying process, salespeople can understand how customers buy and dramatically increase their sales results. learn more
Balancing the Consultant and Strategist Roles: Managing the 4 Sides of Sales is Key to Highly Effective Selling Skills
There was a time when a salesperson could fulfil a unified role as a vendor, trusted advisor and challenger. But today's hyper-competitive market requires the salesperson to play two distinct yet complementary roles—that of Consultant to the customer and Strategist to both the customer and his or her own organisation. learn more
Changing the Differentiation Game: Creating Real Sales Differentiation Your Customers Value and Competition Cannot Replicate
What if your salespeople could expand your offering and create a highly differentiated solution that represents unexpected business value to your customer and is hard for the competition to replicate because it is unique to the customer? The very thought may hit you like a triple shot espresso! learn more
Competitive Sales Strategy: Influencing the Decision to Win the Sale
How does a done deal become undone? Your salesperson had a good relationship with a great contact, the right solution to meet the customer's needs and strong buying signals right up to the last minute. Then came the dreaded call: "Thank you for the proposal, we've decided to go with someone else." So, what happened? Could this loss have been prevented? learn more
Consultative Selling: Is Your Sales Team Creating Real Differentiation?
To avoid the pitfalls of competing on price, salespeople are often told they need to "sell the value." Another strategy is to "value-add," by offering the customer extra services or product features without charge. While these strategies can be effective short-term, neither of these approaches produces a sustainable advantage. learn more


text:
Car Audio Central is now Proud to be independent and to be a Member Supported Community. It is our Members that contribute their time and skill that makes this board what it is. It is our Platinum Members that Financially support this Board.
Platinum Membership costs $5 per year.
Platinum Membership Includes the Following:
- Access to the Platinum Member Area:
- Ability to add custom Avatar
- An 320x320 Profile Picture
- Respect!
To sign up for Platinum Membership please click on the "User CP" link in the upper left of this or any Forum page. Scroll down to the Miscellaneous Section. Select Paid Subscriptions. There are 2 options, 1 year for $5 or 3 years for $10.
Payment is via Pay Pal.
The Subscription is good for one year from the day you subscribe. After your year you should automatically get emails from the system on the status.
Please note that prices are subject to change without notice. If you are already on a Platinum Subscription you will not be affected!


text:
Dive in: All Managed WordPress articles
Here's a roundup of all Managed WordPress Help articles. Use it as your guide — from setting up your account and adding or migrating sites, right through troubleshooting common setup issues.
|Click to jump to each section
|Compare or change plans
|Set up my hosting
|Add content to a site
|Back up and restore a site
|Copy files to a site
|Change site settings
|Make changes and publish a site
|Fine tune a site
Compare or change plans
Check out the features for all Managed WordPress plans (Back to top)
Set up my hosting
Add new sites to your plan, change domains for your sites, see site IP addresses (Back to top)
- Add a site
- Set up WordPress for the first time
- Move an existing WordPress site (for Pro accounts only)
- Move my WordPress site automatically (for Basic, Deluxe, Ultimate, Developer accounts)
- Change the domain on my Managed WordPress website
- Why use a temporary domain name with Managed WordPress?
- Move your WordPress site manually
- Remove my site
- View my IP address
- Open WordPress
- See my GoDaddy WordPress Site page while in WordPress
Add content to a site
Edit text, add images, plugins and themes, enable comments, and more (Back to top)
- Using Page Builder in WordPress
- Open WordPress
- Add and edit content in WordPress
- Update theme and plugins
- Install or activate a theme in WordPress
- Install or activate a plugin in WordPress
- Update, activate or reset WordPress permalinks
- Add a favicon to your WordPress site
- Customize a theme in WordPress
- Find my WordPress theme
Back up and restore a site
Restore or download a complete site (Back to top)
- Do I need to back up my Managed WordPress website?
- Back up my site manually (For Pro accounts only)
- Restore my site (For Pro accounts only)
- Restore my site (For Basic, Deluxe, Ultimate, and Developer accounts only)
- Download my site
Copy files to a site
Set up sFTP/SSH for secure access, then upload files (Back to top)
Change site settings
Reset passwords or work with the site database (Back to top)
Make changes and publish a site
Test changes on a staging site, then publish changes to the live site (Back to top)
- What's a staging site?
- Create a staging site
- Pull your production site to the staging site
- Access your staging site
- View my staging site
- Push your staging site to the production site
Fine tune a site
Improve load times, search engine results, and more (Back to top)
- Performance report for WordPress
- Improve Google indexing
- Setup meta tags in WordPress
- Optimize images in WordPress
- See my site usage (For Pro accounts only)
- Check my disk space usage (For Basic, Deluxe, Ultimate, and Developer accounts)
- Traffic limits
- Update theme and plugins
- Use WP-CLI to manage your site
- Use Git to manage your site
- Query strings in WordPress URLs
Check here for help with common issues with your WordPress setup (Back to top)
- Troubleshoot and fix theme errors in WordPress
- Troubleshoot and fix WordPress plugin errors
- Troubleshoot and fix WordPress contact form errors
- Troubleshoot and fix a WordPress internal server error
- Troubleshoot and fix WordPress image issues
- Troubleshoot and fix a WordPress White Screen of Death
- Preventing WordPress comment spam
- Pro Managed WordPress support services
- Troubleshooting a slow WordPress site
- Blocklisted plugins
- Why doesn't my visitors count match what Google Analytics shows?
- Recover from failed Worker plugin installation in WordPress
Learn about building WordPress websites (Back to top)
- How to make a GoDaddy WordPress website
- Add and edit content in WordPress (For the optional Page Builder plugin)
- Anatomy of a WordPress theme


text:
Sunday, July 11th, 2013 maestro Victor Vener and the California Philharmonic performed in front of an excited audience at the majestic Disney Hall downtown Los Angeles.
The program started with the Carousel Waltz by Richard Rodgers and his long time collaborator Oscar Hammerstein, a dream team that broke new ground with modern musicals, using dance and song to convey plot rather than diverting attention from the story. Building the musical techniques of opera composers they were the first to incorporate and re-use musical motifs throughout the musical to connect the music story and allude to concern characters.
Unlike before, the Carousel Waltz was not only used as the main theme but also instead of an overture.
Next Vener took his audience away to the streets of Paris with George Gershwin's An American In Paris, a symphony in one movement. Amusing where the different themes majstro Vener pointed out including the French car horns that give this piece a particular authentic Parisian on- the-street experience.
After Vener spoke about Rhapsody in Blue, telling the audience that Gershwin gained notoriety through his Broadway musicals but that Rhapsody in Blue launched his career as a classical composer, combining elements of classical, jazz band and popular music. Pianist Bryan Pezzone delivered an inspiring and entertaining version of this long but phenomenal piece with the California Philharmonic.
After an intermission the melody of the King And I filled the hall, reminding the audience of marching Siamese children and long, hot days in a far away kingdom.
Next on the program, the audience was introduced to the charming Kim Huber and the handsome James Barbour, two of Broadway's best singers, taking turns singing solos from musicals such as South Pacific, Carousel, The Sound of Music and Oklahoma. Miss Huber, hitting all the high notes, sounded enchanting and reminded with her high pitched voice very much on a young Julie Andrews. James Barbour an exceptional barritone, was able to capture the audience with his deep voice and certainly charmed all the ladies in the hall.
If you'd like to join for Les Miz & Bernstein, the last musical weekend this summer including the Cal Phi Chorale, baritone Randal Keith and soprano Melissa Caldretti hurry and get tickets at www.ticketmaster.com for Disney Hall or www.calphil.org for the outdoor concerts at Santa Anita.


text:
Archive for March 2011
Introducing… The Human Singularity (… with the technology singularity in its supporting role)
In reality this unknown and parallel movement is really not so difficult to comprehend. If we simply look around us today, perceiving more wholly all the pieces of what's been happening and changing in our lives as fragments of an interconnected and evolving whole, we can capture a sense of its presence.
Peering through this new and more conscious lens – polished by the variables of the complex human psyche, and our social, ecological and spiritual realities – we catch site of the reason and purpose of our exciting and new technological universe. After all, there must be a purpose for it all; a purpose founded, to date without conscious intent, on our own evolution.
Do we really think all that is going on right now, before, and into the future with our technology, is an accident… a multi-verse joke? The purpose of the technology should connnect to something about humanity, right? It should have meaning and value and intrinsically defined direction.
I propose that purpose as fundamentally grounded by our own evolution as individuals within an inherently, though to-date relatively non-manifest, synergistic system of individuals.
And that this system is innately determined to accelerate the unfolding potential of individual minds within an emergent system of minds.
I think we are responsible for the course of the evolution of technology, I also think we don't know why.
Since the advent of the Internet…
(ARPANET: http://www.isoc.org/internet/history/brief.shtml )
…something within us has been trying to come through, push through. Today we have this new world of social-networking but we were destined to produce this essentially mind-interactive space. Our minds demanded it. We needed it for a reason, a purpose.
I believe there is a human-nature-evolving motivation for our technological movement that to-date has yet to be defined nor given its proper place in the scheme of things. I propose to use the term "The Human Singularity" for this movement.
Each and every human being on the planet is a evolving-node of an as yet unrealized human-eco-system. This always-evolving mind-matrix will be more innately and potently singular via the emergent qualities of humanity's expression of it's progressively unifying Self. The singular expressiveness will be defined by its synergy. This continuously evolving expression of an evolving humanity – a mind-of-minds – will always precede and guide our technology. We cannot see this yet, nor act on it with intention, because the idea has yet to be fully articulated, embraced and integrated into our consciousness and technological frameworks.
The potential intelligence of this evolving matrix of interconnected human "Self's" cannot be assessed, nor even imagined at this point in our history. This fuller and more complete wholeness as a human ecosystem is what I believe "humanity" has been moving towards, and yearning for in fact, since the very beginning of our conscious awareness as a species.
Think Gaia with frontal-lobes applied with intention.
Each of us, as uniquely, genetically disposed, significant and evolving individuals, has an optimal web-of-connections within this organic global human matrix. Further, we are destined to have and live a gift-driven life-purpose as a function of our uniqueness. With the discovery (resonance-of-human-complements = synergies) of those other significant Hu-connections and living this form of Self, our lives acquire greater meaning.
In generations to come the coherence and awareness of our individual uniqueness, and from this our personal and innately defined life-purpose, will make the ecosystem profoundly more powerful, more intelligent.
The concept The Human Singularity will not be fully understood until a more conscious awareness of our innate and gift-driven Self's, much less the relationship of that gift-driven Self's within an inherently interconnected whole. (See: https://imonad.wordpress.com/2009/07/15/weme-metrics/)
The intelligence and power of The Human Singularity is based on the degree of synergy among its parts. We as uniquely gifted individuals are those parts of a global and synergistic human matrix.
The degree of total Hu-synergy of Hu-ecosystem then is directly related to the degree of coherence and clarity of each Self within the system.
I see the purpose of the technology singularity in a core supporting role for the accelerated unfolding of our awaiting Human Singularity, not as a separate or somehow super-human movement.
The key to our being able to bring about this more whole, intelligent and synergetic human ecosystem is through the more effective learning and development of each human part or facet… our Self. We can't know and live more powerfully synergistic lives unless we better know (and then intentionally act on and live) our innate and natural dispositions and gifts.
This is an idea of Self seen as one's Significant-Self.
Until we learn to intentionally develop this next generation(s) of human "Self", much like we learn to read and write today, we cannot know the experience of human synergy. We will not, until then, realize and experience the incredible harmonies (Hu-synergy as Hu-overtones?) that can exist within a global eco-system of uniquely competent and purposeful human beings.
First, how do we define a human ecosystem? The story, the new lexicon, message needs both academic as well as curricular, and all-media popular representations. It needs to be formed, articulated and represented so that we can see it, feel it, live it. With these insights beginning to become more internalized we can then begin to recognize the daily and yearly evolving life-process-reality within our new Self's.
This brings to the fore the idea of an internal and individual "Singularity-of-Self."
A Self-Singularity necessitates a form of internal convergence. This convergence within each of us must occur through the coming together of parts or facets of our Self's. These Facets-of-Self are our innate dispositions. Each of us as individuals are born with unique set of natural dispositions (gifts). As each of us discovers these gifts and dispositions we then learn over time how they combine and weave together. It is the convergence of our gifts that moves us along the inexonerable and unique paths we were born to travel in life.
The lexicon and language and meaning needs a solid foundation and must dovetail into the current thought space. Even the simple idea of an evolving Self has as yet no ubiquitous alignment among humanity… we aren't even close. Further, the knowable and felt idea of a global matrix of unique Self's as a singular whole is even further out there.
Where to begin? Well, first we need to be able to have a (simple :-)) conversation about this new reality.
In order to do that we need to have an ontology and associated taxonomy. This human singularity ontology would frame the reality of an evolving human ecosystem, as well as, its core intrinsic dynamic processes.
This ontology and taxonomy must, by nature, play well with existing cultural beliefs, ideologies, and religions. It must also be easily shareable and applicable for the global public. More so, the ontology-as-model needs to be fully and warmly and viscerally embraced. Finally, in terms of popular expressions for teen and tween acceptance and application it needs to be perceived as "cool."
Without a way of speaking about and defining the process and innate facets of an evolving and unique human "Self" we can't communicate nor most effectively connect Self-to-Self(s). Without expression our innate human eco-system, its intelligence, power and synergetic potential, will continue to unfold in shadow, as it has to date, with continued attrition of the human psyche as the cost of not acting.
We need to deliver the what, why, how, and my favorite, the "so-what" of it.
Only then can we accelerate-by-design and intention the manifestation of this new and needed reality – within and between the minds of humanity, from generation to generation. Beginning in this one. Beginning with us.
As it happens 🙂 … I have developed such an evolutionary ontology and associated evolutionary (process) taxonomy. This process-model speaks to discovering and managing the development of the innate human uniqueness within and between each of us. It does so in a manner that is universal to all while applying uniquely to each individual.
(See http://www.letoonz.com/about_le_co.html (old website same content) and http://letoonz.wordpress.com/2009/10/09/letoonz-in-general/ for the ontology and taxonomy as represented to be known and felt by the masses, beginning with our children.)
These are all connected – our natural and innate gifts and dispositions, our uniqueness, our natural and incredibly powerful synergy with others, our life direction and ultimate purpose. These connections are our world, a more whole and powerful and intelligent human ecosystem – an ecosystem made up of healthy and passionately interwoven beings… an alive and breathing and forever-evolving whole.
The Human Singularity is very real – though as yet non-manifest in our consciousness.
We simply haven't evolved to the horizon of the sighting. When we do reach this threshold a more evolved, powerfully and creatively connected humanity awaits, forever traveling the path of evolving human wholeness, fueled by the evolution of its constituent parts… fueled by an "Us" evolving.
Written by JohnBrian
March 19, 2011 at 5:52 pm
Posted in "Ecology of Mind" Movement - Defined, LeCompany - The Learning-to-Evolve Company, New Language_New Words and Phrases, New Social Movements
Tagged with ah-ha, aha, AI, applications, collective, collective intelligence, david bohm, eco-system, ecology, ecomind, evolution, facebook, future, gaia, human evolution, intelligence, karl pribram, linkedin, mind, model, new, paradigm, prediction, Ray Kurzweil, self-creativity, semantic web, serendipity, shift, social, social networking metric, social science, synchronicity, synergy, technology singularity, toroid, vortex, wholeness


text:
- Full Description
DetailsThe 245 Litre Cascata decorative Water Butt is designed in Canada and manufactured here in the UK, this excellent water butt features an outlet with an attached 180cm of garden hose so you can water plants & flowers with absolute ease. Also includes a nozzle with shut-off valve, over-flow spout and a corrosion proof screen-guard. Direct your downpipe straight into the top or attach with an optional downpipe divertor kit. Made of high-quality plastic, this butt actually looks like real clay!
245 Litre Capacity
180cm Garden Hose with hook
Brass Tap
Overflow Spout
Plus, this butt elegantly features in an integrated planter or bird-bath!
Diameter: 63cm
Height: 110cm
Base approx 49cm
- Technical Spec
The Cascata consists of:
- Crown Planter/Bird bath
- Corrosion Proof Screen Guard
- Brass Tap
- Overflow Valve
- Elbow fitting for Hose attachment
- Hook for hanging Garden Hose
- 148cm Garden Hose with Shut-off Nozzle
- Height: 115cm (approx.)
- Diameter: 63cm (approx.) at widest point
- Weight: 11kgs
- Capacity: 245 litres
- Pump kit (to enable up to three Cascata's to be connected together and emptied using just one pump.
- Pump only
- Gutter Mate Rain water Diverter
- Plan T - water butt treatment keeping stored water fresh and clean
- Hose adapter for tap
- Adapter to convert GHT thread to BSP for popular watering devices
- Reviews
Write Your Own Review


text:
It's clear that millions of dollars in education funds were restored to Governor Cuomo's budget, which was agreed upon yesterday afternoon by the governor and legislative leaders.
The details of which schools are getting how much money, is less understood.
"As for precisely which of the state's nearly 700 districts get what, that will become clearer with the school aid runs," said Drew Biondo, an aide to state senator Ken LaValle (R-Port Jefferson). Mr. Biondo said the Division of Budget will release the breakdown of what individuals districts will receive either Wednesday or Thursday, when the Legislature is expected to vote on the final budget.


text:
Poems From A Spiritual Heart: Peace Upon The Land - A Memorial Day poem to honor ourselves. All of us need to work together to pressure world governments for Peace. It's past due time for the violence to end in modern societies.
* * * Support Warriors Pearl Foundation - contributing to fund efforts to help homeless female military veterans come home. Visit Denny Lyon Gifts @ CafePress.com - see what's new!


text:
This story from the New York Times tells the tale of Chaser, a Border Collie from Spartanburg, SC, with a vocabulary of 1,022 proper nouns. This tops the old record of over 200, held by Rico, another Border Collie in Germany.
It's worth noting that all dogs aren't this smart. JoJo, for example, needs to be re-taught "sit" almost daily. And some of the remarks about horses are tendentious; I studied mathematics with Dr. Cleverhans and found him to be a very astute teacher.


text:
Volume IX, No.6
In this back-to-school issue, schools that are innovating to meet high expectations despite the challenging economic times – doing more with less – are featured. In this month's "Special Report," Secretary of Education Arne Duncan salutes those responsible for the "quiet revolution" that is rebuilding public education. The "What's New?" section is beyond its normal size this month to accommodate the many developments, particularly at the Department of Education, since the June issue. You will also notice that the topics in the "Innovations in the News" section now align with the four assurances in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Going forward, we will report on local developments associated with these important national priorities as well as in others our readers are used to seeing, such as STEM, as space permits.
What's inside. . .
Innovating to Meet High Expectations in Challenging Times
- Key Resources
- Correction
What's New
- From the U.S. Department of Education
- From the Office of Innovation and Improvement
- From the Institute of Education Sciences
- Arts Education
- Leadership
- School Improvement
- Teacher Quality and Development
- Standards and Assessments
- Teachers and Leaders
- Education Data Systems
- Interventions in Low-Performing Schools
Innovating to Meet High Expectations in Challenging Times
This month, school districts nationwide are renewing their commitment to high student achievement for all children and to doing their part to reach the national goal of returning the United States to Number 1 in the world in postsecondary completion by 2020. And many, if not most, are recommitting to this important goal amid the most challenging fiscal circumstances they and the country have faced in decades. Despite gradual improvement in the economy, pre-K-12 education public funding levels will be flat or down for several years. Thus, school districts continue to pursue ambitious reform agendas by using innovative strategies that allow them to "do more with less."
Districts and schools are taking bold steps to accelerate progress in closing achievement gaps, decrease dropout rates, and increase the number of students prepared for and entering higher education. In the words of Education Secretary Arne Duncan, they are part of a "quiet revolution" of educators who are "challenging the defeatism and inertia that has trapped generations of children in second-rate schools," and are doing it despite the current economic constraints.
Specifically, districts are pursuing several strategies that are showing promise: (1) rethinking resource allocations; (2) leveraging community resources; (3) taking advantage of technology; and (4) partnering for success and savings.
Rethinking Resource Allocations
"If states want to promote school systems that succeed at scale, they must get in the game of restructuring the use of existing resources for system-wide transformation – not simply adding resources on top."
— Karen Hawley Miles and Karen Baroody, Education Resource Strategies
In many districts, budget time is characterized by making minor adjustments to the previous year's budget, and the budgeting process is divorced from school planning. In The Strategic School: Making the Most of People, Time, and Money, Miles and co-author Stephen Frank cite courage and persistence as essential for transformational change: courage to set priorities and "say that some things are more important than others," and persistence to overcome "a host of regulations, contractual provisions, and district practices [that] combine to thwart changes in school organization."
From its efforts helping urban districts strategically reallocate their resources to improve student performance over the past decade, ERS has defined a comprehensive framework of seven Core Transformational Strategies that support high-performing schools. ResourceCheck™ Tool, a questionnaire available online from ERS, is designed to help school districts determine how they are currently organizing their key resources – people, time, and money – to support high-performing schools.
Leveraging Community Resources
Many schools and school systems have a history of leveraging and integrating public and private community resources to meet students and schools' needs and broaden students' opportunities. By ensuring students are ready to learn, filling key gaps in school supports and services, and adding onto/wrapping around the core school day and year, these community resources not only improve the opportunity for every child to learn, but they also allow every dollar of schools' budgets to go that much further.
The Coalition for Community Schools, comprised of 142 local, state, and national organizations in both the public and private sectors, reminds us that the learning needs of students do not begin at 7:30 a.m. or end at 3:30 p.m.; nor are those needs fully met within the school walls.
Strong and purposeful, results-focused partnerships with community-based organizations, families, and other community members are at the heart of the Coalition's Agenda. Partners participating in the community school strategy represent a wide array of community sectors and institutions that influence positive outcomes for children and youth. Community schools across the nation are blending funding sources to ensure that the needed services are brought to bear on not only the school-day experiences of the students, but also learning opportunities beyond the regular school hours for students and their families.
In Indiana, the Evansville Vanderburgh School Corporation (EVSC), with more than 22,000 students in 38 schools, is committed to a district-wide community school system, which resulted from the combining of four influences: the institutionalization of the community schools philosophy by school leaders; the creation of a School-Community Council, a supportive network of community agencies; and the leveraging of federal, state, and local resources. Federal funds from Title I, IDEA, Early Head Start, and Head Start as well as grants from the state level are strategically combined with local public and private funds and in-kind services to help EVCS to achieve its mission to provide "equity and excellence for all students."
The Center for Family, School, and Community Partnerships, which houses programs and services that support families, parents, and students, is itself a metaphor for the combining of public and private resources. The Center is home to EVSC's associate superintendent who oversees the community schools initiative as well as to a number of community partners that provide services and programs, and the building is provided by Old National Bancorp. The center represents the intentionality with which the school district and its many partners are, in the words of EVSC Superintendent Vincent Bertram, "meeting our children's academic, social, emotional, and health needs as a shared responsibility." The partnerships that the Center represents are "at the core of our district's strategic plan," according to Superintendent Bertram.
An ongoing evaluation of student performance in Evansville shows increases in attendance and graduation rates. Students who have participated in afterschool and summer programs for more than 30 days have higher reading and math grades and fewer absences than students who either did not participate or did so only infrequently.
Surrounding students, especially those at risk of dropping out, with a community of support has been the mission of another nationwide schools network for more than 30 years. In more than 3,000 schools in half of the states and the District of Columbia, Communities In Schools (CIS), a national nonprofit that is focused on preventing school dropouts by working with schools through its network of more than 200 affiliates, helped to keep 97 percent of the students it monitors as potential dropouts in school. CIS's comprehensive approach to dropout prevention is all about leveraging existing resources. The approach surrounds students – 96 percent of whom are eligible for free or reduced-priced meals – with a range of community-based interventions, coordinated by a CIS staff member in each of the partner schools. "Our affiliates apply the evidence-based program that we've developed and honed over the past 30 years, adapting the program to meet local needs and goals," notes CIS president Dan Cardinali.
More than 15,000 CIS community partners in 2008-09 generated 2.5 million volunteer service hours, estimated at a value of more than $51 million. These in-kind contributions, combined with more than $150 million in grants, mostly from the state and local levels, allowed the CIS affiliates to directly serve 1.3 million students at an average per-student cost of $192. Most impressively, according to its annual report, CIS achieved these results while grappling with declines in both its paid staff and volunteers due to the economic downturn. A combination of evidence-based programs and local flexibility, according to Cardinali, "made it possible for Communities in Schools to achieve greater results with fewer resources in 2009."
Taking Advantage of Technology
In his recent remarks to educators and school leaders from America's rural communities, Secretary Duncan noted that "knowledge should have no boundaries." With the continuing increases in online learning and virtual schools – 45 of the 50 states, plus Washington, D.C., have a state virtual school or online initiative, full-time online schools, or both, according to a 2009 report, Keeping Pace with K-12 Online Learning – access to knowledge via the Internet is becoming a mainstay of American schooling.
School district administrators recognize the efficiencies inherent in online learning, particularly when content or courses can be delivered more cost-efficiently than the traditional teacher-in-a-classroom model. The top three reasons K-12 district administrators cited for the importance of online and blended courses, according to the 2009 Sloan Consortium report, were "offering courses not otherwise available at the school, ... offering Advanced Placement or college-level courses, ... and meeting the needs of specific groups of students."
A charter school network in the San Jose area, Rocketship Education, uses a unique hybrid approach to online learning to meet the needs of its elementary-grade student population, 90 percent of whom are from low-income households and nearly three-quarters of whom are English language learners. Students attend regularly scheduled Learning Lab sessions during which individual learning needs are addressed. The daily lab sessions are surrounded by blocks of math/science and literacy/social studies instruction.
By using the Learning Lab, Rocketship administrators were able to reduce the number of total classroom teachers needed, freeing up $500,000 annually that is used for several purposes, including teacher salaries that are 20 percent higher than surrounding districts, Response to Intervention (RTI), and principal training. Since the first school opened in 2007, Rocketship students have soared to top scores in both their school district and the state. The combined uses of technology, paraprofessionals, and personalizing instruction through RTI is putting Rocketship Education "light years ahead of where everyone else is," according to Don Shalvey, deputy director of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Partnering for Success and Savings
As schools and districts continue to tackle longstanding challenges, some are looking to new business models based on partnerships with specialized, sometimes nontraditional providers of services to supplement or substitute for existing school services. In a recent working paper for the American Enterprise Institute, "Shifting Risk to Create Opportunity: A Role for Performance Guarantees in Education," Bryan Hassel and Daniela Doyle explore a variety of such guarantees – warranties, bonds, and performance contracts among them. Hassel and Doyle note that school districts, particularly in times of constrained budgets like the present, avoid the risks attendant to using nontraditional providers for a variety of reasons, including the uncertainty of results and fear of public reprisals if objectives aren't achieved. Through the use of performance guarantees, which are quite common in other sectors, districts could reduce, if not completely eliminate, risks as well as realize efficiencies that could be gained through contracting arrangements.
A case in point is AdvancePath Academics, a private provider of alternative education solutions for students who are disengaged or are at risk of dropping out of high school. Through public-private partnerships with districts nationwide, AdvancePath operates in-school Academies that provide high-quality education services addressing both the education and social needs of non-traditional learners. The curriculum is built on district and state standards and aligned with local graduation requirements, but learning is flexible with Academies operating year-round and students offered multiple sessions throughout the day and evening. Each student has a personalized learning plan based on individual needs.
AdvancePath Academics pays for all operating costs, from teacher and staff salaries to infrastructure to curriculum and instructional materials. The partnering district pays not more than the amount that it normally apportions for each student. Additionally, districts have an option of compensating AdvancePath only for students who attend the academies, an arrangement that is a win for the districts, the students, and the outside provider. This arrangement gives AdvancePath Academics an incentive to retain, educate, and graduate all students, and the partnering districts stay within their budgets while increasing their capacity to serve non-traditional students. Academy students find the approach to be a powerful, personalized option for staying in school, so much so that 90 percent of the students entering AdvancePath Academies either graduate high school or transfer to other schools to complete their studies or continue their studies with the academy on track for graduation.
Start the Engines
In his remarks to state and local school leaders last August, Secretary Duncan challenged them, along with the U.S. Department of Education, to become "engines of innovation" in order to bring about the transformational change needed to reach the college-graduation goal set by President Obama. "The islands of excellence that now exist in schools districts have to become the norm," he said, by "creating a culture of innovation and building the district-level systems needed to sustain a cycle of continuous improvement."
A year later, despite the continued fiscal challenges that states and districts face, educators and their partners in the public and private sectors are either starting or accelerating their engines of innovation despite some declines in state and local education revenues. And others, like the community schools in Evansville or the charter schools of Rocketship Education, are leading the way by forging partnerships, finding cost-efficiencies with technology, or rethinking business relationships with outside providers to take proven strategies to scale.
Key Resources:
In the August Innovator feature, reference was made to the Student Tracker as a part of the New Visions for Public Schools project. The electronic system of the New Visions project is now known as the College Readiness Checker. The case study-[PDF, 514KB] that describes this initiative has been updated to reflect this name change.
Special Report: Secretary Duncan Salutes "Quiet Revolution" in Education Reform
On July 27, in a speech at the National Press Club, Secretary Duncan saluted the education community for leading a "quiet revolution" of reform across the country. "From educators to parents and political leaders to journalists, there is a growing sense that a quiet revolution is underway in our homes and schools, classrooms, and communities, "he said." This quiet revolution is driven by motivated parents who want better educational options for their children. It is driven by great educators and administrators who are challenging the defeatism and inertia that has trapped generations of children in second-rate schools. It is driven by elected officials and stakeholders outside the school system who value education enough to fund it adequately and give generously of their time, energy, and resources. It is driven by foundations and entrepreneurs that seed the fresh, new thinking that every sector of society needs in order to change and grow and improve."
Among the reforms, the Secretary specifically praised the momentum for adopting rigorous academic standards (so far, 35 states and the District of Columbia have approved common core college- and career-ready standards), elevating the teaching profession to reward excellence, turning around low-performing schools, and building better data systems to inform reform. Of course, the bulk of the work is being done by governors, superintendents, and teachers, but the federal government is supporting their work through Race to the Top and other reform programs, including the Investing in Innovation Fund, School Improvement Grants, the Teacher Incentive Fund, and the charter school program.
"We can't rebuild public education on the same old system of rules and regulations. We have to change the rules, eliminate the excuses, and hold ourselves accountable."
— Secretary of Education Arne Duncan
After his remarks, the Secretary announced that 18 states at the District of Columbia are finalists for $3.4 billion available in the second round of the Race to the Top program: Arizona, California, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and South Carolina. Thirty-five states and the District of Columbia applied for the second round of funding. The finalists are traveling to Washington, D.C., this month to present their plans to the peer reviewers who scored their applications. After the states' presentations and an extended question-and-answer period, the peer reviewers will finalize their scores and comments. The Department intends to announce the winners of the competition in September.
In a letter to governors, the Secretary congratulated the finalists. To others who applied, he applauded them for doing so and encouraged them to continue their work on meaningful reform." The Department pledges to support you and your state in this work by sharing the lessons learned and the materials developed through Race to the Top, and by including you in relevant collaborative learning communities. In addition, as you are aware, President Obama has proposed $1.35 billion for Race to the Top in his fiscal year 2011 budget. We hope to continue this program and its support of reform across the country." [Reprinted from August 6th ED Review]
What's New
From the U.S. Department of Education
An estimated 160,000 education jobs nationwide are expected to be saved with the enactment of legislation that was approved by the U.S. Senate and signed by President Barack Obama earlier this month. "With the support of the jobs bill, these educators will be helping our children learn instead of looking for work," Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said. "This is the right thing to do for our children, for our teachers, and for our economy." The $10 billion fund that the bill provides for schools will support education jobs in the 2010-11 school year and be distributed to states by a formula based on population figures. States can distribute their funding to school districts based on their own primary funding formula or districts' relative share of federal Title I funds. (August 2010)
President Obama delivered an address on education at the Urban League's 100th Anniversary Convention highlighting the steps his Administration has taken over the past 18 months to improve the education system in America. The President stated that education reform is a top priority for his Administration because the "status quo is morally inexcusable, it's economically indefensible, and all of us are going to have to roll up our sleeves to change it." He also spotlighted the Race to the Top program, noting its support for teachers to help them be successful while still holding them accountable for results in the classroom. Education Secretary Duncan also addressed the Urban League's convention, where he promised to pursue federal policies to advance equity in the nation's public schools and indicated that he would form a new, bipartisan commission to examine educational equity. (July 2010)
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius announced the formation of the Early Learning Interagency Policy Board to improve the quality of early learning programs and outcomes for young children, increase the coordination of research, technical assistance, and data systems, and advance the effectiveness of the early learning workforce among the major federally funded early learning programs across the two departments. "This marks an important step in our effort to help eliminate silos at the federal level," said Secretary Duncan. "We want to ensure that collaboration at the federal level mirrors the integration you're striving to achieve at the state and local levels." (August 2010)
In July, 150 rural education stakeholders and technology experts from 26 states came together to learn from one another and provide critical feedback to federal leaders at the National Rural Education Technology Summit in Washington, D.C. Secretary Duncan convened the summit in partnership with Smithsonian Secretary G. Wayne Clough, who is aggressively seeking to increase student access to the wealth of content, resources, and scientists available via the Smithsonian Institution. The Secretary also enlisted Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski for this effort to challenge the country to rethink and redesign schools as broadband and other innovations come online. At the summit, Secretary Duncan announced the formation of an Online Learning Registry to provide access to priceless historical, artistic, and scientific primary source materials. (July 2010)
Also in July, the Secretary's remarks to the College Board Advanced Placement (AP) Conference addressed three widely-shared myths impeding the transformation of U.S. high schools: first, that setting higher standards and expectations for students will only lead more students to fail; second, that poverty is destiny; and third, that high school educators and counselors cannot really prepare students for college or careers because the concept of college- and career-readiness is itself too elusive to evaluate meaningfully with assessments or to track with longitudinal data systems. (July 2010)
Secretary Duncan announced the appointment of 15 teachers as Teaching Ambassador Fellows for the 2010-11 school year. Five have become full-time employees at the Department. The others are continuing as full-time teachers, while working as fellows part-time. Now in its third year, the Teaching Ambassador Fellowship program was created to give outstanding teachers an opportunity to participate in policy development and to contribute their expertise to those discussions. Fellows, in turn, share what they have learned about federal initiatives with other teachers in their districts and states, encouraging broader input into efforts to improve education at all levels of government. (July 2010)
The Department of Education launched Version 1.0 of ED Data Express, an interactive website designed to increase the transparency of K-12 data collected by the agency by providing public access to high-value, state-level education data. The site presents data in a clear, easy-to-use manner, with a variety of tools to accommodate different types of users. Version 2.0, which will include data filtering tools, graphing tools, and mapping tools, as well as links to social networking sites, will be launched this winter. (August 2010)
From the Office of Innovation and Improvement
Finalists in the Investing in Innovation (i3) program, representing a cross-section of 49 school districts,nonprofit organizations, and institutions of higher education, were selected from among almost 1,700 applicants. According to OII Assistant Deputy Secretary Jim Shelton, "We were really struck by the number of high quality applicants and winners who were not among the usual suspects." To receive a share of the $650 million in i3 grants, the winning applicants must secure a commitment for a 20 percent private-sector match by September 8. The grants fall into three categories: up to $50 million per "scale-up" grant for programs with a strong track record of success; up to $30 million per "validation" grant for programs with emerging evidence of success; and up to $5 million per "development" grant for promising ideas. Winning applicants will serve 42 states, the District of Columbia, and American Samoa, with about half intending to serve limited English proficient students and students with disabilities and 37 percent intending to serve rural districts. (August 2010)
The Department has posted a categorized list of all 339 applications for Promise Neighborhoods. Representatives from nearly every state and the District of Columbia submitted applications, including 49 rural and 21 tribal communities. Almost 20 percent of the communities are working with colleges and universities as their lead applicant for the program. Applicants will be reviewed during August by independent peer review committees. The agency will announce up to 20 planning grants of up to $500,000 each no later than September 30. (August 2010)
The Secretary announced the award of 12 charter school grants, totaling $136 million to state education agencies in Arkansas, California, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Georgia, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and Texas to increase public school options in those states. This is an investment of more than $256 million this year to assist in the planning and implementation of public charter schools and dissemination of their successful practices through the Charter Schools Program. The purpose of the Charter Schools Program is to increase financial support for the startup and expansion of these public schools, build a better national understanding of the public charter school model, and increase the number of high-quality public charter schools across the nation. (August 2010)
During August, two programs in OII's Teacher Quality Programs office announced 2010 grant awards. Grants to improve the quality of teaching American history in U.S. schools, totaling $115.3 million to 124 school districts, were announced by Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. The Teaching American History grant program aims to enhance teachers' understanding of American history through intensive professional development, including study trips to historic sites and mentoring with professional historians and other experts. Also awarded was $9.2 million in grants under the School Leadership Program to improve the effectiveness of current and aspiring principals and assistant principals in high-need districts. (August 2010)
Also in August, 33 grants-[MS Word, 29KB] under the Arts in Education Model Development and Dissemination Program (AEMDD or Arts Models) were awarded to school districts and to nonprofit organizations working in partnership with their local schools. Arts Models grants support the development, implementation, evaluation, and dissemination of innovative projects that strengthen both standards-based arts instruction and integration of arts with other core academic subjects in grades pre-K-8. (August 2010)
From the Institute of Education Sciences
The National Center for Education Research awarded 36 new research grants under the Education Research Grants Program and two new grants in the Evaluation of State and Local Education Programs and Policies from applications considered under the October 2009 deadline. In addition, two new National Research and Development Centers were awarded. Spending for this round of grants and centers totals $96 million. The newly funded projects address a wide range of topics and seek to improve student outcomes from preschool to postsecondary in multiple domains using innovative techniques. (July 2010)
The Institute's Fifth Annual Research Conference, "Connecting Research, Policy and Practice," was attended by more than 1,200 education researchers, policymakers, and staff. In his remarks during the opening plenary session, Secretary Arne Duncan referred to education research as "the compass for education reform, guiding us forward," and encouraged attendees to form partnerships with policymakers. Other plenary speakers sounded a consistent message about pursuing action-oriented, useable research in partnership with educators. (June 2010)
Arts Education
The 21st Century Skills Map for the Arts demonstrates how the three Rs and four Cs (critical thinking and problem solving, communication, collaboration, and creativity and innovation) can be fused within arts curriculum. The map was released at a Capitol Hill briefing by representatives from P21, the American Alliance for Theatre & Education, the Educational Theatre Association, the National Art Education Association, MENC: The National Association for Music Education, the National Dance Association, and the National Dance Education Organization. The map provides educator-created examples of how art subjects (dance, music, theatre, and visual and media arts) can be fused with skills to create engaging learning experiences that promote 21st century knowledge and skill acquisition. (July 2010)
The U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution declaring the week following the second Sunday in September (September 12-18, this year) as Arts in Education Week. While there are a number of established arts education-related recognitions already, this is the first congressional resolution to recognize all the disciplines: music, theater, visual arts, and dance. Sponsored by Rep. Jackie Speiers (D-California), the resolution states many important advocacy messages concerning the importance of the arts as a core academic subject and part of a well-rounded education. (August 2010)
The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, presented by the nonprofit Alliance for Young Artists & Writers, has a long history of encouraging creativity and highlighting the value of the visual and literary arts in schools and communities nationwide. Launching on September 15, in conjunction with Arts in Education Week, teens in grades 7-12 can apply in 30 categories of art and writing –including painting, photography, film & animation, video game design, short story, and personal essay/memoir–for the opportunity to earn recognition and scholarships, and to have their works exhibited and published. The Alliance produces an annual exhibition of national award-winning works in New York City and also holds ongoing exhibitions at the U.S. Department of Education headquarters in Washington, D.C. and the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, and will host their first-ever traveling exhibition this year to five locations across the country, opening at the Ft. Wayne Museum of Art in November. (August 2010)
Kicking off the program's fifth year, the National Endowment for the Arts announced that 75 nonprofits – including arts and cultural organizations, libraries, and universities – will receive grants totaling $1 million to host a Big Read project between September 2010 and June 2011. The Big Read brings communities together to read, discuss, and celebrate one of 31 selections from United States and world literature. (July 2010)
The largest in-depth study of school leadership-[PDF, 3.4MB] to date, Learning from Leadership: Investigating the Links to Improved Student Learning, draws on extensive new data from more than 150 schools. The Wallace Foundation, which funded the $3.5 million study, indicated that it "demonstrates a strong, positive link between educational leaders – particularly principals – and student learning outcomes," according to the Foundation's press release. Researchers conducted more than 1,000 interviews and surveyed more than 8,000 teachers and administrators. (July 2010)
School Improvement
The School Turnaround Group (STG), a division of Mass Insight Education, released its latest publication, School Turnaround Models: Emerging Turnaround Strategies and Results, which contains examples of dramatic reform strategies that lead to significant gains in student achievement. These success stories further STG's commitment to turning around chronically under-performing schools. In addition to this new publication, STG offers a series of school- and district-level case studies on its website that provide greater detail on the school turnaround process, implementation strategies, and critical school-level systems employed in successful turnaround efforts. (July 2010)
A set of best practices for large-scale state testing are available as the result of a collaboration between the Council of Chief State School Officers, which represents commissioners of education, and the Association of Test Publishers, a nonprofit trade group. Work on the guide began in 2006, as a national push for large-scale accountability testing driven by the No Child Left Behind Act called attention to the need of both states and test publishers for guidance in designing and implementing good assessment systems, according to Gene Wilhoit, the CCSSO's executive director. Its availability is timely given the Race to the Top competitions that include funding for states to develop new assessment systems. (August 2010)
Teacher Quality and Development
The Education Commission of the States (ECS) offers two new resources concerning performance pay for teachers and research concerning the extent to which implicit teacher prejudice is correlated with harsher evaluations of minority students and a wider achievement gap between minority and nonminority students.
In the first case, ECS reviewed the 36 applications to the second round of Race to the Top to analyze them for their similarities and differences relative to plans for performance pay-[PDF, 424KB]. All 36 applications included such plans, with most of the performance initiatives to be implemented at the individual teacher level. The extent to which a student growth component will be included ranged from 15 to more than 50 percent of the evaluation points.
In its analysis of the implicit measures of teacher prejudice, researchers who studied elementary teachers and students found higher teacher prejudice was correlated with harsher evaluations of minority students and a wider achievement gap as compared to those of teachers with lower implicit prejudice. (July 2010)
Innovations in the News
Standards and Assessments
The most recent national assessment results in reading placed black fourth-graders in Wisconsin in last place, which was an outrage to Howard Fuller, former Milwaukee Public Schools superintendent. Fuller, now at Marquette University, turned his outrage into action by mobilizing others to join him to determine the best ways to teach elementary reading and raising $200,000 in public and private funds for the Milwaukee Summer Reading Project. The five-week program is using a research-based curriculum to prepare 87 third and fourth-graders for the new school year. Fuller and his colleagues, however, aren't stopping at summer's end. They are bringing in experts to give guidance on policies and procedures that other states are using to gain higher reading scores. [More—The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel] (August 2)
With research findings continuing to mount that point to disparities between income groups in learning loss over the summer – a Johns Hopkins University study, for instance, found that by ninth grade, summer learning loss accounted for nearly two-thirds of the income-group achievement gap – nationwide attention to the problem is increasing. The National Summer Learning Association (NSLA), a nonprofit based in Baltimore, Md., is working to change the negative perceptions of summer school; it shouldn't be seen as "the Grinch that stole summer vacation," notes NSLA's CEO Ron Fairchild. Others, like Earl Phalen of Summer Advantage, are providing intensive summer learning outside of but as a complement to the public schools for students in several Indiana cities. [More—Time] (August 2)
Twenty-eight states and the District of Columbia are on board with the Common Core standards, with others expected to accept them before summer is over and possibly as many as 40 states by next spring. As the state adoption process moves forward, so does the national dialogue about just how much difference the new standards will make. While the widespread adoption is an impressive feat, notes Frederick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute, "it's really just one-mile marker in a 26-mile marathon." Others, including Michael Cohen, president of Achieve, concur that adoption is only the first step, to be followed by new curricula and tests, improved teacher training, and new accountability systems. [More—Christian Science Monitor] (July 27)
Elementary teachers in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools will be more effective at integrating engineering and technology in their science curriculum this year thanks to a curriculum developed by Boston's Museum of Science and local partners that include N.C. State University, Discovery Place, UNC at Charlotte, and Duke Energy. Engineering is Elementary (EIS) uses stories set in various places and cultures to introduce real-life engineering issues, as well as hands-on engineering design challenges that students tackle in groups. According to the Museum of Science, an estimated 1.2 million students in all 50 states will experience learning through EIS this new school year. [More—The Carolina Weekly] (August 6)
In Dallas, 22 elementary schools have a new science partner this fall – the city's Museum of Nature & Science is providing a full-time museum staffer to coordinate classroom visits that will involve artifacts from the museum and hands-on experiments. Most of the classrooms will be fourth graders this first year; the plan is to expand to 80 schools within three years. Based on training they are getting this summer, participating teachers say the partnership is already making them more comfortable with labs and think the hands-on learning will help their students do better on the state assessment. Best of all, the program is free to schools thanks to funding from the Dallas Citizens Council, AT&T, and several other local foundations. [More—The Dallas Morning News] (July 21)
Education Data Systems
Principals and teachers in New York City schools now have reports from the City University of New York (CUNY) as to how many of their former students need remedial courses and how many stayed enrolled following their first semester. Similar tracking efforts of high school graduates are underway in Illinois, and Denver and Philadelphia are also planning data systems between high schools and colleges. In New York City, 46 percent of the public school graduates who enrolled in a CUNY two- or four-year college in 2007 needed a minimum of one remedial course. The CUNY data also indicated that 40 percent of those 2007 graduates dropped out of college within two years. [More—The New York Times] (August 10)
Using the student data tracking system of the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, state officials discerned a correlation between schools with weak academic performance and those with large influxes and exoduses of students. They identified 400 underperforming schools statewide that had more than 20 percent of their students registering or departing during the year, in contrast with more than 900 schools with enrollment changes under 10 percent that had stronger academic performance records. Under new state policies, attention will be given to developing interventions for transient students. Additionally, Boston now has a consistent curriculum in English and math in all of its schools to help ease the transition for students moving during the year. [More—The Boston Globe] (August 2)
Teachers and Leaders
Arizona teachers begin the new school year with an assignment from their legislators – help to craft the details of a new system of evaluation in which 33 to 50 percent of their annual evaluations will be tied to their students' progress. The statewide measure, Senate Bill 1040, which will result in a evaluation system in place by the 2012-13 school year, will be a work-in-progress this year, needing a "framework" that the state Board of Education must provide that districts and charter schools will use to meet the new requirements. Recommendations to the state board will come from a 12-person task force that includes school administrators, teachers, and union leaders. [More—The Arizona Republic] (August 1)
Researchers in North Carolina are looking at the question of where credentials matter when it comes to student achievement. What was their conclusion after reviewing statewide data on several large cohorts of 9th and 10th graders, matching them to their teachers? At the high school level, credentials do matter, according to Duke University researcher Helen F, Ladd, who headed the study, and with a large enough impact on student achievement to warrant attention by education policymakers concerned with raising the quality of instruction. Among specific factors that were found to be linked to higher achievement were obtaining a master's degree after some time in the classroom, high scores on subject-matter tests used for certification, and certification from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. The full study can be found in the current issue of the Journal of Human Resources. [More—Education Week] (July 21) (premium article access compliments of EdWeek.org)
Interventions in Low-Performing Schools
Going it alone can be risky, and that can be true for individual teachers asked to staff turnaround schools. But in Boston, Teach Plus, a nonprofit organization, is working with three turnaround schools to place teams of experienced teachers to make up a quarter of the staffs for each of the schools. "It's like jump-starting a culture at these schools," said Boston School Superintendent Carol R. Johnson, who sees value in having a set of enthusiastic but also experienced teachers in turnaround schools that have high percentages of first- and second-year teachers. Funding for Teach Plus, which helps to prepare the teams during the summer, is coming from the Gates Foundation. [More—The New York Times] (August 9)
Shawnee High School has a new name, the Academy @ Shawnee, and a new principal, Keith Look, with a tall order: turnaround a school that has a 60-percent graduation rate. He is heading one of six turnarounds in Jefferson County and getting help from the Kentucky Principals Academy at the University of Louisville and other supports are coming his way from the state education department and other resources. But before the school doors open this month, Look has to scrutinize and change the schedules of 100 Shawnee juniors and seniors who are enrolled in classes that won't result in credits they need to graduate. Education Week looks inside the turnaround efforts at the Academy @ Shawnee in a special series in the weeks to come. [More—Education Week] (August 4) (premium article access compliments of EdWeek.org)
In Prince George's County, Md., the theory of "two is better than one" is being tried at Gholson Middle School, a turnaround school about to open with a new faculty and staff. The two in this instance is the principal post, which will be shared by two seasoned local administrators who spent part of the past school year preparing for the uncommon role. They participated in the New Leaders for New Schools program, which allowed them to take an in-depth look at a county school needing reform and to devise a plan for it. The school they chose was Gholson and the two proposed the co-principal approach. Funding from a $1.5 million grant to Prince George's County from the U.S. Department of Education will help cover the costs. [More—The Washington Post] (July 29)
There was little or no break for STEM teachers and some students in many places this summer. Here's a sample of summer STEM initiatives in the local news:
LaGuardia Community College in New York City was host to 65 high school students who participated in the Youth Center for Engineering Excellence. The program serves low-income minority students to interest them in pursuing careers in engineering and science. The focus is on hands-on experiences and participants create such inventions as recycling robots and solar-powered boats. [More—The New York Daily News] (August 11)
At the University of Illinois at Urbana, middle and high school teachers from around the state learned about nanotechnology. The emphasis is on them bringing hands-on experiences with the science genre into their classrooms, for which the University's Center for Nanoscale Chemical Electrical Manufacturing Systems offers them loans of staging devices and micromanipulators. [More—The Urbana/Champaign (IL) News-Gazette] (August 3)
The NASA Summer of Innovation landed in Chicago this summer to offer middle school students from the city's South Side and south suburbs learning in science, technology, engineering and mathematics in two- and four-week enrichment camps. By August 1, the camps served more than 1,000 students and were expected to reach double that number by summer's end. Community partners that fueled the effort included the University of Illinois-Chicago, the city's Boys and Girls Clubs, and several other community organizations and churches. [More—The Chicago Sun-Times] (July 31)
In South Carolina, a group of Carver Junior High School students from District 7 participated in the U.S. Military Academy at West Point's Summer STEM Quest Institute, which is boosting student interest in the STEM career fields. The experience was the kick-off of a year-long collaboration between the school and West Point as well as with NASA and Clemson University as the junior high school transitions to a STEM program focus as part of a restructuring plan for all District 7 schools. [More—The Spartanburg (SC) Herald Journal] (July 30)
Office of Innovation and Improvement
Jim Shelton, Assistant Deputy Secretary
Doug Herbert
Cynthia Cabell
Sr. Production Editor
Dramon Turner
Production Editor
Emily Archer
Copy Editor
Adam Honeysett
Elena Rocha
Article Contributions
Doug Herbert
Elena Rocha
Issue Reviewers
Last Modified: 08/31/2010