Free Republic

Tehran plans a nuclear weapons test before March 20, 2006 – the Iranian New Year, moves Shahab-3 missiles within striking range of Israel. Reporting this, the dissident Foundation for Democracy in Iran, a US-based watch group, cites sources in the US and Iran. The FDI adds from Iran: on June 16, the high command of the Revolutionary Guards Air Force ordered Shahab-3 missile units to move mobile launchers every 24 hours instead of weekly. This is in view of a potential pre-emptive strike by the US or Israel. Advance Shahab-3 units have been positioned in Kermanshah and Hamad within striking...

After a dismal performance on state standardized tests this spring, the Baltimore school system decided to overhaul the way it teaches reading and writing in middle schools. Putting convention aside, officials spent at least $2 million on Studio Course, a curriculum that uses teen magazines, places grammar on the back burner and lets kids write about whatever they want. ... The program has a track record in only one other city, Denver, where middle schools have seen reading and writing scores stagnate. "I can't imagine Baltimore would be so ignorant to think it's research-based," said Kay Landon, a sixth-grade teacher...

An Interview with Christina Asquith: About “The Emergency Teacher” Tuesday, November 8, 2005 EducationNews.org Suzi Cottrell Michael F. Shaughnessy Eastern New Mexico University Portales, New Mexico 1) You have recently written a book about “The Emergency Teachers” What prompted you to write this book? Literature is a powerful teaching tool. When I started my first year teaching in a low-income, urban school, I searched for books by other new teachers to use as a model for myself. But I couldn’t find anything that was realistic and written by a teacher. So, when my year ended, and I had learned so...

3 employees of Creekstone Farms in Arkansas City were airlifted to a Wichita hospital Sunday afternoon after an elevator accident. Arkansas City Fire officials say the 2 men and 1 woman were seriously hurt when a freight elevator suddenly fell about 30 feet. They say Creekstone officials told them the elevator was not intended for human use. Creekstone Farms is declining comment on the incident until Monday.

WASHINGTON -- Rafael Palmeiro gave his first public explanation of his failed drug test Wednesday, on the eve of a congressional report on whether the former Baltimore Orioles slugger lied under oath when he denied using steroids. In a statement released by his lawyer, Palmeiro acknowledged several facts of his case that already had been reported, including that the anabolic steroid stanozolol was found in his system in May, and that he had raised the possibility that a shot of vitamin B12 he took in April "might have been the cause." "I have never intentionally taken steroids," Palmeiro said in...

Vermont may sue to stop tire burn November 6, 2005 By Darren M Allen Staff Writer MONTPELIER — If New York environmental officials choose to disregard Vermont's opposition to plans by International Paper Co. to burn up to 72 tons of shredded tires at its Ticonderoga, N.Y., paper mill for a two-week test, Vermont will likely take the matter to court. Gov. James Douglas and his administration, in cooperation with the Vermont Attorney General's Office, are prepared to exercise every legal avenue at their disposal, the governor's press secretary said last week. "Gov. Douglas has asked the Agency of Administration...

11/4/2005 - EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. (AFPN) -- The Air Force’s second CV-22 Osprey arrived here Oct. 27. -- two months earlier than the contract’s due date. The first Air Force CV-22 was delivered for electromagnetic testing to Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md., Sept. 16 and will arrive at Edwards in December. The third CV-22 will be delivered in February 2006. The Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation Center will use these three aircraft to conduct an operational utility evaluation next summer. If the CV-22 completes the evaluation successfully it will be certified for use in training operations...

Has anyone had any experience with Huntington Learning Center? I have a child who has been struggling in school for some time and our efforts have not improved the situation much. My wife suggested we take him to a learning center and we went to Huntington Learning Center, where, after a long discussion with the woman who owned it, we made an appointment to have him tested. The results of the test confirmed what we already knew ($170.00 for the test) and we were then subjected to a 2 hour conference where we were informed that my child's only hope...

Nearly 100,000 California 12th graders — or about 20% of this year's senior class — have failed the state's graduation exam, potentially jeopardizing their chances of earning diplomas, according to the most definitive report on the mandatory test, released Friday. Students in the class of 2006, the first group to face the graduation requirement, must pass both the English and math sections of the test by June.

Schools often conceal high dropout rates for minority students. Among the "talented tenth," those in the top 10 percent of test takers, reading scores have dropped four points since 1971 and math scores have not budged since first measured in 1978. So say the latest (2004) results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the nation's report card. At the other end of the scale, dropout rates have actually increased since 1990, rising to 30 percent of all 17-year-olds.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 1 - F.B.I. scientists said Thursday that they would abandon a controversial bullet-matching technique that had been used in thousands of investigations. The Federal Bureau of Investigation said it still had confidence in the scientific reliability of the technique, which is known as bullet lead analysis and analyzes the chemical composition of a bullet. But in light of criticism of how the results were interpreted in court, the bureau said it would stop conducting the tests. A number of defendants who were convicted with the help of the bullet-testing technique have challenged the evidence because of questions about...

The high school class of 2005 earned the highest-ever marks on the math portion of the SAT, a modest change that continues the steady 25-year trend of improvement on the country's most popular standardized college entrance exam. Significant gaps between racial groups remain, however, and officials said they are troubled by the comparative lack of progress in scores on the test's verbal section. Last year's seniors averaged 520 out of a possible 800 on the math portion, 2 points higher than the class of 2004. Average scores on the verbal section were unchanged at 508, according to results released Tuesday...

When Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, a liberal Democrat, decided to sue the federal government over testing provisions in the No Child Left Behind Act, he probably wasn't expecting flak from his political left. But that's exactly what he's received since filing the lawsuit last week. As first reported in the Hartford Courant, two national civil rights leaders, William Taylor and John Brittain, fired a letter to Mr. Blumenthal calling the lawsuit "ill-advised" and disputing his claim that the federal law is "an unfunded mandate." Messrs. Taylor and Brittain run civil rights organizations based in Washington but are veterans of...

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) - State education officials painted a brighter picture about the percentage of students passing the high school exit exam because they ignored dropouts, according to a study released Tuesday by the University of California, Los Angeles. The study is the latest salvo in the long-standing fight over the state's exit exam, which tests students on their ability to master basic math and English. The mandatory, multiple-choice exam is in line with targets for state accountability and the new federal requirements under the No Child Left Behind law. California high schoolers have been taking the test since...

Behind the rhetoric lies a contempt in some quarters for the work of public educators BY SUSAN OHANIAN George Packer, a New Yorker staff writer, points to the danger of clarity, observing that seemingly simple and tough-minded words blow out as much smoke as the jargon of the Pentagon of decades past. Nowhere is this smoke thicker and trickier than in the lingo the corporate-politico-media squad uses when talking about public schools. At first glance, their talk seems plain and to the point: failing schools, caring about education and education as war. In contrast, education progressives befuddle the public with...

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. (AFPN) -- Combining two aircraft missions into one is not an easy feat, but that is exactly what engineers and pilots from here and Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., are testing. In the process, they have also combined operational and developmental into one testing effort. Five F-16 Fighting Falcons and aircrews from the 85th Test and Evaluation Squadron at Eglin deployed here July 22 to 29 and joined two 416th Flight Test Squadron F-16s to focus primarily on operationally testing the M4.2-plus core avionics suite upgrade to the F-16. Lessons learned from both types of...

Most doctors in a recent survey said that annual physical examinations were effective in detecting illness in apparently healthy patients, even though there is little scientific evidence to support the exams. The report found that physicians were largely unaware that current federal government guidelines did not recommend annual exams for healthy adults without symptoms. The study also revealed that in performing annual physicals many physicians routinely ordered screening tests that had not been proved useful for patients with no symptoms. "The initial idea was, if we bring someone in once a year and do extensive testing, we'd identify disease," said...

Japan's wartime gas plant found in N. Chinawww.chinaview.cn 2005-07-03 07:39:53 HOHHOT, July 2 (Xinhuanet) -- Chinese experts have discovered new evidence of the Japanese wartime atrocity in China -- a toxic gas experiment plant in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. The plant, known to the locals as "Bayanhan", is located on the grassland of the Ewenki Autonomous Banner in Hulun Buir city, said Xu Zhanjiang, a researcher on the history of Japanese biological war with the Harbin Municipal Academy of Social Sciences in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province. "The site covers more than 110 square kilometers, extending nine kilometers from...

WASHINGTON- The government's effort to develop a new vaccine against anthrax has raised red flags among critics over plans to eventually test an experimental version on children.Robert Bock, a spokesman for the Nat'l. Inst. of Child Health and Human Development, said the new anthrax vaccine would not be tested on 100 first-and-second-graders until it is first tested safely on adults. That is under way now, he said."If that study is successful, there will probably be a protocol to test the anthrax vaccine in children," Bock said.While federal rules govern how children can be used in medical research, Barbara Loe...

Although the Agriculture Department confirmed Friday that a cow that died last year was infected with mad cow disease, a test the agency conducted seven months ago indicated that the animal had the disease. The result was never publicly disclosed. The delay in confirming the United States' second case of mad cow disease seems to underscore what critics of the agency have said for a long time: that there are serious and systemic problems in the way the Agriculture Department tests animals for mad cow. Indeed, the lengthy delay occurred despite the intense national interest in the disease and the...