The neighborhoods of Southeast Washington, D.C., are among the poorest in the city. There, the grocery stores, banks, restaurants, and other institutions that suburbanites take for granted have long been in short supply. In recent years, however, government and nonprofit agencies have begun turning things for the better. A brand new, government-subsidized shopping center recently opened on Alabama Avenue, providing one of the few full-service grocery stores in the area, along with a new sit-down restaurant and mainstream bank branch.
But reformers are finding that such initiatives won’t fix decades of market dysfunction overnight. Not far from the new Super Giant grocery store and Wachovia Bank are older businesses that continue to draw a steady stream of customers—corner stores that sell little fresh food, fast-food outlets that serve meals low in nutritional value, and tax preparation firms and check-cashing outlets that charge high fees. Markets are complicated, and improving them requires more than just creating incentives for new providers to set up shop.

+ Full Report (PDF; 648 KB) (Source: Docuticker)

MedWorm Message: Get the very latest Swine Flu news via the MedWorm Swine Flu RSS news feed - updated hourly from thousands of authoritative health and news sources.

Internal and external forces are simultaneously transforming elementary and secondary education. Complementary changes within the K-12 education community are sweeping schools in the form of one-to-one computing, online learning for students and teachers, and differentiated instruction. Students can choose from among schools, courses, and powerful educational tools and resources that never before existed. As a result, education for many students today bears little resemblance to their parents’ education. This transformation is a positive change when students are connected with the tools and opportunities that meet their individual needs.
Local and national economic conditions, increasing ethnic and cultural diversity, and global forces are among the new and growing external pressures on American elementary and secondary schools. Schools alongside families form the foundation for successful participation in communities, the workforce, and our democracy, and their job has therefore grown more complex and challenging. American schools, when compared to other developed nations, appear to need new approaches that increase their capacity to prepare students academically.
Policymakers and educators alike have proposed using expanded learning time in schools as a means to improve student academic performance. Expanded learning time seeks to increase student learning by lengthening the school day and/or year, or by supplementing class time with extracurricular activities for students schoolwide. Early demonstrations of expanded learning time initiatives show success in raising student achievement, but can pose challenges to families and community stakeholders by requiring increased investment in spending and resources.

+ Executive Summary (PDF; 701 KB)
+ Full Report (PDF; 866 KB) (Source: Docuticker)

+ Adderall® is the brand name for an amphetamine formulation that is prescribed for the treatment of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and for narcolepsy. Under the Controlled Substance Act, Adderall® is classified as a Schedule II drug because of its high potential for abuse and dependence. Data for this report on nonmedical use of Adderall® was collected as part of SAMHSA’s National Survey on Drug Use and Health. Nonmedical use is defined as use without a prescription belonging to the respondent or use that occurred simply for the experience or feeling the drug caused.
+ Among persons aged 18 to 22, full-time college students were twice as likely to use Adderall® nonmedically in the past year as those who had not been in college at all or were only part-time students.
+ Nearly 90% of the full-time college students who had used Adderall® nonmedically in the past year also were past month binge alcohol drinkers and more than half were heavy alcohol users. Students under the legal drinking age who used Adderall® were also more likely to be binge drinkers or heavy drinkers than their underage counterparts who had not used Adderall® nonmedically.
+ Full-time college students who had used Adderall® nonmedically in the past year were more likely to be polydrug users in the past year than their non Adderall® using counterparts, that is, both drink alcohol and use other drugs.
+ In the past year, full-time college students who had used Adderall® nonmedically in the past year were more likely to have used illicit drugs than their non Adderall® using counterparts: almost 3 times more likely to use marijuana (79.9% vs 27.2%), 8 times more likely to use cocaine (28.9% vs. 3.6%), 8 times more likely to use tranquilizers nonmedically (24.5% vs. …

MedWorm Message: Get the very latest Swine Flu news via the MedWorm Swine Flu RSS news feed - updated hourly from thousands of authoritative health and news sources.

It is possible to graduate from many Teacher Education courses without having any ICT component.
It appears that in some universities, pre-service teachers specialising in Primary, Junior Primary and Early Childhood Education are more likely to have  a [...] (Source: Education.au Blog)

When the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers union, held their annual meeting in 2008, candidate Barack Obama advocated changing the teacher compensation structure from the traditional “single salary schedule”—based only on years of experience and academic credentials—to one reflecting a teacher’s performance in the classroom. But Obama’s mention of pay for performance elicited boos from the crowd. And similar proposals to restructure teacher pay schemes have created controversy in cities like Washington, D.C., fueled by disagreements over a reliable means to measure an individual teacher’s performance and the fact that many teachers teach subjects that are not measurable by standardized tests or other objective instruments. Teacher pay should be more closely tied to an individual teacher’s effectiveness in the classroom than it is today, and pay for performance can be one way to achieve that goal. But policymakers also have another option: changing the way compensation is tied to experience and credentials.
Not all single salary schedules are the same. Some are much better than others in reflecting what research tells us about how teachers gain effectiveness over the life of a career. Research shows that teachers have steep learning curves—they become much more effective in their first few years on the job and then level off. And a great deal of research shows the link between teacher effectiveness and educational credentials to be minor or nonexistent. A district designing their salary structure based on these findings can more effectively attract and reward high-quality teachers without increasing the overall amount of money spent on compensation. (Source: Docuticker)