Another Ohio story...<br><br>You must be about to leave... be sure you bring hat, gloves and umbrella... it is very cold and cloudy the last few days!<br><br>Buon viaggio... a domenica! Call if you need anything on Saturday
<br><br>kate<br><br><h3>
5-Day Forecast
for
Florence
</h3>
<table class="boxB" id="full" style="margin-bottom: 10px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr class="taC">
<td style="width: 20%;">
<h4>Friday</h4>
</td>
<td style="width: 20%;">
<h4>Saturday</h4>
</td>
<td style="width: 20%;">
<h4>Sunday</h4>
</td>
<td style="width: 20%;">
<h4>Monday</h4>
</td>
<td style="width: 20%;">
<h4>Tuesday</h4>
</td>
</tr>
<tr class="taC">
<td style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); border-right: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); padding: 2px;">
<div><img src="http://icons-pe.wxug.com/graphics/conds/chancerain.GIF" title="Chance of Rain" style="border: 1px solid rgb(0, 0, 0);" height="44" width="44"></div>
<div id="b" style="white-space: nowrap;">
<span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">50° F</span>
<span style="font-weight: normal; color: rgb(153, 153, 153);">|</span>
<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">35° F</span>
<br>
<span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">10° C</span>
<span style="font-weight: normal; color: rgb(153, 153, 153);">|</span>
<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">2° C</span>
</div>
</td>
<td style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); border-right: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); padding: 2px;">
<div><img src="http://icons-pe.wxug.com/graphics/conds/cloudy.GIF" title="Overcast" style="border: 1px solid rgb(0, 0, 0);" height="44" width="44"></div>
<div id="b" style="white-space: nowrap;">
<span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">50° F</span>
<span style="font-weight: normal; color: rgb(153, 153, 153);">|</span>
<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">33° F</span>
<br>
<span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">10° C</span>
<span style="font-weight: normal; color: rgb(153, 153, 153);">|</span>
<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">1° C</span>
</div>
</td>
<td style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); border-right: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); padding: 2px;">
<div><img src="http://icons-pe.wxug.com/graphics/conds/mostlysunny.GIF" title="Scattered Clouds" style="border: 1px solid rgb(0, 0, 0);" height="44" width="44"></div>
<div id="b" style="white-space: nowrap;">
<span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">53° F</span>
<span style="font-weight: normal; color: rgb(153, 153, 153);">|</span>
<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">32° F</span>
<br>
<span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">12° C</span>
<span style="font-weight: normal; color: rgb(153, 153, 153);">|</span>
<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">0° C</span>
</div>
</td>
<td style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); border-right: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); padding: 2px;">
<div><img src="http://icons-pe.wxug.com/graphics/conds/mostlysunny.GIF" title="Scattered Clouds" style="border: 1px solid rgb(0, 0, 0);" height="44" width="44"></div>
<div id="b" style="white-space: nowrap;">
<span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">55° F</span>
<span style="font-weight: normal; color: rgb(153, 153, 153);">|</span>
<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">32° F</span>
<br>
<span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">13° C</span>
<span style="font-weight: normal; color: rgb(153, 153, 153);">|</span>
<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">0° C</span>
</div>
</td>
<td style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); border-right: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); padding: 2px;">
<div><img src="http://icons-pe.wxug.com/graphics/conds/cloudy.GIF" title="Overcast" style="border: 1px solid rgb(0, 0, 0);" height="44" width="44"></div>
<div id="b" style="white-space: nowrap;">
<span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">57° F</span>
<span style="font-weight: normal; color: rgb(153, 153, 153);">|</span>
<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">39° F</span>
<br>
<span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">14° C</span>
<span style="font-weight: normal; color: rgb(153, 153, 153);">|</span>
<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">4° C</span>
</div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr class="taC" style="vertical-align: top;">
<td style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); border-right: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); padding: 2px;">
Chance of Rain
<div>
<span id="b" style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);">20%</span> chance of precipitation
</div>
</td>
<td style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); border-right: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); padding: 2px;">
Overcast
</td>
<td style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); border-right: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); padding: 2px;">
Scattered Clouds
</td>
<td style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); border-right: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); padding: 2px;">
Scattered Clouds
</td>
<td style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); border-right: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); padding: 2px;">
Overcast</td></tr></tbody></table><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Nov 14, 2007 11:02 PM, Harold Schiffman <<a href="mailto:hfsclpp@gmail.com">hfsclpp@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
from the November 14, 2007 edition -<br><a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1114/p13s02-legn.html" target="_blank">http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1114/p13s02-legn.html</a><br><br>World's schools teach U.S. a lesson<br>
To help US students compete in the global economy, educators seek a<br>way to compare American schoolchildren with those abroad.<br>By Stacy Teicher Khadaroo | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor<br><br>Susan Zelman, head of Ohio's education department, has visited
<br>classrooms in China, India, and Japan. She's met young people with<br>whom her students will potentially be competing – and collaborating –<br>when they start careers. And she's impressed. In Ohio, "our economy
<br>is in the tubes," she says, "so there's really an economic need to<br>think about, How can we build the workforce?... How can we build a<br>world-class learning system?" In the quest to answer that, Ohio is
<br>the first state to use an analysis of the best-performing nations as a<br>benchmark for its own academic policies. But it's certainly not the<br>only state or school district that's looking beyond domestic borders
<br>to gauge how well it's doing.<br><br>There's no universal agreement on the best way to compare vastly<br>different education systems around the world – or on what lessons to<br>draw from data available so far. But there's clearly an appetite for
<br>more information. Despite such momentum, improvements in education in<br>the United States aren't coming fast enough for some – particularly<br>those in the business community. "As a nation, our ability to create
<br>intellectual property is pretty much fundamental to continue to drive<br>our economy, and we don't want to see the US fall behind there," says<br>William Swope, a vice president of Intel Corp., whose philanthropy
<br>helps train math and science teachers in the US and abroad. "The<br>governments of the world that are serious about education are applying<br>the best known methods for improving the quality of their graduates,"
<br>he says.<br><br>For states interested in international benchmarking, a new report just<br>added a piece to the puzzle. It takes data from each state's 8th-grade<br>scores in math and science on the National Assessment of Educational
<br>Progress (NAEP) and links it to the Trends in International<br>Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). The two tests were designed to<br>be compatible, says Gary Phillips, chief scientist at American<br>Institutes for Research (AIR,
<a href="http://www.air.org" target="_blank">www.air.org</a>), a nonprofit in Washington<br>that released the data Nov. 13. Each state can see where it ranks on a<br>scale with 45 industrialized and developing countries.<br>
<br>"Most [states] are doing as well as or better than most countries,"<br>Mr. Phillips says. But he's concerned because "our best states are ...<br>lower than the best countries – so even though we're in the race,
<br>we're not winning the race." Another common concern: The number of<br>bachelor's degrees in science and technology in the US, while still on<br>the rise, has not kept pace with gains in other countries, the
<br>American Council on Education reports. Several nations now spend a<br>higher portion of their gross domestic product on R&D than does the<br>US.<br><br>India and China are not yet ranked in the most common international
<br>comparisons, but they are seen as competitors because of their sheer<br>size and their fast development. America's economic dominance emerged<br>in a context that won't be repeated, notes Vivien Stewart, vice<br>
president for education at the nonprofit Asia Society in New York.<br>After World War II, much of the world was rebuilding or was still<br>undeveloped. The US invested heavily in education, becoming the first<br>to approach universal high school attendance. More recently, the
<br>removal of Communist barriers and the emergence of world trade<br>agreements have produced "a kind of a seismic shift," Ms. Stewart<br>says. "The competition is going to get tougher for the US on every<br>
dimension. And therefore the state of our education system becomes<br>more important than when we were the sole economic superpower."<br><br>Stewart has led state education officials on visits to China and<br>India. In China, there are large gaps between rural and urban
<br>education levels, "but the rate of progress is extraordinary," she<br>says. At the best high schools, 15-year-olds talked to the visitors in<br>English about academic work equal to or above what's common at the
<br>best schools in the US. Visitors found that Chinese students know a<br>great deal about the US and world history. What pervades is "the<br>intensity of commitment to education, not only on the part of<br>government but also the students," Stewart says.
<br><br>Ms. Zelman of Ohio took note on her visit that some of China's elite<br>high schools are partnerships among businesses, universities, and the<br>K-12 system. Ohio is working to create such partnerships, she says,
<br>but "quite frankly, we don't have anything comparable."<br><br>Some voices are pushing back against the growing sense of competition<br>with China and other nations. There's too much of a cold-war<br>
mentality, says Yong Zhao, a professor and director of the US-China<br>Center for Research on Educational Excellence at Michigan State<br>University. He believes some international tests have been<br>misinterpreted as spelling doom for America's economy.
<br><br>"I think the tests are biased to reflect the talents that other<br>cultures emphasize more," says Mr. Zhao. Asian countries tend to score<br>higher on science and math tests because that's what they focus on
<br>narrowly, but in the US, "we have many more possible outlets for<br>talents, and that's actually much more important," he says. Chinese<br>educators look to US education for the creativity and<br>entrepreneurship it sparks. "Americans should be more American – not
<br>more Chinese or Japanese or Singaporean – in our education," Zhao<br>says.<br><br>One downside in China, where he attended school himself, is that after<br>so much focus on doing well on tests to advance, many "lose the
<br>internal motivation to learn" and slack off in college.<br><br>To be prepared for future jobs, what Americans really need, Zhao says,<br>is "the ability to manage across different cultures."<br><br>Zelman agrees that the issue shouldn't just be framed as one of
<br>competition. "We can be part of an international community where we<br>can learn from each other." To foster cross-cultural understanding,<br>Ohio has recently received a federal grant to promote education in
<br>"critical" languages such as Chinese. International benchmarking is<br>perhaps a natural extension of the work many states are already doing<br>to improve high school students' preparation for college or the US job
<br>market. Thirty states have joined the American Diploma Project<br>Network, organized by Achieve Inc., a nonprofit in Washington. Achieve<br>president Michael Cohen says that in Ohio, Arizona, Delaware, and<br>several other states, "governors and chief state school officers ...
<br>basically have said, 'Well, it's great that you want us to align our<br>expectations with the real world kids will face domestically ... but<br>that's not enough; we need to know what our expectations ought to be
<br>in order for our kids to succeed [globally].' "<br><br>Earlier this year, Ohio received a report it commissioned from Achieve<br>and the McKinsey & Company consulting group. It drew in part on<br>research by Sir Michael Barber, head of the Education Interest Group
<br>at McKinsey. Sir Michael analyzed top-performing school systems, as<br>well as systems that are improving rapidly (including a number of US<br>urban districts). He found three elements they shared:<br><br>•The top nations recruit teachers from among the best graduates (the
<br>top 30 percent in Singapore and top 5 percent in South Korea).<br><br>•They focus on developing teacher recruits into effective instructors.<br>(Boston, for instance, has teacher apprenticeships and instructional<br>coaches to assist teachers.)
<br><br>•They set high expectations, monitor achievement, and intervene with<br>children who are falling behind.<br><br>Ohio's Zelman, taking such comparisons to heart, plans to recommend<br>legislation to revise state standards, have Ohio participate in
<br>international comparisons, and improve teacher and principal<br>development. "We feel we've made some good progress in Ohio, but we<br>know we still have incredible achievement gaps.... [We want] to make<br>sure that our children will be able to compete and reap the benefits
<br>of a global economy."<br><br>Comparing US, China, India<br><br>"You can see the future of a country in the aspirations of its<br>first-graders," entrepreneur and venture capitalist Robert Compton<br>told an audience of Harvard graduate students Nov. 2. In visits to
<br>India, he's met young children who wanted to be doctors, engineers, or<br>scientists of some sort. He wants more Americans to get a glimpse of<br>their future competition.<br><br>Working with filmmakers and Teach for America vets Chad Heeter and
<br>Adam Raney, Mr. Compton produced "Two Million Minutes," a documentary<br>about how three pairs of top students – in China, India, and the<br>United States – spent their time in high school (four years add up to
<br>roughly 2 million minutes).<br><br>The Indian and Chinese students and their families show a<br>single-minded focus on academics, partly because competition for<br>university slots is so fierce. A Chinese mom and dad tell how their
<br>son used to make up his own tests because he loved them so much. The<br>American students enjoy being well-rounded, with part-time jobs,<br>Friday night football games, and study nights in front of the TV.<br>College applications may be stressful for some, but one of the pair
<br>has already been offered a full merit scholarship early in his senior<br>year.<br><br>After watching the film, some students took issue with the implication<br>that Americans should be more like the Chinese and Indians – more
<br>driven to score high on science and math tests, perhaps at the expense<br>of other strengths. A student from a South Korean family pointed out<br>that many Asian students just party once they hit college because<br>they're so burned out.
<br><br>Compton responded that he didn't mean the film to be prescriptive. But<br>he stressed that if Americans don't pay more attention to advances in<br>education around the world – the way a sports team studies top
<br>competitors – they're in danger of being left behind.<br><br>Harvard law student Neil Shah said he could see both sides, but agreed<br>with the basic premise: "We should learn from other systems, take<br>what's working, and incorporate it into our own."
<br><br>Full HTML version of this story which may include photos, graphics,<br>and related links<br><br><br><br>--<br>**************************************<br>N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to
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<br>*******************************************<br><br></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Katherine Kiss, Ph.D.<br>Via di Bellosguardo, 5<br>50124 Firenze, Italia<br>(0039) 347 036 5418 (cell, no voice mail)
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