Category Archives: Progress

Amy Williamson

The Iowa Department of Education released a policy paper today which shows the statewide effort by Iowa schools to catch and correct reading problems in students early on is showing progress.

The paper says nearly 9,000 students in kindergarten through third grade who had fallen short of benchmarks in reading in the fall of 2015 met or surpassed benchmarks by the spring of 2016, an increase of 4.2 percentage points.

The Ed Departments Amy Williamson oversees the Bureau of School Improvement. She says the early warning system implemented in 2014 is a key part of helping kids improve their reading.

What we are doing is measuring something that teachers can use on a three-times-a-year basis,or even progress monitor on a weekly basis with universal screening assessments, Williamson says. That has to be something that can be done quickly and detect very fine increments of progress. Williamson says it gives a much better picture of whats happening with students than the annual assessments.

She says the annual assessments are like a weight loss plan where you dont weigh yourself every day and see changes by the ounce. But she says they have to see fine increments on a weekly basis to change the reading instruction.

The 398 public and non-public schools using the early warning system saw a nearly 61 percent increase in the percentage of students in kindergarten through third grade that were at or above the state benchmark for reading.

Jane Lindaman

Waterloo saw the biggest increase among urban districts at 14.6 percent from the fall of 2015 to the spring of 2016. Jane Lindaman, the districts superintendent, says it has been a group effort. There is not doubt that the district, the implementation, the buy-in from the teachers, the leadership matters. And so when people believe in the system, when they believe in kids and they are tracking it all along the way I think it is truly about the work ongoing, Lindaman says.

She says getting kids to become better readers goes beyond trying to meet some state requirement. For us it is not just something that we do for compliance, Lindaman says,we dont just do it and then turn in the scores and have then have the state look at them. For us in Waterloo it doesnt have much to do with the state at all. It has everything to do with our Waterloo kids.

Lindaman says parents are also coming along. I would say that right now our parents probably have more questions that answers, but they are asking the questions, which is part of the process, Lindaman says. So they are starting to say how does this work? And so we are along the journey, we are down the road a little bit on our working with parents and letting them know. They fit in because they can support the work at home, but right now we need them to understand where they students are and what the school is doing to help them improve.

Tynne Sulser

Centerville third-grade teacher, Tynne Sulser, says the last 3 years of implementing the program have been a learning experience for her as a teacher.

I thought that I was doing the best that I could. And it turns out I needed to look at what I needed to do in the classroom and I did need to make changes in my core instruction, Sulser says. And by doing that I cannot tell you, it brings tears to my eyes the first time my kids they were so excited, they were self-confident. These are kids who struggle in reading every single day.

She says shes seen improvement in the kids who struggle the most. They may be a lot lower than proficiency and so when they are gaining 40 correct words per minute in 2 months, 3 months, and they are still not proficient you cant ask any more for that child, Sulser says.

Sulser says the kids gain confidence in the progress they have made and it will continue. You just keep on going and you keep on going and that confidence is going to get them there, Sulser says. It might not be in third grade, but its going to be in fourth grade.

Increases in the highest-growth school districts ranged from 19 to 32 percentage points. Iowas early literacy law passed by the Legislature in 2012, focuses on making sure all students are proficient readers by the end of third grade.

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Education Department reports progress in improving reading for K-3rd grade - Radio Iowa

wtvr.com

GRTC Pulse construction progress questioned wtvr.com RICHMOND, Va. If you've driven down Broad Street, you have most likely come across the construction for the GRTC Pulse project. The construction has been a bit of a headache, said Josephine Flemotomos. Flemotomos owns Gus' Bar and Grill on Broad ...

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GRTC Pulse construction progress questioned - wtvr.com

NAACP officials from throughout Iowa spoke at a news conference at the Iowa Capitol Thursday. the woman at the podium is Betty Andrews, president of the Iowa-Nebraska NAACP Conference. On her right is Dedric Doolin, president of the Cedar Rapids NAACP branch(Photo: William Petroski/Des Moines Register)Buy Photo

Iowa NAACP officials are worried about the Iowa Legislature's agenda in 2017, warningit could reverse decades of racial progress and that some legislation is forcing them to recall "Jim Crow" laws that enforced racial segregation in the South.

About 30 members of the National Association for the Advance of Colored People met with lawmakers at the Iowa Capitol Thursday for the nonpartisan organization's annual lobbying day. NAACP leaders were careful to avoid criticizing any political party or individual legislators, but they expressed concerns about a host of bills, including voter identification legislation, a so-called "stand your ground" gun rights bill, along with proposals to have state government overridelocal efforts to increase the minimum wage andto prohibit efforts to expandlocal civil rights laws.

African-Americans in this country have a history steeped with barriers," said Betty Andrews, of Des Moines, president of theIowa-Nebraska NAACP State Area Conferences of Branches. Wespeak up here to remind our legislatorsthat this house does indeed belong to the peopleof Iowaand that all Iowans, includingthose of a darker hue, must be heard.

Andrews describedthe voter ID bill, which passed the House Thursday, as a "reincarnated poll tax and literacy test," reminiscent of the old South. Voting is a constitutional right, she told reporters, questioning why barriers would be placed in the way of African-Americans who want to cast their ballots.

The "stand your ground" law, she added, creates fear among black Iowans who are concerned it could be cited as justification to shoot them. The measure would allow Iowans to use deadly force without retreating.

Andrews said lawmakers passed their first legislative deadline without advancing a bill aimed at addressing racial profiling in Iowa. Butshe is hopeful the issue will be studied after this session and then be considered in the 2018 session. The issue is significant, she said, because blacks represent only about 3 percent of Iowa'soverall population, but about 26 percent of the state's prison population. She thanked Sen. Brad Zaun, R-Urbandale, for his work on the racial profiling issue.

Russell Lovell, a Drake University Law School emeritus professor and civil rights lawyer, noted that Gov. Terry Branstad and Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds have pledged to help efforts to employ more minorities and disabled people in Iowa. But he said there is an urgent need to address situations where Iowa employers are excluding job applicants with criminal convictions. People with jobs are much less likely to become involved again with the criminal justice system, he said.

Lovell also expressed concerns about clean water and he suggested that legislation aimed at dismantling the Des Moines Water Works is being pursued in retaliation for the Water Works' federal lawsuit intended to protect drinking water for central Iowans.

Arnold Woods Jr., president of the Des Moines NAACP organization, said African-Americans in Iowa are concerned about losing some of their basic rights and freedoms. His worries were shared by Dedric Doolin, Cedar Rapids NAACP president, who said Iowa has a long history of racialprogress, but all Iowans must be heard for the state to remain a leader in civil rights.

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NAACP leaders worry Iowa Legislature reversing progress, recall "Jim Crow" laws - DesMoinesRegister.com

Children in the countries of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region1 have witnessed remarkable progress in development during the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) era. Starting from comparatively advanced levels, many countries made further progress in implementation of their childrens rights agenda since the beginning of the 21st century. However, progress has been uneven among countries as well as within countries. The uprisings, which started in 2011, and the on-going humanitarian conflicts affected significant numbers of people, including children and women, and caused stagnation or even reversal in what had been achieved until then in some MENA countries. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) agenda, adopted in 2015, sets new more ambitious targets globally and calls for nations to develop their own country-specific agendas for the post-2015 period based on achieved progress to date.

In the MENA region, there is no consolidated source of information presenting achievements and existing disparities in the implementation of childrens rights. This publication is a first attempt to consolidate available statistical evidence, for the period 1990 - 2015 which demonstrates progress and achievements of MENA countries in the realization of the rights of their children. But it is not merely about numbers and percentages, because behind any statistics are the lives and well-being of thousands or millions of children.

By focusing on MDG and SDG indicators relevant to children, the publication serves as a basis for assessing the achievement of the global MDG targets and for the setting of national SDG targets. Some additional variables, which can explain trends and most recent status vs-a-vs the targets, are also examined at a national or sub-national level where possible. Rather than presenting regional averages, this report uses data at the national and sub-national level. Inter-country and in certain instances intra-country comparisons, building upon available data, help identify disparities between countries as well as in-country inequalities, thus pointing to the most deprived children. There are emerging patterns revealed through some specific indicators, which would at times require further, more in-depth analysis to explain causes and identify possible ways to address gaps. Such evidence-substantiated knowledge can in turn serve as a good reference when setting national targets and designing tailored policies and programmes, focused on the most marginalized people including children.

This publication identifies some data gaps in a number of areas relevant to children, particularly in the context of the SDG agenda and its indicators framework. Therefore, the publication can serve to substantiate in-country dialogues and inform specific commitments to strengthen national statistical systems. This can be done through further expansion of both administrative and household-based data collection and analysis, filling in these gaps and ensuring production of data necessary to report on progress towards set national SDG-related targets.

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Progress for Children with Equity in the Middle East and North ... - ReliefWeb

Donald Trump sits with Jeff Sessions at Trump Tower in Manhattan, New York. (photo credit:REUTERS)

Executives from 141 Jewish community centers signed a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions expressing frustration with efforts combating a rash of bomb threats.

The letter, sent Wednesday by the JCC Association of North America, the national organization of Jewish community centers, requested a meeting with Sessions and urged the Justice Department to do more to stop the threats.

It also praised local law enforcements response to the incidents and recognized President Donald Trumps condemnation of them.

Still, we are frustrated with the progress in resolving this situation, the letter said. We insist that all relevant federal agencies, including your own, apply all the resources available to identify and bring the perpetrator or perpetrators, who are trying to instill anxiety and fear in communities across the country, to justice.

More than 100 bomb threats have hit JCCs and other Jewish sites across the country since the beginning of the year. The latest wave, on Tuesday and Wednesday, targeted 20 JCCs, day schools and offices of the Anti-Defamation League.

The Department of Homeland Security has made its regional experts available to JCCs, and leaders of major Jewish groups met with FBI Director James Comey on March 3. Local JCC directors have repeatedly praised the response of area law enforcement.

Local law enforcement have represented a beacon of responsiveness and professionalism as our communities have endured dozens of anti-Semitic threats in past weeks, the letter said. We respectfully ask that federal agencies, including your own, do the same.

Authorities have yet to identify the person or people behind most of the threats. Juan Thompson, a St. Louis resident charged with making eight of the threats to avenge a former romantic partner, appears to have been a copycat.

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JCCs to Sessions: We're 'frustrated' with progress on bomb threats - Jerusalem Post Israel News

Baltimore Business Journal

Johns Hopkins touts progress of local hiring, contracting push ... Baltimore Business Journal Johns Hopkins University and Johns Hopkins Health System say they have hired 304 workers from distressed neighborhoods since September 2015, part of an ... and more »

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Johns Hopkins touts progress of local hiring, contracting push ... - Baltimore Business Journal

Lovie Smith's culture change at Illinois a work in progress

CHAMPAIGN Ten months ago, fans swarmed around Lovie Smith after his team's open practice, eager to get an autograph from the former NFL coach who had just been hired to turn around the moribund football program at Illinois.

Over the weekend was a much calmer scene with about 150 fans at Saturday's practice and a line of about 40 waiting for his signature.

After athletic director Josh Whitman fired Bill Cubit and then hired Smith on March 7, there has been the realization that it will take time to fix things. The 3-9 season spelled that out, too, but players say it is happening.

"(The culture change is) on the rise, for sure. It's definitely changed since the last coaching staff left," senior running back Kendrick Foster said. "We're definitely meaner and tougher, our mentality to compete is more fierce, I can say that. It's a work in progress and you have to trust the process."

A year ago, Smith had little time to assemble a staff and moved spring practice to April. He didn't even know his players' names. He knows them now and they know him.

"We're not scrambling to get in and get things installed with the players and trying to get everything done," defensive coordinator Hardy Nickerson said. "We've had a little more time to meet with the players, get things installed so we have a better understanding of what we want to do on the field."

Many of the players here a year ago were either recruited by Cubit or former coach Tim Beckman, who was fired amid allegations of player mistreatment. Cubit didn't last long, either, and the hope was that Smith would at least bring some stability.

"We're trying for a huge change in culture. We didn't have a great culture in the past," junior offensive lineman Nick Allegretti said. "All we're trying to do is change the culture, make it tougher, stronger program in general that can make it through a Big Ten season."

The key is accountability, coaches and players agreed, and the staff has built a personal relationship with each player based on honesty. Players say they see Smith as a player's coach: When they need something from him, he is there to help. When they are not doing well, he will let them know.

"It's been about looking yourself in the mirror," senior wide receiver Malik Turner said. "If everyone's doing that, then we're moving in the right direction, because it starts with us."

Smith already had success in his first recruiting class despite questions whether he could land talent after spending nearly 20 years in the NFL. But his first class was ranked No. 34 by Scout.com and No. 45 by 247sports.com, and recruits have raved about Smith, who knows that he's set to start building a Big Ten power for years to come.

"We hopefully set a foundation that will help us win championships one day, that's been the plan all along," Smith said.

Coaches like offensive coordinator Garrick McGee don't think Smith has changed at all, though he has had to change the things he does compared to what he did while leading the Chicago Bears and Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

He's become accustomed to visiting families around the nation, making his pitch for why parents should send their sons to Illinois. Twitter has become a norm for the 58-year-old coach, tweeting at celebrities like Chance the Rapper, trying to get everyone involved in the Illini rebuild.

He's become a regular at men's basketball games, sitting behind the basket and watching his favorite sport.

It's been part of a change that coaches and players know isn't close to being done. It will take a few years to assess Smith's progress, assuming he remains in place, but he and his players know it starts with workouts on those cool February and March days. The players have become accustomed to seeing Smith on the field, but there are still moments where they can't believe that he is their leader.

"Sometimes I do sit back and see how blessed I am to have this coaching staff that believes in me, and just believes in this team and program," Foster said. "They just continue to surprise me with how much they care about us, that's what you want from a coaching staff, just caring about the person, not the football player, they care about both, and that's the amazing thing about this staff."

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Illinois Football: Lovie's rebuild a work in progress - Galesburg Register-Mail

HARPURSVILLE, N.Y. Things continue to be slow and steady for April the giraffe as she progresses toward giving birth to a fourth calf, park officials said Wednesday.

April remains in great condition with no concerns from keepers or our vet team, officials with Animal Adventure Park said on Facebook. Activity in the belly remains very visible to the eye even through the web cam! Slow and steady mother nature has everything timed right. Keepers will be in shortly and any change will warrant an update!

The live camera feed was down for a time on Wednesday. Park officials said high winds caused problems with the feed.

The zoo has been streaming a view of the giraffes pen since February, and since then, hundreds of thousands of people have been tuningin to the live stream, waiting for the baby giraffe to be born.

Newswatch 16s Peggy Lee evenvisited the expectant mom.

The zoo has also launched a GoFundMe campaign to offset theannual care of the giraffes.

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Watch live: 'Slow and steady' progress for April the Giraffe - wnep.com

Ten months ago, fans swarmed around Lovie Smith after his team's open practice, eager to get an autograph from the former NFL coach who had just been hired to turn around the moribund football program at Illinois.

Over the weekend was a much calmer scene with about 150 fans at Saturday's practice and a line of about 40 waiting for his signature.

After athletic director Josh Whitman fired Bill Cubit and then hired Smith on March 7, there has been the realization that it will take time to fix things. The 3-9 season spelled that out, too, but players say it is happening.

"(The culture change is) on the rise, for sure. It's definitely changed since the last coaching staff left," senior running back Kendrick Foster said. "We're definitely meaner and tougher, our mentality to compete is more fierce, I can say that. It's a work in progress and you have to trust the process."

A year ago, Smith had little time to assemble a staff and moved spring practice to April. He didn't even know his players' names. He knows them now and they know him.

"We're not scrambling to get in and get things installed with the players and trying to get everything done," defensive coordinator Hardy Nickerson said. "We've had a little more time to meet with the players, get things installed so we have a better understanding of what we want to do on the field."

Many of the players here a year ago were either recruited by Cubit or former coach Tim Beckman, who was fired amid allegations of player mistreatment. Cubit didn't last long, either, and the hope was that Smith would at least bring some stability.

"We're trying for a huge change in culture. We didn't have a great culture in the past," junior offensive lineman Nick Allegretti said. "All we're trying to do is change the culture, make it tougher, stronger program in general that can make it through a Big Ten season."

The key is accountability, coaches and players agreed, and the staff has built a personal relationship with each player based on honesty. Players say they see Smith as a player's coach: When they need something from him, he is there to help. When they are not doing well, he will let them know.

"It's been about looking yourself in the mirror," senior wide receiver Malik Turner said. "If everyone's doing that, then we're moving in the right direction, because it starts with us."

Smith already had success in his first recruiting class despite questions whether he could land talent after spending nearly 20 years in the NFL. But his first class was ranked No. 34 by Scout.com and No. 45 by 247sports.com, and recruits have raved about Smith, who knows that he's set to start building a Big Ten power for years to come.

"We hopefully set a foundation that will help us win championships one day, that's been the plan all along," Smith said.

Coaches like offensive coordinator Garrick McGee don't think Smith has changed at all, though he has had to change the things he does compared to what he did while leading the Chicago Bears and Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

He's become accustomed to visiting families around the nation, making his pitch for why parents should send their sons to Illinois. Twitter has become a norm for the 58-year-old coach, tweeting at celebrities like Chance the Rapper, trying to get everyone involved in the Illini rebuild.

He's become a regular at men's basketball games, sitting behind the basket and watching his favorite sport.

It's been part of a change that coaches and players know isn't close to being done. It will take a few years to assess Smith's progress, assuming he remains in place, but he and his players know it starts with workouts on those cool February and March days. The players have become accustomed to seeing Smith on the field, but there are still moments where they can't believe that he is their leader.

"Sometimes I do sit back and see how blessed I am to have this coaching staff that believes in me, and just believes in this team and program," Foster said. "They just continue to surprise me with how much they care about us, that's what you want from a coaching staff, just caring about the person, not the football player, they care about both, and that's the amazing thing about this staff."

More AP college football: http://www.collegefootball.ap.org and https://twitter.com/APTop25

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Lovie Smith's culture change at Illinois a work in progress - ABC News

Although women are publishing more studies, being cited more often, and securing more coveted first-author positions than they were in the mid 1990s, overall progress towards gender parity in science varies widely by country and field. This is according to a massive report released on 8 March that is the first to examine such a broad swath of disciplines and regions of the world over time (see 'Slowly but surely').

The report1 by the publisher Elsevier found that despite their moderate advances, women still published fewer articles than men, and were much less likely to be listed as first or last authors on a paper. Citation rates, however, were roughly equal: although female authors were cited slightly less than male authors, work authored by women was downloaded at slightly higher rates.

Elsevier used data from Scopus, an abstract and citation database of more than 62 million documents. The reports authors broke the data down into 27 subject areas, and compared them across 12 countries and regions and two 5-year blocks of time: 19962000 and 201115. The report included only researchers who were listed as an author on at least one publication within either of the two five-year periods.

Source: Elsevier Scopus

Although women might be publishing less research, the citation rates indicate that their work is equally scientifically important, says Holly Falk-Krzesinski, vice-president of global academic and research relations at Elsevier who is based in San Diego, California.

However, Cassidy Sugimoto, an information scientist who studies gender disparities at Indiana University Bloomington, notes that she would expect to see men and women cited at similar ratios because many papers have multiple authors representing more than one gender. The small number of female first authors, she says, reflects the inequalities that still exist in science today.

I think this report does a tremendous job of demonstrating and reinforcing that the leaky pipeline is still in effect, says Sugimoto, referring to the decline seen in the proportion of women at succesive stages in research. We see an increase in the number of women researchers and an increase in the number of women first authors, but those rates are not progressing equally. We have a pipeline problem, and time is not erasing it.

But patching that pipeline has proved extremely difficult. Women must overcome a number of barriers in science, says Sugimoto, ranging from conscious and unconscious sexism to expectations of womens roles in child care and care for the elderly.

In response to its own findings, Elsevier has been addressing issues of gender imbalance on its journal boards by setting benchmarks for the number of men and women included on them. But Sugimoto cautions that simply putting women in positions to review papers may not solve the problem: in some studies, she says, women in science were just as likely to discriminate against other women when hiring as men were2, although other studies have failed to find such hiring bias3.

This report confirms the results of many past studies on gender disparities in research, says Shulamit Kahn, an economist at Boston University in Massachusetts who studies gender differences in science. But the multinational, multidisciplinary scope of this study allows for more in-depth analysis, she says.

Source: World Intellectual Property Organization

Although the overall proportion of women in science has grown, the rates have hardly been equal across countries or disciplines. In Japan, the proportion of female researchers rose by only 5% between the two study periods, whereas in Brazil, it rose by 11%. Women were also represented unequally in different scientific fields. Although they were strongly represented in life and biomedical sciences, few women specialized in the physical sciences. And when the report analysed patent data from the World Intellectual Property Organization, they found that only 14% of people filing patent applications in 201115 were women (see 'Patent pattern').

What our report demonstrates is that gender disparities arent the same all over. What works to fix them in one place and one field might not work in another, says Falk-Krzesinski.

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Patchy progress on fixing global gender disparities in science - Nature.com