Showing posts with label boy murdered. Show all posts
Showing posts with label boy murdered. Show all posts

Sunday, January 1, 2012

2011 marred by test cheating scandals across US

DORIE TURNER, AP Education Writer 
Dec. 27, 2011 9:16 PM ET

ATLANTA (AP) — It was the year of the test cheating scandal.
From Atlanta to Philadelphia and Washington to Los Angeles, officials have accused hundreds of educators of changing answers on tests or giving answers to students. Just last week, state investigators revealed that dozens of educators in 11 schools in Georgia's Dougherty County either cheated or failed to prevent cheating on 2009 standardized tests.

In July, those same investigators accused nearly 180 educators in almost half of Atlanta's 100 schools of cheating dating back to 2001 — which experts have called the largest cheating scandal in U.S. history. At least 20 students have been charged on Long Island with cheating on SAT and ACT college-entrance exams by paying someone to take the test for them.

"It's a year in which cheating became a national scandal, a scandal of national proportions," said Bob Schaeffer, a spokesman for the National Center for Fair & Open Testing, which advocates against high-stakes testing. "The Atlanta case forced policymakers and journalists in other jurisdictions to look to see if there's anything similar going on in their backyards."

Experts say some educators have bowed to the mounting pressure under the federal No Child Left Behind law as schools' benchmarks increase each year toward the ultimate goal of having all children reading and doing math at their grade level by 2014. Teachers in Atlanta reported that administrators created a culture of "fear, intimidation and retaliation" where testing goals had to be met no matter what, according to investigators.

"This problem existed before No Child Left Behind, but NCLB has exacerbated the problem, clearly," said Walter Haney, a retired Boston College education professor and expert on cheating. "I think testing is really important, but the problem has been the misuse of test results without looking behind the test scores to see who and who is not tested."

Federal officials have been saying for more than a year that the law, which is four years overdue for a rewrite, doesn't accurately depict what's happening in schools. While federal lawmakers agree the law needs to be fixed, an overhaul has become mired in the partisan atmosphere in Congress.

At President Obama's invitation, states have begun filing waivers to get relief from the law. Under the 11 waivers already filed, states are asking to use a variety of factors to determine whether they pass muster and to choose how schools will be punished if they don't improve. Among the factors that could be used are college-entrance exam scores or the performance of students on Advanced Placement tests.

At least 39 states, plus Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico, have said they will file waivers, though it is unclear how many will get approved.

In Pennsylvania, an investigation continues into irregularities found in 2009 state standardized tests in reading and math. The probe began last summer after a routine forensics report flagged "highly improbable" results in 90 schools across the state.

The state education secretary ordered the 50 districts representing the named schools to conduct internal investigations and submit reports to him by Aug. 15., But nearly four months later, the reports are still being analyzed and have not been made public.

Twenty-eight of the flagged schools were in Philadelphia, the state's largest district. District representative Fernando Gallard said the system is talking with the state Department of Education over how to move forward with the cheating investigation.

In Washington, D.C., federal and city officials are investigating possible cheating in more than 100 schools from 2008 to 2010. The unusually high rate of erasures in those schools became known after a USA Today investigation into improbable test gains in more than 300 schools in six states and D.C.

City officials tossed out test results for three classrooms in May because of proven cases of cheating.

A Waterbury, Conn., principal resigned earlier this month over an alleged cheating scheme on the Connecticut Mastery Test. A dozen teachers who were also caught up in the scandal lost 20 days of pay and have to perform 25 hours of free tutoring.

In Los Angeles, teachers at three schools have resigned after being accused of coaching students or changing answers on tests. The test scores at two of those schools have been thrown out.

Schaeffer, who follows cheating scandals closely for years, said he's seen as many cheating stories this year as in the last half-dozen years combined. He said there have been confirmed cases of cheating in 30 states and D.C. in the last three years.

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Reporters Kathy Matheson in Philadelphia and Brett Zongker in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.

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Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Missing Boy's Remains Found in Suspect's Refrigerator...

New York City: Police have arrested a man in the killing of an 8-year-old boy whose dismembered body was found Wednesday in the suspect's freezer and a trash bin in Brooklyn, N.Y., the New York City Police Department said. Levi Aron, 35, was apprehended Wednesday after making statements that "implicated" him in the killing of Leiby Kletzky, who had stopped to ask the suspect for directions on his way home from camp, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said.

July 13: Police guard the entrance of the apartment where Leiby Kletzky lived with his family in the Brooklyn borough of New York.

Kelly said the child's dismembered remains were found early Wednesday in Aron's refrigerator and in a plastic garbage bag dumped into a trash bin in Brooklyn. "This was a horrendous crime," Kelly told reporters during a press conference Wednesday. Leiby was last seen walking home from Boyan Day Camp in Borough Park, Brooklyn, just before 5 p.m. Monday. A grainy surveillance video shows a man walking near the boy, who is seen in the footage wearing a backpack as he walks down the street, police said. Kelly said the boy appeared to be lost and had asked Aron for directions. He said the boy's parents had agreed to let him walk seven blocks alone from his day camp to a location where he was supposed to meet his mother.

"This is the worst nightmare that can happen to anybody," Rabbi Berish Freilich, a senior leader in Brooklyn's Jewish community, according to a Fox News report. Freilich, who knows the boy's family, described the neighborhood in the tight-knit Orthodox Jewish community of Borough Park as "very safe." "It's an extremely safe area for children," Freilich said. "This is devastating for everybody. Who would think of hurting an innocent young boy?" Kelly said he does not believe Aron knew the boy and described the alleged crime as "totally random."

"It was just happenstance and the terrible fate for this young boy," he said.
Kelly said that approximately 35 minutes after Leiby left the camp, he was inside the suspect's 1990 brown Honda Accord. Kelly said the suspect made statements that indicated he brought the boy to his apartment, where killed him and dismembered his body. Investigators tracked Aron with the help of surveillance video that showed him being approached by the lost boy.

Police then visited Aron's third-story attic apartment at 2:40 a.m. Wednesday, where they found body parts believed to be Leiby's inside the man's freezer.
"When detectives asked where the boy was, Aron nodded toward the kitchen," Kelly said, adding that deputies then found a cutting board and large amounts of blood.
The rest of the body was found inside a red suitcase that had been tossed into a trash bin in another Brooklyn neighborhood, police said. Kelly said statements made by the suspect indicate "he panicked and that's why he killed the boy."

Formal charges are pending against Aron, who lived alone in the apartment in a building shared with his parents. Aron, whose birthday is Wednesday, once had a summons for urinating in public but otherwise did not have a criminal record.

Aron has lived most of his life in New York, working as a clerk at a maintenance supply company in Brooklyn, but about a couple of years living in Memphis, Tenn., where he worked briefly, Kelly said. He lived about a mile away from the boy and was believed to be Orthodox Jewish. Kelly said detectives were investigating whether he had a history of mental illness. Kelly said there was no evidence of a sexual assault, and said it didn't seem like Aron had ever seen the child before.

The medical examiner has yet to determine the cause of death, he said. The New York Post, citing sources close to the investigation, reports that that boy was suffocated before he was dismembered.
Thousands of people had joined the search for Leiby, who was last seen near 44th Street and 12th Avenue in Borough Park. Investigators hunting for the boy noticed the man on the video going into a nearby dentist about 5:30 p.m. Monday, police said. The dentist, located later in New Jersey, said he remembered someone coming into the shop who wasn't a patient, but who was paying a bill for a patient there.

Kelly said Leiby waited for Aron at a street across from the dentist's office for about seven minutes before the two got into his vehicle. Freilich said Leiby was the only son of the Kletzky family. The couple has four daughters, and the husband works as a driver for a private car service.
New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind, whose district includes the area, said the outpouring of support for the boy and his family has been tremendous. "This is beyond the pale," Hikind told FoxNews.com. "In this neighborhood I represent, crime is really nonexistent ... You'd never dream in a million years there's something to be concerned about."

Hikind said that while the man may have killed the child because he panicked, "no one is asking the question of why he picked him up in the first place." "This guy is an adult, an older person," he said. "This has to be a wakeup call for parents everywhere." A community-funded reward for information leading to the child's safe return was raised on Tuesday to $125,000 as police checked schools, synagogues, homes and businesses for any clues into the boy's disappearance. As many as 2,000 people took to the streets Monday to search for Leiby, and crowds returned again on Tuesday, with buses carrying some volunteers in from New Jersey. Members of the community where the boy lived described him as obedient and unlikely to talk to strangers.


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/07/13/thousands-turn-out-to-search-for-missing-brooklyn-boy/#ixzz1S5pPgnHc

Monday, July 6, 2009

This many members and the best we can get from the CTA is a "spend and wait." attitude for the 2nd year in a row!

340,000 dues paying members (305,000) since last years one time bailout. And the best CTA seems willing to offer is to 'DONATE $$$ THEN WAIT AND SEE WHAT HAPPENS' Everone, lie FACE DOWN,put your hand behind your head... Meanwhile, the popular press has joined the right wing whackos in perpetuating lies and misconceptions about taxes, over-paid union workers, the bullying tactics and their unfair power. These people and the "thirty second attack ad voters" are disemboweling California public schools? THE nea AND cta have destroyed their reputations long ago. They are only this year realizing that they have to be a Union not a professional association. The weren't effective as an association anyway. The CTA has no clue or refuses to use action, organize for the use of said action, or how to get into the communities to win parent community support. WE HAVE TO ACT NOW!! LOUD AND WITH FORCE!! For example: WE NEED INFORMATIONAL PICKETS EVERY DAY during the first week of August. How about the 45 minutes before the contract start of the first two or three days of school!! We should already be walking and papering the respective boundaries of our district. Sick out if that's ALL the law allows for but IF WE'RE A UNION THEN WE BETTER ACT LIKE ONE! The operant term is "ACT" In similar financial times, under the AFL-CIO, we had to strike every three years when our contract came up. We didn't loose an employee and we increased our position in regards to the contract each time. But it wasn't easy and it wasn't done by simply complaining.

I've been in three strike actions in my years and not a single one was pleasant but one week of screaming substitute baby sitters in the most kids will be going ape, maybe hurting themselves (heaven forbid) a perpetuating free for all and parents will eat this Governor alive - Like a cheap horror film.

WE have the stick prepare to use it. PREPARE TO STRIKE! Even though the CTA is over two years late in admitting what we all saw coming, THE OPERANT TERM is "prepare" now! (OOPS, Screwed again! Our local has allowed a no strike/ no lockout clause into our washed down version of a mutually agreeable contract. Our board can now pick us part at their leisure.) NO Mr. Sanchez, you can't raise our dues. UPDATE: YES THEY DID RAISE OUR DUES! In a site rep. only secret ballot.You've squandered $$$ enough to fund the budget of many school districts entirely. IT'S YOUR FAULT WE HAVE NO STRIKE AND DEFENSE FUND. The board members must have been laughing it's collective ass off. 'They really bought it... LOL'


Exactly One year later... But it doesn't matter for us. They thought they were positioning themselves for better vantage gaining a lasting camaraderie. What they got was the view from under our board's dysfunctional "Jack Boot."
CTA is the state's largest representative of education employees, serving more than 340,000 employees of California’s schools, colleges and universities. It supposedly exists to protect and advance the professional and economic interests of its members. CTA should work tirelessly for better working conditions, higher salaries, improved health benefits, progressive personnel policies and an affordable and dignified retirement. Instead we have the labor equivalent to the W Bush administration. It's leader an unqualified, morally challenged. A do nothing who in Bush's case bankrupted three corporations and then an entire country. The Saudi family had to bail bush out on the third endeavor. Is that what the new secret dues increase of approximately $20 per head is supposed to do for Sanchez. I personally can't wait for the AFT to start raiding California (like they did in one district in Oregon)- Mo Val first.

We have two more title waves to deal with so we demand better from OUR leaders. Privatization of education is almost on us and complete computerization is not far behind. (SEE WWW.CALVIA.COM)

This is the fight of our professional careers. Are You In or Out?

What's taking so long? This is the fight of our professional careers. Are You In or Out? "Hell has a special level for those who sit by idly during times of great crisis."
Robert Kennedy

The Art of SETTING LIMITS, Its not as easy as it looks.

Art of Setting Limits Setting limits is one of the most powerful tools that professionals have to promote positive behavior change for their clients, students, residents, patients, etc. Knowing there are limits on their behavior helps the individuals in your charge to feel safe. It also helps them learn to make appropriate choices.


There are many ways to go about setting limits, but staff members who use these techniques must keep three things in mind:
Setting a limit is not the same as issuing an ultimatum.
Limits aren’t threats—If you don’t attend group, your weekend privileges will be suspended.

Limits offer choices with consequences—If you attend group and follow the other steps in your plan, you’ll be able to attend all of the special activities this weekend. If you don’t attend group, then you’ll have to stay behind. It’s your decision.
The purpose of limits is to teach, not to punish.
Through limits, people begin to understand that their actions, positive or negative, result in predictable consequences. By giving such choices and consequences, staff members provide a structure for good decision making.
Setting limits is more about listening than talking.
Taking the time to really listen to those in your charge will help you better understand their thoughts and feelings. By listening, you will learn more about what’s important to them, and that will help you set more meaningful limits.
Download The Art of Setting Limits

SYSTEMATIC USE OF CHILD LABOR


CHILD DOMESTIC HELP
by Amanda Kloer

Published February 21, 2010 @ 09:00AM PT
category: Child Labor
Wanted: Domestic worker. Must be willing to cook, clean, work with garbage, and do all other chores as assigned. No contract available, payment based on employer's mood or current financial situation. No days off. Violence, rape, and sexual harassment may be part of the job.

Would you take that job? No way. But for thousands of child domestic workers in Indonesia, this ad doesn't just describe their job, it describes their life.

A recent CARE International survey of over 200 child domestic workers in Indonesia found that 90% of them didn't have a contract with their employer, and thus no way to legally guarantee them a fair wage (or any wage at all) for their work. 65% of them had never had a day off in their whole employment, and 12% had experienced violence. Child domestic workers remain one of the most vulnerable populations to human trafficking and exploitation. And while work and life may look a little grim for the kids who answered CARE's survey, it's likely that the most abused and exploited domestic workers didn't even have the opportunity to take the survey.

In part, child domestic workers have it so much harder than adults because the people who hire children are more likely looking for someone easy to exploit. Think about it -- if you wanted to hire a domestic worker, wouldn't you choose an adult with a stronger body and more life experience to lift and haul and cook than a kid? If you could get them both for the same price, of course you would. But what if the kid was cheaper, free even, because you knew she wouldn't try and leave if you stopped paying her. Or even if you threatened her with death.



Congress Aims to Improve Laws for Runaway, Prostituted Kids

by Amanda Kloer

categories: Child Prostitution, Pimping

Published February 20, 2010 @ 09:00AM PT

The prospects for healthcare reform may be chillier than DC weather, but Democrats in the House and Senate are turning their attention to another warmer but still significant national issue: the increasing number of runaway and throwaway youth who are being forced into prostitution. In response to the growing concerns that desperate, runaway teens will be forced into prostitution in a sluggish economy, Congress is pushing several bills to improve how runaway kids are tracked by the police, fund crucial social services, and prevent teens from being caught in sex trafficking. Here's the gist of what the new legislation is trying to accomplish:

Shelter: Lack of shelter is one of the biggest vulnerabilities of runaway and homeless youth. Pimps will often use an offer of shelter as an entree to a relationship with a child or a straight up trade for sex. In the past couple years, at least 10 states have made legislative efforts to increase the number of shelters, extend shelter options, and change state reporting requirements so that youth shelters have enough time to win trust and provide services before they need to report the runaways to the police. Much of the new federal legislation would make similar increases in the availability and flexibility of shelter options.

Police Reporting: Right now, police are supposed to enter all missing persons into the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) database within two hours of receiving the case. In reality, that reporting doesn't always get done, making it almost impossible for law enforcement to search for missing kids across districts. This hole is a big problem in finding child prostitution victims and their pimps, since pimps will often transport girls from state to state. The new bill would strengthen reporting requirements, as well as facilitate communication between the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the National Runaway Switchboard

We Must Never Forget These Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen and Women

We Must Never Forget These Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen and Women
Nor the Fool Politicians that used so many American GIs' lives as fodder for the fight over an english noun - "Communism"