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Buddhist statue, discovered by Nazi expedition, is made of meteorite

Archaeology News Report

It sounds like an artifact from an Indiana Jones film; a 1,000 year-old ancient Buddhist statue which was first recovered by a Nazi expedition in 1938 has been analysed by scientists and has been found to be carved from a meteorite. The findings, published in Meteoritics and Planetary Science, reveal the priceless statue to be a rare ataxite class of meteorite. The statue, known as the Iron Man, weighs 10kg and is believed to represent a stylistic hybrid between the Buddhist and pre-Buddhist Bon culture that portrays the god Vaisravana, the Buddhist King of the North, also known a… more »

Social bullying prevalent in children’s television

Education Research Report

* 92 percent of the top 50 programs for children ages 2-11 show social bullying* Children ages 2-11 view an alarming amount of television shows that contain forms of social bullying or social aggression. Physical aggression in television for children is greatly documented, but this is the first in-depth analysis on children’s exposure to behaviors like cruel gossiping and manipulation of friendship. Nicole Martins, Indiana University, and Barbara J. Wilson, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, published in the Journal of Communication a content analysis of the 50 most popular… more »

4,200-year-old fortification, unique in continental Europe

Archaeology News Report

The archaeological excavations carried out this year at the site of La Bastida (Totana, Murcia) have shed light on an imposing fortification system, unique for its time. The discovery, together with all other discoveries made in recent years, reaffirm that the city was the most advanced settlement in Europe in political and military terms during the Bronze Age (ca. 4,200 years ago -2,200 BCE-), and is comparable only to the Minoan civilisation of Crete. The discovery was presented today by Pedro Alberto Cruz Sánchez, Secretary of Culture of the Region of Murcia and Vicente Lull, pr… more »

The Cubist Paintings of Diego Rivera

Art History News

*Diego Rivera No. 9, Nature Morte Espagnole, 1915 oil on canvas Gift of Katharine Graham National Gallery of Art, Washington © 2004 Banco de México Diego Rivera & Frida Kahlo Museums Trust* An exhibition of important cubist works by renowned Mexican modernist Diego Rivera was on view April 4 through July 25, 2004, at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., *The Cubist Paintings of Diego Rivera: Memory, Politics, Place* celebrated a significant but little-known Rivera painting of 1915, *No. 9, Nature Morte Espagnole (No. 9, Spanish Still Life),* a recent gift to the National … more »

TEXAS PUBLIC EDUCATION CUTS: IMPACT ASSESSMENT

Education Research Report

Texas’ 82nd Legislature reduced state spending on public education in 2010-2011 by $5.4 billion, including $4 billion from the Foundation School Program. Although the extent of the cuts has been widely discussed, comprehensive information is lacking on how the cuts were implemented by school districts and the impact on Texas’ schools and students. From January to September 2012, CHILDREN AT RISK conducted a mixed methods study, including a survey with a random stratified sample of school districts, to provide an objective assessment of the impact of state budget cuts on Texas’ s… more »

Do Teacher Rating Systems Work?

Education Research Report

Last year, for the first time, every Michigan public school was required to measure teacher performance using four rating categories. The idea was that by expanding the range of ratings most districts use, teachers would get more individualized assessment and feedback on their strengths and weaknesses — and appropriate professional development — to help them improve, and in turn boost student learning. It hasn’t worked out that way. An Education Trust-Midwest survey of large Michigan school districts found that more than 99 percent of teachers were rated effective or highly eff… more »

A Dozen Economic Facts About K-12 Education

Education Research Report

Education is a powerful force for promoting opportunity and growth. It is not surprising that an individual’s educational attainment is highly correlated with her income: college graduates generally earn more than less-educated Americans. What might be less obvious is that education is also a significant determinant of many other very important outcomes, including whether individuals marry, whether their children grow up in households with two parents, and even how long they will live. What’s more, on all of these dimensions, the gap between highly educated and less-educated Ameri… more »

Learning from the Successes and Failures of Charter Schools

Education Research Report

The authors of these reports examined charter schools across the quality spectrum in order to learn which practices separate high-achieving from low-achieving schools. An expansive data collection and analysis project in New York City charter schools yielded an index of five educational practices that explains nearly half of the difference between high- and low-performing schools. They then looked at preliminary evidence from demonstration projects in Houston and Denver and find the effects on student achievement to be strikingly similar to those of many high-performing charter sc… more »

What measurements should be used in school-based fitness tests

Education Research Report

Fitness testing has traditionally focused on four aspects: heart and lung function, body composition, muscular and skeletal fitness, and flexibility.A committee convened by the Institute of Medicine undertook a comprehensive review of the science and found that it supports the use of specific ways to measure three of these components — cardiorespiratory endurance, body composition, and musculoskeletal fitness — in young people.These measurements should be used in national youth fitness surveys and school-based fitness tests, says the committee’s report. Recent events underscore … more »

Aggression Among Kindergartners

Education Research Report

Not all aggressive children are aggressive for the same reasons, according to Penn State researchers, who found that some kindergartners who are aggressive show low verbal abilities while others are more easily physiologically aroused. The findings suggest that different types of treatments may be needed to help kids with different underlying causes for problem behavior. “Aggressive responses to being frustrated are a normal part of early childhood, but children are increasingly expected to manage their emotions and control their behavior when they enter school,” said Lisa Gatzke-K… more »

Ancient synagogue discovered in Turkey

Archaeology News Report

The second synagogue from the Lycian civilization has been discovered in Finike. AA photo Archaeological teams digging in the ancient city of Limyra in the Mediterranean province of Antalya have announced the discovery of a second synagogue from the Lycian civilization… Dr. Martin Seyer of the Austrian Archaeology Institute: “We first found a bath and a menorah. After some [further] investigation, we found out that it was a synagogue,” he said. The synagogue in Limyra, which is located in Turunçova in Antalya’s Finike district, is the second to be found in the historical Lyci… more »

Stone Age Images of Ostriches, Colored Beads at Ein Zippori

Archaeology News Report

*A String of Colored Beads in a Bowl, Images of Ostriches Carved on a Stone Plaque and Animal Figurines – All from the Stone Age, were Exposed at Ein Zippori in the North* * Photographic credit: Clara Amit, courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority* A treasure of impressive prehistoric finds was exposed during the course of archaeological excavations the Israel Antiquities Authority conducted this past year, on behalf of the National Roads Company, prior to the widening of Highway 79. The excavations encompass a large area covering a distance of c. 800 m, on both sides o… more »

Eating Cherries Lowers Risk Of Gout Attacks By 35%

Health News Report

A new study found that patients with gout who consumed cherries over a two-day period showed a 35% lower risk of gout attacks compared to those who did not eat the fruit. Findings from this case-crossover study published in Arthritis & Rheumatism, a journal of the American College of Rheumatology (ACR), also suggest that risk of gout flares was 75% lower when cherry intake was combined with the uric-acid reducing drug, allopurinol, than in periods without exposure to cherries or treatment. Previous research reports that 8.3 million adults in the U.S. suffer with gout, an inflammat… more »

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Committee on Natural Resources Committee on Energy and Commerce Minority Staff Minority Staff
September 25, 2012

Prepared for: Edward J. Markey, Ranking Member Henry A. Waxman, Ranking Member Committee on Natural Resources Committee on Energy and Commerce

Complete report

The United States and the world experienced a barrage of extreme weather events over the last several years consistent with what climate scientists have been predicting from global warming pollution. Indeed this summer, U.S. weather was almost apocalyptic: searing heat, ferocious fires, hurricanes, and severe storms left people injured, homeless and in some cases, dead.

This July was the hottest month ever recorded in the lower 48 since record keeping began in 18951 and the heat claimed at least 100 lives.2 January through August was the warmest first eight months period for the continental United States, breaking the previous record set in 2006 by 1°F.3\ The year’s extreme heat contributed to widespread drought across the majority of the country. In July and again in September, the U.S. Drought Monitor reported that 64% of the continental United States was in drought, putting this year’s drought on par with the worst months of the multi-year droughts of the 1930s and 1950s.

This extreme summer follows a period of unusual weather that has plagued the country for more than a year, including an unusually warm winter and an early spring drought. In fact, August 2011 to July 2012 is the warmest 12-month period that the continental United States has experienced since the beginning of recordkeeping in 1895.5 This fire season over 8.6 million6 acres have burned in the United States, an area about the size of New Jersey and Connecticut combined. With fires still burning in parts of the West in early September, this year may equal or surpass the almost 8.8 million acres burnt in 2006, the worst fire year in the last decade.

Record-breaking was not confined to the land. During the first six months of 2012, sea surface temperatures in the northeastern Atlantic were the highest ever, breaking a record that goes back to 1854.

Arctic sea ice coverage shrank to a record low 1.32 million square miles in September, 18% below the previous record set in 2007 and a 49% reduction in the area of the Arctic covered by sea ice as compared to conditions in the 1980s and 1990s.

Beyond the loss of life and impact on communities and livelihoods, severe weather has resulted in large economic costs. The number of natural disasters has increased steadily over the past thirty years
with natural disasters in 2011 resulting in the most costly toll in history —$154 billion worth of worldwide losses from floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, wildfires, and other extreme weather events. In the United States alone, 2011 extreme weather events caused almost $60 billion in damages. This total does not include expenses associated with sickness or injuries triggered by the disasters. Given the number and severity of extreme events that have thus far occurred this year, weather-related costs in 2012 could equal or exceed those in 2011. According to Aon Benfield, a global reinsurance company, insured losses associated with natural disasters have totaled at least $22 billion through August 2012.

Following the record breaking extreme weather of 2011, from the killer tornadoes in Joplin, Missouri to the devastation Hurricane Irene brought to Vermont, many Americans are connecting these events with human-induced global warming. After all, nine of the top ten warmest years globally have occurred since 2000. This August was the 36th consecutive August and 330th consecutive month with a global temperature above the 20th century average. without considering all of the summer’s wildfires and the drought which is expected to add billions of dollars more to the total.

Scientists have been investigating the link between extreme weather events and man-made global warming for years. They now generally agree that global warming pollution plays a role, along with natural factors such as El Niño or La Niña, in shifting the odds toward extreme events. In other words, there has not been a month cooler than the 20th century global average since February 1985.

In fact, NOAA recently concluded, after looking through 50 years of weather data, that droughts like the record 2011 Texas drought was made “roughly 20 times more likely” because of global warming.Indeed, observations have shown that certain extremes—high heat, heavy precipitation and floods, duration and intensity of droughts and extremes related to higher sea levels—have increased over the last half of the century.

Global warming has stacked the deck with extra jokers, making some weather events more frequent and severe and increasing the chances of an event far outside the norm…

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New evidence confirms what most people already believe: Women use contraception because it allows them to better care for themselves and their families, complete their education and achieve economic security, according to “Reasons for Using Contraception: Perspectives of U.S. Women Seeking Care at Specialized Family Planning Clinics,” by Jennifer Frost and Laura Lindberg of the Guttmacher Institute.

“Women value the ability to plan their childbearing, and view doing so as critical to being able to achieve their life goals,” says study author Laura Lindberg. “They need continued access to a wide range of contraceptives so they can plan their families and determine when they are ready to have children.”

Few studies in the United States have asked women directly why they use contraception and what benefits they expect or have achieved from its use. To fill this gap, the authors surveyed 2,094 women receiving services at 22 family planning clinics nationwide.

The majority of participants reported that contraception has had a significant impact on their lives, allowing them to take better care of themselves or their families (63%), support themselves financially (56%), complete their education (51%), or keep or get a job (50%).

When asked why they are seeking contraceptive services now, women expressed concerns about the consequences of an unintended pregnancy on their families’ and their own lives. The single most frequently cited reason for using contraception was that women could not afford to take care of a baby at that time (65%). Nearly one in four women reported that they or their partners were unemployed, which was a very important reason for their contraceptive use. Among women with children, nearly all reported that their desire to care for their current children was a reason for contraceptive use.

Many women reported interrelated reasons for using contraception, suggesting that the complexities of women’s lives influence their decision to use contraception and their choice of method. Other reasons for using contraception, reported by a majority of respondents, include not being ready to have children (63%), feeling that using birth control gives them better control over their lives (60%) and wanting to wait until their lives are more stable to have a baby (60%).

These findings point to the critical role of contraception in the lives of women and their families, and further documents the value of ensuring women’s continued and increased access to a full range of contraceptive services and methods.

“Notably, the reasons women give for using contraception are similar to the reasons they give for seeking an abortion,” according to Lawrence B. Finer, author of a previous Guttmacher study on that topic. “This means we should see access to abortion in the broader context of women’s lives and their efforts to avoid unplanned childbearing, in light of its potential consequences for them and their families.”

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Mitt Romney thinks it fair that he pays so little taxes on capital gains:

And one of the reasons why the capital gains tax rate is lower is because capital has already been taxed once at the corporate level, as high as 35 percent.

This is wrong in so many ways – capital is NOT taxed at the corporate level – income is, and very few corporations actually pay 35%. Moreover, many capital gains occur without any income tax whatsoever at any level – start-ups often lose money for many year, but their value appreciates anyhow, ising prices of gold, art, real estate, companies with large write-offs, etc.

Romney is probably thinking of the justification for taxing dividends at a lower rate, if he is thinking at all.

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From my fascinating blog Archaeology News Report:

Four words on a previously unknown papyrus fragment provide the first evidence that some early Christians believed Jesus had been married, Harvard Professor Karen King told the 10th International Congress of Coptic Studies today.

King, the Hollis Professor of Divinity at Harvard Divinity School, announced the existence of the ancient text at the Congress’s meeting, held every four years and hosted this year by the Vatican’s Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum in Rome. The four words that appear on the fragment translate to, “Jesus said to them, my wife.” The words, written in Coptic, a language of ancient Egyptian Christians, are on a papyrus fragment of about one and a half inches by three inches.

“Christian tradition has long held that Jesus was not married, even though no reliable historical evidence exists to support that claim,” King said. “This new gospel doesn’t prove that Jesus was married, but it tells us that the whole question only came up as part of vociferous debates about sexuality and marriage. From the very beginning, Christians disagreed about whether it was better not to marry, but it was over a century after Jesus’s death before they began appealing to Jesus’s marital status to support their positions.”

Roger Bagnall, director of the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World in New York, believes the fragment to be authentic based on examination of the papyrus and the handwriting, and Ariel Shisha-Halevy, a Coptic expert at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, considers it likely to be authentic on the basis of language and grammar, King said. Final judgment on the fragment, King said, depends on further examination by colleagues and further testing, especially of the chemical composition of the ink.

One side of the fragment contains eight incomplete lines of handwriting, while the other side is badly damaged and the ink so faded that only three words and a few individual letters are still visible, even with infrared photography and computer photo enhancement. Despite its tiny size and poor condition, King said, the fragment provides tantalizing glimpses into issues about family, discipleship, and marriage that concerned ancient Christians.

King and colleague AnneMarie Luijendijk, an associate professor of religion at Princeton University, believe that the fragment is part of a newly discovered gospel. Their analysis of the fragment is scheduled for publication in the January 2013 issue of Harvard Theological Review, a peer-reviewed journal.

King has posted a draft of the paper, an extensive question-and-answer on the fragment and its meaning, and images of it, on a page on the Divinity School website.

The brownish-yellow, tattered fragment belongs to an anonymous private collector who contacted King to help translate and analyze it. The collector provided King with a letter from the early 1980s indicating that Professor Gerhard Fecht from the faculty of Egyptology at the Free University in Berlin believed it to be evidence for a possible marriage of Jesus.

King said that when the owner first contacted her about the papyrus, in 2010, “I didn’t believe it was authentic and told him I wasn’t interested.” But the owner was persistent, so in December 2011, King invited him to bring it to her at Harvard. After examining it, in March 2012 King carried the fragment to New York and, together with Luijendijk, took it to Bagnall to be authenticated. When Bagnall’s examination of the handwriting, ways that the ink had penetrated and interacted with the papyrus, and other factors, confirmed its likely authenticity, work on the analysis and interpretation of the fragment began in earnest, King said.

Little is known about the discovery of the fragment, but it is believed to have come from Egypt because it is written in Coptic, the form of the Egyptian language used by Christians there during the Roman imperial period. Luijendijk suggested that “a fragment this damaged probably came from an ancient garbage heap like all of the earliest scraps of the New Testament.” Since there is writing on both sides of the fragment, it clearly belongs to an ancient book, or codex, not a scroll, she said.

The gospel of which the fragment is but a small part, which King and Luijendijk have named the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife for reference purposes, was probably originally written in Greek, the two professors said, and only later translated into Coptic for use among congregations of Coptic-speaking Christians. King dated the time it was written to the second half of the second century because it shows close connections to other newly discovered gospels written at that time, especially the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Mary, and the Gospel of Philip.

Like those gospels, it was probably ascribed to one or more of Jesus’s closest followers, but the actual author would have remained unknown even if more of it had survived. As it stands, the remaining piece is too small to tell us anything more about who may have composed, read, or circulated the new gospel, King said.

The main topic of the dialogue between Jesus and his disciples is one that deeply concerned early Christians, who were asked to put loyalty to Jesus before their natal families, as the New Testament gospels show. Christians were talking about themselves as a family, with God the father, his son Jesus, and members as brothers and sisters. Twice in the tiny fragment, Jesus speaks of his mother and once of his wife—one of whom is identified as “Mary.” The disciples discuss whether Mary is worthy, and Jesus states that “she can be my disciple.” Although less clear, it may be that by portraying Jesus as married, the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife conveys a positive theological message about marriage and sexuality, perhaps similar to the Gospel of Philip’s view that pure marriage can be an image of divine unity and creativity.

From the very beginning, Christians disagreed about whether they should marry or be celibate. But, King notes, it was not until around 200 that there is the earliest extant claim that Jesus did not marry, recorded by Clement of Alexandria. He wrote of Christians who claimed that marriage is fornication instituted by the devil, and says people should emulate Jesus in not marrying, King said. A decade or two later, she said, Tertullian of Carthage in North Africa declared that Jesus was “entirely unmarried,” and Christians should aim for a similar condition. Yet Tertullian did not condemn sexual relations altogether, allowing for one marriage, although he denounced not only divorce, but even remarriage for widows and widowers as overindulgence. Nearly a century earlier, the New Testament letter of 1 Timothy had warned that people who forbid marriage are following the “doctrines of demons,” although it didn’t claim Jesus was married to support that point.

In the end, the view that dominated would claim celibacy as the highest form of Christian sexual virtue, while conceding marriage for the sake of reproduction alone. The Gospel of Jesus’s Wife, if it was originally written in the late second century, suggests that the whole question of Jesus’s marital status only came up over a century after Jesus died as part of vociferous debates about sexuality and marriage, King said. King noted that contemporary debates over celibate clergy, the roles of women, sexuality, and marriage demonstrate that the issues are far from resolved.

“The discovery of this new gospel,” King said, “offers an occasion to rethink what we thought we knew by asking what role claims about Jesus’s marital status played historically in early Christian controversies over marriage, celibacy, and family. Christian tradition preserved only those voices that claimed Jesus never married. The Gospel of Jesus’s Wife now shows that some Christians thought otherwise.”

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by Jon Pelto from Wait, What

In 2005, Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, destroying or damaging 100 of the City’s 128 school buildings.

In response, the Governor and Legislature of Louisiana adopted legislation shifting 107 of the “worst-performing public schools” to the Louisiana Recovery School District.

Arne Duncan, President Obama’s Secretary of Education, has been quoted as saying the Hurricane, “was probably the best thing ever to happen to education in New Orleans,” because it literally washed away the old and allowed the anti-teacher, anti-union, education reformers to design the “perfect system” that would showcase the benefits of privatization.

The Recovery School District’s move led to the layoff of all public school teachers and the elimination of any teacher unions.

The task of building a new education system fell to Paul Vallas, whose previous efforts had included serving as the CEO of the Chicago School System and then the state entity running the Philadelphia School System.

As Superintendent of Louisiana’s Recovery School District, Vallas implemented what he has proudly called “The Vallas Turnaround Model”.

Despite now serving as the superintendent of the Bridgeport, Connecticut schools system, earlier this summer, Vallas’ private consulting company signed a $1 million contract with the State of Illinois and an $18 million contract with the City of Indianapolis, to bring the Vallas Turnaround Model to those communities.

As of result of Vallas’ work, most schools in New Orleans are now run by charter school management companies. In fact, at least 80 percent of schools are under the control of charter schools.

As the Recovery School District explains on their website,

“Charter school educators are empowered to teach; parents are empowered to choose their school; principals set their own budgets so that more money gets to the classroom; community members form boards that oversee schools; and the district’s central office, which is not close to the parents, the teachers, or the children, monitors schools but does not tell parents and teachers how to educate their children.”

The RSD website goes on to inform readers that,

“Empowered schools flourish. Rather than focusing on mandates from bureaucrats, teachers and parents work together to get all kids through college or into professional careers.”

Earlier today, nationally-renowned public school advocate, Diane Ravitch, reported on a new post by another noted public school blogger, Gary Rubinstein, whose blog is called Teachforus.

Together, they paint a troubling picture about the truth behind New Orleans and Paul Vallas’ Turnaround Model.

The situation:

Yesterday, Louisiana Commissioner of Education, Paul White, and the Recovery School District’s Superintendent, Patrick Dobard, issued a press release crowing about the improved standardized test scores that are coming out of New Orleans.

As Diane Ravitch notes, when it comes to the “education reform movement, “success” is a relative term.

Before the Louisiana State Department of Education was silenced by the state’s present Governor, Bobby Jindal, their State Department of Education noted that, 79% of New Orleans’ ‘highly-praised charters’ received either a D or an F on Louisiana’s school report card.

But despite that truth, the state Commissioner of Education, who had previously served as the RSD’s superintendent and the new RSD superintendent, informed the media that this year, New Orleans students improved their ACT standardized test scores by “four-tenths of one percent.”

Or, using their words, “The average composite score on the ACT for students in the Recovery School District (RSD) New Orleans rose four-tenths of a point from 16.4 to 16.8 from 2011 to 2012 – representing an increase four times the statewide average which rose one-tenth of a point from 20.2 to 20.3 during the same timeframe.”

In response, Gary Rubinstein puts their claim into perspective.

Seven years after Paul Vallas and the “education reformers” successfully destroyed the public education system in New Orleans and replaced it with charter schools, the average score for the standardized test known as ACT stands at 16.8, placing it among the very lowest cities in the nation.

Worse, the best political spin that the reformers could come up with was that after privatizing virtually the entire education system in New Orleans, and giving the corporate education movement total control of the city, the “average composite score on the ACT for students in the Recovery School District (RSD) New Orleans rose by” less than half a percentage point.

These reformers then claim that this movement is particularly impressive, because the number represents, “an increase four times the statewide average.”

To put the situation into perspective, imagine a parent telling their child that they can go into a store and buy a piece of “penny candy.” The child returns, moments later, to report that the piece of candy actually costs 4 cents. The parent, who becomes outraged, responds, “Absolutely not, are you kidding me? That piece of candy is “four times” more than the penny I said you could spend and you certainly aren’t going to get that much money from me.”

Imagine, the reformers feel entitled to issue a press release claiming the “reform movement” deserves credit for increasing test scores by an insignificant amount, after spending hundreds of millions of dollars implementing the very program they said would “turnaround” the entire New Orleans School System.

But perhaps the most incredible piece of this whole episode is how the press release ended.

Recall that the Recovery School District’s primary claim is that “Empowered schools flourish. Rather than focusing on mandates from bureaucrats, teachers and parents work together to get all kids through college or into professional careers.”

The Louisiana Commissioner of Education’s press release summarized the improvement in the ACT scores by noting that,

“Starting this school year, Louisiana will administer the ACT test series to all public school students in grades 8, 9, 10, and 11 as part of the state’s comprehensive plan for continued improvement… Administering the exam in middle school and throughout high school will provide an assessment of student progress that can be used to keep students on track to graduate ready for college and career.

Furthermore, through Louisiana’s Elementary and Secondary Education Act Waiver Application, the state will include student scores on ACT tests in a simplified school performance score, beginning in the 2012-2013 school year. The ACT will account for 25 percent of the School Performance Score for high schools.

So, in the minds of the education reformers, the definition of “rather than focusing on mandates from bureaucrats,” is to mandate yet another set of standardized tests that will be given to all students, starting in middle school and then throughout high school, and then using the test, which has shown NO statistically relevant improvement as one-quarter of the entire “School Performance Score” that parents and policymakers are supposed to use to determine which schools are succeeding and which schools are failing.

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Persistent and serious increases in segregation by race and poverty

A new report from the Schott Foundation for Public Education, The Urgency of Now: Schott 50 State Report on Public Education and Black Males, finds that only 52 percent of Black male and 58 percent of Latino male ninth-graders graduate from high school four years later, while 78 percent of White, non-Latino male ninth-graders graduate four years later. The report suggests that without a policy framework that creates opportunity for all students, strengthens supports for the teaching profession and strikes the right balance between support-based reforms and standards-driven reforms, the U.S. will become increasingly unequal and less competitive in the global economy.

According to The Urgency of Now: The Schott 50 State Report on Public Education and Black Males, the national graduation rate for Black males has increased by ten percentage points since 2001-02, with 2010-11 being the first year that more than half of the nation’s ninth-grade Black males graduated with a regular diploma four years later. Yet, this progress has closed the graduation gap between Black male and White, non-Latino males by only three percentage points. At this rate, it would take nearly 50 years for Black males to achieve the same high school graduation rates as their White male counterparts.

“We have a responsibility to provide future generations of Americans with the education and the skills needed to thrive in communities, the job market and the global economy. Yet, too many Black and Latino young boys and men are being pushed out and locked out of the U.S. education system or find themselves unable to compete in a 21st Century economy upon graduating,” said John H. Jackson, president and CEO of the Schott Foundation for Public Education. “These graduation rates are not indicative of a character flaw in the young men, but rather evidence of an unconscionable level of willful neglect, unequal resource allocation by federal, state and local entities and the indifference of too many elected and community leaders. It’s time for a support-based reform movement.”

Among the states with the largest Black enrollments, North Carolina (58%), Maryland (57%), and California (56%) have the highest graduation rates for Black males, while New York (37%), Illinois (47%) and Florida (47%) have the lowest. Arizona (84%) and Minnesota (65%) were the only states within the top ten ranked states, in graduation rates, with over 10,000 Black males enrolled. Among the states with the highest enrollments of Latinos, Arizona (68%), New Jersey (66%) and California (64%) have the highest graduation rates for Latino males, while New York (37%), Colorado (46%) and Georgia (52%) have the lowest.

Three of the four states with the highest graduation rates for Black males were states with a relatively small number of Black males enrolled in the state’s schools: Maine (97%), Vermont (82%), Utah (76%). This seems to indicate that Black males, on average, perform better in places and spaces where they are not relegated to under-resourced districts or schools. When provided similar opportunities they are more likely to produce similar or better outcomes as their White male peers.

The report cites the need to address what the Schott Foundation calls a “pushout” and “lockout” crisis in our education system, in part by reducing and reclaiming the number of students who are no longer in schools receiving critical educational services and improving the learning and transition opportunities for students who remain engaged. Blacks and Latinos face disproportionate rates of out-of-school suspensions and are not consistently receiving sufficient learning time – effectively being pushed out of opportunities to succeed. Many who remain in schools are locked out of systems with well-resourced schools and where teachers have the training, mentoring, administrative support, supplies and the facilities they need to provide our children with a substantive opportunity to learn.

In the foreword to the report, Andrés A. Alonso, CEO, Baltimore City Public Schools, described his city’s efforts to keep kids in schools: “We could not have made these strides without asserting unequivocally that we had no disposable children, and that we needed everyone’s help to make things right.” Alonso concludes, “I am confident that we as a nation will rally and we will succeed. The cost of continued failure is around us, a disservice to our best hopes. The cost of continued failure should be abhorrent to contemplate.”

To cut down the alarming “pushout” rate, the Schott Foundation is supporting the recently launched Solutions Not Suspensions initiative, a grassroots effort of students, educators, parents and community leaders calling for a nationwide moratorium on out-of-school suspensions. The initiative, supported by The Opportunity to Learn Campaign and the Dignity in Schools Campaign, promotes proven programs that equip teachers and school administrators with effective alternatives to suspensions that keep young people in school and learning.

Schott also calls for students who are performing below grade level to receive “Personal Opportunity Plans” to prevent them from being locked out of receiving the resources needed to succeed. The report highlights the need to pivot from a standards-driven reform agenda to a supports-based reform agenda that provides all students equitable access to the resources critical to successfully achieving high standards.

The Urgency of Now also provides the following recommendations for improving graduation rates for young Black and Latino men:

*End the rampant use of out-of-school suspensions as a default disciplinary action, as it decreases valuable learning time for the most vulnerable students and increases dropouts.
*Expand learning time and increase opportunities for a well-rounded education including the arts, music, physical education, robotics, foreign language, and apprenticeships.
*States and cities should conduct a redlining analysis of school funding, both between and within districts, and work with the community and educators to develop a support-based reform plan with equitable resource distribution to implement sound community school models.

“There is no doubt that the stakes are high. Black and Latino children under the age of 18 will become a majority of all children in the U.S. by the end of the current decade, many of whom are in lower-income households located in neighborhoods with under-resourced schools,” said Michael Holzman, senior research consultant to the Schott Foundation. “We do not want our young Black and Latino men to have to beat the odds; we want to change the odds. We must focus on systemic change to provide all our children with the opportunity to learn.”

Persistent and serious increases in segregation by race and poverty

Meanwhile, the Civil Rights Project today released three new studies showing persistent and serious increases in segregation by race and poverty, with very dramatic results in the South and West, the nation’s two largest regions where students of color now comprise the majority of public school enrollment. Nationally, the average black or Latino student now attends school with a substantial majority of children in poverty, double the level in schools of whites and Asians.

This new research by the Civil Rights Project includes an extensive report on national trends, “E Pluribus… Separation: Deepening Double Segregation for More Students,” as well as two smaller regional reports, “The Western States: Profound Diversity but Severe Segregation for Latino Students,” and “Southern Slippage: Growing School Segregation in the Most Desegregated Region of the Country.”

Together they show segregation is substantially increasing across the country for Latino students, who attend more intensely segregated and impoverished schools than they have for generations. The segregation increases for Latinos are most dramatic in the West.

In spite of declining residential segregation for black families, and their large-scale movement to the suburbs in most parts of the country, school segregation for black students remains very high and is increasing most severely in the South, which led the nation in school integration after the l960s desegregation struggles took effect.

For decades, the Civil Rights Project has monitored the success of American schools in reaching the goals of integrating schools and equalizing opportunity in a changing society. Segregation is directly linked to severe problems, such as high dropout rates, lack of experienced teachers, and fewer resources. E Pluribus… Separation summarizes the most rigorous research to date showing that segregated schools are systematically linked to these and other unequal educational opportunities.

Using data from the National Center on Education Statistics, the researchers explore enrollment shifts and segregation trends playing out nationally, as well as in regions, states and metropolitan areas.

The reports contain data on all states and the nation’s 25 largest metropolitan regions, making it possible for citizens and local officials to compare patterns in their areas to national and regional trends. In the reports, the authors underscore the fact that simply sitting next to a white student does not guarantee better educational outcomes for students of color. Instead, the resources including expert and experienced teachers and advanced courses that are consistently linked to predominately white and/or wealthy schools help foster real and serious educational advantages over minority segregated settings.

The Obama Administration, like the Bush Administration before it, has taken no significant action to increase school integration or to help stabilize diverse schools undergoing racial change due to changes in the housing market. Small positive steps in civil rights enforcement by the current administration have, however, been undermined by the strong pressure it used to expand charter schools, the most segregated sector of schools for African American students.

Though segregation is powerfully related to many dimensions of unequal education, neither political party has discussed it in the current presidential race.

“These trends threaten the nation’s success as a multiracial society,” commented Professor Gary Orfield, Civil Rights Project co-director. “We are disappointed to have heard nothing in the campaign about this issue from neither President Obama, who is the product of excellent integrated schools and colleges, nor from Governor Romney, whose father gave up his job in the Nixon Cabinet because of his fight for fair housing, which directly impacts school make-up.”

E Pluribus… Separation suggests a number of ways to reverse the trends toward deepening resegregation without implementing mandatory busing. These recommendations include: giving priority in competing for funds to pro-integration policies; changing the operation of choice plans and charter policies so that they foster rather than undermine integration; supporting diverse communities facing resegregation with housing and education policies; helping communities undergoing racial change to create voluntary desegregation plans, and training for administrators and teachers’ to achieve successful and lasting integration.

About the Civil Rights Project

Founded in 1996 by former Harvard professors Gary Orfield and Christopher Edley, Jr., the Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles is now co-directed by Orfield and Patricia Gándara, professors at UCLA. Its mission is to create a new generation of research in social science and law, on the critical issues of civil rights and equal opportunity for racial and ethnic groups in the United States. It has commissioned more than 450 studies, published 14 books, including five on access to higher education, and issued numerous reports from authors at universities and research centers across the country. The U.S. Supreme Court, in its 2003 Grutter v. Bollinger decision upholding affirmative action, cited the Civil Rights Project’s research.

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Poverty has continued to rise in Connecticut during Connecticut’s slow economic recovery, according to new Census data from the American Community Survey. In 2011, 10.9% of Connecticut residents (377,856) had incomes under the Federal Poverty Level, up from 10.1% in 2010. Poverty increased more quickly among children. Among Connecticut children under age 18, 14.9% (118,809 children) lived in families with incomes under the Federal Poverty Level in 2011, a startling increase from 12.8% in 2010. This child poverty increase was the 5th highest in the nation. (For a two-parent household with two children, the poverty level was $22,811 in 2011.)

Connecticut Voices for Children, a research-based think tank that analyzed the Census data, stated that poverty trends reflect the continued impact of the economic recession, which began in the state in March 2008. Connecticut already experienced the largest increase in poverty of any state between 2007 and 2008, growing from 7.9% to 9.3%. There was a statistically significant increase in poverty among all Connecticut residents over the decade, rising from 7.3% in 2001 to 10.9% in 2011. Poverty also grew significantly among children in the state over the last decade, from 10.2% in 2001 to 14.9% in 2011.

In response to the findings, Connecticut Voices called upon state policymakers to raise the minimum wage, encourage participation in the state and federal Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), and avoid state budget cuts that could undermine support for low-income families.

“We need to redouble our efforts to reverse these damaging trends by raising the floor for low-wage jobs through a minimum wage increase and avoiding state budget cuts that could plunge more children and families into poverty,” said Jamey Bell, Executive Director at Connecticut Voices for Children. “Children are our economic future, and we can’t afford to leave more and more of them in poverty.”

Connecticut Voices pointed to Connecticut’s new state Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) as a measure that could pull many working families out of poverty. Connecticut residents have just begun to receive the benefits of the state EITC this year. The federal version of the EITC, started by President Nixon and greatly expanded by President Reagan, lifts more children out of poverty than any other federal program, according to a report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The state version of this credit for low-income workers is intended to help offset Connecticut’s greater cost of living and to reward work.

“The new state EITC will put more money directly into the hands of low-income people working hard to reach the middle class,” said Wade Gibson, Senior Policy Fellow at Connecticut Voices for Children. “We need to make sure that eligible families know about both the state and federal tax credits.”

Estimates of poverty rates varied significantly across Connecticut’s cities: Bridgeport (25.7%), Danbury (13.9%), Hartford (36.0%), New Britain (25.5%), New Haven (30.1%), Norwalk (8.0%), Stamford (11.1%), and Waterbury (21.5%). The percentage of children under 18 in poverty in Connecticut cities was also reported for Bridgeport (39.9%), Danbury (17.9 %), Hartford (47.9%), New Britain (35.7%), New Haven (41.4%), Norwalk (7.7%), Stamford (17.5%), and Waterbury (34.5%). Poverty estimates are only available at this time for cities with populations over 65,000. There were no statistically significant changes in poverty or median household income estimates for Connecticut cities between 2010 and 2011.

The American Community Survey also provided poverty estimates for Connecticut’s counties and Congressional districts. There were significant increases in the poverty rate among all residents and among children in New Haven County and Tolland County. There was also a significant increase in poverty in the 1st Congressional district (represented by Rep. Larson). (Congressional district data are based on 2011 boundaries, prior to redistricting in 2012. See attached fact sheet for details on county and Congressional district estimates.)

Statewide, the poverty rates for Hispanics (27.3%) and African Americans (22.9%) were dramatically higher than the rate for White, non-Hispanic residents (6.2%).

With the establishment of the Child Poverty Council by state legislation in 2004, Connecticut became the first state in the nation to set a goal of reducing child poverty — by half by 2014. In 2003 (the baseline year for the Council), 10.8% of Connecticut’s children in families (“related children”) had incomes below the poverty line. The state set a goal of reducing the poverty rate to only 5% of children in 2014. Connecticut’s poverty rate for children in families (14.8% in 2011) has significantly worsened over the last decade (the 2001 rate was 9.7%). To meet the goal of reducing child poverty by half, Connecticut must reverse course dramatically, according to Connecticut Voices.

Nationwide, the American Community Survey estimated that 15.9% of all Americans (48.5 million) lived in poverty in 2011, a statistically significant increase from 15.3% in 2010. Among children under 18, 22.5% (16.4 million) were under the poverty line in 2011, up from 21.6% in 2010. Median household income also declined nationally, from $51,144 in 2010 to $50,042 in 2011.

“We’re hopeful that recent state actions like the state Earned Income Tax Credit for low-income workers and efforts to generate jobs will begin to reduce poverty, and we’re hoping that the Governor and legislature will seek to do more in the coming year in light of this increase,” said Jim Horan, Executive Director of the Connecticut Association for Human Services.

Median household income in Connecticut was $65,753 in 2011. This was a decline from the income level prior to the recession in 2007, when the median household income was $71,429. However, the 2011 income estimate was not statistically different from the 2010 estimate.

See the CT Voices fact sheet for detailed survey results for Connecticut, its counties, Congressional districts, and cities; evaluation of the statistical significance of changes in local, state, and national estimates; and background on the measures. Note: Unless a change in Census estimates over time is statistically significant, it is not accurate to say that poverty has increased or declined in a city, county, or state.