Missouri Assessment Program (MAP) testing begins in April and Gratz Brown Elementary students and teachers are gearing up for this yearly event. Students in grades 3-5 have been preparing by setting performance goals for these tests as well as the NWEA testing; and setting personal performance goals in relation to school work. Study Island software is used by students to review grade level curriculum which also familiarizes a student with the use of computers and software. Literacy by Design is another tool that is used to expose students to research-based instruction to help the student demonstrate mastery of communication arts objectives. The GBE Spartans have also participated in daily math Response to Intervention (RtI) lessons and Spartan Time communication arts lessons twice a week. Both the RtI and Spartan Time lessons are based on meeting students needs and allows instructors to design lessons at remedial levels, on grade levels and enrichment leels. All of the students took part in two mock MAP practice sessions in addition to practicing released test items. During the practice for testing, students used the SUPER and GREAT strategies along with other strategies. MAP testing will be held from April 3-5 and April 10-13 each day from9-11 a.m. at GBE. Students are encouraged to be on time and at school each of these days. Free breakfast will be offered to all students on those days to ensure they have the brain food needed for optimal performance. Incentives are offered to students who put forth their best effort during testing as well. A MAP assembly will be held on April 2 during which GBE teachers and the Moberly High School cheerleaders will perform. Letters will be displayed from parents who wrote good luck messages as well as banners that were signed by parents and others wishing the GBE Spartans good luck and encouraging them to do their best in the testing. Students at North Park and South Park Elementary have also made cards and banners to wish the GBE Spartans good luck and to encourage them to do their very best. With the support of friends and family and all of the hard work and preparation by the students and teachers the students are prepared and ready to do a fantastic job. Go GBE Spartans!

Original post:
MAP testing begins Tuesday in area schools

CNET editor Dong Ngo rounds up five external hard drives that make the best backup drives.

The last Saturday of March is World Backup Day, and you'll see a lot of storage vendors taking this occasion to pitch their products for backup purposes. I am about to do a similar thing, but from a very different point of view: yours.

None of the vendors goes as far as guaranteeing the integrity of storage on their products. At most, a vendor would give you a new product to replace the broken one, or in the currently unique case of IoSafe, offer to pay up to a certain amount toward data recovery. I, on the other hand, promise, if not guarantee, that if you follow my advice, your data will be safe.

The truth is that backing up is a personal matter that needs to be taken care of on a regular basis -- even daily, if possible. The key thing is to store copies of data in multiple places and never rely on just one medium for your important, irreplaceable data.

Note that commercial movies, music, and other purchasable digital content are replaceable. It's great that you can back everything up, but most of the time, the personal information that you really need to safeguard takes up very little storage space.

Up-to-date backups of your data are like insurance; you need it and at the same time hope to never have to resort to it.

The second thing to note is that even a brand-new hard drive can die at any time, without any warning. You can always lose your portable drive, and your online storage service can go out of business all of sudden. You need to act when everything is in working order -- which can give you a false sense of safety -- because otherwise, most of the time, it's just too late. And let me say this once more time: never use just one medium to keep your important, irreplaceable data.

Up-to-date backups of your data are like insurance; you need it and at the same time hope to never have to resort to it. There are many ways to keep your data safe and you can find out about different types of backups here.

To make it easier, in this roundup, however, I'll focus on external hard drives, which are the most popular, affordable, and easiest way to back up (and restore) data. Even better: you only have to pay for them once. Here are my choices for the top five external hard drives that are great ways to keep your data safe. They are formatted for Windows but can be easily reformatted to work with Macs. They are listed in order of seriousness, with the most casual -- and affordable -- drives on top.

WD 2TB My Passport Western Digital's 2TB My Passport is the world's first portable drive that offers 2TB of storage space. This is about as large as you can get from a 2.5-inch-based external hard drive given the current perpendicular recording technology. Despite this top capacity, the drive is very compact and is bus-powered. All you need is the included standard Micro-USB 3.0 cable for it to work. (The drive works with both USB 3.0 and USB 2.0.)

Excerpt from:
Top 5 external drives: Backing up is a personal matter

If you're wondering how to achieve professional and personal success in your life, Stedman Graham says it can all depend on who you think you are. Here's an excerpt.

I Am Stedman Graham, and This Is Why I Care

When I was growing up as one of six black children, two of whom were disabled, in Whitesboro, NJ, a small black community surrounded by a predominately white one, the catch-phrase was, Nothing good ever comes out of Whitesboro.

With a race-based consciousness, every day I woke up thinking I couldn't make it because of the color of my skin. This was tied directly to my self esteem, it was tied to my belief systems, it was tied to what I thought my talent was, what skills I could develop, it was tied to my habits, to my vision, and to my hopes and dreams. I had a totally self-limiting consciousness.

Picture this; I was a young six-foot-six black man in a white community. What does everyone say? Basketball player. Label. So I was that. I lived the label. I was exposed to many good people, but I was also buying into what others said and how others acted, all instead of being in better tune with my own soul. My self-esteem was too low for me to appreciate life. I was an angry person. I was angry at the system and I felt a victim in my own right. It was almost as if I had a hole in my heart.

Then one day it hit me over my head. It was not about race. It was about me not knowing a process for becoming successful. I didnt know how successful people think and act. I'd been told it was about race. I suddenly realized that somebody had fed me a bill of goods, and I had bought into it. And if I bought into the notion that its about race, there was no way out, because I would be trying to solve what the problem wasn't.

If you feel you have no control over your life, you need to come to the same epiphany I did, that, 'Oh, I'm not alone. Millions of women buy into the fact that they can't make it because they're a woman. Im not alone. Where I came from, blacks and Native Americans buy into the fact that they can't make it because of the color of their skin. Thats their label. I'm not alone.

Folks who are entitled, who think that they are so because they're a certain race, that because they're white they're better than somebody else, they're labeled. They buy into that. Or you might be a person who bought into the fact that you can't make it because your mother or father said you're nothing, that youre never going to be anything, and you got labeled by that.

So, youve got all these labels. I realized that everybody's labeled, not just me. I'm not the only person around here with a label. And I realized that the secret to un-labeling yourself is not to let other people define you, it's to let you define yourself, if you know how.

One of the key things Im going to stress is your understanding of the difference between the internal world and the external one. This is all about you.

The rest is here:
'Your Passport to Success': Take back who you are

OTTAWA The federal government said Friday it will press companies to remove voluntarily a bacteria killer from some personal-care products after identifying triclosan as toxic to the environment.

And pending the results of "voluntary action," to include looking for a substitute ingredient, the government's newly published draft risk assessment says "risk management measures" may be proposed.

Consumer advocates welcomed Friday's development but said a ban should be the end game if toiletry manufacturers don't move on their own to remove triclosan from toothpastes, mouthwashes, body washes and anti-bacterial soaps.

If the federal government pursues a ban, it can expect a challenge from some key industry players such as Colgate-Palmolive, which argued Friday that Canada's draft assessment supports the continued use of triclosan in its gingivitis-fighting Colgate Total.

Health Canada has been probing the effects of triclosan on the body's endocrine system and whether the antibacterial agent contributes to the development of antibiotic resistance. Environment Canada has been studying the effect of the widely used chemical on the environment.

The government's draft risk assessment, published Friday, says current levels of triclosan in products such as some toothpastes, shampoo and soap do not pose a risk to human health and Canadians can continue to safely use these products.

Triclosan, however, can cause harm to the environment, the draft assessment says. When these personal-care items are rinsed and washed down the drain, the amount of triclosan released into the environment through wastewater treatment plants can affect plants and animals in lakes, streams and rivers, it says.

Adverse effects includes reduction in growth, reproduction and survival. Triclosan may also interfere with the action of thyroid hormones in amphibians.

The formal proposal to list the chemical as toxic to the environment under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act is now subject to consultations before the government publishes a final risk assessment and risk-management strategy, expected in the fall of 2013.

"We're looking primarily at this point developing voluntary controls with industry, but the alternatives are varied and those will be discussed as we move forward on the assessment and risk management," Robert Chenier, the director of the ecological assessment division at Environment Canada, said in an interview.

See original here:
Feds seek voluntary removal of toxin from personal-care products

by Austin Baird / Associated Press Associated Press

Rep. Alan Dick, R-Stony River, said students are getting a skewed idea of resource development, often from teachers who don't hail from Alaska and aren't familiar with the state's constitution. He said constituents district have complained that students are being taught exclusively that development is bad without learning of economic benefits and the other side of the story.

His bill, HB352, requires that curriculum conveying constitutional principles of resource use, development and conservation be developed "without regard to personal opinion."

"I want to empower citizens of Alaska so that if they feel there are things being taught in their districts that violate the constitution, they can go to their school boards," Dick said.

Rep. Paul Seaton, R-Homer, and a committee member, said during a hearing Friday that the bill would put a burden on school districts. He said the wording of the bill makes it so districts might be required to purchase books that don't exist, and that supplementary curriculum materials might be a better solution than limiting the types of books districts can buy.

"I'm worried about unintended consequences and whether this will be applied to individual school boards and districts and how it would affect them," Seaton said. "We need to hear from them."

An opportunity for public testimony was provided Friday, but no one from the public testified.

Betsy Beardsley, environmental justice program director of the Alaska Wilderness League, said in an interview that she wants to know more about the bill before it passes.

Tim Bristol, director of Trout Unlimited, said the legislation "isn't necessarily bad as long as the pro-development themes that teachers will be required to espouse are balanced with information about how important clean water is to Alaska's world-class fisheries."

Most House committees face a tentative deadline next week to stop hearing House bills and to focus on Senate bills.

Continued here:
Bill requires conservation, development curriculum in Alaska schools

The latest reports from the Bureau of Economic Analysis on economic growth and personal income and spending have, on the surface, appeared to show improvement.

Spending is up more than expected and economic growth is clipping along at a 3% annual growth rate in the fourth quarter. That is the good news.

As we have discussed in the past the consumer is the key to this whole economic equation.

Consumption is 70% of the economy and, as long as the consumer has the ability to consume, the economy can chug along.

However, therein lies the dysfunction as well.

Today, the belief is that if the system is flooded with cheaper dollars that the near-term dysfunction of the economy can be fixed through a consumption driven recovery. The problem, however, as we just discussed, is that production must come first. Production is the real source of healthy consumption in the economy. The debt driven consumption of the 80-90's was a slow moving cancer through the economy. Debt has to be serviced which, as debt levels increased without commensurate increases in income, diverted more and more income away from savings and ultimately productive investment.

The problem is that with the media viewing data from only one month, or quarter, to the next the long term trends are being missed.

In order for consumers to continue to consume at rates high enough to support long term economic growth they need increasing wage growth to offset the effects of inflation over time. This is currently not the case. In fact wages have been stagnant and declining since October of 2010. As of today's latest read - the year over year change in real disposable incomes fell 50% from where it stood in January. Even on a monthly basis real disposable incomes fell in both January and February. Mortgage and debt payments, insurance, utilities, food and auto payments must be met every month and these are just the bare essentials that consume a very large portion of the monthly household budget.

Therein lies the obvious problem. As the rate of increase in income declines as food and energy costs rise - the deficit between income and expenses is made up with either decreased personal savings, increased debt or both. However, with credit tight, limited savings and engaged, either by force or choice, in debt deleveraging - consumers are struggling with higher food and energy prices as they try to maintain their current standard of living.

More:
The Consumption Dysfunction

JUNEAU, Alaska The chairman of the House Education Committee has proposed a bill that requires Alaska public schools develop curriculum conveying constitutional principles of resource use, development and conservation.

Rep. Alan Dick, R-Stony River, said students are getting a skewed idea of resource development, often from teachers who don't hail from Alaska and aren't familiar with the state's constitution. He said constituents district have complained that students are being taught exclusively that development is bad without learning of economic benefits and the other side of the story.

His bill, HB352, requires that curriculum conveying constitutional principles of resource use, development and conservation be developed "without regard to personal opinion."

"I want to empower citizens of Alaska so that if they feel there are things being taught in their districts that violate the constitution, they can go to their school boards," Dick said.

Rep. Paul Seaton, R-Homer, and a committee member, said during a hearing Friday that the bill would put a burden on school districts. He said the wording of the bill makes it so districts might be required to purchase books that don't exist, and that supplementary curriculum materials might be a better solution than limiting the types of books districts can buy.

"I'm worried about unintended consequences and whether this will be applied to individual school boards and districts and how it would affect them," Seaton said. "We need to hear from them."

An opportunity for public testimony was provided Friday, but no one from the public testified.

Betsy Beardsley, environmental justice program director of the Alaska Wilderness League, said in an interview that she wants to know more about the bill before it passes.

Tim Bristol, director of Trout Unlimited, said the legislation "isn't necessarily bad as long as the pro-development themes that teachers will be required to espouse are balanced with information about how important clean water is to Alaska's world-class fisheries."

Most House committees face a tentative deadline next week to stop hearing House bills and to focus on Senate bills.

Here is the original post:
Bill requires conservation, development curriculum

ADDISON, Texas, March 30, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Affirmative Insurance Holdings, Inc. (Nasdaq:AFFM - News), a leading distributor and producer of non-standard personal automobile insurance policies, reported consolidated financial results for the fourth quarter and full year ended December 31, 2011.

Gary Kusumi, Chief Executive Officer, stated, "2011 was a disappointing year for reported financial results due in large part to non-cash charges and loss development related to our Michigan business, which we exited in 2011. We made improvements in claims, underwriting, product structure and a number of other areas during the year as reflected in our core operating results. The current market environment continues to be difficult, particularly with the increase in gas prices. Increasing revenue and matching the expense base against current premium volume is our greatest challenge. The entire organization is singularly focused on executing on our initiatives to return to profitability. We recognize the challenges we must overcome and the hard work that will be necessary to achieve our financial objectives."

Operating Performance

As a result of adverse loss development in Michigan and recent premium production trends, the Company recorded a non-cash, pretax goodwill impairment charge of $140.1 million in the fourth quarter of 2011.

Significant declines in the fourth quarter of 2011 in premiums written in the markets corresponding to the recorded agency relationship compared with prior periods and forecast, as well as customer attrition rates indicated that the carrying amounts of definite-lived intangible assets were not recoverable, resulting in a non-cash impairment charge of $1.7 million.

About Affirmative

Affirmative Insurance Holdings, Inc. is a distributor and producer of non-standard personal automobile insurance policies and related products and services for individual consumers in targeted geographic markets. Non-standard personal automobile insurance policies provide coverage to drivers who find it difficult to obtain insurance from standard automobile insurance companies due to their lack of prior insurance, age, driving record, limited financial resources or other factors. Non-standard personal automobile insurance policies generally require higher premiums than standard automobile insurance policies.

The Affirmative Insurance Holdings, Inc. logo is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/newsroom/prs/?pkgid=3443

This press release contains forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements may be identified by, among other things, the use of forward-looking terms such as "likely," "typically," "may," "intends," "expects," "believes," "anticipates," "estimates," "projects," "targets," "forecasts," "seeks," "potential," , or "attempts" or the negative of such terms or other variations on such terms or comparable terminology. By their nature, these statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors, which could cause actual future results to differ materially from those results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements.

Do not unduly rely on forward-looking statements. They give the Company's expectations about the future and are not guarantees. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made, and, except as required by law, the Company does not intend to update them to reflect changes that occur after that date. For a discussion of factors that may cause actual results to differ from expectations, refer to the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2011. Any factor described in this press release or in any document referred to in this press release could, by itself or together with one or more other factors, adversely affect the Company's business, earnings and/or financial condition.

More:
Affirmative Insurance Holdings Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2011 Financial Results

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgvklR9Zujo

29-03-2012 11:50 Apricot is a live-online education provider for students who are unable to attend mainstream schools. Students may be ill in hospital, or excluded, or refusers. These students enjoy learning online because it is fun and less confrontational than traditional classrooms. They like having more control and responsibility. Apricot teaches groups and individuals. See our website at http://www.apricotlearningonline.co.uk.

See the original post:
Learning Online - Video

TWEETING: USF's underwater research robot is sending reports back to shore via Twitter. (USF photo)

LESS STRESS: Gulf High principal Steve Knobl quits his post for a job that will give him new challenges and more family time.

NO MORE: Sacred Heart Academy in Tampa will close after 81 years because of low enrollment.

TOP OF THE CLASS: Kindergartners get a first peek at career options Stuffed animal pet show teaches Winding Waters Elementary students about real life creatures Springstead High students begin a humanities club to learn more about other cultures and religions

LOW EXPECTATIONS: Leon school officials brace for school grades to decline under new FCAT scoring guidelines, WFSU reports.

AT ODDS: The State Board of Education overrules the Duval School Board's denial of an online-only charter school, setting up a possible lawsuit, the Florida Times-Union reports.

BE SURE: Florida education leaders should ensure that online education offers at least comparable results to classroom learning before jumping more deeply into that arena, the Orlando Sentinel editorializes.

EXTRA HELP: A Stuart church begins its Homework Angels program to help children whose parents don't speak English to complete their school work, the Stuart News reports.

LABOR NEWS: The Palm Beach Classroom Teachers Association has ousted its executive director, the Palm Beach Post reports.

STILL SHRINKING: The Flagler school district looks for ways to continue cutting its spending in order to keep its reserves sound, the Daytona Beach News-Journal reports.

More:
Florida education news: Twitter, school grades, online education and more