PAF-AFT

...With each new report of lead detected on a made-in-China toy, Americans express outrage: These toys could poison children. But Chinese workers making the toys -- and countless other products for America -- touch and inhale carcinogenic materials every day, all day long: Benzene. Lead. Cadmium. Toluene. Nickel. Mercury.

Many are dying. They have fatal occupational diseases.

The Star-Ledger republished the first part of this series by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Loretta Tofani in the Dec. 16 issue. The full six part series can be seen by clicking here: http://extras.sltrib.com/china/

from http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/09/nyregion/nyregionspecial2/09Rparenting.html?ex=1354856400&en=d44049b23686d358&ei=5088

The federal No Child Left Behind law of 2002 rates schools based on how students perform on state standardized tests, and if too many children score poorly, the school is judged as failing.

But how much is really the school’s fault?

A new study by the Educational Testing Service — which develops and administers more than 50 million standardized tests annually, including the SAT — concludes that an awful lot of those low scores can be explained by factors that have nothing to do with schools. The study, “The Family: America’s Smallest School,” suggests that a lot of the failure has to do with what takes place in the home, the level of poverty and government’s inadequate support for programs that could make a difference, like high-quality day care and paid maternity leave.

The E.T.S. researchers took four variables that are beyond the control of schools: The percentage of children living with one parent; the percentage of eighth graders absent from school at least three times a month; the percentage of children 5 or younger whose parents read to them daily, and the percentage of eighth graders who watch five or more hours of TV a day. Using just those four variables, the researchers were able to predict each state’s results on the federal eighth-grade reading test with impressive accuracy.

“Together, these four factors account for about two-thirds of the large differences among states,” the report said. In other words, the states that had the lowest test scores tended to be those that had the highest percentages of children from single-parent families, eighth graders watching lots of TV and eighth graders absent a lot, and the lowest percentages of young children being read to regularly, regardless of what was going on in their schools.

Which gets to the heart of the report: by the time these children start school at age 5, they are far behind, and tend to stay behind all through high school. There is no evidence that the gap is being closed.

Read the full article by clicking here.

From the Dec. 9, 2007 issue of the Star-Ledger, New Jersey section

Gov. Jon Corzine is expected this week to unveil a school aid plan that would grant funding increases to seven of the 31 traditional Abbott districts, a sharp departure from the court-ordered system that for nearly a decade sent annual funding increases to all of these poor, urban districts.

The towns expected to see increases are: Union City, Garfield, Perth Amboy, Orange, Harrison, West New York and New Brunswick, according to legislators who have met with the governor or have been apprised of the plan.

Click here to read the full story at NJ.com.