Good news for Texas students! Texas was recently recognized by the College Board as one of 20 states with the greatest percentage of students earning scores of three or higher on Advanced Placement (AP) exams.

Among students in Texas’ high school graduating Class of 2009, 28.7 percent took at least one AP exam during high school, compared to 26.5 percent for the nation. That is a substantial increase from five years ago when 21.8 percent of the state’s graduating seniors took an AP test sometime during their high school career.

In Texas, 14.9 percent of the graduating Class of 2009 earned a score of three or higher on an AP test, compared to 12.5 percent of the Class of 2004 who did so.

Social sciences tests, which include history, government, economics and psychology, were the most popular tests taken by Texas students. They experienced their greatest success on English AP exams.

Information found on the Texas Education website

STAAR will replace the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS), which is the criterion-reference assessment program that has been in place since 2003. The STAAR name, pronounced the same as star, will be used for the 12 end-of-course assessments and the new grade 3-8 assessments. The new tests will be used beginning in the 2011-2012 school year. Students in the graduating Class of 2015, who are currently in seventh grade, will be the first students who must meet the end-of-course testing requirements, as well as pass their classes, in order to earn a diploma.

The STAAR tests are said to be more rigorous than the TAKS and will measure both student achievement and academic growth. School ratings will be suspended in 2012 to allow for the transition to the new testing model.It will be interesting to see if this changes current state goals and objectives.

President Obama presented a 41-page proposal to Congress yesterday on how he would like to change the No Child Left Behind Law. His proposal includes testing students every year in math and reading but also using scores in other subjects to measure progress.If a student were to start the year two years behind in a subject and made one year's growth during the school year, that would be considered a success. Under the law now, that is considered a failure.
The new proposal would authorize $29 billion in aid for schools, which is a 16% increase. Most of this money would be delivered through competitve grants, which may have the effect of uneven distribution among the states.It will be interesting to see how this effects our local Texas schools.

A controversial study from the Institute of Biology recently reported that social networking sites such as Facebook could raise your risk of cancer, strokes, heart disease and dementia.   The reason:  "Increased isolation could alter the way genes work and upset immune responses, hormone levels and the function of arteries and impair mental performance." In other words, not being around other people is bad for your health.

The research went on to say that face-to-face conversations have decreased steadily since 1987 and that there is a difference between "real presence" and virtual presence.  The study even identified "socially regulated genes" that affect our immune system.

Just to prove I'm not "down" on Facebook, there are studies that show it increases productivity at work. An Australian study found surfing the internet for fun during office hours actually increased employees productivity. The study from the University of Melbourne says "workplace internet leisure browsing, or WILB, helped to sharpen workers' concentration."  It goes on to say that people need to zone out for a bit to rest their mind so they can have a higher concentration level.

But communicating with someone on Facebook does not replace human contact.  When you minimize or eliminate contact with people you increase your chances of social isolation, loneliness, a negative outlook and ill health.  This is true even for introverted people.

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