by Jason on March 4, 2010
According to an article in today’s Columbus Dispatch, Ohio is among the top finalists to receive money from the federal government through the “Race To the Top” program to increase achievement in our state. In the application, Ohio states that it will:
The state’s goals include: increasing the high school graduation rate to 88 percent, up 2 percent; reducing graduation rate gaps between minority and majority students by 50 percent; reducing performance gaps on state and national assessments by 50 percent; and reducing by half the gap between Ohio and the best performing states in the nation on national reading and math tests.
As an educator at the secondary and post-secondary levels, it is my opinion that we must focus most of our energy on reducing the achievement gap between majority and minority students. As we all know, there are a plethora of reasons for which this gap exists, but that does not mean that we should ever rest in our efforts to erase this gap.
More research must be done to develop new and innovative ways to reach all of our students. Until we can claim that our minority students score equal to the Caucasian students on measures such as grades, graduation rate, and standardized testing, then we continue to fail those students that need the most help.
by Jason on February 16, 2009
Jill on Writes Like She Talks has a post today that focuses on her hometown of Pepper Pike in northern Ohio. They have just revamped their website which looks pretty nice. You ought to check it out. That made me think about highlighting something good that is happening in my hometown, Westerville, which is a suburb of Columbus, Ohio. And bingo, I found a great story in the Columbus Dispatch.
Westerville, under the leadership of Andrew Boatright (who happens to be the father of one of my students), continues its goal of becoming energy independent.
Westerville has 16,000 electricity customers, and, like Columbus, it owns its electricity-distribution network.
But neither city produces power, which comes from power plants fed through a common energy grid.
That’s changing, however.
“Energy markets today are pushing participants in the direction of having their own capacity,” Boatright said.
Six businesses and one home will be given the solar-energy maintenance units. About the size of a refrigerator, the equipment measures a customer’s electrical use, and its batteries store excess output when the sun is shining.
Westerville officials will be able to monitor power consumption, and balance in real time whether customers use solar panels, battery storage or the city’s grid supply.
When users generate more power than they need, the excess can be transferred back to the city’s grid, and customers will receive a discount on their bill.
Another reason why I am proud to call Westerville home. We all need to do what we can to end our dependence on foreign oil that comes from many countries that aren’t so friendly.
by Jason on December 15, 2008
I’d like to call special attention to a tragic story that unfolded in northern Ohio. According to the Columbus Dispatch, a child asked his parents to close their eyes and wait for a surprise. As they did, he shot them both, fatally injuring his mother.
Prosecutors say Daniel Petric was so angry that his father would not allow him to play the video game Halo 3 that he shot his parents, then tried to make it appear to be a murder-suicide.
That story is just too sad for words. Is this another sign that kids are becoming too desensitized to violence by video games and television?
by Jason on December 9, 2008
If you live in or around Central Ohio, you know that we have a prominent and growing Somali population. I’ve noticed very few problems in connection to this group of people that has spread out in various places within the greater-Columbus area. Unfortunately for this group of people, they have been stigmatized by stories like Nuradin Abdi that plead guilty for planning to blow up one of our malls in this area.
Because many of the women continue to preserve their cultural and religious traditions by wearing the hijab, or the traditional head coverings, they stand out in our society and as do other minority groups suffer from certain prejudices and stereotypes. As a teacher in the area, I’ve heard young people complain/question why these students are given special treatment by allowing them prayer time and a place to pray during Ramadan. Some feel that they are not permitted or discouraged from practicing their own religious beliefs in a public school and it is hard sometimes to make them understand why this is different. After all, is it?
So my post has gotten a little off track. What I originally wanted to discuss was an article from the Columbus Dispatch titled “Local Somali Leaders Check For Terror Connections.” Any time we see an article or hear a story with the word terror these days, it draws our attention. And it should. So this article talks about something that many members of our community fear, a local connection to terrorism. In part the story states:
Six Somali men from Minneapolis left that city early last month, went to Somalia and have not been heard from since. Community leaders there worry that the men might have been recruited for terrorism.
A Somali from Minneapolis is thought to have been involved in a suicide bombing in northern Somalia in October, the Associated Press reported. The wire service quoted an unnamed law-enforcement official, who said the FBI and Justice Department were investigating.
Somali leaders here who have met with one another for the past two weeks say there have been no reports of such a connection in Columbus and they will continue to share information to be sure there are no terrorist associations here, said Mussa Farah, president of the Horn of Africa, a nonprofit group that helps African immigrants.
So I wonder again if this story is written more due to it’s intrinsic news value or if it is playing on the fears and even prejudices of some in our community. Are we watching “those people” because they look differently and they are easy to spot? Are we keeping an eye on things because of past actions? Do we trust that when their religious leaders disavow terrorism in local mosques that it is sincere? Just wondering aloud…
