State Board Member Challenges Stotsky and Wurman

On July 20th, we published an article entitled ?What do the CC math authors say about them?? In this article we shared comments the 2 math-field related authors (Zimba and McCallum) of the Common Core standards made.

On July 25th, the Deseret News published an op-ed from Dr. Sandra Stotsky entitled ?This is why I oppose Common Core? and in which she quotes Zimba and McCallum?s remarks. Dr. Stotsky has been quoting them ever since their remarks were first made in 2010 at the time the Common Core standards were released.

On August 2nd, the Deseret News published an op-ed response from state school board member Jennifer Johnson entitled ?Clarifying Criticism of Common Core.? ?In her response, Jennifer takes issue with Dr. Stotsky?s quote on Zimba, and received an email from McCallum stating that Ze?ev Wurman misunderstood comments he made at a meeting in 2010 in San Diego.

Here?s where the story gets interesting.

I received this email from Dr. Stotsky which she sent to the Deseret News after reading Jennifer?s op-ed.

Jennifer Johnson contacted me several times in the past few weeks about the official minutes of the March 2010 meeting of the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.? According to the official minutes of the meeting, Jason Zimba told the Board and others at this large public meeting that ?the concept of college readiness is minimal and focuses on non-selective colleges.?? I was a member of this Board at the time and heard Professor Zimba?s comments on the meaning of college readiness in Common Core?s mathematics standards.

Rhoda Schneider, the chief legal counsel for the Board, usually writes up and/or approves the minutes of every meeting, and the minutes were approved by about a dozen people?Board members and the Commissioner of Education?the next month. http://www.doe.mass.edu/boe/minutes/10/0323reg.pdf.

Most or all of these people were at the meeting at which Professor Zimba spoke. ?I have been referring to these minutes and Professor Zimba?s comments for several years.? The minutes have not changed since they were officially approved in April 2010.

I wrote back to Ms. Johnson and suggested that if there were any concerns about the accuracy of the official minutes, she should feel free to contact Ms. Schneider at rschneider@doe.mass.edu. I am obviously not the person to question the official minutes of the meeting.

Jennifer failed to note in her op-ed that Jason Zimba?s quote by Dr. Stotsky is straight out of the official board minutes of the March 2010 Massachusetts Board of Education?something Dr. Stotsky pointed her to much prior to her op-ed. That omission of an important fact in determining the real story is troubling. For 3 years Jason?s statements have been available and quoted by Dr. Stotsky. Jason has never sought to change the official record, and the MA state superintendent and a dozen board members including Dr. Stotsky who was on the board at that time, authenticated the minutes as correct.

I also received this email from Ze?ev Wurman after he read Jennifer?s op-ed.

Editor,

In her Aug.2, 2013 OpEd, State School Board Member Jennifer Johnson quotes William McCallum:

?In January 2010, six months before the standards were finalized, I gave a presentation about them at the joint meetings of the American Mathematical Society and the Mathematical Association of America in San Diego. After the presentation, one audience member expressed a worry that the standards would be too high (as in excessively high). I replied that they would not be too high and that they would be equal to the standards of high achieving East Asian countries. In context, it was clear that I meant ?not excessively high,? but the phrase ?not too high,? taken out of context, can be interpreted colloquially as ?not very high.? This is the way Wurman, who was there, chose to misinterpret it, despite the fact that my meaning was crystal clear from the context.?

Prof. McCallum is engaging here in a bit of historical revisionism. The report of his statement at the time is as follows: (http://toped.svefoundation.org/2010/01/17/common-core-standards-under-fire/ )

?While acknowledging the concerns about front-loading demands in early grades, [McCallum] said that the overall standards would not be too high, certainly not in comparison other nations, including East Asia, where?math education excels.?

From the ?certainly? in the ?certainly not in comparison to other nations? and from the reference to East Asia ?where math education excels? it is clear that McCallum meant that the Common Core will be lower, rather than equal to those of other nations, as he currently wants us to believe.

McCallum did not correct the original report at the time nor until recently, when that quote became evidence of an embarrassing admission. To put his modern recollection of the past in a sharper relief, McCallum?s memory is not as perfect as it seems ? that joint meeting in January 2010 took place in San Francisco rather than in San Diego.

Ze?ev Wurman

The fact that Zimba and McCallum have changed their tune from the time of the standards being released, to something different now, indicates to me that they?ve come under some pressure to change their stances, not that they have been misrepresented from that time period as Jennifer would lead us to believe.

Source: http://www.utahnsagainstcommoncore.com/state-board-member-challenges-stotsky-and-wurman/

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Double Fine's Dropchord entrances iOS, Android and Ouya users

Double Fine's rave simulator rhythm-driven Dropchord launched for iOS, Android and the Ouya this week for $3.

Dropchord assigns ends of a line to each of a player's fingers and tasks them with gathering notes and dodging scratches. The game focuses on getting the highest score possible and its leaderboards encourage competitive play with friends. Dropchord's neon visuals pulse to the beat of its electronic soundtrack and switch styles with each song.

The game's Standard Mode moves players through stages while gradually adding new gameplay mechanics, while a Full Mix Mode supplies an endless session that gradually becomes more difficult.

Dropchord previously launched on PC and Mac for the hands-oriented Leap Motion.Double Fine's Dropchord entrances iOS, Android and Ouya users originally appeared on Joystiq on Sat, 03 Aug 2013 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Why the New York Knicks Will Suffer Significant Regression in 2013-14 NBA Season

Despite their run to the Eastern Conference semifinals in 2013, the New York Knicks will suffer a significant regression in the upcoming 2013-14 NBA Season. Between the dilemma of fitting all of the pieces together in New York, their aging roster and the improvement of other contenders, the Knicks may just be one and done in next year's playoffs.

?

Can Mike Woodson Make it Work?

One of the biggest problems facing the Knicks this year will be determining what their best lineup is. Let me be clear in saying that there is plenty of talent on the roster. But Mike Woodson's ability to put the right pieces in place is half the battle.

At point guard, Raymond Felton and Pablo Prigioni will take care of the job. The Knicks may look to acquire a veteran like Mo Williams or Beno Udrih to help out, but those players would have to accept a minimum contract in order to join the team.?

Check out this article from Inside Hoops?for more:

Now things get a little murkier. Iman Shumpert, reigning Sixth Man of the Year JR Smith and Tim Hardaway Jr. can all play shooting guard, but Shumpert often gets minutes at small forward when the Knicks decide to play small ball.?

Then there is Carmelo Anthony, whose natural position is small forward, but he played some power forward last year, too. On top of that, Metta World Peace was brought in from the Los Angeles Lakers to add a defensive spark to a team that has been far too reliant on Tyson Chandler.

At power forward, they acquired Andrea Bargnani from the Toronto Raptors in one of the most puzzling moves of the offseason.

Sure, they dumped the contracts of Steve Novak and Marcus Camby, but they also gave up three valuable draft picks. For a 7'1" man who has averaged a measly 4.8 RPG throughout his career, that may have been an overpayment.

Bargnani and Amar'e Stoudemire are certainly both talented guys, but neither has eclipsed the 50 games played mark in the past two seasons. Yikes.

At center, Tyson Chandler has been a defensive stalwart for the Knicks, winning Defensive Player of the Year in 2012 and making the All-NBA Defensive Team in 2013. Though his offense has been questionable?particularly his 5.7 PPG in this year's postseason?he is a stabilizing force on a roster with a lot of uncertainties.

Mike Woodson has his work cut out for him

I've listed a bunch of different names of some great individual basketball players, but it's completely unclear as to how Mike Woodson will use all of them. Because of this, his coaching will be all the more important.

Check out this article by B/R Featured Columnist Vin Getz to see his breakdown of possible lineups.

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Are the Knicks too Old?

Though this upcoming season's version of the Knicks is far different from the 2012-13 squad that ranked as the oldest in NBA history, many of the team's key members aren't getting any younger.

Carmelo Anthony is still one of the league's elite players, but he has always had durability problems. He hasn't played more than 70 games since the 2007-08 season. It's tough to win without your best player in the lineup, and at 29 it's unlikely Anthony will magically become more resilient.

At 30, Chandler likely has his best seasons behind him. He hasn't played more than 66 games in a season for the Knicks, and injury issues have followed him for most of his career.

Despite the fact that he had one of his best statistical seasons of all in 2012-13, he got exposed by younger players like Roy Hibbert in the playoffs, as you can see in the video below.

Other aging roster players for the Knicks include Metta World Peace (33) and Pablo Prigioni (36), while Raymond Felton (29) is no spring chicken, either.

You can say all you want about the Spurs vs. Heat matchup in the NBA Finals, but the Knicks aren't on that kind of talent level. It's a young man's game and the Knicks don't have many of them.

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What About the Rest of the Eastern Conference?

While the Knicks were busy acquiring the enigmatic Andrea Bargnani and Mr. World Peace, other top contenders were getting better.

It's widely known that there are five legitimate teams in the Eastern Conference that will all likely occupy the top five playoff seeds next spring. These include the Miami Heat, Indiana Pacers, Chicago Bulls, Brooklyn Nets, and New York Knicks. In order to improve on last year, they'll have to go through a few of them.

Though the Heat haven't had much of an offseason in terms of improving their team, only the most delusional New York sports fans would argue that the Knicks stand a chance in a head-to-head playoff matchup. Feel free to let me have it in the comment section if you truly believe otherwise.

Not only did the Pacers beat the Knicks this past postseason, they also got much better. Indiana returns a healthy Danny Granger, signed CJ Watson as a solid backup for George Hill and traded for another big man in Luis Scola.

Oh, and lest we forget, they signed the sharpshooting Chris Copeland away from the Knicks to address their biggest need. This team is significantly better.

Then there are the Bulls. It doesn't take a genius to realize that adding Derrick Rose to the team that had the?third-ranked defense?will make the Bulls much better. To add to that, Tom Thibodeau is one of the game's premier coaches, making this team exceedingly difficult to play against.

And, of course, I didn't forget the crosstown rival Brooklyn Nets. All they did was add Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, Jason Terry and Andrei Kirilenko. They may be an aging roster, but it's a deeper and more talented one than the Knicks can offer.

This leaves the Knicks as the fifth best team in the conference, which, last I checked, is still good enough to make the playoffs. But in the end, fifth place means a first round date with one of the four aforementioned squads.?

Maybe in 2014-15, New York??

Source: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1725465-why-the-new-york-knicks-will-suffer-significant-regression-in-2013-14-nba-season

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Apple shows signs of sales stress: Is a missing retail chief to blame?

Apple Store in Paris, France (Image: Stephen Shankland/CNET)

It has been about 10 months since Apple's famous out-of-nowhere management upending, just weeks after announcing the latest shiny rectangles of various sizes ahead of the December holiday season.

While many were looking at the apparent ousting of senior vice-president for iOS software Scott Forstall from the executive team ranks, many overlooked John Browett's departure, who managed the company's retail store efforts?? most notably leading the push into China.

Now, the Cupertino, Calif.-based technology giant is apparently waking up to the idea that there may be a connection between a lack of a retail chief and falling sales.

Browett's resignation couldn't come any sooner. This is considering that Apple spent the best part of six months unraveling some of his policies. Some were radical and others were off the mark. Some downright frustrated leadership, and some even annoyed customers,?according to?a report by The Wall Street Journal.

Almost a year later, senior Apple executives are unclear as to how its retail stores should operate. Despite policy rollbacks to a time pre-Browett,?the status quo requires some level of maintenance.

What's clear is that it has to be sooner rather than later. Apple recently reported the first sales dip in years. While sales are still high and stable on the whole, despite a rocky global economy and tight customer pursestrings, cracks are beginning to show around the edges of Apple's retail strategy.

Breaking down the numbers:

At the end of Apple's fourth quarter?(ended September 29, 2012), there were about 19,000 customers in each Apple retail store per week. Compare this to the end of Apple's third quarter (ended June 29, 2013) where the figure is significantly less at 16,000 per store per week.?That's a 15 percent decline year in three quarters.

In total, there are?408 open retail stores as of Apple's third quarter, compared to?372 stores open on the same quarter a year earlier, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and 327 stores on the same quarter a year before that.

That's 3,000 per store per week?in lost customers, despite a 10 percent increase in brick-and-mortar retail stores numbers.

And according to the Journal,?Apple's store sales per square-foot have fallen over the last year from $4,754 to $4,542,?which is just shy of a full 5 percent drop.

There's no doubt that numerous gears and cogs are at work. A lack of retail leadership is just one, albeit a significant factor. And Apple, of all companies, cannot afford to trim any aesthetic or use cost-reducing methods that Browett initially put over the company's top priority marker: customer experience.

Apple has to maintain customer experience above all else; one of the very reasons why the effects are Browett's tenure can no longer be felt. His focus on a U.K.-based technology retailer did not meld with the high brow, refined, and carefully-crafted and orchestrated experience that customers feel when they walk into Apple stores.

It ultimately boils down to investment, something Browett wanted to avoid. He wanted to cost cut, and cost cutting has not typically entered Apple's sight for some time. It hasn't needed to and it doesn't want to.

Focusing on high margin, perfectly-sculpted designs, the company bucks the trend of plowing money into areas of innovation, research, training, and development. And not just in its products.?The Journal reports that Apple store "educators" were reportedly told to join the sales teams on the floor as part of Browett's slew of changes to the experience model. Just as an example alone, it can afford to offer free pre- and after-sales educative care to prospective and actual customers.

But that finely-tuned algorithm of ticking all the customer satisfaction boxes can easily go unchecked when the customer isn't the first and foremost on the business' mind.

For now, customer service has one again become the "mantra" of Apple retail. Though stores never dwindled in friendliness and openness, design and character, priorities have refocuses on the customer themselves.

Does Apple need a retail chief, based on what we now know? Likely not. But if it did, it would be a plate-spinning job. To keep the status quo intact, and chugging along like a finely tuned machine.

Source: http://www.zdnet.com/apples-missing-retail-chief-shows-signs-of-sales-stress-7000018900/

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GOP to pitch food stamps cut

By Frank Thorp and Ian Johnston, NBC News

House Republican leaders are to present a bill that would cut the food stamps program by $40 billion over 10 years, a move opposed by Democrats.

Republicans say the program, whose enrollment soared after the 2008-09 recession, is unbearably expensive at $78 billion a year.

Democrats such as Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts say food stamps mitigate hunger in a still-weak economy.

One in seven Americans received food stamps -- the largest U.S. anti-hunger program ? at the latest count, Reuters said.

Doug Heye, the deputy chief of staff for House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., said in a statement Thursday that the bill would ?include common-sense measures, such as work requirements and job-training requirements for able-bodied adults without children receiving assistance, that enjoy a broad range of support.?

The bill was worked up by Cantor and Frank Lucas, chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, and will be considered by House Republicans after the August recess.

Collin Peterson, D-Minn., ranking member of the House Agriculture Committee, said there would be ?no Democratic votes? for the food stamp bill.

He said it was ?very disappointing,? adding that the cuts might even be too tough for some Republicans to support.

?I don?t know what the hell they?re trying to do other than placate the Wall Street Journal and the Club for Growth and the Heritage, I don't know what they're doing,? Peterson said.

Lucas told Reuters that the legislation on food stamps would be part of any talks with the Senate on a new U.S. farm law costing $100 billion a year.

The House needs to pass a bill to fund food stamp programs after they pulled the provision out of the farm bill in an effort to pass it without Democratic votes.?

Republican leadership was stunned when the Farm Bill, with the food stamp provisions included, failed on the House floor on June 20.?

Reuters contributed to this report.

Related:

Source: http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/08/02/19831109-republicans-to-propose-40-billion-cut-over-decade-to-food-stamps-program?lite&ocid=msnhp&pos=5

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Michelle Knight returns to Cleveland house of captivity

Michelle Knight, the petite kidnap survivor who defiantly confronted her tormentor in court, today returned to the Cleveland house of horrors where she was held captive for 11 years.

Knight, 32, showed up on Seymour Street about 10:45 a.m. in a dark minivan.

Altagracia Tejeda said Knight came straight to her house, which is directly across the street from the home where Ariel Castro kept her a sex slave, often chained and often battered, for more than a decade. When Knight and the other two captives, Gina DeJesus and Amanda Berry, escaped in May they ran to Tejeda's house.

Knight posed for a photograph with Tejeda and thanked her for helping them during their bolt to freedom.

Knight's former prison, Castro's home at 2207 Seymour Ave., has a cyclone fence around it, the windows are boarded up and a police officer is stationed outside the building. The city plans to demolish it.

The officer opened the gate and accompanied Knight as she viewed the house and walked around the outside, Tejeda said.

PHOTOS: Inside Ariel Castro's House of Horrors

Catherine Adames told ABC News affiliate WEWS that Knight was "friendly, cute and I noticed her remarkable strength as a person who has been through so, so much."

Adames said Knight told her she hopes a park with a statue of an angel replaces the Seymour Avenue house when it's torn down.

Knight then thanked a few other neighbors before leaving, Tejeda said.

The visit came one day after Knight appeared in court to tell Castro, "You took 11 years of my life away and I have got it back. As for the 11 years in hell, now your hell is just beginning." She was the only one of Castro's victims to appear in court.

Castro was sentenced to life in prison plus 1,000 years.

Knight was Castro's first victim and was held the longest. She also appears to have suffered the most from Castro. He impregnated her several times and then would force her to miscarry by starving her for weeks, punching her in the stomach, stomping her and once even threw her down the stairs.

Knight, who had a 2 1/2-year-old son when Castro abducted her in 2002, said she cried every night she was in captivity.

"I knew nobody cared about me. He told me that my family didn't care," she said.

"Christmas was the most traumatic day because I never got to spend it with my son."

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/michelle-knight-returns-cleveland-house-horrors-201928503--abc-news-topstories.html

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