April 2009 Archives

According to this Wall Street Journal story, the waiting lists for charter schools are growing even as more of the schools close and there is intense political debates about expanding the schools, which are publicly funded schools that are exempt from many state education regulations. An excerpt:

But obstacles loom to accommodating more charter-school students. The recession has intensified school districts' concerns about competing for public funds with charter schools. Some charter-school supporters say such schools need more oversight. But unions are using any missteps at charter schools, which typically aren't unionized, to oppose their expansion.

The Ohio Education Association, a teachers union that has been among the most outspoken critics of charter schools, has testified against them in the state legislature and supported litigation aimed at toughening oversight. In New York, Boston and other cities, unions have ramped up their efforts to organize charter school teachers.

This useful story offers tips for parents to get their kids more interested in science, such as going on hikes and encouraging children to collect easily found natural objects like rocks. Check it out here.

Check out this Reuters article about some tips on financial aid in this tough economic environment.

According to an article in the UK Times, a study of American kids ages 8 to 18 found that one in 10 were "pathologically addicted" to video games. An excerpt:

Some young gamers show at least six symptoms of gambling addiction, such as lying to family and friends about how much they play games, using the games to escape their problems and becoming restless or irritable when they stop playing. They may also skip homework to play games or spend too much time playing and do poorly in school, the study shows.

Douglas Gentile, director of the National Institute on Media and the Family at Iowa State University, where the study was carried out, said in his report: "The present study was designed to demonstrate whether pathological gaming is an issue that merits further attention. With almost one out of 10 youth gamers demonstrating real-world problems because of their gaming, we can conclude that it does."

So what's your take on this? Are video games addicted? Is this modern-day distraction any worse than students' old-fashioned attachment to talking on the phone or watching TV?

This Wall Street Journal story reports that $2.3 trillion could be added to the U.S. gross domestic product if the achievement gap can be closed between U.S. and higher-performing nations like Finland and South Korea. An excerpt:

The report, which used a formula McKinsey - (the consultant who produced the figure ) --helped develop to link educational achievement to economic output, also estimated closing the gap in the U.S. between white students and their black and Latino peers could increase annual GDP by as much as an additional $525 billion, or about 4%.

In its report, McKinsey said existing achievement gaps have "created the equivalent of a permanent, deep recession in terms of the gap between actual and potential output in the economy."

Is -5/2.

 For those who are interested in how to solve it, you can rewrite the square root of x as x to the 1/2 power. An exponent law says that you can subtract the denominator exponent (3) from the numerator exponent (1/2) to solve for m. So 1/2 minus 3 is -(5/2).

So no blogging until Monday. I hope you have a great weekend.
Here's another test question for the weekend, again from the SAT

If and what is the value of m?

	(A)
	(B)
	(C)
	(D)
	(E)

This is a tad late, but I neglected to update you on Long Beach's own Jesse James, the television personality and motorcycle restorer who is competing for Donald Trump's favor this year on the reality TV show "Celebrity Apprentice." He survived the board room on Sunday's episode, so for at least one more week he'll avoiding hearing, "You're Fired!" from Trump. How is this related to education, you ask? Well, the celebrities compete for their favorite charities, and Jesse James is competing for the Long Beach Education Foundation, the nonprofit fund-raising arm of the Long Beach Unified School District. Check out a recap of the episode in this Entertainment Weekly story. Interestingly, a lot of the people who posted online comments to that EW story are pulling for James to win, it appears.

This Houston Chronicle story explores a new trend that is getting increased media attention: Teen "sexting," or teens sending sexually explicit message or photos via cell phone, some of which find their way onto the Internet where they can be viewed by anyone. Although some students are showing a casual attitude, parents are upset. An excerpt:

As more adults learn about the phenomenon, they are using a variety of tools to force kids to stop. At one end of the spectrum are parental lectures and regular phone inspections. At the other end, prosecutors in half a dozen states along the East Coast and in the Midwest are socking it to minors with pornography and obscenity charges. A few prosecutors want the most egregious sexters registered as sex offenders.

Eric Devlin, chief of the child exploitation section of the Harris County District Attorney's Office, says he gets calls about sexting every week and considers each case individually. If the sexting seems to be confined to teens exhibiting poor judgment or crying for attention, he contacts their parents and talks to them frankly.

According to the Associated Press, there is good news and bad news in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Good news: The district plans to rescind as many as 1,900 layoff notices to elementary school teachers. The bad news: More than 6,000 other teachers could get pink slips. An excerpt:

Los Angeles school district officials say they will drop a plan to lay off as many as 1,900 teachers who work at elementary schools. School officials announced the decision Monday. However, more than 6,000 other employees still could be affected, including several thousand teachers who have not yet worked long enough to be tenured. The nation's second-largest school system seeks to cut $596 million from next year's budget. Last month, a throng of district employees, students and parents pleaded with the school board to spare workers from layoffs.The school board is scheduled to take up the budget proposal Tuesday.

Corporal punishment in school is illegal in California, but a spanking controversy has hit a publicly funded charter middle school in Memphis, prompting opposition from the California-based activist group "Hitting Stops Here!", according to this story from the Commercial Appeal newspaper.  Males get a wooden paddle, while girls are given "lashes to the fingers with a leather strap," according to the article. In an unusual twist, much of the discipline is meted out at student assemblies. An excerpt:

Spanking has been part of MAHS's strategy since the school opened in 2003, said principal Curtis Weathers. Parents must sign a contract before their children are admitted."This is nothing that we are ashamed of," Weathers said. "It's very effective for us as a strategy for avoiding certain conducts."

[The director of  "Hitting Stops Here!" said that she] wants parents to know "there are other ways to treat children without beating the tar out of them."

At San Jose State University, apparently yes. According to this Mercury News story, the university is encouraging its "super seniors" to graduate to open spots for some freshmen. An excerpt:

A startling new analysis shows that about 1,500 students have perched at senior status for at least three years. Of these, 35 have been enrolled at SJSU for at least a decade. Two particularly scholarly souls have studied for 15 years, each earning about 360 units toward a bachelor's degree -- enough to have graduated three times over. That's how long it takes to become a doctor, then a lawyer, then earn a Ph.D.  School officials say they're flattered that students want to stay -- but it's too much of a good thing. "So other people can come, somebody has to leave," urged SJSU Provost Carmen Sigler.

 

But the article rightly notes that when economies sour and jobs dry up, seniors often find it in their self-interest to spend another year in school getting more skills.

Possibly, one study says, although researchers note that correlation is not the same thing as causation. The study found that Facebook users had lower GPAs and reported less time studying. From a LiveScience article about the study:

However, Karpinski emphasized that correlation does not equal causation, meaning Facebook use might not be the culprit behind lower GPAs or less study time. For instance, students who spend more time enjoying themselves rather than studying might tend to latch onto the nearest distraction, such as Facebook. Or students who use the social networking site might also spend more time on other non-studying activities such as sports or music. The study did show that students who work more hours at jobs spend less time on Facebook, while students involved in more extracurricular activities were also more likely to use Facebook.

No word if researchers will study the effects on office productivity when working adults use the social networking site.

According to a study by Sallie Mae, students are increasing their use of credit cards to pay for books and tuition. An excerpt from a summary:

Nearly one-third (30 percent) put tuition on their credit card, an increase from 24 percent in 2004, when the study was last conducted. In total, 92 percent of undergraduate credit cardholders charged textbooks, school supplies, or other direct education expenses, up from 85 percent in the previous study. Students who used credit cards to pay for direct education expenses estimated charging $2,200, more than double 2004's average of $942.

An interesting Associated Press article about how rising joblessness and a sour economy are affecting job opportunities for special education students during high school to gain skills and training. Students in occupational diploma programs typically have a cognitive or physical impairment. An excerpt:

The occupational diploma programs emerged in recent years across some Southern states -- Alabama and Mississippi included -- to help young people with disabilities enter the work force through paid jobs while they complete high school. Hundreds have used the programs to acquire the skills employers demand, often landing permanent jobs after graduating. Yet this isn't a normal economy, and the work force is shrinking daily.

Tommy McWhorter, who owns a Piggly Wiggly supermarket in east Alabama's Chambers County, has employed three occupational diploma candidates on average each of the past eight years. He didn't take any students this year as his staff shriveled from 22 to 15 workers. When minimum wage went up, and gas went up, and plastic went up ... everything hit us at one time," he said. "We had to take cuts, and in retail the first cut is naturally payroll."

According to the City News Service, LA mayor Antonio Villaragoisa is exploring several ways to minimize layoffs, including pay cuts. An excerpt:

Among the more contentious suggestions, he will recommend that LAUSD employees agree to salary reductions. For example, if every employee took a 3 percent pay cut this year, about 2,280 school-based jobs could be saved, according to the Mayor's Office. He also will suggest that district employees agree to forgo pay increases this year, which he says could save $65 million and about 1,100 school-based jobs. The mayor will say that if LAUSD cuts an additional $25 million in administrative costs, it could save the jobs of about 290 teachers.

is C.

OK, this one is a sample SAT math question, and it's not a simple one. See if you can solve it. I'll tell you the answer on Monday. Feel free to post your answer in the comments section. I got this one from the College Board web site.

The projected sales volume of a video game cartridge is given by the function where s is the number of cartridges sold, in thousands; p is the price per cartridge, in dollars; and a is a constant. If according to the projections, 100,000 cartridges are sold at $10 per cartridge, how many cartridges will be sold at $20 per cartridge?

A) 20,000
B) 50,000
C) 60,000
D) 150,000
E) 200,000

According to this newspaper article, a recent study found that pregnant women taking even "modest amounts of Vitamin E can dramatically increase the risk of heart defects in babies." But one expert in the article cautions against overreacting to the study, saying that Vitamin E is essential to health. An excerpt:

Expectant mothers who consume only three-quarters of the recommended daily amount of the vitamin, either through food or supplements, have up to nine times the risk that their child will be born suffering a heart abnormality, a study showed.

The same link between heart damage and vitamin E was seen in women who had taken similar levels of the vitamin in the month preceding conception. Leading obstetricians said women should avoid vitamin E supplements if they are planning to conceive or are pregnant. Last night leading obstetricians said women should avoid vitamin E supplements if they are planning to conceive or are pregnant. Vitamin E, found in nuts, seeds, vegetable oils and eggs, is an antioxidant and is thought to help skin stay healthy and ease the misery of premenstrual syndrome.

This one is at the University of Maryland, where some students screened a portion of a pornographic film in the student union, despite threats from a state legislator that he would seek to withhold construction funds until the school develops an "acceptable" policy on pornography on campus, according to this Washington Post story. The university says that it could not block the screening but insisted on an academic component. Professors discussed the issue of pornography and free-speech at the screening. Here's an excerpt from the Post article: (I'd be curious to hear your opinion on the incident.)

About half an hour of the 2 1/2 -hour film was shown. The point was the principle, not the porn, several student leaders said. Besides, the NCAA championship game was starting about 9. "That was crazy. I don't know what they were thinking, to put that in a public viewing, especially on a college campus," said Idara Inokon, 19. "It's just not appropriate." But Dmytro Berkout, a 19-year-old student from Ukraine, said the controversy was a lot of fuss -- by both sides -- over nothing. State Sen. Andrew P. Harris (R-Baltimore County) last week threatened to block the university's $424 million share of state operating funds over plans to show the film at a theater in the student union.

Colleges and universities are increasingly posting on YouTube footage of tours, lectures and classes, available for viewing by anyone with a computer. The videos are hosted on YouTube's web site here. An excerpt from an Associated Press report

There are promotional videos like campus tours, but the more interesting content is straight from the classroom or lecture hall. Many schools have posted videos of guest lecturers, introductory classes and even a full semester's course. At a time when many are finding college unaffordable and the ranks of the unemployed are swelling, free higher learning can sound like a good way to spend some free time. "There's a huge appetite around the world for people to better themselves, to study subjects that they either never got a chance to or haven't studied in a while," said Obadiah Greenberg, the strategic partnership manager for YouTube.

We've seen our share of protests on CSU and UC campuses regarding budget cuts, but France has taken higher education activism to a whole new level. Protesters are objecting to the French government's reform efforts. An excerpt from the Kyiv Post article:

The deadlock has left universities in chaos, with no lectures taking place, buildings blocked by piles of desks and chairs and uncertainty over whether June exams will go ahead.Two rectors at universities in Orleans and Rennes were held hostage briefly by students in separate incidents this week. "I'm worried about not having lectures or exams but we have to fight for a just cause," said literature student Selin Cay.

A study by American researchers has concluded that mothers exposed to air pollution - such as that from traffic in nearby roads - are more likely to have underweight babies. Researchers focused on mothers living in New Jersey. Although the findings are interesting, experts quoted in a BBC news article on the study say that more research is needed to clearly establish a link. Check out a BBC article here.

As reported by the AP, a report released Wednesday said that the economic downturn could result in states' cutting pre-K programs. The National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University listed California as one state that could cut such programs. The authors recommend the federal government increase contributions for pre-school programs.
idering.

According to the Associated Press, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is asking the federal government for nearly $5 billion in stimulus money for schools in an application he signed Thursday. School districts are anxiously awaiting how much the stimulus funds will wind up in their hands to help them shore up their budgets.

According to this Associated Press report, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is calling for a longer school week and year, saying that children need extra time is needed to be competitive with foreign students. Of course, both alonger school week and year would require a substantial increase in education spending at a time when states are cutting their education budgets. There could be two perspectives on the issue of a longer school year and week. If you are a parent reading this, how do you feel about your kid being in school longer (and not having as much time off during the summer)? If you are a teacher or school employee, what are your feelings on his idea? An excerpt from the AP story.

The issue of cyberbullying has received increased attention in the media lately. Here are some tips that the federal government has provided on how parents should respond to a cyberbullying incident:

• Strongly encourage your child not to respond to the cyber bullying.
• Do not erase the messages or pictures. Save these as evidence.
• Try to identify the individual doing the cyber bullying. Even if the cyberbully is anonymous (e.g., is using a fake name or someone else's identity) there may be a way to track them through your Internet Service Provider. If the cyber bullying is criminal (or if you suspect that it may be), contact the police and ask them to do the tracking.
• Sending inappropriate language may violate the "Terms and Conditions" of e-mail services, Internet Service Providers, web sites, and cell phone companies. Consider contacting these providers and filing a complaint.

According to this Associated Press report, a new study says that nearly 1 in 5 American 4-year-olds is obese, noting that the rate is higher among minorities, especially American Indians. An excerpt:

Researchers were surprised to see differences by race at so early an age. Overall, more than half a million 4-year-olds are obese, the study suggests.

Obesity is more common in Hispanic and black youngsters, too, but the disparity is most startling in American Indians, whose rate is almost double that of whites.

The lead author said that rate is worrisome among children so young, even in a population at higher risk for obesity because of other health problems and economic disadvantages.

"The magnitude of these differences was larger than we expected, and it is surprising to see differences by racial groups present so early in childhood," said Sarah Anderson, an Ohio State University public health researcher. She conducted the research with Temple University's Dr. Robert Whitaker.

Stay with me here, as this is education-related, believe it or not. Local motorcycle customizerand TV personality Jesse James was NOT among the two candidates on the 'Celebrity Apprentice' TV show to be fired on Sunday. So he survives Donald Trump's wrath for another week. The celebrities are competing on behalf of charities, and should James win, the Long Beach Education Foundation - the nonprofit arm of the Long Beach Unified School District - stands to benefit, as it is the charity James picked to champion on the reality TV show.

Here's an unusual story from Canada. A University of Ottawa professor has been fired for protesting the school's grading system by giving all his students an A+. Here's the justification that the professor made, quoted in the National Post story

Prof. Rancourt explained the unusual approach by saying he hoped the automatic grades would take the pressure off students in his fourth-year class and free them instead to concentrate on understanding the concepts he taught.

"If you want people who are responsible and know their stuff, you want independent thinkers. The only way to catalyze the development of an independent thinker is to give him or her freedom," he told the Ottawa Citizen after his suspension in December. "You can't use a carrot-and-stick, bang-them-on-the-head approach, and say 'you regurgitate this on Monday.' You've got to give them the freedom to follow that natural ability to learn."

But another professor expressed an opposing view, saying:

grading performs an important function in the current system.

"Grades are a motivator to make students work harder. Some are going to learn for the love of it, but most will do the very minimum to get by," he said. "I think he's being very idealistic if he thinks a free A+ will maximize his students' proficiency in physics."

What do you think of this professor's unorthodox approach with his university students? Are college students mature enough to learn for learning's sake? Or do you think it's naive to believe that college students don't need grades as a motivator to work hard, particularly for the mandated classes outside of their major?

is B.

We always welcome comments to the blog. I should tell you that if you post a comment and it doesn't immediately appear on the web site, don't worry. Our system sometimes takes awhile for the comments to appear. It's just a quirk of ours. So if your comment doesn't immediately appear, don't worry about sending it again. It should get on there.

According to this OC Register article, several districts in Orange County are considering across-the-board salary cuts for employees, including teachers. An example: The Orange County Unified School District wants to reduce all employees' pay by 3.75 percent to close a budget deficit. The proposals are creating controversy. An excerpt:

Advocates of the strategy say salary rollbacks are essential to preserving smaller class sizes, as well as a slew of instructional programs and extracurricular activities and the quality and integrity of the school experience.....

But union leaders have historically fought wage cuts, arguing teachers already are underpaid and overworked - and that drops in their salaries will make it even harder to recruit the brightest and best.

As the economy has deteriorated, many private (noneducation) companies have cut employee salaries. Is it fair or wise for school districts to follow suit with teachers? I'd like to hear your opinion.

Just for fun, I'm posting periodic math questions from the California High School Exit Exam or the SAT. This is from the exit exam (sample question released by the state.) As it's about sales taxes, I find it pretty topical given our recent increase in California. See if you can get it, and post your answer as a comment if you like. I'll post the answer on Monday.

Marcus plans to buy a Compact Disc (CD) that has a regular price of $13.99. It is on sale for 10% off, but Marcus will have to pay 7% sales tax. Which is the MOST reasonable estimate of the total cost of the CD including tax?

A) $12.50
B) $13.50
C) $14.50
D) $15.50

An interesting debate is going on in the United Kingdom about whether Twitter should be a part of the reading/writing curriculum in primary (elementary school) grades.  This article lays out the debate:

Comment of a pro-Twitter expert: According to Angela McFarlane, the professor of education who conducted the study, pupils who master 21st-century communication technology and social networking are better at organising their studies, use information from different sources more effectively and often write more extensively through the use of word processing. But some children are missing out because of the myth that anyone under 25 can miraculously and spontaneously pick up the latest technology, she cautions.

Comment from anti-Twitter expert, who notes that each Twitter message is limited to just 140 characters: Learning how to use Twitter and Wikipedia will take five, maybe 10 minutes; there should be more thought and research into whether we really want to be promoting in schools a means of social networking that limits the amount of characters one can use. Using Twitter to teach children all that communication must, by definition, lack depth of any sort, and is plainly mad. Besides, it is likely that Twitter, in the faddish world of social networking, will no longer be of any interest to anyone by the time the plan to teach it is implemented.

So what you do think about using Twitter in elementary classrooms? Is it a useless gimmick or great educational tool?

In an unusual case, parents of an Ohio boy who committed suicide after being persistently bullied have sued the school district in federal court, alleging that officials were negligent in failing to address the bullying. An excerpt from News-Herald story:

The day of his suicide "classmate told him .... within earshot of other Mentor High students and his math teacher, "Why don't you go home and shoot yourself? No one would miss you," the lawsuit claims. .... Teasing, verbal intimidation and name-calling -- terms such as "gay," "queer" and "homo" -- would lead to pushing, shoving and hitting in the classroom and hallways, according to the lawsuit. An administrator even saw Eric crying in the hallway the day of his death but took no action, the lawsuits claims. Eric's mother, who works at Roosevelt Elementary in Euclid, calls the filing a final effort to get the Mentor School District to admit it has a problem.

The suit says the district violated Eric's civil right to safety and the family's 14th Amendment rights to raise and educate him in a safe environment. I don't know much specifics behind the case, but I'm curious to hear what you think about this. Transferring to another high school doesn't appear to be an option in the Mentor, Ohio school district, which apparently has only one high school. Anyone have any thoughts on this lawsuit?

An interesting article appeared recently in Newsweek magazine in which the author argued that schools should stop teaching cursive in light of society's shift to keyboards, Blackberrys, cell phone texting, Twitter, etc. Here's a quick excerpt"

In all my years of school, there was only one time I cried in class. It was the first week of first grade--Mrs. Scougie's room--and we were learning cursive. Q. I hated the letter. But it wasn't that I couldn't get the strokes right. It was the way I held my pencil: with four fingers around the base, not three--an apparent crime against writing protocol. And though I still write that way, thank you very much, I haven't used script since elementary school. I type, I Twitter, I Facebook and IM. I e-mail co-workers who sit feet from my desk, and text rather than call. The only time I pen a handwritten letter is when I write to my grandmother. So when I hear people say that penmanship is dead, my response: it's about time.I

I must admit that I don't know too many people who actually use cursive (apart from their signatures). Certainly no one in my family does. So if few people use cursive  - or even use handwriting in general in their professional lives - should we still teach it in school? What do you think?

A longitudinal study of infants from birth to age 3 found no cognitive benefit from TV viewing before the age of 2, according to researchers at Children's Hospital Boston and Harvard Medical School. Current guidelines from the American Association of Pediatrics recommend no TV viewing for under-2-year-olds, contrary to some marketing claims. Although the
researchers did not find that TV viewing did any actual harm to the children, they warn that other studies have shown serious effects, including an increased risk of obesity, attention problems and decreased sleep quality.

The issue of same-sex classrooms has been controversial since the U.S. Department of Education cleared the way for them in 2006. Now UCLA researchers have conducted a study of female college freshmen who graduated from either a private all-girls high school or a private coeducational (mixed) high school. They found that the students from the all-girls school

"enter college slightly more academically and politically engaged than women from similar backgrounds who attended coeducational private schools. Girls' schools also produce alumnae who possess more confidence in their mathematical and computer skills, and are more likely to desire careers in engineering. They also had higher SAT scores."

The LBUSD recently dropped its same-gender classroom experiment at Jefferson Middle School. The school's principal at that time said there was no clear evidence that same-gender classes had led to improvement. Also the single-sex arrangement restricted the scheduling of classes and made the appropriate academic placement of students more difficult, district officials said.

A Yale researcher has found a way to detect autism in infants: Tracking their eye movements in an artificially created social setting. The theory is that the eyes of autistic infants will focus more on objects and avoiding looking at other people's eyes, according to an article in BHC Journal. An excerpt:

The study showed that the best predictor of autism was a reduction in eye region fixation time. Social functioning was shown to correlate significantly with fixation on mouths and objects. Those children who fixated more on objects were shown to have a lesser degree of social functioning compared to children who focused on mouths. Children who do not have autism typically focus on the eyes in social interactions. As a result, children with autism who focus on the mouth (or objects) can miss 90 percent of social cues that could otherwise help them interpret the communication properly.

The Long Beach Unified School District this fall plans to make cuts to its school security office and reduce services it gets from a partnership with the Long Beach Police Department, district officials said. Read more about it here.

According to a research study reported by Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper, babies born early but not severely premature are at higher risk of developmental delays, learning problems and school suspensions. Even though such babies appear almost the same as full-term babies, researchers say that's not true in many cases. The study compared 7,152 children born in Florida at 34 and 36 weeks gestation, known as late preterm, or near-term, with 152, 661 infants born between 37 and 42 weeks gestation, which is considered the safest time period to deliver a baby. From the article:

The preterm infants were at a 36 per cent greater risk for a developmental delay or disability such as autism spectrum disorder than the infants born at term. The risk of suspension in kindergarten for behavioural problems was 19 per cent higher for late preterm babies. They were also more likely to be held back to repeat kindergarten and even showed more signs of a developmental disability in prekindergarten.

In an embarrassing snafu, the University of California, San Diego accidentally sent a welcome email to about 29,000 applicants who had been rejected, the AP reports.

The e-mail sent Monday evening invited all 47,000 students who applied to an admittedstudents' day on campus. UCSD Admissions Director Mae Brown apologized for the mistake Tuesday and explained that the e-mail was supposed to go to about 18,000 accepted students. Less than two hours after the error, she sent out another mass e-mail apologizing for distress it may have caused to anxious applicants and their families, Brown told The Associated Press."In all humility, I ask that you please accept my apologies and those of the University of California, San Diego," she wrote.

In a rather candid statement, Los Angeles Unified School District Ramon Cortines says that he might step down if the school board doesn't go along with his proposal to lay off about 8,540employees, including more than 3,500 teachers, City News Service reports. The LAUSD school board postponed action on the proposal at its meeting on Tuesday, saying they wanted to learn more about the impact of the federal stimulus package. Cortines called rumors that the district will receive $1 billion in stimulus fund an "insidious lie." According to CNS, Cortines told NBC4: "I'm very patient," adding that he respects the Board of Education. "But if I am not doing my job and they have lost confidence in me, it is time that I go."  This photo is from the Daily Breeze, our sister paper.