Firestorm Erupts Over Virginia's Education Goals. As part of Virginia's waiver to opt out of mandates set out in the No Child Left Behind law, the state has created a controversial new set of education goals that are higher for white and Asian kids than for blacks, Latinos and students with disabilities. Virginia Democratic state Sen. Donald McEachin first read about the state's new performance goals for schoolchildren in a newspaper editorial.
"And I was shocked to find that the state board of education [was] putting in place permanent disparities between different subgroups — Asians at the top, African-Americans at the bottom," says McEachin. Here's what the Virginia state board of education actually did. It looked at students' test scores in reading and math and then proposed new passing rates. In math it set an acceptable passing rate at 82 percent for Asian students, 68 percent for whites, 52 percent for Latinos, 45 percent for blacks and 33 percent for kids with disabilities. "So why do we have these different subgroups? The Lure of a Good Book: Who's Reading What? [INFOGRAPHIC] When you're curled up with a good book that you just can't set aside, whether it's a physical book or an ebook, do you know what makes it so compelling? Is it the mystery, the suspense? Maybe it's the romance.
Turns out men and women have very different habits when it comes to picking a good book. Men prefer books of a historical nature while women opt for romance and literature. This data is from HipType, a company that gathers analytics data from e-readers for authors. For this infographic, the company studied the DNA of a successful book as well as the reading habits of men and women, and found that women are 50% more likely to finish a book than men. If you're a fan of ebooks, you likely live in a city. Check out the infographic below and let us know if these findings reflect your reading habits as well. Infographic courtesy HipType; thumbnail image courtesy iStockphoto, theasis. Enhanced E-Books May Stunt Literacy In Children [Headlines] Why We Need "Curators" Apple Sold Twice as Many iPads as Macs to Schools. Apple's third quarter earnings call on Tuesday unveiled some information that goes to show just how useful the iPad is for educators. "I've never seen an adoption rate like this in the past," said Apple CEO Tim Cook.
The company announced it sold twice as many iPads as Macs for use in educational environments. Apple sold 1 million iPads for educational purposes, and interest in the iPad2 in k-12 was strong, it was said during the call. Overall during the quarter, Apple sold 17.0 million iPads, an 84% unit increase over the year-ago quarter. It sold 4.0 million Macs during the quarter, a two percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. Apple has touted the iPad as being a useful tool for students and educators since its release. The company announced its third quarter fiscal summary to investors and the media on Tuesday.