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The Washington Post (1/15, Williams) reports that according to experts, "there are so many benefits to playing board games." Games such as Candy Land, Chutes and Ladders, and Uno have for years been thought to "help children with social interaction, taking turns, and learning to follow rules and to win and lose gracefully." Also, according to educators, "by pushing young children to think strategically and plan ahead, and to attach abstract thoughts to concrete objects, many games can help develop more-sophisticated thinking skills." In the classroom, "teachers also find ways to use board games to supplement their lesson plans, particularly in preschool and early elementary school."

        School Incorporates Games Into Math Curriculum In Effort To Boost Test Scores. The Jackson (MI) Citizen-Patriot (1/15, Bolitho) reports that in an effort to improve scores on the state math test, Hanover-Horton Elementary School in Horton, MI, incorporates math game time into the school day for "third- through fifth-graders." Hanover-Horton "teachers hope" that the Tivitz "math board games will make the subject more entertaining" for students. The game is played "by moving pieces similar to dice - called tivits - up the diagonal-shaped board. ... Players can strategically plan their moves so they get the best equation for the highest score, which they must solve themselves after all moves have been made." Eventually, "The school hopes to get second-graders involved with the game as well."

Valerie Strauss wrote in an "Answer Sheet" blog for the Washington Post (1/14), "The nation earned a C on the 14th annual Education Week report card, which measures how well states have delivered a high-quality education to all students, with Maryland earning the best overall grade of any state and Virginia placing in the top five, with a B minus." The "annual Quality Counts report, a publication from Editorial Projects in Education, which publishes the trade magazine Education Week, rated and ranked the 50 states and the District in six areas of education performance and policy."

        The Columbus Dispatch (1/14, Candisky) reported that Ohio "earned its highest rating ever on the well-regarded and closely watched report cards issued each year since 1997." Ohio "received a grade of B-minus, [and] continued its climb from sixth place last year and seventh the year before." The 2010 rankings include "student achievement, school funding and curriculum standards -- and more than 150 indicators such as graduation rates, teacher licensure requirements and family income."

        Maureen Downey wrote in a "Get Schooled" blog for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (1/14) that Georgia received "a B minus, earning it 13th place in the national rankings. The top 10 states, in order, are Maryland, New York, Massachusetts, Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Florida, West Virginia and Arkansas."

        Jessica Meyers writes in a "Frisco" blog for the Dallas Morning News (1/15), "In the heat of a national standards debate, a recent state-by-state analysis gave Texas a few bonus points." Education Week "handed Texas a C+ grade and ranked it 14th overall, which includes assessment, school finance and teaching qualifications. The Texas Education Agency has chosen to focus on the assessment and standards component, where the state scored 6th and received an A."

WIAT-TV Birmingham (1/14, Ohnemus) reported that teachers at Councill Elementary School and Putnam Middle School "are incorporating the tragedy in Haiti into the classroom." Kindergartners at Councill "are learning the location of the island, and what to do if an earthquake hits." Meanwhile, "students at Putnam Middle School are asking for donations to help buy clean water for Haitians to prevent the spread of disease."

The Washington Post (1/15, Bedrosian) reports that third-graders at East Silver Spring Elementary School in Maryland spent six days putting together "a mosaic of the plant life cycle." For the project, "Each child embossed metal tiles to create wildlife scenes." Now adorning the entrance of the school, the "Many Little Seeds" mosaic "features seeds at various stages of growth and displays sun, water, soil and methods of seed dispersal." Science teacher Dawn Moffitt said that the mosaic was more than "just an art project." It was also "an important lesson in biology." In addition, the project incorporated language arts, as students "wrote poems about nature, read about seeds" as they "learned about [the seeds'] growth."

T.H.E. Journal (1/15, Schaffhauser) reports that the Florida Virtual School, in collaboration with Agilix Labs, has launched BrainHoney, an online learning platform "intended to provide schools, districts, and states a means to deliver accredited online courses to their students." Brain Honey "courses can be used in a traditional classroom, an online environment, or a blended classroom." The platform allows teachers "to map lessons and course modules with their specific state standards."

        Florida Virtual School To Expand Text-To-Speech Function. The T.H.E. Journal (1/15, Schaffhauser) reports that the Florida Virtual School plans to "expand deployment of a text-to-speech function" for online courses that will also be available in "study skills tools, a dictionary, and a research tool for conducting Web searches on any selected word" and will "include English to Spanish translation." The tool will allow users to increase or decrease "the pace of the reading." In addition, "the read-aloud functionality will allow a student to click on a sentence to hear the content read aloud. At the same time, the words being read will be highlighted."

The AP (1/15, Castro) reports that the Texas State Board of Education on Thursday approved several proposals "reshaping the guidelines for social studies lessons." The Board added many names "to the list of historic figures elementary school students would be expected to learn," including "astronauts James A. Lovell, Ellen Ochoa and Girl Scouts founder Juliette Gordon Low." Responding to "a public push for" inclusion of "more examples of notable Mexican Americans" in the curriculum, the Board also added "Jose Antonio Navarro, a Texas revolutionary," to the list, among others. "The board also debated the merits of having second-graders read Aesop's Fables," ultimately deciding that the students would not be "too young to decipher fact from fiction in the fables." The AP points out, "The guidelines will be used by textbook publishers who develop material for the nation based on Texas, one of the largest markets." A final vote on the guidelines is "expected in March."

The Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot (1/15, Roth) reports, "If Virginia gets its way, the requirement that pass rates on state tests increase each year will screech to a near halt. A centerpiece" of NCLB "is that all schools will need to reach 100 percent proficiency on state tests by 2014." Virginia "has required increases of a few percentage points annually or biennially for schools to make" AYP. Yet, Virginia "would freeze its AYP targets at a pass rate of 79 percent in math and 81 percent in English for 2010, according to an application to the federal Department of Education approved Tuesday by the state Board of Education."

Education Week (1/14, Gewertz) reported, "Experts enlisted to help the US Department of Education shape its $350 million Race to the Top assessment competition urged the agency this week to make sure that states seeking the money share a clear vision of the testing systems they aim to design, are fully committed to the lengthy project, and carefully delineate responsibilities for getting the job done." The DOE organized the hearings that took place on "Jan. 13 and 14...to seek expert advice on how states applying for the funds should organize themselves and how states' procurement rules could affect the process."

        Opinion: Texas Governor Wrong To Opt Out Of Race To The Top. William McKenzie wrote in an "Education Front" blog for the Dallas Morning News (1/14), "I'll give Rick Perry credit that he just doesn't think the country should have a uniform set of school standards, which is one of the aims the Obama administration is pursuing with its Race to the Top program. But what I don't get is why he turned down all of Texas' share of the Race to the Top fund." According to McKenzie, Perry "is creating a smoke-screen. Texas likely could qualify for this money without getting into the national standards debate." Perry "may be opposed to such standards, and indeed there is reason to doubt whether we could ever adopt a good set of national benchmarks. But Texas didn't have to pull down its application."

Amy Graff writes in the San Francisco Chronicle's (1/15, Graff) The Mommy Files blog, "The cartons of chocolate milk served in San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) cafeterias will no longer contain the highly debated sweetener high fructose corn syrup (HFCS)." Beginning in February, "a product containing sucrose will be offered to students." Student Nutrition Director Ed Wilkins said that parents "have had major concerns about the" fructose "additive for several years," and after receiving many requests, "Berkeley Farms, the dairy that supplies milk to SFUSD, decided to reformulate the chocolate milk." Graff adds that HFCS "is cheaper than sucrose, and so it has replaced sugar as the sweetener in many beverages and foods, from breads and cereals to yogurts and condiments."

WTEN-TV Albany, NY (1/14, Fitsik) reported on its Web site, "Thursday, local school food service directors sampled various types of food at the New York School Nutrition Association's Regional Show. The goal, to find healthy and appealing foods for the school lunch line, all while staying within a budget." According to WTEN, balancing meals and budgets is "the goal of food service directors" in the Albany region and they "say they search for foods with reduced fat and sodium," while "stressing portion size and healthy choices."

The AP (1/13) reported, "A survey of more than 33,000 girls and women aged 12 to 17 found that 26.7 percent had been involved in a serious fight at school or work, a group-against-group fight or had attacked someone with the intent to harm the person in the previous year, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) reported Thursday." The report noted that males "have a higher rate of violence." The AP notes, "The new survey was done between 2006 and 2008 and the results are similar to those in a SAMHSA study from 2002-2004."

The New York Times (1/15, Eckholm) reports that in the 1920s, "a Chicago philanthropist named Julius Rosenwald...took up the cause of long-neglected education for blacks at the urging of Booker T. Washington," culminating in the founding of numerous schools including the Rosenwald school in Pine Grove, SC. Today, the "hard-used wooden building, which narrowly escaped demolition, is one of several dozen Rosenwald schools being restored as landmarks - newly appreciated relics of important chapters in philanthropy and black education."

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