Remedying School Segregation: How New Jersey's Morris School District Chose to Make Diversity Work

Beyond the districtwide numbers, the Morris district has achieved remarkable diversity at the school building level. Since the district has only one middle school and one high school, these are not where the diversity rubber meets the road. Rather, the test is the elementary school populations. There, the Morris district shines. Despite the fact that students live in relatively homogeneous, segregated neighborhoods, the elementary schools they attend defy that pattern. For example, to achieve perfect racial balance between black and white students at the elementary school level, only about 2.6 percent would have to change their school assignments.The Morris district still struggles with two aspects of diversity, however. First,—in common with virtually every diverse school district in the country—it is still attempting to bring meaningful diversity to every program and course within its school buildings, from higher-level Honors and Advanced Placement courses to special education classifications and rosters of disciplinary actions. Second, in common with some but hardly all diverse districts across the country, the Morris district is trying to cope with the explosive growth of Hispanic students, many of them in recent years economically disadvantaged students from Central American countries where they often failed to receive a solid educational foundation in their own language and culture. Understandably, these students tend not to score well on standardized tests, especially in their early years in MSD. This contributes substantially to the Morris district's record of relatively poor achievement levels in three substantially overlapping student categories—Hispanic, English Language Learners (ELL), and economically disadvantaged students—as compared to its relatively strong achievement levels for white and black students.As to both challenges, the Morris district is manifesting a remarkably can-do spirit and a palpable will to succeed.In all these respects, the study of the Morris district reported on here is designed ultimately to extract lessons for other school districts in New Jersey and the rest of the nation. This report begins by exploring briefly the historical, political, and legal context of educational integration in New Jersey, and how that led to the creation of the Morris School District. It then analyzes and discusses the successes—and the challenges—of MSD's integration efforts. Along the way, it contrasts the successes of MSD with two other districts in New Jersey—Plainfield and New Brunswick—that attempted integration by district merger, but failed. It concludes by making recommendations not only for improvements in MSD's approach, but for school districts across New Jersey and the country that are seeking to integrate their schools and classrooms

Progressive Education: Lesson from the Past and Present

Progressive education is one of the most enduring educational reform movements in this country, with a lifespan of over one hundred years. Although as noted earlier, it waxes and wanes in popularity, many of its practices now appear so regularly in both private and public schools as to have become almost mainstream. But from the schools that were the pioneers, what useful lessons can we learn? The histories of the early progressive schools profiled in Part 1 illustrate what happened to some of the progressive schools founded in the first part of the twentieth century. But even now, they serve as important reminders for educators concerned with the competing issues of stability and change in schools with particular progressive philosophies—reminders, specifically, of the complex nature of school reform

What services are useful for patients with an intellectual disability?

It is well-known that people with an intellectual disability often face a host of health inequalities and co-morbidities. These include childhood obesity, mental health problems, and challenging behaviour. People with an intellectual disability also have reduced life expectancy. GPs are uniquely placed to advocate for and signpost these patients, ensuring they have access to appropriate support. However, it is often unclear what resources are, in reality, both available and beneficial. Here we aim to summarise some of the common inequalities and complexities when working with patients with an intellectual disability and provide an overview of some potentially helpful services.NIHR School for Primary Care Research [RG94577] and Wellcome Trust [Grant WT103343MA]

Regulation of the BRCA1 gene by an SRC3/53BP1 complex

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Steroid Receptor coactivator 3(SRC3) is an oncogene and a member of the SRC family of nuclear receptor coactivator proteins that mediate the transcriptional effects of nuclear hormone receptors as well as other transcription factors.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We have used protein purification and mass spectrometry to identify the 53BP1 tumour suppressor as a novel SRC3-associated protein. Copurification was demonstrated using multiple antibodies, and was not dependent on DNA damage suggesting that SRC3 is not directly involved in the DNA damage response. However using chromatin immunoprecipitation(ChIP) and siRNA knockdown, we have demonstrated that both SRC3 and 53BP1 co-occupy the same region of the BRCA1 promoter and both are required for BRCA1 expression in HeLa cells.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Our results suggest that both 53BP1 and SRC3 have a common function that converge at the BRCA1 promoter and possibly other genes important for DNA repair and genomic stability.</p

Ethnography Made Easy

This is an Open Educational Resource for the teaching of an Ethnography class. It was specifically designed for Ethnographies of Work taught at Stella and Charles Guttman Community College. This currently represents a draft. We are working on ensuring that references and attributions are correct and that images, case studies and examples are representative. If you have any questions, comments or concerns, please email us: [email protected]

Muddy waters: efficacious predation of container-breeding mosquitoes by a newly-described calanoid copepod across differential water clarities

Mosquito-borne diseases induce unrivalled morbidity and mortality in human populations. In recent times, greater urbanisation has facilitated vector population expansion, particularly of those which proliferate in container-style habitats. To combat increased associated disease risk, we urgently require innovative and efficacious control mechanisms to be identified and implemented. Predatory biological control of vectorially-important mosquitoes can be effective. Despite their high prevalence in freshwater ecosystems, predatory calanoid copepods have yet to be examined comprehensively for mosquito control. Moreover, environmental context-dependencies can cause substantial variations in natural enemy impacts on target populations. Accordingly, improved understanding of the effects of context-dependencies upon predatory biocontrol is needed. Here, we use functional responses (FRs) to examine the predatory impact of a newly-described species of calanoid copepod, Lovenula raynerae, upon larval Culex pipiens prey across variations in prey supply and water clarity. Using outdoor field trials, we assess the viability of L. raynerae in reducing mosquito survival in container-style habitats. Lovenula raynerae displayed destabilising Type II FRs towards larval mosquito prey across all water clarities tested, with overall predation rates remaining largely unaffected across all clarity treatments. In the outdoor experiment, L. raynerae applications resulted in substantial reductions in larval C. pipiens populations, with close to total eradication achieved following the experimental period under higher predator densities. These results demonstrate that environmental context such as water clarity may have little effect on vector control by calanoid copepods, which suggests a predatory reliance on hydromechanical signalling. Further, for the first time, we demonstrate the applicability of calanoid copepods to artificial container-style habitats where mosquitoes proliferate. Therefore, our results indicate that further examination into the applicability of this species group to aid vector biocontrol strategies is warranted

APOE ε4 alters docosahexaenoic acid associations with preclinical markers of Alzheimer disease

Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) is the main long chain omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids in the brain and accounts for 30% to 40% of fatty acids in the grey matter of the human cortex. Although the influence of DHA on memory function is widely researched, its association with brain volumes is under investigated and its association with spatial navigation is virtually unknown. This is despite the fact that spatial navigation deficits are a new cognitive fingerprint for symptomatic and asymptomatic Alzheimer’s disease (AD). We investigated the relationship between DHA levels and the major structural and cognitive markers of preclinical AD, namely hippocampal volume, entorhinal volume, and spatial navigation ability. Fifty-three cognitively normal adults underwent volumetric magnetic resonance imaging, measurements of serum DHA (including serum lysophosphatidylcholine DHA (LPC DHA)) and APOE ε4 genotyping. Relative regional brain volumes were calculated and linear regression models were fitted to examine DHA associations with brain volume. APOE genotype modulated serum DHA associations with entorhinal cortex volume and hippocampal volume. Linear models showed that greater serum DHA was associated with increased entorhinal cortex volume, but not hippocampal volume, in APOΕ ε4 non-carriers. APOE also interacted with serum LPC DHA to predict hippocampal volume. After testing interactions between DHA and APOE ε4 on brain volume, we investigated whether DHA and APOE interact to predict spatial navigation performance on a novel virtual reality diagnostic test for AD in an independent population of APOE genotyped adults (n = 46). Crucially, the APOE genotype modulated DHA associations with spatial navigation performance, showing that DHA was inversely associated with path integration in APOE ε4 carriers only. Interventions aiming to increase DHA status to protect against cognitive decline must consider APOE ε4 carrier status, and focus on higher doses of supplementary DHA to ensure adequate brain delivery

Domestication-induced reduction in eye size revealed in multiple common garden experiments: The case of Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar L.)

Domestication leads to changes in traits that are under directional selection in breeding programmes, though unintentional changes in nonproduction traits can also arise. In offspring of escaping fish and any hybrid progeny, such unintentionally altered traits may reduce fitness in the wild. Atlantic salmon breeding programmes were established in the early 1970s, resulting in genetic changes in multiple traits. However, the impact of domestication on eye size has not been studied. We measured body size corrected eye size in 4000 salmon from six common garden experiments conducted under artificial and natural conditions, in freshwater and saltwater environments, in two countries. Within these common gardens, offspring of domesticated and wild parents were crossed to produce 11 strains, with varying genetic backgrounds (wild, domesticated, F1 hybrids, F2 hybrids and backcrosses). Size-adjusted eye size was influenced by both genetic and environmental factors. Domesticated fish reared under artificial conditions had smaller adjusted eye size when compared to wild fish reared under identical conditions, in both the freshwater and marine environments, and in both Irish and Norwegian experiments. However, in parr that had been introduced into a river environment shortly after hatching and sampled at the end of their first summer, differences in adjusted eye size observed among genetic groups were of a reduced magnitude and were nonsignificant in 2-year-old sea migrating smolts sampled in the river immediately prior to sea entry. Collectively, our findings could suggest that where natural selection is present, individuals with reduced eye size are maladapted and consequently have reduced fitness, building on our understanding of the mechanisms that underlie a well-documented reduction in the fitness of the progeny of domesticated salmon, including hybrid progeny, in the wild