BRISTOL — Bristol students are not doing as well as their counterparts across the state in reading, writing and math on the critical SAT test that is used by many colleges to help determine whom they admit.
“We have work to do,” school Superintendent Philip Streifer said Wednesday.
The scores generally show that students in Bristol whose parents are low-income or lacking a college education do better than expected, but those from higher- income families whose parents are well-educated fall well short of expected results.
Bristol’s mean SAT score for 2008 was 1491, which is about 30 points lower in each of the three categories than totals posted in neighboring districts such as Farmington, Lewis Mills High School in Burlington, Southington or West Hartford.
Perhaps most disturbing is that Bristol students who reported they were in the top tenth of their class at Bristol Central or Bristol Eastern high schools were lower in every area than Connecticut students as a whole.
Bristol’s white students as a whole did worse than white students across both the state and the nation.
African-American and Hispanic students in Bristol, however, outscored minorities in Connecticut and elsewhere in the country.
The numbers spurred education officials to plan a wholesale campaign to raise SAT scores in years to come by offering more accelerated and Advanced Placement classes, improving instruction in key classes and other measures that may help.
Administrators need to bring the sort of focus to the issue that they did to CAPT scores nearly a decade ago, said Denise Carabetta, who coordinated the push.
Bristol’s CAPT scores have jumped significantly as a result of that push, putting the district on par with communities that have much higher income and educational levels.
“When we focus on something, it improves,” said Martin Semmel, the principal at Central.
The new plan calls for adding AP classes in statistics, English & Composition, environmental science and U.S. history.
It would also offer more accelerated middle-school classes to get students ready for college level work as soon as their sophomore year of high school.
Streifer said part of the effort will be to convince teachers that every student is capable of doing high-level work. He said that’s the necessary foundation.
Also crucial is that Bristol’s education funding hold up, which is by no means certain as state leaders try to cope with unprecedented revenue shortfalls.
Over the past five years, the only SAT area where Bristol has made any meaningful gain is in math. Reading and writing scores have been flat.
Officials hope that emphasizing the skills the test addresses across the curriculum will help students do better on their SATs while simultaneously preparing for a more successful college education.
Steve Collins can be reached at (860) 584-0501 ext. 254 or scollins@bristolpress.com.
2008 Average test scores
Reading
Bristol 493
State 509
Nation 502
Math
Bristol 503
State 513
Nation 515
Writing
Bristol 494
State 513
Nation 494
Source: bristolpress.com
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Saturday, April 4, 2009
John Mulaney: Comedian on top
Few other stand-up comedians have made a dent on the national comedy scene as big as the one John Mulaney has– and at such a young age. A near perfect debut album for Comedy Central and a scribe gig at Saturday Night Live leaves little question as to why that is.
In just a few short years, comedian John Mulaney has accomplished more than most comedians twice his age. At 26, he’s already headlined the country’s top comedy clubs, been a regular talking head on VH1’s Best Week Ever, scored a plum gig as a writer on Saturday Night Live — and on March 24, Comedy Central Records is releasing a collection of his distinctive storytelling on everything from drag queens and childhood pranks to his favorite TV shows.
The album, The Top Part takes its name from a throw-away line in one of Mulaney’s most notorious jokes, which raises questions about the King Solomon story in the Bible, in which the monarch settles a dispute between two women over a baby by deciding to cut it in half and giving each a piece. As the fable goes, the true mother is determined when the other woman agrees with the demented strategy and says she’ll take whatever half she can get — and according to Mulaney, the woman is so whacked-out, she actually refers to the baby’s head as “the top part.”
“That Bible story was just one of those things that had bothered me since I was very little,” explains Mulaney from his SNL office on the 17th floor of 30 Rock. “And [the top part] it is my favorite thing in the joke, but I don’t think it gets such a laugh.”
But cricket-filled moments like that don’t happen much during a John Mulaney set. His infamous takes on the obvious in pop culture, like Donald Trump’s “fine golden hair” or how bartenders on Law & Order inexplicably remember every customer they’ve ever served, are the self-proclaimed rat bastard’s bread and butter.
Here, Mulaney raps to Punchline Magazine about his new album, his gig on the world’s most famous sketch show, and naturally, drag queens. Check out his Comedy Central special on April 3 at 10 pm.
How cool is it to have your very own CD coming out?
It’s been really incredible to be involved with Comedy Central Records on this. I was really flattered when they asked me to do it. I certainly knew I had enough material to do one. It definitely struck me as quite a big deal and exciting that there was even an offer to do one with them. Comedy Central is just a great place for stand-up.
Which jokes on the CD are you most proud of?
There are jokes I really like, the one about drag queens and Goth people. I find them real satisfying because they came from real opinions. I wasn’t sure if they’d work as jokes. When something like that happens, when you have an opinion on something for a long time and then it translates well, it’s very cool.
What’s the inspiration behind the drag queen joke— about how they act more like assholes than women?
I was walking near Fifth Avenue the night of the day of the Gay Pride Parade in New York. It must have been the Summer of ‘07. There was a really tall drag queen standing on the street and a car drove by that honked at someone else in traffic, and the drag queen waved and yelled ‘Thank you!’ like the car was honking at her. It was really funny to me. The parade had been over for hours, but she felt like she was a celebrity. Anyway, it got me thinking about how some drag queens I’ve encountered will display a big ego and act like they’re famous.
Are there any jokes that people want to talk about when they meet you?
Definitely the Law & Order one. That one caught on. I think people laugh even when they haven’t seen the show. (Watch the bit below).
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Where did that one come from?
I think I first started talking about Law & Order in Columbus, OH in 2005. I was staying in a condo with another comedian named Andi Smith. I was the emcee and she was featuring. We played some game where we gave each other a slip of paper with a word on it and you had to write about that word for three minutes or something. I got ‘police’ and wrote down something about how on Law & Order, the police interview people and they keep going about their business, but in real life, getting questioned by police is a really tense thing. I tried some early version of it that weekend and then gradually made it in to the too-long bit you hear today.
How do you go about writing jokes? Do you make notes on things as they pop up or do you just sit down and brainstorm?
I’ll kinda make notes all the time. Things will come up throughout the day. Then I try to make a point to sit down with all that stuff and write it out. There was a period of time when I was doing a set a night at minimum, sometimes a couple shows a night, every night of the week so I’d work out a lot more stuff on its feet. One of the good things about coming up in New York when I did — and I still am — there was lots of shows where you could try a lot of new stuff. I almost feel weirder if I’m going into a set without doing anything new. It’s really satisfying when people connect with an opinion you’ve had for a very long time, and that you absolutely believe to be true, that seems very like, ‘Oh wow, people feel the same.’ That’s the special thing.
How did you get involved with SNL?
I auditioned for the show and was hired to write. What’s awesome about the show is that, among the writers, everyone really works together and in lot of different pairs and groups. It was really crazy to come here the first week of August when I was hired. It’s obviously so exciting and the people were so welcoming.
How crazy is your schedule? Take me through your week.
Well, we have Sunday off. Throughout Monday and Tuesday night into Wednesday morning, there’s a lot of writing. And then a read-through on Wednesday. Then you’re rehearsing and rewriting until Saturday.
Which skits have you worked on?
I’ve been lucky enough to get some on. One sketch I liked a lot was this Of Mice and Men one we did with James Franco. I wrote that with a writer named Marika Sawyer. It’ been an extremely fun time. I love it!
How did being on Best Week Ever help jump-start your career and get you noticed nationally?
Well, it helped in that I got to do my own jokes on a weekly television show. I noticed that after about a year of doing it I was recognized more and more when I went on the road. That was definitely a nice thing as I started to headline. I had a lot of fun doing that show and due to the tight amount of time to do different bits I got better at writing more economical jokes.
At seven years old, you were in a sketch comedy group called the Rugrats. Do you remember your first joke?
I did a George Bush impression that was 99% stolen from Dana Carvey. We also did a sketch where it was supposed to be a foreign movie so we were all talking in gibberish and there was a translator, and someone asked someone, ‘Where did you get those shoes?’ and they went like, [gibberish for 10 seconds] and then the translator was like, ‘Penny’s.’ I remember thinking it’s really funny to give a short answer. It was the first time I’d ever heard that kind of joke, and I was like, ‘Yep, that’s good.’
Source: punchlinemagazine.com
Cleavagefield on Cinemax
Cleavagefield on Cinemax - Cleavagefield is as the name implies, a movie with lots of cleavage! Basically it is an erotic parody of cloverfield where scared naked women run away from the Cleavagefield monster.
Cleavagefield premiered on April 1 on Cinemax. The Cleavagefield monster looks more like a possessed inflatable dinosaur but no one is really watching the monster in this movie.
Here is the Cleavagefield Trailer
Cleavagefield (trailer) - video powered by Metacafe
This of course isn’t the best movie of the year but if you’re in the mood of watching a sexy comedy then check out Cleavagefield on Cinemax.
Source: news.mylocoworld.com
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Lady GaGa at American Idol
American Idol on Tuesday night was rocking. There were contestants singing their favorites from iTune downloads. There was elimination….and there was Lady GaGa at the piano with her latest hit “Poker Face” that has topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart. It is the second week for “Poker Face” at the top. On the AI stage, she was dynamic.
The pop singer from New York has beat US rapper Flo Rida’s “Right Round” which ruled the chart for six weeks. And, before “Poker Face“, it was “Just Dance“. It was no 1 in the list in January, reigning for three weeks. With these phenomenal success of these two songs one after the other, Lady GaGa has become the first artist in almost ten years to rule the Hot 100 chart with two entries. The last performer to reign the Hot 100 list with her pair of songs ["Genie in a Bottle" (1999) and "What a Girl Wants" (2000)] was….yes you guessed it right. Christina Aguilera. The only other women to have reached the top of the list with two songs in the last 25 years were Mariah Carey in 1990 and Tiffany in 1987.
It is hard to believe that a pop singer who, sometime back, was desperately trying to get her songs played on the US radio has, today, become a brand name. More to look forward to on the GaGa front.
Source: celeb9.com
diapers.com: Reviews boost search rankings and drive 33% more sales at Diapers.com
Within two weeks of implementing new technology that makes it easier for search engines to index customer product reviews on its site, natural search drove 33% more sales at Diapers.com. Josh Himwich, director of e-commerce operations and customer experience for the retailer, says a new feature from ratings and reviews vendor PowerReviews spurred the sales. The In-Line SEO feature generated a 49% increase in natural search traffic and a 59% rise in the number of keywords driving traffic to the site’s product pages.
In-Line SEO routes organic search traffic directly to Diapers.com’s product pages that feature customer reviews. PowerReviews says eliminating the interim landing pages and sending consumers directly to ratings and reviews pages helps retailers avoid the drop-off in traffic that typically occurs between a landing page and a product page.
When gathered by a vendor like PowerReviews and fed back to the retail site, customer reviews aren’t actually part of the HTML code of the retailer’s site, according to Himwich, so they aren’t indexed by search engines as part of the e-commerce site. Under that scenario, the only way to use customer reviews for search engine optimization is to create a microsite, transparent to the site visitor, specifically to hold product reviews in a format that can be indexed.
“The problem there is that they’re not on the product detail page – you have to provide a link to get them to the product page,” Himwich says.
By incorporating the top 15 reviews for any product directly into the HTML coding of the product page, the page gets a boost in natural search rankings from the fact that the reviews create a higher keyword density for the page, which search engines read as greater relevance to the keyword being searched, Himwich explains.
He adds that making the customer reviews indexable on product pages also helps traffic and sales by associating many more keywords with the product. For instance, a customer review might describe the product as “easy fit,” language the site’s own product descriptions don’t include. Because the reviews contain content search engines now index, “there are that many more keywords driving customers to the product detail page,” he says.
Source: internetretailer.com
In-Line SEO routes organic search traffic directly to Diapers.com’s product pages that feature customer reviews. PowerReviews says eliminating the interim landing pages and sending consumers directly to ratings and reviews pages helps retailers avoid the drop-off in traffic that typically occurs between a landing page and a product page.
When gathered by a vendor like PowerReviews and fed back to the retail site, customer reviews aren’t actually part of the HTML code of the retailer’s site, according to Himwich, so they aren’t indexed by search engines as part of the e-commerce site. Under that scenario, the only way to use customer reviews for search engine optimization is to create a microsite, transparent to the site visitor, specifically to hold product reviews in a format that can be indexed.
“The problem there is that they’re not on the product detail page – you have to provide a link to get them to the product page,” Himwich says.
By incorporating the top 15 reviews for any product directly into the HTML coding of the product page, the page gets a boost in natural search rankings from the fact that the reviews create a higher keyword density for the page, which search engines read as greater relevance to the keyword being searched, Himwich explains.
He adds that making the customer reviews indexable on product pages also helps traffic and sales by associating many more keywords with the product. For instance, a customer review might describe the product as “easy fit,” language the site’s own product descriptions don’t include. Because the reviews contain content search engines now index, “there are that many more keywords driving customers to the product detail page,” he says.
Source: internetretailer.com
LegiStorm.Com Can Find Capitol Hill Staffers' Salaries and Earmarks
The founder of LegiStorm.com — a searchable database of Capitol Hill staff’s salaries — may want to run for the Hill.
A former Capitol Hill investigative reporter, Jock Friedly, just launched a website that allows users to look up the annual salaries of congressional staffers. The site also makes it simple to track a person’s trips, financial disclosures, the gifts they received and the explosive growth of legislative earmarks.
"Earmarks have been at the center of several congressional scandals in the past few years, and openness in the process can help combat potential abuses of the earmark system," said Friedly, founder and president of LegiStorm. "LegiStorm is proud to integrate earmarks data with our other data sets in order to bring deeper insight and increased transparency to congressional and executive spending."
The data helps users to make important connections between otherwise unconnected facts — such as between earmarks, which totaled $18.3 billion last year, and the corporate-sponsored travel or personal financial holdings of members of Congress and their staff.
LegiStorm’s new data were provided by Taxpayers for Common Sense, a group that tracks earmarks in detail. These "earmarks" are often directed back to the sponsoring congressman’s home district.
While you may call Friedly a real genius, all the information is open to the public. He’s just made it a lot easier for us, the taxpayers, who may be too far from Washington to trek to an office building inside the House and seek the folder with all the juicy details.
Source: wowowow.com
A former Capitol Hill investigative reporter, Jock Friedly, just launched a website that allows users to look up the annual salaries of congressional staffers. The site also makes it simple to track a person’s trips, financial disclosures, the gifts they received and the explosive growth of legislative earmarks.
"Earmarks have been at the center of several congressional scandals in the past few years, and openness in the process can help combat potential abuses of the earmark system," said Friedly, founder and president of LegiStorm. "LegiStorm is proud to integrate earmarks data with our other data sets in order to bring deeper insight and increased transparency to congressional and executive spending."
The data helps users to make important connections between otherwise unconnected facts — such as between earmarks, which totaled $18.3 billion last year, and the corporate-sponsored travel or personal financial holdings of members of Congress and their staff.
LegiStorm’s new data were provided by Taxpayers for Common Sense, a group that tracks earmarks in detail. These "earmarks" are often directed back to the sponsoring congressman’s home district.
While you may call Friedly a real genius, all the information is open to the public. He’s just made it a lot easier for us, the taxpayers, who may be too far from Washington to trek to an office building inside the House and seek the folder with all the juicy details.
Source: wowowow.com
Jay Cutler puts Denver home up for sale
The rift between Jay Cutler and the Broncos just got a little more interesting after the quarterback recently put his Denver house up for sale. Cutler’s parents got into the act too, putting their Denver house up for sale as well.
On Thursday, Broncos disgruntled quarterback Jay Cutler put his primary residence in Parker up for sale, with a listing price of $2 million.
This decision for a lifestyle change comes amid the soap opera that has been dubbed, McJaygate.
Cutler has been upset since learning Feb. 28 he was part of trade talks that never materialized. Cutler believes he has information that his new coach Josh McDaniels aggressively tried to shop him, despite the coach’s statements to the contrary. Since then, Cutler has refused to come in and meet the coach. This Monday morning, McDaniels, the primary target of Cutler’s discontent, is meeting with the full team, at least as it stands now. All players have been told to attend.
And now Cutler puts his pad for sale. The easy assumption, however, may not be what it seems. An NFL source said Cutler has considered selling his home for more than a year. Why? Because Cutler is a 25-year-old bachelor who has come to realize his 7,516-square-foot home that sits on a 1 1/2-acre spread is too big for a guy who lives alone.
Cutler and his folks putting their houses on the market could have nothing to do with him being traded. But apparently Cutler met with Broncos’ head coach Josh McDaniels on Saturday and the interaction reportedly didn’t go too well. His name continues to be linked to trade rumors and with the draft coming up in just over a month, Cutler could still be dealt sometime this offseason.
The Broncos begin their voluntary offseason workouts on Monday and the team expects Cutler to be there. Maybe if he shows, it’ll prove that he’s going to be a professional about this situation, even though he’s still upset. Either way, “McJaygate” doesn’t appear like it’ll be settled anytime soon.
Source: scoresreport.com
On Thursday, Broncos disgruntled quarterback Jay Cutler put his primary residence in Parker up for sale, with a listing price of $2 million.
This decision for a lifestyle change comes amid the soap opera that has been dubbed, McJaygate.
Cutler has been upset since learning Feb. 28 he was part of trade talks that never materialized. Cutler believes he has information that his new coach Josh McDaniels aggressively tried to shop him, despite the coach’s statements to the contrary. Since then, Cutler has refused to come in and meet the coach. This Monday morning, McDaniels, the primary target of Cutler’s discontent, is meeting with the full team, at least as it stands now. All players have been told to attend.
And now Cutler puts his pad for sale. The easy assumption, however, may not be what it seems. An NFL source said Cutler has considered selling his home for more than a year. Why? Because Cutler is a 25-year-old bachelor who has come to realize his 7,516-square-foot home that sits on a 1 1/2-acre spread is too big for a guy who lives alone.
Cutler and his folks putting their houses on the market could have nothing to do with him being traded. But apparently Cutler met with Broncos’ head coach Josh McDaniels on Saturday and the interaction reportedly didn’t go too well. His name continues to be linked to trade rumors and with the draft coming up in just over a month, Cutler could still be dealt sometime this offseason.
The Broncos begin their voluntary offseason workouts on Monday and the team expects Cutler to be there. Maybe if he shows, it’ll prove that he’s going to be a professional about this situation, even though he’s still upset. Either way, “McJaygate” doesn’t appear like it’ll be settled anytime soon.
Source: scoresreport.com
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