EBR magnets get high marks on evaluation by LSU teacher

An LSU professor gives the East Baton Rouge Parish school system’s magnet program high praise in a new external evaluation.
Eugene Kennedy surveyed parents, teachers and students and interviewed administrators, as well as reviewed a variety of in-house surveys and student testing data for the 13 magnet sites operating in spring 2007. In August, the school system opened a 14th magnet site, at Westdale Middle School.
Kennedy found that the magnet program has “generally attracted and provided an enriched educational experience for participating students.”
“While some programs are less successful than others, the majority appears to be effective educational environments,” he concluded.
Kennedy said the most successful magnet programs were the ones at Baton Rouge Center for the Visual and Performing Arts, and Dufrocq, Forest Heights and South Boulevard, Westdale Heights, as well as those at McKinley and Sherwood middle schools, and Baton Rouge Magnet and Scotlandville high schools.
Magnet schools were created to draw students from a mix of racial backgrounds to attend mostly inner-city schools via the lure of specialized programs and, in many cases, higher admission standards.
Kennedy studied East Baton Rouge Parish’s magnet schools during the spring, submitted his report to the school system in October and presented his findings to the School Board on Thursday.
“I want to thank you for pointing out that the magnet program is definitely on the right track and doing the right thing,” board member Darryl Robertson said after hearing Kennedy’s presentation.
Kennedy found the following:
Magnet students, both black and white, significantly outperform non-magnet students on standardized tests, even when “adjustments are made for prior achievement.” But some programs lag behind in some subjects. For instance, Istrouma High magnet 10th-graders improved as much as the evaluators expected compared to their prior achievement, while Istrouma ninth-graders declined compared to their prior achievement.
Parents, teachers and students generally have positive feelings about their programs.
The programs have been implemented largely as planned and schools had the resources they needed to be successful.
Word of mouth from satisfied parents was the best way to recruit new students. Kennedy conducted his external evaluation just before a settlement in the school system’s desegregation case expired in July 2007. Kennedy divides much of his data between black and non-black students, as was common during the desegregation case.
But with the case over, the school system has rewritten the magnet admission rules so that socioeconomics, not race, is the key determining factor.
School Board member Derrick Spell said that in future evaluations the school system should break out results by student poverty not race.
“I think we need to look at in terms of advantaged and disadvantaged students,” Spell said.
Kennedy’s findings were not completely positive:
Some programs struggled to fill their seats with a diverse set of students, probably because “public perceptions, transportation constraints, as well as the perceived academic reputation of the program.” Most of the schools with recruiting problems are concentrated in north Baton Rouge.
Recruiting and keeping good teachers — “especially those with technical skills” — have been difficult. Teachers leave for jobs in the private sector, other schools and other magnet schools in the system.
Administrators listed problems publicizing their accomplishments as their most significant barrier for recruiting. When asked what they’d like to see changed, parents in the magnet program suggested more field trips, improved building conditions, more computer resources and less homework.

Camouflage Your Fridge With Leave Magnets

By Andrew Liszewski
Even if your fridge is already energy-efficient and eco-friendly, here’s one more way to make it truly ‘green.’ Originally designed by Richard Hutten to be used on the office ceilings of the Boijmans van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam, these plastic leaves have a small magnet at the base allowing you to attach them to any metal surface. Besides using them to spruce up a filing cabinet or other metal faced appliances, they’d also come in handy for hiding that rusted out Chevy sitting in the backyard you keep meaning to ‘fix-up’ one of these days.
The Leave Magnets have supposedly been put into production by an office furniture maker called Gispen, but I can’t find any information about them on the company’s website.

Make Regina Leader-Post my start page

MEGA Brands Inc. said today it will conduct a voluntary global recall of its MagnaMan Action Figures and Magtastik and Magnetix Jr. pre-school magnetic toys after more than 44 reports of magnets coming loose in the United States.
The recall is being done in co-operation with the U.S. Consumer Safety Product Commission.
The cost of the recalled products is approximately $7 million, which will be reflected in the company's fourth-quarter results for 2007, the company said in a press release.


The danger leading to the recall is that magnets found by young children can be swallowed or could get caught in the child's wind pipe, the company said. And if more than one magnet is swallowed, the two can attract each other and cause intestinal perforations or blockages. These can be fatal.
MEGA Brands said it was aware of 44 reports in the U.S. of magnets coming loose from the recalled toys, including one report of a three-year-old boy receiving medical treatment to remove a magnet from his nose and one report of an 18-month-old toddler found with a single magnet in his mouth, which was not swallowed.
Consumers are being instructed to stop using the recalled toys and to return them to MEGA Brands for a free replacement.
The design of the recalled product lines is no longer in production.
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission is warning consumers to return MEGA Brand Magtastik and Magnetix Jr. Pre-School Magnetic Toys.
Nearly four hundred thousand sets have been sold in Canada and more than one million have been sold in the U.S.
Magtastik and Magnetix Jr. toy sets have been sold widely at Wal-Mart, Target, Toys R Us, K-Mart and other toy stores from January 2005 through December 2007 for between $10 and $40.
The company is also voluntarily recalling MagnaMan Magnetic Action Figures. The toy figures, Futuristic Warrior or Ancient Warrior, have body parts that attach with magnets which can be swallowed or aspirated.
There have been 90,000 MagnaMan sets sold in canada, with seven reports of magnets coming loose. No injuries have been reported.
In the U.S., there have been 25 reports of magnets coming loose from the figures, with no injuries reported.
Both toy sets being recalled are made in China and distributed by MEGA Brands America Inc., of Livingston, N.J.
With files from Becky Rynor, Canwest News Service