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test
Roosevelt Improvements
teaching parents in depth about Common Core and the pros
and cons of opting out.
In Seattle, high schools like Roosevelt, Ingraham and
Garfield — where testing hasn’t even begun yet — opt-out
rates for juniors are near 50 percent and expected to grow.
Garfield history teacher and prominent education
reformist, Jesse Hagopian has been a leading voice in boy-
cotting the Smarter Balanced Assessment which he says
sets students up to fail.
“The cut score for SBAC testing was deliberately set so
as to fail around 60 percent of the students who take the
test,” he said at a press conference with the King County
‘We find this political decision
to artificially create mass
failure reprehensible’
NAACP in April. “None of us teachers got into our profes-
sion to demoralize students and we find this political
decision to artificially create mass failure reprehensible,
and pedagogically unsound.”
King County NAACP President Gerald Hankerson also
named the fight against the Common Core standards as an
essential element to the ongoing #BlackLivesMatter move-
ment calling for equality in Black living conditions
worldwide.
The new standards for math and reading are said by sup-
porters to better prep students for college and career
readiness and help the U.S. better compete on the world
stage.
Though not required, the Common Core standards have
been adopted by every state in the nation over the last five
years, excluding only Alaska, Virginia, and Oklahoma.
America has been noted as falling behind in educational
achievement in the last three decades. According to the Pro-
PHOTO COURTESY OF PORTLAND PUBLIC SCHOOLS
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the Roosevelt high School revitalization’s ceremonial groundbreaking on May 2 featured Portland
Public Schools Superintendent Carole Smith and many of the school’s boosters. Funded by a bond
measure, the renovation will bring new facilities and seismic upgrades. Saturday’s event included
a free barbeque and tours of the campus.
gramme for International Student Assessment, the U.S.
ranked 37th in its most recent exam; countries like Singa-
pore, Taiwan, and South Korea topped the lists.
Though poverty has long been proven as a major factor in
terms of outcomes in the classroom, the top three perform-
ers on the list have higher rates of poverty than the U.S.
Assessment supported claims that American students would
“yield significant performance gains” under the criteria.
Nonetheless, America’s pupils continue to rail against the
standards.
In New York state, home to the biggest school district in
America, opt-outs have increased three fold from 66,000 in
2014 to an already unprecedented 184,000 — a number
sure to climb in the coming weeks and months.
An alignment study between the Common Core standards
for math and the Programme for International Student
Alzheimer’s
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increase of African American people 85
years or older by 2050.
In an effort to better understand
Alzheimer’s in the African American com-
munity, there have been efforts to get more
African American people into clinical trials.
The African American Network Against
Alzheimer’s, the Alzheimer’s Association
and the National Institute for Health have
all pushed for greater Black representation
in medical research.
To this end, OHSU is currently hiring a
Community Ambassador who will help
reach out to groups who have been left out
of clinical trials. In addition to this ambas-
sador, they hope to hold outreach events and
brain lectures to get their message out.
This landmark study is a radical departure
from previous Alzheimer’s investigation
because it focuses on thwarting the disease
before it starts, according to Deniz Erten-
Lyons MD, assistant professor of
If successful, the study may prove a new way to
treat the disease
Neurology at OHSU.
“It’s the first study that’s aimed at pre-
venting Alzheimer’s disease. Not only
preventing Alzheimer’s, but trying to target
the mechanisms that lead to Alzheimer’s
disease,” Erten-Lyons said.
The study targets amyloid protein
deposits in the brain. The brain produces
these proteins that can build up in older peo-
ple and form amyloid plaque deposits which
play a role in development of Alzheimer’s
disease-related memory loss. The study
would use an antibody to reduce these
deposits and test if that slows memory loss.
If successful, the study may prove a new
way to treat the disease, similar to the man-
agement of heart disease by preventing the
build-up of cholesterol.
Erten-Lyons faces the challenge of find-
ing people who are older than 65 who have
amyloid build-up in their brains but don’t
have any memory issues.
“Finding individuals who are 65 and older
with amyloid in their brains is a little bit
challenging,” she said. “We need to screen a
large number of individuals to really get to
our target.”
Interested participants will undergo a
series of screening tests, medication
reviews, and medical history tests.
If they pass this screening, they will go
through a positron emission tomography
(PET) scan of their brain to see if they have
the amyloid plaques. All participants who
receive a PET scan will have access to their
results, even if they are screened out of the
A4 Study.
For Erten-Lyons, those who have been
touched by the disease are the ones who
have volunteered their time to help find a
cure.
“People who really have shown interest
and signed up for this study to be screened
are individuals who are somehow affected
by Alzheimer’s disease. Either their spouse
has had it or their parents had it,” she said
“It means a lot to them, not only to know
their own status but also to contribute to the
research to try to find a cure for it.”
To get more information or to participate
in the A4 Study, contact study coordinator
Allison Bianchi at 503-494-7615, or email
adresearch@ohsu.edu
Lynch
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Rights Division, and Ronald Davis, the
director of Community Oriented Policing
Services, to Baltimore for a series of meet-
ings with faith and civic leaders and
community stakeholders to discuss the best
path forward to mend the fractured relation-
ship between Baltimore’s police force and
the majority Black communities that they
serve in city’s poorest neighborhoods.
On Friday, Baltimore State’s Attorney
Marilyn Mosby filed charges against six
Baltimore police officers that ranged from
second-degree assault to “depraved heart
murder.”
During a meeting with Maryland United
States Sens. Barbara Mikulski (D) and Ben
Cardin (D) and Reps. Elijah Cummings,
John Sarbanes and Dutch Ruppersberger,
Lynch said it was inspiring to see people
Lynch then met with Police Commissioner
Anthony Batts privately and then with a small
group of police officers who she called ‘the
hardest-working police officers in America’
come together to reclaim the city.
“We’re here to hold your hands and pro-
vide support,” said Lynch to the group that
also included William H. “Billy” Murphy
Jr., the Gray family’s attorney, and Rev.
Donté L. Hickman, Sr., the pastor of South-
ern Baptist Church, whose community
resource center and senior housing complex
were destroyed by fire while still under con-
struction during the riots on April 27. She
also vowed that the Justice Department was
there to help the city move forward and
work to improve the Baltimore Police
Department.
Lynch then met with Police Commission-
er Anthony Batts privately and then with a
small group of police officers who she
called the “the hardest-working police offi-
cers in America.”
Lynch added: “To all of you on the front
lines, I want to thank you. You really have
become the face of law enforcement.”
Last fall, the Justice Department part-
nered with Baltimore officials to address
concerns about abuse in the city’s police
department.
“I have worked on this issue for years,”
said Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, the mayor
of Baltimore. “We can’t afford to fail. The
relationship between police and the com-
munity is like a marriage.”
Lynch also met with Baltimore United, a
community group that advocates for police
reform, and others who had lost loved ones
to police violence.
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May 6, 2015 The Portland and Seattle Skanner Page 3