Jan
6
By KATHLEEN CHAPMAN
At Indiantown Middle School in rural Martin County, many children who grew up in poverty, speaking Spanish or Kanjobal, an unwritten Mayan dialect, are earning better writing scores on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test than some schools in affluent communities such as Wellington and Boca Raton.
In a perfect, egalitarian world, that accomplishment would [...]
Dec
16
Study: FCAT more a measure of wealth than performance
Filed Under education, projects | Leave a Comment
This project was done almost entirely on night and weekends, sometimes until well past midnight, while my colleague William M. Hartnett and I were both beat reporters in The Palm Beach Post’s Martin County bureau.
STORY LINKS
Main story: Study: FCAT more a measure of wealth than performance
Sidebar: Analysis measures score-wealth relationship
Sidebar: Humble roots [...]
Jan
2
Why learn penmanship?
Filed Under education, single stories | Leave a Comment
By KATHLEEN CHAPMAN
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Every fall, the third-graders at Crystal Lake Elementary School in Martin County and public schools across Florida begin a rite of passage familiar to their parents and grandparents: Carefully, methodically, often a little wobbly at first, they train their hands in the smooth strokes of cursive handwriting, leaving behind [...]