Friday, February 14, 2014

Governor McAuliffe Applauds House Passage of SOL Reform Legislation

English: Former DNC Chair Terry McAuliffe spea...
 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Governor Terry McAuliffe and Secretary of Education Anne Holton released the following statement today applauding the unanimous passage of House Bill 930, which would reform the Standards of Learning (SOLs) by reducing the number of tests to focus students and teachers on key areas in each grade level and establishing a process to review remaining SOL assessments in order to maximize their effectiveness:

“I am pleased that the House of Delegates has acted in a bipartisan fashion to pass this bill, which represents a meaningful step toward reforming the Standards of Learning to continue to evaluate students and teachers, without stifling innovation and creativity in the classroom.

“This legislation was the product of the leadership of Delegates Tag Greason and Rob Krupicka, who worked alongside Secretary of Education Anne Holton and my policy team to craft a bill that will allow the Commonwealth to track student performance while better freeing teachers to teach and students to learn. As the legislation moves to the Senate, my team and I will continue to engage actively with the process to bring legislation to my desk to reform the SOLs and strengthen Virginia’s ability to prepare our students to lead in the 21st Century economy.”  

Secretary Holton added:

“I want to thank Delegates Greason and Krupicka and their colleagues in the House for working so closely with Governor McAuliffe’s team to get this important legislation passed. This bill will improve the quality of the instruction Virginia students receive in the classroom, and should serve as an example of what we can achieve when we work together in a bipartisan way.”

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Governor McAuliffe Virginia’s Rise to Third in Nation on Advanced Placement Tests

A map of the top reported ancestries in Virgin...
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
African-American and Latino Students Narrow AP ‘Equity Gaps’

Governor Terry McAuliffe announced today that Virginia again boasts the nation’s third-highest percentage of public high school seniors qualifying for college credit on Advanced Placement (AP) examinations, according to the College Board’s 2014 AP Report to the Nation. Virginia students ranked fifth in last year’s report — despite an increase in AP achievement — after holding the number-three spot for five consecutive years.

According to the College Board, 28.3 percent of Virginia’s 2013 graduating seniors earned a grade of three or higher on at least one AP examination, compared with 27.2 percent in 2012 and 16.5 percent in 2003. Only two states — Maryland at 29.6 percent and Connecticut at 28.8 percent — had higher percentages of seniors earning qualifying scores.

Speaking about the report, Governor McAuliffe stated, “Growing and diversifying Virginia’s economy is my top priority, and that begins with a world-class education system. This report shows that Virginia is a national leader in preparing our students for college or to join the workforce in a high demand field. I am proud of the progress Virginia schools, students and teachers have made expanding advanced placement and improving scores, but we’ve still got work to do to ensure that every child has access to a world class education in a Virginia public school.”

Secretary of Education Anne Holton continued, “Every year, more of our high school students accept the challenge of these college-level courses and assessments and gain critical knowledge that will prepare them for higher education and the workforce. What this study says is that Virginia students have built a strong foundation for advanced learning and that they have teachers and principals who encourage them to reach higher.”


The 2014 AP Report to the Nation also cited Virginia’s progress in narrowing "equity gaps" for African-American and Latino students. An equity gap describes the difference between a subgroup’s participation or achievement in AP testing and the percentage of overall enrollment represented by the subgroup.

The number of African-American seniors graduating from high school having taken at least one AP examination has more than doubled in ten years. In 2013, 4,753 African-American students participated in AP testing, compared with 1,682 in 2003. During the same period, the percentage of African-American graduates earning at least one qualifying AP score rose 2.5 points, to 7.7 percent in 2013, compared with 5.2 percent in 2003.

The number of Latino Virginia graduates who took at least one AP examination has more than tripled since 2003. In 2013, 2,867 of Virginia’s Latino graduates took at least one AP test, compared with 920 of Latino graduates in 2003. During the same period, the percentage of Latino graduates earning at least one score of three or higher rose 2.6 points, to 7.8 percent, in 2013, compared with 5.2 percent in 2003.

Overall, 34,901 of Virginia’s 2013 graduates took at least one AP examination during their high school careers. Of these students, 22,426 earned at least one score of three or higher.


Virginia students may substitute AP examinations for end-of-course SOL tests in corresponding subject areas. Enrollment in AP courses is among the criteria for recognition under the Virginia Index of Performance awards program created by the Board of Education to encourage advanced learning and achievement. Virginia also promotes AP participation through the Early College Scholars initiative and the Virtual Virginia online-learning program, and uses federal grant money to subsidize test fees for low-income students.

Six Virginia school divisions were recognized by the College Board as honor roll districts for raising achievement on AP examinations while increasing access to the courses. The divisions making the College Board's 2014 AP Honor Roll are as follows:

·         Falls Church
·         Henrico County
·         King George County
·         Manassas Park
·         Montgomery County
·         Virginia Beach


The College Board also recognized the Catholic Diocese of Richmond as an honor roll district.

The most popular AP course among Virginia’s 2013 graduating seniors was US History, followed by English Language and Composition, US Government and Politics, English Literature and Composition, Psychology, World History, Calculus AB, Biology, Statistics and Environmental Science.
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Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Sounds That Heal? 528 Hz Frequencies, Free Sleepwalker Soundtrack In 528 Hz

English: A diagram showing four sinusoids of f...
English: A diagram showing four sinusoids of frequencies 1200, 1400, 1600 and 1800 hertz (green, purple, orange and red). Also shown is the summed signal (black) and the sinusoid with the same period as the beat frequency (f 0 , 200 Hz). Above is the spectrum of the signals. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)



Recently we came across information on what is called healing sounds.  It's referred to as the 528 Hz frequency.  We have been looking at a lot of information surrounding this so called new science and technology and though we had to dig through a lot of hype, we are finding that there seems to be some justification to the claims, though not to the level that claims are made.

  We were first asked to take a look and evaluate the below video and start our research there.




Okay.  The above information is interesting but leaves a lot of questions on the table.  From our research, the radio show is rather old and when we dug further, the full story behind the phenomena wasn't very credible or convincing.  528 Hz is said to come from a Bible revelation and secret code from the book of Numbers.  The code was said to be some lost ancient mathematical code that was part of a revelation that some doctor had.  Here is the real deal on that so called lost mathematical code.  They used numerology and called that the ancient and lost mathematical code to finding this new frequency which is ancient.  We are not joking about that.  Numerology is embedded in the Bible according to these folks.  It may be, we don't know.  We will leave that argument up to others.

  From what we gather on the above sound recording on the video, it's really nothing more than an octave scale change.  One argument that seems rather justified that we found in all our hours of research so far is that modern western cultural music is pitched at an octave that does create a certain amount of disharmony.  In other words, if you have ever felt bad after listening to hours of music you really enjoy, it's based on the frequency of the recordings.

  To date we have spent hours listening to modern rock music that has been converted to the new frequency of 528 and we do not feel bad after listening to the music all day.  But then again, we are still in the early stages of our own tests.  With some of the songs we are very familiar with, we have found that the beats per minute have been increased from their original recordings, so we have some questions about that.

  To check this out for yourself, we are putting in a link to a site that has numerous genres of music and a talk radio that is all produced in the 528 Hz format.  The link is just below and is to 528 Records.com.

http://www.528records.com/radio/main_station





Here is a video that is said to be recorded in the 528 Hz frequency that is designed to help you sleep better.  The problem is that it's only available online for this length of time of just over 3 and a half hours.  So it's only good for partial sleep if you can stream it for that length of time.  We made arrangements to test this during sleep.  We can't say either way at the moment if this is better than other relaxing music or sounds designed for such a purpose.  We are testing a number of tunes and frequencies to see what may be considered best if any.

  On some early test results we have found that certain music is beneficial to sleep and we woke up more refreshed than without it.  It was not in the 528 Hz frequency mode however.  We also were able to remember our dreams more vividly and the dreams were in color which is unusual as I am a male and we normally dream primarily in black and white as opposed to color for females.  This could also be attributable to a placebo effect however and that issue is not being discounted.

  


We have found this track that is one of the better tracks available for free download that is supposed to be in the 528 Hz recording sound.  If a song is lousy at production, the 528 Hz does not improve the sound recording by any means.  A perfect example exists above in the soundcloud track samples at the top of this post.  Annoying is still annoying no matter what frequency it's recorded at.

  We have our own inhouse music production technology that we can play around with tracks and see what we can do to produce our own 528 Hz tunes.  We took a track from our own files and converted it over to 528 Hz.  It's a Wolfang Amadeus Mozart piece from his 40th symphony, Molto Allegro as our experiment.  The original track was 10 minutes and 14 seconds long.  The new converted track is 8 minutes 13 seconds long which explains why the beats per minute are faster on the songs on the 528 Hz radio stations.  It's compressing the tracks when changing the frequency range and does create a discernable difference.

  There is no question about the fact that music is a vibration that has the ability to affect our moods and character.  The question we have yet to answer however is whether or not the 528 Hz frequency is a better more healing frequency as claimed by it's founders.  It's more compressed increasing the beats per minute.  We have not found any independent research outside of those who have founded the 528 Hz claims however.  But we have not done a lot of digging for it either.  It's a nice story so far, but one must keep in mind that those promoting it have something they are trying to sell and we have already found flaws in some of their other arguments on other issues.  So we are already skeptical on the claims.

  At present, the founders have a site where they sell converted music at some rather high prices.  $19.97 per CD compilation is rather high in our book.  Especially when we usually give music away.  And since we can convert our own music into 528 Hz, why bother?  In the future we may do an article on how to convert your own music to the 528 Hz frequency.  It's really not all that hard.  It only took us a few minutes to figure it out.  Now there is also the same arguments being made at the 432 Hz vs present 440 Hz frequencies.  Go figure.
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Gloucester, VA Officials Flawed Study That Raised Your Taxes

Are the taxes of Gloucester, VA residents artificially higher than they should be?  Are studies being manipulated to cause undue burdens of the local citizenry?  If so, what are those studies?  Can anything be done to correct these issues?

  What if we were to show you documentation that shows what looks to us like very serious flaws to down and outright abuse designed for the purpose of Gloucester County officials justifying their pay raises in the county as well as those of their friends within other departments of the county?  What if these studies were purposely padded to raise compensation for county staff to levels beyond what they should be getting paid and also justify continuing pay increases in a time when so many have not seen an increase in wages in years now?

  How many of you have gotten pay raises in the past several years?  Are you making more money now than you were before?  The answer to this question by the majority of people in Gloucester is that, no, they are not making more and they are not seeing pay raises or the pay raises are so tiny as not to even qualify for calling them a pay raise.

  What we are about to show you is the study that Gloucester officials commissioned, at taxpayer expense, to justify pay raises for certain county employees that is now paying employees at levels designed for city workers in large metropolitan areas.  How do we justify that claim?  It's in the report below.



Class and Comp Study Gloucester County, Virginia from Chuck Thompson

We want to draw your attention to page 8 which is chapter 2, Summary of Employee Outreach.  There is where you see what areas of the state were used to do the study comparisons.

James City County
City of Williamsburg
York County
City of Newport News
New Kent County
Mathews County
City of Fairfax
Fairfax County
College of William & Mary
Chesterfield County
Henrico County
City of Richmond
City of Poquoson
King William County

The above is the list straight out of this report.  Areas with much larger populations, budgets, industries and tax bases with which to draw upon.  How can a county such as Gloucester, with limited industry, low comparative tax base and a population just at around 37,200, justify being compared to the above list?

We can make a study say anything a client wants it to say.  Just tell us what end results you want to see and we can easily manipulate the information to read just that.  Is this what Evergreen did for Gloucester County officials to justify major pay increases for themselves at taxpayer expense?  The report is right here.  You be the judge.   
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Obama's Weekly Address: Expanding Opportunity for the American People (Feb 08, 2014)

Wilkinson, D’Amato Discuss Keystone Pipeline Controversy




News podcast from Bloomberg.  Should we bring in a pipeline from Canada to the US to refine oil?  Obama does not want to sign this even though there is no environmental impact issues.  Hey, we really do not need nor want anymore jobs here now do we?  We don't need any more money coming in to help pay the tax burdens we are all saddled with right?  Why should we do this?
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