MONDAY, AUGUST 15.2005
NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN 23A
Orientation
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Services and Rio de Janeiro native who went through this orientation in 1999.
On Wednesday, the students waited in a long line for vaccinations, filling the lobby of Watkins Health Center with noise.
"They're smiling after three hours in line," said Henrik Christensen, the coordinator of the orientation week.
Shravan Suresh Arora, a
freshman from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, laughed with new friends from India and South America.
"I learned how to say 'good morning' in six different languages," he said.
Standing several people in front of him, Noriko Shibata, the Tokyo student who brought candy, wore a Band-Aid on her left arm.
She'd already received her vaccinations but didn't want to leave the side of two French friends.
One of them, a graduate student from Paris named Hanane Zraiaa, tried to explain what the week meant.
"There are a lot of things," she said. "I met a lot of new friends from other countries. It's very ..."
"... exciting." Shibata interjected.
And as she chatted and nodded her head fastidiously with Zraiaa, Shibata smiled, happy in a new land.
Edited by Alison Peterson
Wrath
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When he finally arrived in Newark, N.J., after a five-hour layover in Paris, he saw his two suitcases for the first time in days. When they came around on the baggage claim, they were drenched.
"Water was dripping off my suitcase," he said.
From there he flew to Kansas
City, Mo., and caught a shuttle to Lawrence. He met up with his roommate, whom he knew from India, laid his belongings in the sun outside their apartment to dry, and slept for 14 hours, he said.
Last week at the University of Kansas' New International Student Orientation, Srinivasan won a contest for logging the most travel hours to the United States: more than 60. He won a coffee mug.
Prashanth Rengaswamy Chandran, another graduate student from Chennai, had left three days before Srinivasan and avoided the delays. Chandran laughed when he saw how Srinivasan's trip ended.
"I saw his books all dried up outside his house," Chandran said, grinning.
K-12 EDUCATION
States fight reforms
—Edited by Becca Evanhoe
"It was fate," he said.
TOPEKA — President Bush and Congress pushed education reforms in 2001 with passage of the No Child Left Behind Act. Three years after the law was signed, states are beginning to push back.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Kansas could be next.
Viewed as an unfunded, unrealistic goal, state officials say the act is a lawsuit waiting to happen. As more schools fall short of achievement goals, more parents and administrators will challenge states, not the federal government, to increase spending to boost test scores.
Kansas is in the throes of a lawsuit filed before No Child Left Behind was passed. That lawsuit has cost the state $290 million and the total could go higher. No one knows what complying with NCLB will cost.
"There's probably not enough money in the state of Kansas to attain 100 percent proficiency," said Sen. John Vratil, R-Leawood.
Vratil was part of a national legislative task force that looked at the effects of No Child Left Behind. The group concluded that, while laudable, the goal was unrealistic for student achievement. In addition, the task force argued that the law stymies states like Kansas that have been on the forefront of academic reforms.
Kansas launched its reforms in 1992 with passage of a new school finance formula. The system revamped the way schools were accredited, judging schools on the continuous improvement of their students. Steve Abrams, chairman of the State Board of Education, said changes pushed Kansas ahead of other states.
Abrams said Kansas students
consistently score well compared to peers on national exams.
"I would guess 98 percent of it is because of what we have been doing for the past 10 years," Abrams said.
But the federal law doesn't recognize those accomplishments and grants states that are making progress little flexibility.
Vratil and Attorney General Phill Kline urged the board to consider changing its treatment of the federal goals as they relate to state accreditation standards. They asked the board to make 100 percent proficiency a goal, easing pressure to meet the 2014 deadline and giving state policymakers more flexibility over spending decisions.
The national task force also recommends tweaking the law, including recognizing that a one-size-fits-all approach is flawed.
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