Teachers prevail in grading law suit

AUSTIN — Texas school districts no longer can force teachers to give students higher grades than they earned on class assignments or on their report cards, a Travis County judge ruled Monday.
Eleven districts — mostly in the Houston area — had sued Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott over his interpretation of the so-called truth-in-grading law that was passed last year. They argued it applied only to assignments and exams and were fighting to keep their policies that ban cumulative report card grades lower than a certain number, typically a 50.

The school districts suing were Aldine, Alief, Clear Creek, Deer Park, Dickinson, Fort Bend, Humble, Klein, Anahuac, Eanes and Livingston.

The superintendents say their minimum-grade policies help discourage students from dropping out by giving them a mathematical chance at passing a class, even if they blow one grading period. But teacher groups and the bill’s author, Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, counter that such policies are dishonest and don’t prepare students for college or the work force.
State District Judge Gisela Triana-Doyal ruled against the districts’ reading of the law, which effectively means that schools across Texas must abolish minimum-grading policies unless the decision is appealed and overturned. The state does not track how many districts have such policies.

May appeal
Richard Morris, the attorney for the school districts that filed the lawsuit, said he would consult with the superintendents about pursuing an appeal or trying to lobby the Legislature for a change.
The judge said the statute was “not ambiguous,” even though it didn’t specifically mention that it applied to cumulative six- or nine-week grades that appear on report cards. But Triana-Doyal emphasized she wasn’t opining whether the law was good or bad education policy, noting that both sides made valid points.

“People have different opinions about what’s in the best interest of kids,” she said.
Nelson, a former teacher, said the ruling was “a victory for Texas teachers, students and parents because now all grades — on class assignments and report cards — will accurately reflect how well students have mastered their course work.”

She said she doubted her colleagues would retreat from the law next session after unanimously passing her bill last year.
Dropout strategy

Clear Creek ISD Superintendent Greg Smith, the only school chief to testify, said the district’s minimum-grading policy has been an effective dropout strategy over the last 13 years. At one high school last year, he said, more than 30 students benefited from the policy and were able to pass.

Without the policy, he said, “I think you close the light at the end of the tunnel for some students.”
For example, if a student earned a 20 grade during one six weeks, he still would fail the semester if he earned a 90 the next two grading periods.

The Texas chapter of the American Federation of Teachers, which intervened in the case on the side of the Texas Education Agency, argued that minimum-grading policies take important authority away from teachers and are “not in the best interest of students in the long run.”
“I feel like it’s unethical,” Mary Roberts, a teacher in Humble ISD, testified about her district’s policy, which bans report card graders lower than a 50.
ericka.mellon@chron.com



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Recovery Effort in Gulf Expected to Continue Despite Storm

By JOSEPH BERGER

A tropical storm moving across the western Gulf of Mexico that is likely to strengthen into a hurricane is not expected to seriously disrupt efforts to capture oil gushing from the stricken BP well, officials of the Coast Guard and BP said Monday.

Adm. Thad W. Allen, of the Coast Guard, who is commanding the federal response to the disaster, said at an afternoon press conference that high seas produced by Tropical Storm Alex should not force the evacuation of rigs and other equipment from the blowout site, which is 50 miles off the Louisiana coast. Should an evacuation take place, he said, it could halt the work of collecting oil and drill relief wells for about 14 days.

“As it stands right now, absent the intervention of a hurricane, we’re still looking at mid-August," to have relief wells shut off the gusher entirely, Admiral Allen said.

However, BP officials said that what could be delayed, even by current wave heights, is an effort to prepare what is known as a “floating riser system” that will help raise the daily total of collected oil from, about 25,000 barrels to as much as 50,000 barrels. At a briefing Monday morning, Kent Wells, a senior vice president of BP who is overseeing BP’s efforts, said the storm is expected to follow a track that will take it well west of the blowout site, but it may produce waves of 10 to 12 feet, which Mr. Wells said was too high for the “very precise work” on the surface needed to prepare the floating riser system.

Mr. Wells said the containment cap and a second system that are collecting 25,000 barrels of oil a day would not need to be disconnected and the drilling of two relief wells should continue on schedule. The first relief well is supposed to pump in heavy mud and shut off the gusher sometime in August.

Tropical Storm Alex is on a course heading for northeastern Mexico and a stretch of Texas. Meteorologists at Accuweather.com said they are anticipating a landfall between Tampico, Mexico and Brownsville, Tex. Wednesday night or early Thursday.

Meanwhile Associated Press reported that BP had filed documents with the Securities and Exchange Commission that indicate the cost of capping and cleaning the spill have reached $2.65 billion. BP has lost more than $100 billion in market value since the drilling platform the company was operating blew up April 20. The costs include spill response, containment, relief well drilling, grants to gulf states, claims paid, and federal costs, but not a $20 billion fund for damages the company created this month.

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Alex may effect Gulf oil production ..

HOUSTON (Dow Jones)--Tropical Storm Alex, expected to become a hurricane Tuesday, seems to be headed on a path away from the bulk of the U.S. Gulf of Mexico's oil and gas production and refining infrastructure. But some production impact will be felt as one of the largest energy producers in the Gulf said Monday it was shutting down several platforms as a precaution.

Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSA) said it had pulled 700 workers from its Gulf operations, and some 835 workers remained offshore. The company is shutting in production from its Western and Central Gulf of Mexico assets to prepare for the potential full evacuation of personnel Tuesday. The company started pulling workers from the Gulf over the weekend. The company didn't specify how much production would be shut or how many platforms were being evacuated.

At 11 a.m. EDT, Alex was located about 85 miles west-northwest of Campeche, Mexico, in the western Gulf of Mexico, and was heading towards southern Texas and northern Mexico. Most U.S. offshore oil and gas platforms are located in the eastern part of the Gulf, far from Alex's forecast path.

Alex "is not likely to have a major impact on production or refining in the U.S.," Doug MacIntyre, senior analyst at the Energy Information Administration, told Dow Jones Newswires Monday. "Alex's current path appears to avoid most of the oil and gas production platforms and any of the major refining centers."

Energy markets Monday seemed to take the storm in stride. Light, sweet crude for August delivery ended 61 cents lower at $78.25 a barrel a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Natural gas for July delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange settled 2.96% lower at $4.717 million British thermal units.

Gulf producers Apache Corp. (APA), Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM), and Anadarko Petroleum Corp. (APC) also said Monday they have started evacuating non-essential workers from the offshore facilities expected to be in the path of the storm but none have so far reported any impact to their production.

BP PLC (BP, BP.LN) said Monday it pulled non-essential personnel from three offshore facilities in the the Gulf, and that production was not affected. The company evacuated workers from Atlantis, Mad Dog and Holstein platforms.

Alex may delay BP PLC's plans to increase the amount of oil collected from a leaking well in the Gulf by a week, a company official said Monday.

While the storm's winds are expected to stay far to the west of the Deepwater Horizon spill, high seas are likely to become an issue this week, said Kent Wells, a senior vice president with BP, in a press briefing. Waves up to between 10 feet and 12 feet would prevent BP from hooking a third rig up to an underwater containment system, a process that needs three days of good weather, Wells said.

Two rigs, the Discoverer Enterprise and Q4000, are already collecting between 20,000 and 25,000 barrels of oil a day from the well, which has gushed ever since a rig working at the site caught fire and sank in April.

Chevron Corp. (CVX) and ConocoPhillips (COP) said that they have not evacuated workers, but that they are closely monitoring the forecast for Alex.

A hurricane watch was issued for parts of the south Texas Gulf coastline area and parts of northern Mexico, the National Hurricane Center reported Monday on its website.

The NHC, in its advisory, also said Alex likely will become a hurricane Tuesday and has increased in strength, now with winds of 60 miles per hour.

The watch area for the U.S. extends from south of Baffin Bay to the mouth of the Rio Grande in Texas, with Mexico issuing a hurricane watch from the Rio Grande to La Cruz.


-By Isabel Ordonez, Dow Jones Newswires; 713-547-9207; isabel.ordonez@dowjones.com

(Brian Baskin and Angel Gonzalez contributed to this article

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Triple the love 3 sets of triplets born on same day mark a milestone - turning 1

By JENNIFER LATSON
HOUSTON CHRONICLE
June 21, 2010, 6:39AM

Brett Coomer Chronicle

BY THE NUMBERS
At 1 year old, each set of triplets has gone through roughly:
7,300 diapers
4,745 bottles of formula
730 loads of laundry
$18,000 in expenses, not including nanny services or one-time costs such as strollers, cribs, etc.
Source: estimates by the three families

They didn't unwrap ties or enjoy breakfast in bed — no time for that. They didn't even get a day off from diaper duty: When you change 20 or more a day, there's never a break from diapers. But for three Houston-area dads, Father's Day brought at least three big reasons to celebrate.
Hugo Estrada, Justin Lacombe and Troy Elmore each spent the holiday with their own set of triplets, all born just over a year ago on the same day - June 11. In the past year, their triple-bundles of joy have taught them lessons about patience and time management. On Father's Day, the dads said the greatest gift was that their babies are healthy and thriving.

"We've come a long way," said Elmore, who doesn't even remember last Father's Day. He was caring for his oldest daughter, 5-year-old Brooke, while his wife remained hospitalized and the triplets - Reagan, Paige and Kara - were in intensive care after being born six weeks premature.
This Father's Day, Elmore played with all four girls in a corral constructed of couches at his mother-in-law's Deer Park home. He and his wife, Heather, are staying here while they have a home built in Friendswood.

"From them being in the hospital last year to having our dream house built - it's a great Father's Day," Elmore said.
Today, the staff who cared for all three families at The Woman's Hospital of Texas will host a birthday party for the babies, who weighed between 3 and 5 pounds when they were born at 34 weeks, all by cesarean section.
Parents are a team
Though the mothers get credit for most of the hard work in bringing the babies into the world - each endured some form of bed rest before the babies were born and suffered complications from high blood pressure to partial paralysis - the fathers do their share of the daily work of triplet-rearing.

"We're outnumbered," Stephanie Lacombe said. "You kind of have to work on it as a team."
At bathtime, one parent holds the babies while the other washes, she said, then one dries and one puts on the diapers. At meals, one parent prepares the food and the other one feeds it to the babies.

Now that the triplets sleep for longer stretches and eat less frequently, it's a little easier, said Justin Lacombe, the father of a girl and two boys: Emma, Noah and Carter.
"The first three months was a blur. We did feedings every three hours, and the feedings take 30 to 45 minutes," Lacombe said. "I don't even know how we made it on three to four hours of sleep a night, not to mention teething and reflux."

The trick is a combination of military discipline and laissez-faire flexibility: You have to schedule strictly and plan diligently but not be fazed when nothing goes according to plan.

"We just try to say it's controlled chaos," Lacombe said. "It's like working security at a rock concert: Even if they're all screaming, it doesn't matter. It's all fun."
Babies in rhythm
Some things are easier with triplets. They can entertain each other endlessly, and their biological clocks tend to sync up: They eat at the same times and nap at the same times, which is when parents can catch a rare moment of quiet.

"It's a lot of work, but I enjoy every minute of it," said Estrada, who spent Father's Day watching his three boys - Robert, Brian and Anthony - play at their Porter home while the TV broadcast a World Cup game.

"Last year the babies were still in the hospital. I wanted to hug them, but they were in the incubator and couldn't be touched," he said. "Now we can hug and play and everything."
jennifer.latson@chron.com

Texas governor says state a model for clean air

(AP) – Jun 2, 2010
DEER PARK, Texas — Texas Gov. Rick Perry says the state should not be threatened with a takeover of its air quality program but instead be lauded as the poster child for regulating pollution.
At a news conference Wednesday in a Houston suburb, Perry said the federal government should stop what he called a "power grab" by the Environmental Protection Agency. Last week, the EPA's regional director threatened to remove Texas' regulatory authority by midsummer if the state fails to comply with the Clean Air Act.

The state and EPA disagree over the way Texas issues emissions permits.
Standing inside a warehouse that makes fluid sealing products for the petrochemical industry, Perry said the Texas program for permitting pollutants from petrochemical plants has helped improve air quality.

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Armand Bayou Nature Center to host artist exhibit

By Armand Bayou Nature Center
Special to The Daily News
Published June 2, 2010

PASADENA — Four artists will show their work at the Armand Bayou Nature Center’s Second Saturday event from 10 a.m. to noon June 12.

At 11 a.m., wildlife artist and author Doug Hiser will discuss how an idea becomes a piece of art with his slide presentation, “From Pencil to Paint — Wildlife Art — ALIVE.”

Hiser, the author of 18 books, is working on a book from A to Z of unusual animal close-up portraits. His website, art-escape.com, has 14 galleries showcasing his work.

Nassau Bay resident Kelly Halbach has been sketching since she first picked up a pencil as a child on a West Texas dairy farm.

Her paintings reflect her travels in South Africa, Europe, New Mexico, the Southwest United States and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.

Now living on the Texas Coast, she’s inspired by the shorebirds and scenery found along the coastline and birding trails.

Her website is kellyhalbachart.com.

James D. Phillips was taught to draw as a child by his mother, Geraldine Bova Phillips, but it was only four years ago when he taught himself to sculpt.

He’s becoming a celebrity as an artist who turns the remains of trees lost in Hurricane Ike into works of art. He prefers marine life subjects.

Award-winning Bejat McCracken, a muralist, photographer and nature artist, spent her early childhood on a small farm in Ohio.

She travels often to the Ecuadorean Amazon to paint. Some of her work can be seen at the Bradford Gallery in Kemah.

For more about her art, visit her website at bejat.com.

There also will be activities for young artists to add their personal touch to line drawings by Hiser.

A door prize drawing will be held for one of Hiser’s prints.

There also will be a guided trail hike through the forest.

Admission is free to members, $3 for nonmember adults and $1 for children ages 4-12 and seniors 60 and older.

Call 281-474-2551.


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