Phillip E. Runkel, Michigan’s state superintendent of public instruction, has been reappointed under a new three-year agreement. Mr. Runkel’s first three-year contract with the state board of education was to expire in April 1983; the new contract extends his term until Oct. 1, 1985.
Under the new agreement, Mr. Runkel may leave with six months’ notice.
John. B. Slaughter, who as director of the National Science Foundation has presided over the elimination of the federal government’s major precollege science-education programs, is leaving the foundation to become chancellor of the University of Maryland.
Mr. Slaughter, an engineer and a former vice president of Washington State University, will leave after two years of the six-year term to which he was appointed by President Carter.
He has been highly praised by scientists and educators for his management of the foundation, despite his endorsement of President Rea-gan’s budget cuts, including the elimination of elementary- and secondary-school science programs. Some funds for precollege science-education programs may be restored by Congress.
Jared C. Roach performed well enough on the Scholastic Aptitude Test--with combined scores of 1,300 out of a possible 1,600--to gain admission to most selective colleges. The only hitch is that he is in seventh grade.
Jared, who attends Hillcrest Middle School in Fayetteville, N.C., was the top scorer among 18,000 seventh graders who took the sat this year as part of Duke University’s annual Talent Identification Program. The project seeks to identify the brightest seventh graders in 16 Southern and Midwestern states and to steer them toward programs for the gifted and talented.
Hundreds of other youngsters who participated in the project outperformed the average college-bound high-school senior. Dan Z. Anafi, of Jefferson Davis Middle School in West Palm Beach, Fla., obtained 790 out of a possible 800 points in mathematics, compared to 424 for the average senior. And Hugh A. Hinton scored 710 out of 800 on the verbal section of the test. The average for seniors last year was 466.
Jared, incidentally, is the second North Carolinian in a row to earn the top composite sat score in the Duke project.
