They panted around a track so an eagle might soar in the air. Four hundred students at the Haddonfield (N.J.) Middle School raised $3,500 with a sponsored one-mile run to help New Jersey buy an eaglet to rebuild a native population depleted by pesticide use in the state.
There is only one breeding pair of bald eagles left in New Jersey, but state officials have been bringing baby eagles into the state to be raised so they will remain in the habitat as adults. The midde schoolers, the first citizen group to take an interest in the problem, are planning to raise additional funds to acquire a second eaglet.
Former Gov. William F. Winter of Mississippi, who lost his bid to unseat U.S. Senator Thad Cochran last November, is telling Mississipians what he thinks about state issues--including education reform--this month in a series of news commentaries for WJTV in Jackson.
Mr. Winter, who is credited with championing an unprecedented reform effort in a state traditionally ranked among the lowest on measures of education performance, said he planned to comment on the need to complete the reform drive, particularly its goal of raising teachers’ salaries across the board.
At the end of the month, Mr. Winter will travel to Harvard University, where he will begin a six-month fellowship at the John F. Kennedy School of Government. The former governor said he planned while there to do some writing and to teach a course on “the South.”
State Superintendent of Schools Harold H. Negley of Indiana has urged schools to adopt teacher-parent agreements in which individualized education plans are developed for young students who are performing below grade level.
“The teacher and the parent each will bring to the planning session unique perspectives about the child,” Mr. Negley said at a state- board meeting early this month. “Most important, it will serve to increase the parent’s knowledge of and support for the academic and developmental objectives of the teacher.”
Individualized education plans have been used for some time for handicapped children in Indiana, according to Joe DiLaura, a spokesman in the state department of education. Mr. Negley’s proposal calls for such plans to be used on a more informal level for children in grades K through 3.
Such a program would go hand in hand with the state’s Project Prime Time. That effort, now in its first year, attempts to reduce student-teacher ratios to 18 to 1 for students in the early grades.
