Nannies4hireA blog for Nannies and Families

Published Online: February 21, 2012 Published in Print: February 22, 2012, as Providers Fear new Head Start Rules Could mean a Shake Out for the Field Pupils and teachers walk through the neighborhood surrounding the Head Start program at the Congressman George Miller Children’s Center in Richmond, Calif. Though well-regarded, the agency that runs the center must compete for its federal funds this year due to new program rules. —Ramin Rahimian for Education Week Premium article access courtesy of Edweek.org.

Concerns are mounting that strict new federal rules meant to improve the quality of Head Start preschool services for poor children could drive good providers out of business, as scores of Head Start programs begin to face the specter of losing the federal funding they have received for decades.

Under regulations that were announced late last year by President Barack Obama, agencies that fall short of the new federal quality standards for the Head Start program have to compete with other potential providers for funding, rather than automatically qualifying for it. the federal Office of Head Start announced in late December that 132 of the roughly 1,600 local providers of Head Start across the nation had failed to meet that quality bar and, for the first time ever, must compete.

The organizations cited—most of them county and city agencies, public school systems, or large, community-based organizations in 38 states, plus Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands—make up the first group of grantees to be tapped for “recompetition” under new rules that will force at least 25 percent of Head Start providers evaluated for quality in any given year to vie for funding against other providers in their communities. those rules, which took effect in December, mandate Head Start programs to set and use school-readiness goals that include children’s achievement and progress in literacy development, cognition, and general knowledge; approaches to learning, physical well-being, and motor development; and social and emotional development.

Three-year-old Anahi Ruiz-Moncada works on the computer in her Head Start classroom in Richmond, Calif. the agency that oversees her program is among 132 Head Start providers nationwide that must recompete for federal funding this year. —Ramin Rahimian for Education Week

The two largest Head Start programs in the nation—those administered by the Los Angeles County Office of Education and the new York City Administration for Children’s Services—are among the 132 that must compete for their continued funding in the coming months. Winners are likely to be announced in late summer.

While federal Head Start officials contend the new rules will weed out low performers and raise overall quality, some advocates and program directors worry that the regulations will ensnare otherwise strong programs for shortcomings that don’t add up to pervasive, systemic problems.

“It seems this has become as much about punishing programs that have broken some rules as it is about seeking out actual poor-performing programs,” said Barbara S. Haxton, the executive director of the Ohio Head Start Association. “This is a scenario where a single human error can land a very good program on this list.”

In this first round, Ohio has 10 agencies that must compete for their funding to continue, second only to Virginia, which has 11 agencies on the list. new York is in third place with nine grantees.

Begun in 1964 as part of the federal “war on poverty,” the $7.6 billion federal Head Start program serves close to 1 million infants, toddlers, and preschoolers from low-income families. President Obama’s proposed budget for fiscal 2013 would increase Head Start funding to $8 billion.

Until now, competition has not been part of the program, which is administered by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. often, the local agencies that run the programs have held a virtual monopoly on the federal grant money, and there have long been concerns that quality across the programs is uneven.

The Office of Head Start has already released “grant forecasts” to show that it may award multiple grants in areas where one entity has long been the sole grantee. In the communities currently served by the Los Angeles County Office of Education Head Start programs, for example, the forecast is to award from one to 24 grants.

But in some communities, it’s not clear there will be a pool of viable competitors to seek some or all of the grant funding against the current grant-holding agencies, said Samuel J. Meisels, the president of the Chicago-based Erikson Institute, a graduate school focused exclusively on child development.

Pupil Melany Parra, 4, reads at the Miller center. —Ramin Rahimian for Education Week

“I have not seen on a national level that there are many providers, either for-profit or nonprofit, that are going to want to come in and take over these programs as new grantees,” mr. Meisels said.

But Ms. Haxton of Ohio expects new players to emerge to compete with agencies in her state.

A chief concern among providers, Ms. Haxton said, is the possible disruption in services for children enrolled in programs that lose their funding.

“It could mean that children will have to move to new programs in the middle of the school year with new teachers, new surroundings, and new relationships,” she said.

Kenneth J. Wolfe, a Health and Human Services Department spokesman, said in an email that the “goal is to minimize the disruption of services to children and families in all grantee transitions. the president’s budget requests resources specifically around those transitions.”

In Contra Costa County, Calif., a federal review conducted in October 2009 resulted in a “deficiency” that has now put the Head Start program run by the county’s community-services agency on the list of organizations that must compete. A deficiency is a serious violation of the Head Start law and is defined as a “systemic or substantial material failure of an agency” that involves threats to health and safety, misuse of funds, and/or several other performance areas.

Contra Costa serves 2,200 children in its Head Start and Early Head Start programs, said Camilla Rand, the director of the county’s community-services agency. It directly operates 18 child-care centers and has partnerships with other providers to offer Head Start services at 13 additional locations in the county, in the San Francisco Bay Area. according to Rick Mockler, the executive director of the California Head Start Association, Contra Costa’s program is widely viewed as one of the state’s most exemplary, especially for its partnerships with community organizations that serve parts of the county where there are no county-run centers.

The agency’s deficiency finding stems in part from an incident at one such partner-run Early Head Start center that serves the children of teenage mothers at a high school in Richmond, Calif., Ms. Rand said. the reviewer who visited that center reported that children were allowed to cry “in excess of 60 minutes and that their needs were not responded to,” Ms. Rand said. two Contra Costa County Head Start staff members who accompanied this reviewer saw a “very different story,” she said.

Staff members were preparing bottles during breakfast time, but took longer than usual because they had no bottle warmers, Ms. Rand said. “There were children who were crying because they were hungry,” Ms. Rand said. “But to say it went on for 60 minutes was completely outrageous.”

At one of the county’s own centers, a reviewer said that two children who got up from their mats at nap time were “forced to lie back down,” Ms. Rand said. “Our staff … said these two children were guided back to their mats and encouraged to lie down.”

The two incidents added up to the deficiency finding. the county appealed it, but the finding was upheld by federal Head Start officials, Ms. Rand said.

Mr. Wolfe did not directly address the Contra Costa situation but said that a deficiency finding “can be the result of only one incident—if that singular incident is of itself extremely serious.”

“They did find two issues that they were unhappy with,” Ms. Rand said, “but they were in no way a systemic problem.”

During the same federal review process, the county’s Head Start classrooms were evaluated by reviewers who used the Classroom Assessment Scoring system, or CLASS-Pre-K, which uses observations to gauge teacher-child interactions that research has shown are associated with “positive child development and later achievement.” By that measure—which will be used to evaluate all Head Start programs under the new rules—Contra Costa surpassed the national average, Ms. Rand said.

Providers are anxious that being designated to recompete is a disadvantage. mr. Wolfe said that designation is not an “adverse action” and that providers on the recompete list “are fully eligible” to take part in the competition.

Vol. 31, Issue 21, Pages 22-23

<a href="http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/02/22/21headstart.h31.html?tkn=PYUFHmKYF78XOlHLhX3YeIAvh1n9czBLz%2FqF&cmp=clp-edweektag:news.google.com,2005:cluster=http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/02/22/21headstart.h31.html?tkn=PYUFHmKYF78XOlHLhX3YeIAvh1n9czBLz/qF”>Head Start Providers Stand to Lose Funding

GODFREY – Recognizing the importance of early childhood education, Faith Lutheran Church reopened a preschool program last September, after closing their former school in 2009.”We knew there was a need for a preschool, and we already had the facility. so we thought this would be a good use of them,” Preschool Board Director Gene Bollefer said. “We had the overwhelming support of our board and congregation when we introduced the idea.”The population in the former grade school had dwindled to the point that multiple grade levels would have needed to be combined into one classroom.”We didn’t want to be a burden to our congregation,” Bollefer said. “We thought it would be wiser to start at the ground level and have an excellent preschool.”The first step in the process was to renovate the existing classrooms to make them brighter and to create a more open atmosphere.The next step was to research the kind of playground that would best suit student needs and enlist the help of church volunteers to put it together. They created distinct play areas, including a hill for students to roll on, a playhouse for creative dramatics, an outdoor classroom used for science and art projects, and a riding track for bikes.As the vision began to take shape, Director Tracy Wiggenhorn was hired to share teaching and administrative duties with Nicole Pruett, both of whom are certified teachers.Twenty children currently are enrolled, with 11 3-year-olds in the two-mornings-a-week classroom and nine 4-year-olds in the three-mornings-a-week classroom. Classes meet for three hours, starting at 8:30 a.m.”Our main goals for curriculum are to encourage the children’s growth – spiritually, intellectually, physically, socially and emotionally – by providing them with a nurturing, stimulating environment in an atmosphere of Christian love,” Wiggenhorn said.Faith is interwoven in activities, with time given to talking about Bible stories.”We have a daily Jesus time,” she said. “We learn a scripture verse each month.”Pastor Kelly Mitteis, who has a musical background, comes into the classrooms once a week to give a music lesson, more often than not leading the children in song.In celebration of National Lutheran School Week, the school hosted a family reading day on Tuesday morning, among other activities scheduled throughout the week.to make reading especially enjoyable, Wiggenhorn arranged for two therapy dogs from Touched by a Canine to visit.”I’m going to read about a puppy dog to a puppy dog!” exclaimed Addison Gresham, 4, who sat next to a Maltese named Lily to read, “Who says Woof?”Godfrey Mayor Mike McCormick stopped by to read “I Like Myself” and to invite the children to tour Village Hall.”We try to expose the kids to experiences they might not otherwise have, such as being with pets,” Bollefer said. “But the focus today is really on reading, and it’s good that we have so many parents participating.”For more information, call (618) 466-3833.kbassett@thetelegraph.com

<a href="http://www.thetelegraph.com/news/week-66930-preschool-classroom.htmltag:news.google.com,2005:cluster=http://www.thetelegraph.com/news/week-66930-preschool-classroom.htmlTue, 06 Mar 2012 21:19:02 GMT”>Church revives preschool program

Drop the nice princess act, Julia, and reveal the ice queen inside. Voters might not love it, but they will believe it.

Occasionally, like sun breaking through the clouds, we get a sense of authenticity from the public Julia Gillard.

It’s when she drops the polite routine and gets brutal.

You see it at press conferences, when she turns, frowns and icily eviscerates some plonker who keeps asking the same question.

It pops out in question Time, when she sets her irises to stun and delivers a glare across the despatch box that could turn Julie Bishop to a tiny pile of dry shampoo and perfume dust.

Suddenly, Gillard seems quick and direct and honest.

She seems like a tough nut.

And it works – because it appears more genuine than her other public persona: nice Julia.

The strange part is, Gillard is actually nice. She’s warm and fun and interesting. but there’s the crazy intersection of political leadership contests: it’s not enough to actually be nice.

You have to be able to effectively fake being nice in public, when there’s a jerky autocue rolling in front of you and a microphone cable snaking out of your bra.

And this is the funny thing about the present personality choice in front of Labor’s caucus: Julia Gillard does best when she pretends to be mean, and Kevin Rudd prospers by pretending to be nice.

Problem is, Rudd is by far the better actor.

According to people who have worked with both leaders over their years in pubic life, Rudd is difficult and testy in private, but travels best with the public when he’s being charming and hokey.

He is very similar to John Howard in that regard; avuncular and self-consciously goofy when he’s on show at the school fete, but laser-focused and direct in a professional setting.

When Gillard tries to make jokes or yack it up, the overall impression is unsettling and somehow unseemly — like finding yourself trapped at the bus stop with the principal.

Everyone feels just a little bit uncomfortable.

So if Gillard is nice, according to those who know her, and Rudd isn’t, why does the general public have the completely opposite impression?

Why do they think Rudd is a great bloke and Julia is, well, a bit of a bitch?

Because, to put it frankly, Gillard is not a very good actor. She doesn’t read a script very well. She smiles at all the wrong moments, and keeps the smile fixed in place, like a toddler beauty queen, for way too long. when she’s in a daycare centre or a cake-shop trying to do jokey familiarity, the impression is oddly detached, as though she’s a silent-film actor or she’s trapped inside a Dorothy the Dinosaur suit.

She has trouble concealing the effects of her media training – as in her pronunciation of the word "Australia". at some point, most public figures are coached out of saying "Straya" and encouraged to clearly enunciate the first syllable, as in ‘Osstralia". The idea is that the first dipthong flattens to a nice comfy "uh". Gillard hasn’t got there yet, and presumably never will.

I know all that sounds trivial. but if you follow Gillard around in public, or talk to people about her, that’s what you hear: she speaks funny. She sounds wooden. She seems fake.

The fakeness they’re talking about is actually Gillard’s inability to act.

She simply can’t slip off one identity and pop into another.

Rudd has never had that problem.

The would-be prime minister has two distinct modes: the chummy, fun guy you see in the shopping malls. That’s Kevin 07, the popular family guy who is smart, interesting, engaging. He’s fun to be around. He speaks Swedish and he likes meat pies. And he writes kids‘ books.

The other side is PM Kevin — the maniacally driven man behind the big mahogany desk. He plots and snipes against his colleagues. He savages his opponents. He keeps senior bureaucrats waiting for hours upon hours for a moment in his presence. He demands officials fly around the country, and in some cases, the world, to give him a briefing, which he may or may not end up having the time or patience to hear.

He plays both roles to perfection. You’d never fault Kevin’s chumminess and sense of fun, when you see him in full flight. when he’s in work-mode, according to those who have worked with him, he’s very convincing as a ruthless psycho-boss.

This is the Rudd we saw in last weekend’s leaked YouTube video. there he is on camera, failing again and again to complete what is an admittedly difficult task – reading a complex script from an autocue. What’s his reaction? to blame others. It’s the department’s fault for writing such tricky language.

It’s the Chinese interpreter. It’s the embassy. It’s all too much – and, he says, it is everyone’s fault but his.

Sure, that’s a select edit — and we may never know if it were released by Gillard’s office or the Prime Minister’s department or some disgruntled ex-staffer or, maybe, just maybe, by Rudd himself, looking for an opportunity to send the caucus a message that he’s a changed man these days. Maybe there were big chunks of video edited out of the final cut, where Rudd said: "Gee, I keep f. . .ing this up. Sorry guys. It’s my fault. I’ll get it right this time."

But Rudd hasn’t said that in his own defence. all he has said is that he has never claimed to be perfect, and that he is trying hard to moderate his swearing. He hasn’t said that he has a reputation for treating people appallingly, or that he wishes he had not been such a martinet to staff and underlings in the past.

Kevin Rudd is not the first maniac to be elected prime minister. Simon Crean said recently that the Labor Party had a long and proud history of not electing "prima donnas" to be leader.

Righto – except for Paul Keating, Bob Hawke, Gough Whitlam, Bill Hayden. Anyway, if you don’t have a bit of prima donna in you, you probably aren’t leadership material.

Let’s just recap some of the yarns that have been verified about Rudd’s grumpy or nasty behaviour: that he once made an RAAF crew member cry because she didn’t have a hot meal ready on a long flight; that he had a tantrum because there was no hairdryer for him in Afghanistan; that when Labor was in opposition, he routinely worked with the Liberals to feed the media damaging information against one of his supposed colleagues in the then-Labor opposition, shadow foreign minister Laurie Brereton. Rudd denied that — but Brereton did not.

But you do not hear stories like that about Julia Gillard.

There are occasional accounts of white-hot fury, like when Andrew Wilkie accused her of trashing democracy, and when journalists have recirculated hoary old stories about her personal life. She’s been accused of backgrounding against party rivals. but there aren’t any yarns about Gillard screaming at staff or throwing things across the office.

Should we care? does it matter if someone is a nice person or not, or a good boss?

Not if you look at the opinion polls.

The Australians who talk to Galaxy and Newspoll don’t seem to care about any of those stories.

So Kevin’s a maniac, but he’s our maniac.

The voters elected him as Kevin 07. sure, it might have been a disastrous tactical error by the Labor Party to name the campaign after one man (surely they should have been able to foresee that he might develop a teeny tiny ego problem with that kind of branding), but it happened.

Many Australians like Rudd because they think what they see in public is real.

If Gillard holds on to the leadership and goes to the next election, she will have to drop any effort to act. She must admit she just can’t pull it off.

What she can do is be firm and direct — stop trying to play the nice suburban footy-mad next-door neighbour, and start being the ferocious lawyer who knows how to get the charges dropped.

Voters won’t ever like the public Gillard, however unfair that seems, but they might be persuaded she’s smart and tough and ruthless.

She might be a bitch, but she’d be our bitch.

Now, it’s her only chance.

claireharveysunday@gmail.com

<a href="http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/when-the-going-gets-tough/story-e6frezz0-1226281529133tag:news.google.com,2005:cluster=http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/when-the-going-gets-tough/story-e6frezz0-1226281529133Sat, 25 Feb 2012 13:15:10 GMT”>When the going gets tough…

Within minutes he had munched on a banana, downed a cup of java, grabbed his egg bagel and backpack and was in the car on his way to the bus stop with his father. by 6:12 a.m. he was boarding the bus, and by 7:17 a.m., whether ready to learn or not, Jones was in his pre-calculus class at South River High School in Anne Arundel County.

Such early classes have always been part of life for high school students, but a group of five Anne Arundel mothers is trying to launch a national movement to push back the start time of high schools, saying the health, safety and educational achievement of their children is at stake.

Gioia Mapp, Jones’ mother, says it is inhumane to ask teens to go to school at a time when researchers say their biological clocks tell them they should still be in bed. on Wednesday, the mothers joined parents from Fairfax County, Va., at the Capitol in Washington to begin dropping off a petition with 5,000 signatures from around the country to members of Congress from Maryland and Virginia.

They have also begun contacting state lawmakers to try to spur a movement for change if they fail to get national legislation.

School systems have resisted attempts to make start times later, saying it would be too costly and would interfere with athletic and after-school activities. Many suburban school systems use their buses three times each morning, picking up high school students first, then middle-schoolers and then the youngest pupils. High schools in the Baltimore area begin between 7:17 a.m. and 7:45 a.m., though the city, which does not have buses, has high schools that begin as late as 9 a.m.

“This schedule is just not natural. it stresses me out,” said Ella Andersen Madsen, a ninth-grader at Annapolis High School.

Jones said that when he gets out of bed, “I am in this state of half-asleep, half-awake, running on autopilot.”

At the bus stop Wednesday, as he stood with seven other students, the sun had not risen. One boy jumped out of a minivan, his mother behind the wheel, still in her pajamas and polka-dot bathrobe.

In his first-period class, Jones said, “more often than not I find myself falling asleep and waking up and not understanding what the teacher is talking about anymore.”

Parents and students have long chafed at the early start times, but research in the past decade has supported their criticism. Changes in the circadian rhythms during adolescence mean that teens have difficulty falling asleep before 11 p.m or waking up early. their deepest sleep is usually at 7 a.m.

In September, the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank, published a paper that said making middle and high school start times later would increase student achievement.

“The biological evidence is pretty darn clear,” said Jonah Rockoff, a professor at the Columbia Business School who was one of the authors of the Brookings paper. A study of Air Force cadets who were randomly assigned classes, he said, showed that students who were assigned early morning classes not only didn’t perform as well in the early classes, but their grades overall were lower than those of students assigned to later classes.

“We still see very large negative effects of having the early start time and not just in the class that starts early but across all classes,” said Rockoff, who contends that the cost of changing bus schedules would be worth the gain for students.

“It is like asking an adult to rise at 4 in the morning,” said Heather Macintosh, one of the mothers who is leading the Arundel effort and says her daughter’s alarm clock goes off at 5:20 a.m. “Our school schedule is just such a bad match for our teenagers’ circadian rhythms.”

Sleep deprivation, she said, has been linked to depression, weight gain, thoughts of suicide and risky behavior in teens. And high school students who drive to school early in the morning or walk to school in the dark are more apt to have accidents.

Terra Ziporyn Snider, a medical writer and mother of a junior at Severna Park High, said she began working on the issue years ago when her eldest children were in high school. A group of Annapolis and Severna Park parents advocated that the start time be pushed back, but lost on a 4-4 vote by the Anne Arundel school board in 2006.

Snider said the effort was renewed recently when five mothers got together to found start School Later, using social media such as Facebook and Twitter and collecting signatures for the petition. They have a website: startschoollater.net.

<a href="http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2012-03-07/news/bs-md-school-start-times-20120307_1_anne-arundel-mothers-school-systems-student-achievementtag:news.google.com,2005:cluster=http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2012-03-07/news/bs-md-school-start-times-20120307_1_anne-arundel-mothers-school-systems-student-achievementThu, 08 Mar 2012 19:58:38 GMT”>How early is too early for high-schoolers?

Return to video Help with videos Streaming media

Websites in the Fairfax Digital Network offer streaming video and audio in the Flash format. Streaming media allows you to watch video on a website as a continuous feed, as opposed to waiting for an entire audio or video file to download to your computer before you can use it.

Download the software

To play a video or multimedia clip, you need to have the Flash player installed. You can download one for most systems (including Mac OS X) for free if one is not already installed on your system.

Which Speed?

Our automated system will test your connection speed and send the best video stream so it plays smoothly and continuously.

Alternatively, you can manually choose the speed setting that corresponds most closely with your network connection. we produce clips in a range of speeds to deliver the best quality possible– the better the quality the faster connection you’ll need.

<a href="http://media.theage.com.au/news/national-news/babysitter-charged-with-manslaughter-3104047.htmltag:news.google.com,2005:cluster=http://media.theage.com.au/news/national-news/babysitter-charged-with-manslaughter-3104047.htmlTue, 06 Mar 2012 21:56:32 GMT”>Video – Mining boom hiding a soft economy – The Age

SANTA ANA – A widower blinked back tears Monday as he testified how in 1988 he returned home from work and found his young, pregnant wife tied up on the bedroom floor with a belt around her neck, a stab wound in her chest and cold to the touch.

“How could this be?” Kent Gibbons told a Superior Court jury he remembered thinking. “How could she be lying on the floor? did she fall? did she hurt herself?”

Gibbons said he frantically tried to untie his wife and revive her, but soon realized that she was dead. “I remember sitting there for maybe a minute wondering what happened, wondering how this could happen … and then I immediately called 911.”

He was the first witness in the trial of Jason Michael Balcom, 42, a convicted rapist who is charged with the special-circumstances murder of Malinda Godfrey Gibbons, who was sexually assaulted, strangled and stabbed on July 18, 1988, in the Costa Mesa apartment she shared with her husband.

Deputy District Attorney Matt Murphy contends that Balcom, who had just been released from Orange County Juvenile Hall, murdered Gibbons during the commission of a sexual assault, a robbery and a burglary – special circumstances that could lead to a death sentence.

Malinda Gibbons was 22 and pregnant when she and Kent Gibbons moved into the Mediterranean Village on Harbor Boulevard. she was planning to be a stay-at-home mom while her husband of 1&frac12; years started his new job as an engineer at Western Digital Corp. in Irvine.

But three days later, Kent Gibbons returned home from work and found his wife dead in the bedroom, dressed in a sweatsuit and bound with his belt and neckties. she had been robbed of her wedding ring, watch, purse and a calculator.

Murphy told the jury in his opening statement Monday that Balcom stood outside the apartment watching Malinda Gibbons before deciding to act. the prosecutor said Balcom somehow gained entrance to the one-bedroom apartment, perhaps by knocking on the door, and then he “punched her in the face, tied her hands together, put a belt around her neck, stabbed her in the heart …” and sexually assaulted her.

Balcom was living in a Costa Mesa motel less than a mile from the Gibbons’ apartment complex. he became a suspect in the Gibbons case early on after he was arrested and charged with similar sexual assaults in Santa Ana and Michigan.

There was insufficient evidence to file charges against Balcom in 1988, and the case went cold. But in 2004, detectives caught a break when a national database matched his DNA with genetic material recovered from Gibbons’ body during an autopsy, Murphy said.

Balcom was not hard to track down. he was serving a 30- to 50-year sentence in Michigan for rape in Battle Creek just six weeks after Gibbons was killed. he also was convicted in Orange County in 1991 of raping a woman in Santa Ana, an assault that occurred a week after Gibbons was murdered.

“This is a horrible case,” Deputy Public Defender Thomas Lo told the jury in his opening statement Monday. he acknowledged that Balcom, who was 18 at the time and has been in custody since 1988, committed the slaying and three other sexual attacks during three months.

“Hold him accountable for what he did,” Lo said to the jury. “Nothing more.”

Lo set the stage for the penalty phase of the trial, which should begin next week if there is a verdict in the guilt phase this week, by telling the jury that Balcom’s mother was mentally ill, he never knew his father and was raised without any parenting or supervision.

If he is convicted and receives the death penalty, he will join 59 convicted killers from Orange County on death row. There are more than 700 murderers statewide who are under a sentence of death, but there has not been an execution in the state for more than six years.

Contact the writer: lwelborn@ocregister.com or 714-834-3784

Related:

<a href="http://www.ocregister.com/news/gibbons-343194-balcom-jury.htmltag:news.google.com,2005:cluster=http://www.ocregister.com/news/gibbons-343194-balcom-jury.htmlMon, 05 Mar 2012 22:00:57 GMT”>Widower testifies he found his wife’s body in 1988

Chip technology developer,Tessera Technologies Inc. (TSRA) recently announced that its wholly owned subsidiary, DigitalOptics Corporation has signed an agreement with Singapore based Flextronics International Ltd. (FLEX) to buy certain assets of its Vista Point Technologies, a tier one qualified camera module manufacturing business.

Under the terms of the agreement, Flextronics’ divested assets will include existing customer contracts, intellectual property and the lease of a factory based in Zhuhai, China. The assets will cost approximately $23.0 million plus an undetermined amount for transaction expenses, taxes and inventory. The deal is expected to be completed by the third quarter of 2012.

We see management‘s decision to transform DigitalOptics from an optical and image enhancement software and components business to a more profitable camera module supply business for mobile phones, as strategically sound.

On the digital optics side, Tessera is already seeing some success with its new MEMS lens subassembly.  during the fourth quarter earnings release, the company stated that MEMS lens will initially be integrated into camera modules and that a design team is in place to create the entire camera module some time in the near future. We believe that the acquisition of the Zhuhai camera module business will allow DigitalOptics to introduce next-generation technology in a manner that will complement its existing collaborations with camera module makers. Tessera expects to make about 50 million camera module units annually, which in turn, is expected to help growth in the Digital Optics segment going forward.

We believe that Tessera remains focused on providing technology that enables miniaturization of electronic goods and is adopting a number of aggressive measures, including acquisitions to boost its profitability over the long term.

Additionally, Tessera has projected its first-quarter revenue in the range of $46.5 million to $47.5 million, below analysts’ estimate of $59.0 million, according to Thomson Reuters. The company has not posted any revenue growth in the past three quarters. Tessera’s fourth quarter revenue was down both sequentially as well as year over year, hurt by the non-renewal of major licenses.For the upcoming first quarter, Tessera again expects its revenue to be down 31% year over year.

However, Tessera has a strong balance sheet, with $492.4 million in cash and short-term investments and no debt. very recently, Tessera announced that it will start paying a quarterly cash dividend of 10 cents per share, with the first payment falling due on June 14 to shareholders of record on May 24. The initiation of a quarterly dividend reflects that the company has sufficient capital resources for the near term and is confident about its long-term growth prospects.

Tessera Technologiesshares currently carry a Zacks Rank of #2, implying a buy recommendation for the short term (1–3 months).

Read the full analyst report on TSRA

Read the full analyst report on FLEX

<a href="http://www.zacks.com/stock/news/70837/Tessera+Eyes+Camera+Module+Biztag:news.google.com,2005:cluster=http://www.zacks.com/stock/news/70837/Tessera Eyes Camera Module BizTue, 06 Mar 2012 19:09:08 GMT”>Tessera Eyes Camera Module Biz

When Lindsey Elsaesser was 20 weeks pregnant, an ultrasound revealed her unborn baby girl had extremely fragile bones. Doctors suspected the child had a bone disorder, and would not live long after birth.

“They thought she would die from respiratory failure because her bones were so weak,” Elsaesser said.

When Elsaesser’s daughter, Evie, was born in September 2009, doctors were cautiously optimistic about her condition. while Evie’s bones were transparent in X-rays, they sufficiently supported her lungs.

But two weeks later, Evie began to have seizures, and a genetic test revealed she had hypophosphatasia, a rare metabolic condition that prevents minerals such as calcium and phosphorus from being properly deposited in bones.

For babies like Evie, with severe forms of the disease, the condition is life-threatening, and half die before the age of one. In every case known at the time Evie was born, infants with hypophosphatasia and seizures had died within 18 months, Elsaesser said.

There is no approved medical treatment for hypophosphatasia, but, thanks to a new experimental therapy, the outlook may change.

When she was 2 months old, Evie was given a drug called asfotase alfa, an engineered protein designed to take the place of an enzyme that does not work properly in hypophosphatasia patients.

Evie is now 2 years old, and she can stand and walk with a walker. last May, she was able to go off respiratory support, which she had been using for 17 months, said Elsaesser, who is now 28 and lives in Omaha, Neb.

“Without the treatment, her bones would have kept deteriorating,” until she could no longer breathe, Elsaesser said.

New drug

Evie was part of a clinical trial of asfotase alfa, the results of which will be published tomorrow (March in the new England Journal of Medicine.

In the study, which included 11 infants and children with severe hypophosphatasia, the drug healed bones, reduced deformities of the skeletonand improved children’s strength and breathing abilities. one 3-year-old who was unable to stand before treatment climbed up a ladder with assistance after two months of therapy. And a baby who required respiratory support when she was born was off support when she was 2, and able to walk and run at 3.

“This therapy proved to be life-saving in these infants, and in many instances, health restoring,” said study researcher Dr. Michael Whyte, medical-scientific director of the Center for Metabolic Bone Disease and Molecular Research at Shriners Hospitals for Children in St. Louis.

Previous attempts to treat patients by transfusing the needed enzyme into their blood proved unsuccessful. With this new therapy, the researchers engineered the protein so that it makes its way to the bones “where it really needs to be,” Whyte said.

After two months of treatment, 90 percent of patients showed changes in their X-rays that were significant enough to consider them responsive to the drug. one patient, who had no bones visible in X-rays at the beginning of the study, did not initially respond to the drug, but was able to move all limbs after seven weeks of treatment. nine of the patients are still receiving the therapy.

One patient died during the study, but this was determined not to be related to the treatment.

The most common side effect of treatment was a reaction at the injection site. Other side effects observed in patients in the study, such as infections and respiratory problems, are consistent with symptoms of this condition, the researchers said.

Promising treatment

“It’s extremely promising,” Dr. David Rimoin, a medical geneticist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, said of the treatment. “It seems to, without any question, work in these patients,” Rimoin said.

Future work will be needed to see if the drug can completely reverse the condition if started as soon as it is diagnosed, said Rimoin, who with his colleagues is collecting information on hypophosphatasia patients to better understand the natural course of the disease. this will help researchers know how effective therapies are when they are used, Rimoinsaid.

Today, Evie is doing great, and is enrolled in music classes, Elsaesser said. she has had several surgeries on her feet and head, but unless you look closely, “you really can’t even tell that she’s sick,” Elsaesser said.

Elsaesser plans to continue Evie on the therapy. “It’s made a world of difference for her,” Elsaesser said. Eventually, Elsaesser hopes the therapy will replace Evie’s need for seizure medications.

The new study was funded in part by Enobia Pharma, a company that manufactured asfotase alfa. last month, the company was acquired by Alexion, which is the current drug developer.

Whyte and colleagues are currently testing the treatment on adults and children with less severe forms of hypophosphatasia.

• Top 10 Mysterious Diseases
• 7 Diseases you Can Learn about from a Genetic Test
• 7 weirdest Medical Conditions

Copyright 2012 MyHealthNewsDaily, a TechMediaNetwork company. all rights reserved. this material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

<a href="http://www.foxnews.com/health/2012/03/08/kids-with-rare-deadly-bone-disorder-gain-hope-from-new-therapy/tag:news.google.com,2005:cluster=http://www.foxnews.com/health/2012/03/08/kids-with-rare-deadly-bone-disorder-gain-hope-from-new-therapy/Thu, 08 Mar 2012 17:43:56 GMT”>Kids with rare, deadly bone disorder gain hope from new therapy

York is the perfect transvestite city, with a masculine history (those thin statues on the gates were used to show traitor’s heads) and a feminine beauty in the graceful buildings and radiant white limestone.

It is also very good at promoting itself, which is why it is the subject of our special post to mark International Women’s Day. alone among the gender-balanced, enlightened and progressive cities in the north, it has had the nous to get in touch.

This is what Coun Sonja Crisp, Cabinet member for leisure, culture and social inclusion, has to say, and it’s a proud boast:

The population of York is more female than elsewhere in the region – 67 per cent of residents aged between 16-64 are women, compared to 64 per cent in Yorkshire and the Humber.

Significantly more women than the UK average are in employment in the city – 72 per cent of women are in work in York compared to 69.9 per cent in the UK. fewer women in York are also unemployed than across the region and nationally – the level is 1.6 per cent in the city compared to 3 per cent regionally and 2.6 per cent nationally.

Young women excel at school as well, with 65 per cent of them leaving secondary education with 5+ good GCSEs, including Maths and English. Women generally live longer in York too – on average till 83 years of age, compared to Yorkshire and the Humber of 81 years and the rest of the UK of 82 years.

Isn’t that good? And from personal experience, I can add tributes to the Bar Convent and its fantastic women staff; Joyce Pickard, radical activist and former head of the school which nurtured my sisters, and through one of them, the Guardian’s contemporary, Red Pepper. And Helen Weinstein of York university and previously the BBC, who is always fizzing about on worthwhile things, most recently the city’s Jewish Heritage Trail.

As a member of a Cabinet in which 50 per cent of portfolio holders are women I believe we are also leading the way in promoting equal participation in the democratic process.

There’s no resting on laurels, though. Here’s York’s chief executive Kersten England who has just turned down a pay rise:

It’s clear that for many women life in York is relatively good. But we cannot be complacent and despite all this progress we still need to change perceptions and attitudes. one of the biggest causes of violent crime in this city is still domestic violence against women. Access to affordable childcare also remains for many women a barrier to full participation in the workforce.

If you haven’t organised anything yet, why not celebrate the Day in York tonight. nowhere in the north has more attractions, not even Leeds.

<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/the-northerner/2012/mar/08/international-womens-day-women-york-sonja-crisp-kersetn-england-helen-weisntein?newsfeed=truetag:news.google.com,2005:cluster=http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/the-northerner/2012/mar/08/international-womens-day-women-york-sonja-crisp-kersetn-england-helen-weisntein?newsfeed=trueThu, 08 Mar 2012 17:12:02 GMT”>Surely the Guardian Northerner hasn’t forgotten International Women’s Day?

SAN BERNARDINO – the school board conditionally approved two new charter schools Tuesday.

Taft T. Newman Leadership Academy and Woodward Leadership Academy have until May 1 to fix what San Bernardino City Unified School District officials described as minor problems, which gives staff members two weeks to review the changes before the board makes a final decision May 15.

“I just wanted to come here tonight to tell you thank you,” Joshua Beckley, a preacher at Ecclesia Christian Fellowship and one of the petitioners for Newman Academy, told Interim Superintendent Yolanda Ortega. “I appreciate her and her staff, because when we had some concerns about our charter, they got on them immediately.”

The petitions for both charters were on the verge of being denied in early January, based in part on concerns that the leadership of the church and the school would be too closely entwined.

That led to some heated words at the Jan. 10 meeting about the separation of church and state and Beckley’s previous work to help the district – which everyone at that meeting agreed was selfless and invaluable – that convinced the board to extend the timeline.

By contrast, the board unanimously approved both charters Tuesday after Beckley’s brief thank you, with no discussion beyond one-sentence congratulations.

Taft is named after a San Bernardino educator who worked at Cal State San Bernardino.

“He was actually my counselor back in 1983 at Cal State,” said board member Danny Tillman.

Woodward Leadership is named after one of the original Tuskegee Airmen, said Raymond Turner, a pastor at Temple Missionary Baptist Church in San Bernardino.

“I believe there are some great things that are going to happen now,” Turner said. “I expect great things, and I expect them to spread to the district as well.”

The two schools bring to 13 the number of charter schools in the district.

Harold J. Vollkommer, the assistant superintendent of human resources, said he anticipated the two charters to funnel away enough students that the district would need to eliminate another 20 positions. a decision on 251 proposed layoffs had not been made by press time Tuesday.

“If you’re looking for good teachers, you know where you can find them,” board member Judi Penman said.

ryan.hagen@inlandnewspapers.com 909-386-3916

<a href="http://www.contracostatimes.com/california/ci_20116986/san-bernardino-district-approves-two-new-charter-schoolstag:news.google.com,2005:cluster=http://www.contracostatimes.com/california/ci_20116986/san-bernardino-district-approves-two-new-charter-schoolsThu, 08 Mar 2012 03:41:45 GMT”>San Bernardino district approves two new charter schools