HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: chrz@tellabs.com (Peter Chrzanowski)
Newsgroups: misc.consumers
Subject: Re: help! my landlord wants to sell my townhouse and I would rather not move.
Date: 2 Oct 92 17:31:33 GMT
Organization: Tellabs, Inc.

In article <1OCT92.13010776@enh.nist.gov>, raghu@enh.nist.gov writes:
> hello:
> I am renting a townhouse in miami florida.  
> My lease expires Nov 30, 1992.
> The owner of my house wants to sell the house.  
> He started the process even before hurricane andrew hit us.  

You're first step would be to read the lease.  Unless the lease states
that you can be evicted upon sale, you probably have the right to
remain for the duration of the lease EVEN IF THE PLACE IS SOLD. 

If the owner wants you out really bad, perhaps he'll offer to
pay you for a release from this obligation.  You'd move out
for $1million, right? But not for $1?  Perhaps you can negotiate
something without involving a lawyer.  As always, "get it
in writing".

If you can't negotiate a satisfactory compromise and you're
still being pressured to move out, see a lawyer.  Many offer
a no-fee initial consultation.
From: Nigel.Allen@bbs.oit.unc.edu (Nigel Allen)
Subject: Re: I need Swiss publisher's address
Organization: Extended Bulletin Board Service
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 23:47:35 GMT

In article <1992Sep24.181130.4600@rvgs.vak12ed.edu> jmiller@rvgs.vak12ed.edu (Jean Miller) writes:
>I teach in an Electronic Classroom, and am trying to contact
>the publisher "Editions Minerva" of Geneva who has released books
>entitled Life in Greece in Ancient Times and Life in Rome in
>Ancient Times.  We want to try to secure rights to use the
>photographs in our broadcast classes.  Does anyone know this
>publisher?

I don't have the firm's address, but any good library should have one
or more directories of book publishers that will list the address of
book publishers worldwide.  Just ask the reference desk and someone
should be able to help you.

(IN fact, a lot of the reference questions asked on Usenet can sometimes be
answered more reliably and more quickly by a reference librarian.)

Nigel Allen


--
   The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the University of
     North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Campus Office for Information
        Technology, or the Experimental Bulletin Board Service.
           internet:  bbs.oit.unc.edu or 152.2.22.80
Newsgroups: misc.education
From: hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin)
Subject: Re: SAT's
Organization: Purdue University Statistics Department
Date: Sun, 4 Oct 1992 14:59:05 GMT

In article <1amf16INNoqp@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu> hillyard@msc.cornell.edu writes:

>From article <1992Oct3.202856.25755@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>, by bel3a@poe.acc.
>Virginia.EDU (Barbara English Labrecque):
>[...]
>> Leaving the question of the validity of the SATs aside (it is
>> supposed to predict success in college- females score 61 points
>> lower and yet earn higher grades), the best way to study would

>I asked this question in another group when this was brought up
>but got no response; I'll try here.

>How closely was this actually looked into?  A possible explaination is
>just a different distribution of majors--math/science has been hit
>less hard by grade inflation than the arts.

Even within mathematics we have this problem.  Grades, as such, can only
be meaningful if there is a very rigid program.  Many students fritter
their time away in taking material which they already know, or taking
weak courses which must later be superseded by strong ones, when they
were as ready for the strong ones before taking the weak ones as after.

Also, few of the females in mathematics departments are taking the 
graduate school track, even compared to the proportion of males.  The
mathematics teaching track is where most of them are found, and anybody
who reads this group knows the problems with the students there.
-- 
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
Phone: (317)494-6054
hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet)  
{purdue,pur-ee}!pop.stat!hrubin(UUCP)
From: Mischa_Sandberg@mindlink.bc.ca (Mischa Sandberg)
Newsgroups: misc.education
Subject: Longer school years in other countries
Date: 3 Oct 92 21:04:52 GMT
Organization: MIND LINK! - British Columbia, Canada
Distribution: world

It has been pointed out in a recent magazine article that both Japanese
and German school-children spend much more of the year in school than
do North American children. I have no great understanding of the Japanese
school system, though it is reputed to produce neuroses and more frequent
suicides, while the Japanese university students I knew tended to
flail about with as little sense of self-direction, as the
overschooled among the kids out of Canadian high schools.

But I can state from personal knowledge that the German school system
has a longer school year because the kids are only in school from 8am
to 1pm (8am to noon for the smaller kids). This is combined with the
very practical restriction on summer-holiday resources: parents tend
to take their holidays when kids are out of school, so school holidays
are staggered across the country. Boy, the traffic on the autobahn
headed toward the beaches of Sylt. Agh!
--
Mischa Sandberg ... Mischa_Sandberg@mindlink.bc.ca
                 or uunet!van-bc!rsoft!mindlink!Mischa_Sandberg
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
Engineers think equations are an approximation of reality.
Physicists think reality is an approximation of the equations.
Mathematicians never make the connection.
Xref: sparky misc.education:3447 sci.edu:1028
From: stvjas@meteor.wisc.edu (Stephen Jascourt)
Newsgroups: misc.education,sci.edu
Subject: Re: PhD qualifying exam
Date: 27 Sep 92 02:30:37 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: University of Wisconsin, Meteorology and Space Science

In article <1992Sep24.051434.3405@cs.sfu.ca> arya@cs.sfu.ca (Arya Raychaudhuri) writes:
>In many north american schools PhD candidates have to pass qualifying/comprehensive exam to demonstrate their "breadth of knowledge". However, it is often 
>observed that very competent students fail to pass this exam. So the question
>is: how good is the correlation between this exam and the overall expectations
>from a PhD candidate? 

The usefulness of the exam at identifying competent researchers varies very
much from one exam to another, from one department to another, and from
one format to another. Many departments play politics with their exams to
exclude students who are strong in a particular area the faculty members
with the most power dislike and wish to discourage and reward those students
in their interest areas. Also grading can be very fickle. There exists many
instances of discrimination (usually again based on research interest and
department politics at least as often as based on race/gender/etc) in many
fields, though I think these cases are usually the exception rather than
the rule. (I have a friend who was so victimized, and he has no recourse
because if he makes trouble for those who discriminated against him and all
other students of his former thesis advisor-- the department flunked every
one of them very arbitrarily on the comprehensives-- he would be unable to
get adequate recommendations and would be blacklisted.) Also, some
comprehensives amount to little more than exam questions from individual
classes in the current or previous semester because the professors are to
lazy to put a more deserving problem on the comprehensive exam, so those who
took the class have an advantage, putting people who know the concepts but
had the class somewhere else or from a different professor at a disadvantage.

Some programs have a qualifier but not a comprehensive, some have a
comprehensive but not a qualifier, some have both, some have the comprehensive
as part of the Master's degree program, some will give you a master's degree
if you fail out of these exams (and they won't let you continue on for a
PhD in such a case). In general, comprehensives are supposed to measure
subject matter breadth and qualifiers are supposed to measure thinking and
problem solving ability. Most PhD programs also have prelim exams in which
the student is grilled on his/her specific research proposal. Again, different
subject areas are apt to have different procedures. 

>Arya Raychaudhuri

Stephen Jascourt    stvjas@meteor.wisc.edu
From: ivy@hpscit.sc.hp.com (Ivy Griffiths)
Date: Fri, 25 Sep 1992 19:45:31 GMT
Subject: Re: Anyone teaching structure/physics/architecture?
Organization: Hewlett-Packard, Santa Clara, CA
Newsgroups: misc.education

I am an engineer, and work with engineers from Cal Poly at San Luis
Opisbo (sp).  I know you're looking at 6th grade level, but they may
have some ideas on how to present this.  The strong suit of Cal Poly
is it's hands on, pragmatic programs in mechanical, metallurgical, 
and materials engineering.  I think you'd get some good answers.  If
not, I have an old professor, who teaches in Reno Nevada, who could
probably give you a hand.  His name is Maurice Fuerstenau.  He taught
metallurgy for many years and I know he also helped recruit high school
students into engineering.  He had one of the best teaching styles I've
encountered.  Also alot of companies like HP have "visiting scientist"
programs at schools.  I think one of our divisions taught mechanics using
LEGOS!.  I bet somebody would have some information for you.  Please E-mail
me a msg that I can reply to, and I will give you a couple of contacts,
I'll also see if I can find Dr. Fuerstenau's current school name.

Ivy Griffiths
HP-SCD
//
From: chenowet@rd1632.Dayton.NCR.COM (Steve Chenoweth)
Newsgroups: misc.education
Subject: Re: SAT's
Date: 5 Oct 92 13:46:12 GMT
Reply-To: chenowet@rd1632.Dayton.NCR.com (Steve Chenoweth)
Organization: NCR Technology & Development, Dayton, Ohio

In article <1992Oct4.181016.1838@cs.brown.edu> ST402676@brownvm.brown.edu writes:
>------------------------- Original Article -------------------------
>From: be799@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Sean Hillyard)
>Virginia.EDU (Barbara English Labrecque):
>[...]
>> Leaving the question of the validity of the SATs aside (it is
>> supposed to predict success in college- females score 61 points
>> lower and yet earn higher grades), the best way to study would
> ...
> ----------------------------------------------------------
>
>Well, at MIT, ... it
>is still true that while the women students have lower SAT
>scores, they do as well as (or even better than) the men, whether
>you measure by grades, graduation rates, or later performance (in
>graduate school for example). ...

There has been too much hidden fun and games on men vs. women issues in
ability testing and related decisions.  One of the most infamous situations
was on the old Stanford Binet.  They discovered that women as a group
were coming up with measurably higher IQ's, and so "fixed" the test
to correct this problem.  And, of course, almost every other IQ
test since then has been adjusted for consistency with the Binet.

As the previous authors are suggesting, if women do better in college,
and tests such as the SAT and ACT are supposed to predict how you do
in college, then the bias toward men seems inappropriate.

Even worse things used to be associated with college admissions, and I'm
wondering if these still go on.  Some schools used to have different
admissions standards for men and women, because otherwise they
would have many more women admitted (due to higher grade point
averages, class rank, or whatever).  They didn't openly advertise this;
however, the women who got in were suspiciously more qualified and the
class ratio of men to women suspiciously well balanced every year.
Does anyone know if such a bias has been reported lately, etc.?




-- 
Steve.Chenoweth@Dayton.NCR.com
Newsgroups: misc.education
From: kmj3y@poe.acc.Virginia.EDU (Kimberly Michele Jones)
Subject: Re: Retention  Was: Re: Year-round schooling
Organization: University of Virginia
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1992 23:42:10 GMT

To John Leslie, 
	Hello my name is Kim Jones and I am a 3rd year student
at the University of Virginia.  I am also in the 5yr.  teacher
certification/master program here, and plan to teach at the
elementary level.  I am familiar with year round schools
because I am from San Diego, CA., and they were implemented
there a few years ago.  I know that they have helped a great
deal with easing the problem of overcrowding in schools, but
overall I have heard mixed reviews.  From an education
standpoint it is a very good system, but the criticisms I have
heard are from the social standpoint.  Many parents complain
about having kids on different tracks, so there is always one
child on break.  And then there is the problem of working
parents who cannot take lengthy breaks to take care of the
children.  I am very interested in this topic, and it is not
well known out here.  I would really appreciate it if you could
refer me to any articles or people that could give me more
information.  I  would really appreciate it.
			Thank You for  your time!
                                 Kim Jones 
Newsgroups: misc.education
From: brian@quake.sylmar.ca.us (Brian K. Yoder)
Subject: Re: CHILL OUT
Organization: Quake Public Access
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 00:27:23 GMT

In article <1992Sep24.155149.15195@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> sdg5e@curry.edschool.Virginia.EDU (Susan Dawn Galea) writes:

>   Sometimes I feel that educators are so plagued by the
>political issues that they forget their main goal:  to educate
>our students.  

I completely agree.

>I'm tired of hearing people complain about
>education while refusing to do anything about it.  This article
>is to anyone who chooses to downgrade the efforts of this
>country's teachers to do our job.  "Education is like taking
>out the garbage, if you don't do it, then you have no right to
>complain about it later!"

I definitely do not agree.  If the government forces you to use the mail
system it provides and the service is poor, it is ridiculous to claim that
only employees of the mail system have any business complaining.  WE are the
customers and it is the job of the educators to make US happy.  In business,
the kind of attitude you are expressing would be laughed out of the board room.
Blaming the customer for his complaints is a denial for a responsibility
which is yours.  Listen to the complaints!  They are (sometimes) telling you
what is wrong!

--Brian
Newsgroups: misc.education
From: rdr@attics.rn.com (Dean Riddlebarger)
Subject: Continuing Education...
Organization: Ameritech Information Systems
Distribution: usa
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 92 19:00:30 GMT

Here's a rather interesting (perhaps) scenario:

Suppose that you have a Masters with a concentration in Operations
Research and Information Systems.  Suppose that you also have a fair
amount of practical experience (6+ years in "The Real World") and
have done a bit of teaching as well.  Now suppose that you decide that
you'd like to consider going ahead and starting some coursework that
could hopefully lead to either a DBA-IS or Ph.D.-IS, but you discover
that the only local school which could support either track is located
over 1.5 hours from your home and office and will not support any
form of distance learning arrangement.  You cannot quit your day job;
three children and a mortgage act as constraints in this situation.

Leaving aside the philosophical issues surrounding why one might feel
the need to add yet another piece of paper to the wall, can anyone
suggest any other options?

I decided to post this because my daily office junk mail pile included
a "Send in this form for more information" solicitation from a place
called Kennedy-Western University (Boise, Idaho).  The letter claims that
the school offers advanced degree programs in a non-classroom
environment, and looks like a fancier version of the standard ad that
you tend to see in airline magazines during long flights.  While
cognizant of the fact that most of these solicitations are simply from
'diploma mills', I wondered if there were any programs being sponsored
by legitimate institutions that acknowledge that there are some people
with a reasonable amount of talent who cannot drop everything to live
in a classroom......

Just curious......


   
<*>  Dean Riddlebarger                   Once in a while              <*>
<*>  Ameritech Information Systems        You get shown the light,    <*>
<*>  rdr@attics.rn.com                   In the strangest of places   <*>
<*>  317-488-3067 (w)                     If you look at it right.    <*>
Newsgroups: misc.education
From: arjay@cnplss5.cnps.philips.nl (R.J. Kimmel)
Subject: Identifying a Disability - Need Help
Organization: Philips Centre For Technology, Eindhoven
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 09:50:46 GMT

If this is the wrong group, I apologize in advance, and hope that
you would have the curtesy to point me in the correct direction
rather than flame.

In any case, my daughter has a learning disability, or several, and 
she is now attending a special school undergoing a 1 year evaluation
to determine the best manner of treatment (drugs are considered a
LAST resort).  The school focuses on children with hearing and speech
problems (but not limited to deaf and dumb kids), and they've made some
progress, but it's less than expected.

My daughter first of all, has what appears to be dyslexia.  In addition,
she has problems processing the information she hears. (Words like
"make-up" come out as "hiccup", and "lolly" (lollipop) becomes
"pubble".) She is 7 now and her previous school told me she would
never learn to read, in spite of the IQ tests which indicated above
average intelligence, her current school tells me it may be a few
years unless they can find a "key" to help her process the information
better.

She's not hyperactive, but a fairly quiet child, although her attention
wanders and she's often frustrated (understandably) resorting to
loud and occassionally violent temper tantrums to express herself.

Things taught to her non-verbally, and without "text" are accepted readily,
but there is a limit to what can be taught without a written suppliment.
She can take things apar and put them back together again VERY well!
At 3 years old she took apart my tiny flashlight and when she realized
I wasn't happy, she put it back together again in less than a minute.
Last month she took apart my watch; it took her half an hour to put
it back together but it works fine now.

Does anybody have any experience with this sort of problem?  Are
there any academics out there researching something similar to 
this?  Any suggestions regarding how I can help her to learn would
be greatly appreciated.  The Teachers at her school are willing to
try anything that may work and they are open to trying new techniques
as they understand that what works best for one child may not help
the next.

Thanks


R.J. Kimmel
arjay@philtis.cft.philips.nl
arjay@nlzcl.decnet.philips.nl
{
Newsgroups: misc.education
From: osan@cbnewsb.cb.att.com (Mr. X)
Subject: Re: HYPOCRISY of Prayer in Public Schools
Organization: Twilight Zone
Distribution: usa
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 20:17:53 GMT

In article <1992Sep21.170950.1321@cnsvax.uwec.edu> mcelwre@cnsvax.uwec.edu writes:
>
>
>                       HYPOCRISY of Public School Prayer
>
>               Bush, Reagan, and a LOT of SELF-RIGHTEOUS fundamentalist 
>          "Christians" want to RE-IMPOSE prayer into the public 
>          schools, as well as in certain government ceremonies, etc.. 

	Scary, eh?
>
>               But what did Jesus Christ HIMSELF say about people who 
>          pray in public?  In Matthew 6:5 he called them HYPOCRITES!  

	That he did.
>          
>               He said in the next verse that people should pray 
>          SILENTLY IN THEIR CLOSETS, in other words, IN PRIVATE.  (Or 
>          if in public, they should do it IN THEIR HEADS, withOUT the 
>          SHOWY bowed head and folded hands.) 

	No fool, that Jesus.
>
>               Parents who want their kids to openly and verbally pray 
>          in school can send them to PAROCHIAL schools, as well as to 
>          Sunday school, withOUT forcing it on others. 

	If you mean that a child has no right to pray whilst attending classes 
	at a public institution, I strongly disagree with this.  If a child so
	wishes to do so on his/her own or even in a group setting of consenting
	persons, I believe they have the full right to do so as long as they
	do not:
	
		a. Attempt to force others to follow suit

		b. Do not engage in such activities in such a manner that
		   they impose upon the peace of others and cause annoyance,
		   distress, or any form of deliberate offense.

	If you mean that parents (or anyone else for that matter) have no
	right to force the entire body of students to pray, or to otherwise
	institutionalize prayer of any form whatsoever (or any other ceremony,
	religious or otherwise) then I agree with you quite strongly.

	Imagine some poor Jew or Muslim (or whatever) child who would be
	forced by law to submit to an activity that might be, say, sinful
	in the view of their religious beliefs.  This would be so utterly
	MONSTOUS an imposition that no one in their right mind should even
	consider it.  Therefor I guess it fillows that Bush is not in his
	right mind and should be impeached :)=).  That's a joke, son.

	So tell me, Robert McElwaine, which interpretation of your words
	might be correct?
]
	-Andy V.
Newsgroups: misc.education,k12.chat.teacher,k12.ed.comp.literacy
From: kuchan@rtsg.mot.com (Joseph M. Kuchan)
Subject: Algebrax vs. Alge-Blaster Plus
Summary: Algebrax vs. Alge-Blaster Plus?
Organization: Motorola Inc., Cellular Infrastructure Group
Distribution: global
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 12:35:44 GMT

I recently downloaded "Algebrax" from nic.funet.fi and ran through some
exercises with my daughter. I was impressed by the way Algebrax takes
the student through a step-by-step solution when a wrong answer is entered.
The list of topics in the full version (2.0) seems very comprehensive, too.
I'm inclined to order both of the version 2 disks, but I would like to know 
if anyone has experience with both Alge-Blaster Plus and Algebrax and could
compare them for me. I can buy Alge-Blaster Plus for less than the $50 cost
of the Algebrax disks, but wonder about its range of topics, ease of use,
and of course, its sheer educational value. Does anyone have any advice to 
offer? Even if you don't have any experience with one or the other program,
how about comments (pro or con) on the program you are familiar with? Also,
what about other programs? The two mentioned are the only ones I'm aware
of for algebra for the PC.


Thanks in advance for any help!


-- 
Joe Kuchan,    Motorola - Wireless Enterprise Systems	*
3205 Wilke Road, Arlington Heights, IL 60004		*
kuchan@whitefish.rtsg.mot.com				*
tel: (708) 632-7193	fax: (708) 632-6816		*
Newsgroups: misc.education
From: ST402676@brownvm.brown.edu
Subject: Re: SAT's
Organization: Brown University
Date: Sun, 4 Oct 1992 17:50:37 GMT

------------------------- Original Article -------------------------
From: be799@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Sean Hillyard)
Virginia.EDU (Barbara English Labrecque):
[...]
> Leaving the question of the validity of the SATs aside (it is
> supposed to predict success in college- females score 61 points
> lower and yet earn higher grades), the best way to study would

I asked this question in another group when this was brought up
but got no response; I'll try here.

How closely was this actually looked into?  A possible explaination is
just a different distribution of majors--math/science has been hit
less hard by grade inflation than the arts.

SEH
 ----------------------------------------------------------

Well, at MIT, where the arts majors would make almost no difference
in the averages and where the distribution of women among the
majors is close to the distribution of the men, it
is still true that while the women students have lower SAT
scores, they do as well as (or even better than) the men, whether
you measure by grades, graduation rates, or later performance (in
graduate school for example). The numbers were published
last year in one of the issues of Techmnology Review (in the section that
only makes it to alumni).

tamar

Newsgroups: misc.education