Grades

Submitting sports notices The deadline for submitting sports copy is 9 a.m. on Monday. We prefer email (howardcountysports@patuxent.com). Lacrosse The Howard Boys Lacrosse program is offering two camps this summer at Howard High School. The first camp will be for grades 6-8 (July 8-11). The second camp will be for grades 2-5 (July 15-18). Call 410-313-7275 for registration or 410-313-4716 for more information. Football Sports International will be holding a variety of youth football camps this summer at McDaniel College in Westminster.

Submitting sports notices The deadline for submitting sports copy is 9 a.m. on Monday. We prefer email (howardcountysports@patuxent.com). Lacrosse The Howard Boys Lacrosse program is offering two camps this summer at Howard High School. The first camp will be for grades 6-8 (July 8-11). The second camp will be for grades 2-5 (July 15-18). Call 410-313-7275 for registration or 410-313-4716 for more information. Football Sports International will be holding a variety of youth football camps this summer at McDaniel College in Westminster.

Virginia has had a grading system for restaurants for years, and to my knowledge it has been fair and effective. If I owned a restaurant I would worry if my grade was not an A; otherwise I would be proud to display the A grade. The City Council should be proud for even considering this move! ("City considers setting up a grading system for restaurants," Oct. 3.) F. Cordell, Lutherville

How bad is traffic at Falls and Joppa roads in Baltimore County? It depends whom you ask, and the answer could determine whether the county allows additional growth near the intersection. A dispute over the intersection near Green Spring Station, a collection of shops, restaurants and offices in Lutherville, was the subject of a County Council discussion last week. Council members are scheduled to vote Monday on the county's "basic services maps," which identify deficiencies in the county's sewer, water and transportation infrastructure plans.

IT was, of course, predictable. No sooner did Baltimor County announce its intention to move away from letter grades in schools than the howls of protests began, though oddly enough, most weren't from teachers, who will have to shoulder an extra burden.As a teacher who has doled out some 14,000 grades in my nearly 20 years of college teaching, I have no small familiarity with grades and marks and tests and scores. Teachers have always been in the evaluation business.If the abolition of letter grades at the elementary level (and perhaps beyond)

Rating student performance with letter grades is as time-honored a practice as starting each school day with the Pledge of Allegiance.In recent years, however, educators and child psychologists have questioned the wisdom of handing out A's, B's, C's, D's and F's to young students, especially to first- and second-graders who are struggling with the rudiments of socialization at the same time they're learning to read and write.Carroll County public schools don't give letter grades to students until they reach the third grade.

My 12-year-old is in all honors classes, and he has recently discovered girls. He rushes through his homework and spends the rest of the evening on the telephone. His grades are suffering tremendously. How do you get kids to have the attitude about their grades that they did before they reached this age?Lisa MarshCedar Hill, TexasGive your honors student time to adjust to all the emotional and physical changes of pre-adolescence and take heart that his phone time isn't all wasted. He's learning some valuable lessons about life.

University of Maryland junior tackle Larry Webster, perhaps the team's best defensive player, has been declared academically ineligible for spring practice and could miss the entire 1991 season.Maryland coach Joe Krivak confirmed yesterday that Webster was ineligible for the annual April practice sessions.To compete, a freshman must maintain a 1.29 cumulative grade-point average on a 4.0 scale. The GPA requirement increases to 1.70 for sophomores, 1.85 for juniors and 2.0 for seniors."I'm really not that awfully concerned because I believe Larry will get it done," said Krivak.

Parents and students weren't the only ones concerned whe report cards were delivered in Anne Arundel County on Wednesday.High school coaches are trying to assess the effect of the county's new grade requirements on their teams.Students must have a 2.0 grade-point average to participate in ++ any extracurricular activity. Last year, they needed a 1.6 -- a rule that applied only to sports.After report cards came out, Meade basketball coach Butch Young learned that 29 boys who had shown up at tryouts were ineligible.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Administrators at a San Francisco high school are giving teachers until June to "increase the number of A's, B's and C's by 5 percent" over last year, according to a memo obtained by the Chronicle.The four-paragraph note immediately prompted charges among educators that the school is inflating grades and concerns that the policy is a symptom of a national trend: rising grades, but sinking student performance.The document, dated March 23, carefully explains that teachers at Balboa High School do not need to increase each of the three grades by 5 percent, but "the combined total of all the A's, B's and C's by 5 percent."

W.E.B. DuBois High School is the latest to win the Mayor's Attendance Campaign competition, after its ninth-grade class increasing its daily attendance by nearly 11 percentage points. The school was surprised with the honor--which includes a dance party staffed by a 92Q DJ at The Grille at Peerce's Landing--with a visit from Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake city schools CEO Andres Alonso, and Jonathon Rondeau, of the Family League of Baltimore.  The ninth-grade class increased its daily attendance from 63.42 percent to 74.05 percent, according to a release.

Lisa Graff, an author who teaches children's literature at McDaniel College, can't read a map to save her life. She's terrible at crossword puzzles, has trouble telling her left hand from her right and uses far too many exclamation points. While she was growing up in California in the 1980s in the shadow of a brilliant older brother, young Lisa became convinced that she had no special talent. She thought of herself as utterly, unspectacularly average. But Graff must have been good at something, because she grew up to become a respected author of children's books: six for younger students and a seventh for teens under the pseudonym Isla Neal.

The Ravens' playoff run to New Orleans has inspired some fans in the area to upload videos displaying pride, humor, talent and wackiness - all in support of their favorite team. We've been compiling the best and most popular videos in this gallery . While everyone who posted a video deserves some credit for such a brazen example of fandom, some are, of course, better than others. So just for fun, let's grade a handful of the clips. "Ravens Nation Army" by the Fayettes I'm typically not a fan of rewording popular lyrics to fit a different "theme," but this Baltimore quartet does a nice job of staying on topic (why the Ravens rule)

Severn School and Chesapeake Academy will merge July 1 to create the largest independent school in Anne Arundel County, school officials said last week. The merged school will be known as the Severn School. Severn School in Severna Park, which will celebrate its centennial next school year, serves 600 students in grades six through 12. Chesapeake Academy in Arnold, which was founded in 1980, has more than 200 students in preschool through fifth grade. School officials said students in preschool through fifth grade will attend classes at the Chesapeake site, which will be renamed Severn School Chesapeake Campus, and will adopt Severn School's colors and uniforms, officials said.

Maryland's teacher preparation programs remain lackluster as the state continues to fall short in standards that would attract candidates with strong academic backgrounds, and ensuring that teachers are properly qualified to teach in their subject areas, according to a report published Wednesday by the National Council on Teacher Quality. The Council, a leading policy group that advocates policies for strengthening the teaching profession, issued the state's teacher preparation policies a grade of D+- --the same grade it received last year-- which mirrors the national average for all states in 2012.

For the fifth year in a row, Maryland has the best public school system in America, according to rankings published Thursday by a leading education publication that gave the state high marks for post-graduation outcomes, state funding levels and overall student achievement. In the report card published annually by Education Week, the state was issued an overall grade of B+, compared to the nation's overall C+, after an assessment of six areas that examined education policy and performance.

Maryland improved its grades in two of three categories on a widely watched economic score card this year but dropped a notch in "economic performance."The Corporation for Enterprise Development, a Washington-based research group promoting business growth and social fairness, gave Maryland an A for development capacity, up from a C last year, and a B for business vitality, up from a D.But moderate job growth got the state a C for economic performance, down from a B last year.The group usually gives Maryland high grades for development capacity, and it did so again this year, citing the state's "top-notch technology resources and excellent infrastructure."

SMILES AND handshakes from a receiving line greeted 184 middle school pupils arriving Wednesday at Kurtz's Beach, collecting their rewards in an educational motivation contest sponsored by County Council Chairwoman Shirley Murphy and the Business Advisory Board for Pasadena Schools. The contest, open to pupils at Chesapeake Bay, George Fox and Marley middle schools, was created by Democrat Murphy and the board to reward average pupils in her councilmanic District 3 for improving their grades in academic subjects.

Linebacker Ray Lewis made his return from a torn right triceps Sunday, and after he performed what was probably the most anticipated pre-game dance in football history, he quickly made a dent on the stat sheet. In Baltimore's 24-9 win over Indianapolis, Lewis made a game-high 13 tackles, nine of the solo variety. Only fellow graybeard London Fletcher of the Washington Redskins made more tackles during wild card weekend. Lewis made a tackle for a loss early in the game, and he was also credited with a pass defended when he dropped what should have been an easy interception of Colts quarterback Andrew Luck in the second quarter.

A controversial set of national report cards issued this week by StudentsFirst--the advocacy and lobbying organization started by former Washington, D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee-- gave Maryland's educational policies and reforms a grade of D+ in a state-by-state analysis. The report cards were issued in an interactive map on the StudentsFirst website. The organization analyzed three key areas, and several sub-groups, assessing states' ability to 1.) empower parents, 2.)