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NEWS^e Charlotte
Thursday, April 20, 2005
CMS offers bonuses to close teacher
gap in low-performing schools
Continued from page3A
gap is a teacher gap that
must be addressed if we truly
want all children to learn at
high levels.”
The district will pay
* $5,000 for EOC teacha^
already at the schools whose
students achieved “hi^ aca
demic change” on state
exams this year.
• $5,000 “challei^ bonus”
for teach«^ whose students
score hi^ academic change
next year.
Dot Cromwell, president of
the Charlotte-Mecklenburg
Association of Educators, the
county’s largest teacher orga
nization, said the bonuses are
a step in the ri^t direction,
but more is needed.
‘T think $10,000 paid as
salary would be enough to
attract high-quahty teach
ers,” she said “But working
conditions have to be just as
attractive.”
The new program is being
added to CMS’s bonus system
and tile state bonus faogram.
Teachers at high-poverty
schools can also qualify for
graduate school tuition reim
bursement if they pursue a
masto’s degree in education.
Bonus candidates must
exceed the state’s high
growth standard of 103 per
cent on End of Course tests in
their classroom, said CMS
spokesman Damon Ford.
The bonuses apply to teach
ers at Garinger, West
Charlotte and West
Meddenbmg, the three cam
puses where racial minorities
make up the majority of
enrollment.
AU three campuses have
lagged in student achieve
ment and high teacher and
administrator turnover in
recent years. Poverty is also a
common factor, where free
and reduced limch rates
range from 63.9 percent at
West Mecklenburg to 76.5
percent at Garinger.
Money alone won’t ease the
teacher gap at low-perform
ing schools, said Cromwell, a
33-year classroom veteran.
The district needs to boost its
commitment to staff and
teacher development and
apply rigorous enforcement of
discipline to attract and keep
good teachers.
‘Tt’s a first step, and ifs a
good thing,” said Cromwell,
who is on leave firom E.E.
Waddell High. “Ti-aditionaHy
these are schools where
working conditions are not as
good as the hi^-performing
schools. Your discipline prob
lems are compounded there.”
REUTERS PHOTO/THOMAS MUKOYA
A child sits on food rations as he waits for his sick mother last month at a food distribution
center by the U.N. World Food Program in Rabdure district in Somalia. Hundreds of people
and thousands of livestock have died from hunger and thirst across east Africa in the
region's worst drought in years. Aid workers say Somalia is particularly vulnerable as the
nation of 10 million is carved into fiefdoms run by rival warlords.
Clashes worsen Somalia food erisis
By Edward Girardet
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
NAIROBI, Kaiya - Despite
ongoing and often tricky
efforts to end the civil war
that since 1991 has turned
Somalia into a worn-out and
destitute failed state, heavy
clashes have recently erupted
between warlords and
Islamist extremists in the
capital, Mogadishu.
The fighting, which has
involved indiscriminate bar
rages of mortar and anti- air
craft fire leveled point blank
across the dty represents the
worst violence in almost a
decade and is bad news for a
region already suffering fix)m
the ravages of acute droTght.
'Clans traditionally at war
with one another are uniting
to fight the Islamists, whom
they call terrorists, but the
Islamists say they can bring
order to a lawless state that
has not had a central govern
ment for 16 years.
And while the renewed con
flict has been restricted large
ly to Mogadishu, it is proving
detrimental to the overall
peace process, the pohtical
survival of the country’s frag
ile United Nations-backed
transitional government, and
critical humanitarian opera
tions.
’You feel that one is just
beginning to make some good
progress against all odds,
when something hke this
happens,” observed one
Nairobi-based official with
the United Nations Office for
the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs.
Much like the Taliban in
Afghanistan during the mid-
’90s, the Islamists have
declared that they are deter
mined to end the current law
lessness but also place
Somalia under strict sharia
or Islamic law. They have
accused the warlords of being
supported by “non-Mushm
foreigners,” implying the US
anti-terrorist task force sta
tioned in neighboring
Djibouti.
The warlords, who have
formed a coalition called 'the
“Alliance for the Restoration
of Peace and Counter-
Tterrorism,” claim that the
Islamists are behind many
recent targeted assassina
tions of prominent figures,
particularly those who have
argued in favcsr of an interna
tional peacekeeping force,
which the fimdamentahsts
are dead-set against.
Last year, a cormtry direc
tor of the Geneva-based War-
Tbm Societies Project, who
was heavily involved in pro
moting peace-building initia
tives between the different
rival groups, was assassinat
ed in what international aid
workers and diplomats main
tain was clearly because of
his links with outside organi
zations.
The warlords also accuse
the Islamists of cultivating
close hnks to A1 Qaeda and
other terrorist organizations.
According to the Brussels-
based International Crisis
Group, terror-related groups
have taken advantage of
Somalia’s collapse to attadc
neighboring countries as well
as transit agents and materi
al.
”The country is a refuge for
the A1 Qaeda team that
bombed a Kenyan resort in
2002 and tried to down an
Israeli aircraft in 2003,”
according to a December
2005 ICG report. The organi
zation further asserts that
the Islamists have been
behind the mmders of
Somalis and foreigners alike
since 2003.
The fighting has raised con
siderable international con
cern about the protection of
civilians and the ability of aid
agencies to continue provid
ing key humanitarian relief
Compoxmded by the drought,
which is beginning to create
dire' famine conditions,
including the loss of more
than half the coimtiys cattle
and sheep, current insecurity
is causir^ people to flee to
safer areas, including north
ern Kenya, where the UN
says more than 100,000
Somali refugees are living.
According to international
aid groups, most of which
operate out of neighboring
Kenya because they consider
it too dangerous to work full
time inside Somalia, at least
70 people, mainly dvOians,
have been killed with hun
dreds more injured over the
past two months.
”They don’t call the Somali
situation a complex emer
gency for nothing,” notes
Robert Malleta, a veteran
American aid consultant
based in the region. ’There
are areas of southern
Somalia which are very inse
cure. You have to know whom
to trust. Effective aid
depends very much on work
ing with good Icwal NGOs
(nongovernmental oiganiza-
tions) and civil society
groups.”
Particularly critical has
been the situation in Baidoa,
where Somalia’s TYansitional
Federal Parliament has been
sitting since February in a
bid to reconcile differences
NOTICE OF PUBLIC MEETINGS
REGARDING SECTION A OF THE PROPOSED MONROE BYPASS FROM US
74 WEST OF ROCKY RIVER ROAD TO US 601 SOUTH OF RIDGE ROAD
Project 8.T690401 • R*2559A • Union County
The North Carolina Department of Transportation will hold the above informal public meetings on:
April 27, 2006 from 4PM to 8PM at the Monroe Country Club,
1680 Pageland Highway, Monroe.
May 3, 2006 from 4PM to 8PM at the South Piedmont Community College,
Building A, 4209 Old Charlotte Highway, Monroe.
NCDOT is requesting that MUMPO (Mecklenburg Union Metropolitan Planning Organization)
add Section A of the Monroe Bypass to its Long-Range Transportation Plan and its Thoroughfare
Plan. The Department’s current Transportation Improvement Program includes funding for con
struction of Sections B and C of the Bypass (US 601 east to US 74 near Marshville). Section A is cur
rently scheduled for post years (after 2012) in the Transportation Improvement Program. The
three Sections provide logical termini or endpoints for the Bypass, enable the Bypass to provide
independent utility, and were studied within the original NEPA (National Environmental Poliw Act)
environmental document that was prepared for the project.
Because of the age of the NEPA environmental document (1997) for the Monroe Bypass, the
Department is preparing a reevaluation of the original document. The completion of the NEPA
document reevaluation is needed before any portion of the Bypass can be let to contract. During
the course of the reevaluation study, it was discovered that MUMPO’s Long-Range Transportation
Plan did not include Section A of the Bypass. The project must be on the Long-Range
Transportation Plan and the air conformity' analysis must include Section A of the Bypass in order
for the Department to be able to complete the NEPA document reevaluation for the Monroe
Bypass.
Again, the completion of the reevaluacion of the NEPA document as well as receipt of the envi
ronmental permits will enable the Department to move forward to construction on the funded por
tions of the Bypass, It will also better enable the Department to advance Section A of the Bypass
when funding becomes available.
Three alternative alignments for Section A will be presented for public comments at these
meetings. Interested individuals may attend these sessions at their convenience between the
above stated times and locations. Department of Transportation representatives will be available
to supply information and answer questions on an individual basis in an informal setting.
Anyone desiring additional information may contract Mr. John Confofti at 919-733-3141 or 1548
Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC 27699-1548. Written comments will be received for a period of 15
days following the meetings. They should be sent to Mr. Confoni at the above address.
A map showing the potential impact area is available for review at the NCDOT District Office,
130 S. Southerland Avenue, Monroe and at the City of Monroe Planning Office • 1st Floor, 300 West
Crowell Street, Monroe. More detailed maps will be shown at the meetings.
NCDOT will provide auxiliary aids and services for disabled persons who wish to participate in
the meeting to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. To receive special services, please
contact Mr. Conforti at the above address or phone number or fax 919-733-9794 to provide ade
quate notice prior to the date of the meetings so that arrangements can be made.
Please see CLASHES/7A
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