Word: fourths
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Voucher supporters fault the study's methodology, attacking everything from the impartiality of the researchers to the conditions under which the fourth-graders were tested. Lydia Harris, a reading specialist at Hope Central Academy, says the examiners who came to the school "didn't have a clue," and administered the test during children's nap time. She also suspects the State Department of Education, which commissioned the study, may have wanted vouchers to come off badly because its bureaucratic inertia makes it resist systemic reforms like vouchers. Even the study's authors concede their results don't necessarily discredit vouchers...
...oceanside town of Margate, N.J., children recycled Christmas trees as a means to stave off beach erosion. They planted castoff trees in a trench along the beach, which trapped wind-blown sand and anchored a new sand dune. "The trees were heavy, and some were bigger than me!" recalls fourth-grader Jim Abbott. When fierce nor'easters rushed across the beach, the dune built by kids and bolstered by balsam firs held up, while nearby dunes washed away...
Another successful project was the brainchild of a fourth-grade class in Lake Isabella, Calif. The class had been studying trout, an integral but beleaguered species in the area. To educate their community and tourists about the fish's plight, students built a model trout stream, complete with signs describing the trout's life cycle. Their handiwork will now welcome and enlighten thousands of visitors each year...
...Carol Stream, Ill., fourth-graders found a new use for their discarded sneakers: recycled-rubber playground surfaces. Meanwhile, their peers in Knoxville, Tenn., built 17 bird feeders and drew wildlife to an urban area formerly devoid of birds and squirrels...
...getting them to help out with the dishes after dinner. Sometimes it takes a kid to inspire other kids to care--a kid like Will Vinson, 12, whose aluminum-can-recycling crusade lit a fire under the city's next generation. Since he was a nine-year-old fourth-grader at Littlewood Elementary School, Will has united classmates, teachers, recycling firms and other local companies in a bid to rid Gainesville's school grounds of trash and develop youth recycling programs. Says Will: "I knew that if I did it, the other kids would stand...