Marshall 5 Star 5K Fun Run/Walk

Posted by: DMK

at 12:30 pm

Marshall  5 Star 5K Fun Run/Walk

GC Marshall 45th Anniversary Celebration

Posted by: DMK

at 2:50 pm

GC Marshall Celebrates
45th Anniversary

George C. Marshall High School in Falls Church, Virginia, will commemorate its 45th anniversary with a week-long celebration for students, families, and the community April 12-19, 2008. The theme for this event will be "Appreciate the Past, Celebrate the Present, and Embrace the Future."

We will kick off the festivities on Saturday, April 12, with an evening gala featuring our keynote speaker, the Honorable Thomas R. Pickering, former Ambassador to the United Nations (Russia, India, Israel, El Salvador and Jordan). The evening will include a special dinner prepared by Chef Ciaran Devlin of The Five Star Café, a student-designed cake featuring our mascot, the Griffin, created by Food Network's Ace of Cakes; GCM Booster Club's Hall of Fame inductees, first Statesmen of the 21st Century awardees. Entertainment will be provided by the Marshall's String Quartet.

Throughout the week students from George C. Marshall High School and Kilmer Middle School will participate in instructional opportunities focused on leadership and honoring General Marshall. Rachel Thompson, Director of the Marshall Immersion Seminar Program of the George C. Marshall International Center, will speak to students in their history classes. There will be an essay and art contest and a tour of Dodona Manor, Leesburg home of General Marshall. As our culminating event, we will have a 5K fun race for the community on Saturday, April 19.

George C. Marshall HS is the only school in the United States named for General Marshall, author of the Marshall Plan, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. We are very proud of this honor and our intentions for this week-long celebration are to educate our community on this remarkable man and to commemorate 45 years of our history by highlighting the many accomplishments of the school and the community.

Evening Gala:

When: April 12 at 6:30 p.m.

Where: Marshall HS

Cost: $25 per person

Cocktail Attire

Limited space available

By now, we hope that you have received an invitation to the gala. Although March 28 was listed on the invitation as the RSVP deadline, we would greatly appreciate it if you would let us know as soon as possible. This will facilitate our planning for this exciting event. You can RSVP returning the reply card found HERE to the high school office by mail or in person, to the attention of Marlene Felder.

College Students Struggle with History: from USA Today

Posted by: DMK

at 6:43 am

(republished from USA Today)

College students struggle on history test

by Tracey Wong Briggs, USA TODAY

Students don't know much about history, and colleges aren't adding enough to their civic literacy, says a report out today.

The study from the non-profit Intercollegiate Studies Institute shows that less than half of college seniors knew that Yorktown was the battle that ended the American Revolution or that NATO was formed to resist Soviet expansion. Overall, freshmen averaged 50.4% on a wide-ranging civic literacy test; seniors averaged 54.2%, both failing scores if translated to grades.

"One of the things our research demonstrates conclusively is that an increase in what we call civic knowledge almost invariably leads to a use of that knowledge in a beneficial way," says Josiah Bunting, chairman of ISI's National Civic Literacy Board. "This is useful knowledge we are talking about."

CIVICS QUIZ: Take the full quiz here http://www.americancivicliteracy.org/resources/quiz.aspx

Failing Our Students, Failing America: Holding Colleges Accountable for Teaching America's History and Institutions analyzes scores of a test given to 14,419 freshmen and seniors at 50 U.S. colleges last fall on American history, government, international relations and market economy. Freshman and senior scores at the schools, 25 selective and 25 randomly chosen, were compared to gauge civic learning.

The report generally echoes the results of a similar study done last fall by the ISI, which promotes civics in higher education. This year:

•Average scores for the 25 selective colleges — chosen for type, geographic location and U.S. News & World Report ranking — were much higher than the 25 randomly selected schools for both freshmen (56.6% vs. 43.7%) and seniors (59.4% vs. 48.4%), but the elite schools didn't add as much civic knowledge between the freshman and senior years. At elite schools, the seniors averaged 2.8 points higher than the freshmen vs. 4.7 points for the randomly selected schools.

•Harvard seniors had the highest average at 69.6%, 5.97 points higher than its freshmen but still a D+. A Harvard senior posted the only perfect score.

•In general, the better a college's U.S. News & World Report ranking, the less its civic literacy gain. Yale, with the highest-scoring freshmen (68.94%), along with Princeton, Duke and Cornell, were among eight schools with freshmen outscoring seniors.

•The average senior had taken four college courses in history, economics or political science and scored 3.8 points higher than the average freshman, a civic knowledge gain of about one point per course.

•Raw scores did not correlate to voting or civic participation, but the more seniors outscored their school's freshman average, the more likely they were to vote and be involved in civic activities.

"Several of the colleges at the lower end of our survey are some of the most prestigious in the country, with average tuition, room and board somewhere north of $40,000 a year," Bunting says. "These are the schools, although their stated mission is to help prepare active citizens, that are the most derelict in their responsibility."

While freshmen at elite colleges tended to score higher to start with, there is not much of a "ceiling effect" in which gains get harder to make closer to the top, as their scores are still not that high, says Kenneth Dautrich of the University of Connecticut's Department of Public Policy, which administered the study.

Still, "in many cases, these students are coming from high schools where the subject matter has already been covered," notes Tony Pals of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. "It would be a waste of their tuition dollars to sit through the courses again."

To William Galston, Brookings Institution senior fellow of governance studies, the distinctions between schools aren't as clear as the general decline in the civic mission of high schools and colleges. More students are getting more formal education than students 50 years ago, he says, but today's students have fewer civics requirements as the value of higher education is more often defined in economic terms.

"Less is being expected of secondary and post-secondary education in the way of civic education, and because less is expected, less is achieved," he says.

No one would argue that college students know enough about history or the world, but a civics test may not be the best measure of civic engagement, says Debra Humphreys of the Association of American Colleges & Universities, which promotes liberal education. Other studies have shown that college students are much more likely to vote and be civically engaged than non-students, she adds.

Says Humphreys: "It would be wrong to conclude from this study that the leadership of these selective schools is not committed to educating their students about these subjects."

Marshall Students in Science Fair

Posted by: DMK

at 6:37 am

The following Marshall students qualified for the Fairfax County Regional Science and Engineering Fair, to be held this coming weekend (March 28-30) at Robinson Secondary School:

For more information about the fair, visit

From The Potomac News

Posted by: DMK

at 6:22 am

A Two-Year Price Cut

by Gary Jacobsen
The Potomac News
Published: February 26, 2008

"When bright young minds can't afford college, America pays the price"
- Arthur Ashe

A few months ago, Jose and Maria received Bachelor of Science degrees from George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. They completed similar courses and participated in similar on-campus activities. The only difference was cost. Jose's four years of college cost about $32,946, or an average of $8,236 annually. Maria, on the other hand, paid $55,440 or about $13,860 annually for her four-year college experience. Why the big difference?

The answer is that Jose took courses at the Northern Virginia Community College (NVCC) for two full years before heading off to George Mason's main campus. That one decision saved him a ton of money. Maria was eligible to attend NVCC and pay the in-state tuition rate of $87.10 per credit hour, but she chose not to. Her high school friends and other acquaintances told her she should attend George Mason for the full four years to have a "real college experience." (Hmm. Ever wonder where high school students get their information?)

Jose's expenses were as follows: 60 semester-hours of credits at NVCC cost $87.10 per credit-hour, or a total of about $5,226. His only other expenses were for books and for bus fare to get to and from the Woodbridge campus from his home. He lived for free with his mom and dad in exchange for cutting the grass in the summer and shoveling snow in the winter.

Jose's 60 semester-hours of credits (four semesters) transferred fully to George Mason University; thus, he was admitted as a junior. He lived in a double room on campus for $2,000 per semester, and he participated in the meal plan for $1,510 per semester. Textbooks were extra, but Jose made a point of buying used books and selling them promptly at the conclusion of his courses.

Potential students who think (like Maria) that they must attend all four years at a "big name" university are mistaken. Here's why:

Instruction for first-and second-year students at four-year universities may not be as good as that provided to advanced undergraduates. Senior professors loathe teaching freshmen and sophomores. For this reason, most of these faculty members give only weekly lectures, supplemented by "discussion groups" headed by graduate students. The discussion leaders are called teaching assistants or "TAs." In most cases they are only a few years older than their students. At NVCC, in contrast, all classes are taught by regular or adjunct faculty members who are older and who have a strong desire to teach the younger students. In fact, many NVCC faculty members have special qualifications in addition to academic degrees. Accounting classes, for example, are generally taught by Certified Public Accountants. Similarly, business law courses are almost always taught by adjunct faculty members who are practicing lawyers.

On-campus activities are, of course, important to all students, but here again NVCC stands out. Freshmen and sophomores can participate in a wide range of activities ranging from language clubs to civic action and political groups. When the students transfer to a four-year institution they can select new activities based on their experiences at the junior college level.

If you are contemplating college in the fall, look carefully at the programs that are available at NVCC and at other community colleges.

If you are careful in your planning, you will find that your money will go much further, and that the ultimate prize will be the same: a fully accredited bachelor's degree in the field of your choice.

Gary Jacobsen is a former college professor. He lives in Woodbridge. Contact him at ggjacobsen@live.com.