The Urban Village Voice

the newspaper of the 2012 urban journalism workshop | sponsored by the washington association of black journalists and TWP

by KaTherine SUndTujw staff writer

WASHINGTON — Often thought of as an activity limited to homeless and poor people desperate to fill their empty stom-achs, Dumpster diving has become something more.

A relatively new group of Dumpster divers has emerged: those who don’t necessarily need to Dumpster dive, but who choose to do so in order to reduce waste and merely save mon-ey. Organized “dives” have become popular in cities such as Los Angeles, New York, Boston, Nashville, and Washington, using sites such as Meetup to plan times and locations.

Dumpster diving, or “urban foraging,” as it is sometimes called, usually occurs behind grocery stores or other food estab-lishments where food is thrown out as soon as it reaches its ex-piration date. It is also a part of “freeganism,” a philosophy that embodies “alternative strategies for living based on limited par-ticipation in the conventional economy and minimal consump-tion of resources,” according to freegan.info.

dumpster diving

Makes for Frugal

Feasting

by darrin brown, Jr.ujw staff writer

SPRINGDALE, Md. — In the whirlwind that is most commonly known as senior year, it is almost impossible for a high school senior to go a few days without the ques-tion “What are you going to major in?”

But is this economy—with an unemployment rate above 8 per-cent—requiring students to give that question another thought be-fore answering it?

As students make many impor-tant decisions with the constant reminder of others opinions, the decision on what to major in is not an easy one.

Some parents, teachers and counselors to advise students to pursue a degree in science or math

College Majors: Follow the Heart or Follow the Money?

because it will likely be easier to get a job after graduation.

Others, however, combat that idea by saying that no matter what, students should always do what they love — even if it doesn’t pay off immediately.

Tom Scercy, who is the Science and Technology Coordinator at Charles Herbert Flowers High School in Springdale, Md., said he hopes that many students go into the Science, Technology, Engi-neering and Mathematics (STEM) fields.

“If you look at the statistics, they’re hiring,” he said.

According to a 2010 report by from the U.S. Department of Commerce Economics and Sta-tistics Administration, there were 7.6 million STEM workers in the

by celeSTe gregoryujw staff writer

SILVER SPRING, Md. — Kenteria Jones is 9 years old and weighs 90 pounds. She often eats rice with sugar and butter for breakfast, sometimes eats hot dogs and fries for lunch, and eats heavily salted Ramen noodles for dinner.

“Mom always cooks those foods because we don’t like vegetables,” Kenteria Jones said.

There are many activities and programs that are offered to young children, just like Kenteria Jones.

First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! Campaign was designed to help decrease the amount of obese and overweight children in America. The First Lady has been advocating for young children to become more active in their schools and also outside of their schools. Obama teamed up with international singing sensation Beyoncé to help create the music video, “Move Your Body,” which was a remake of Beyoncé’s song, “Get Me Bodied.”

Childhood Obesity A MajorConcern

Flipping the Classroom Makes It Easier on Students

by lUciana rodrigUeS ujw staff writer

ACCOKEEK, Md.—For Stacey Ro-shan’s calculus students, if there’s a concept they don’t understand, they can just rewind the lesson—literally.

Roshan is using a “flipped class-room” to teach advanced math-ematical concepts with a model that allows students to view class-

room lectures online at home and do homework in class.

For the past two years, Roshan has been able to create a more re-laxed atmosphere for her intense AP calculus class at Bullis School in Potomac.

“I would never go back” to a more traditional, lecture style classroom, Roshan said. “The best thing about it is that they get the

12.5MThe number of obese children and teens, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

see obesity, page 3see Feasts, page 11

see Majors, page 10

see learning, page 5

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“It is a part of the American ethic that when you get knocked down, you get up and

you keep trying. And that’s what Congress ought to do.” P. 10

FIXING THE NATIONAL DEBT PROBLEM

A NEW CHARTER SCHOOL IN FAIRFAX? CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION

Teacher’s idea to close achievement gap Sparks Questions From both Students and Parents P. 4

Thousands Gather For Cherry Blossom ParadeP. 6

STaFF:Melanie Aguilar, oakton high school

Darrin Brown Jr., charles herbert flowers high schoolSean Burke, bowie high school

Selina Dudley, holton-arms schoolCeleste Gregory, james hubert blake high school

Laurel Hattix, stone bridge high schoolAllana Haynes, maurice j. mcdonough high school

Brionna Hines, oxon hill high schoolCorynn Johnson, charles herbert flowers high school

Luciana Rodrigues, bishop mcnamara high schoolKatherine Sundt, national cathedral school

ediTorS:Porscha Coleman, freelance journalist

William J. Ford, diverse: issues in higher educationJoshua Garner, laurel (md.), patch.com Lorrie Grant, lg communications, inc.

Gary Graves, freelance sports journalistRaven L. Hill, prince george’s county (md.)

public schoolsKirk Jackson, music blogger/university of the

district of columbia

PhoTograPherS:Selina Dudley, holton-arms school

Laurel Hattix, stone bridge high schoolKatherine Sundt, national cathedral school

Brionna Hines, oxon hill high schoolMelanie Aguilar, oakton high school

Managing ediTor:

Tiffany Arnold, germantown (md.) patch.com

PUbliSher: Dakarai Aarons, communicationworks llc

Technology

#by corynn JohnSon

ujw staff

springdale, md. — when marc scher wanted to expand his advertising, he turned to facebook.

his family’s seventy-nine year old business, located in pocomoke city maryland, began using facebook in au-gust 2009. an icon on the top right corner of the store’s website invites people to visit its facebook page.

four years later, scher’s page has garnered over 3,000 likes on facebook, more than 200 photos and dozens of positive posts and comments.

“it’s interactive,” said scher. “i can run an ad on it and people can upload pictures.”

happy customers have taken to facebook to express their gratitude.

“all of my gorgeous girls thank you for all of your help, they looked amazing!” wrote ginnie sue sterling, who uploaded a picture of her smiling bridesmaids to scher’s bridal shop facebook page.

in recent years businesses, like scher’s have been us-ing social media to advertise their businesses.

according to a study by shop.org, “forty-two per-cent of online consumers have "followed" a retailer pro-actively through facebook, twitter or a retailer's blog, and the average person follows about six retailers.”

“people are looking toward the social media for in-formation and what’s new and hot,” said amanda mill-er littlejohn, a brand strategist and pr social media coach. “if they have a product, it is still relatively easier than other advertising and it costs less.”

scher also uses radio and newspaper advertising.al-though he does not know the extent of business he has gained using social media, he believes facebook is the most successful of his advertising efforts.

“a lot of people see our page on facebook,” he said.according to 2011 social media marketing industry

report by michael a. stelzner, “the number-one ad-vantage of social media marketing is generating more business exposure, as indicated by 88% of marketers. increased traffic (72%) and improved search rankings (62%) were also major advantages.”

aisha jordan, the owner and creative multimedia producer at jordan multimedia group, said she has no-ticed an increase in businesses going to the web for advertising because of the inexpensive cost.

“it’s a cheaper option of getting to an audience, be-cause you automatically have one,” says jordan.

Businesses Boom On Social Media

by laUrel haTTixujw staff

ASHBURN, Va. — Twitter broke the news of Whitney Houston’s death 27 minutes before the first news organization. The death of Osama Bin Laden was announced play-by-play on Twitter prior to any journalist nabbing the story. Even with the evolution of online newspapers and breaking news alerts, trending topics on Twitter are becoming a substitute and often times more timely than news sources.

But Twitter has not always had trending topics much less the ability to search for key words. Why was the ability to search for key words and find “trends” not an original feature of Twitter?

Simply put, its creators did not invent the technology. They bought it.

Twitter began in 2006, the cul-mination of work done by Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams, and Biz Stone. Slow to catch on with social media users, cumulative growth remained under 5 percent over the next year while Facebook blos-somed with over 20 million active users. In need of more function-ality to increase staying power in the market, Twitter turned to Summize.

Other than technology gurus, few have heard of Summize and its co-founder Jay Virdy. Unlike

Facebook, there is no singular fig-ure such as Mark Zuckerburg be-hind the social networking giant that Twitter has become. This is in part because Twitter’s technology is a culmination of not just several people but several companies.

“Twitter already had product folks and desperately needed soft-ware developers to help stabilize Twitter,” Virdy said in an inter-view from his northern Virginia home. “Twitter and their inves-tors came knocking and quickly bought the company.”

A generic business transaction that set Twitter apart from the status updates and “thumbs ups” that created the ability to track the trend now has over 140 million followers.

“Summize was originally a ‘re-view search engine’ to help con-sumers make buying decisions,” Virdy said. “Our initial idea did not work, so we had to go back to the drawing board and pivot to a new idea. We pivoted to develop

The Urban Village Voice

The Power of Twitter?

All in a Hashtag.

140M+The number of Twitter users, according to the social networking company.

“There’s a reasonwhy so many journalists, lawyers, moms, animal doctors, students and other normal people are so obsessed with Twitter - and it’s not because they are flighty, superficial people intent on telling the world what they ate for breakfast.—Marshall Kirkpatrick, on the impact of Twitter

childhood obesitya major concernfrom obesity, page 1

Technology

a real-time search engine using Twitter and we instantly took off like a rocket.”

Twitter users have the ability to see “trending topics” or what topics are being talked about the most through the technology in-troduced by Virdy’s team.

“Trending topics looks for common words and phrases, in real-time, that millions of people tweet about. If a lot of people are tweeting about a particular sub-ject, such as the iPhone 4s then this shows up on Twitter’s home page as a trending topic,” said Virdy.

Twitter finally had the missing piece. After the merging of tech-nology with Summize and emerg-ing use of Twitter by celebrities such as actor Ashton Kutcher, Twitter more than doubled the number of users in a matter of months.

“Summize identified and cre-ated the killer features -search and discovery- needed to make Twitter a success,” Virdy said. “Summize helped by giving Twitter two very valuable news services: Twitter search and trending topics. Both of these services are successfully being monetized by Twitter today.”

In 2008, two years after the buyout of Summize, Marshall Kirkpatrick wrote in a piece for Read Write Web about the impact Twitter was already having.

“There's a reason why so many

journalists, lawyers, moms, animal doctors, students and other normal people are so obsessed with Twit-ter - and it's not because they are flighty, superficial people intent on telling the world what they ate for breakfast,” said Kirkpatrick.

He went on to say: “The cre-ators of Twitter deserve big acco-lades because they have invented what could be compared to a newly discovered, very usable, radio-wave frequency. It's a new plane of communication. It's tru-ly world changing.”

Even with the possibility to grow an independent business, Virdy has no regrets.

“We were at the right place at the right time to capitalize on the tremendous growth of social me-

dia and search,” Virdy said.Social media’s most prominent

and savvy users, young adults, see the ability to find what is “trend-ing” pertinent to the company’s success.

“Trending topics and searches are the backbone of Twitter’s ef-fectiveness,” said avid tweeter Gabriel Yokoe, a 20-year-old col-lege student. “I usually hear news or gather information quicker on Twitter than using any other source.”

Today, a portion of the voices behind the loudest social move-ments are sitting behind com-puters and typing on smart-phones; not passing out flyers and yelling into megaphones. The irony: millions of the voices behind the movements will have never met.

The Invisible Children cam-paign, a nonprofit focused on raising awareness of the use of child soldiers, is just one example of Twitter opening the door to a digital bombardment of new ideas, often spurred on by the “trendiness” of it all.

“Kony 2012, the Invisible Chil-dren campaign, spread like wild-

fire,” said tweeter Divya Ramoo, a 18-year-old high school student in northern Virginia. “I think it was trending the same day the video came out. By the end of the week the story was all over major news broadcasts and was getting serious attention.”

While she acknowledges the vast amount of information be-ing dispersed, Ramoo often ques-tions the credibility of the trend-ing ideas.

“It is very good at spread-ing opinions, rather than facts,” Ramoo said. “Part of the appeal is the lingo. It gives people a sort of unifying goal. If something is trending it entices people to get in the know because most people are interested in what is trendy. I have seen the most ridiculous words that make no sense but seem to catch on quickly if placed behind a hashtag.”

Even with skeptics, Twitter’s continues to grow, but will the so-cial media trend last forever?

“Living in an ‘age of informa-tion’, the ability to connect with news and what is going on in the world will never be outdated,” said Yokoe.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 12.5 million children and teens are obese. The prevalence of obe-sity among children and teens has tripled since 1980, according to the CDC.

The major causes of childhood obesity are the lack of healthy dietary habits and physical exer-cise.

Kenteria Jones lives in Mur-freesboro, Tenn., and is a third grader. She does not participate in any sports or extracurricular activities. After school Kenteria comes home to eat and play video games like Pac-Man, her mother Tamika Jones said.

Her mother said that she was open to the idea of encourag-ing Kenteria to be healthier, but sometimes it’s challenging.

“It’s just so much more conve-nient and better to buy junk food or heat up some hot dogs,” Tamika Jones said.

Another way to get children more active is through ZumbA-tomic, said fitness instructor and owner of Renuvia Dance Fitness, Kelly Knight,. Knight teaches ZumbAtomic to kids ages 4 to 12.

“They love to dance! I'm pret-ty sure many of them don't even think about it as exercise be-cause they are having so much fun and that is the best part!” said Knight.

ZumbAtomic is a form of Zum-ba that is designed for kids. Like Zumba, ZumbAtomic combines Latin style dance and music with fitness. Knight said she thinks programs like ZumbAtomic could help with the fight of childhood obesity.

“Physical education is an area that many schools are choosing to cut back on to save money,” Knight said. “That combined with the poor lunch choices provided in school and kids who would rather stay inside and play video games has led to an obesity epidemic in children. When I was growing up, our idea of fun was going outside and playing.”

istockphoto

“Trending topics and searches are thebackbone of Twitter’s effectiveness. I usually hear news or gather information quicker on Twitter than using any other source.”—gabriel yokoe, college student

edUcaTion

by Melanie agUilarujw staff

FALLS CHURCH, Va.—As Fair-fax County’s first charter school proposal prepares to go before the county’s school board this summer, some parents—and students—question whether the charter school is necessary.

The proposal is being led by Eric Welch, a high school teacher at J.E.B. Stuart High School in Falls Church, Va., who he believes there is an achievement gap issue in Fairfax County Public Schools not being addressed by the current educational offerings.

“There are a number of stu-dents who, either because they fail or because they are having to take remedial classes in math or English, stay in high school until 19, 20, 21 or don’t even graduate,” Welch said.

According to a report from the Virginia Department of Educa-tion, the county’s five-year gradu-ation rate for the Class of 2010 was 92 percent overall, but differed when ethnicity and income were factored in. The county graduated 96 percent of its white students, 90 percent of its Black students, 77 percent of its Hispanic stu-dents, 78 percent of students who are English-language learners and 88 percent of students identified as economically disadvantaged.

“Those are not good stats,” said Stephanie Grisham, the Senior Communications Consultant for California-based Larson Com-munications, which specializes in national efforts to educate the pub-lic about charter schools. “A char-ter school could come in and offer something for children.”

Despite the graduation gap, the Fairfax school system—Virginia’s largest and the 11th largest in the nation— has a national reputation as academically strong, with its students scoring higher than the national average on the Scholas-tic Aptitude Test or SAT, a college entrance exam. Fairfax County’s students scored 1654 out of 2400 in 2010, compared with the national average score of 1,509, according to

opinions clash as Fairfax county considers charter School

the Washington Examiner. But these statistics are not

enough for charter school propo-nents.

“I am really concerned for Fair-fax County if we don’t try new things over the next 10 years,” said Welch, who is a board member for the proposed Fairfax Leader-ship Academy. “I think the world is changing and schools around the country are trying to adapt to that. I think Fairfax County needs to be trying to do that.”

As an alternative to the tradition-al educational methods of FCPS, the charter school proposes longer school days, an extended school year, and a career mentorship pro-gram during the school year.

Welch also wants to pair the International Baccalaureate pro-gram, which has college-level courses that can earn college cred-it with the Advancement Via In-dividual Determination or AVID program. This program is used at 10 Fairfax County high schools already, and is geared to “students who have the potential to succeed in a rigorous academic program if given both opportunity and sup-port,” according to the county’s overview of the AVID program.

But a group of active parents at Falls Church High School, whose parent community was not in-cluded in the early proposal dis-cussions with county officials, are

worried about potential negative implications for their school if the charter school is approved later this summer.

After learning about the propos-al, several parents started a group in October 2011 called UPROAR, United Parents for Renovating Our Academic Resource. According to their website, the group is dedi-cated to advocating for building renovations, improving academic offerings and opposing the Fairfax Leadership Academy.

The group is critical of the plans for FLA and has created an on-line petition with over 500 signa-tures. The school is not offering “anything dramatically different than what the kids at Falls Church (High School) are getting,” said Joan Daly, head of UPROAR. “We think it’s very similar and it’s at-tracting the same base of kids.”

The Fairfax Leadership Acade-my would open with grades 7 and 8 and then increase by a grade every year until it reaches 12th grade.

“When we learned about what the focus was and who the tar-get student populations were, we were concerned,” Daly said.

She believes that potential FLA students represent “the bulk of the strong, motivated students at Falls Church” and she doesn’t want to “lose them.”

Welch disagrees, saying the school’s focus is instead on stu-

dents who are struggling in the traditional middle and high school programs.

“I do feel that the folks at UP-ROAR and the people signing that petition are just very misin-formed,” he said. “I don’t feel like they’re taking the time to under-stand how and why we are doing this and they’re just jumping im-mediately to the conclusion that ‘Oh my God, if there’s another school in our area, it’s gonna hurt our high school’.”

However, Welch said he would like the FLA to include students who need more help in core class-es like math and English, and who would benefit from a smaller school structure.

“We’re working with social service organizations and we will work within the school district with counselors and families to make sure that they know that the type of student who should go to this school is not a student who is already succeeding at their regu-lar school,” Welch said.

“If they are getting As and Bs at their regular school, then that is obviously working for them.”

Yet, UPROAR is opposed to the charter school in part because there is no guarantee that the students it is targeting would attend. The FLA cannot set requirements for stu-dents to apply because it would be part of the Fairfax County Public

Schools system. Therefore, it would be open to whoever applied, as long as they live within the school’s at-tendance boundaries.

Some Falls Church High School students have similar concerns.

“We already have a small popu-lation, and because of our under-populated facilities we have to fight for meager renovations,” said Katie Davidson, a junior at Falls Church High School.

“I have considered leaving Falls Church for an environment with better opportunities and resourc-es, but every time, I have backed out because of my ‘family’ at Falls Church,” Davidson added.

Kelly Haynes and Penny Wil-liams, also juniors at FCHS, said they spoke out against FLA’s pro-posal at a school board meeting in January and remain apprehensive about the consequences the FLA could bring to their community.

“Falls Church High School is already here,” Haynes said. “We don't need a new school within walking distance. It will bring less students to our already under-en-rolled school.”

Geography is not students’ only concern. Others believe the acad-emy would resemble a selective school, such as Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Tech-nology.

“All of the students I've talked to are against the charter school or indifferent to it just because they don't know a lot about it,” said Wil-liams. “I think the charter school will end up being like another T.J.”

Welch disagrees. “We’re not at all a magnet school

and we are not advertising this school for the best kids to get better; we’re advertising it for students who are struggling and not thriving in their conventional school,” he said.

Fairfax County Superintendent Jack D. Dale, took an impartial stance on the proposal when asked if a charter school would be a good or bad choice for students in FCPS.

“It depends on the charter,” he said in an e-mail interview. “If it is providing another, valuable program then perhaps yes. If not, then why approve?”

Government teacher Eric Welch talks to his class at J.E.B. Stuart High School.w

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edUcaTionflipping the classroom makes it easier on studentsone on one time with me.” Ro-shan adds that the flipped class-room “customizes the lesson for students.”

A flipped classroom is one that teaches through a variety of methods that uses computer technology where students go home and watch a lesson. They then go to school with the les-son already learned and are able to do what would normally be homework in class with their teacher present for questions.

Roshan, for example, uses screen capture software to cre-ate and edit videos. Her stu-dents then are able to access these videos through a website called screencast.com as well as a podcast on iTunes that they can subscribe to.

According to Roshan, this technology allows her students to watch the videos she makes as many times as they need so that they are able to completely grasp the concepts.

The Urban Village Voice was not able to get in contact with Jonathan Bergman, founder of the flipped classroom concept, but according to The Washing-ton Post, Bergman began using this method in his classroom while he was a high school chemistry teacher in Colorado. The Washington Post also re-ported that Bergman is sched-uled to release a book on flipped learning in June and is also planning to launch a nonprofit organization to train teachers in the concept.

Bergman told The Washing-ton Post that the benefits of this concept “are huge.”

“Kids learn to become inde-pendent learners, they figure out how to learn for themselves. In the old model, who would get the teacher’s attention? The kid who raised his hand, the kid who would do well anyway,” he told The Post. “In this model, everybody gets the teacher’s at-tention. It humanizes the class-room.”

Mark Hall, principal of an

Indiana high school, told The Associated Press that “the real benefit of it is when they’re [stu-dents] trying to learn content, they have the teacher to help them.”

But a mathematics blogger from the Detroit area, Michael Paul Goldenberg, does not see this method as very effective.

“I’m hard-pressed to see how flipping things and putting non-interactive lectures onto vid-eos magically or even logically makes things go better,” wrote Goldenberg in a comment that he posted on the Bergman ar-ticle.

“The key to me isn’t the order in which these things occur, but the quality of the problems and the way the tools and habits of mind are delivered. Lecture, in-vestigation, ‘discovery,’ ‘guided-discovery,’ and other approach-es are all potentially effective. Any one of them alone is likely a huge stink bomb for given kids on given days. And bad videos still are bad.”

Knewton, a New York City-based educational technology company, conducted a study that found that more than 50 percent of freshmen failed Eng-lish and 44 percent failed math in a traditional classroom mod-el at a high school near Detroit. After using a flipped classroom, only 19 percent of freshmen failed English and 13 percent of freshmen failed math.

Roshan did not pick up the flipped classroom model from a specific source. She thought of using this model after attending a technology conference.

She is nearing the end of her second year using this method and believes that her students have reacted very positively to it.

Roshan is the only teacher that uses this as the core teach-ing method in her class every day. But she said other teach-ers at the Bullis school are be-ginning to supplement some of their lessons with similar tech-nology.

from learning, page 1

Oxon Hill High School Makes The Grade

A sign welcomes accreditation evaluators to Oxon Hill High School.

by brionna hineSujw staff

OXON HILL, Md.—The Oxon Hill Clippers can breathe a little easier now that they have passed their accreditation assessment.

Oxon Hill High School had been under review since March 5 by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools (MSA), an organization that visits public and private schools every seven years to assess the schools functions as a whole and to evaluate whether or not the school maintains the stan-dards.

Public and private schools are evaluated to see if they meet cer-tain educational standards to vali-date diplomas.

“I was relieved we passed,” said Jean-Paul Cadet, the school’s prin-cipal. “You never know how people will evaluate how your school is.”

The MSA evaluates schools based on 12 factors: Philosophy/Mission, Governance and Leader-ship, School Improvement Plan-ning, Finances, Facilities, School Climate and Organization, Health and Safety, Education Program, Assessment and Evidence of Stu-dent Learning, Student Services, Student Life and Student Activi-ties, and Information Resources and Technology.

“We’ve been preparing the stu-dents, staff, community, and par-ents for the past two years with different workshops, advisory classes, surveys, and announce-ments,” said Cadet. “If we didn’t get accredited, every students’ diploma wouldn’t mean anything for the next seven years until we’re reaccredited.”

Middle States Chairwoman, Kathy Walther, announced on March 8 that she and her team of MSA administrators have “con-cluded that OHHS has met the 12 standards for accreditation.”

“As with all coins, this report has two sides… The visiting team recommended that all stakehold-ers: administration, faculty and students familiarize themselves

with their crisis management plans and work a way in which everyone understands what is ex-pected of each person” said Wal-ther.

“We also recommend that the administration and faculty work together to bring consistency and broad-based accountability to school-wide classroom manage-ment plan.”

Accreditors asked the students about their knowledge of the mis-sion statement. The school’s mis-sion statement reads: To provide a quality education that provides the content knowledge, skills, and attitudes that will enable all students to reach their maximum potential as responsible, life-long learners and productive citizens.

“I didn’t know what this process was until the week before,” said senior, Raechel Nelson.

(Despite such high stakes, some students were unaware of this process.)

“It means we can graduate from an accredited school,” said Dani-elle Caster, a sophomore at the school.

The Middle States association of colleges and Schools evaluates schools for acreditation based on 12 factors:● Philosophy/Mission● Governance and Leadership● School Improvement Planning● Finances, Facilities● School Climate and Organization● Health and Safety, Education Program● Assessment and Evidence of Student Learning● Student Services● Student Life and Student Activitie● Information Resources and Technology

“We’ve been preparing the students, staff, community, and parents for the past two years with different workshops, advisory classes, surveys, and announcements. If we didn’t get accredited, every students’ diploma wouldn’t mean anything for the next seven years until we’re reaccredited.”

—Jean-Paul cadet, principal at Oxon Hill High School

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cherry bloSSoM Parade

Thousands Gather to Watch Centennial Celebration

by Selina dUdleyujw staff

WASHINGTON - Crowds and en-tertainment flooded the streets of D.C. as the nation’s capital cel-ebrated this year’s National Cherry Blossom Festival Parade, a com-memoration of Japan’s gift of cher-ry blossoms trees 100 years ago.

According to police officers, an estimated half-million people flanked Constitution Avenue on April 14 to witness the march-ing bands, celebrities, and choral performances. This annual event unites people and traditions from all walks of life, whether foreign or familiar, to the District.

Among some of the tourists were 23-year-olds Randi Tate and Bao Tram.

Tram and Tate, who have been friends since high school, traveled from Philadelphia to behold the festival. Despite being a graduate from the district’s Howard Uni-versity, Tate said this was her first time at the parade.

What interested Tate most were the men in uniform. She stood along Constitution Avenue and 7th Street near members of the Marine Corps marching band from Quantico, Va., who were equipped with guns. During what seemed to be a break from min-utes of being motionlessly still, several of the uniformed men seized the opportunity to stretch and catch a break.

Tate acknowledged to Tram the difficulty in the men’s job. “Look! They are shaking out their knees. It’s hard standing on your feet like that for so long, you try it. It’s a hard life. I could never do it.”

Within the masses of tourists, many locals also attended the fes-tival. Yatsuka Ooi, who came with his wife and two children, said he came to see the “big funny bal-loons, and Japanese tamagawa dancers and drums.” Ooi and his family moved from Japan to McLean, Va., six months ago to work at the Embassy of Japan.

Although Ooi enjoyed the am-biance of the festival, it was dis-

couraging for him that the cherry blossoms were gone. “I am disap-pointed and sad that the cherry blossoms are no longer in bloom. My family and I were really look-ing forward to seeing them,” he said.

As people continued to crowd the streets and blocked sectioned areas, police officers tried to maintain control. But some peo-ple stood on planters and ignored police orders.

“Get down from that.” “Move back.” “Stand to the side,” officers instructed to the crowd.

For no apparent reason, a home-less woman began to shout ob-scenities.

Wearing a black and white puppy hat and holding a bag with clothes in it, she heckled bystand-ers at 9th Street and Constitution Avenue, two blocks from the be-ginning of the parade route.

Located on the same corner, a pink truck owned by Chef Hayes and labeled “Reba’s Funnel Cakes,” was decked out in sweet treats. The one-week old company made its début at this year’s festi-val and deemed itself the “Nations Capitol 1st Official Funnel Cake Truck.”

Whether a newcomer to the fes-tival, or an annual observer, the events of the celebration offer up excitement and activity to every-one.

Mousam Ghosh is one of them. Standing a mere 4-foot-tall in her pink, traditional Indian churidar, she enjoys the festival every year.

“In my opinion, it is a beautiful and extraordinary sequence of events,” she said.

Stilt Walkers Strut at Cherry Blossom Festival Paradeby corynn JohnSon

ujw staff

WAHSINGTON - High kicks, dancing, hopping around and touching the ground may not seem difficult to do, but try doing those moves on 3-foot stilts.

“High heels are much easier to walk in,” said stilt walker Ju-lianna Tucker, who was part of a five-person troupe from Orlando. They were gearing up for their second walk of the day at the Na-tional Cherry Blossom Festival Parade and were changing out of Venus flytrap outfits into swing-

ing fringe.“My favorite costume is the

Geisha and the candy cane,” said Tucker. “I don’t have a favorite routine. We usually do what the places ask us.”

The National Cherry Blossom Festival Parade was April 14 in downtown Washington. Vendors and approximately half a mil-lion people were in attendance to commemorate the 100th an-niversary of the gifting of the cherry blossom trees from Japan.

Tucker said it was her first trip to the nation’s capital and her first time performing at the cher-

ry blossom parade. “I’m excited to be here for the 100th,” she said.

Tucker was taught stilt walk-ing fours years ago by a friend and has been doing it ever since work-ing at places like Universal Stu-dios. Squatting to down to talk with small children, flips and leg lifts are other acrobatic feats the stilt walkers perform.

“Girls don’t usually do as many tricks as the boys,” Tucker said.

Justin Rivera, who attend-ed as representative for the troupe’s agency, Hard Drive Productions, said the most dif-ficult stunt he ever tried — but

never mastered — was to roll down to the ground on his back and kick his legs back up to a standing position.

“I can roll down but cant stand back up,” he said with a laugh.

Rivera and Tucker said audi-ences don’t take into account how much work goes into per-fecting their craft. Tucker said they had to be out of their hotel by 4:45 a.m.

And then there are the hot cos-tumes.

“I learned you can get hot in places you didn’t even know,” said Tucker.

cherry bloSSoM Parade

PhoToS by UJw STaFF

cherry bloSSoM Parade

by laUrel haTTixujw staff

WASHINGTON – Behind the chaos of the annual National Cherry Blossom Festival Pa-rade were mothers’ tying bows in their dancing daughter’s hair and jittery jump ropers preparing to perform.

And then there was Marie Osmond.

With her heels gracefully propped up, the longtime sing-er and actress sat in a horse-drawn carriage patiently awaiting her entrance into the parade. Adoring fans snapped photos with Osmond, who was one of the parade’s honorary marshals.

Osmond seemed right at home conversing with her two drivers as she stood up to see the 15-year-old Belgium draft horse, Radar, who would be pulling her along.

Despite the small crowd that gathered around the blossom-covered white carriage, Os-mond remained poise as she waited for her descent into the parade route.

“I don’t get much time off, but I wanted to make time for this,” Osmond said April 14 in a carriage-side interview.

Constitution Avenue was filled with a flurry of unicycles, towering cartoon character balloons and newly shined brass instruments. The pin-nacle of the Washington Mon-ument and the grandeur of the Capitol were tucked behind masses of children perched on their father’s shoulders and shouting street vendors.

The event celebrated the gift of 3,000 cherry blossom trees from Japan to America in 1912.

As for Osmond, she took an opportunity to promote her new show on the Hallmark channel. But being in the Na-tion’s Capital also held person-al significance for the starlet.

“I am supporting my dad, who is a World War II veteran,” Osmond said. “We are here supporting the military and

our troops.”Capital Carriage, the com-

pany that provided the horse-drawn carriage that Osmond rode in, was no rookie to the parade. Proprietor Rick Jones said Osmond’s presence made it unique. Having participated last year, Jones was elated to carry a celebrity through the route.

“It is very special,” Jones said. “She is much prettier in person.”

Jones fellow driver, Linda Janet, was overjoyed to meet Osmond and jokingly an-nounced that she just wanted her to start singing.

“I’m a kid all over-again,” Ja-net said. “She is very down to earth and has a great sense of humor.”

Other honorary marshals of the centennial event included Olympians Benita Fitzgerald Mosley, Kristi Yamaguchi, Shintaro Ishihara, Governor of Tokyo, and Ichiro Fujisaki, Ambassador of Japan to the United States.

The only blooming blossoms in sight were the giant balloons hanging above the parade route. The parade occurred well after the peak bloom of the historic cherry blossoms.

While observing the bar-ren trees, Osmond joked, “The cherry blossoms aren’t bloom-ing, but the gas prices sure are.”

Marie Osmond Graces Parade

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by allana hayneSujw staff

POMFRET, Md. — Brittany Drawdy, a passionate and outgo-ing high school senior who has a faith that is far beyond many her age. As an aspiring filmmaker, she has integrated her passion for God into her films by telling stories with positive and uplifting messages. During her junior year of high school, Brittany was led by God to start a Bible Club in her public school. The idea of starting a Bible Club was not her intention, how-ever after watching the 2010 hit film, To Save a Life she felt a desire to stand up and make a difference in her school.

“My youth group watched To Save a Life at the end of summer right before the school year start-ed and it opened my eyes to how a lot of people feel unloved and that inspired me to reach out to others, but that was just the beginning,” said Brittany.

One day at lunch, Brittany spot-ted a kid sitting at a table alone at lunch.

“He was sitting by himself and we had a class Spanish together and it reminded me of the movie so I invited him to sit with us dur-ing lunch,” she said.

The first time Brittany invited him to lunch he refused, but she remained persistent and he later sat at their table.

“I came to McDonough on the first day of school and met Britta-

ny two or three days after the first day,” began Grizaldy Abella,who was a transfer student from Sur-ratsville, a public high school in Prince George’s County. “She in-vited me to lunch and I felt happy because I made a friend quickly.”

One of the things that surprised him about Brittany was that she would read her Bible during lunch time.

“Brittany sat there reading the Bible and I was curious about what she was reading, it was something I didn’t expect,” he said.

Brittany invited some other kids to sit with her at lunch as well.

“On the first day of school, I sat with one of my friends, but Brit-tany asked me if I wanted to sit with her instead,” said current McDonough High School senior, Jessica McMichael.

The small group at the table had doubled, however the disruptions from the cafeteria began to be-come an issue.

“We were originally at the ‘pea-nut free’ table, but it got too loud so we went to the lobby. People starting joining because they saw us out in the open,” Brittany said.

During this time, the group was able to get to know one another on a different level than they ever would have simply sitting in class with one another.

“It was like a bunch of friends just hanging out,” said Grizaldy.

Under New ManagementBrittany was a part of the Drama

Club during her junior year in her high school. The production that the club was putting on for the fall was Alice in Wonderland. She later invited one of her classmates to help participate in the production.

“I met Brittany in December of my junior year,” said Erica Swann. “At first I saw Brittany as shy, but she was very out spoken when it came to her love for God.”

Although Brittany and Erica weren’t close friends at the time, Brittany still felt the need to talk to her.

“She was in my English and his-tory class and God just told me to talk to her. I invited her to drama club and she joined,” Brittany said.

The two of them got to know one another through drama and Brit-tany later invited her to join her lunch group.

“She invited me to Bible study a couple of weeks after we started to talk. I felt nervous and I was afraid of what others would say,” said Erica. “After I came to my first meeting, my fear fell to the ground. I felt like I was learning a lot about God and I also felt very good because I was taking a stand for what I believed in without try-ing to hide it.”

Reading the Bible in the cafete-ria lobby later began to raise some eyebrows, by other students and faculty.

“One of the vice principals asked us what class we were in. We told her that we weren’t a class, we were a Bible study,” Brittany began.

“She said that we were blocking the hallway and that we had to move.”

Prior to joining the Bible study group, Erica used to spend her lunch period in an English teach-ers classroom.

“We went to our English teacher to ask if we could use her room for Bible study. Then as we started to grow, we had to get it approved by [the principal],” Erica said. “We went to her office and spoke to her about putting posters up and spreading the word.”

After being questioned by one of the vice principals about reading the Bible in a school hallway, Erica says she was surprised by the prin-cipal’s positive response to the idea of starting a “religion club.”

“She [the principal] was amaz-ing. She was actually shocked and surprised that I was asking be-cause she had no idea that I was into studying the Bible,” Erica said. “She was open to the idea and we were so grateful for that.

Toward the middle of the school year, the Bible Club had come a long way since its days at the lunch table. It now had a sponsor, a meet-ing place, an established leader and a meeting day. The Bible club met every Monday after school and had rounded up a pretty large group. The majority of the meetings were led by either Brittany, Erica or a then-senior, Ryan Harris.

One particular meeting after school, Brittany announced that the Bible club would no longer be the “Bible club.” She said that she felt that the name the “Bible club” had intimidated people.

Some of the members threw out suggestions as to what the name of the club should be called and later a vote would be conducted.

The following week, the name of the group was announced.

“We had a meeting after school with some of the members and voted on the name, REVIVE,” said Brittany.

Although many names had been suggested for the Bible club, “RE-VIVE” had a special meaning.

The reasoning behind the name “REVIVE” was that as a group, their goal was the bring revival to the school and to awaken a sleep-ing generation.

After school meetings for RE-VIVE became an oasis for Chris-tians and non-Christians alike. It was a place where students could let go of all of the pressures of high school and join together to worship

God. What made REVIVE so spe-cial was it was welcome to anyone, whether saved or unsaved, whether Catholic or Christian, popular or unpopular and superficial things like age or race were put on the back burner. It was a place where stu-dents could meet and not feel judge by their peers or by their teachers and could worship God freely.

Strong and CourageousHaving religion in a public school has not only brought non-believ-ers to Christ, but it has awakened believers as well. Current mem-bers have been able to benefit from the positive energy and pure gen-tility that the club evokes.

“The club grew in a way that I never expected,” Erica said. “We would tell people who we felt God was leading us to tell, we put up posters that would get others’ at-tention and we also prayed that God would just send people to us saved or unsaved, believers or not.”

The leaders’ passion and enthu-siasm about the club has brought students from all different walks of life together in a way that would have never happened otherwise. It was brought a sense of unity among students and a sense of safety and comfort.

“I saw one of the [REVIVE] posters in the hallway and I asked my mom if I could stay after for one of the meetings,” said Austin Tarburton, who is an active mem-ber of the club. “I felt awkward at first, I didn’t know anyone, but ev-eryone was welcoming and open.”

Austin said that he was shocked by how “religiously involved” the leaders were and how much they knew the Bible.

Brittany says that being a leader of REVIVE has helped her discov-er herself in ways that she never had known before.

“REVIVE has really grown me and developed me as a believer. It’s unlocked spiritual gifts in me and taught me the importance of fel-lowship,” said Brittany.

What separates REVIVE from other popular clubs is that the fact that it is truly making a difference.

“REVIVE has changed my whole life,” said Erica. “I see people dif-ferently and I don’t pick my friends from a superficial perspective. RE-VIVE has taught me to love people as they are because that is how God is with us. He doesn’t love us based on our right and wrongdoings, but simply because He created us.”

Students Find Purpose In Bible Club

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United States, which represents 1 in 18 workers. Scercy added there is special scholarship money for minorities and women who are pursuing those degrees.

The unemployment rate among students that majored in non-technical fields is generally high-er than that of who majored in STEM-related fields.

College graduates with an arts degree have a 11.1 percent unem-ployment rate and liberal arts majors have a 9.4 percent rate,

While the unemployment rate as of 2010 for those with jobs in STEM is 5.3 percent according to a study by the Georgetown Uni-versity Center on Education and the Workforce.

Students have to decide wheth-er or not they will decide to pursue the major that will lead them to their dream career, even if it is not a good prospect for an immediate job.

So should students just grin and bare it while pursuing a degree in one of the STEM fields, even if

they don’t desire to? “No,” said Chauntia Bego, a bi-

ology teacher at Charles H. Flow-ers High School.

Bego, who earned a Biology and Technology degree from Morgan State University in Baltimore, agrees with Scercy that major-ing in one of those degrees does put you in a better position to be hired.

But she warns that a student should not pursue one of these de-grees if they are not interested in it because “they are not going to

put the work in.”Deshonta Robinson, a mathe-

matics teacher at Charles Herbert Flowers High School, recognizes that her profession as a teacher doesn’t provide a lavish lifestyle but says that you have to be pas-sionate about what you do.

D. Rob., as her students past, and present affectionately call her ,teaches because she loves math and she loves kids.

“Something that you like, you can grow to hate, but something that you love you will always come

back to,” she said.Robinson’s advice is that stu-

dents who are struggling to decide on a major “major in something that you love.”

Combining your passion, and a major that will guarantee a job is what Nicole Dyke , a senior at Flowers High School, suggests.

Nicole, who is going to Morgan State in the fall, is majoring in Secondary Education Chemis-try because she loves chemistry and “there will always be a job for teachers,” she says.

from Majors, page 1

college majors: follow the heart or follow the money?

by KaTherine SUndTujw staff

WASHINGTON–“My sense is the tone was congenial, the discussion was productive, the sandwiches were delicious,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told the media at a May press briefing.

He was speaking of a lunch meeting that had occurred just hours before, consisting of President Barack Obama, Senate Major-ity Leader Harry Reid, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Speaker John Boehner, and Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi.

The sandwiches Carney was speaking of came from D.C.’s own Taylor Gourmet. The choice of fare tied in perfectly with one of the President’s main goals that he focused on throughout the meeting: cut-ting taxes for small businesses. In fact, Carney said, President Obama had spoken about the matter with local entrepreneurs themselves at the sandwich shop earlier in the day.

Tax cuts for small businesses are one of five items on the President’s “To-Do” list for Congress. “It includes extending unemployment insurance. It includes the STOCK Act and the so-called JOBS Act. And it includes the reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank, among other

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney answers questions from reporters at a May press briefing.

things,” Carney said. Helping veterans find jobs and providing assistance to re-sponsible homeowners are also on Presi-dent Obama’s agenda.

“In other words,” the Press Secretary said, “the kind of priorities that Republi-cans and Democrats should be able to work together on to help the economy and sup-port the middle class.”

This was the first of many times Car-ney would mention cooperation between the two parties, as he stressed President Obama’s desire for Congress to take a “bal-anced approach” to tackling the country’s issues.

“It is simply not acceptable to hold the American and global economy hostage to one party’s political ideology,” the Press Secretary said, referring to the “debt ceil-ing debacle” of last August that the Presi-dent is trying to stop from being recreated. “It is also important that Congress act to-gether with the President to deal with our medium- and long-term fiscal challenges,” Carney added.

When asked about how President Obama plans to deal with the country’s deficit and debt, the Press Secretary had no qualms about putting Congress Republicans on the spot and blaming them for a lack of progress.

“The primary stumbling block to bipar-

tisan cooperation on this issue is the ab-solute intransigence, the absolute refusal of Republicans to accept what bipartisan commissions accept, what Democrats, in-dependents and Republicans out in the country accept, which is that we need a balanced approach to this,” Carney said.

Although questioned about the Demo-crats’ inaction on bringing up the President’s budget proposal for a vote, the Press Secre-

tary continued to blame the Republicans and their unwillingness to compromise.

In a speech the day before, Speaker Boehner said Republicans have no inten-tion of allowing a debt default—or of pass-ing the President’s budget as is.

“Yes, allowing America to default would be irresponsible. But it would be more irre-sponsible to raise the debt ceiling without taking dramatic steps to reduce spending and reform the budget process,” he said. “We shouldn’t dread the debt limit. We should welcome it. It’s an action-forcing event in a town that has become infamous for inaction.”

Despite Carney’s apparent frustration with the Republican Party, he did not sug-gest that there was no hope. “It is a part of the American ethic that when you get knocked down, you get up and you keep trying,” he said. “And that’s what Congress ought to do.”

‘Balanced Approach’ is Only Way Forward, Carney Says

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“It is simply not acceptable to hold the American and global economy hostage to one party’s political ideology. It is also important that Congress act together with the President to deal with our medium- and long-term fiscal challenges.”

—White House Press Secretary Jay carney

SPorTS

Deborah R., a 42-year-old gov-ernment employee living in Sil-ver Spring, Md., is an occasional diver. She said she doesn’t do a lot of Dumpster diving, but she still sometimes finds it to be the best choice.

“Dumpster diving is only a last resort,” Deborah said. “But it’s not a bad option. It gets a really bad reputation sometimes ‘cause people think it’s gross, but it’s really not and you can get some awesome fresh food.”

She said she has mostly Dumpster dived in places that don’t have many natural food stores, which often have food outreach programs, and where most grocery store food waste is destroyed in trash compactors.

“I do try not to buy a lot of food,” Deborah said. “The amount of food discarded by stores is huge.”

One critic of the Dumpster diving trend is Food Not Bombs co-founder Keith McHenry. Ac-cording to its website, the orga-nization is a “global campaign for the right to share food.” It is based on the theory that food is a right, not a privilege. Food Not Bombs chapters across the country get food donations from restaurants and grocery stores from which they prepare veg-etarian meals for the needy.

Although McHenry said he has Dumpster dived before, he “real-ized you could actually just talk to store owners.” He said that as an alternative to Dumpster div-

ing, people can simply ask stores for food or other items that they are planning to throw away.

“The issue of the Dumpster diving is that it became popu-larized as kind of like this cool, hip thing, and it’s not really that necessary, and the ideology is something that we’re trying to get away from,” McHenry said.

He believes that the govern-ment is using the concept of Dumpster diving to distract the public from the fact that it is using funds on war-related ex-penses rather than on feeding those in need.

“Because of the success of Food Not Bombs,” McHenry said, “the media started pretend-ing to be radicals and make it real cool and hip and write like a little essay about how cool it was to get food out of the Dumpster, and things of this nature, until it became sort of a romantic thing to get food out of the Dumpster.”

“The Dumpster diving part is designed so that an average American will go, ‘Oh, that’s out of the garbage, it’s Dumpster dived,’” he said.

Whatever your view is on the Dumpster diving trend, ques-tions remain on its legality. Lo-cally, it seems to be a gray area.

When asked about the laws regarding Dumpster diving, D.C. Metropolitan Police Depart-ment officials were stumped.

“You can call the U.S. attor-ney’s office,” one police officer said hurriedly. “We don’t deal with that.”

by Selina dUdleyujw staff

WASHINGTON—Getting tack-led or knocked in the head may be common for student athletes, but researchers have linked head trauma among athletes to a devel-oping disease.

Researchers at the Sports Leg-acy Institute (SLI) say young ath-letes are particularly vulnerable to chronic traumatic encepha-lopathy (CTE), a degenerative dis-ease brought on by repetitive head trauma, specifically concussions. Lasting affects of the disease are memory loss, impaired judgment, and progressive dementia.

“The growing number in find-ings of CTE in athletes confirm the need for a large-scale study of CTE in athletes who participate in con-tact sports,” said SLI Founder Chris Nowinski, a former college wrestler, who sustained and struggled with more than 10 concussions.

Nowinski said the disease is particularly troubling because it can go undetected for so long. Pro-fessional wrestler Chris Benoit, who was diagnosed with CTE fol-lowing his suicide in 2007.

The Sports Legacy Institute studied the brains of four NFL players who committed suicide; the study determined that the players’ had symptoms of dementia similar to that of Alzheimer’s disease.

Although most cases have been formally discovered in professional

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athletes, that does not limit its vic-tims to those in the professional sports realm. According to Boston University’s Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy, col-legiate and high school athletes can develop the condition if they have experienced adequate head trauma.

The lack of awareness and edu-cation on concussions, according to SLI, is allowing the disease to proliferate, and high school ath-letes are well at risk.

According to researchers, Ben-oit demonstrated major charac-teristics of the disease. Seemingly happy dispositions turned sour, severe depression, and ultimately suicide.

Still, student athletes remain largely unaware of the disease.

Deion Wellington, a 17-year-old senior, and football player at the Landon School, a private school in Bethesda, Md. seemed surprised when he explained that he was un-familiar with CTE.

“I’ve been playing football since I was 7, never suffered a concussion, but I never would have thought that repetitive con-cussions could cause permanent damage to the brain,” he said.

Taylor Greene, a varsity wres-tler at the Landon School, said he has only had two concussions.

“Well, anytime I’ve had a concus-sion I tend to just brush it off and get back to wrestling. If you take too many days off you could fall off—I don’t want that to happen. I

didn’t know there was a serious dis-ease that could happen because of concussions, but maybe now I’ll be more careful,” Greene said.

In order to raise awareness of CTE, Nowinski and Dr. Robert Cantu founded the Sports Legacy Institute in 2007 in Boston. It was established in reaction to new med-ical research, which indicated that brain trauma in sports, had become a serious, public health crisis.

SLI will be visiting high schools in the D.C. area, addressing students and faculty to talk about concussion prevention. The goal is to solve the concussion crisis by means of medi-cal research, treatment, and educa-tion, said Nowinski.

Nowinski said he felt like he dodged a bullet as a student ath-lete when he decided to quit after experiencing memory loss.

“It was the combined effects from the series of concussions, along with the fact I didn’t know I needed to rest my concussion when I got it. So, for about three weeks, I continued wrestling day in and day out with awful head-aches which ended up making it a lot worse,” he said.

Making sure this disease is rec-ognized and properly addressed is how Nowinski hopes to avert CTE from potentially harming other athletes.

“It is time to take more aggres-sive steps to protect the brains of athletes, especially the developing brains of young athletes,” he said.

Concussions Cause Student Athletes Lasting Trouble

SPorTS

by Sean bUrKeujw staff

WASHINGTON—The Washing-ton Nationals’ improved play through one-third of baseball’s regular season has spawned re-alistic expectations of their first postseason berth, and much of that can be credited to their use of the sport’s economics.

Thanks to a stockpile of draft picks (a plan implemented by for-mer team president Stan Kasten), access to baseball’s luxury tax system and a complex formula called Sa-bermetrics, the Na-tionals have used

Sound Drafting and Economics Help Nationals Mount Playoff Push

to determine a player’s monetary worth. Oakland Athletics general manager and co-owner Billy Beane coined the term “Moneyball” (pop-ularized by Michael Lewis’ best-selling book and the 2011 movie starring Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill) to use the formula and the luxury tax to find cheap players.

The small-market Athletics used it well from 2000-03, reach-ing the American League playoffs each year despite one of baseball’s lowest payrolls. The Tampa Bay Rays for example use Sabermet-rics for defensive shifts to force specific or key outs needed in games.

Many general managers, who formally dismissed it, now use sta-tistics and ratings.

“Baseball is so traditional, so old-school, they’re almost afraid to do anything different from any other team” said USA Today’s White said.

The luxury tax was instituted in 2002, where teams exceeding the salary cap (currently $178 million) pay a tax into a pool that is redis-tributed to other lower-payroll teams. For example, the New York

Yankees and Boston Red Sox are annual contributors to the pool, allowing small-market teams such as the Pittsburgh Pirates to pay players or get lower-priced free agents.

Current Nationals Jordan Zim-merman or Ross Detwiler are ex-amples of this system. Washing-ton has also signed key free agents such as outfielder Xavier Nady and infielder Chad Tracy.

Right now, Washington’s draft picks are coming through. The question is whether the club will keep Strasburg on a 160-inning limit this season to prevent injury to his right pitching arm, which underwent Tommy John recon-structive surgery two years ago.

While removing him from the rotation is thought to possibly hurt the Nationals’ playoff chances, the organization is deep in pitchers and could promote several from its minor league system if it shuts down Strasburg. But their use of the luxury tax money, Sabermet-rics and grass-roots team building has positioned them for their first serious playoff run in more than half a century.

it to their advantage. Washington has been no lower than second in National League East division, a testament to draft selections such as third baseman Ryan Zimmer-man, pitcher Stephen Strasburg, outfielder Bryce Harper and trades for other key players.

While it remains to be seen how this plays out, their current stand-ing is a good sign, especially with an extra wild card team added to the playoff picture.

“Using the luxury tax allows the Nationals to be a contender this year and grow up as long as the di-vision allows it,” USA Today base-ball columnist Paul White said.

While improvement could be expected considering consecutive No. 1 draft picks Strasburg and Harper have met expectations, Washington owes part of its early season success to Sabermetrics in assembling a supporting cast of pitchers and position players.

Developed during the 1950s, Sabermetrics chooses extensive statistical criteria such as on-base percentage and runs scored over traditional categories like bat-ting average and runs batted in

“Using the luxury taxallows the Nationals to be a contender this year and grow up as long as the division allows it.” — USA Today baseball columnist Paul White

Because Washington has been no lower than

second in National League East division,

they’ve made draft selections such

as third baseman Ryan Zimmerman,

far right, pitcher Stephen Strasburg,

right outfielder Bryce Harper, center, and

trades for other key players.

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