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About the College Board Standards for College Success (CBSCS) The College Board Standards for College Success (CBSCS) define the knowledge and skills students need to develop and master in English language arts, mathematics and statistics, and science in order to be college and career ready. The CBSCS outline a clear and coherent pathway to Advanced Placement® (AP®) and college readiness with the goal of increasing the number and diversity of students who are prepared not only to enroll in college, but to succeed in college and 21st-century careers. The College Board has published these standards freely to provide a national model of rigorous academic content standards that states, districts, schools and teachers may use to vertically align curriculum, instruction, assessment and professional development to AP and college readiness. These rigorous standards: provide a model set of comprehensive standards for middle school and high school courses that lead to college and workplace readiness; reflect 21st-century skills such as problem solving, critical and creative thinking, collaboration, and media and technological literacy; articulate clear standards and objectives with supporting, in-depth performance expectations to guide instruction and curriculum development; provide teachers, districts and states with tools for increasing the rigor and alignment of courses across grades 6-12 to college and workplace readiness; and assist teachers in designing lessons and classroom assessments.

Isles of Abundance Britain has taken another step toward designating the world's largest marine reserve around the Chagos Islands, a group of 55 coral protrusions in the Indian Ocean. The government announced the end of a 4-month public comment period on 5 March and is expected to reach a final decision by May. The Chagos contain half of the Indian Ocean's remaining healthy reefs. The waters are said to be among the cleanest on Earth, allowing corals to grow in deep water less vulnerable to global warming. The islands are located in the equatorial "tuna belt," which hosts what a Royal Zoological Society of London report called one of the "most exploited, badly enforced fisheries in the world." A total ban on fishing in the 544,000-square-kilometer zone, an area the size of France, would make it an even larger protected area than the current record-holder, the 360,000-km2 Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument in the northwestern Hawaiian Islands. The Pew Environment Group has spearheaded a 3-year campaign for creation of a Chagos reserve. It would be "literally an island of abundance in a sea of depletion," says Pew's Jay Nelson. The islands are uninhabited except for the U.S. Navy base on Diego Garcia. Some 1500 Chagossians were deported to Mauritius in the 1970s for military security.