 Welcome to Learning English, a daily 30-minute program from The Voice of America. I'm Dan Friedel. And I'm Katie Weaver. This program is aimed at English learners. So we speak slowly, and we use words and phrases, especially written for people learning English. Today on the program, Dan Novak brings us the Education Report. Ashley Thompson talks turkey, and John Russell presents our lesson of the day. But first... When Jeffrey Holt of Hinsdale, New Hampshire died earlier this year at 82, not many people knew he had over one million dollars. He wore worn-out clothes. He did not do jobs that paid a lot of money. He rode a bicycle instead of owning a car, and he had a small home. But when he had extra money, he invested it well. One friend said he put money into a mutual fund that held stock in communications companies. This was in the days before mobile phones. Holt told one friend, Edwin Smith, that the money had grown more than he expected. Holt died with 3.8 million dollars. He left all the money to the town of Hinsdale. The town has about 4,200 people, and is about 160 kilometers northwest of Boston, Massachusetts. In Holt's will, the document he left when he died, he said the money should be used for education, health, recreation, and culture. Steve Diorio is one of the town leaders. He called the money a tremendous gift. No determination has been made yet about how the town will use the money. However, it seems as if the money will go into a special fund, and organizations can submit their ideas for approval. Some have suggested upgrading the town hall clock. Others have talked about repairing civic buildings or buying a vote counting machine. Catherine Lynch is another town leader. She said Hinsdale will use the money carefully, or frugally, which is how Holt lived. Smith, Holt's friend, said he seemed to have what he wanted, but he didn't have much. Holt would ride his bicycle or his lawnmower around town. He would go to a small store to buy a newspaper, and he would sit on the lawnmower reading it, or watching cars pass. When he was younger, he worked as a manager for a green production center. After the center closed, he did small jobs around town, helping people fix things in their homes or teaching teenagers how to drive. He did not have a television, and his friend said his home was not in perfect condition. The legs of his bed made holes in the floor. But Smith said Holt studied financial magazines and carefully decided how to invest his money. He also liked reading about history. Some of his favorite topics included World War II and learning about the auto manufacturer Henry Ford. He also enjoyed listening to classical music and had a record collection that included works by Handel and Mozart. Holt's sister Allison is 81. She lives in California. She said she knew her brother invested his money and did not like to spend wastefully. She said their father passed the ideas along to his children. Allison said her brother had a learning disability called dyslexia, so he had trouble reading and writing. But he was very smart in certain ways. She thought that Jeffrey was disappointed he could not succeed in education, so maybe sucking away all that money was a way to compete. The Holt's grew up in nearby Springfield, Massachusetts. Jeffrey Holt went to Marlborough College in Vermont and also served in the U.S. Navy. Neither Jeffrey nor his sister had any children. Allison said her brother did not need a lot to be happy, but she's sad he never used the money to indulge himself a little bit. I'm Dan Friedel. The U.S. Thanksgiving holiday is symbolized by its traditional food, a large bird we call a turkey. But turkey is certainly not from turkey. In fact, its English name is based on one big mistake. We could say it is a case of mistaken identity. Let's set the record straight. The word turkey has meant the land of the Turks since ancient times. The word turkey, as it refers to the bird, first appeared in the English language in the mid-1500s. The misunderstanding over the word happened because of two similar looking kinds of birds. There is an African bird called the guinea fowl. It has dark feathers with white spots and a patch of brown on the back of its neck. Portuguese traders brought the guinea fowl to Europe through North Africa. This foreign bird came to Europe through Turkish lands. So the English thought of the bird as a Turkish chicken. When Europeans came to North America, they saw a bird that looked like the guinea fowl. This bird was native to the North American continent. Oren Hargraves is a lexicographer, someone who writes dictionaries. Hargraves explains what happened. Some Europeans saw an American turkey, thought that it was the guinea fowl, which at the time was called the turkey cock, and so gave it the same name. Hundreds of years later, we continue to call this North American bird turkey, even though it has no connection at all with the country turkey or even with Europe. But English is not the only language with interesting and even questionable names for this North American bird. The Turkish for their part called turkey hindi, the Turkish name for India. The reference to India probably comes from the old wrong idea that the New World was in Eastern Asia. The French call it Dende, a name that also connects the bird to India. Dende means from India in the French language. Turkey has similar names in several other languages. So what do they call this North American bird in India? In the Hindi language, turkey is turkey. But wait, there's more. In Portuguese, the same bird is called Peru, after the South American nation. Thanks to our VOA Learning English Facebook friends, we have a few more names for turkey to share with you. The Vietnamese word for the bird is ghatay or Western chicken. Our Facebook friend Nguyen Duc explains that local chicken is smaller than Western chicken. A Facebook friend in Myanmar explained that the Burmese word for turkey is gyatsein. The name translates to elephant chicken in English. That animal looks like a big chicken, Sao Myo Nguyen explained. The Dari language name for the bird, philmur, also translates to elephant chicken. Abdullah Kavar explained to us that here in Afghanistan, this name represents the size of this delicious meal. He adds that he thinks the descriptive name elephant chicken is better than a country name. I'm Ashley Thompson. A recent opinion study says a big majority of parents in the United States believe their child is performing at grade level in school. However, standardized tests show how far fewer students are on track. Polling company Gallup and the nonprofit group Learning Heroes released the public opinion poll this month. Report cards show students' school performance. Parents depend on them to understand their child's progress. But report cards do not show all of a student's performance, researchers say. Without more knowledge about their child's learning, parents might not seek extra support for their children if it is needed. Bib Hubbard is the founder and president of Learning Heroes, based in Arlington, Virginia. Report cards are the number one indicator that parents turn to to understand that their child is on grade level, yet a grade does not equal grade level mastery. But nobody's told parents that. In the Gallup poll, 88% of parents believed their child was on grade level in reading, and 89% of parents believed their child was on grade level in math. However, a federal survey of school officials said half of all U.S. students started the last school year behind grade level in at least one subject. One report examined grade point averages and test scores in the state of Washington over the past 10 years. Researchers found grades increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many school systems had eased their grading policies because of the difficulties students were experiencing. Some of those policies could still be in place, masking the lack of learning that is showing up in standardized tests, but not in grades, said Dan Goldhaber. He is a co-author of the report and the director of the Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research in Arlington, Virginia. School systems across the U.S. have spent federal aid money from the COVID-19 crisis on programs to get students back on track. For example, school systems have introduced more tutoring and summer academic programs. But Goldhaber said fewer students attended these programs than the system had planned. For programs like summer school or online tutoring, the family chooses whether to participate. What we see is that it's only a fraction of the students that are invited or eligible that are actually participating, he said. The Gallup poll findings suggest that parents might not know they could be taking action to help their child's school performance. The poll involved more than 2,000 parents of students from kindergarten to twelfth grade. Half the respondents said they have discussed their child's academic progress with a teacher. Among parents who know their child is behind grade level in math, the percentage greatly increases. 74% have spoken with a teacher. Report cards do not give enough information, said Sarah Carpenter. She is director of the Memphis Lyft, an education activist group in Tennessee. A report card is really tricky in our opinion, because you're just looking at A's and B's and C's, Carpenter said. She said a report card does not show whether a child's reading or math level is where it should be and added that parents do not understand this. Trennice Dorsey Hollins is a parent and founder of another activist group, Parent Shield Fort Worth in Texas. She said if educators spoke to parents about issues like reading and grading, families would be better able to support their children. She said parents don't know what they don't know. So, we don't want them to blame themselves. But now that you have the information, use the information to demand better and ensure that your child and all children gets exactly what they need. I'm Dan Nowak. Dan Nowak joins me now to talk more about today's education report. Thanks for joining me, Dan. Sure, Katie. Glad to be here. Your story today was about the limitations of report cards when it comes to assessing student progress. But before we get into that, can you explain what a report card is? So, a report card is a teacher's written assessment of a student's academic progress that parents take home for their parents to look at. For younger kids, a student's report card could list their achievement in things like reading, listening, math, or even class behavior. And as students get older, they are assessed in individual subjects. In the U.S., they receive letter grades from A to F, with A being the highest grade. Yet, report cards are not necessarily a good indicator of student progress. Why is that? Well, grades on report cards can be more subjective than standardized test scores, meaning that grades can be more left up to a teacher's feelings on how the student is performing. Also, grades take into account things like homework completion and class participation, things that don't really have to do with mastery of the material. So, a student's grade can be high even if they aren't performing at grade level in a subject. And parents can have the wrong idea about their child's performance. Yes, exactly. They see a good grade on the report card and assume their child is on track. About 90% of parents think their child is on grade level, but in reality, test scores show that half of American students are below grade level in at least one subject. And parents aren't getting extra help for their children if they don't think they need it. So, I think schools are going to need to start doing a better job of relaying information to parents about student progress beyond just report cards. Good to talk with you, Dan. Thanks. You're welcome, Katie. VOA Learning English has launched a new program for children. It is called Let's Learn English with Anna. The new course aims to teach children American English through asking and answering questions and experiencing fun situations. For more information, visit our website learningenglish.voanews.com. In this next report, Gina Bennett tells us about an artificial intelligence tool called Family Match. We learn about its development and use in some U.S. states. Pay careful attention to the word adoption. We will talk more about it after the report. Thea Ramirez is a former social worker. She now runs a nonprofit organization called Adoption Share. Ramirez has partnered with a computer scientist and developed an artificial intelligence, or AI tool, called Family Match. The tool aims to help social service agencies find the best parents to adopt children in foster care. Foster care is a temporary service provided by American states for children who cannot live with their families. John Gonzaga is the computer scientist who worked with Ramirez. He had previously directed the technology behind eHarmony, a popular online dating tool. I was more excited about the project than anything I've heard for all of my career. Gonzaga said in a Family Match video posted to YouTube. But an Associated Press, or AP, investigation found that Family Match produced limited results in the states where it had been used. The results raised questions about the ability of AI to solve complex human problems. Social workers in Florida, Georgia, and Virginia told AP that Family Match was not useful. It often led them to unwilling families. Virginia and Georgia stopped using Family Match after a trial experiment. They said the tool only produced one or two adoptions a year. Tennessee planned to use Family Match but was unable because of technical issues. Florida agencies, however, reported a better experience with the tool. They said Family Match assisted them in finding more possible parents to adopt foster children. Ramirez did not agree to answer questions from the AP, but she said in an email that Family Match is a valuable tool and helpful to users actively using it to support their recruitment plus matching efforts. And Gonzaga asked all questions to be sent to Ramirez. Ramirez lives in Georgia where her nonprofit organization Adoption Share is based. She got her start by building a website to match possible parents with mothers who wanted their babies to be adopted. Ramirez marketed her website to organizations that are against abortion. Abortion is a medical process that ends a woman's pregnancy. These organizations seek to provide care for pregnant women to persuade them to give birth. After the state of Georgia stopped using Family Match, Ramirez met with the state governor's office and appeared at a legislative hearing to request $250,000 to pay for a statewide expansion. In July, Georgia decided to use Family Match again and signed a new agreement. Adoption Share is permitting Georgia to use Family Match for free, a state official said. Family Match was also used for free in Florida at first. Thanks to a grant or financial award from the former head of the company that makes Patron Tequila a kind of alcohol. The grant ended in October 2022. They would not explain why the grant ended, but said they were very pleased with the work done with Adoption Share. After the grant ended, Florida state government paid for Family Match. Last month, the state awarded Adoption Share a $350,000 contract. In May, Family Match was chosen to receive money from an event supported by Adam Wainwright. At the time, Wainwright was a professional baseball player with the St. Louis Cardinals in the state of Missouri. This year, Adoption Share won a contract with the Florida Department of Health to build a tool centered on children with the most severe medical needs and disabilities. I'm Gina Bennett. Before the report, we asked you to pay careful attention to the word Adoption. Can you remember one example of it? You heard the term and its related forms many times in the report. Here is one example. Thea Ramirez is a former social worker. She now runs a non-profit organization called Adoption Share. Adoption is a noun. It means the act of legally making someone else's child your own. The online etymology dictionary tells us that the word dates to the mid-14th century. At the time, it carried the same basic meaning, the action of taking a child as one's own. The word traces its roots to late Latin. Around 1500, an interesting process possibly took place. This process is known as back formation, when a verb is developed from an existing noun. So, the noun Adoption gave birth to the verb Adopt to make one's own by selection. We should explain that this report gives many examples of the noun Adoption and the verb Adopt in their literal sense. But we also use Adoption and Adopt to talk about the act or process of beginning to use something new or different. So, you might hear news reports about people adopting new habits or companies adopting new technologies. You might hear about the adoption of new practices or the adoption of new beliefs. In all of these examples, the noun and verb carry the idea of bringing into life something new. So, to summarize, the main meaning of Adoption and Adopt is connected to taking in a child that is not your own. But a secondary meaning is to bring into your life something new in general. A word about the most commonly used structures with Adoption and Adopt. The short word of is most commonly used after the noun Adoption. So, that is why you heard the two examples previously. The adoption of new practices and the adoption of new beliefs. And what is most likely to come after the verb Adopt? The short words A, N, and The are the most common. So, you are very likely to hear or read something like this. They are adopting a child. Or this. We adopted a new pet. And that's the lesson of the day. I'm John Russell. That's all the time we have for today's show. But join us again tomorrow for another VOA Learning English program. Thanks for listening. I'm Katie Reaver.