Student scores may be used in LAUSD teacher ratings

After months of tense negotiations, leaders of the Los Angeles Unified School District and its teachers union have tentatively agreed to use student test scores to evaluate instructors for the first time, officials announced Friday.

Under the breakthrough agreement, the nation's second-largest school district would join Chicago and a growing number of other cities in using test scores as one measure of how much teachers help their students progress academically in a year.

Alarm over low student performance, especially in impoverished and minority communities, has prompted the Obama administration and others to press school districts nationwide to craft better ways to identify struggling teachers for improvement.

The Los Angeles pact proposes to do that using a unique mix of individual and schoolwide testing data — including state standardized test scores, high school exit exams and district assessments, along with rates of attendance, graduation and suspensions.

But the tentative agreement leaves unanswered the most controversial question: how much to count student test scores in measuring teacher effectiveness. The school district and the union agreed only that the test scores would not be "sole, primary or controlling factors" in a teacher's final evaluation.

"It is crystal clear that what we're doing is historic and very positive," said L.A. Supt. John Deasy, who has fought to use student test scores in teacher performance reviews since taking the district's helm nearly two years ago. "This will help develop the skills of the teaching profession and hold us accountable for student achievement."

Members of United Teachers Los Angeles, however, still need to ratify the agreement. Many teachers have long opposed using test scores in their evaluations, saying test scores are unreliable measures of teacher ability.

The union characterized the agreement as a "limited" response to a Dec. 4 court-ordered deadline to show that test scores are being used in evaluations and said negotiations were continuing for future academic years. The deadline was imposed by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge James C. Chalfant, who ruled this year that state law requires L.A. Unified to use test scores in teacher performance reviews.

In a statement, the teachers union also emphasized that the agreement rejected the use of the district's method of measuring student academic progress for individual instructors. That measure, called Academic Growth Over Time, uses a mathematical formula to estimate how much a teacher helps students' performance, based on state test scores and controlling for such outside factors as income and race. Under the agreement, however, schoolwide scores using this method, also known as a value-added system, will be used.

For individual teachers, the agreement proposes to use raw state standardized test score data. Warren Fletcher, teachers union president, said that data give teachers more useful information about student performance on specific skills.

Critics of using test scores in teacher reviews praised Los Angeles' proposed new system, saying it uses a wide array of data to determine a teacher's effect on student learning.

Deasy said he will be developing guidelines for administrators on how to use the mix of data in teacher reviews and has said in the past that test scores should not count for more than 25% of the final rating.

"This is a complex agreement and possibly the most sophisticated evaluation agreement that I have seen," said Diane Ravitch, an educational historian and vocal critic of the use of test scores in teacher evaluations. "It assures that test scores will not be overused, will not be assigned an arbitrary and inappropriate weight, will not be the sole or primary determinant of a teacher's evaluation."

Teacher Brent Smiley at Lawrence Middle School in Chatsworth said: "I will vote yes. I have no doubt that my union leaders negotiated the best they could, given the adverse set of circumstances they faced."

Labor-relations expert Charles Kerchner called the agreement "a shotgun wedding," but added, "I think it's unabashed good news."

He said it's notable that value-added measures and test scores have been accepted in some form by the teachers union.

"UTLA has moved beyond a strategy of just saying no to a strategy of trying to craft a useful agreement," said Kerchner, a professor at Claremont Graduate University.

The district is currently developing a new evaluation system that uses Academic Growth Over Time — along with a more rigorous classroom observation process, student and parent feedback and a teacher's contributions to the school community. The new observations were tested last year on a voluntary basis with about 450 teachers and 320 administrators; this year, every principal and one volunteer teacher at each of the district's 1,200 schools are expected to be trained.

The teachers union has filed an unfair labor charge against the district, arguing that the system is being unilaterally imposed without required negotiations.

Some teachers who have participated in the new observation process say it offers more specific guidance on how they can improve. Other educators — teachers and administrators alike — complain that it is too time-consuming.

The tentative agreement, acknowledging the extra time the new evaluations would take, would extend the time between evaluations from two to as long as five years for teachers with 10 or more years of experience.

Bill Lucia of EdVoice, the Sacramento-based educational advocacy group that brought the lawsuit, said he was "cautiously optimistic."

But he expressed dismay that the union did not reach agreement a few weeks earlier, which he said would have given L.A. Unified a shot at a $40-million federal grant. The district applied for the Race to the Top grant without the required teacher union support and was eliminated from the competition this week.

Negotiations over the tentative pact, however, nearly fell apart. Earlier this week, the union pulled away from the deal on the table, L.A. Unified officials said. And the district discussed holding a Monday emergency school-board meeting to craft a formal response to the court order in anticipation that no deal would be reached. The options included adopting an evaluation system without the union's consent.

Some members of the Board of Education, who also will need to approve the pact, praised the agreement for taking student growth and achievement into account but gauging this growth through multiple measures. Steve Zimmer said that, just as important, this milestone was achieved through negotiation.

School board President Monica Garcia praised the tentative deal as "absolutely, by all accounts, better than what we have today."

teresa.watanabe@latimes.com

howard.blume@latimes.com

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Zynga shares slide after privileged status with Facebook ends

(Reuters) – Shares of gaming company Zynga Inc fell as much as 10 percent, a day after the “Farmville” creator reached an agreement with Facebook Inc that reduces its dependence on the social networking giant.

The companies reported in regulatory filings on Thursday that they have reached an agreement to amend a 2010 deal that was widely seen as giving Zynga privileged status on the world’s No.1 social network.

Zynga gets a freer hand to operate a standalone gaming website, but gives up its ability to promote its site on Facebook and to draw from the thriving social network of about 1 billion users.

“Although Zynga investors have reacted negatively to Thursday’s announcements so far, we view them as a long-term positive for both companies,” Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter said in a note to clients.

“Zynga now has an advantage to offer more payment options which could result in additional subscribers who are not Facebook users,” he said, maintaining his “outperform” rating and price target of $ 4 on the stock.

Both internet companies have been trying to reduce their interdependence, with Zynga starting up its own Zynga.com platform, and Facebook wooing other games developers.

In recent quarters, fees from Zynga contributed 15 percent of Facebook’s revenue, while Zynga relies on Facebook for roughly 80 percent of its revenue.

Francisco-based Zynga’s shares were down 7 percent at $ 2.44 in morning trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Friday.

Facebook shares were down more than 1 percent at $ 26.98.

(Reporting By Aurindom Mukherjee in Bangalore; Editing by Don Sebastian)

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Glen Campbell considering more live shows in 2013

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Glen Campbell may be wrapping up a goodbye tour but that doesn't mean he's done with the stage.

Campbell is considering scheduling more shows next year after playing more than 120 dates in 2012.

The 76-year-old singer has Alzheimer's disease and has begun to lose his memory. He put out his final studio album, "Ghost on the Canvas," in 2011 and embarked on the tour with family members and close friends serving in his band and staffing the tour.

Campbell's longtime manager Stan Schneider said in a phone interview from Napa, Calif., where the tour wrapped for the year Friday night, that recent West Coast shows have been some of the singer's strongest. Campbell will break for the holidays and if he still feels strong he'll begin scheduling more shows.

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Many roads to fuel efficiency on display at L.A. Auto Show

On one stage of the Los Angeles Auto Show, BMW shows off "the cars of tomorrow," concepts powered by electricity. On another, Audi touts four new diesels. Ford, meanwhile, displays a tiny gasoline motor with an unprecedented mix of power and economy.

With consumers and the government demanding ever-higher fuel economy, automakers are tripping over one another at this year's auto show to trumpet technologies that squeeze more miles out of a fuel tank or an electric charge.

Until recently, peak fuel efficiency demanded a trade-off in performance and comfort. But the increasingly varied entrants in the miles-per-gallon race now offer substantial power and comfort.

"Instead of having a couple of electric vehicles, which are really only suited for a few people, you have mainstream vehicles that get you what you want and have the fuel efficiency you need," said Jake Fisher, automotive test director for Consumer Reports.

With gasoline prices above $3.50 a gallon in much of the nation, auto companies now market themselves more on fuel economy than horsepower, but their engineers are getting better at combining healthy doses of both.

Fuel economy has taken on greater importance with President Obama's reelection, which automakers believe will cement federal regulations that require nearly doubling the average gas mileage for passenger vehicles to 54.5 mpg by 2025. If there's a lesson about fuel economy emanating from the auto show, it's that there are many roads to the new fuel economy standards.

"I hope the horse race continues," Fisher said. "I hope that automakers keep trying different things. And it might be that the eventual dominant technology is not even something that we have thought of."

This week, Audi showed off a line of vehicles equipped with turbocharged V6 diesel engines that are expected to achieve as much as 30% better fuel efficiency than the gasoline counterparts the German automaker now sells.

Ford unveiled a gas-sipping, turbocharged, three-cylinder engine that packs more punch than the base four-cylinder now standard in its small cars. Depending on fuel economy tests, the Fiesta equipped with this engine may become the first non-hybrid gasoline vehicle to meet the 2025 gas mileage standards.

Chevrolet introduced the electric version of its Spark that it will bring to market next year, hoping to attract customers with an electric car priced at less than $25,000, after a $7,500 federal tax credit. California offers buyers an additional $2,500 state rebate.

Some of the cars on display, including the Ford Fusion hybrid, the Toyota Camry hybrid and the Lexus ES 350 hybrid, already meet the 2025 standards. The 54.5 mpg standard is based on a technical regulatory formula; in real-life driving, it's expected to translate to 37 mpg to 40 mpg.

That compares to the average fuel economy of 24.1 mpg for new vehicles purchased in October, a 20% jump from the same month in 2007, according to the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute.

"You are seeing the suite of technologies in different vehicles to improve fuel economy," said Don Anair, the automotive analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

The technologies go well beyond engine types. They include eight- to 10-speed transmissions; improved aerodynamic body shapes; lighter-weight body panels and chassis components; tires with lower rolling resistance; start-stop systems that shut off the engine at red lights; and turbocharging, which creates a more dense air-fuel mixture in the engine's cylinders.

More exotic technologies, such as pure electric engines or hydrogen fuel cells, probably won't be sold in numbers large enough to meet more stringent fuel economy targets.

"The heavy lifting will be done by conventional gasoline technology and hybrids," Anair said.

Beyond engines, automakers are aggressively looking to save weight, a huge factor in fuel economy. Nissan has the newest generation of its Pathfinder sport utility vehicle front and center at its display. The vehicle is bigger — more than 4 inches wider and longer — and has more interior volume, yet gets about 30% better fuel economy. The new Pathfinder is 500 pounds lighter than the vehicle it replaced.

Nissan has trimmed more than 100 pounds from the body, more than 35 pounds from the seats and interior trim and even nearly 16 pounds out of the radio and navigation components. It also achieved a 13% improvement in aerodynamics with sleeker styling.

Nearly all of these technologies are evident at the L.A. Auto Show, which has long been a premier showcase for fuel efficient and environmentally friendly cars.

A walk through the Ford booths shows heavy use of turbochargers on smaller engines, a move that Mark Fields, chief operating officer of Ford Motor Co., said improved fuel economy without sacrificing the performance that American consumers demand.

Even without government prodding, consumers are driving automakers quickly toward more efficient cars.

"I think fuel economy is now embedded in people's minds no matter what the price of oil is," Fields said.

Previously, fuel efficient meant small and inconvenient cars, Fields said. "Now you don't have to compromise."

Although some automakers are looking to hybrids or electrics, Audi and its parent company, Volkswagen, are moving aggressively to expand their U.S. offerings of diesel cars, which have long been popular in Europe. More than 30% of VW brand sales in October had turbocharged diesel engines. It was 70% for the Jetta station wagon.

This week Audi announced diesel options in four models: the A6, A7, A8 and Q5. All will feature a 3-liter turbocharged V-6 engine.

"More of our competitors will jump in, as they look at our experience and the satisfaction people have with diesels," said Jonathan Browning, chief executive of Volkswagen Group of America.

That includes Mazda, which announced this week that the redesigned Mazda 6 sedan would soon have a diesel option.

"This is a way to deliver improved fuel economy," Browning said, "without sacrificing the pleasure of driving."

jerry.hirsch@latimes.com

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A slick stereotype: L.A. drivers unable to handle the rain

Far removed from the many SigAlerts and traffic accidents caused by the rain, umbrella-toting pedestrians stroll on the Huntington Beach Pier before dawn on Thursday. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times / November 29, 2012)

By Kate Mather, Los Angeles Times

November 29, 2012, 7:56 p.m.

You know what they say: L.A. drivers can't handle the rain.

Many motorists didn't disprove the stereotype Thursday as rain slickened roadways and snarled the morning commute. The California Highway Patrol reported more than three times as many accidents (294) between 12:01 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Thursday than in the same time period a week ago (90), on Thanksgiving.

Although there were some morning crashes that shut down area freeways — including a jackknifed big rig on the 5 Freeway in Glendale and a fatal crash on the 134 in Toluca Lake — CHP Officer Ed Jacobs said most were single-car spinouts.

"People are driving too fast for the roadway," Jacobs said. "Slow down. It's really simple. There is no other thing to do."

Of the many jokes about the storm shared via social media, many focused on traffic.

"Los Angeles + rain = Carmageddon," @Nick_Favorite wrote.

"The only thing worse than LA drivers? LA drivers in the rain," @LiliannaEvelyn said.

But drivers, beware. More wet weather is in store for California through the weekend. Forecasters said scattered showers should persist as a series of storms passes through the area, the strongest of which should hit Sunday afternoon and evening.

Jacobs called the number of reported accidents "huge" but said it was typical for a rainy day in Los Angeles.

But is it proof L.A. drivers can't handle the rain?

"You'll have to draw your own conclusion on that one," Jacobs said.

kate.mather@latimes.com

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Adkins explains Confederate flag earpiece

NEW YORK (AP) — Trace Adkins wore an earpiece decorated like the Confederate flag when he performed for the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree Lighting but says he meant no offense by it.

Adkins appeared with the earpiece on a nationally televised special for the lighting on Wednesday. Some regard the flag as a racist symbol and criticized Adkins in Twitter postings.

But in a statement released Thursday, the Louisiana native called himself a proud American who objects to any oppression and says the flag represents his Southern heritage.

He noted he's a descendant of Confederate soldiers and says he did not intend offense by wearing it.

Adkins — on a USO tour in Japan — also called for the preservation of America's battlefields and an "honest conversation about the country's history."

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Medicare Is Faulted in Electronic Medical Records Conversion

The conversion to electronic medical records — a critical piece of the Obama administration’s plan for health care reform — is “vulnerable” to fraud and abuse because of the failure of Medicare officials to develop appropriate safeguards, according to a sharply critical report to be issued Thursday by federal investigators.

Mike Spencer/Wilmington Star-News, via Associated Press

Celeste Stephens, a nurse, leads a session on electronic records at New Hanover Regional Medical Center in Wilmington, N.C.

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services

Marilyn Tavenner, acting administrator for Medicare.

The use of electronic medical records has been central to the aim of overhauling health care in America. Advocates contend that electronic records systems will improve patient care and lower costs through better coordination of medical services, and the Obama administration is spending billions of dollars to encourage doctors and hospitals to switch to electronic records to track patient care.

But the report says Medicare, which is charged with managing the incentive program that encourages the adoption of electronic records, has failed to put in place adequate safeguards to ensure that information being provided by hospitals and doctors about their electronic records systems is accurate. To qualify for the incentive payments, doctors and hospitals must demonstrate that the systems lead to better patient care, meeting a so-called meaningful use standard by, for example, checking for harmful drug interactions.

Medicare “faces obstacles” in overseeing the electronic records incentive program “that leave the program vulnerable to paying incentives to professionals and hospitals that do not fully meet the meaningful use requirements,” the investigators concluded. The report was prepared by the Office of Inspector General for the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees Medicare.

The investigators contrasted the looser management of the incentive program with the agency’s pledge to more closely monitor Medicare payments of medical claims. Medicare officials have indicated that the agency intends to move away from a “pay and chase” model, in which it tried to get back any money it has paid in error, to one in which it focuses on trying to avoid making unjustified payments in the first place.

Late Wednesday, a Medicare spokesman said in a statement: “Protecting taxpayer dollars is our top priority and we have implemented aggressive procedures to hold providers accountable. Making a false claim is a serious offense with serious consequences and we believe the overwhelming majority of doctors and hospitals take seriously their responsibility to honestly report their performance.”

The government’s investment in electronic records was authorized under the broader stimulus package passed in 2009. Medicare expects to spend nearly $7 billion over five years as a way of inducing doctors and hospitals to adopt and use electronic records. So far, the report said, the agency has paid 74, 317 health professionals and 1,333 hospitals. By attesting that they meet the criteria established under the program, a doctor can receive as much as $44,000 for adopting electronic records, while a hospital could be paid as much as $2 million in the first year of its adoption. The inspector general’s report follows earlier concerns among regulators and others over whether doctors and hospitals are using electronic records inappropriately to charge more for services, as reported by The New York Times last September, and is likely to fuel the debate over the government’s efforts to promote electronic records. Critics say the push for electronic records may be resulting in higher Medicare spending with little in the way of improvement in patients’ health. Thursday’s report did not address patient care.

Even those within the industry say the speed with which systems are being developed and adopted by hospitals and doctors has led to a lack of clarity over how the records should be used and concerns about their overall accuracy.

“We’ve gone from the horse and buggy to the Model T, and we don’t know the rules of the road. Now we’ve had a big car pileup,” said Lynne Thomas Gordon, the chief executive of the American Health Information Management Association, a trade group in Chicago. The association, which contends more study is needed to determine whether hospitals and doctors actually are abusing electronic records to increase their payments, says it supports more clarity.

Although there is little disagreement over the potential benefits of electronic records in reducing duplicative tests and avoiding medical errors, critics increasingly argue that the federal government has not devoted enough time or resources to making certain the money it is investing is being well spent.

House Republicans echoed these concerns in early October in a letter to Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of health and human services. Citing the Times article, they called for suspending the incentive program until concerns about standardization had been resolved. “The top House policy makers on health care are concerned that H.H.S. is squandering taxpayer dollars by asking little of providers in return for incentive payments,” said a statement issued at the same time by the Republicans, who are likely to seize on the latest inspector general report as further evidence of lax oversight. Republicans have said they will continue to monitor the program.

In her letter in response, which has not been made public, Ms. Sebelius dismissed the idea of suspending the incentive program, arguing that it “would be profoundly unfair to the hospitals and eligible professionals that have invested billions of dollars and devoted countless hours of work to purchase and install systems and educate staff.” She said Medicare was trying to determine whether electronic records had been used in any fraudulent billing but she insisted that the current efforts to certify the systems and address the concerns raised by the Republicans and others were adequate.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: November 30, 2012

An article on Thursday about a federal report critical of Medicare’s performance in assuring accuracy as doctors and hospitals switch to electronic medical records misstated, in some copies, the timing of a statement from a Medicare spokesman in response to the report. The statement was released late Wednesday, not late Thursday.

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Electricity rates to rise for Southern California Edison customers

SACRAMENTO — Almost 5 million Southern California Edison Co. customers in hundreds of cities and communities across the southern, central and coastal parts of the state will be hit with higher electric bills early next year and bigger hikes in each of the following two years.

The decision, which Edison says will add an average of $7 a month to residential bills for the first year, covers Edison's costs to provide service, which amounts to about half a ratepayer's bill. Other costs for buying fuel and contracting for power deliveries fluctuate and are passed directly to consumers.

The California Public Utilities Commission unanimously approved new rates, retroactive to the beginning of this year, on Thursday as part of an every-three-years process of reviewing finances at the heavily regulated utility.

The 5% increase for 2012 — providing the Rosemead company with $5.7 billion in revenue — is less than the 16.6% the company had sought. Rates, however, are estimated to rise an additional 6.3% for 2013 and 5.9% in 2014 under the PUC order.

"This decision ensures that SCE is able to invest in smart energy systems, renewables and safety and reliability, while its ratepayers are protected," PUC Commissioner Timothy Alan Simon said.

Edison provides electricity to 13 million people, including most of Los Angeles and Orange counties as well as much of Central California and the Inland Empire. Not included are residents of Los Angeles who get their power from the municipally owned Department of Water and Power.

Edison, the decision notes, has faced "two significant challenges to operations" in the last year: a December 2011 wind storm that damaged the grid, and the extended shutdown of two nuclear power reactors at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in San Diego County.

Edison in a statement called the commission's action "constructive" because the decision helps it finance needed upgrades in its system.

Consumer groups said they were pleased that commissioners granted Edison, a unit of Edison International, less than what the company sought from the PUC.

"We definitely got a substantial amount shaved off, but it's still more than we think Edison really needs," said Mindy Spatt, a spokeswoman for the Utility Reform Network, which advocates for ratepayers at the state's three big investor-owned electric companies.

Business groups also complained that the jump in Edison's already steep electric rates could make it harder for them to keep operating profitably.

"California manufacturers already pay 50% higher electricity rates than the national average," said Gino Di Caro, a spokesman for the California Manufacturers & Technology Assn. "Obviously, energy costs are one of the primary budgetary items for any manufacturing operation, and this is all the more reason for California to find ways to offset these costs."

marc.lifsher@latimes.com

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Kuang-hsun Ting dies at 97; bishop led Protestant church in China

Bishop Kuang-hsun Ting, who was one of the most influential Christian figures in China as the longtime leader of the country's government-sanctioned Protestant church, has died. He was 97.

Ting died Nov. 22 at his home in Nanjing, according to statements from religious organizations he led. A cause of death was not given.

For many years, Ting headed the Three-Self Patriotic Movement and the China Christian Council, the two government-sanctioned Protestant organizations that together form the official Protestant church in China. He was also the longtime president of the Nanjing Union Theological Seminary and helped launch the Amity Foundation, serving as board president of that social service organization until his death.

Ting's close cooperation with China's Communist Party and central government earned him both praise and criticism throughout his long career. Supporters said he had helped protect and promote the interests of Protestants in China, while critics accused him of being too close to the government and at times even joining in the persecution of unregistered or "house" churches.

"He has a positive legacy in many people's eyes because he pushed forward Protestant Christianity and its interests in China, albeit under the scope of the government," said Carsten T. Vala, an expert on Chinese Protestant Christianity who teaches at Loyola University in Maryland. "But he was also a lightning rod, seen by those in the house churches as having compromised by leading the Communist Party-controlled church."

As head of the official church, Ting was often in a tough position as he balanced religious and political demands, said Fenggang Yang, director of Purdue University's Center on Religion and Chinese Society.

"He had to make compromises, otherwise the Protestants could suffer even more," Yang said. "Did he personally totally agree with the government or government policy? Maybe not. I think he also tried to help the government-sanctioned churches and some house churches. But many house churches don't see it that way."

Born Sept. 20, 1915, in Shanghai, Ting studied at St. John's University in that city and was ordained an Anglican priest in 1942. He served as mission secretary for the Student Christian Movement in Canada and later studied at Columbia University and Union Theological Seminary in New York.

In the early 1950s, he was on the staff of the World Student Christian Federation in Geneva, then returned to China. In 1955, he was ordained an Anglican bishop, a title he retained for the rest of his life.

Richard J. Mouw, president of Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena and a friend, said Ting had helped create an indigenous Christianity in China.

"He tried to find a way in which the church could remain true to itself but be a partner to government and other cultural forces in China," Mouw said. He was "a deeply Christian person coping as best he could with the demands of government, while keeping alive the essentials of Christianity in China."

Ting's survivors include two sons.

rebecca.trounson@latimes.com

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Family learns of student’s death on Facebook

ATLANTA (AP) — The parents of a south Georgia college student first learned from Facebook that their daughter had been found dead in a dormitory study room shortly before Thanksgiving. Now, they hope that Facebook and other social media sites can help solve the death of 17-year-old Jasmine Benjamin, which police are investigating as a homicide.

The Valdosta State University freshman was found unresponsive on a study room couch on Nov. 18.

A family friend forwarded the Facebook post about the teen’s death to her parents before they were officially notified by authorities, said A. Thomas Stubbs, an attorney for the victim’s mother, Judith Brogdon, and her stepfather, James Jackson. But many questions remain unanswered about how she died.

The family has hired a private investigator, and a new Facebook site has been set up in hopes that students and others might share tips.

While some Facebook comments have already been turned over to law enforcement officers, the family hopes friends, classmates or others who noticed suspicious comments will also alert authorities.

“Anything that reveals a little more information than what’s publicly known about her death, those are the kind of comments police are looking for as someone who might warrant a closer examination,” Stubbs said.

Also of interest are “unusual comments or unusually timed comments about her death,” he said.

Police detectives have canvassed dormitories and interviewed several students on the campus, located about 250 miles south of the family’s home in Gwinnett County, outside Atlanta.

Benjamin wanted to follow the career path of her mother and become a nurse.

Police say they’re treating the case as a homicide, though autopsy results are not complete and they can’t say for certain whether she was killed. There were no obvious signs of a crime when her body was found, but an autopsy raised questions, authorities have said.

“We’re providing what resources are necessary to assist Valdosta State University police in solving this crime,” Georgia Bureau of Investigation spokesman John Bankhead said. “The crime lab is expediting evidence from this incident.”

Shortly after Benjamin’s parents learned of her death from Facebook, Lawrenceville police officers knocked on the doors of the family home to inform them officially that their daughter was dead, Stubbs said.

“As frustrating as that may be for the family to learn that way, they understand it’s a different world,” Stubbs said.

The family has yet to learn the possible timeframe of when their daughter died, and police have not shared any theories about how she was killed, Stubbs said.

“We know that they have looked at the phone records, video records that they can find in the school,” he said. Beyond that, they’ve been going through legal procedures that are required to obtain records from Facebook Inc.

The family hired Martinelli Investigations Inc. of Lawrenceville to assist in the investigation.

Private investigator Robin Martinelli said Wednesday that any video near the scene, even if may seem insignificant, could prove helpful in the investigation.

“It wouldn’t matter if it was two weeks before, two hours before or 20 minutes before,” she said.

Martinelli said she’s confident that police are working diligently to follow up on leads, but private investigators can often provide valuable assistance, she said.

“On any homicide, they’re going to work around the clock aggressively every minute, and they’re doing that,” she said.

She said Jasmine Benjamin was a strong student who showed great potential. “Her favorite color was purple, her nickname was Jazzy,” she said.

“She wanted to help people, plain and simple,” her stepfather, James Jackson, told WSB-TV. “That was her goal in life. That’s all she talked about since she was young — ‘I want to be able to help people.’”

Valdosta State campus police, city police and the GBI were working together to conduct interviews and collect evidence, the university said in a statement Tuesday. University officials said they couldn’t release any further information.

Martinelli hopes students away at college keep in touch with their parents — and give them the passwords to social networking sites and their cell phones in case anything happens.

“If you have passcodes to your computer, your phone, please tell your parents,” she said. “Don’t tell everybody in the world, but tell your parents your passcodes.”

She said some of the best advice parents can give students is this: “They should listen to their gut,” she said. “If they walk into a situation and it’s not feeling right, leave.”

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