January 2011
46 posts
Shovel Ready
Roughly one year ago I wrote a little thing for work about a $25M stimulus grant awarded to the M-1 Rail Project, first rapid-transit line in Detroit. Today I’m writing about how the feds have signed some paperwork that will release that money RSN. Remember how in 2008 this money was going to be spent quickly to get jobs where they were needed? Can you think of any places that need jobs...
IHS Program Officer Jeanne Hoffman talks with...
My Modest Proposal (part 1)
…being sections of a draft of my project proposal sent to my committee at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks for competition of a Masters of Education in Secondary Education…
Theoretical Perspective
This project will rely on the Capabilities Approach, which was first introduced by Nussbaum (2000) as a way of defining justice. In short, the approach is based on ten criteria that...
The Tuesday Podcast: How Much Is A Good Teacher... →
Hanushek says a good teacher’s contribution to the economy could be as much as a half a million dollars per year.
A lot of teachers dislike Hanushek’s brand of economics of education, but I suspect this is one of his studies the NEA and AFT will cite.
“In a world where things that require discipline and steadiness can be done...”
– Larry Summers
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Countering The Myth of Sputnik
From Kevin Carey over at The Quick and the Ed:
Just to be clear, it’s not like Sputnik was launched, and then we got serious as a nation about educating children in math and science, and then those newly well-educated students invented a bunch of cool new stuff that enabled us to put a man on the moon. That’s not what happened. Sputnik was launched in 1957. Apollo 11 landed in 1969, when most...
What Your 16-Hour Workday Says About You!
jessiechar:
You’re a really hard worker
Your time is poorly managed
You don’t know what to do with your life
Your boss knows you’re gullible
At least 40% of your diet consists of pre-packaged food
You send out work emails at inappropriate hours
You have no perspective on life
You don’t sleep enough for proper brain function
You have very little self-respect
Your salary should be higher,...
“When skeptics (like me) criticize the uselessness of very aggregated centralized...”
– Skeptics and thermostats
“When you think of the economy, think of a rain forest that you live in and...”
– The Great Reconfiguration, Again, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty
“Khan Academy is great if you need a refresher… or if you need another look...”
– Practical Theory
““When I interviewed for the school,” said Sam Buchbinder, a history teacher, “it...”
– Grading Inquiry at New York City’s Top-Ranked School - NYTimes.com
“I have a plan to reduce the budget deficit. The essence of the plan is the...”
– Greg Mankiw’s Blog: Give me $1 billion to cut the budget deficit
http://lehighcfcblog.tumblr.com/ →
We’re back!
“Under the emergency plan, consolidated high-school class sizes would increase to...”
– Review & Outlook: Detroit and Decay - WSJ.com
Amazon.com: The Great Stagnation: How America Ate... →
I just heard about the Kindle Single concept last week, it seems like a new thing so - who knows? - by next week it might have a better name.
But basically the idea is that ebooks make it profitable to publish long essays written for a popular audience that otherwise would have waited for a collection or been expanded into a book.
Tyler has one coming at the end of the month. Very interesting,...
the soft bigotry of low expectations
Students whose classes reflect high expectations (more than 40 pages of reading a week and more than 20 pages of writing a semester) gained more than other students.
This comes from an Inside Hither Ed article, Academically Adrift. Just like a few years ago when I learned that people were now defining “cooking” as opening a can of soup, I am a little shocked at what is now...
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Better - Merlin Mann →
Merlin calls it a essay - I call it a manifesto.
“And while in the physical sciences the investigator will be able to measure...”
– Friedrich August von Hayek - Prize Lecture
“Much is made of the PISA test scores and rankings, but the international...”
– U.S. Schools Are Still Ahead—Way Ahead - BusinessWeek
“But at a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized – at a time...”
– President Barack Obama
“The commercial success of both Fox News and MSNBC is a source of nonpartisan...”
– Ted Koppel: Olbermann, O’Reilly and the death of real news
“The bad or wrong economics is what I called the “blackboard...”
– Ronald Coase, Interview with Professor Ronald Coase—-Unirule Institute of Economics
“The problem isn’t with the current moment’s rhetoric, it’s...”
– The Giffords Shooting, The Instant Politicization of Everything, & Why Americans Increasingly Hate Dems & Reps - Hit & Run : Reason Magazine
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Really? "We are tired of governing the country...
Today’s WSJ, following up on yesterday’s display of ignorance, printed this lovely op-ed:
Haiti, Sudan, Côte d’Ivoire: Who Cares?
Perhaps we need a new kind of colonialism.
By BRET STEPHENS
Once upon a time in West Africa, two kings named Acqua and Bell made a memorable request of British Prime Minister William Gladstone.
“We are tired of governing...
“As with any other act of political violence, we have to be mindful of our own...”
– Adam Serwer Archive | The American Prospect
“I have often said that economics, to the extent it is a science, is like biology...”
– What is economics good for?
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“So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time.”
– Grandpa Simpson
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“Quite simply, globalization has outpaced our ability to comprehend what is...”
– Dr. J. Michael Adams: The Academic Impact: Education and the Promise of the Millennial Generation (via Morgan Volkart)
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Wack-a-mole
You gotta hand it to German businessman Siegfried Rotthaeuser, who came up with a brilliant run around the European Union ban on conventional incandescent light bulbs- he rebranded them as “Heat Balls” and is importing them for sale as a “small heating device”.
via Mother Nature Network and KPC
To purchase: HeatBall.de
UPDATE: Nevermind
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“‘She will drive 70% of agricultural production. She is an unrealized...”
– So now we have to save ourselves and the world, too? A critique of “the girl effect”
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Something to listen to while walking Daisy.
“We word types love to piss and moan for days about minor niggles in usage and...”
– For Immediate Relief: Speaking Like a Human | kung fu grippe
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I PAID A BRIBE →
Very cool website that allow users to report directly on government corruption.