Amanda Ripley Author of The Unthinkable

The New York Times has a troubling story on the front page about an experiment on homeless people. But what’s troubling is not the experiment, from what I can tell; it’s the newspaper’s fear-based spin on the story.

So here’s the situation: New York City is conducting a test to see if an expensive program to prevent homelessness actually…prevents homelessness. This is radical and admirable—because it almost never happens. We waste billions of dollars in education, welfare and other spending in this country because we don’t test programs in a careful, rigorous way to see if they work.

I’ve written about another such experiment in Time (one designed to test whether paying students led to more learning in schools), and what I learned is that these studies reveal how very differently humans behave from what we often expect.

Randomized studies are integral to any ethical social program. Because the only way to really know if an intervention is working, as medical researchers have understood for quite some time, is to randomly assign a group of people who will get the intervention—and a group of people who will not.

But you have to do it carefully! You don’t want to do harm to the people who don’t get the service. But this is not new ground. We know how to do this. We do it every day in other fields. And in fact, in this case, it seems the experiment was designed according to standard, humane practices. The study will monitor 400 households that sought help from the city this summer because they were behind on rent and in danger of being evicted. Two hundred families received the services of a program called Homebase, which offers job training, counseling services and, in some cases, emergency money to help people stay put. The other 200 families were given the names of other agencies that also help people in need.

The research firm, Abt Associates, approved the study as ethical because Homebase’s services were not already available to everyone to begin with, due to limited funds—and because the control group still had access to other, alternative services.

But the important question is, which is more unethical? Denying one specific service to some families to see if a program works? Or continuing to spend—and more importantly cut—money without any meaningful test of whether it works? The city, as the article notes much, much later, had to cut $20 million from its Homeless Services budget last month. And federal stimulus money (which went towards the $23 million bill for Homebase) will end in July of 2012. So cuts must happen. Shouldn’t they happen ethically?

Between recessions, war and regular life, it’s been a vivid 12 months. We probably all know someone who has lived through some kind of ordeal or another. So if you’re looking for a Christmas gift for someone who is in search of peace this year, I want to recommend a new book called, Your Life on Purpose.

This book was written by three authors, each of whom had recently experienced some kind of personal crisis—and all of whom happen to know an exceptional amount about anxiety and the mind. One of the authors is John Forsyth, a psychologist and professor whom I have interviewed several times over the years. First, for The Unthinkable, he helped me understand the freezing response to a life-or-death situation, which he has studied in rape victims. For Time Magazine, he helped me understand how the brain responds to financial uncertainty. His new book broadens some of that wisdom down into a kind of pocket manual for living.

In general, I am not a big fan of self-help books, but this book is different. I don’t think anyone has ever made as much sense out of the conflicts embedded in the human condition in as few words. The main idea is that pain and fear are necessary experiences if we are to build lives we care about. It is a surprisingly freeing notion, and I find myself thinking of it often. Then the book tackles the next natural question: what do we care most about? It helps us answer this question for ourselves—and turn intentions into action, step by careful step.

I just bought 4 off of Amazon. My congratulations to John and his co-authors, Matthew McKay and Georg Eifert.

What if we force ranked every state in the country and every country in the world, based on the percentage of high-school kids with the most marketable skills? Which league would your state be in?

My latest story in the Atlantic features new research by Eric Hanushek at Stanford, Paul Peterson at Harvard and Ludger Woessmann at the University of Munich. They ranked the world, comparing countries to individual states.

What’s new about this is that they compared states to a long list of developed countries, and they looked specifically at the percentage of kids scoring high in math—which tends to be a good indicator of future earnings and a relatively reliable way to compare student learning across oceans. (For those of you who think minorities or low-income kids drag down the U.S. rankings, they also carved out the white-kids only data on a state-by-state basis.)

They wanted to do this not just as an intellectual exercise, but because it is essentially what more and more companies are doing when they hire employees. Kids from California are not just competing with kids from New Jersey anymore. They are competing with kids from Canada and Australia. And they are not winning.

To see how well your own state (or city, in some cases) competes with any of 57 countries, check out the Atlantic‘s super-cool interactive tool. Unless you’re from Finland, Korea or Massachusetts, prepare to be humbled…

The country lost one of its most devoted and creative disaster-preparedness advocates on Monday. John Solomon, a journalist and blogger, was a force for change and for resilience. He believed that the public was the nation’s most vital asset in dealing with terrorism and emergencies of all kinds. He was curious, modest and dedicated until the end.

He will be missed.

The New York Times obituary is here.

And a press release from FEMA head Craig Fugate is pasted below:

Dear friends and colleagues,

Below is FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate’s Statement on the passing of preparedness advocate John Solomon. John’s passion and energy to prepare the public and to voice his opinions earned the respect and friendship of the National Office of Citizen Corps, as well as emergency managers at all levels of government.  Please honor John’s work by reading his blog postings, http://incaseofemergencyblog.com, and re-dedicating yourself to the mission of public preparedness.  Thank you.

FEMA News Release: FEMA Administrator Statement on the Passing of Preparedness Advocate John Solomon

Release Date: November 2, 2010
Release Number: HQ-10-213

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator Craig Fugate issued the following statement today on the passing of John Solomon, a leading advocate for strengthening community and personal preparedness for disasters.  Solomon was also the founder of a leading emergency management blog, “In Case of Emergency” and a volunteer with his local Community Emergency Response Team in New York, which helps prepare communities for emergencies.

“Sheree and I were deeply saddened to learn of the passing of John Solomon, a critical voice within our emergency management community.  Like many of us, John knew the value of a prepared public, and worked tirelessly to raise awareness of the need to prepare our families, neighbors, workplaces, and communities for all hazards.  Through his blog, he was able to deliver this message far beyond his own community, encouraging citizens to get involved and sharing key resources and opportunities for them to do so.

“John was both an important ally and critic of emergency managers.  I always appreciated his willingness to offer candid assessments of where we stood as a country as far as preparedness, and respected his honest feedback about our work here at FEMA.  He pushed all of us to always do more to engage and prepare the public - and set the standard for what it meant to be part of our nation’s emergency management team.  Sheree’s and my thoughts are with John’s family and friends during this sad time.  We will continue to do everything we can to honor what John stood for and carry on his fight - to create a prepared and resilient public.”

Check out my story today in Slate about what the best classrooms in the world look like. Hint: old school is good school.