Something remarkable happened in Los Angeles this weekend. The LA Times printed the first in what appears to be a groundbreaking series about teachers in LA. The newspaper somehow got access to the individual data for 6,000 public school teachers--and then, with the help of a Rand Corp. researcher, crunched the numbers to come up with a value-added analysis for these teachers. (To see the details of the methodology in PDF form, go here.) In other words, the newspaper now knows which teachers have dramatically increased their students’ test scores over time--and which have…
Paul Krugman has a dead-hit column in today’s NY Times about the ”pundit delusion,” or, “the belief that the stuff of daily political reporting--who won the news cycle, who had the snappiest comeback--actually matters.”
I suspect that this delusion extends to all political reporters and their editors, not just pundits. It’s a hubris that comes from being so deep in the woods you have forgotten what the sky looks like. You start thinking that everyone in America knows what is in the financial regulatory bill (or that there was one at all) and what Vice President…
You know you inhabit a strange corner of the world when you turn up to the office to find a mass mailing from a place called, BioSeal Systems. “Open Now! Disaster Response Temporary Morgue Planning...Sample Enclosed.”
Sample enclosed?
I had to know more. I didn’t even take off my sunglasses. Just opened it right up. Appears to be some kind of sealing wrap for dead bodies, complete with portable heat-sealing equipment.
“The only human remains containment solution that can be stored for 49 years without deterioration in performance.” There is a picture of a…
Perhaps because of politicians like Democratic Congressman David Obey of Wisconsin, who last night convinced his fellow members of Congress to pass a bill that would snatch back money already promised to education reform incentives like the Obama administration’s Race to the Top competition.
Why would Obey do such a thing? Particularly when his own state is gunning for Race to the Top funding? Wisconsin’s June 2010 application, signed by the state’s governor and superintendent, makes it clear that this money is vital to the kids in Obey’s state:
Two years ago, I wrote an essay in TIME about the radical genius of creating a cabinet-level position to manage volunteers in California, America’s Disaster Laboratory. Today, we have more big news coming out of the lab.
Secretary Karen Baker, the woman who got that job on Gov. Schwarzenegger’s cabinet, is introducing the nation’s first Disaster Corps--a squad of 1,000 elite, well-trained volunteers who can can be deployed to disaster sites as soon as they are needed (without waiting for the soul-killing bureaucratic sign-offs that so often delay volunteer efforts…
I talked to Nightline for this segment on heroism yesterday, and it reminded me of just how slippery the concept is. The show features Richard Camp, a man who was at his local bank when a gunman came in and tried to rob the place. The video from the surveillance cameras is pretty remarkable. You can see how Camp…
President Obama’s Oval Office speech last night seemed familiar. As if a speech writer had called up the President’s stock al-Qaeda speeches and done a find-replace. Delete “enemy,” insert “oil.”
A side-by-side comparing last night’s battle lines to the battle lines used in speeches about, um, actual battles!
“But make no mistake: We will fight this spill with everything we’ve got for as long as it takes.” --Oil Spill Address
Did the stress of 9/11 lead to a spike in miscarriages? In the months after the terrorist attacks, the death rate for male fetuses in the U.S. went up 12%, as detailed in a new study in the BMC Public Health Journal. The study (PDF is here) hypothesizes that the rise in miscarriages may have been caused by “communal bereavement"--which may have in turn disproportionately impacted males, who seem to be more sensitive to stress hormones in the womb.
People have speculated for decades about how major disasters impact fertility rates.…
I talked to Nightline for this segment on heroism yesterday, and it reminded me of just how slippery the concept is. The show features Richard Camp, a man who was at his local bank when a gunman came in and tried to rob the place. The video from the surveillance cameras is pretty remarkable. You can see how Camp…
