WE Blog

As I watched coverage of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, I grew angrier and angrier. Thousands of people stranded at the New Orleans Convention Center without food or water for days. Exhausted evacuees traveling for hours to Houston only to be turned away. Patients at hospitals waiting and waiting with no sign of help. And we had time to plan for this one. It doesn’t give me much confidence in our government’s ability to handle an unexpected disaster — such as a terrorist attack.
Tim Naftali of Slate is wondering about the same thing: “How is it possible that with the fourth anniversary of 9/11 almost upon us, the federal government doesn’t have in hand the capability to prepare for and then manage a large urban disaster, natural or man-made?”
Posted by Melissa Cooley

Kansas and federal officials reportedly are trying to reconcile puzzling differences in the ways high school dropout rates are being calculated; for example, Kansas put its 2001-02 graduation rate at 85 percent, but a recent national study put the state’s rate that year at 74 percent. Meanwhile, those on the front lines of crime and punishment might want to ponder some revealing related statistics, as reported by The Hutchinson News: Last year, 40 percent of Kansas’ 9,100 inmates were high school dropouts, and just 5 percent had received postsecondary education.
Posted by Rhonda Holman