There is no shortage of finger-pointing in education, as many worry that some students are still being left behind. Texas teacher Susan Creighton wrote in a Dallas Morning News commentary that adding competition to the educational job track would improve teaching performances. School districts should reward excellent performance with promotion or bonuses, just as the corporate world does, she said.
Creighton wrote: “In order for teaching to become a profession of prestige and respect in our society, we teachers need to be held accountable for the effectiveness of our teaching, in return for which we need to be rewarded with a respectable living wage commensurate with our performance.â€
In an effort to cement the allegiances of China’s future journalists and quell any notions of investigative reporting, the Chinese government has started requiring “Marxist journalism†classes for Chinese journalism students. Textbooks advise: “We need to use the Marxist position, the Marxist point of view and the Marxist method to observe and deal with things.â€
Posted by Kristin Mehler
John Edwards may soon be toast after failing to win in Iowa. But he has been raising a new criticism of Barack Obama — that Obama is too nice and, thus, doesn’t have the gumption to deal with Washington’s special interest monster.
“Barack is not angry or confrontational enough to get it done,†Edwards said recently. “He’s too nice a guy; he’s too conciliatory. He can’t bring change about. I do not need lectures about how to bring about change. I have not just talked about change. I’ve made it happen.â€
Maybe the questions we’re asking about immigration are too narrow and too shortsighted. “We also ought to ask some broader questions about assimilation, about how to ensure that people, once outsiders, don’t forever remain marginalized within these shores,†wrote Ellis Cose of Newsweek. “That is a much larger question than what should happen with undocumented workers, or how best to secure the border, and it is one that affects not only newcomers but groups that have been here for generations.â€
Mike Huckabee chose to cap off his Iowa push with a visit to Jay Leno’s “Tonight Show†Wednesday. He was engaging and even played bass with the band. But he had to cross a picket line to appear on the show, which he said earlier he wouldn’t do. Signs called him a scab and asked, “What would Jesus do?â€
Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton appeared via tape on David Letterman’s “Late Show,†in which the writers are back a work.
The presidential election is a little less than a year away, but the nation is already weary of the hopefuls. Pollster Scott Rasmussen finds that many voters find the candidates just barely more likable than distasteful, with candidates Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani scoring 45 percent favorable/54 unfavorable and 44 percent favorable/49 percent unfavorable, respectively.
Debra Saunders of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote: “It’s not just a matter of winning, but a question of what kind of tone will emanate from Washington in 2009. . . . Without a serious majority, the next president — whoever he or she may be — will walk into the White House hobbled. If it’s a 51-49 vote, almost as many people who elected the next president will have a stake in undermining the new commander in chief’s success.â€
Many Americans are making year-end charitable donations, and two former New York hedge-fund analysts are hoping to help with that. The two left six-figure incomes to start GiveWell, applying their skills to evaluating charities on productivity numbers and effectiveness. Their findings are posted online to help potential investors weigh which organizations will be the best stewards of donations.
Their efforts have received mixed reviews from the philanthropic community, which questions the accuracy of gauging charities just by numbers. Nonetheless, not only does it give investors a clear view of where their money is going, the service adds an element of accountability in a hard-to-regulate climate of giving.
Past presidential hopefuls have spent large amounts of time and energy targeting demographics such as families and specific minorities. As Mary Sanchez of the Kansas City Star points out, however, candidates should take notice of single women, who account for more than a quarter of potential voters.
A study by Greenberg, Quinlan, Rosner Research predicted that unmarried “women may play the same role for Democrats in 2008 that white evangelicals played for George Bush and the Republicans in 2004.â€
The key to these women’s hearts would be promises to lighten their financial load in a real way. Single women often bear the same collection of bills and financial concerns as married couples, yet with just one income and fewer options.
Sanchez writes, “As anyone can attest who has ever watched a bargain-seeking woman plow through a sale rack, women will go to great lengths if they know the effort will bring value to their lives. Candidates who convince women their platforms are worth the effort just might earn a valuable token of an unmarried woman’s love: her vote.â€
America isn’t the only country dealing with immigration concerns. The World Bank recently discovered a trend of developing countries seeing higher rates of immigrants from even poorer countries.
The bank found that some 74 million migrants move from countries of extreme poverty to countries just slightly better off economically in hopes of providing for their families, sending back a collective $18 billion to $55 billion a year.
“South-to-south migration is not only huge, it reaches a different class of people,†said Patricia Weiss Fagen, a Georgetown University researcher. “These are very, very poor people sending money to even poorer people, and they often reach very rural areas where most remittances don’t go.â€
Illinois has become the most recent legal battleground on prayer in schools. In October, a state law went into effect mandating a moment of silence in school each day, causing one student to bring suit, saying she attended school to learn, not pray.
On the other hand, there can be even nonreligious benefits to a moment of silence, such as helping students refocus. “My one friend was really angry because he liked having that moment to think about his life. He’s going through a tough time. His parents are getting divorced. His brother’s not very nice to him,†said the student bringing suit. “It’s hard, because I understand he has rights. But so do I.â€
There is no shortage of finger-pointing in education, as many worry that some students are still being left behind. Texas teacher Susan Creighton wrote in a Dallas Morning News commentary that adding competition to the educational job track would improve teaching performances. School districts should reward excellent performance with promotion or bonuses, just as the corporate world does, she said.