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The Los Angeles Unified School District has kicked the hornet’s nest of teaching quality assurance by proposing to publish a list of six thousand teachers’ students’ gains and losses on a statewide test in English and math. The exercise is considerable because it turns out performance is not random but for many teachers, strongly correlated [...]
Archive for August, 2010
August 18th, 2010
Category: Religion and Politics, Republican Party
Feisal Abdul Rauf of Cordoba House delivered for the Bush Administration when it needed prominent Muslims to speak for America after 9/11. Now they’ve left him hanging out to dry.
August 18th, 2010
A plea for charity alone is not, I’ll admit, compelling reading. Here, then, are some actual reasons to believe we may be less inclined to help Pakistan after the floods than we should be.
August 17th, 2010
Category: Elections 2010 and 2012, Watching Conservatives
Holding onto to Congress gives us a glimmer of a chance to effect the most positive change in US political culture in 30 years.
August 17th, 2010
Category: Gay marriage, Law Notes
Emily Bazelon asks “do we really want gay marriage to become legal in California because of what’s essentially a technicality?” Uh, yes — that’s EXACTLY what we want.
August 16th, 2010
Category: Religion and Politics
If the forces of intolerance stop Cordoba House, the terrorists will have “won” in the only sense that they can ever win: by inducing us to act like them.
August 16th, 2010
Category: Health and Medicine, Health Care
If anything good can come out of Mr. Hitchens’ diagnosis, it may be greater attention to the astonishingly large increase in esophageal cancer in the U.S. During the last quarter of the 20th century, its incidence increased six fold. It’s a case where scientists know the cause but not the solution. How can the incidence [...]
August 16th, 2010
Yesterday’s Los Angeles Times’ article on teacher effectiveness in Los Angeles classrooms was a real contribution to the city, not least of which it reveals the corruption of the district’s union leadership.