Help wanted
LBO needs a new assistant/intern/researcher. Tasks include maintaining the subscription database, responding to sub queries, making bank deposits, doing various sorts of research. Working conditions are charming, hours short and flexible (5-10 hours a week), and pay is modest but hardly scandalous. If you’re interested, send a query with resume to dhenwood@panix.com.
Lots of fresh audio product
Four shows newly posted to my radio archives: June 11, 2011 Vincent Reinhartat the Council on Foreign Relations on Greece and the political trick of austerity (thanks to the CFR for allowing broadcast; full event here) •Greg Grandin, author of Fordlandia, on all the great political developments in South America June 4, 2011 Another Hoover interview: Morris Fiorina on American public opinion and the nonexistence of the “culture war” • And in non-Hoover content, Yanis Varoufakis updates the Greek and EU crises May 28, 2011 Hoover Institution special. Two interviews from my week as a Hoover media fellow. Paul Gregory on Russian politics (Putin vs…. Read More
Sidwell Friends teacher: tests are unreliable
Sidwell Friends faculty member: “We don’t tie teacher pay to test scores because we don’t believe them to be a reliable indicator of teacher effectiveness.” That’s where Obama sends his kids. Education Secretary Arne Duncan sends his kids to Arlington County, Va., public schools. They don’t use tests in evaluating teachers either. Thanks to Amy Offner for pointing me to this on Facebook: Teacher evaluations at the schools that Obama, Duncan picked for their kids.
Compare & contrast: KIPP vs. Sidwell Friends
Education “reformers”—who love testing, discipline, and charter schools—wouldn’t send their own kids to the institutions they prescribe for other people. Cases in point. Education Secretary Arne Duncan has praised the KIPP schools (Secretary Arne Duncan’s Remarks at the KIPP Annual Dinner) as “extraordinary” models. Here’s KIPP’s “Commitment to Excellence”: Teachers’ Commitment We fully commit to KIPP in the following ways: • We will arrive at KIPP every day by 7:15 am (Monday-Friday). • We will remain at KIPP until 5:00 pm (Monday -Thursday) and 4:00 pm on Friday. • We will come… Read More
Bye-bye employer health insurance
McKinsey is out with the results of a survey of 1,300 employers (How US health care reform will affect employee benefits), and the lead finding is a shocker: a third or more are likely to drop health insurance coverage for their workers as Obamacare takes effect. Clearly, not all bosses fully understand the economics of the new health insurance universe. Right now, 30% of respondents to McKinsey’s survey “will definitely or probably stop offering ESI in the years after 2014”—but 50% of those with “high awareness of reform” will do so. (The… Read More
LBO News from Doug Henwood 