MetaFilter posts tagged with government and education

A tax time bomb, slowly ticking away

reenum — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 07:37:48 -0800

Income based repayment is touted as a solution to rapidly rising college costs in the US. But there is a hefty tax bill looming for people who take advantage of this program.

"We asked for nothing. They offered us less" - Ontario's teachers

The Hyacinth Girl — Fri, 31 Aug 2012 05:37:47 -0800

Years of labour peace between the government of Ontario and teachers came to an end this year. Like their colleagues in British Columbia, Ontario teachers and support staff are complaining of unfair, unnecessary, and unconstitutional legislation -- the Putting Students First Act, 2012 -- that gives the Education Minister, Laura Broten, unchallenged power to ban strikes, job actions, set compensation and benefits, and to take over local school boards who are non-compliant. Ontario school boards are unanimously opposed to the Act, which reduces their power, and so are teachers and support staff, who feel the government is manufacturing a crisis. Most see this as a cynical ploy to capture public support for two by-elections this week that could nudge the Liberal government into majority status. ETFO and OSSTF, two of the teacher unions involved, have repeatedly pointed out that "the school year is not in jeopardy", that they had already accepted a wage freeze, and that local bargaining is proceeding well. As legislation looms aheads, teachers, support staff, and labour activists are wondering: is this the end of collective bargaining for the public sector? Critics have called the PSF Act "unconstitutional" and "unprecedented" on the grounds that it puts itself above judicial review: no "decision, approval, act, advice, direction, regulation or order made by the Minister or Lieutenant Governor in Council under this Act shall be questioned or reviewed in any court.". This includes challenges under the Labour Act and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which otherwise enshrine collective bargaining as a right. The Act is expected to pass this week with the support of the Progressive Conservatives, after only 4.5 hours of public hearings. In response to the impending legislation, thousands of teachers, support staff, and union supporters rallied at Queen's Park on Tuesday, August 28. Conservative leader, Tim Hudak, has promised to support the bill, even though he claims it does not go far enough in imposing a complete public sector wage freeze. Nonetheless, "If you get half a loaf, you take it". Premier McGuinty offers his thanks. The New Democrats, meanwhile, are opposed to anything that restricts collective bargaining and their leader, Andrea Horwath, warns that “Dalton McGuinty knows that an unconstitutional wage legislation scheme will end up costing the public billions when it’s eventually over-ruled by the Courts." The major players: Liberal Party - currently forms a minority government Conservatives - have pledged to suppor the bill (generally considered right-wing) New Democrats - a left-leaning, labour-friendly party that is opposed OSSTF - the union representing 60, 000 public high school teachers and support staff ETFO - the union representing public elementary teachers OECTA - the union for Catholic teachers; they were the first to accept the government's plan, much to the dismay of the other unions and the Catholic school boards AEFO - the union of French teachers; they quickly followed OECTA in accepting the government's terms

Fix UC

reenum — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 12:47:54 -0800

A student group has a novel idea to reduce college costs: pay nothing up front, instead paying out 5% of their income to the UC system for 20 years after graduation.

The Failure of American Schools

reenum — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 08:09:48 -0800

Joel Klein wrote an essay in the Atlantic about the reasons for the current problems in the primary educational system.

How edumacated is your state legislature?

JanetLand — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 10:17:55 -0800

How edumacated is your state legislature? (sorry, U.S. only) The Chronicle of Higher Education takes on the issue of how educated U.S. lawmakers at the state level are/should be. Opinions of a few legislators. Opinions of a few education experts. Or, go right to the numbers: An attractive nationwide and by state chart.

Public Schools Charge Kids for Basics, Frills

reenum — Thu, 26 May 2011 18:14:22 -0800

In the wake of ever deeper budget cuts, public schools have begun charging students for basics, such as registering for honors or elective classes.

Inside the multimillion-dollar essay-scoring business

reenum — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 08:56:45 -0800

With the institution of No Child Left Behind, educational testing in the US boomed. Now, some of the low paid temp workers hired to score these tests are speaking out about the behind the scenes manipulation that goes on to ensure test scores are in line with "customer expectations".

LAUSD's Dance of the Lemons

reenum — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 09:30:59 -0800

Want to fire a teacher in the LA Unified School District? Be prepared to spend several years and hundreds of thousands of dollars to do so. For discussion of a similar situation in New York City, please see this post.

World Government Data

netbros — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 16:42:26 -0800

Governments around the globe are opening up their data vaults allowing us to check out the numbers for ourselves. This is the Guardian’s gateway to that information. Search for government data here from the UK, USA, Australia and New Zealand — and look out for new countries and places as they are added. Read more about this on the Datablog. They have an API available. Even though all of these government data sites have enormous quantities of data, they are not in the same formats. What the Guardian has done is put them into a unified form, meaning developers have the opportunity to write applications that compare data between different countries. If you want the data in Atom or JSON just change the "/search" to "/search.atom" or "/search.json" in the url. Here are some sample visualizations that have already been created.

building nothing out of something? or...

kliuless — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 15:21:22 -0800

Rebuilding Something Better by Barack Obama: "this week, I'll be talking about how we give our workers the skills they need to compete... Part of this goal will be met by helping Americans better afford a college education. But part of it will also be strengthening our network of community colleges..." BONUS -Zakaria: A Capitalist Manifesto -Cowen: Vaticanomics -The X-shaped recovery -Debt, Class Warfare and Entrepreneurship -America's Fiscal Train Wreck and Cassandra's Curse -Skidelsky: Economists clash on shifting sands -Skidelsky: The World Finance Crisis & the American Mission -Skidelsky: The Lost Continent -Obama: A New Moment of Promise in Africa -Sullivan: Barack Obama keeps his cool

Can We Cure the Health Care Crisis?

kliuless — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 20:43:26 -0800

Search for an Rx - We asked Johns Hopkins administrators, physicians, and researchers about the health of a system Americans rely on to keep them healthy. Afterall, an ounce of prevention...

Can we improve quality while driving costs down? As contradictory as the notion might seem, there is a precedent for doing better work at a lower cost. "The thing that is so hard for people to understand, but that was proven in the auto industry, is that when you focus on cutting costs, you automatically reduce quality. But when you focus on increasing quality, as we've done with safety measures here at Hopkins, you almost always reduce cost. It's counterintuitive," Brody says.

and in addition to finance (and the auto industry) it's probably also applicable to education as well...

There Could Be Blood

kliuless — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 18:36:53 -0800

Andy Grove on Our Electric Future - "Energy independence [viz.] is the wrong goal. Here is a plan Americans can stick to." Perhaps some infrastructure spending^1,2 is in order? [etc., &c., cf.] also see :P - "Tesla Motors Is Delivering Cars" - "Superconducting Power Grid Launches In New York" - "New heights reached in polymer based solar cell efficiency"

[S]pray a sheet of glass with a mixture of dyes combined with a substance called tris(8-hydroxyquinoline) aluminium. In combination, the dyes and the glass act as the waveguide, preventing light from escaping. Meanwhile, the interaction between the different dye molecules and those of the tris(8-hydroxyquinoline) aluminium allows a quantum-mechanical phenomenon, called Förster energy transfer, to come into play. This eliminates the reabsorption loss by ensuring that light is re-emitted at a frequency which the dye molecules cannot then reabsorb. On top of this—literally—Dr Currie and Dr Mapel have come up with another trick: placing a second sandwich of dye and glass over the first. The upper layer of dye intercepts high-energy light, such as ultraviolet. The lower one captures longer wavelengths that have passed unperturbed through the upper, and also any lower-energy light that has been re-emitted within the top layer and somehow escaped. The upshot is a device that, even as a prototype, converts ten times more of the incident light into electricity than a conventional solar cell. [and btw]

cheers!

The Saddam Sessions

kliuless — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 22:33:50 -0800

Saddam's Confessions - Given Saddam Hussein's central place in the American Consciousness over the last couple decades and particularly in recent years, I found 60 minutes' interview with FBI interrogator George Piro pretty fascinating.

U.S. Public Service Academy

divabat — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 22:38:28 -0800

U.S. Public Service Academy : A proposal by two Teach for America alum to provide fully-funded top-notch undergraduate education in public service in the style of military academies, but with a mandatory 5-year local/state/federal service work requirement. A bill for this school was put into Congress by Senators Hillary Clinton and Arlen Specter.

Ready To Learn?

eatyourlunch — Fri, 10 Jun 2005 08:49:05 -0800

House Appropriations panel eliminates ALL public funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and PBS Ready To Learn. From this morning's Cynopsis:Kids e-newsletter: "In our nation's capital yesterday, a House Appropriations subcommittee voted to approve a new bill that will see budgets sliced for both public TV and radio. Specifically in the line of fire in the kid TV universe is the elimination of the full $23m in funding for Public TV's Ready to Learn initiative. Ready to Learn provides some funds for PBS series including, Sesame Street, Between the Lions, Arthur, Reading Rainbow, Clifford the Big Red Dog and could have Buster sending smoke signals instead of postcards. [...] Though the President proposed a small budget reduction for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting this past winter, yesterday's subcommittee vote would also eliminate all government monetary funds intended for the CPB over the course of the next two years, beginning with a $100m decrease in funding to $300m for next year." Perhaps this will free up some money for No Child Left Behind?

What should the Federal Government do about Education

314/ — Fri, 07 Feb 2003 12:13:27 -0800

The US Department of Education - Or Not?
A link or two for those who don't own a television. Or a Michael Jackson CD.
Reaction to federal initiatives like No Child Left Behind (which is directed purely at education, and has been discussed here before ) and Head Start (which has a social component, and has not (I think)) is starting to filter in.
Should the Federal Government worry about disparities in educational expenditures? Should it worry about how services are delivered?

School budget

semmi — Fri, 24 Jan 2003 10:09:32 -0800

An imaginative solution to California's school budget crisis.

Educate. Prevent. Practice Safer Sex. Demand Needle Exchange Programs. End HIV/AIDS Discrimination.

fold_and_mutilate — Sun, 01 Dec 2002 08:25:12 -0800

Educate. Prevent. Practice Safer Sex. Insist On Needle Exchange Programs. End HIV/AIDS Discrimination. Demand Adequate Treatment for Low Income HIV+ Persons. (And fight like hell against those who drag their feet on public health issues for the sake of ideology.)

US Dept. of Education to erase website info which "does not reflect the priorities, philosophies, or goals of the present administration."

troutfishing — Thu, 10 Oct 2002 22:46:58 -0800

US Dept. of Education to erase website info which "does not reflect the priorities, philosophies, or goals of the present administration." Can you say 1984? Say it now....OVER and OVER and OVER again so you can GET USED TO IT......a brutal, clever strategy of the Bush Adm.to rewrite reality: erase problematic info and then channel money to people willing to produce the right stuff. Samizdat opportunity -- use a website capture program: WebWhacker costs $, but there are freeware site suckers available too. Orwell is turning in his grave.....Download and archive this stuff before it gets erased. Remember, Information Wants to Be Free!...or does it?

Vouchers are dead.

owillis — Wed, 02 May 2001 22:57:48 -0800

Vouchers are dead. Every once in a while something good happens in Washington... and then we move on to more insanity.