We have grown used to name calling in the political sphere. Citizens evidently like their politicians to talk tough. This article from Politico shows how political leaders are resorting to the same language. Again, these individuals are likely playing to audience that encourage this animosity.
The Twitter IPO is today.
While Twitter often directs me to resources I find valuable, I cannot say that I find Twitter itself as that useful.
I have two complaints:
1) The control of audience should be placed in the hands of content producers. From the perspective of the consumer, so many messages come across as cryptic and inane. Often this is because the consumer is participating in only part of a conversation. Sometimes, the producers just assumes everyone is interested in their spur of the moment brilliance. WASSUP
Focusing on a subset of messages using hashtags seems an inadequate solution.
2) 140 characters is not sufficient for meaningful conversation. It may be sufficient for shallow interchanges – nice to maintain relationships but not sufficient to get real work done. 140 characters is also sufficient to direct readers to more informative content.
Google+ has a more flexible and productive format. It may require more effort that many are willing to allocate, but the ability to express yourself more completely and to route content to a specific audiences make it more useful.
I do understand the need for chit chat. Perhaps a compromise might be to use different platforms for different purposes.
A measure in Colorado to raise funds for K-12 education (NY Times) went down in defeat Tuesday. The measure was backed by outside money from sources that often have different views on educational reform.
Had the referendum passed, the current flat state income tax rate of 4.6 percent would have been replaced with a two-tier system. Residents with taxable incomes below $75,000 would have paid 5 percent; taxable incomes above $75,000 would have been taxed at 5.9 percent. The measure would have poured money into poor, rural school districts, expanded preschool, bought new technology and encouraged local innovations like longer school days and school years, supporters said.
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In richer counties with healthy school systems, both Democrats and Republicans were leery of raising their own taxes to finance struggling schools in poorer districts.
I have just discovered Google Alerts. These settings establish searches and periodically send you the results via email (or RSS if you prefer). This tactic works well if there are specific topics you find important and you want to know when anything new appears online or in journals (Google Scholar).
Here is a short YouTube tutorial I have created to explain how to set up alerts.
This article from the NYTimes outlining the educational advantages allowed the children of the wealthy.
The anguished and often angry national debate over how to improve American educational standards, focused intently on grading students and teachers, mostly bypasses how the inequity of resources — starting at the youngest — inevitably affects the outcome.
Some data – state by state
It is election day and in some cases it appears that political offices are contested with a strong emphasis on differences of opinion in how children should be educated. The high profile examples are typically in large cities and are not about those wanting to gain office as a member of the school board, but mayors making a pitch for one or another approach to education. Like many political processes outside money comes to bear in supporting the various candidates and it can be difficult to understand just why this money is being made available. Is it really about educating the children? Why is this an issue in urban areas, but not in most smaller communities where the mayor’s position on educational policy is seldom an issue? If you read Ravitch (and I have), she suggests that contrary to the typical argument that underperforming schools are the result of underperforming faculty, she suggests that the issues are far broader and deal with general issues of poverty and lack of social support. Her message is that blaming the schools is actually a way to provide those unaffected by poor life circumstances even more advantages often rewarding the business sector in the process. The sample news of the day from Boston captures this dispute quite accurately.
Both candidates say their policies are aimed at closing the achievement gap separating white students from blacks and Latinos.
And their fight mirrors, in some respects, a roiling, decades-long national debate over how best to address that gap.
The market-based reform movement has, for years now, had a strong hold on the education establishment. It infused President George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind law and President Obama’s Race to the Top legislation.
Its patrons include Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates, who has funded reform efforts across the country, and some of the country’s highest profile mayors: New York’s Michael Bloomberg and Chicago’s Rahm Emanuel among them.
But the movement has spawned strong critics, too — none so forceful as New York University professor Diane Ravitch, who served in President George H.W. Bush’s administration and initially embraced standards-based reform.
