StickWithANose

Can we please put this “rational economic actor” nonsense behind us? The reality that the most powerful academic discipline in the US is built upon this fundamentally flawed assumption scares the piss out of me. Ritholtz:
Whether it’s a matter of ignorance or greed, people are still buying General Motors stock, even though the company and [...]

Schools Matter reports on Arne Duncan’s snake-oil salesmanship and, in so doing, points toward a key concept of education reform that is purposefully ambiguous and also happens to be the subject of an essay I just penned. [in review] The idea of educational innovation is quickly becoming one of the new buzz words that is [...]

Food for thought. WP via Economists View
1. It’s all socialized medicine out there. Not so. … In some ways, health care is less “socialized” overseas than in the United States. Almost all Americans sign up for government insurance (Medicare) at age 65. In Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands, seniors stick with private insurance plans for [...]

Here is one of the best arguments for developing a national curriculum. Due to its large size, Texas has an inordinate influence over the nation’s textbook industry as does California and New York. Textbook publishers look to the standards in these three states to decide what should and should not be included in various texts, [...]

I soured on Barak Obama almost immediately after his inauguration, although I must confess that my vote for him was just as much a vote against the McCain/Palin crazy train as being one for him. The list of his transgressions so far is both long and [sadly] predictable. Upon entering office, Obama continued the bailouts [...]

What do you call it when one billionaire puts up $4 million to extend the mayoral control of education in a city controlled by another billionaire? Kenneth knows the answer.

Like many others in the education community, I viewed the election of Barak Obama with a sense of hope that the madness of the previous eight years of destructive education policy was over. Obama was taking advice from noted scholar Linda Darling-Hammond, and he had campaigned on overhauling NCLB, often criticizing its over-reliance on standardized [...]

The big economic news of the past week was the report that the economic engines of the EU, France and Germany, both posted .3% gains in GDP. While the boisterous calls that the core of the EU was exiting the recession should be taken with a grain of salt, there is an important lesson to [...]