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Obama: partisan battles in Washington holding back US economy

Mon, 20 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - May. 20 (News) - President says US must get beyond 'short-term tactical thinking' and gives highly personal commencement address in Atlanta President Barack Obama complained on Sunday that partisan battles in Washington are holding back stronger US economic growth as he tried to recover from one of the most difficult weeks of his presidency. On a trip to Atlanta, Obama did not specifically mention the three controversies that engulfed his administration last week and raised questions as to how much of his second-term agenda he will be able to achieve. His message was clear when he told Democratic donors that an American economic revival is being held back by a "tendency in Washington to put politics ahead of policy, to put the next election ahead of the next generation, and that mindset is what we need to change." Obama's appearance in Atlanta came as he seeks to regain his footing from one of his worst weeks since taking office in early 2009. His Internal Revenue Service was found to have targeted his ...

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Revision techniques - the good, the OK and the useless

Sat, 18 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

BBC News - May. 18 - The good and the useless, according to psychologists

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Who Is Profiting From Charters? The Big Bucks Behind Charter School Secrecy, Financial Scandal and Corruption

Sat, 11 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By kristin Rawls - May. 11 (Investigative Report) - Studies shows that charter schools don’t typically outperform public schools and they often tend to increase racial and class segregation. So one must wonder, what exactly is motivating these school “reformers”? And why have they pushed for more and more closure — and new charter schools — at such an unprecedented rate in recent years?

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Do visas for skilled foreigners shut out U.S. tech workers?

Sun, 05 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

seattletimes.com - By Kyung M. Song, Janet I. Tu - May. 05 (Special Report) - Though he was then in his late 50s, Erickson figured the drumbeat of complaints from Microsoft and other tech companies about a dearth of good applicants promised an easy career switch. Nine months past his graduation, however, Erickson has yet to find full-time work. “When I saw my (philosophy) career was going to be over, I retrained myself,” Erickson, now 60, said. “What good is that if I’m not actually going to get a job?”

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16-Year-Old Girl Arrested and Charged With a Felony For Science Project Mistake

Thu, 02 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - May. 02 (News) -

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Exposed: The Billionaire-Backed Group Strong-Arming Parents into Destroying Their Kids' Public Schools

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Yasha Levine - Apr. 30 (Investigative Report) - The parents told me that a Los Angeles-based group calling itself Parent Revolution organized a local campaign to harass and trick them into signing petitions that they thought were meant for simple school improvements. In fact those petitions turned out to be part of a sophisticated campaign to convert their children’s public school into a privately-run charter — something a majority of parents opposed. At times, locals say, the Parent Revolution volunteers’ tactics were so heavy-handed in gathering signatures that they crossed the line into harassment and intimidation. Many parents were misled about what the petition they signed actually meant. Some told me that the intimidation with some of the undocumented Latino residents included bribery and extortion

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Study: There may not be a shortage of American STEM graduates after all

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Jia Lynn Yang - Apr. 25 (News Report) - ..The EPI study found that the United States has “more than a sufficient supply of workers available to work in STEM occupations.” Basic dynamics of supply and demand would dictate that if there were a domestic labor shortage, wages should have risen. Instead, researchers found, they’ve been flat, with many Americans holding STEM degrees unable to enter the field and a sharply higher share of foreign workers taking jobs in the information technology industry.

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6 Ways College Admissions Offices Game Their Rankings

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - By By Marian Wang, ProPublica - Apr. 24 (Investigative Report) - As college-bound students weigh their options, they often look to the various statistics that universities trumpet—things like the high number of applications, high test scores, and low acceptance rate. But students may want to consider yet another piece of info: the ways in which schools can pump up their stats.

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Dutch city shuts schools over threat

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

BBC News - Apr. 22 (News Report) - More than 20 schools in the Dutch city of Leiden are closed amid police concerns over an anonymous threat to carry out a mass shooting.

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Opinionator: Are the Good Jobs Gone?

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By By THOMAS B. EDSALL - Apr. 18 (Opinion) - Opinionator: Are the Good Jobs Gone?

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Orphan Fever: The Evangelical Movement's Adoption Obsession

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - By Kathryn Joyce - Apr. 15 (Comment) - IN 2005, SAM ALLISON, a Tennessee housepainter in his 30s, arrived at Daniel Hoover Children's Village , an orphanage outside Monrovia, Liberia. He'd come to adopt three children, but ended up with four: five-year-old Cherish; her nine-year-old brother, Isaiah; their 13-year-old sister, CeCe, who had taken care of them for years; and Engedi, a sickly infant whom Sam and an adoption broker had retrieved from "deep in the bush." The older children's father had sent them to Daniel Hoover during Liberia's 14-year civil war, after their mother died in childbirth.

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Baby Veronica’s loved ones wait for the Supreme Court to weigh in

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Robert Barnes - Apr. 15 (News Report) - There are two houses, a thousand miles apart, that each contain a child’s play kitchen, a wall of toys and portraits of the same dark-eyed, curly-haired little girl. In one lives a couple named Matt and Melanie Capobianco, who cared for the girl from the time she drew her first breath until 27 months later, when the courts said she must be returned to her biological father. ...

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America Is Ruled by Billionaires, and They Are Coming After the Last Shreds of Our Democracy

Sat, 06 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Michael Brenner - Apr. 06 (Special Report) - The United States today qualifies as a plutocracy – on a number of grounds. Let’s look at some striking bits of evidence. Gross income redistribution upwards in the hierarchy has been a feature of American society for the past decades. The familiar statistics tell us that nearly 80% of the national wealth generated since 1973 has gone to the upper 2%, 65% to the upper 1 per cent. Estimates as to the rise in real income for salaried workers over the past 40 years range from 20% to 28 %. In that period, real GDP has risen by 110% – it has more than doubled.

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The Golf Shot Heard Round the Academic World

Sat, 06 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Wall Street Journal - By David Feith - Apr. 06 (Opinion) - The tale of a teed-off philanthropist and the head of Bowdoin College, where identity politics runs wild.

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NRA's School Security Plan Cites Phony Shooting

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - By Mark Follman - Apr. 03 (Special Report) - Is it a good idea to entrust the National Rifle Association with a role in shaping safety policies for schools? There are various reasons for answering that question in the negative ( gun industry profits, for example ) but a fresh one became evident on Tuesday when the NRA unveiled its plan for securing schools from shooters: Its strategy includes the use of fake evidence.

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The Great British class calculator

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

BBC News - Apr. 03 (Special Report) - If there are seven social classes, which one are you?

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The Girl Who Fired an Outcry in India

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

The Daily Beast - By Shoma Chaudhury - Apr. 02 (Comment) - One horrible night, innocent victims, devastated families—and a country seething with rage and violence, stuck between feudal hierarchies and the modern economy.

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Ex-Atlanta Schools Chief Is Charged in Cheating Scandal

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Michael Winerip - Mar. 29 (News Report) - A grand jury has indicted Beverly L. Hall, the former superintendent of the Atlanta Public Schools, and 34 other teachers and administrators on racketeering charges connected to one of the largest test-score cheating scandals in the country.

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Op-Ed Contributor: Elite Colleges Are as Foreign as Mars

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 00:55:00 -0700

New York Times - By By CLAIRE VAYE WATKINS - Mar. 29 (Opinion) - IN 12th grade, my friend Ryan and I were finalists for the Silver State Scholars, a competition to identify the “Top 100” seniors in Nevada. The finalists were flown to Lake Tahoe for two days of interviews. On the plane, Ryan and I met a boy from Las Ve

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How College Hoops' Cinderella Pulled Itself out of the Swamp

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - By Tim Murphy - Mar. 29 (News) - The Florida Gulf Coast University Eagles, the first 15-seed ever to reach the NCAA basketball tournament's second weekend, are the toast of March Madness on the basis of their high-flying style (nickname: " Dunk City ") and up-from-nowhere story. Less than two decades ago, FGCU was little more than a collection of trailers looking out over a swamp. Today its hoops team is hanging with the heavyweights. The less inspiring story, however, is how FGCU rose up out of the swamp. To put it bluntly: The school paved over it, using government connections to pressure the US Fish and Wildlife Service into green-lighting the development and in the process wiping out one of the last vital habitat areas of the severely endangered Florida panther. FGCU's is a particularly extreme version of a familiar story. For a century, South Florida developers have stared down all comers—and methodically reshaped the environment in the process. Continue Reading ...

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In India, Women's Issues Are Finally Out Front

Sat, 23 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Vikas Bajaj - Mar. 23 (Opinion) - The rape and murder of a young woman in New Delhi last year may have been a tipping point in a long struggle.

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Lawmakers hear from CEO opponents of H-1Bs

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Computerworld - By Patrick Thibodeau - Mar. 19 (News Report) - "If these outsourcing firms were not bringing in the entry level [workers], or they didn't have such a big pool of H-1B visa people available, then I think it opens the doors to making IT an attractive occupation once again, which I think is so important for an innovative economy," Keane said, in an interview.

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CEOs explain how H-1B visa hurts U.S. competitiveness

Fri, 15 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

epi.org - By Daniel Costa - Mar. 15 (News Report) - on March 14 a briefing was held on Capitol Hill to inform Senate staffers about the H-1B program’s impacts on the labor market and job opportunities for U.S. workers in STEM fields. The briefing offered facts and perspectives about the H-1B that are usually ignored or overlooked by the media; including from CEOs who use the program.

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I-Squared Equals I'm Screwed

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Stan Sorscher - Mar. 13 (Opinion) - This January, Senators Hatch and Klobuchar introduced The Immigration Innovation Act, known as "I-Squared." It will triple the number of foreign temporary workers from about 800,000 to over 2.3 million. This will distort the labor market for jobs in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), which has only 4 million workers all told. I-Squared will seriously depress the domestic STEM labor market.

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Why girls in India are still missing out on the education they need

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Rachel Williams - Mar. 12 (Opinion) - India is no longer considered a poor country and yet many children do not receive a good education. Rachel Williams reports Meena (not her real name) didn't tell her parents when the older boys started harassing her on the hour-long walk to school from her home in Madanpur Khadar, south Delhi – grabbing her hand and shouting "kiss me" – because she knew she would get the blame, as if she had somehow encouraged them. She was right: when her family found out, they banned her from going back to school, worried about the effect on their "honour" if she was sexually assaulted. The plan now is to get her married. She is 16. Gulafsha is luckier: her mother is determined she will become a doctor. But there are 70 pupils in a class at her school, and the teachers often simply don't turn up. The drinking water tanks are so filthy the pupils bring their own water. "I have never gone to a toilet at school in all these years, they are so bad," the 14-year-old says. She doesn't know how, but somehow her ...

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