BTW: For poor people, more money does make for more happiness.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090207150518.htmhttp://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090207150518.htm
ScienceDaily (Feb. 7, 2009) — Can money make us happy if we spend it on the right purchases? A new psychology study suggests that buying life experiences rather than material possessions leads to greater happiness for both the consumer and those around them.
The study demonstrates that experiential purchases, such as a meal out or theater tickets, result in increased well-being because they satisfy higher order needs, specifically the need for social connectedness and vitality -- a feeling of being alive.
"These findings support an extension of basic need theory, where purchases that increase psychological need satisfaction will produce the greatest well-being," said Ryan Howell, assistant professor of psychology at San Francisco State University.
Participants in the study were asked to write reflections and answer questions about their recent purchases. Participants indicated that experiential purchases represented money better spent and greater happiness for both themselves and others. The results also indicate that experiences produce more happiness regardless of the amount spent or the income of the consumer.
Experiences also lead to longer-term satisfaction. "Purchased experiences provide memory capital," Howell said. "We don't tend to get bored of happy memories like we do with a material object.
"People still believe that more money will make them happy, even though 35 years of research has suggested the opposite," Howell said. "Maybe this belief has held because money is making some people happy some of the time, at least when they spend it on life experiences."
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Gender Bias Found In Student Ratings Of High School Science Teachers
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090202174953.htm
ScienceDaily (Feb. 8, 2009) — A study of 18,000 biology, chemistry and physics students has uncovered notable gender bias in student ratings of high school science teachers.
Researchers at Clemson University, the University of Virginia and Harvard University have found that, on average, female high school science teachers received lower evaluations than their male counterparts even though male and female teachers are equally effective at preparing their students for college.
...
The authors were able to show that while a few differences in teaching style do exist between male and female teachers they had no correlation with the gender-bias ratings.
The authors also found evidence that male and female teachers are equally effective at preparing their students for college. Students in the survey performed equally well in college science whether they had a female or a male high school science teacher. Also, the rate at which female teachers produce students bound for college-level science study appeared to be identical to the rate of their male counterparts.
ScienceDaily (Feb. 8, 2009) — A study of 18,000 biology, chemistry and physics students has uncovered notable gender bias in student ratings of high school science teachers.
Researchers at Clemson University, the University of Virginia and Harvard University have found that, on average, female high school science teachers received lower evaluations than their male counterparts even though male and female teachers are equally effective at preparing their students for college.
...
The authors were able to show that while a few differences in teaching style do exist between male and female teachers they had no correlation with the gender-bias ratings.
The authors also found evidence that male and female teachers are equally effective at preparing their students for college. Students in the survey performed equally well in college science whether they had a female or a male high school science teacher. Also, the rate at which female teachers produce students bound for college-level science study appeared to be identical to the rate of their male counterparts.
Monday, February 09, 2009
Marijuana Use Linked To Increased Risk Of Testicular Cancer
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090209075631.htm
ScienceDaily (Feb. 9, 2009) — Frequent and/or long-term marijuana use may significantly increase a man's risk of developing the most aggressive type of testicular cancer, according to a study by researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. The study results were published online Feb. 9 in the journal Cancer.
The researchers found that being a marijuana smoker at the time of diagnosis was associated with a 70 percent increased risk of testicular cancer. The risk was particularly elevated (about twice that of those who never smoked marijuana) for those who used marijuana at least weekly and/or who had long-term exposure to the substance beginning in adolescence.
ScienceDaily (Feb. 9, 2009) — Frequent and/or long-term marijuana use may significantly increase a man's risk of developing the most aggressive type of testicular cancer, according to a study by researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. The study results were published online Feb. 9 in the journal Cancer.
The researchers found that being a marijuana smoker at the time of diagnosis was associated with a 70 percent increased risk of testicular cancer. The risk was particularly elevated (about twice that of those who never smoked marijuana) for those who used marijuana at least weekly and/or who had long-term exposure to the substance beginning in adolescence.
Women Who Drink More Soda At Higher Risk For Early Kidney Disease
The headline in the original article is "Women Who Drink Lots Of Soda At Higher Risk For Early Kidney Disease", but I consider that misleading. I doubt that the average person in the U.S. would consider two cans of soda pop a day as "lots".
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090209125821.htm
ScienceDaily (Feb. 9, 2009) — Women who drink two or more cans of soda pop per day are nearly twice as likely to show early signs of kidney disease, a recent study has found.
However, researchers did not find an elevated risk for men, or for people who drink diet soda, said lead researcher David Shoham of Loyola University Health System.
...
A recent pilot study by other researchers, reported in the journal Environmental Health, found that nine of 20 commercial samples of high fructose corn syrup from three manufacturers contained detectable levels of mercury. "This adds the intriguing possibility that it is not just the sugar itself in high fructose corn syrup that is harmful, because mercury is harmful to kidneys as well," Shoham said.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090209125821.htm
ScienceDaily (Feb. 9, 2009) — Women who drink two or more cans of soda pop per day are nearly twice as likely to show early signs of kidney disease, a recent study has found.
However, researchers did not find an elevated risk for men, or for people who drink diet soda, said lead researcher David Shoham of Loyola University Health System.
...
A recent pilot study by other researchers, reported in the journal Environmental Health, found that nine of 20 commercial samples of high fructose corn syrup from three manufacturers contained detectable levels of mercury. "This adds the intriguing possibility that it is not just the sugar itself in high fructose corn syrup that is harmful, because mercury is harmful to kidneys as well," Shoham said.
Differences In Recovered Memories Of Childhood Sexual Abuse
I have seen people claim that people don't forget traumatic experiences, and I know by personal experience that that is not true. I had a couple of serious childhood accidents, attested to by scars, and my parents telling me how they came about. But I had no memory of them. In one case, I was putting on socks, and noticed the large scar on my foot, as I had innumerable times before, and suddenly saw the memory of the moments leading up to the accident, stopping just before the actual accident. That's fine with me. I have no desire to remember the actual accident. In the other case, I have no memory at all, which is fine. So it always angers me when so-called "experts" deny that there is such a thing as a recovered memory, based on the fact that some recovered memories are false.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090202175057.htm
ScienceDaily (Feb. 4, 2009) — When a child experiences a traumatic event, such as sexual abuse, it may not be until well into adulthood that they remember the incident. It is not known how adults are able to retrieve long-forgotten memories of abuse and there has been some controversy as to the authenticity of these reports.
The results of a new study in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, suggests that there are important differences between people who gradually recover memories of abuse during suggestive therapy sessions and those who recover memories of abuse more spontaneously. Psychologist Elke Geraerts of the University of St. Andrews and her colleagues reveal that these people are either susceptible to recovering false memories or have a tendency to forget earlier recollections of the abuse.
The study volunteers included 120 women who were classified into four groups, based on their responses during a preliminary interview. The groups were: women who spontaneously recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse on their own, women who gradually recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse during suggestive therapy sessions, women who had never forgotten having been sexually abused and women who had never been sexually abused. All of these women participated in a false-memory test. They studied a list of related words (such as bed, rest, awake and tired). After a few minutes, they were shown a set of words (which included ones they had studied as well as new words) and had to indicate which words were on the original list.
The results showed that the women who recovered their memories of childhood sexual abuse during suggestive therapy were the most prone to false memories. For instance, women from this group were more likely to select sleep (in the example above) as having been on the original list, when in fact, it was not.
The women then participated in another memory test, which measured the participants' propensity to forget what they had just remembered. The results of this test revealed that the group who spontaneously recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse was the most likely to forget that they had successfully remembered certain words earlier.
The authors note that their findings argue against the generalization that all recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse are based on false recollections and "that such effects appear to be associated with suggestive therapy, not recovery of childhood sexual abuse in general." They conclude that this research has important implications for clinicians who treat patients reporting recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse. The authors suggest that these clinicians should consider the context of the recovered memories to most effectively treat their patients.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090202175057.htm
ScienceDaily (Feb. 4, 2009) — When a child experiences a traumatic event, such as sexual abuse, it may not be until well into adulthood that they remember the incident. It is not known how adults are able to retrieve long-forgotten memories of abuse and there has been some controversy as to the authenticity of these reports.
The results of a new study in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, suggests that there are important differences between people who gradually recover memories of abuse during suggestive therapy sessions and those who recover memories of abuse more spontaneously. Psychologist Elke Geraerts of the University of St. Andrews and her colleagues reveal that these people are either susceptible to recovering false memories or have a tendency to forget earlier recollections of the abuse.
The study volunteers included 120 women who were classified into four groups, based on their responses during a preliminary interview. The groups were: women who spontaneously recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse on their own, women who gradually recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse during suggestive therapy sessions, women who had never forgotten having been sexually abused and women who had never been sexually abused. All of these women participated in a false-memory test. They studied a list of related words (such as bed, rest, awake and tired). After a few minutes, they were shown a set of words (which included ones they had studied as well as new words) and had to indicate which words were on the original list.
The results showed that the women who recovered their memories of childhood sexual abuse during suggestive therapy were the most prone to false memories. For instance, women from this group were more likely to select sleep (in the example above) as having been on the original list, when in fact, it was not.
The women then participated in another memory test, which measured the participants' propensity to forget what they had just remembered. The results of this test revealed that the group who spontaneously recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse was the most likely to forget that they had successfully remembered certain words earlier.
The authors note that their findings argue against the generalization that all recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse are based on false recollections and "that such effects appear to be associated with suggestive therapy, not recovery of childhood sexual abuse in general." They conclude that this research has important implications for clinicians who treat patients reporting recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse. The authors suggest that these clinicians should consider the context of the recovered memories to most effectively treat their patients.
Saturday, February 07, 2009
Green Tea Blocks Benefits Of Cancer Drug
Note that green tea might be effective in reducing the probability of getting cancer to start out, with w/o contradicting this study.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090203162355.htm
ScienceDaily (Feb. 5, 2009) — Contrary to popular assumptions about the health benefits of green tea, researchers at the University of Southern California (USC) have found that the widely used supplement renders a cancer drug used to treat multiple myeloma and mantle cell lymphoma completely ineffective in treating cancer.
The study, which found that a component of green tea extract (GTE) called EGCG destroys any anticancer activity of the drug Velcade in tumor-bearing mice, will be published in the journal Blood.
"Our finding that GTE or EGCG blocked the therapeutic action of Velcade was completely unexpected," says lead author Axel H. Schönthal, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. "Our hypothesis was that GTE or EGCG would enhance the anti-tumor effects of Velcade, and that a combination of GTE with Velcade (or EGCG with Velcade) would turn out to be a superior cancer treatment as compared to treatment with Velcade alone."
...
Schönthal points out that for patients on Velcade, supplementing with green tea products should reduce the burden of harsh side effects—which might be attractive to the patient, but comes at a high cost.
"Essentially, in addition to not being able to attack tumor cells, Velcade would be unable to cause side effects either," he says. "As a result, the patient would feel a lot better and conclude that the consumption of GTE helped cope with side effects—while in reality, Velcade simply wasn't active in the first place."
A refreshing change
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/06/opinion/06hastings.html?_r=1&ref=opinion
The New York Times
February 6, 2009
Op-Ed Contributor
Please Raise My Taxes
By REED HASTINGS
Los Gatos, Calif.
I’M the chief executive of a publicly traded company and, like my peers, I’m very highly paid. The difference between salaries like mine and those of average Americans creates a lot of tension, and I’d like to offer a suggestion. President Obama should celebrate our success, rather than trying to shame us or cap our pay. But he should also take half of our huge earnings in taxes, instead of the current one-third.
Then, the next time a chief executive earns an eye-popping amount of money, we can cheer that half of it is going to pay for our soldiers, schools and security. Higher taxes on huge pay days can finance opportunity for the next generation of Americans.
Clearly, the efforts over the past few decades to control executive compensation haven’t accomplished much. Improved public disclosure was supposed to shame companies into lowering salaries, and it obviously hasn’t worked. In 1993, President Bill Clinton changed the tax law to effectively cap executives’ salaries at $1 million a year, but that simply drove corporate boards to offer larger bonuses and stock options to attract and keep talent. More recently, “say on pay” proposals would have shareholders opine on their boards’ compensation decisions, but “say and pay” won’t change the fact that luring a top executive away from another company is never easy or cheap.
The reality is that the boards of public companies hate overpaying for anything, including executives. But picking the wrong chief executive is an enormous disaster, so boards are willing to pay an arm and a leg for already proven talent. Putting limits on the salaries at public companies, or trying to shame them into coming down, won’t stop this costly competition for talent.
Of course, it’s galling when a chief executive fails and is still handsomely rewarded. But with the concept of “tax, not shame,” a shocking $20 million severance package would generate $10 million for the government. That’s a far better solution than what we have today, not least because it works with the market rather than against it.
Another advantage is that it would also cover the sometimes huge earnings of hedge fund managers, star athletes, stunning movie stars, venture capitalists and the chief executives of private companies. Surely there is no reason to focus only on executives at publicly traded companies.
This week, President Obama proposed imposing a $500,000 compensation cap on companies seeking a bailout. It’s a terrible idea. We all want the taxpayers’ money returned, and capping compensation at bailout recipients will just make it that much harder for those boards to hire and hold on to the executives who can lead their companies to compete and thrive.
Perhaps a starting place for “tax, not shame” would be creating a top federal marginal tax rate of 50 percent on all income above $1 million per year. Some will tell you that would reduce the incentive to earn but I don’t see that as likely. Besides, half of a giant compensation package is still pretty huge, and most of our motivation is the sheer challenge of the job anyway.
Instead of trying to shame companies and executives, the president should take advantage of our success by using our outsized earnings to pay for the needs of our nation.
Reed Hastings is the chief executive of Netflix.
The New York Times
February 6, 2009
Op-Ed Contributor
Please Raise My Taxes
By REED HASTINGS
Los Gatos, Calif.
I’M the chief executive of a publicly traded company and, like my peers, I’m very highly paid. The difference between salaries like mine and those of average Americans creates a lot of tension, and I’d like to offer a suggestion. President Obama should celebrate our success, rather than trying to shame us or cap our pay. But he should also take half of our huge earnings in taxes, instead of the current one-third.
Then, the next time a chief executive earns an eye-popping amount of money, we can cheer that half of it is going to pay for our soldiers, schools and security. Higher taxes on huge pay days can finance opportunity for the next generation of Americans.
Clearly, the efforts over the past few decades to control executive compensation haven’t accomplished much. Improved public disclosure was supposed to shame companies into lowering salaries, and it obviously hasn’t worked. In 1993, President Bill Clinton changed the tax law to effectively cap executives’ salaries at $1 million a year, but that simply drove corporate boards to offer larger bonuses and stock options to attract and keep talent. More recently, “say on pay” proposals would have shareholders opine on their boards’ compensation decisions, but “say and pay” won’t change the fact that luring a top executive away from another company is never easy or cheap.
The reality is that the boards of public companies hate overpaying for anything, including executives. But picking the wrong chief executive is an enormous disaster, so boards are willing to pay an arm and a leg for already proven talent. Putting limits on the salaries at public companies, or trying to shame them into coming down, won’t stop this costly competition for talent.
Of course, it’s galling when a chief executive fails and is still handsomely rewarded. But with the concept of “tax, not shame,” a shocking $20 million severance package would generate $10 million for the government. That’s a far better solution than what we have today, not least because it works with the market rather than against it.
Another advantage is that it would also cover the sometimes huge earnings of hedge fund managers, star athletes, stunning movie stars, venture capitalists and the chief executives of private companies. Surely there is no reason to focus only on executives at publicly traded companies.
This week, President Obama proposed imposing a $500,000 compensation cap on companies seeking a bailout. It’s a terrible idea. We all want the taxpayers’ money returned, and capping compensation at bailout recipients will just make it that much harder for those boards to hire and hold on to the executives who can lead their companies to compete and thrive.
Perhaps a starting place for “tax, not shame” would be creating a top federal marginal tax rate of 50 percent on all income above $1 million per year. Some will tell you that would reduce the incentive to earn but I don’t see that as likely. Besides, half of a giant compensation package is still pretty huge, and most of our motivation is the sheer challenge of the job anyway.
Instead of trying to shame companies and executives, the president should take advantage of our success by using our outsized earnings to pay for the needs of our nation.
Reed Hastings is the chief executive of Netflix.
One Tin Soldier
Seeing people, esp. the young people, who have performed and/or created videos for this song gives me hope for the future and the human race. When I get to feeling it might be better if we became extinct, I need to look at these.
Poor People Suffer Disproportionately From Chronic Infections
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090205154037.htm
ScienceDaily (Feb. 5, 2009) — Kids from low-income families are much more likely to suffer from serious infections such as herpes or hepatitis A than their counterparts in wealthier households.
Two recent University of Michigan studies show a startlingly strong correlation between income and chronic infection in both adults and children, with lower income populations suffering much higher rates of chronic infections and clusters of infections than higher income families.
"There is a large body of research showing that people of lower socioeconomic status are at greater risk for numerous chronic diseases," said Allison Aiello, senior author on the studies and an assistant professor of epidemiology at the U-M School of Public Health. "In this study, we found that lower income populations are also more likely to be exposed to a cluster of persistent infections."
ScienceDaily (Feb. 5, 2009) — Kids from low-income families are much more likely to suffer from serious infections such as herpes or hepatitis A than their counterparts in wealthier households.
Two recent University of Michigan studies show a startlingly strong correlation between income and chronic infection in both adults and children, with lower income populations suffering much higher rates of chronic infections and clusters of infections than higher income families.
"There is a large body of research showing that people of lower socioeconomic status are at greater risk for numerous chronic diseases," said Allison Aiello, senior author on the studies and an assistant professor of epidemiology at the U-M School of Public Health. "In this study, we found that lower income populations are also more likely to be exposed to a cluster of persistent infections."
Natural Solar Collectors On Butterfly Wings Inspire More Powerful Solar Cells
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090204170548.htm
ScienceDaily (Feb. 5, 2009) — The discovery that butterfly wings have scales that act as tiny solar collectors has led scientists in China and Japan to design a more efficient solar cell that could be used for powering homes, businesses, and other applications in the future.
In the study, Di Zhang and colleagues note that scientists are searching for new materials to improve light-harvesting in so-called dye-sensitized solar cells, also known as Grätzel cells for inventor Michael Grätzel. These cells have the highest light-conversion efficiencies among all solar cells — as high as 10 percent.
The researchers turned to the microscopic solar scales on butterfly wings in their search for improvements. Using natural butterfly wings as a mold or template, they made copies of the solar collectors and transferred those light-harvesting structures to Grätzel cells. Laboratory tests showed that the butterfly wing solar collector absorbed light more efficiently than conventional dye-sensitized cells. The fabrication process is simpler and faster than other methods, and could be used to manufacture other commercially valuable devices, the researchers say.
ScienceDaily (Feb. 5, 2009) — The discovery that butterfly wings have scales that act as tiny solar collectors has led scientists in China and Japan to design a more efficient solar cell that could be used for powering homes, businesses, and other applications in the future.
In the study, Di Zhang and colleagues note that scientists are searching for new materials to improve light-harvesting in so-called dye-sensitized solar cells, also known as Grätzel cells for inventor Michael Grätzel. These cells have the highest light-conversion efficiencies among all solar cells — as high as 10 percent.
The researchers turned to the microscopic solar scales on butterfly wings in their search for improvements. Using natural butterfly wings as a mold or template, they made copies of the solar collectors and transferred those light-harvesting structures to Grätzel cells. Laboratory tests showed that the butterfly wing solar collector absorbed light more efficiently than conventional dye-sensitized cells. The fabrication process is simpler and faster than other methods, and could be used to manufacture other commercially valuable devices, the researchers say.
Collapse Of Antarctic Ice Sheet Would Likely Put Washington, D.C. Largely Underwater
Wow. I have predicted that the melting of glaciers and ice sheets would cause earth quakes, but that was a no-brainer. Anybody with a little knowledge of such things can predict that. and I have seen such predictions by scientists since then. (I'm not suggesting they got the idea from me. It takes more time for such things to get published in scientific journals.) However, it never occurred to me that it might shift the position of the poles, although now that it's been mentioned, I can see that the massive redistribution of water could do so.
If you've ever had to carry water around, you know it's heavy.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090205142132.htm
ScienceDaily (Feb. 6, 2009) — University of Toronto and Oregon State University geophysicists have shown that should the West Antarctic Ice Sheet collapse and melt in a warming world – as many scientists are concerned it will – it is the coastlines of North America and of nations in the southern Indian Ocean that will face the greatest threats from rising sea levels.
The catastrophic increase in sea level, already projected to average between 16 and 17 feet around the world, would be almost 21 feet in such places as Washington, D.C., scientists say, putting it largely underwater. Many coastal areas would be devastated. Much of Southern Florida would disappear, according to researchers at Oregon State University.
“There is widespread concern that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet may be prone to collapse, resulting in a rise in global sea levels,” says geophysicist Jerry X. Mitrovica, who, along with physics graduate student Natalya Gomez and Oregon State University geoscientist Peter Clark, are the authors of a new study to be published in the February 6 issue of the journal Science. “We’ve been able to calculate that not only will the rise in sea levels at most coastal sites be significantly higher than previously expected, but that the sea-level change will be highly variable around the globe,” adds Gomez.
...
“The typical estimate of the sea-level change is five metres, a value arrived at by taking the total volume of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, converting it to water and spreading it evenly across the oceans, says Mitrovica. “However, this estimate is far too simplified because it ignores three significant effects:
* when an ice sheet melts, its gravitational pull on the ocean is reduced and water moves away from it. The net effect is that the sea level actually falls within 2,000 km of a melting ice sheet, and rises progressively further away from it. If the West Antarctic Ice Sheet collapses, sea level will fall close to the Antarctic and will rise much more than the expected estimate in the northern hemisphere because of this gravitational effect;
* the depression in the Antarctic bedrock that currently sits under the weight of the ice sheet will become filled with water if the ice sheet collapses. However, the size of this hole will shrink as the region rebounds after the ice disappears, pushing some of the water out into the ocean, and this effect will further contribute to the sea-level rise;
* the melting of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet will actually cause the Earth’s rotation axis to shift rather dramatically – approximately 500 metres from its present position if the entire ice sheet melts. This shift will move water from the southern Atlantic and Pacific oceans northward toward North America and into the southern Indian Ocean.
“The net effect of all of these processes is that if the West Antarctic Ice Sheet collapses, the rise in sea levels around many coastal regions will be as much as 25 per cent more than expected, for a total of between six and seven metres if the whole ice sheet melts,” says Mitrovica. “That’s a lot of additional water, particularly around such highly populated areas as Washington, D.C., New York City, and the California coastline.”
Digital animation of what various sea-level rise scenarios might look like for up to six metres is at http://www.cresis.ku.edu/research/data/sea_level_rise.
If you've ever had to carry water around, you know it's heavy.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090205142132.htm
ScienceDaily (Feb. 6, 2009) — University of Toronto and Oregon State University geophysicists have shown that should the West Antarctic Ice Sheet collapse and melt in a warming world – as many scientists are concerned it will – it is the coastlines of North America and of nations in the southern Indian Ocean that will face the greatest threats from rising sea levels.
The catastrophic increase in sea level, already projected to average between 16 and 17 feet around the world, would be almost 21 feet in such places as Washington, D.C., scientists say, putting it largely underwater. Many coastal areas would be devastated. Much of Southern Florida would disappear, according to researchers at Oregon State University.
“There is widespread concern that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet may be prone to collapse, resulting in a rise in global sea levels,” says geophysicist Jerry X. Mitrovica, who, along with physics graduate student Natalya Gomez and Oregon State University geoscientist Peter Clark, are the authors of a new study to be published in the February 6 issue of the journal Science. “We’ve been able to calculate that not only will the rise in sea levels at most coastal sites be significantly higher than previously expected, but that the sea-level change will be highly variable around the globe,” adds Gomez.
...
“The typical estimate of the sea-level change is five metres, a value arrived at by taking the total volume of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, converting it to water and spreading it evenly across the oceans, says Mitrovica. “However, this estimate is far too simplified because it ignores three significant effects:
* when an ice sheet melts, its gravitational pull on the ocean is reduced and water moves away from it. The net effect is that the sea level actually falls within 2,000 km of a melting ice sheet, and rises progressively further away from it. If the West Antarctic Ice Sheet collapses, sea level will fall close to the Antarctic and will rise much more than the expected estimate in the northern hemisphere because of this gravitational effect;
* the depression in the Antarctic bedrock that currently sits under the weight of the ice sheet will become filled with water if the ice sheet collapses. However, the size of this hole will shrink as the region rebounds after the ice disappears, pushing some of the water out into the ocean, and this effect will further contribute to the sea-level rise;
* the melting of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet will actually cause the Earth’s rotation axis to shift rather dramatically – approximately 500 metres from its present position if the entire ice sheet melts. This shift will move water from the southern Atlantic and Pacific oceans northward toward North America and into the southern Indian Ocean.
“The net effect of all of these processes is that if the West Antarctic Ice Sheet collapses, the rise in sea levels around many coastal regions will be as much as 25 per cent more than expected, for a total of between six and seven metres if the whole ice sheet melts,” says Mitrovica. “That’s a lot of additional water, particularly around such highly populated areas as Washington, D.C., New York City, and the California coastline.”
Digital animation of what various sea-level rise scenarios might look like for up to six metres is at http://www.cresis.ku.edu/research/data/sea_level_rise.
Texan who died in prison cleared of rape conviction
I guess in a few days some in the Georgia legislature will try to make it easier to impose the death penalty. That seems to be their habit after it's been proven that an innocent person has spent decades in prison.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/02/06/texas.exoneration/index.html
(CNN) -- A Texas district court judge Friday reversed the conviction of a man who died in prison nearly a decade ago, almost two decades into a prison sentence for a rape he swore he did not commit, CNN affiliate KXAN reported.
Timothy Cole was convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison for the 1985 rape of 20-year-old Michele Mallin. He maintained his innocence, but it was not confirmed by DNA until years after his 1999 death, when another inmate confessed to the rape.
In the courtroom of Judge Charlie Baird Friday afternoon, Mallin, now 44, faced Jerry Johnson, the man who confessed to the rape.
"What you did to me, you had no right to do," she told him angrily, according to Austin's KXAN. "You've got no right to do that to any woman. I am the one with the power now, buddy."
Cole's family also addressed Johnson.
"He'll never have the chance to have children," Cole's mother, Ruby Session, said. "I want you to know he was a fine young man."
Johnson has been in prison since 1985 on two convictions for aggravated sexual assault, according to the Texas Department of Corrections. He was given a life sentence for the rape of a 15-year-old girl, and a jury later tacked on a 99-year sentence for another rape, according to the Lubbock, Texas, Avalanche-Journal. He cannot be charged with the Mallin case, as the statute of limitations has expired.
Johnson also spoke Friday.
"I am responsible," he said. "I say I am truly sorry."
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
Wall Street Paid Hefty Bonuses
If a bank got taxpayer money and gave bonuses, I don't consider it "unclear if banks had used taxpayer money for the bonuses". If they had the money for bonuses, they didn't need taxpayer money. They could have used the bonus money for capitilization, which is what the tax money was meant for.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/29/business/29bonus.html?_r=1
By BEN WHITE
Published: January 28, 2009
By almost any measure, 2008 was a complete disaster for Wall Street — except, that is, when the bonuses arrived.
Despite crippling losses, multibillion-dollar bailouts and the passing of some of the most prominent names in the business, employees at financial companies in New York, the now-diminished world capital of capital, collected an estimated $18.4 billion in bonuses for the year.
That was the sixth-largest haul on record, according to a report released Wednesday by the New York State comptroller.
While the payouts paled next to the riches of recent years, Wall Street workers still took home about as much as they did in 2004, when the Dow Jones industrial average was flying above 10,000, on its way to a record high.
Some bankers took home millions last year even as their employers lost billions.
The comptroller’s estimate, a closely watched guidepost of the annual December-January bonus season, is based largely on personal income tax collections. It excludes stock option awards that could push the figures even higher.
The state comptroller, Thomas P. DiNapoli, said it was unclear if banks had used taxpayer money for the bonuses, a possibility that strikes corporate governance experts, and indeed many ordinary Americans, as outrageous. He urged the Obama administration to examine the issue closely.
...Lucian A. Bebchuk, a professor at Harvard Law School and expert on executive compensation, called the 2008 bonus figure “disconcerting.” Bonuses, he said, are meant to reward good performance and retain employees. But Wall Street disbursed billions despite staggering losses and a shrinking job market.
“This was neither the sixth-best year in terms of aggregate profits, nor was it the sixth-most-difficult year in terms of retaining employees,” Professor Bebchuk said.
Echoing Mr. DiNapoli, Professor Bebchuk said he was concerned that banks might be using taxpayer money to subsidize bonuses or dividends to stockholders. “What the government has been trying to do is shore up capital, and any diversion of capital out of banks, whether in the form of dividends or large payments to employees, really undermines what we are trying to do,” he said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/29/business/29bonus.html?_r=1
By BEN WHITE
Published: January 28, 2009
By almost any measure, 2008 was a complete disaster for Wall Street — except, that is, when the bonuses arrived.
Despite crippling losses, multibillion-dollar bailouts and the passing of some of the most prominent names in the business, employees at financial companies in New York, the now-diminished world capital of capital, collected an estimated $18.4 billion in bonuses for the year.
That was the sixth-largest haul on record, according to a report released Wednesday by the New York State comptroller.
While the payouts paled next to the riches of recent years, Wall Street workers still took home about as much as they did in 2004, when the Dow Jones industrial average was flying above 10,000, on its way to a record high.
Some bankers took home millions last year even as their employers lost billions.
The comptroller’s estimate, a closely watched guidepost of the annual December-January bonus season, is based largely on personal income tax collections. It excludes stock option awards that could push the figures even higher.
The state comptroller, Thomas P. DiNapoli, said it was unclear if banks had used taxpayer money for the bonuses, a possibility that strikes corporate governance experts, and indeed many ordinary Americans, as outrageous. He urged the Obama administration to examine the issue closely.
...Lucian A. Bebchuk, a professor at Harvard Law School and expert on executive compensation, called the 2008 bonus figure “disconcerting.” Bonuses, he said, are meant to reward good performance and retain employees. But Wall Street disbursed billions despite staggering losses and a shrinking job market.
“This was neither the sixth-best year in terms of aggregate profits, nor was it the sixth-most-difficult year in terms of retaining employees,” Professor Bebchuk said.
Echoing Mr. DiNapoli, Professor Bebchuk said he was concerned that banks might be using taxpayer money to subsidize bonuses or dividends to stockholders. “What the government has been trying to do is shore up capital, and any diversion of capital out of banks, whether in the form of dividends or large payments to employees, really undermines what we are trying to do,” he said.
Nurturing improves baby chimps intellectual ability
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090202140437.htm
ScienceDaily (Feb. 2, 2009) — Orphaned chimpanzee infants given special ‘mothering’ by humans are more advanced than the average child at nine months of age.
In the first study to examine the effect of different types of care for infant chimpanzees on cognition, researchers found chimpanzees who were given extra emotionally-based care were more cognitively advanced than human infants.
Humans overtake chimpanzees in development terms as they grow older but the study sends stark warnings that looking after just an infant’s physical needs is likely to result in a child who is maladjusted, unhappy and under-achieving.
The study was carried out by psychology expert Professor Kim Bard, of the Centre for the Study of Emotion at the University of Portsmouth.
She said: “The attachment system of infant chimpanzees appears surprisingly similar to that found in human infants. Early experiences, either of warm, responsive care-giving or of extreme deprivation, have a dramatic impact on emotional and cognitive outcomes in both chimpanzees and humans.
“Parental sensitivity is an important factor in human infant development, contributing to emotionally and cognitively strong children, and it would seem the same is true for great apes, as well.”
Professor Bard studied 46 chimpanzees in the Great Ape Nursery at the Yerkes National Primate Research Centre in Atlanta, America, in the 1980s and 1990s. The chimpanzees were in the nursery because their mothers’ maternal skills were so inadequate the infants were at risk of dying.
She found that chimpanzees given 20 hours a week of responsive care, which looks after the emotional and physical development, were happier, more advanced and better adjusted than chimpanzees given standard institutionalised care which meets just their physical needs.
She said: “Those given responsive care were less easily stressed, less often attached to ‘comfort blankets’, had healthier relationships with their caregivers and were less likely to develop stereotypic rocking. They were also more advanced intellectually than chimpanzees reared with standard institutionalised care.”
ScienceDaily (Feb. 2, 2009) — Orphaned chimpanzee infants given special ‘mothering’ by humans are more advanced than the average child at nine months of age.
In the first study to examine the effect of different types of care for infant chimpanzees on cognition, researchers found chimpanzees who were given extra emotionally-based care were more cognitively advanced than human infants.
Humans overtake chimpanzees in development terms as they grow older but the study sends stark warnings that looking after just an infant’s physical needs is likely to result in a child who is maladjusted, unhappy and under-achieving.
The study was carried out by psychology expert Professor Kim Bard, of the Centre for the Study of Emotion at the University of Portsmouth.
She said: “The attachment system of infant chimpanzees appears surprisingly similar to that found in human infants. Early experiences, either of warm, responsive care-giving or of extreme deprivation, have a dramatic impact on emotional and cognitive outcomes in both chimpanzees and humans.
“Parental sensitivity is an important factor in human infant development, contributing to emotionally and cognitively strong children, and it would seem the same is true for great apes, as well.”
Professor Bard studied 46 chimpanzees in the Great Ape Nursery at the Yerkes National Primate Research Centre in Atlanta, America, in the 1980s and 1990s. The chimpanzees were in the nursery because their mothers’ maternal skills were so inadequate the infants were at risk of dying.
She found that chimpanzees given 20 hours a week of responsive care, which looks after the emotional and physical development, were happier, more advanced and better adjusted than chimpanzees given standard institutionalised care which meets just their physical needs.
She said: “Those given responsive care were less easily stressed, less often attached to ‘comfort blankets’, had healthier relationships with their caregivers and were less likely to develop stereotypic rocking. They were also more advanced intellectually than chimpanzees reared with standard institutionalised care.”
Small Male Chimps Use Politics, Rather Than Aggression, To Lead The Pack
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090202174958.htm
ScienceDaily (Feb. 3, 2009) — With most mammals, the biggest and most aggressive male claims the alpha male role and gets his choice of food and females. But a new study from the University of Minnesota suggests that at least among chimpanzees, smaller, more mild-mannered males can also use political behavior to secure the top position.
The finding was gleaned from 10 years of observing dominant male chimpanzees in Gombe National Park, Tanzania, looking at behaviors they used to compete for alpha male status relative to their size. Analysis showed that larger males relied more on physical attacks to dominate while smaller, gentler males groomed other chimpanzees, both male and female, to gain broad support.
The study focused on three alpha males who reigned between 1989 and 2003. Frodo, one of the largest and most aggressive male chimpanzees ever observed at Gombe, weighed 51.2 kg (112.6 lbs.) at his peak. He relied on his size and aggression to rule. While he allowed other chimpanzees to groom him, he seldom returned the favor. At the other end of the spectrum, Wilkie, who weighed only 37 kg (81.4 lbs.), obsessively groomed both male and female chimpanzees to maintain his top position. And Freud, who weighed 44.8 kg (98.6 lbs.), used a combination of the two strategies. (The average male chimp in Gombe weighs about 39 kg (85.8 lbs.).
The findings are reported in the February issue of the American Journal of Primatology. While it's widely known that grooming plays an important role in chimpanzee social interaction, this study is the first to show that it can be a strategy for achieving dominance.
ScienceDaily (Feb. 3, 2009) — With most mammals, the biggest and most aggressive male claims the alpha male role and gets his choice of food and females. But a new study from the University of Minnesota suggests that at least among chimpanzees, smaller, more mild-mannered males can also use political behavior to secure the top position.
The finding was gleaned from 10 years of observing dominant male chimpanzees in Gombe National Park, Tanzania, looking at behaviors they used to compete for alpha male status relative to their size. Analysis showed that larger males relied more on physical attacks to dominate while smaller, gentler males groomed other chimpanzees, both male and female, to gain broad support.
The study focused on three alpha males who reigned between 1989 and 2003. Frodo, one of the largest and most aggressive male chimpanzees ever observed at Gombe, weighed 51.2 kg (112.6 lbs.) at his peak. He relied on his size and aggression to rule. While he allowed other chimpanzees to groom him, he seldom returned the favor. At the other end of the spectrum, Wilkie, who weighed only 37 kg (81.4 lbs.), obsessively groomed both male and female chimpanzees to maintain his top position. And Freud, who weighed 44.8 kg (98.6 lbs.), used a combination of the two strategies. (The average male chimp in Gombe weighs about 39 kg (85.8 lbs.).
The findings are reported in the February issue of the American Journal of Primatology. While it's widely known that grooming plays an important role in chimpanzee social interaction, this study is the first to show that it can be a strategy for achieving dominance.
Monday, February 02, 2009
Blog: Living on Food Stamps
http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/01/30/am.callebs.foodstamps.blog/index.html
By Sean Callebs
Monday Feb. 2, 2009
8:59 AM ET - Day two on trying to live on food stamps, and I discovered the first chink in my armor. I am really worried I didnt buy enough fruits and vegetables. I really would love a pear, orange, some apples --but right now it's not in the cards. I have 176-dollars to live on for the entire month. When you break that down it comes out to about $6.28 a day. I loaded up on carbs at the grocery store. The dietician I spoke with before starting this project told me to eat carbs at every meal, saying it will give me energy. I had a healthy portion of spaghetti with meat sauce on Sunday night while watching the Superbowl. I ran three miles Sunday, no fatigue, but it was just the first day. I will say I woke up ravenous Monday morning. During the first few hours while I did live reports with Kiran and John my stomach was growling. But, I held off eating as long as I could. A bowl of cereal, a banana, and a cup of tea. Lunch is a long four hours away. I have had a lot of response from people about this story. Many tell me, "I could do it.. I could live on $6.28 a day." I am sure they could, but remember they dont HAVE to. 31-million Americans do.
Friday Jan. 30, 2009
6:24 PM ET - Part of the economic stimulus bill calls for raising payments to food stamp recipients by 13 percent. That's a clear signal there are a ton of people hurting out there. According to the USDA, there are 31 million people in the U.S. that need food stamps every month just to put food on the table. In Louisiana, where I work and live, one out of every six people is on food stamps. Think about it, you fill the Superdome -and ten-thousand people there are going to be getting government aid.
To find out what it's like, I approached the state about living on food stamps for a month. So, Sammy Guillory, basically the head of family support for the state, told me the most a single person can qualify for each month, is $176. He couldn't give me the food stamp funds, that would be fraud, even though I offered to reimburse the government.
So, I invested $176 in a debit card.
First thing, food stamp is a misnomer. It is actually a credit card. And, no one says food stamps anymore it is called the SNAP program. Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
Guillory tells me he doesn't think there is a stigma with the program, and the funds are supposed to be a supplement for the money one spends on food each month -it isn't intended to be the sole source of funding.
To help me learn the ropes of the program, I met Arkesha Darensbourg, who has been on and off food stamps over the past few years. She has three small children and says the assistance really helped. We walked up and the down the aisle at Rouse's grocery store near my house. "Don't buy name brands," Arkesha constantly reminded me. Oatmeal, mac and cheese, rice, pasta, the cart began to get full all the time I was worried about my budget. There isn't a lot of money for meat, fish, fresh fruits and vegetables.
I bought some milk, juice, but state officials urged me to give up bottled water for good ol' tap water. That, made Arkesha laugh.
I met with a doctor, --my weight is 220, and I am 6'3". Blood pressure is 128 over 82. I am curious if that will change in just a month. And, I talked with a dietician at Ochsner Hospital here in New Orleans. Eve Dansereau Harmeyer is convinced I can make it through the month on $176. She says I am lucky, I had a chance to educate myself on what to buy. She says a lot of folks on the lower end of the socio-economic status don't, therefore, their diets suffer. Harmeyer told me one person asked her if potato chips are a vegetable.
I have been running a decent amount, 20 or so miles a week. Harmeyer doesn't think I will lose any energy as long as I eat carbohydrates. We'll see.
I am going to be militant about sticking to the plan. Kind of good I picked the month with the fewest days, but stinks that I start on Superbowl Sunday. While everyone else is wolfing down chips and beverages, I had a salad and some generic brand lemonade.
By Sean Callebs
Monday Feb. 2, 2009
8:59 AM ET - Day two on trying to live on food stamps, and I discovered the first chink in my armor. I am really worried I didnt buy enough fruits and vegetables. I really would love a pear, orange, some apples --but right now it's not in the cards. I have 176-dollars to live on for the entire month. When you break that down it comes out to about $6.28 a day. I loaded up on carbs at the grocery store. The dietician I spoke with before starting this project told me to eat carbs at every meal, saying it will give me energy. I had a healthy portion of spaghetti with meat sauce on Sunday night while watching the Superbowl. I ran three miles Sunday, no fatigue, but it was just the first day. I will say I woke up ravenous Monday morning. During the first few hours while I did live reports with Kiran and John my stomach was growling. But, I held off eating as long as I could. A bowl of cereal, a banana, and a cup of tea. Lunch is a long four hours away. I have had a lot of response from people about this story. Many tell me, "I could do it.. I could live on $6.28 a day." I am sure they could, but remember they dont HAVE to. 31-million Americans do.
Friday Jan. 30, 2009
6:24 PM ET - Part of the economic stimulus bill calls for raising payments to food stamp recipients by 13 percent. That's a clear signal there are a ton of people hurting out there. According to the USDA, there are 31 million people in the U.S. that need food stamps every month just to put food on the table. In Louisiana, where I work and live, one out of every six people is on food stamps. Think about it, you fill the Superdome -and ten-thousand people there are going to be getting government aid.
To find out what it's like, I approached the state about living on food stamps for a month. So, Sammy Guillory, basically the head of family support for the state, told me the most a single person can qualify for each month, is $176. He couldn't give me the food stamp funds, that would be fraud, even though I offered to reimburse the government.
So, I invested $176 in a debit card.
First thing, food stamp is a misnomer. It is actually a credit card. And, no one says food stamps anymore it is called the SNAP program. Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
Guillory tells me he doesn't think there is a stigma with the program, and the funds are supposed to be a supplement for the money one spends on food each month -it isn't intended to be the sole source of funding.
To help me learn the ropes of the program, I met Arkesha Darensbourg, who has been on and off food stamps over the past few years. She has three small children and says the assistance really helped. We walked up and the down the aisle at Rouse's grocery store near my house. "Don't buy name brands," Arkesha constantly reminded me. Oatmeal, mac and cheese, rice, pasta, the cart began to get full all the time I was worried about my budget. There isn't a lot of money for meat, fish, fresh fruits and vegetables.
I bought some milk, juice, but state officials urged me to give up bottled water for good ol' tap water. That, made Arkesha laugh.
I met with a doctor, --my weight is 220, and I am 6'3". Blood pressure is 128 over 82. I am curious if that will change in just a month. And, I talked with a dietician at Ochsner Hospital here in New Orleans. Eve Dansereau Harmeyer is convinced I can make it through the month on $176. She says I am lucky, I had a chance to educate myself on what to buy. She says a lot of folks on the lower end of the socio-economic status don't, therefore, their diets suffer. Harmeyer told me one person asked her if potato chips are a vegetable.
I have been running a decent amount, 20 or so miles a week. Harmeyer doesn't think I will lose any energy as long as I eat carbohydrates. We'll see.
I am going to be militant about sticking to the plan. Kind of good I picked the month with the fewest days, but stinks that I start on Superbowl Sunday. While everyone else is wolfing down chips and beverages, I had a salad and some generic brand lemonade.
Reality for some children
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/ebx/PrintFriendly?oid=907948
House Calls
Channing Woodsum drops in unannounced at the homes of underperforming students. What he learns is eye-opening.
By Matthew Green January 21, 2009
On a dark early evening in November, Channing Woodsum climbs the stairs of Maria's 36th Avenue apartment building in East Oakland. He is greeted with the message "VIOLENT GANG OR DONT BANG BITCH" scribbled repeatedly on the stairwell walls. On the third floor at the end of a narrow, unkempt hallway, Woodsum knocks loudly on the door. A TV blares from inside, grows soft, and several hushed voices speak in Spanish before a teenage boy tentatively cracks the door.
"We're from Maria's school," Woodsum announces in a firm but affable greeting. A tall, brawny 66-year-old, with a guttural voice and glasses that rest on his nose above a bushy grey mustache, he is dressed in his standard garb of saggy jeans and button-down work shirt. Woodsum hands the boy a roughly designed business card. His presence is both jovial and unyielding, a difficult man to slam the door on. "You must be her brother. Are your parents home?"
Woodsum is a veteran of almost forty years teaching English in the Oakland public schools. He retired from the classroom in 2007, but was hired last year by the principal of Media Academy High, a small school in Fruitvale where he most recently taught, to continue visiting students' homes as the school's official "Home Visit Coordinator." While he occasionally attends the homes of high-performing students, the visits are generally intended for ninth and tenth graders who are failing classes, acting out, rarely attending school, or, most commonly, all three. Labeled "the last line of defense" by one school staffer, the visits are sometimes requested by teachers. More commonly, however, Woodsum compiles his caseload by combing through attendance records and report cards. Shortage of supply is never a concern.
In the course of his career, he has become well-known by teachers and students for his visits, of which he's conducted more than one thousand. Maria's house is his third visit of the night, and one of the hundred he intends to do throughout this school year.
Primarily intended to encourage parental involvement — typically sparse at Media Academy — the visits offer Woodsum a glimpse into students' living conditions, particularly notable in a school where many children come from communities plagued by violence and poverty. In a school district that consistently struggles, and commonly fails, to meet state and federal testing goals, many frontline educators argue that poverty and community disenfranchisement are commonly overlooked as factors that strongly influence academic performance.
Woodsum jots down observations and hopes that teachers review them, although he admits to being unclear on how many actually do and how they might use the information to help shape their teaching practices. He describes visits he's made to students who never complete their homework, only to find homes completely devoid of furniture.
His visits have taken him to some of Oakland's roughest neighborhoods, where poverty and violence are everyday realities, and certain living conditions resemble those of undeveloped countries. He's entered homes with suspected child abuse, seen both parents drunk or cracked-out during the day, and found students not living with their legal guardians. In one instance, he found a student who had been left alone for nearly a week, and on a number of occasions, he has had to contact Child Protective Services. It's not uncommon, he says, to visit students staying in illegal rentals or condemned houses, including whole families living in converted one-car garages. On one visit, he talked with a grandmother who sat in the middle of a living room strewn with garbage, and last year, he visited a home with broken windows and a front door that dangled from one hinge. Among the most depraved conditions he's seen was a condemned building where one of his students lived in an apartment with a clogged sink and raw sewage in the yard.
"The visit provides a level of insight," he said. "It gives you a feel of what's happening; a realistic sense if a kid has support to do homework."
Woodsum emphasizes, however, that he just as often finds students living in pleasant accommodations with warm households and genuinely concerned, if uninformed, parents. Although caught off guard, most families are generally pleased that the school is actually taking an interest in their kids' education, and only very rarely has a family member reacted negatively and not let him in. On occasion, he's even invited to stay for dinner.
Woodsum and a reporter stand awkwardly inside the small one-room apartment. Maria — not her real name — is a slight girl, with deep, sharp eyes, a ninth grader who has already cultivated a .9 GPA and a long list of gripes from her teachers in her first three months of high school. She sits on the edge of a large bed, leaning against the wall, silent and seemingly unconcerned by his visit, a blanket across her lap and hand resting on an open notebook. Next to an inflatable plastic guitar-shaped bottle of Corona beer tacked to the wall is a baseball cap that says "Cockfight" on the brim. A portrait of the Virgin Mary hangs nearby.
Maria's father sits on the other side of the bed, disinterestedly staring across the room at the TV. He glances at us and returns his gaze to the Spanish-language soap opera on the screen. Maria's older brother, a hefty young man with a sizable black eye and large abrasion across the right side of his face, sits on a chair next to the bed, finishing a plate of food. Marie, her parents, and two brothers all live together in this one room.
The purported positive impact of teacher home visits on student achievement and parental involvement have spurred the practice in a number of schools around the country in recent years, especially those in urban, low-income regions where student achievement and parent participation are often sorely lacking. While many participating schools follow standard protocols, Woodsum's approach is fairly unique, and somewhat contentious, in that he almost always shows up unannounced. It's a routine he insists on, but one that some in his field consider a breach of privacy, an unnecessarily voyeuristic act, and one that raises the issue of how much teachers should really know about their students' lives.
In 2006, California legislators allocated $15 million for a program aimed at improving communication between schools and parents in districts statewide. The Nell Soto Parent/Teacher Involvement Program, which is being discontinued at the end of this school year due to budget cuts, offered one-time grants of up to $35,000 to pay for trainings and teacher time at schools where a majority of teachers and families agreed to participate in home visits. According to state department of education records, sixteen Oakland schools were awarded the grant.
The model was partly inspired by the Parent-Teacher Home Visit Project, a program that started in the Sacramento school district in 1998 and, after initial positive results, is now its own nonprofit and active in 41 of that city's largely low-income schools. Intended to involve parents as "co-educators," the program also encourages teachers to volunteer to participate and receive compensation for visiting the homes of a broad cross-section of their students. And although the goals are similar to Woodsum's, the approach is a significant departure.
"In our model, we never go unannounced," said Connie Rose, the project's Executive Director, noting concern for the families' time and privacy. "We're really big on making sure it feels mutually respectful. ... It wouldn't make sense for us to drop in on someone; we're not interested in assessing them, we're interested in engaging them."
But to Woodsum, advance notice would make him miss out on a critical piece of the puzzle. "I like to catch them unprepared," he said as he drove down a street in Fruitvale in his worn 1980s BMW, looking for a building number. "I don't give them a chance to straighten things up."
Despite being large, white, and overtly conspicuous in many of the communities he visits, Woodsum has lived and worked in the Fruitvale district for nearly three decades, and personally knows a handful of students' families. His wife is Mien, a member of a Southeast Asian ethnic group, and he's been involved in the local Mien community since 1980. Neighbors refer to him as "Janx-Ong," or grandfather, a moniker he accepts with pride.
A part-time contractor and landlord — an occupation revealed by the paint chips permanently encrusted in his brawny, calloused hands — Woodsum has also owned upward of 175 low-rent properties in and around East Oakland at various times throughout his teaching career, a few of which his students have lived in. He only recently sold off his remaining holdings, and in an effort to connect with the families he meets, he routinely offers home-related help, whether it is fixing minor plumbing problems, or counseling a family on how to avoid foreclosure.
Back in Maria's apartment, her mother rises somewhat apprehensively to greet Woodsum. She speaks no English and Woodsum no Spanish. He attempts minor small talk with the younger brother, then asks him to translate (for obvious reasons he almost never asks the student he is visiting about to do the translating). The boy nods reluctantly, and Woodsum begins rattling off details of Maria's poor academic standing. He reads through all five of her teachers' comments and the grades she's received on her first report card. Although the boy translates this news selectively, the mother gets the gist and nods solemnly, her head bowed. Several of the teachers write that Maria is a smart girl with the potential to do well but has a bad attitude that gets in the way.
It is midway through the fifteen-minute visit before Woodsum addresses Maria directly for the first time. He asks her why she's doing so poorly in math. "He doesn't even teach, so I don't even care what he has to say," she replies defiantly, speaking for the first time since his arrival.
In a paternal tone of voice, Woodsum asks: "But isn't your goal to graduate high school?"
"Yeah, but it's not as easy as it is to say," Maria responds. She pauses, staring down at her notebook. "Never mind, you don't get me."
By the end of the visit, Maria has let her guard down slightly, as Woodsum breaks from the academic talk and spends a minute trying to engage her in more casual conversation. He tells her he lives in the neighborhood and before we rise to leave, says: "I'm going to come back in the spring. I hope to come back and show your mom improvement." Maria stares past him for a moment, and then looks down at her binder. "Hopefully," she says.
Woodsum stepped into his first Oakland classroom in the spring of 1969, filling a mid-year vacancy at East Oakland's notoriously rough Castlemont High School. That year, between January and March alone, he says, a total of nine teachers had started the position and abruptly resigned. "When I started, my students said, 'Oh, you're not going to last more than a week,'" he recalls, grinning. "It was the beginning of my realization that there needs to be a connection with the school and the community, especially the parents."
Despite strong discouragement from his principal at the time, who expressed serious concerns for his safety, Woodsum soon began visiting some of his "real problem kids." After these visits, he recalls, student behavior often improved markedly.
While some kids find themselves in hot water with their parents as a result of Woodsum's reports, he claims that they're rarely angry at him afterwards. A few days after Woodsum's visit, Maria said she had anticipated the whole thing and wasn't too bothered by it. She added that she might now try a bit harder in school. One teacher at Media Academy noted that Woodsum's visits often do motivate students in the short term, although the effect usually wears off fairly quickly.
"Students I visit, they have a different attitude toward me," Woodsum said. "Now I know what they know, whatever that is. I know a little more about their situation. It's nothing I can really put my finger on, but there's a difference."
There have been times, however, where the visits have reaped unintended consequences. Several years ago, Woodsum came to the home of a student nearing graduation whose GPA had rapidly declined. He spoke with the boy's father, who later beat his son so badly that the student ran away from home and was found weeks later with his mom in Florida.
According to the 2000 Census, 26 percent of East Oakland's population lives below the poverty line. Of Oakland's 127 homicides in 2007, more than half occurred in this part of the city. Media Academy is one of four small schools that make up the Fremont Federation. The fenced-in campus on High Street and Foothill Boulevard sits at the base of the Oakland Hills, less than a mile down the slope from some of the most opulent houses in the region. It's a hub of rival gangs posturing for turf. The school's buildings are routinely sprayed with tags, which the district spends thousands of dollars annually to paint over. Nearly every year, at least one student is shot and killed, often within blocks of campus.
Media Academy's roughly 400-member student body is incredibly diverse (with the notable absence of white kids, who comprise less than 1 percent). According to district records, the student body is roughly half Latino, with a significant number of first-generation English language learners. About a third of the students are African American. South Asians, Pacific Islanders, and a handful of Middle Eastern students make up the remaining students. The number of students living at or below the poverty line is high, and more than half qualify for free lunch.
Last year's graduation rate at Media Academy was just over 50 percent and only a fifth of students fulfilled the requirements to attend a four-year California college. Due to consistently falling test scores over the last few years, the school was recently branded with a red stamp. Under the gun, it now has up to four years to significantly improve its scores. Failing to do so could result in the state intervening, firing the principal, and replacing teachers. In the worst case scenario, the school could be shut down.
"The district looks at numbers, but it's not just the district, it's the state and the federal government too," said Media Academy Principal Ben Schmookler, a strong proponent of Woodsum's visits. "It's all based on how students do on tests." It is shortsighted, he believes, to evaluate academic performance without thinking about the environment students live in. "They don't take other factors into consideration. ... The problems we have are a direct extension of the problems (students) are facing."
While most of the parents Woodsum speaks with seem genuinely concerned, most are also woefully unaware of their child's performance before he fills them in. Schmookler finds that frustrating. "How did you not know that your student has missed 75 classes?" he asked. So along with hiring Woodsum, he has implemented several other programs to increase parental participation and establish a stronger link between the school and its community, including student exhibition nights and a community week. "If parents aren't going to come to us, we'll go to them," Schmookler said. "It's a really good opportunity to not only let parents know how their kid is doing, but also let us know how the student is living."
Several years ago, Schmookler himself paid a visit to an angry female student who had been having consistent outbursts in class and overwhelming her teachers, who were at a loss for how to manage her. Schmookler later informed his staff of the visit, describing the girl's neighborhood as a war zone. Her house was a disaster, the front door was kicked in, and a sock took the place of her broken-off door knob. Although he was not certain how the teachers would use that information, he says he felt it important for them to be aware of — information that could potentially reshape their perspective.
"Basically, what we're really trying to do is identify students who need help," Schmookler explained. "If anything, it's just a way of understanding." If a student has really bad behavior, he adds, a home visit might shed light on where it stems from. "It gives you an idea of why they're so angry ... and it helps you realize it's not their fault."
The surprise visits also serve to update the school's often inaccurate student contact information. Many students frequently move, don't live with their parents, or have had phone lines cancelled — all further hurdles to keeping parents in the loop. It's not uncommon for Woodsum, who seems to enjoy the thrill of the chase, to assume the role of detective, at times spending a good part of an evening just tracking down the house of a single student. On one attempted visit, he arrived at the listed address only to talk to a man who, a few minutes into the conversation, confessed he'd never heard of the student in question. Woodsum later discovered that the girl had indeed lived there at one time, but had since moved to her aunt's house outside of Oakland. Not surprisingly, he believes, the perennial lack of permanency and stability common among many students has a direct impact on their performance in school.
Media Academy senior Elizabeth Rodriguez, whose mother received a visit from Woodsum last year due to her poor attendance and a sluggish GPA, said it was the push she needed to get in gear. "When Mr. Woodsum came, it made me realize it's important to go to school everyday because colleges look at that," said the seventeen-year-old, who is now the news editor of the school paper. "I knew my teachers asked for him to come because they cared about me."
Rodriguez wrote an article about the visits for her paper. "I interviewed a girl who was mad and other students didn't think it was cool," she says. "Most thought it was bad, but they also knew it would help them."
Throughout his teaching career, Woodsum has embraced opportunities to connect with his students in a manner more personal than many of his colleagues have felt comfortable with, including taking a number of them on weekend trips to a ranch he owns in Mendocino County. "Some teachers don't even want to know their students," he said. "They don't want to know anything about them. Part of it is fear, like they're letting their guard down."
It's around 8 p.m. and Woodsum is doing his final visits of the evening. He knocks on the door of a compact two-story house in an attractive, new development on 65th Avenue. A woman answers from the second floor. Woodsum calls up to her, asking if it would be okay to take ten minutes of her time. A moment later, the woman appears at the door, looking displeased. "Not really," she said. "I wasn't expecting anyone. I'm here by myself and I'm not expecting no man in my house."
Woodsum explains that he wants to discuss her son, a ninth grader who is failing nearly all of his classes, and she agrees to talk at the door, but doesn't let him in. He hands her a card, which she tucks into her shirt top.
As Woodsum reads through the less-than-complementary figures and comments, the mother looks increasingly defeated. "I don't know if this is puberty or something else he's going through," she says. "He's being hard-headed."
"If he doesn't shape up, he's headed for the streets," Woodsum tells her. The mother nods. "I don't know what's going on or where he is," she responds. "I don't have a male figure. No uncles. I'm trying to do my best."
Woodsum says good-bye and the mother genuinely thanks him for coming. He drives down the block and points to a large group of teenagers gathered on the corner. "Her kid is probably there," he says. "You see situations like that where the parent is clearly at a loss to exert pressure. ... They ask me, 'What am I supposed to do?' I've seen that so many times. I wish I had more tools to offer."
Matthew Green worked as a journalism teacher at Media Academy High.
House Calls
Channing Woodsum drops in unannounced at the homes of underperforming students. What he learns is eye-opening.
By Matthew Green January 21, 2009
On a dark early evening in November, Channing Woodsum climbs the stairs of Maria's 36th Avenue apartment building in East Oakland. He is greeted with the message "VIOLENT GANG OR DONT BANG BITCH" scribbled repeatedly on the stairwell walls. On the third floor at the end of a narrow, unkempt hallway, Woodsum knocks loudly on the door. A TV blares from inside, grows soft, and several hushed voices speak in Spanish before a teenage boy tentatively cracks the door.
"We're from Maria's school," Woodsum announces in a firm but affable greeting. A tall, brawny 66-year-old, with a guttural voice and glasses that rest on his nose above a bushy grey mustache, he is dressed in his standard garb of saggy jeans and button-down work shirt. Woodsum hands the boy a roughly designed business card. His presence is both jovial and unyielding, a difficult man to slam the door on. "You must be her brother. Are your parents home?"
Woodsum is a veteran of almost forty years teaching English in the Oakland public schools. He retired from the classroom in 2007, but was hired last year by the principal of Media Academy High, a small school in Fruitvale where he most recently taught, to continue visiting students' homes as the school's official "Home Visit Coordinator." While he occasionally attends the homes of high-performing students, the visits are generally intended for ninth and tenth graders who are failing classes, acting out, rarely attending school, or, most commonly, all three. Labeled "the last line of defense" by one school staffer, the visits are sometimes requested by teachers. More commonly, however, Woodsum compiles his caseload by combing through attendance records and report cards. Shortage of supply is never a concern.
In the course of his career, he has become well-known by teachers and students for his visits, of which he's conducted more than one thousand. Maria's house is his third visit of the night, and one of the hundred he intends to do throughout this school year.
Primarily intended to encourage parental involvement — typically sparse at Media Academy — the visits offer Woodsum a glimpse into students' living conditions, particularly notable in a school where many children come from communities plagued by violence and poverty. In a school district that consistently struggles, and commonly fails, to meet state and federal testing goals, many frontline educators argue that poverty and community disenfranchisement are commonly overlooked as factors that strongly influence academic performance.
Woodsum jots down observations and hopes that teachers review them, although he admits to being unclear on how many actually do and how they might use the information to help shape their teaching practices. He describes visits he's made to students who never complete their homework, only to find homes completely devoid of furniture.
His visits have taken him to some of Oakland's roughest neighborhoods, where poverty and violence are everyday realities, and certain living conditions resemble those of undeveloped countries. He's entered homes with suspected child abuse, seen both parents drunk or cracked-out during the day, and found students not living with their legal guardians. In one instance, he found a student who had been left alone for nearly a week, and on a number of occasions, he has had to contact Child Protective Services. It's not uncommon, he says, to visit students staying in illegal rentals or condemned houses, including whole families living in converted one-car garages. On one visit, he talked with a grandmother who sat in the middle of a living room strewn with garbage, and last year, he visited a home with broken windows and a front door that dangled from one hinge. Among the most depraved conditions he's seen was a condemned building where one of his students lived in an apartment with a clogged sink and raw sewage in the yard.
"The visit provides a level of insight," he said. "It gives you a feel of what's happening; a realistic sense if a kid has support to do homework."
Woodsum emphasizes, however, that he just as often finds students living in pleasant accommodations with warm households and genuinely concerned, if uninformed, parents. Although caught off guard, most families are generally pleased that the school is actually taking an interest in their kids' education, and only very rarely has a family member reacted negatively and not let him in. On occasion, he's even invited to stay for dinner.
Woodsum and a reporter stand awkwardly inside the small one-room apartment. Maria — not her real name — is a slight girl, with deep, sharp eyes, a ninth grader who has already cultivated a .9 GPA and a long list of gripes from her teachers in her first three months of high school. She sits on the edge of a large bed, leaning against the wall, silent and seemingly unconcerned by his visit, a blanket across her lap and hand resting on an open notebook. Next to an inflatable plastic guitar-shaped bottle of Corona beer tacked to the wall is a baseball cap that says "Cockfight" on the brim. A portrait of the Virgin Mary hangs nearby.
Maria's father sits on the other side of the bed, disinterestedly staring across the room at the TV. He glances at us and returns his gaze to the Spanish-language soap opera on the screen. Maria's older brother, a hefty young man with a sizable black eye and large abrasion across the right side of his face, sits on a chair next to the bed, finishing a plate of food. Marie, her parents, and two brothers all live together in this one room.
The purported positive impact of teacher home visits on student achievement and parental involvement have spurred the practice in a number of schools around the country in recent years, especially those in urban, low-income regions where student achievement and parent participation are often sorely lacking. While many participating schools follow standard protocols, Woodsum's approach is fairly unique, and somewhat contentious, in that he almost always shows up unannounced. It's a routine he insists on, but one that some in his field consider a breach of privacy, an unnecessarily voyeuristic act, and one that raises the issue of how much teachers should really know about their students' lives.
In 2006, California legislators allocated $15 million for a program aimed at improving communication between schools and parents in districts statewide. The Nell Soto Parent/Teacher Involvement Program, which is being discontinued at the end of this school year due to budget cuts, offered one-time grants of up to $35,000 to pay for trainings and teacher time at schools where a majority of teachers and families agreed to participate in home visits. According to state department of education records, sixteen Oakland schools were awarded the grant.
The model was partly inspired by the Parent-Teacher Home Visit Project, a program that started in the Sacramento school district in 1998 and, after initial positive results, is now its own nonprofit and active in 41 of that city's largely low-income schools. Intended to involve parents as "co-educators," the program also encourages teachers to volunteer to participate and receive compensation for visiting the homes of a broad cross-section of their students. And although the goals are similar to Woodsum's, the approach is a significant departure.
"In our model, we never go unannounced," said Connie Rose, the project's Executive Director, noting concern for the families' time and privacy. "We're really big on making sure it feels mutually respectful. ... It wouldn't make sense for us to drop in on someone; we're not interested in assessing them, we're interested in engaging them."
But to Woodsum, advance notice would make him miss out on a critical piece of the puzzle. "I like to catch them unprepared," he said as he drove down a street in Fruitvale in his worn 1980s BMW, looking for a building number. "I don't give them a chance to straighten things up."
Despite being large, white, and overtly conspicuous in many of the communities he visits, Woodsum has lived and worked in the Fruitvale district for nearly three decades, and personally knows a handful of students' families. His wife is Mien, a member of a Southeast Asian ethnic group, and he's been involved in the local Mien community since 1980. Neighbors refer to him as "Janx-Ong," or grandfather, a moniker he accepts with pride.
A part-time contractor and landlord — an occupation revealed by the paint chips permanently encrusted in his brawny, calloused hands — Woodsum has also owned upward of 175 low-rent properties in and around East Oakland at various times throughout his teaching career, a few of which his students have lived in. He only recently sold off his remaining holdings, and in an effort to connect with the families he meets, he routinely offers home-related help, whether it is fixing minor plumbing problems, or counseling a family on how to avoid foreclosure.
Back in Maria's apartment, her mother rises somewhat apprehensively to greet Woodsum. She speaks no English and Woodsum no Spanish. He attempts minor small talk with the younger brother, then asks him to translate (for obvious reasons he almost never asks the student he is visiting about to do the translating). The boy nods reluctantly, and Woodsum begins rattling off details of Maria's poor academic standing. He reads through all five of her teachers' comments and the grades she's received on her first report card. Although the boy translates this news selectively, the mother gets the gist and nods solemnly, her head bowed. Several of the teachers write that Maria is a smart girl with the potential to do well but has a bad attitude that gets in the way.
It is midway through the fifteen-minute visit before Woodsum addresses Maria directly for the first time. He asks her why she's doing so poorly in math. "He doesn't even teach, so I don't even care what he has to say," she replies defiantly, speaking for the first time since his arrival.
In a paternal tone of voice, Woodsum asks: "But isn't your goal to graduate high school?"
"Yeah, but it's not as easy as it is to say," Maria responds. She pauses, staring down at her notebook. "Never mind, you don't get me."
By the end of the visit, Maria has let her guard down slightly, as Woodsum breaks from the academic talk and spends a minute trying to engage her in more casual conversation. He tells her he lives in the neighborhood and before we rise to leave, says: "I'm going to come back in the spring. I hope to come back and show your mom improvement." Maria stares past him for a moment, and then looks down at her binder. "Hopefully," she says.
Woodsum stepped into his first Oakland classroom in the spring of 1969, filling a mid-year vacancy at East Oakland's notoriously rough Castlemont High School. That year, between January and March alone, he says, a total of nine teachers had started the position and abruptly resigned. "When I started, my students said, 'Oh, you're not going to last more than a week,'" he recalls, grinning. "It was the beginning of my realization that there needs to be a connection with the school and the community, especially the parents."
Despite strong discouragement from his principal at the time, who expressed serious concerns for his safety, Woodsum soon began visiting some of his "real problem kids." After these visits, he recalls, student behavior often improved markedly.
While some kids find themselves in hot water with their parents as a result of Woodsum's reports, he claims that they're rarely angry at him afterwards. A few days after Woodsum's visit, Maria said she had anticipated the whole thing and wasn't too bothered by it. She added that she might now try a bit harder in school. One teacher at Media Academy noted that Woodsum's visits often do motivate students in the short term, although the effect usually wears off fairly quickly.
"Students I visit, they have a different attitude toward me," Woodsum said. "Now I know what they know, whatever that is. I know a little more about their situation. It's nothing I can really put my finger on, but there's a difference."
There have been times, however, where the visits have reaped unintended consequences. Several years ago, Woodsum came to the home of a student nearing graduation whose GPA had rapidly declined. He spoke with the boy's father, who later beat his son so badly that the student ran away from home and was found weeks later with his mom in Florida.
According to the 2000 Census, 26 percent of East Oakland's population lives below the poverty line. Of Oakland's 127 homicides in 2007, more than half occurred in this part of the city. Media Academy is one of four small schools that make up the Fremont Federation. The fenced-in campus on High Street and Foothill Boulevard sits at the base of the Oakland Hills, less than a mile down the slope from some of the most opulent houses in the region. It's a hub of rival gangs posturing for turf. The school's buildings are routinely sprayed with tags, which the district spends thousands of dollars annually to paint over. Nearly every year, at least one student is shot and killed, often within blocks of campus.
Media Academy's roughly 400-member student body is incredibly diverse (with the notable absence of white kids, who comprise less than 1 percent). According to district records, the student body is roughly half Latino, with a significant number of first-generation English language learners. About a third of the students are African American. South Asians, Pacific Islanders, and a handful of Middle Eastern students make up the remaining students. The number of students living at or below the poverty line is high, and more than half qualify for free lunch.
Last year's graduation rate at Media Academy was just over 50 percent and only a fifth of students fulfilled the requirements to attend a four-year California college. Due to consistently falling test scores over the last few years, the school was recently branded with a red stamp. Under the gun, it now has up to four years to significantly improve its scores. Failing to do so could result in the state intervening, firing the principal, and replacing teachers. In the worst case scenario, the school could be shut down.
"The district looks at numbers, but it's not just the district, it's the state and the federal government too," said Media Academy Principal Ben Schmookler, a strong proponent of Woodsum's visits. "It's all based on how students do on tests." It is shortsighted, he believes, to evaluate academic performance without thinking about the environment students live in. "They don't take other factors into consideration. ... The problems we have are a direct extension of the problems (students) are facing."
While most of the parents Woodsum speaks with seem genuinely concerned, most are also woefully unaware of their child's performance before he fills them in. Schmookler finds that frustrating. "How did you not know that your student has missed 75 classes?" he asked. So along with hiring Woodsum, he has implemented several other programs to increase parental participation and establish a stronger link between the school and its community, including student exhibition nights and a community week. "If parents aren't going to come to us, we'll go to them," Schmookler said. "It's a really good opportunity to not only let parents know how their kid is doing, but also let us know how the student is living."
Several years ago, Schmookler himself paid a visit to an angry female student who had been having consistent outbursts in class and overwhelming her teachers, who were at a loss for how to manage her. Schmookler later informed his staff of the visit, describing the girl's neighborhood as a war zone. Her house was a disaster, the front door was kicked in, and a sock took the place of her broken-off door knob. Although he was not certain how the teachers would use that information, he says he felt it important for them to be aware of — information that could potentially reshape their perspective.
"Basically, what we're really trying to do is identify students who need help," Schmookler explained. "If anything, it's just a way of understanding." If a student has really bad behavior, he adds, a home visit might shed light on where it stems from. "It gives you an idea of why they're so angry ... and it helps you realize it's not their fault."
The surprise visits also serve to update the school's often inaccurate student contact information. Many students frequently move, don't live with their parents, or have had phone lines cancelled — all further hurdles to keeping parents in the loop. It's not uncommon for Woodsum, who seems to enjoy the thrill of the chase, to assume the role of detective, at times spending a good part of an evening just tracking down the house of a single student. On one attempted visit, he arrived at the listed address only to talk to a man who, a few minutes into the conversation, confessed he'd never heard of the student in question. Woodsum later discovered that the girl had indeed lived there at one time, but had since moved to her aunt's house outside of Oakland. Not surprisingly, he believes, the perennial lack of permanency and stability common among many students has a direct impact on their performance in school.
Media Academy senior Elizabeth Rodriguez, whose mother received a visit from Woodsum last year due to her poor attendance and a sluggish GPA, said it was the push she needed to get in gear. "When Mr. Woodsum came, it made me realize it's important to go to school everyday because colleges look at that," said the seventeen-year-old, who is now the news editor of the school paper. "I knew my teachers asked for him to come because they cared about me."
Rodriguez wrote an article about the visits for her paper. "I interviewed a girl who was mad and other students didn't think it was cool," she says. "Most thought it was bad, but they also knew it would help them."
Throughout his teaching career, Woodsum has embraced opportunities to connect with his students in a manner more personal than many of his colleagues have felt comfortable with, including taking a number of them on weekend trips to a ranch he owns in Mendocino County. "Some teachers don't even want to know their students," he said. "They don't want to know anything about them. Part of it is fear, like they're letting their guard down."
It's around 8 p.m. and Woodsum is doing his final visits of the evening. He knocks on the door of a compact two-story house in an attractive, new development on 65th Avenue. A woman answers from the second floor. Woodsum calls up to her, asking if it would be okay to take ten minutes of her time. A moment later, the woman appears at the door, looking displeased. "Not really," she said. "I wasn't expecting anyone. I'm here by myself and I'm not expecting no man in my house."
Woodsum explains that he wants to discuss her son, a ninth grader who is failing nearly all of his classes, and she agrees to talk at the door, but doesn't let him in. He hands her a card, which she tucks into her shirt top.
As Woodsum reads through the less-than-complementary figures and comments, the mother looks increasingly defeated. "I don't know if this is puberty or something else he's going through," she says. "He's being hard-headed."
"If he doesn't shape up, he's headed for the streets," Woodsum tells her. The mother nods. "I don't know what's going on or where he is," she responds. "I don't have a male figure. No uncles. I'm trying to do my best."
Woodsum says good-bye and the mother genuinely thanks him for coming. He drives down the block and points to a large group of teenagers gathered on the corner. "Her kid is probably there," he says. "You see situations like that where the parent is clearly at a loss to exert pressure. ... They ask me, 'What am I supposed to do?' I've seen that so many times. I wish I had more tools to offer."
Matthew Green worked as a journalism teacher at Media Academy High.
Top Hospitals Have 27 Percent Lower Mortality
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090127083632.htm
ScienceDaily (Jan. 27, 2009) — Medicare patients treated at top-rated hospitals nationwide across the most common Medicare diagnoses and procedures are 27 percent less likely to die, on average, than those admitted to all other hospitals, according to a study released by HealthGrades. Patients who undergo surgery at these high-performing hospitals also have an average eight percent lower risk of complications during their stay.
The HealthGrades Seventh Annual Hospital Quality and Clinical Excellence study identifies hospitals in the top five percent nationally in terms of mortality and complication rates across 26 procedures and diagnoses, from heart attacks to total knee replacement. Hospitals achieving this level of care are designated as Distinguished Hospitals for Clinical Excellence™ by HealthGrades and are identified on the organization's consumer Web site. Many hospitals excel in a given service line, but what differentiates these top hospitals is their quality achievement across a broad range of procedures and treatments.
The 2009 study of Medicare patients found that 152,666 lives may have been saved and 11,772 major complications avoided during the three years studied, had the quality of care at all hospitals matched the level of those in the top five percent. The difference between these top hospitals and the rest of the pack highlights a distinct gap between them.
Individuals can see how their local hospitals are rated, and if they have been designated Distinguished Hospitals for Clinical Excellence, at http://www.healthgrades.com.
ScienceDaily (Jan. 27, 2009) — Medicare patients treated at top-rated hospitals nationwide across the most common Medicare diagnoses and procedures are 27 percent less likely to die, on average, than those admitted to all other hospitals, according to a study released by HealthGrades. Patients who undergo surgery at these high-performing hospitals also have an average eight percent lower risk of complications during their stay.
The HealthGrades Seventh Annual Hospital Quality and Clinical Excellence study identifies hospitals in the top five percent nationally in terms of mortality and complication rates across 26 procedures and diagnoses, from heart attacks to total knee replacement. Hospitals achieving this level of care are designated as Distinguished Hospitals for Clinical Excellence™ by HealthGrades and are identified on the organization's consumer Web site. Many hospitals excel in a given service line, but what differentiates these top hospitals is their quality achievement across a broad range of procedures and treatments.
The 2009 study of Medicare patients found that 152,666 lives may have been saved and 11,772 major complications avoided during the three years studied, had the quality of care at all hospitals matched the level of those in the top five percent. The difference between these top hospitals and the rest of the pack highlights a distinct gap between them.
Individuals can see how their local hospitals are rated, and if they have been designated Distinguished Hospitals for Clinical Excellence, at http://www.healthgrades.com.
First Study To Test Real-world Effects Of Stun Gun Use Raises Questions About Safety
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090123101213.htm
ScienceDaily (Jan. 26, 2009) — The rate of sudden deaths increased six-fold in the first year that California law enforcement agencies deployed the use of stun guns, according to a UCSF study. Findings also showed a two-fold increase in the rate of firearm-related deaths during the same time period.
The most widely used brand of stun gun is the Taser, and the team surveyed for outcomes related to the deployment of this device.
While some industry-funded controlled human studies have shown Tasers to cause no harm, this study suggests that their real-world effects pose greater medical risk and more danger than previous reports, said study author Zian H. Tseng, MD. Although the device has been advertised to decrease the number of shooting deaths and officer injuries, study outcomes showed an increase rather than a reduction in the rate of shooting deaths and no change in officer injuries following Taser deployment, he added.
Researchers found that rates of sudden and firearm-related deaths declined back to near pre-deployment levels after the first year of Taser usage. The team postulated that law enforcement agencies self-corrected, likely adjusting their usage protocol or technique after the first year.
ScienceDaily (Jan. 26, 2009) — The rate of sudden deaths increased six-fold in the first year that California law enforcement agencies deployed the use of stun guns, according to a UCSF study. Findings also showed a two-fold increase in the rate of firearm-related deaths during the same time period.
The most widely used brand of stun gun is the Taser, and the team surveyed for outcomes related to the deployment of this device.
While some industry-funded controlled human studies have shown Tasers to cause no harm, this study suggests that their real-world effects pose greater medical risk and more danger than previous reports, said study author Zian H. Tseng, MD. Although the device has been advertised to decrease the number of shooting deaths and officer injuries, study outcomes showed an increase rather than a reduction in the rate of shooting deaths and no change in officer injuries following Taser deployment, he added.
Researchers found that rates of sudden and firearm-related deaths declined back to near pre-deployment levels after the first year of Taser usage. The team postulated that law enforcement agencies self-corrected, likely adjusting their usage protocol or technique after the first year.
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