9/11 Hearings Free on Audible.com

The 9/11 Commission Hearings are available right now for free at http://www.audible.com/911hearings. […] You’ll hear Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, former National Counterterrorism Coordinator Richard Clarke, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, and others as they answer tough questions on blind spots in foreign intelligence that may have enabled the worst terrorist attack in American history.
Download the Hearings now from our Web site, and feel free to share this e-mail with your friends. Let them know they can download the audio for free as well. From the Online Blog.

“Getting the Most out of the Nation’s Teachers”

Virginia Postrel writes that smart women who were shut out of the professions used to become teachers. That was bad for the women but good for their students. New York Times:

The best female students – those whose test scores put them in the top 10 percent of their high school classes – are much less likely to become teachers today.
“Whereas close to 20 percent of females in the top decile in 1964 chose teaching as a profession,” making it their top choice, the economists write, “only 3.7 percent of top decile females were teaching in 1992,” making teachers about as common as lawyers in this group.
So the chances of getting a really smart teacher have gone down substantially. In 1964, more than one out of five young female teachers came from the top 10 percent of their high school classes. By 2000, that number had dropped to just over one in 10.

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9-11 Commission Report Online

Read the report directly (and avoid the spinning on both sides) here:

The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (also known as the 9-11 Commission), an independent, bipartisan commission created by congressional legislation and the signature of President George W. Bush in late 2002, is chartered to prepare a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, including preparedness for and the immediate response to the attacks. The Commission is also mandated to provide recommendations designed to guard against future attacks.

Here’s a few links from different points of view: Time Magazine | Wonkette’s 9/11 Flow Chart | Talking Points | Instapundit

9/11 Panel Background


I’ve been reading Steve Coll’s Ghost Wars, The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001.
Anyone interested in a deep look at how we arrived at the current situation in Central Asia should read this book. Coll follows our policies from supporting the Afghans & jihad fighters against the Soviets in the 1980’s to our complete withdrawal (the source of our problems, I believe) after the Soviets left (leaving Afghanistan to the Pakistanis/Saudis and others) through the 1990’s where a few tried to get those at the top engaged once again in the region as the Taliban rose to power (backed by Bin Laden and others) and finally, to 09/10/2001.
There’s been no shortage of discussion recently on this topic, including the recent charges/counter charges around Richard Clarke. Clarke’s White House role during the 1990’s is discussed extensively in this book. I believe Coll’s work provides a useful basis to get through the politics and discover that in reality, there was little leadership or will power to address these problems, until 9/11 (despite the Cole bombing, the African bombings and other telltale signs of what was to come).
The genesis of the problem is that we abandoned Afghanistan after the Soviets left (leaving it wide open for regional players), and did not re-engage in a serious way until post 9/11.
Fascinating read.

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Cap Times Spins Wisconsin’s MATRIX Data Mining Participation


The Cap Times spin’s Wisconsin’s recent decision to pull out of the MATRIX (Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange) data mining project (after the Doyle (a Democrat) Administration joined it February 11, 2004!) as an anti Bush Administration move:

Luckily, the records of Wisconsinites are going to be protected from the prying eyes of the Bush administration’s security apparatus. States must agree to feed information into the Matrix database. This month, Wisconsin joined a growing number of other states in refusing to do so. According to a statement from Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager’s office, “Because of the privacy concerns, we’ve suspended all involvement.”

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel’s Gina Barton provides a more balanced view of what actually ocurred: “Wisconsin law enforcement officials have changed their minds about becoming part of a computerized information-sharing network.
There are many reasons to be concerned about ongoing government programs that further intrude on our privacy. However, the Badger State joined the program, under Democratic Governor Doyle’s watch, something not mentioned in the Cap Times editorial.
The best place to keep up to date on these issues (and send money) is the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
I sent an email to Dave Zweifel, Editor of the Cap Times today.
I must say that the Cap Times generally does a reasonably good job covering local news. However, the public’s expectations are clearly changing. This free subscription offer is telling (96K PDF).
MATRIX Searches: [Google] [Teoma] [Yahoo] [alltheweb]
UPDATE: Tim Porter slices and dices newspaper’s quality & circulation problems here.

Vouchers/Charter Schools in the News

Washington, DC has selected a non-profit organization to administer the first federally funded school voucher program in the nation, according to Justin Blum:

“The group selected, the Washington Scholarship Fund, will be administering the first federally funded voucher program in the country. The program received final approval from Congress in January after contentious debate.
The voucher program will allow at least 1,700 District children to attend private and religious schools this fall with grants of up to $7,500 per student.
At a news conference this morning, officials released new details of how the program will operate. Families first will apply to private schools and go through the schools’ normal admissions procedures. Parents meeting the program’s income guidelines then will apply for voucher funds, indicating their order of preference among the schools where their children have been accepted.”

Meanwhile, the local morning paper suggested that Governor Doyle sign Senate Bill 253, which would let Wisconsin public universities run specialized schools for younger students. The article also references a recent statement by UW Chancellor John Wiley:

The measure could help address specific shortcomings in public schooling as well. For example, UW-Madison Chancellor John Wiley this week cited “phenomenal shortages” in the country’s supply of scientists and engineers. Charter schooling would let the UW System address the problem by getting in on the ground floor of public schooling, where educators could run a school geared to students with interest and aptitude in these areas. The students then get the preparation they need to pursue science and engineering degrees and careers.

Wiley’s comments follow a report from the American Electronics Association critical of American schools efforts teaching students science and math.

Outsourcing Report Blames Schools

Michelle Delio writes that a new American Electronics Association report on outsourcing charges that the American school system fails to provide a strong science and math education to students.

“Despite our best efforts, our kids really have a hard time understanding why they might need advanced math or science in their adult lives”, said New York middle-school teacher Keri Carnen.
Noting that roughly 50 percent of all engineering, math and science degrees awarded by U.S. universities now go to foreign nationals, AeA researchers also called on the federal government to give green cards to all foreign nationals upon their graduation with master’s and Ph.D. degrees, in an effort to keep these people — and their skills — in the United States.

Budget Cuts Without a Budget?


Lee Sensenbrenner writes that Madison School Board President Bill Keys stated during a telephone interview Tuesday that golf and strings should be on the chopping block as the Board considers $9m reductions in the $310+ budget:

“Funding for the fourth-grade stringed music classes and varsity golf teams is being questioned by Madison School Board President Bill Keys as the school district struggles to find $10 million worth of cuts.
The district administration made its recommendations earlier this month for next year’s budget, and the board is in the process of its own review.
Although administrators did not propose cutting the popular strings class, Keys said in a telephone interview Tuesday it’s an option he’d like to consider.
“The strings class has always been brought up as a possibility, so I said let’s bring it up again,” Keys said.”

Interestingly, Barb Schrank sent a one page Madison Schools Budget update where she writes:

“To date, the School Board has not received the budget for next year. How can the School Board make cut decisions without a reference budget?”

[95K PDF] Great question…..

MMSD supports convicted monopolist Microsoft

The Madison school district has, for a number of years, supported a Microsoft based monoculture of computing tools. This ill advised policy has placed far too much emphasis on one computing model (by the time today’s elementary & middle school students enter the work force, the technology at hand will be quite different).
Today, Microsoft, a convicted monopolist was fined over $600m by the European Union. A number of other legal cases are underway, including this one in Minnesota.

Among the documents introduced in court this week was a letter from June 1990 in which Bill Gates, Microsoft’s chairman, told Andrew S. Grove, the chief executive of Intel at the time, that any support given to the Go Corporation, a Silicon Valley software company, would be considered an aggressive move against Microsoft.
Other evidence presented by the plaintiffs’ lawyers at trial yesterday gave an account of how Microsoft violated a signed secrecy agreement with Go and showed that Microsoft possessed technical documents from Go that it should not have had access to.

Madison’s financial support of this monoculture is absurd. We should take the cash we’re sending to Microsoft and fund our PE program instead…. (Note that the argument that business uses Microsoft therefore we should feed our children the same dog food does not hold water. Increasingly, business is using open source tools such as linux, apache, php, mysql and other products)