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Cheat Point Blank Terbaru Unlimited Darah

Cheat Point Blank Unlimited Darah -  Berikut kumpulan Cheat Point Blank. Cheat Point Blank Terbaru Unlimited Darah.Langkah pertama adalah mendownload toolnya dulu, bisa Sobat download di sini. Setelah berhasil didownload, buruan ekstrak filenya, dan lihat, plus key juga loh^^

Cheat Point Blank Terbaru Unlimited Darah

Cara Menjalankan Cheat Point blank unlimited darah : Syarat harus jadi ROOM MASTER

1. Lagin game, open enginer, open proses dan check list
2. Isikan 100 pada scan first float, melempar bom harus sampai darah berkurang, dan jangan sampai mati
3. Pada Scan Second, isi dengan darah yang sekarang, seadanya, setelah scan tinggal satu macam address, klik 2 kali, edit menjjadi 999 di dua kolom, check list lagi

Video Semburan Pasir Di Arab Saudi

Video Semburan Pasir Di Arab Saudi - Masih seputar dunia, dan keanehannya. FENOMENA ALAM yang satu ini memang terbilang langka, bahkan sebagian orang menganggap bahwa kejaian SEMBURAN PASIR ini adalah Mukjizat. Namun ternyata ,fenomena ini adalah karena kebocoran pada pipa gas penambangan minyak.
Berikut penjelasan mengenai Video Semburan Pasir di Arab Saudi
Seorang, dalam Youtube berkesaksian seperti ini

Kutipan seseorang dalam Youtube

Artinya:

Assallamu Allaykum Warrahmatullahi Wabbarakatuhu


Saya berasal dari Saudi dan saya tahu mengenai hal ini, hal ini bukanlah mukjizat seperti yang kalian anggap.
Islam tidak membutuhkan mukjizat
Kejadian ini merupakan hasil ledakan pipa gas bawah tanah, pipa tersebut untuk perusahaan minyak besar di Saudi, Aramco, di bagian timur Arab Saudi.


Assallamu Allaykum Warrahmatullahi Wabbarakatuhu

Komentar dari KSA351 merupakan penjelasan langsung Yang Melihatnya. Bagi yang ingin mengobati rasa keingintahuannya, mari kita bersama -sama menonton video berikut ini,

 video semburan pasir di Arab Saudi

Demikian tentang Semburan Pasir di Arab Saudi. Semoga hal ini bisa menjadikan kita ingat pada hari Akhir.

Quick Update: Interview with Congressman Ed Towns!

[Note: If you have not donated yet to the "Enough is Enough" campaign, please chip in $5-$10 today! I have sent off my forms to create a bank account for Education Matters. Once that is in place, I will be filling out the forms to turn us into a 501(c)(4). You can click on the "PayPal" button on the upper-left hand side of this page]. 

Thanks to a recently elected Board Member, Ms. Anna Schaefer, I will be setting up an interview with Congressman Edolphus 'Ed' Towns (10th Congressional District of New York). Anna appealed to Congressman Towns through Facebook. Here's what she wrote on August 30th:

Re: Please pass the College Debt Swap Act 2010.

Dear Congressman Towns:


We need you to help us to help the economy. This is our only hope to get back on our feet! We need help! Private loans have no consumer protections at all. Everything is in their favor. These lenders will do nothing to help us. It is in the hands of the Government, and the only avenue we have to be heard. Hear our pleas, help us so we can get our spending power back. We want to buy a house, but with these outrageous terms and the hold these private lenders have on us, that will never be possible. This is not a bailout we are asking for. We want our consumer rights back. Without consumer rights, how can we help the economy? 

Congressman Towns responded to Anna, writing:

Anna, 

I too want to help the economy, when we passed the Health Reform Bill there was little fan fair given to the education piece of the bill which allows students to borrow directly from the federal government to receive funding for college. As you know I am a co-sponsor of this legislation and when congress returns I will do my best to bring this issue to the attention of my colleagues. 

My next task is to get in touch with the sponsor of this Bill, Marcia Fudge (D-OH11), as well as the other co-sponsors. Finally, I look forward to interviewing Ed Towns. Stay tuned!

TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE - 2001

At Miss USA 2001...Miss District of Columbia makes the final three

BlackBerry Curve 9300 Prices and Specifications

Smartphone BlackBerry Curve 3G 9300 Harga dan Spesifikasi - Having successfully introduced the BlackBerry 9800 Torch, now Research In Motion (RIM) launched the 3G BlackBerry Curve 9300 smartphone equipped with 3G networks, by bringing powerful 624 MHz processor or equivalent processor Onyx used a BlackBerry 9700.

BlackBerry Curve 3G 9300

Other features of the full-QWERTY keyboard, optical trackpad for easier navigation, buit-in GPS and Wi-Fi, the BlackBerry operating systems use five and six are ready to support the BlackBerry, a memory card with capacity up to 32 GB, as well as dedicated keys for the media, so that lovers more easily access the music collection of favorite songs.

Price problem, the Rogers Wireless network in Canada, RIM fix the price of U.S. $ 399 (Rp3, 5 million) or U.S. $ 79.9 (Rp710 thousand) with a three-year service contract. In Indonesia, the BlackBerry Curve Smartphone products are becoming available in the upcoming September 2010

Adding Value to the Value-Added Debate

Seeing as I am not paid to blog as part of my daily job, it's basically impossible for me to be even close to first out of the box on the issues of the day. Add to that being a parent of two small children (my most important job – right up there with being a husband) and that only adds to my sometimes frustration of not being able to weigh in on some of these issues quickly.

That said, here is my attempt to distill some key points and share my opinions -- add value, if you will -- to the debate that is raging as a result of the Los Angeles Times's decision to publish the value-added scores of individual teachers in the L.A. Unified School District.

First of all, let me address the issue at hand. I believe that the LA Times's decision to publish the value-added scores was irresponsible. Given what we know about the unreliability and variability in such scores and the likelihood that consumers of said scores will use them at face value without fully understanding all of the caveats, this was a dish that should have been sent back to the kitchen.

Although the LA Times is not a government or public entity, it does operate in the public sphere. And it has a responsibility as such an actor. Its decision to label LA teachers as 'effective' and 'ineffective' based on suspect value-added data alone is akin to an auditor secretly investigating a firm or agency without an engagement letter and publishing findings that may or may not hold water.

Frankly, I don't care what positive benefits this decision by the LA Times might have engendered. Yes, the district and the teachers union have agreed to begin negotiations on a new evaluation system. Top district officials have said they want at least 30% of a teacher's review to be based on value-added and have wisely said that the majority of the evaluations should depend on classroom observations. Such a development exonerates the LA Times, as some have argued. In my mind, any such benefits are purloined and come at the expense of sticking it -- rightly in some cases, certainly wrongly in others -- to individual teachers who mostly are trying their best.

Oh, I know, I know. It's not about the teachers anymore. Their day has come and gone. "It's about the kids" now, right? But you know what? The decisions we make about how we license, compensate, evaluate and dismiss teachers affects them as individual people, as husbands and wives, as mothers and fathers. It effects who may or may not choose to enter the profession in the coming years. If we mistakenly catch a bunch of teachers in a wrong-headed, value-added dragnet based upon a missionary zeal and 'head in the sand' conviction that numbers don't lie, we will be doing a disservice both to teachers and to the kids. And, if we start slicing and dicing teachers left and right, who exactly will replace them?

(1) Value-added test scores should not be used as the primary means of informing high-stakes decisions, such as tenure and dismissal.
One primary piece of evidence was released just this week from the well-respected, nonpartisan Economic Policy Institute. The EPI report, co-authored by numerous academic experts, said:

• Student test scores are not reliable indicators of teacher effectiveness, even with the addition of value-added modeling (VAM).
  
• Though VAM methods have allowed for more sophisticated comparisons of teachers than were possible in the past, they are still inaccurate, so test scores should not dominate the information used by school officials in making high-stakes decisions about the evaluation, discipline and compensation of teachers.
  
• Neither parents nor anyone else should believe that the Los Angeles Times analysis actually identifies which teachers are effective or ineffective in teaching children because the methods are incapable of doing so fairly and accurately.
• Analyses of VAM results show that they are often unstable across time, classes and tests; thus, test scores, even with the addition of VAM, are not accurate indicators of teacher effectiveness. Student test scores, even with VAM, cannot fully account for the wide range of factors that influence student learning, particularly the backgrounds of students, school supports and the effects of summer learning loss. As a result, teachers who teach students with the greatest educational needs appear to be less effective than they are.

Other experts, such as Mathematica Policy Research, Rick Hess, and Dan Goldhaber have offered important cautions as well.

The findings of the IES-funded Mathematica report were “largely driven by findings from the literature and new analyses that more than 90 percent of the variation in student gain scores is due to the variation in student-level factors that are not under the control of the teacher. Thus, multiple years of performance data are required to reliably detect a teacher’s true long-run performance signal from the student-level noise…. Type I and II error rates [‘false positives’ and ‘false negatives’] for teacher-level analyses will be about 26 percent if three years of data are used for estimation. In a typical performance measurement system, more than 1 in 4 teachers who are truly average in performance will be erroneously identified for special treatment, and more than 1 in 4 teachers who differ from average performance by 3 months of student learning in math or 4 more in reading will be overlooked. In addition, Type I and II error rates will likely decrease by only about one half (from 26 to 12 percent) using 10 years of data.”

Hess has “three serious problems with what the LAT did. First … I'm increasingly nervous at how casually reading and math value-added calculations are being treated as de facto determinants of "good" teaching…. Second, beyond these kinds of technical considerations, there are structural problems. For instance, in those cases where students receive substantial pull-out instruction or work with a designated reading instructor, LAT-style value-added calculations are going to conflate the impact of the teacher and this other instruction…. Third, there's a profound failure to recognize the difference between responsible management and public transparency.”

Goldhaber, in a Seattle Times op-ed, says that he “support[s] the idea of using value-added methods as one means of judging teacher performance, but strongly oppose[s] making the performance estimates of individual teachers public in this way. First, there are reasons to be concerned that individual value-added estimates may be misleading indicators of true teacher performance. Second, performance estimates that look different from one another on paper may not truly be distinct in a statistically significant sense. Finally, and perhaps most important, I cannot think of a profession in either the public or private sector where individual employee performance estimates are made public in a newspaper.”

Multiple measures to inform teacher evaluation seems like the right approach, including the use of multiple years of value-added student data (one thing the LA Times DID get right). That said, the available research would seem to suggest that states (particularly in Race to the Top) that have proposed basing 50% or more of an individual educators evaluation on a value-added score may have gone too far down the path. LA Unified officials have said (LA Times, 8/30/2010) they want at least 30% of a teacher's review to be based on value-added and that the majority of the evaluations should depend on observations. That might be a more appropriate stance.

(2) Embracing the status quo is unacceptable.
As reports such at The New Teacher Project's Widget Effect have chronicled, current approaches to teacher evaluation are broken. They don’t work for anyone involved. Critics of VAM cannot simply draw a line in the sand and state that, "This will not stand!" If not this, then what? Certainly not the current system! Fortunately, efforts led by organizations such as the American Federation of Teachers and the Hope Street Group are developing or have offered thoughtful solutions to this issue. [Disclosure: I participated in Hope Street's effort and my New Teacher Center colleague Eric Hirsch serve on AFT’s evaluation committee.] Sadly, LA Unified and the LA Teachers Union both are culpable –along with the LA Times – in bringing this upon the city's teachers by refusing to act to analyze or utilize available value-added data. An adherence to the status quo created a void that the LA Times sought to fill in order to sell more newspapers in a wrong-headed attempt to inform the public.

(3) The ‘lesser of two evils’ axiom should not be invoked.
Even if you agree that all the factors we currently use to select and sort teachers is worse than a value added only alternative, as argued by Education Sector's Chad Aldeman, our current arsenal does not meaningfully inform high-stakes decisions (apart from entry tests with largely low passing scores and the aforementioned impossible-to-fail evaluations). That's, of course, both a condemnation of the current system's inability and/or unwillingness to differentiate between teachers, but it's also a recognition that we haven't struck the right balance or developed the value-added systems to inform high-stakes decisions in this regard in all but a few promising places.

(4) Don't lose sight of the utility of value-added data to inform formative assessment of teaching practice.
If one of the takeaways from research is that value-added data shouldn't be used to drive high-stakes decisions, it is helpful to think about the use of this data to inform teacher development. Analysis of student work, including relevant test scores, is an important professional development opportunity that all teachers, especially new ones, should have regular opportunities to engage in. Systems such as the NTC’s Formative Assessment System provide such a tool in states and districts with whom it works on teacher induction. Sadly, this is not the norm in American schools, but is built into high-quality professional development approaches, as Sara Mead wisely discusses in her recent Ed Week blog post. As I noted under #2, LA Unified missed an opportunity to embrace such data to inform its educators in such a way. In the LA Times value added series, several teachers bemoaned the fact that they had never had the opportunity to see such data until it was published in the newspaper.

(5) Valid and reliable classroom observation conducted by trained evaluators is critical.
Other elements of an evaluation system are even more important than value-added methodology if for no other reason that the majority of teachers do not teach tested subjects. Unless we, God forbid, develop multiple-choice assessments of more and more subjects and grade levels, we're going to need valid and reliable ways of assessing the practice of educators who cannot be assessed by value-added student achievement scores. Despite some of the criticisms lobbed at the District of Columbia's new IMPACT evaluation system, this is an element at the heart of DC’s approach to teacher evaluation. Further, the Gates Foundation’s on-going teacher effectiveness study holds great promise.

(6) We've got to get beyond this focus on the 'best' and 'worst' teachers.
How about we focus on strengthening the effectiveness of the 80-90% of teachers in the middle? We know how to do that through comprehensive new teacher induction and high-quality professional development, but we're just lacking the collective will to pull it off and invest in what makes a difference. These are similar roadblocks to what has prevented the use of student outcomes from being considered in teacher evaluations. It raises discomfort, requires a change in prevailing (often mediocre) practices, demands greater accountability, and necessitates viewing teaching not as a private activity but as a collective endeavor. But I keep making this point over and over again about the importance of a teacher development focus within the teacher effectiveness conversation because I see too few reform advocates taking it seriously. Take off the blinders, folks. It is not primarily about firing teachers.

(7) Teacher effectiveness is contextual.
Teaching and learning conditions impact an individual educator’s ability to succeed. It is entirely possible that an individual teacher's value-added score is significantly determined by the teaching and learning conditions (supportive leadership, opportunities to collaborate, classroom resources) present at their school site than about their individual knowledge, skills and practices. In Seinfeldian terms, teachers are not 'masters of their domain' necessarily. The EPI report makes this point. So do my New Teacher Center colleagues through statewide teaching and learning conditions surveys. So does Duke University economist Helen Ladd (also a co-signed on the EPI report) and the University of Toronto’s Kenneth Leithwood.

Saya Blogger Indonesia, Anti Malaysia, Cinta Indonesia

Saya Blogger Indonesia, Anti Malaysia, Cinta Indonesia

Functions of an Undergraduate Module

Given the time of year and given that one of my functions here in UCD is to provide the undergrad behavioural economics curriculum forgive me another random post on what we are actually supposed to do in the undergrad domain. Below is the result of scribbling on a piece of paper in an attempt to get motivated for this year's endeavours. This is close to another issue that we have started debating a lot more - what is the value of "inperson" modules as opposed to downloading modules from the web?

(i) Give students an opportunity to signal their ability to the labour/graduate admissions market. To provide challenging assignments that are known to be challenging.

(ii) Provide access to information that will be intrinsically valuable for the students both now and in the future on reflection. In essence to provide a consumption product at the same time as allowing the student to invest in a stock of knowledge and positive memories.

(iii) Provide access to language that will enable them to communicate with other people who have taken the course.

(iv) Provide a link between the university setting and the outside world through practical examples, case studies etc., In essence, to give students a chance to "practice" being a decision maker before having to make real decisions.

(v) Similar to (iv) to provide students with an opportunity to express innate talents through interaction with others in group situations similar to real-world settings.

(vi) Provide specific marketable skills valued by employers in different sectors.

(vii) Get to know students in the module well enough to be able to provide employment references.

(viii) Awaken consciousness about how real-world institutions operate and their own potential place in this.

(ix) To act as a guarantor that a student has come through a module of study that is a requirement for later education/jobs.

(x) Provide students with an opportunity to form networks through the class both personal and professional. Synching up modules across universities an interesting way to develop this.

(xi) Provide a forum for students to discuss and develop their own ideas. Provide feedback on those ideas including references to wider literaturem, challenging gaps in reasoning and so on.

(xii) Provide students with an independent forum for advanced critical thinking. Provide an atmosphere of irreverance toward current norms facilitating development of original thinking.

An Enlightening Example

Chapter 1 of my favorite textbook talks about how policies can have unintended consequences because of their effects on incentives.  One example I use is Sam Peltzman's famous study of seatbelt laws.  Here, from The Economist, is another example:

SOLID-STATE lighting, the latest idea to brighten up the world while saving the planet, promises illumination for a fraction of the energy used by incandescent or fluorescent bulbs. A win all round, then: lower electricity bills and...less climate-changing carbon dioxide belching from power stations.

Well, no. Not if history is any guide. Solid-state lamps, which use souped-up versions of the light-emitting diodes that shine from the faces of digital clocks and flash irritatingly on the front panels of audio and video equipment, will indeed make lighting better. But precedent suggests that this will serve merely to increase the demand for light. The consequence may not be just more light for the same amount of energy, but an actual increase in energy consumption.

FOTO Rumah Nabi Muhammad SAW

FOTO Rumah Nabi Muhammad SAW - Melihat sekilas dari judul postingan ini " FOTO Rumah nabi Muhammad SAW " pasti Anda sedikit greget gimana gitu. Percaya atau tidak percaya. Saya juga agak takjub. Tapi, tak ada gunanya berlama-lama terheran - heran, mending langsung ke TKP Gan ^^)

Bismillahirrahmannirrahim, ini dia . . .

Menurut Sumber : Ini adalah
Foto Rumah Nabi Muhammad SAW
yang ditinggalinya bersama Siti Khatidjah

Satu lagi, menurut Sumber : Ini adalah Foto Rumah Nabi
Muhammad SAW. Namun, telah berupa reruntuhan-reruntuhan

Menurut Sumber : Di atas adalah pintu masuk
menuju Kamar Rasulullah

Menurut Sumber : Foto di atas adalah tempat dimana
Putri tercinta Rasul "Fatimah" dilahirkan

Kamar Nabi

Reruntuhan Mihrab, tempat
nabi Muhammad SAW sholat

Menurut Sumber : Foto di atas adalah foto
makam Siti Khatidjah (yang besar) dan
makam puteranya (yang kecil di sudut)

Demikian kumpulan FOTO Rumah Nabi Muhammad SAW yang telah berupa reruntuhan, namun memiliki makna yang teramat besar bagi sejarah, dan peradaban. Klik saja "Perbesar Foto" untuk tampilan foto dalam ukuran Original.

Wassalamuallaikum Wr Wb
Taken From : http://unik.supericsun.com/foto-foto-rumah-nabi-muhammad-saw 

Are women more beautiful than men?

In ancient thought, it was often assumed that the male of our species is more beautiful than the female. Certainly this was the assumption in Greece, and Plato’s dialogues reflect a virtual cult of male beauty. However, I think I have theological proof to confirm my longstanding suspicion that woman are more beautiful than men. See what you make of it.

According to John Paul II’s theology of the body, discussed in the latest issue of Second Spring, the real source and meaning of gender lies in the Trinity. The Trinity is love, which means self-gift. Love includes within it both activity and receptivity, and it is an act that necessarily involves three Persons. We might say the Father is the divine nature as Giver, the Son is that same divine nature as Receiver (and then, as Receiver, in turn a Giver, since he is the perfect image of the Father), and the Holy Spirit is the divine nature as Gift. (John Paul II names the Holy Spirit in his encyclical Dominum et Vivificantem “Person-Gift”.) Thus the Spirit is Gift, both given and received, and unites Father and Son in the act of giving.

In the creation, Woman is brought to Man precisely as “gift”, crowning the gift of creation in general, which has been made for him. Woman is brought to man not just as wife but as friend, sister and eventually mother as well, all rolled into one in a way that will never again be the case until the advent of the Virgin Mary, who will form with her Son the new beginning of the human race. (In fact the original gift of Woman could be said to include – obscurely and distantly – the gift of Christ himself, who will descend from her in the fullness of time.) Here in this moment of creation Adam represents the Son, the Receiver of the Father’s Gift, and Eve the Holy Spirit, or that which the Father gives. (Perhaps this is why St Maximilian Kolbe describes Mary, the Second Eve, as a "quasi-incarnation" of the Holy Spirit.) She is the breath of life, the living essence of the man, taken out of him and returned in the one form in which he can find himself in his own solitude – that is, in the form of another person to whom he can give himself.

The nature of Woman, then, the deepest meaning of her gender, is to be Gift for Man, to manifest the Spirit, just as the deepest nature of Man is to be the Receiver of the Gift, and to manifest the Son to her. Thus femininity in its totality, at its deepest level, is the essence of humanity made visible to itself as the definitive beauty and glory of creation. (Similarly the essence of masculinity consists in the loving response to this gift which awakens Woman to her own self.)

Adam and Eve fresco by Masolino da Panicale, 1424.

Are women more beautiful than men?

In ancient thought, it was often assumed that the male of our species is more beautiful than the female. Certainly this was the assumption in Greece, and Plato’s dialogues reflect a virtual cult of male beauty. However, I think I have theological proof to confirm my longstanding suspicion that woman are more beautiful than men. See what you make of it.

According to John Paul II’s theology of the body, discussed in the latest issue of Second Spring, the real source and meaning of gender lies in the Trinity. The Trinity is love, which means self-gift. Love includes within it both activity and receptivity, and it is an act that necessarily involves three Persons. We might say the Father is the divine nature as Giver, the Son is that same divine nature as Receiver (and then, as Receiver, in turn a Giver, since he is the perfect image of the Father), and the Holy Spirit is the divine nature as Gift. (John Paul II names the Holy Spirit in his encyclical Dominum et Vivificantem “Person-Gift”.) Thus the Spirit is Gift, both given and received, and unites Father and Son in the act of giving.

In the creation, Woman is brought to Man precisely as “gift”, crowning the gift of creation in general, which has been made for him. Woman is brought to man not just as wife but as friend, sister and eventually mother as well, all rolled into one in a way that will never again be the case until the advent of the Virgin Mary, who will form with her Son the new beginning of the human race. (In fact the original gift of Woman could be said to include – obscurely and distantly – the gift of Christ himself, who will descend from her in the fullness of time.) Here in this moment of creation Adam represents the Son, the Receiver of the Father’s Gift, and Eve the Holy Spirit, or that which the Father gives. (Perhaps this is why St Maximilian Kolbe describes Mary, the Second Eve, as a "quasi-incarnation" of the Holy Spirit.) She is the breath of life, the living essence of the man, taken out of him and returned in the one form in which he can find himself in his own solitude – that is, in the form of another person to whom he can give himself.

The nature of Woman, then, the deepest meaning of her gender, is to be Gift for Man, to manifest the Spirit, just as the deepest nature of Man is to be the Receiver of the Gift, and to manifest the Son to her. Thus femininity in its totality, at its deepest level, is the essence of humanity made visible to itself as the definitive beauty and glory of creation. (Similarly the essence of masculinity consists in the loving response to this gift which awakens Woman to her own self.)

Adam and Eve fresco by Masolino da Panicale, 1424.

SHADES OF HOTNESS

Miss World 2007, China's Zhang Zilin

Brazil's Mister Garoto Sete Lagoas 2009, Otavio Carneiro

Mister Sweden 2010, Marcus Olausson

Miss Universe 2004, Australia's Jennifer Hawkins

Brazil's Eduardo Pires, Mister Pará 2008

Brazil's Mister Minas Gerais 2010, Bruno Soraggi Bachur

Masjid di Atas Laut di Indonesia (FOTO)

Masjid di Atas Laut di Indonesia (FOTO) - Masjid yang diklaim sebagai masjid pertma di Indonesia yang dibangun di atas genangan air, di atas laut tepatnya. Adalah Masjid 99 Al Makazzary, Makassar. Masjid ini dibangun di atas Pantai Losari. Masjid 99 Al Makazzary ini dibangun di atas air laut seluas 1.608 meter dengan menggunakan 164 tiang.
Masjid ini terdiri atas 3 lantai, 2 lantai paling bawah adalah untuk sarana ibadah, dan satu lantai teratas dikhususkan untuk keperuan rekreasi.

Berikut foto Masjid terapung di atas laut, Masjid 99 Makazzary

Masjid 99 AL Makazzary dari atas ( Berupa 3D )

Masjid 99 AL Makazzary dari depan ( Berupa 3D )

Some Sad Statistics

Check out George Will's column in today's Washington Post:


For black children, daunting divides in achievement and family life
by George Will
Washington Post

Attanasio and Weber Review of Theories of Consumption and Savings

Consumption and Saving: Models of Intertemporal Allocation and Their Implications for Public Policy

Author info | Abstract | Publisher info | Download info | Related research | Statistics

Author Info

Orazio P. Attanasio
Guglielmo Weber
Additional information is available for the following registered author(s):

• Orazio Attanasio
• Guglielmo Weber

Abstract

This paper provides a critical survey of the large literature on the life cycle model of consumption, both from an empirical and a theoretical point of view. It discusses several approaches that have been taken in the literature to bring the model to the data, their empirical successes and failures. Finally, the paper reviews a number of changes to the standard life cycle model that could help solve the remaining empirical puzzles.

Early Research Performance of PhD Graduates in Labour Economics (EU and US)

Richard Tol on IrishEconomy links to the paper below.

Comparing the Early Research Performance of PhD Graduates in Labor Economics in Europe and the USA

Author info | Abstract | Publisher info | Download info | Related research | Statistics

Author Info

Ana Rute Cardoso (anarute.cardoso@iae.csic.es)
Paulo Guimarães
Klaus F. Zimmermann
Additional information is available for the following registered author(s):

• Ana Rute Cardoso
• Paulo Guimaraes
• Klaus F. Zimmermann

Abstract

This paper analyzes the early research performance of PhD graduates in labor economics, addressing the following questions: Are there major productivity differences between graduates from American and European institutions? If so, how relevant is the quality of the training received (i.e. ranking of institution and supervisor) and the research environment in the subsequent job placement institution? The population under study consists of labor economics PhD graduates who received their degree in the years 2000 to 2005 in Europe or the USA. Research productivity is evaluated alternatively as the number of publications or the quality-adjusted number of publications of an individual. When restricting the analysis to the number of publications, results suggest a higher productivity by graduates from European universities than from USA universities, but this difference vanishes when accounting for the quality of the publication. The results also indicate that graduates placed at American institutions, in particular top ones, are likely to publish more quality-adjusted articles than their European counterparts. This may be because, when hired, they already have several good acceptances or because of more focused research efforts and clearer career incentives.

NBER Paper: Determinants of Joining Employee Share Plans

To Join or Not to Join? Factors Influencing Employee Share Plan Membership in a Multinational Corporation

Alex Bryson, Richard B. Freeman NBER Working Paper No. 16292 Issued in August 2010 Many firms encourage employees to own company stock through share plans that subsidize the price at favorable rates, but even so many employees do not buy shares. Using a new survey of employees in a multinational with a share ownership plan, we find considerable variation in joining among observationally equivalent workers and explore the reasons for the variation. Participation in the plan is higher the greater the potential pay-off from joining the share plan, which indicates that rational economic calculations affect the decision to join. But there is also evidence that psychological factors affect the decision to join. Some non-members say they intend to join in the future, which means they forgo the benefits of immediate membership. The proportion of workers who purchase shares varies across workplaces beyond what we predict from worker characteristics. This suggests that co-worker behavior influences decisions. Indeed, workers say that they pay most attention to other workers and little attention to company HR management in their decision on joining.

MISS WORLD SLOVENIA 2010

The new Miss World Slovenia 2010 is Sandra Adam, 20. She won the title last night in a glittering, televised gala ceremony. First runner-up in the contest was Ajda Sitar; second runner-up was Sandra Skutnik.

Class Interaction and Problem Based Learning

Am currently debating both with myself and others as to the relative merits of different approaches to supplement lecture courses and traditional tutorials and problem sets, in particular to create classes where the students are very motivated to perform and go beyond the basic materials. One great thing about looking at the Harvard Justice class is the amount of interaction with the student audience. It drives a number of the lectures. One particularly thorny one is the approach in some institutions of making attendance mandatory and of allocating a proportion of grade to how well the student deals with questions thrown at them in class, and how fully they participate in class discussion.  

A few useful links below to problem-based learning approaches, which is another approach to getting classes to move beyond passive listening and toward very active engagement with the topics.

Problem-based learning: an introduction:
http://www.ntlf.com/html/pi/9812/pbl_1.htm

PBL for economics:
http://www.economicsnetwork.ac.uk/handbook/pbl/

Setting up a partial PBL environment:
http://www.economicsnetwork.ac.uk/handbook/pbl/52

PBL at Maastricht University (university which uses PBL in all programmes):
http://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/web/Main/Education/EducationalProfile/ProblemBasedLearning.htm

PBL in Ireland:
http://www.facilitate.ie/

PBL at UCD: http://www.ucd.ie/vavctest/johntest/sociology_0805/PBL/html/what_is_pbl.html

Who Knew That Race to the Top Would Cause Joblessness?

In cycling races such as the Tour de France, riders tragically have lost their lives particularly in mountainous stages in the Alps or Pyrenees. Fortunately, no one was killed in the making of Race to the Top applications. But one state school chief, New Jersey's Brett Schundler, has lost his job as a result of it.

Read the Newark Star-Ledger's story for more:

Gov. Chris Christie fired state education commissioner Bret Schundler this morning after Schundler refused to resign in the wake of the controversy over the state's loss of up to $400 million in federal school funding.

The state lost a competitive grant contest for education funding by 3 points. While the state lost points across a number of areas for substantive issues, a blunder on one 5-point question has caused an uproar in Trenton. The state lost 4.8 points by seemingly misreading the question, which asked for information from 2008 and 2009 budgets. The state provided information from 2011.

The "top" NYC high schools, with SAT scores, class sizes, and caveats

Check out the NY Post listing on the "top" 50 NYC high schools here: The top 10, 11 - 20, 21 - 40, 41 - 50. The data for all 400 plus high schools, including graduation rates, average SAT scores, etc. is available here.

The Post used the DOE progress reports, plus other relevant outcome data, to calculate this list. Like all such rankings, they have to be taken with a heavy grain of salt. In this case, the salt pile is immense, since so much of the DOE data are either unreliable or incomplete. For example, high school NYC graduation rates are often inflated, because they don't taken into account the numbers of discharged students, a huge loophole that many high schools use to boost their grad rates.

The Post says that the graduation rate in their listings reflects the percent of 9^th graders who end up graduating after four years plus a summer; but that is not true. Many high schools discharge significant numbers of students before they even reach the 12th grade, and many if most of these students end up dropouts, but are never counted as such.

Even in the case of one of top schools on the list (Bard), the reporter notes that “about 20 students in each class transfer out.” In the case of Bard, a highly selective school, they probably enroll in other regular high schools, but for other schools, discharged students often end up in alternative high schools, GED programs or sometimes nowhere at all. The DOE used to make the discharge data by each individual school available in their graduation reports, but no longer does, ever since Jennifer Jennings and I produced a report on the rising discharge figures under Bloomberg and Klein.

[Correction! Updated reports for the classes of 2008 and 2009 do contain discharge data by school, at least for general ed students; see Appendix B at the links above, which reveal egregiously high discharge rates at many schools, with twice the number of official "dropouts" in many cases. What the city no longer seems to report on are discharge rates for D 75 and self-contained students.]

The NY Post's listing does not include any data on the growing practice of credit recovery, which is another manner in which many schools are artificially inflating their grad rates, (see this article by the same Post reporter on the phenomenon.) The DOE refuses to release any data on credit recovery, so it is impossible to know just how widespread this practice is. The class size data are also are not fully reliable; and tend to underestimate the actual size of classes in many high schools, since inclusion (CTT) classes are commonly reported as two separate classes.

I also don't trust the college-going rates in the listings; and the SAT scores don't include information as to what percent of the class actually took the SATs. Finally, the ratings may reflect more than anything else the socio-economic background of the students rather than what the schools actually bring to the table.

Nevertheless, as parents have a right to see this information, I have now posted a spreadsheet with SAT average scores for every school, for 2008 and 2009, as well the schoolwide class size averages for 2009-10 school year, as calculated by the DOE (as opposed to class size averages in each school by grade and subject, that are available here.). Neither of these files are on the DOE website, as far as I know.

Barro on Unemployment Insurance

Harvard's Robert Barro says the recent expansion of UI explains the persistently high unemployment rate.

Revolt en masse?

[Note: If you have not donated yet to the "Enough is Enough" campaign, please chip in $5-$10 today! I have sent off my forms to create a bank account for Education Matters. Once that is in place, I will be filling out the forms to turn us into a 501(c)(4)].

A civilization which leaves so large a number of its participants unsatisfied and drives them into revolt neither has nor deserves the prospect of a lasting existence. -Sigmund Freud

A highly educated connection, who is also an alum of Harvard, recently asked me about my thoughts on whether or not the indentured educated class ought to revolt en masse. As this reader indicated in their message, I have indeed been asked this question before, and many people have implored me to support such a move. I will refrain from sharing my thoughts (most of you already know my stance), but would like to know what you think. Should all student debtors revolt together? Would it work? Why or why not?

Russ Roberts and Dan Pink debate "Drive"

Below is from the EconTalk podcast website, posted by Russ Roberts. 

"The latest EconTalk is Dan Pink talking about motivation and incentives, the themes of his book, Drive. The book is based on research results from behavioral psychology that often find perverse results or non-results from using money or other rewards to motivate people. In the podcast, I challenge the reliability and applicability of these results. Pink pushes back. We also talk at length about education and family life. Enjoy."

Mac or PC - Should researchers care?

I have been using a Macbook for the last three years. My subjective experience (n=1) has been neutral. It has better battery time than any other laptop I have owned, which is great. But I have not really noticed a definable advantage other than that for someone like me, who mainly uses Office, Firefox, Mail and STATA as my daily tools. Having said that, I know at least one Institute Director who swears by it and many others who have converted and claim that it has helped them be more productive. From the point of view, say, of a researcher starting here in Geary or someone beginning their PhD in Economics and about to purchase a laptop, does it make much of a difference? People tell me that one can simply install Windows on the Mac to get something from both worlds but lets restrict to the choice between Mac computer and default mac operating system versus a standard PC and windows operating system. There are a lot of claims about the relative security of Mac over PC that I can't evaluate. I am interested in whether anyone thinks the choice is an important one for researchers.

Don't worry I am running out of technology issues that interest me so these posts will dry up soon!

The Achievement Gap Nobody Talks About - Part 1: The Chasm

Following the June 2008 Integrated Algebra Regents exam -- the only math exam required to receive a NYS high school diploma -- NYSED commissioned a technical report to analyze the results. That report, the only such one I have found so far, was posted on the NYSED website, seemingly to no public or media notice despite its startling revelations about a racial achievement gap in mathematics that education officials in NYC and throughout NYS had by 2008 already been claiming for years was well on its way to being eliminated.

While recent revisions to the cut score levels on the NYS Grade 3 - 8 exams have exploded that myth, the June 2008 Integrated Algebra technical report (available for download here) provides striking indications that the gap may be much worse at the high school level. Analyzing the results for 175,000 mostly ninth-grade students statewide who sat for the June 2008 test, where a scaled passing score of 65 was (and continues to be) derived from a raw score of just 30 out of 87 points maximum (34.5%), the report reveals:

** Overall pass rate, all students: 75.06%
** White student pass rate: 88.08%
** Black student pass rate: 53.17%
** Hispanic student pass rate: 58.71%
** Black/White gap: 35.91 pct. pts.
** Hispanic/White gap: 29.37 pct. pts.

These achievement gaps at the ninth grade level already substantially exceeded those reported in the June 23, 2008 Commissioner's Press Conference presentation slides (available here) for Grade 3 - 8 Mathematics (Black/White -- 22.4 percentage points, Hispanic/White -- 17.2 percentage points), despite the fact that these same ninth grade students had for the previous five years been the very ones whose increased proficiency had been so widely and unquestioningly touted.

Even more disturbing, however, is that any raising of the bar on the Grade 9 Integrated Algebra exam along the lines of those just implemented by Commissioner Steiner for the Grade 3 - 8 exams (where the weighted average raw score percentage across grades for achieving Level 3 in 2010 was increased from 47.1% of the available exam points to 72.4%) would likely transform an alarming racial achievement gap into a veritable chasm, a Grand Canyon of racial disparity in high school math achievement.

For example, based on the detailed 2008 exam data, if the Regents Integrated Algebra passing bar had been raised from its current 34.5% of the available raw score points (30 out of 87) to just over 50% (44 out of 87), the Black student pass rate would have been reduced by more than half and the Hispanic student pass rate by a little less than half, as detailed in the table below:

** Revised overall pass rate, all students: 52.28% (-22.78 pct. pts.)
** Revised White student pass rate: 67.74% (-20.34 pct. pts.)
** Revised Black student pass rate: 24.85% (-27.32 pct. pts.)
** Revised Hispanic student pass rate: 31.11% (-27.60 pct. pts.)
** Revised Black/White gap: 42.89 pct. pts. (+6.98 pct. pts.)
** Revised Hispanic/White gap: 36.63 pct. pts. (+7.26 pct. pts.)

In other words, raising the expectations bar enough to require students to earn at least 50% of the raw score points (where Grade 3 - 8 children now must earn over 70% of their available points under Steiner's new standard) would have resulted in less than one-third of the Hispanic students and less than one-fourth of the Black students passing. Furthermore, the Black/White achievement gap would have climbed to just under a staggering 43 percentage points, and the Hispanic/White gap to almost 37 percentage points. By comparison, the combined 2010 Grade 3 - 8 achievement gaps for Black and Hispanic students following the recent Steiner cut score upward revisions were 30.2 and 23.8 points, respectively (Commissioner's slide presentation available here). Note that these achievement gaps, even after revision to a higher standard, are still markedly less than the June 2008 Regents math achievement gaps even under their (continuing) low-expectations pass levels (shown in the first table above).

Regent exam breakdowns (score distributions in total and by ethnic and other breakdowns such as ELL, students with disabilities, low SES, etc.) are not routinely publicized, to the best of my knowledge. The one I found for Integrated Algebra appears to have been a special situation for a new exam. And while the data is presented on a statewide basis only, we know for a fact that well over 40,000 of the 175,000 students tested, perhaps as many as 50,000, were NYC public high school students.

Isn't it time that this type of data, so aggressively presented and touted for the Grade 3 - 8 exams, also be presented to the public, at least for the Regents core subject exams if not for all of them? Shouldn't this type of data also be made available for NYC schools, just as the DOE now does for its Grade 3 - 8 exam results? Isn't it curious that for all the talk about Grades 3 - 8, no one -- not the State Commission, not the Regents board, and certainly not Chancellor Klein and his irrepressible P.R. machine, EVER break down and/or talk about the results of the high school Regents exams from 2003 to 2010. Why is that?

After all, don't these exams provide some measure of the success (or lack thereof) of all the Grade 3 - 8 testing? If those earlier-year educational benefits cannot be carried over into high school, then something is wrong, and we have a right to know. A Grade 4 student still has time for remediation and support, a luxury not so readily available or achievable at the high school level, where there are relatively few second chances.

In any event, for Commissioner Steiner to be consistent in his insistence on college readiness expectations of NYS public school students (and even a 50% standard still falls well short of "college ready" in my judgment), an increase in the Integrated Algebra cut score level seems inescapable. If and when that happens, the impact for many will be a rude awakening, to say the least. Like Wile E. Coyote running right past the edge of the unseen cliff, the drop to the canyon floor below will be a long, long, long way down.

NOTE: My next posting, "Part 2: Where's the Proficiency?," will reveal some shocking information about the 2008/09 Integrated Algebra exam in NYC's public high schools.