Thomas Kane’s “Learning Losses”

Since 2022—if not earlier—Thomas Kane has been banging a drum for more schooling as a remedy to what he’s calling “learning losses.” He was still banging that drum in 2023, and still is these days, too. Specifically, he argues that kids fell so far behind during in school during the pandemic that they won’t be able to catch up on their own. Kane apparently has pretty hard research showing how much this is the case, measured in “points” and also measured in weeks of school. He tends to argue that kids are so-and-so many weeks behind where kid were immediately …

Continue Reading

Hawks And Birdbrains

So I picked up a copy of the International Herald Tribune, which is The New York Times‘s International Newspaper, edited in Paris. Page one is splayed with scenes of the disorder of Baghdad. American soldiers haplessly watching as people ransack every building they can get into. And why the hell not? The city is empty of anyone who has stuff to defend… and all the people left behind, all those who are busy surviving this “operation”, have very little or nothing to lose. So they plunder: they plunder the houses of Saddm’s sons, which I have no problem with. They …

Continue Reading

New President in Korea Knows His Fish…

I just had lunch with a co-worker, Thai, and we watched the (?) inauguration of the new South Korean President, Noh Mu Hyun. He looks pretty young, and fairly happy about his new job. I myself would be terrified, but then maybe his confidence is warranted. I hope so, considering the way things are going with Pyongyang. It seems his last gig was as the minister of fisheries, which is kind of interesting, innit? (That page might be updated soon, I don’t know. But it does contain bunches of lists of who’s in major government positions in every country in …

Continue Reading