Links 3/22/11

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Michelle Rhee photo by David Deal, from Atlantic Monthly To my surprise, one of the most-read posts on this mostly-science blog is "Are Teachers Profesionals of Public-Service Workers?", which looked at a NY Times Magazine piece on school reforms by Paul Tough. Tough now has Now there is a piece…
I've often wondered why there wasn't more focused discussion on a great paradox in the way public-school teacher contracts are structured in this country. On one hand teachers seek to be considered as professionals; on the other, they seek (and generally get) union contracts that structure their…
A balmy....27 degrees. At least the link supply isn't frozen. Science: Reviving 100-year-old resting spores of diatoms Electric Vehicles: Myths vs. Reality Nobel Prize-winning chemist Kary Mullis offers a radical new way to treat infectious diseases as the effectiveness of our current antibiotics…
Last month I drew notice to an Atlantic story about (and an interview with) Michelle Rhee, the Washington, D.C., school chancellor who is aggressively pressing reforms in that district, most notably an effort to replace tenured teacher tracks with a system emphasizing higher salaries but more…