All Things Considered

Expelling Suspension from School Policy

/ Matthew Clemente / Leave a comment

Expelling Suspension from School Policy

Recently, NPR’s All Things Considered ran a story about a California school district that no longer suspends trouble students from school.  Here is a description of the story: 

The effectiveness of school suspensions is up for debate. California is the most recent battleground, but a pattern of uneven application and negative outcomes is apparent across the country.

California students were suspended more than 700,000 times over the 2011-2012 school year,according to state data. One school district decided it was getting ridiculous. In May, the board for the Los Angeles Unified School District passed a new resolution to ban the use of suspensions to punish students for “willful defiance.”

Those offenses include: bringing a cellphone to school, public displays of affection, truancy or repeated tardiness. They accounted for nearly half of all suspensions issued in California last year.

But there’s mounting research that says that out-of-school suspensions put students on the fast track to falling behind, dropping out, and going to jail. Moreover, some groups are disproportionately suspended more than others. . . . 

“In Guantanamo, Have We Created Something We Can’t Close?”

/ Matthew Clemente / Leave a comment

“In Guantanamo, Have We Created Something We Can’t Close?”

That was the title of a recent story on NPR’s All Things Considered.  Here is how the story began: 

The crisis at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp keeps growing in size and intensity. According to the military’s own count, 100 of the 166 men held in the prison there are now on hunger strike, and the 27 most in danger of dying are being force-fed.

Last month, guards had to forcibly subdue a camp where even the most cooperative detainees are held.

The hunger strike was triggered by a February search of inmates’ Qurans, though the details are hotly disputed. What’s remarkable, however, is that everyone — including detainees, lawyers and the military — agrees that the real reason for the unrest is simply the frustration that the camp has stayed open so long.

More On Beer Monopoly

/ Matthew Clemente / 2 Comments

More On Beer Monopoly

Not Brewopoly, the beloved family board game, an actual monopoly.  As was noted in the inaugural post of the SLACE Archive, Anheuser-Busch InBev is attempting to purchase another beer conglomerate–Grupo Modelo.  That Planet Money story used the attempted purchase as a predicate for discussing the economic effects of monopolies.  This story, on All Things Considered (11:30 minutes), discusses the economic battle between big beer and craft brewers and how many of the hip craft beers you think you are drinking are really owned by Anheuser-Busch InBev.

Special thanks to Jack Foster for bringing this story to my attention.