We do want you and readers of your blog to understand that we (and those involved with these alternatives) are not romancing the past or rural life. But the current food crisis certainly supports the alter-globalization’s focus on increased food sovereignty. “Modernization” of agriculture in the southern Philippines, for instance, has been to the benefit of agribusiness corporations, seed/fertilizer/pesticide companies but not to the average farmer.
Dani Rodrik’s weblog: More on alter-globalization.
flip Pride-NBA Edition-Head Coach of Miami Heat Half-Filipino
The youngest Asian-American Head Coach in the NBA is a Filipino!
If you’ve been to the Philippines (like Gilbert Arenas), You know how basketball crazy the Philippines is!
Another reason to cheer for Dwade and the Miami Heat!
ESPN – Monday Bullets – TrueHoop By Henry Abbott
New Heat Coach Erik Spoelstra to Sports Business Radio (subscription): “I am half Filipino. I’m proud of my heritage. I didn’t know when I got hired that I was the first Asian-American head coach in the NBA. So, I took that with a great deal of respect and honor. I think any time that you can be a part of something to possibly break down any kind of barriers or stereotypes, then I’m all for it. And if it’s at all possible for somebody down the line to have a door opened or see an opportunity that might not have been there before, then I think that’s a tremendous opportunity.”
ESPN – Monday Bullets – TrueHoop By Henry Abbott.
Grasping Reality with Both Hands: The Semi-Daily Journal Economist Brad DeLong
Wish more people call BS on all the Crap that circulates on the media in my country. I was riding the bus about 30 minutes ago and the news reports were on the rising price of pork, the philippines meat of choice. And I was none too happy about how the report was done. Have to call GMA7 on how poor they report biz/econ news.
Washington Post Death Spiral Watch (Robert Samuelson Edition)
No wonder Paul Krugman’s ire was aroused: this is worse than I had expected. Much worse:
Robert J. Samuelson: Bankrupt Economics: What we are witnessing, in the broadest sense, is the bankruptcy of modern economics…. The $152 billion “stimulus” program earlier this year was a classic exercise in “demand management.” It didn’t work well mainly because this crisis originated in frightened financial markets…. Unfortunately, we lack experience with stabilizing financial markets, and the issue has been at the fringes of economics…
Do I point out that Ben Bernanke has spent most of his life analyzing the stabilization of financial markets, and that nobody but a blithering idiot would put him “at the fringes of economics”?
Do I point out that we have a lot of experience with stabilizing financial markets–that we dealt with a credit crunch in 1990-92, with exchange rate crises in 1992, 1994-5, 1997-8, 2001-2, plus others that did not become crises, plus a bubble collapse in 2000-2001?
Do I note that economists are now investigating whether the second quarter stimulus program worked better or worse than expected–which means that it worked about as well as people thought beforehand?
Grasping Reality with Both Hands: The Semi-Daily Journal Economist Brad DeLong.
Flip Pride-Ronald Ventura Edition-Hong Kong Correction | Art Market Monitor
Congratulations to kababayan Ronald Ventura.
Bloomberg and Reuters have results from the Asian contemporary sales where only 60% of the lots found buyers. Collectors were picky but not stingy. Some of the works that did sell made prices dramatically above high estimates. The Evening sale of Contemporary Asian art brought in HK$117,117,500 ($15 million) with I Nyoman Masriadi selling for HK$4,820,000 ($615,000) and Wang Yidong beating the high estimate. Indonesians Agus Suwage, Affandi and Handiwirman Saputra and Filipino Ronald Ventura also set artist records. Liu Ye came in toward the top of the estimate range.
Hong Kong Correction | Art Market Monitor.
Dani Rodrik's weblog: Alter-globalization
I haven’t studied this enough to even start forming an opinion.
emphasis mine from the excellent Dani Rodrik’s blog here:
As one might expect, the book takes swipes at the usual suspects: the Washington Consensus, the IFIs, the MNCs, Tom Friedman, and Jeff Sachs. Against the growth-focused and globalization-centered views of these institutions and commentators, Robin and John argue for a localized, community-based, self-sufficient model of development. What many others would celebrate as real development (for example the spread of commercial farming for export in the Philippines) they see as the destruction of local communities. They write: “We stand at a moment marking the end of what may well be the most destructive development era of modern history.”
Dani Rodrik’s weblog: Alter-globalization.
rePost: Top Teachers Ineffective
This hit home because my sister was telling me of the recent moves to abolish the BS Education as a recognized course in the Philippines, meaning that people who want to become teachers of Preschool/Elementary/Highschool must have an Education degree and pass a National Certification Exam known as (LET – Licensure Exam for Teachers).
It seems that recent research has shown that people with degrees in the subjects they will teach are more effective teachers than Education Majors studying those subjects as minor subject in college.
In the Philippines , almost all colleges/universities (Excepting UP) have different classes for Education (insert subject here ) majors and (Subject majors). I was told that Classes for Education Math Majors were for easier than Math majors (except in UP where people take the same classes ).
Getting back to the excerpted blog post below, Are the researches cited by those wanting to abolish the Education degree in the Philippines even valid?? If Top Teachers are ineffective are teachers even effective??
I think the post was a little misleading because :
- What if the reason some teachers do not get a license is not that they are not good, rather they perform well enough to not need a license to signify capability?
- What if the lack of a license acts as a motivator or a threat against employment status that people work or try to educate students as well if not better than licensed colleagues.
I don’t know haven’t made up my mind yet.!
from the Overcoming Bias blog here , a personal must read blog for me.
Top Teachers Ineffective
Yesterday I reported that top med school docs are no healthier for patients. Today I report that even at private schools, teachers who are fully certified do not help students perform any better on math and science tests:Data from the National Education Longitudinal Survey of 1988 (NELS:88) were used to investigate the effect of teacher licensure status on private school students’ 12th grade math and science test scores. This data includes schooling and family background information on students that can be linked to employment information on teachers. We find that, contrary to conventional wisdom, private school students of fully certified 12th grade math and science teachers do not appear to outperform students of private school teachers who are not fully certified.
My urban econ text says:
Studies have consistently shown that graduate coursework (e.g., a Master’s degree) does not affect teacher productivity.
I expect patients are willing to pay more for top med school docs, and parents are willing to pay more for educated and certified teachers. And I expect that this would continue even if patients and parents knew the above results. I suspect most of the demand for teachers, doctors, and many other professionals comes from folks wanting to affiliate with certified-as-impressive people. And merely making patients healthier or making students perform better doesn’t count much toward impressiveness, relative to academia-certified impressiveness.
But folks don’t like to admit this directly; they’d rather pretend they care more than they do about other outputs. Which is why folks don’t want to hear about the above results. The media will oblige them, and so they will continue in their preferred delusions. Bet on it.Added: James Hubbard points us to a related critique of MBA training.
rePost: Filipino teachers continue to fly to US for higher pay
A recession bound USA offers probably more opportunities for enrichment than our small country the Philippines. Sad but there are tens of thousands of teachers from the Philippines without work. I remember a conversation I had with the Filipino Couple we had met on the hotel in Thailand a couple of years back. They had two house helps who graduated as Education Majors , or even the feature in a GMA documentary of a Domestic Helper working in Hong Kong who also graduated with a degree in education, or I could go on and on. The problem is not how many teachers our country has but that the best are leaving to educate the young ones of another country. A country that could at least pay them a higher percentage of what they really are worth. That’s modernday international trade for you. Welcome to the Philippines the No Exporter of Human Resources.
Filipino teachers continue to fly to US for higher pay
By Cynthia Balana
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 17:51:00 08/28/2008
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MANILA, Philippines—More and more competent Filipino teachers are flocking to the United States where they are paid more, according to the Philippine Embassy in Washington.
The embassy, in a statement, said that only last week, 93 Filipino teachers arrived in the US and were welcomed by Philippine Ambassador to Washington Willy Gaa.
The new arrivals attended orientation seminars organized by the embassy where they were also given “practical advice” to ease their transition into a new teaching environment.
The 93 teachers will be teaching special education classes, focusing on Mathematics, Science and English subjects in public schools in Prince George’s County in Maryland.
Gaa said the new recruits followed a group of 115 teachers who were also welcomed by the embassy last July.
The first batch of Filipino teachers moved to Maryland in 2005. As of the fall of 2006, 400 Filipino teachers were already in Baltimore City alone.
rePost: One Visayas
I respect the jest that this comment was said, but I don’t know sometimes some joke must be left unsaid.
from Inquirer here do read the whole thing its a short post:
Past Forward
One Visayas
By Jobers Bersales
Cebu Daily News
First Posted 12:44:00 08/28/2008
Antique Gov. Sally Zaldivar-Perez charmed — or maybe I should say outsmarted — the local media last week when, at the presscon following the initial meeting for what will tantamount to be the largest Visayas-wide culture and arts festival early next year. She was asked if this was nothing more than a political vehicle to propel Gov. Gwen Garcia to a national position in 2010. Her answer was an unexpected “Why not?” quickly followed by “I would be happy if this would evolve into a political movement that would eventually make Governor Garcia the Prime Minister of the Federal State of the Visayas.” This left the media stunned, unable to react while Governor Garcia was left shaking her head in bemused denial.
rePost: Pushing trolleys to make ends meet
Minor quibble, a side line is something you do aside a job/ or side by side a job. When it is your main means of making a living no matter how small or how far from a normal job it is , that is your work and not your sideline.
from Inquirer Blogs here please do read the whole thing:
Pushing trolleys to make ends meet
08/26/08
Posted under Everyday People, Videos
By Izah Morales
INQUIRER.net
MANILA, Philippines – An economic crisis pushes people to engage in sidelines or extra jobs aside from the regular job they are already doing. But for 21-year-old Rodel Rosario of Los Baños, a sideline means the only way of making ends meet.
Pushing a trolley from “Crossing” to the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in Los Baños has become Rodel’s “sideline” for two years now.
“Kung walang trabaho, ito ‘yung sideline ko ang mag-tulak ng trolley[If I have nothing else to do, I push trolleys for sideline], ” he said.
Every morning and afternoon, he is like an ice skater gliding on the train tracks, his feet alternately stepping on the steel (instead of ice) to move the makeshift trolley forward. However, his movement is not as smooth and graceful like an ice skater because his “skating rink” is the railway and his so-called performance is to push the trolley that carries a maximum of five passengers.
A trolley ride costs P25, according to Rosario.
rePost: SC studying expansion of ‘writ of amparo’–Chief Justice
This does not bode well. Judging from the effect of the non decriminalization of squatting in creating a mass of people who are said to be professional squatters (which is just another form of extortion) It’s scary the that the Supreme Court is busying itself with things really beyond its grasp instead of dealing with the hundreds maybe thousands of cases needing a speedy resolution.
from INQUIRER News here please do read the whole thing:
SC studying expansion of ‘writ of amparo’–Chief Justice
By Abigail Kwok, Tetch Torres
INQUIRER.net
First Posted 12:07:00 08/28/2008
MANILA, Philippines – (UPDATE 2) The Supreme Court is studying the expansion of the powers of the writ of amparo to cover not only extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances but also to protect the economic, social, and cultural rights of the poor, Chief Justice Reynato Puno said Thursday.
Puno disclosed this in his speech at the “Kabuhayan, Karapatan, Katarungan,” a forum on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights: Violations and Remedies at the College of Law of the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City.
Puno said that in Latin American countries, the writ of amparo also covered other rights in order to protect the poor.
“We are also studying the possibility of widening the coverage of the writ of amparo by providing protection to economic, social, and cultural rights, including protection against demolitions and bringing the judiciary closer to the poor,” Puno said in Filipino.