Re: ATM: Charitable donations edition

1

Prison reform might be the most underserved, but I don't know how you'd find a good charity to do that.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 11:41 AM
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Southern Poverty Law Center is one to consider on both civil rights and kids in juvenile and adult prisons.


Posted by: Sir Kraab | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 11:50 AM
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Doctors Without Boarders is a good charity for helping the homeless rent rooms from medical workers with too much space.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 11:53 AM
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Giving What We Can has identified neglected tropic diseases as the most cost effective use of charity dollars. These are mostly parasitic worms that disable children. The idea is to get preventative measures to school kids in order to increase their lifetime well-being and productivity. Basically you are giving a small boost to a large number of very needy people.

The link above recommends this charity based out of Imperial College, London for NTDs. I remember last time I was clicking around on this issue, I found a group that distributed preventative treatment for parasitic worms to schools in India and Kenya. I can't find that stuff now, and I have to get back to work.

(Hat tip to fellow consequentialist ethicist Neil the Ethical Warewolf for hipping me to this work.)


Posted by: rob helpy-chalk | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 11:54 AM
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4: Givewell has also done some similar work. My entirely subjective and superficial impression is that both are good organizations with thoughtful people. Givewell seems slightly more skeptical and data-driven, and consequently has fewer and less speculative recommendations. (I don't know whether that's good or bad.)


Posted by: Benquo | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 11:57 AM
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I don't know whether to be sad that according to Givewell I can no longer save a life (on average) for as little as $1,000, or happy that the funding gap has been closed for VillageReach. Probably the latter.


Posted by: Benquo | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 11:59 AM
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I have a positive impression of The Sentencing Project, but I don't really know how effective it is. This might be an area that Witt knows something about.


Posted by: Sir Kraab | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 11:59 AM
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Let me second SPLC, who've done a good job of staying the course and not meeting the hate speech from folks like FoxNews halfway.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 12:08 PM
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This reminds me, one of my frustrations in the past when I've decided, "oh I'll make a lump sum donation to this charity which has good online reviews of their effectiveness" is that the amount of follow-up mail I end up getting,

So my thought, at the moment, is to see if there's an interface which makes it easy to set up low dollar-value monthly contributions in the hope of minimizing mailings.

So, two questions (1) does anybody know of a good Act Blue group like the one that NtEW set up four years ago which selects 4-8 candidates that can use the money. (2) Is there any site like Act Blue which would allow me to set up monthly donations to a variety of non-political charities?


Posted by: NickS | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 12:10 PM
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Follow-up to (9) it looks like GiveWell can do what I want (though tied to Google checkout which is fine but it would be nice to have more options)


Posted by: NickS | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 12:12 PM
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set up low dollar-value monthly contributions in the hope of minimizing mailings

That seems very unlikely to work. (By which I mean: you're either going to be on their mailing lists or not. Donating will put you on it.)

It sounds like what you really want is a list of good charities that have an option to opt-out of mailing lists (and that actually respects those opt-outs).


Posted by: urple | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 12:14 PM
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I've ceased my membership to the ACLU and have stopped donating to them after many many years of being a card-carrying etc., because of the recent anti-union work that they have been doing in my state. (Which I understand is funded at least in part by money gathered nationally and internationally.)

California Prison Focus does prisoners' rights work in California, but unfortunately I don't know anything about how donated funds are distributed and to what use your money would be put.


Posted by: gloria arroyo | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 12:16 PM
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a list of good charities that have an option to opt-out of mailing lists (and that actually respects those opt-outs).

I'd like to give to political campaigns as well and figuring out which campaigns will respect opt-out sounds like a hassle.

Givewell does like not network for good which supports anonymous donations, but does take a percentage (I think 4%) as a processing fee.


Posted by: NickS | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 12:18 PM
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"like not" should have been "link". Not sure how I did that.


Posted by: NickS | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 12:18 PM
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I've ceased my membership to the ACLU and have stopped donating to them after many many years of being a card-carrying etc., because of the recent anti-union work that they have been doing in my state.

More details? They seem to be at odds with unions in this case, but for contingent rather than ideological reasons.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 12:21 PM
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I've donated to SPLC in previous years, and probably will this year too.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 12:24 PM
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Minivet: Prison Law Office.they do fantastic work of major significance, and, because they are deemed controversial, can't get much from traditional funding sources (eg, law forms won't donate to them or give them pro bono help, etc.).


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 12:31 PM
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Minivet: Prison Law Office.they do fantastic work of major significance, and, because they are deemed controversial, can't get much from traditional funding sources (eg, law forms won't donate to them or give them pro bono help, etc.).


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 12:31 PM
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Minivet: Prison Law Office.they do fantastic work of major significance, and, because they are deemed controversial, can't get much from traditional funding sources (eg, law forms won't donate to them or give them pro bono help, etc.).


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 12:31 PM
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Minivet: Prison Law Office.they do fantastic work of major significance, and, because they are deemed controversial, can't get much from traditional funding sources (eg, law forms won't donate to them or give them pro bono help, etc.).


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 12:32 PM
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Minivet: Prison Law Office.they do fantastic work of major significance, and, because they are deemed controversial, can't get much from traditional funding sources (eg, law forms won't donate to them or give them pro bono help, etc.).


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 12:32 PM
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I thought SPLC had the reputation of being something of a fundraising scam (see e.g. the third item down here . Their endowment is crazy big (over $200 million now) and they seem to provide little or nothing in the way of direct services while raising oodles of money.

Some effective but insider-y organizations I know of --

the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities -- great on budget issues and protecting money for the poor, the most effective think tank on this

The Leadership Council on Civil and Human Rights -- does budget issues and also human rights, immigrant rights, prison issues, coordinates other groups...founded way back when by the original civil rights guys like A Phillip Randolph etc.

then there are lots of smaller groups, National Employment Law Project, National Women's Law Center, etc.


Posted by: PGD | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 12:33 PM
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All five of my multiple personalities agree! Doesn't happen often.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 12:33 PM
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the recent anti-union work that they have been doing in my state

First I've heard of this story about the ACLU. What happened?


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 12:49 PM
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Also, western center on law and poverty. Both advocacy work and lobbying. Like PLC, California specific, but fuck a bunch of the federal level; if you want to focus on provision of services to the poor and prisons, the states are where it's at.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 12:50 PM
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Plc should be prison law office.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 12:51 PM
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7 -- I think the absolute world of my cousin Malcolm (who was long involved in TSP) and even though he's moved to other things (ie Chicago), I've no doubt it's still a good organization.

Googling to see where he is now, here's a handy progress report he published last month: http://www.thecrimereport.org/news/inside-criminal-justice/2012-01-getting-prison-numbers-downfor-good Lots of progress yet to be made.


Posted by: CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 12:58 PM
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Great idea. For the homeless, act locally. Research/visit/even volunteer a little with local centers and service providers and get a feel for what they do. Then donate accordingly. In my area, some centers are run by churches, but demand (sigh) is so great that there are several "independent" shelters, a couple of which do great things with almost no resources for some very needy people.


Posted by: bill | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 12:58 PM
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24. Basically what Minivet says above, but it's not quite correct that their anti-union work was merely situational rather than ideological -- they specifically sought out and obtained the school district's agreement to abrogate its mou with the union, which unsurprisingly they were only too happy to do. And then went after the union for a truly staggering amount of attorneys' fees, basically enough to bankrupt the union. Notably they went after the union for the fees, rather than the district or the state, which were the nominal defendants in the litigation.

25. west rn c n t r do some good work, but a couple of years ago they laid off most of their attorneys and as I understand it they're now basically a clearinghouse for pro bono work, which, ugh.


Posted by: gloria arroyo | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 1:02 PM
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You know what would be awesome? A service that allowed you to donate either monthly or one time anonymously, like a firewall or whatever. Set up a donation schedule of a defined amount, with x% going to this group, and y% to that one, and z gets another chunk. They could take the aggregate dollars apportioned to each group by all their members and donate as a lump sum. Kind of a dick move in some ways, but god do I hate knowing exactly how much of my donations go into asking me for more money.


Posted by: Chopper | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 1:16 PM
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OK, based on this it looks like they went all in with the education-reform crowd. Is their release here at least correct, though, in that there would have otherwise been ridiculously disproportionate layoffs? We could have a clash of values here to some extent - though it makes me suspicious that their release nowhere mentions seniority, which seems to have been the key issue.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 1:37 PM
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This is the neglected tropical disease charity I was thinking of.


Posted by: rob helpy-chalk | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 1:41 PM
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31: I'd believe the ridiculously disproportionate layoffs, but surely if layoffs are a possibility, there shouldn't be any schools staffed solely with very junior teachers. That may actually be a contract problem, admittedly -- I think a lot of teachers' contracts allow seniority to be a factor in which teachers are placed in which schools.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 1:51 PM
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I give all of my money to the sun, for it provides light and heat to us all.


Posted by: Sifu Tweety | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 1:58 PM
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If you're looking for groups to donate to, I feel obligated to recommend Democracy for America as a political advocacy group and PAC, but honestly that's just because I know people who work there. I don't have data to point to about percentage of donations spent on non-administrative stuff or whatever.

The charity I donate to is the ACLU, although I plan to find out more about that anti-union thing linked upthread. I've got a recurring donation set up. I throw lots of mail away unopened; they already get quite a bit of money from me and should leave well enough alone.

I seriously considered cancelling my donations for a while due to the annoyance of the mail and calls, but that sounds petty and, after all, a good cause is a good cause even if they're sometimes annoying. I'd definitely go for the idea in 30 though.


Posted by: Cyrus | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 1:59 PM
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I seriously considered cancelling my donations for a while due to the annoyance of the mail and calls

This will not make them stop! You have to ask to be removed from their mailing/call list. Which, again, I don't know for sure, but I think is independant from whether or not you're giving money to them. (You'll automatically be added if you give money, but you may be able to ask to be removed without ceasing to give money.) But just stopping giving money will definitely not get your name off the list.


Posted by: urple | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 2:01 PM
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I just wish the SPLC would change its name to the "American Bigotry Monitoring Group" or something vaguely related to what they do nowadays.


Posted by: Cryptic ned | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 2:10 PM
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38

I have an open, and very slowly building, file on prison reform after I started reading "In This Place, Not Of It: Narratives from Women's Prisons," A Voices of Witness oral history project edited by Ayelet Waldman and Robin Levi.

This list of resources from Women and Prison: A Site for Resistance is where a lot of the links I'm looking for are from.

Good luck!


Posted by: Saheli | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 2:23 PM
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That was weird. Here's the link again. http://womenandprison.org/resources/


Posted by: Saheli | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 2:26 PM
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A service that allowed you to donate either monthly or one time anonymously,

I'd definitely go for the idea in 30 though.

It does look like Network For Good does this (as I mentioned in 13). It looks like the percentage deducted for processing fees is actually 4.75% which seems steep but isn't actually that much if it encourages people to give money that they wouldn't otherwise give (and, yes, I'm weighing these factors at this very moment).

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I'm getting sick, I hate being sick.

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Posted by: NickS | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 2:31 PM
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OTOH, the ACLU does call collective bargaining as a critical right, and in Minnesota they're combating the right-to-work amendment. They seem like an ally to labor all put together (Kraab?).


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 2:38 PM
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People were wondering about the likely viability of the health insurance co-ops under health reform - here's a list of the first batch of co-ops HHS has awarded startup grants to, if it helps.

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Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 2:49 PM
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Our local ACLU chapter is pretty independent from the national organization, in more than one way of which I am not a fan, but probably shouldn't comment more on. In any event, if you want to help poor people advocacy or prisoners, I would strongly endorse donating to charities that focus on that, which tend to lack some of the funding that goes to the ACLU.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 2:50 PM
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I've never donated to them, but I'd look into the Drug Policy Alliance. I get a lot of e-mail from them but no paper stuff. Soros has given them a bunch of money.


Posted by: Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 3:19 PM
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My understanding is that the Southern Poverty Law Center's primary business is distributing junk mail. Stephen Bright (top anti-death penalty lawyer, Pres. of Southern Center for Human Rights, Yale Law School Prof) takes them down here: http://www.secondclassjustice.com/?p=300

In general, I think Givewell gives great advice and I think that your money can go much farther in poor countries than it can in the U.S.

Prison Legal Services has a fantastic reputation for representing prisoners in Massachusetts prisons and jails (http://www.mcls.net/). I know multiple people who have worked there. They focus on guard brutality, physical and mental health care, and segregation.

The Prison Policy Initiative is working on prison-based gerrymandering (http://www.prisonpolicy.org/).

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities does fantastic research/advocacy work on preserving the social safety net in DC.


Posted by: statatheleft | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 3:40 PM
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I give primarily to Liberty Hill, whose slogan "Change not Charity" says it all (well, says it all except "specific to L.A.") and to the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, which does research driven pro-labor policy work with local governments--they were one of the big promulgators of living wage laws, e.g. I also gave a chunk of money to the Center for the Working Poor, which is a Catholic Worker-affiliated house run by a friend of mine that does support for workers fired on union organizing drives.

Also ACLU (national and local, despite the school lawsuit), PP, Lambda Legal, Partners in Health. I can be a soft touch on the phone.


Posted by: k-sky | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 4:04 PM
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31: the LA Weekly is a hateful rag. Part of the sunbelt libertarianism New Times acquisition of the old Village Voice properties. God I miss having a local paper whose politics were directed by Harold Meyerson.


Posted by: k-sky | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 4:11 PM
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I give money to the Heifer Project, but that is more for longstanding sentimental attachment (filling the little plastic arks with change for Sunday school, e.g.) than any desire to maximize the efficiency of this or the effectiveness of that.


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 4:13 PM
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So, I did a quick search and it seems no one has mentioned Just Detention International, which is an anti-prison rape activist group. People who get raped in prisons turn into rapists. Also, it is fucked up and wrong. Give them your money.


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 4:41 PM
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I'm pro-labor, but seniority rules seem to be far more damaging than helpful to anybody.


Posted by: F | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 4:47 PM
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49: They used to be called "Stop Prison Rape." I consulted with them informally when they were changing their name. Too many people told them that having "rape" in the organization's name was a turnoff. Also, people were failing to ask them for help because they didn't define what had happened to them as rape, or it was in the detention system but not in a prison.


Posted by: k-sky | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 5:05 PM
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Not everything in 45.1.link hits home - just because going after white supremacists is popular doesn't mean it's unnecessary - but their having a $220m endowment seems like enough reason by itself to lay off the giving, and that Ed Carnes thing is a laptops-at-Apple moment for me.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 5:11 PM
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By "consulted informally" I mean that a friend of one of the board members sent me an email saying "you're clever, come up with a name" and then I didn't think of anything very good.

I realize that a good number of my comments here amount to me saying "I met that person you're talking about." Sort of name-picking-up rather than name-dropping. Which reminds me that the guy who wrote the Target NYTM article from the other thread was my editor at the college newspaper and used to berate me for always wanting to write my column about the unions.


Posted by: k-sky | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 5:21 PM
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53: I named the senior center in my hometown and got two free movie passes for it. So, pretty much the same thing.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 5:37 PM
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22 45

I also have never heard anything good about Morris Dees and the SPLC.


Posted by: James B. Shearer | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 6:31 PM
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54: Can it be you've never mentioned the shamrock here, or did I just miss it?


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 6:31 PM
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I don't know, they were pretty good in Purple Rain.


Posted by: k-sky | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 6:34 PM
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56: It was called the Golden Age (mumble). I think several of us tied and got movie tickets.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 6:37 PM
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33

I'd believe the ridiculously disproportionate layoffs, but surely if layoffs are a possibility, there shouldn't be any schools staffed solely with very junior teachers. That may actually be a contract problem, admittedly -- I think a lot of teachers' contracts allow seniority to be a factor in which teachers are placed in which schools.

There is a tendency for the undesirable teachers to end up at the undesirable schools which may be a problem independent of layoffs. But I don't see any reason to believe a bunch of layoffs at one school would have a seriously adverse effect on the kids. So what if your new teacher is new to the school?

This is just scapegoating the teacher's union.


Posted by: James B. Shearer | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 6:38 PM
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58: I saw that, but I was talking about the shamrock.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 6:48 PM
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Hmm, on the SPLC fund-raising stuff. The mere fact that they have a decent-sized endowment is pretty bogus though--I should be concerned that a civil rights organization has an endowment worth less than 1% of Harvard's?


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 6:57 PM
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59: Okay, you're just messing with us now.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 7:09 PM
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47: I have mixed feelings about Partners in Health. They do great work in Haiti, but they expect people to be saints and really overwork them.


Posted by: Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 7:17 PM
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61

Hmm, on the SPLC fund-raising stuff. The mere fact that they have a decent-sized endowment is pretty bogus though--I should be concerned that a civil rights organization has an endowment worth less than 1% of Harvard's?

If you want your donated money to do something other than increasing their already large endowment, yes.


Posted by: James B. Shearer | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 7:44 PM
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I assume the charitable thread is where we atone for being hateful uncharitable in the past.

So, since it's after 8:00 in the morning and I realize that I never apologized specifically to L. for lashing out like a dick in response to his/her comment during hintgate, let me so apologize.
|>


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 8:02 PM
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lashing out like a dick

* thwack! *


Posted by: Sifu Tweety | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 8:04 PM
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66: That was supposed to be the cryptic part, you fucking asswipe. Thanks for making that explicit.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 8:05 PM
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Thanks for making that explicit.

Just like in a movie!


Posted by: Sifu Tweety | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 8:06 PM
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lashing out like a dick

another runner in the night.


Posted by: k-sky | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 8:08 PM
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I like SOIL, for turning a bad feedback cycle into a good one. Also, I've met the founder, and thought she was impressive.


Posted by: clew | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 8:10 PM
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In addition to Prison Law Office, look into Prison Legal News. It's a publication, not a law office, but they

It's headed by a former prison inmate, and has a staff of about six, but its' a huge force multiplier in prison litigation for basically two reasons:

1. Most prison litigation is pro se. Prison Legal News is the best source of up-to-date legal information for incarcerated pro se litigants. This is really important: To the extent that 8th Amendment prison litigation (classic conditions of confinement stuff) can succeed post-PLRA, it depends on remarkably knowledgeable pro se litigants. Prisoners need to know about administrative exhaustion, etc. Prison Legal News gives pro se litigants the tools they need to clear the procedural bars of the PLRA.

2. Because the PLRA has made 8th Amendment prison litigation very difficult, prisoners' rights lawyers need to find alternative ways of targeting conditions of confinement. (So, for instance, some prisoners' rights litigators are starting to work with public defenders to bring 6th Amendment claims seeking greater attorney-client privacy in prison visitation areas, which can sometimes be used to reduce overcrowding in general.) Prison Legal News does a lot of its own litigation via a similar route, using the 1st Amendment: PLN distributes its newsletter in prisons across the country, waits for some warden somewhere to censor their newsletter, and then brings a successful 1st Amendment claim that gets the prison under an injunction. And that gives PLN leverage over that facility in other areas, outside the 1st Amendment context.


Posted by: L.M. | Link to this comment | 02-21-12 11:24 PM
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Wes Jackson and The Land Institute of Salinas KS. are starting to see some promising early results in their decades-long research project to develop a new, drought-resistant perennial agricultural crop regime. (Most current grain and legume cultivars are annuals, which die after harvest and must be plowed under and replanted for every crop). If they achieve their goals (and I think they will), a farmer could establish a crop field and tend and harvest it for many years, maybe decades, perhaps "indefinitely", without the need to plow and replant between crops. The new cultivars are being developed via traditional cross-breeding; no GMO techniques are employed.

Such a regime would be the biggest change in large-scale human land use patterns since the bronze age, and would go far toward making it possible for billions of humans to live sustainably. A perennial crop will require far less energy/carbon input (in the form of diesel for cultivation, fertilizer, and pesticides) and will greatly reduce topsoil loss and the degradation of stream waters with silt and agricultural chemicals. Perhaps just as important, it reduces the capital inputs for farming, which will help farmers succeed economically without having to borrow against their future crop to purchase the fuel and chemicals "required" to achieve a yield that lets them pay back their borrowed funds. Perennial crops would deleverage agriculture.

So it's a big ecological win, and will help free farmers from the evil chemical/GMO clutches of Monsanto, Cargill, and ADM.

You can find The Land Institute here :
http://www.landinstitute.org/
I hope some of you will drop a few dollars on them; they're a small-budget operation, and even a small contribution makes a difference.

I have no connection to TLI except a deep respect for their goals and their research program


Posted by: joel hanes | Link to this comment | 02-22-12 2:28 AM
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62

Okay, you're just messing with us now.

Well I can understand why people are annoyed with the ACLU. The case has nothing to do with civil liberties (in the traditional freedom from government oppression sense). There seems no reason to believe the ACLU has any particular expertise in education. The claims of harm are dubious and seem just a pretext to junk the senority system, especially since much less drastic remedies (like a cap on layoffs at any particular school) existed. Should the district (in collusion with the ACLU) be able to abrogate any provision of the contract just by coming up with some imaginative argument that it might hurt some kid somewhere.


Posted by: James B. Shearer | Link to this comment | 02-22-12 5:42 AM
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72

... Perhaps just as important, it reduces the capital inputs for farming, which will help farmers succeed economically without having to borrow against their future crop to purchase the fuel and chemicals "required" to achieve a yield that lets them pay back their borrowed funds. Perennial crops would deleverage agriculture.

This seems unikely. You still have the cost of the land and any expense to originally establish the perennial crops. Orchards and vineyards are perennial but if anything more capital intensive because you have capital tied up in the trees or vines as well as in the land.

In any case whenever people only get paid once a year many of them will end needing advances.


Posted by: James B. Shearer | Link to this comment | 02-22-12 5:49 AM
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73: Oh, I think you're right, it just struck me funny.

74: I think the hope is perennial crops that bear in the first year, or at least soon: as far as I can tell, orchards and vineyards are capital intensive because you have to invest decades before your first harvest.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 02-22-12 5:54 AM
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Reprieve is another good one on the civil liberties side (not a US group, though a lot of their work is done in the US).

I've always been fond of demining charities like the Mines Advisory Group and the Halo Trust.

Best bang for the buck in terms of human suffering alleviated is probably childhood vaccination efforts - GAVI or similar.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 02-22-12 6:19 AM
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75

... orchards and vineyards are capital intensive because you have to invest decades before your first harvest

More like 3 years for vineyards. But anything that makes farming more profitable will just make the land more expensive.


Posted by: James B. Shearer | Link to this comment | 02-22-12 6:20 AM
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I'm pro-labor, but seniority rules seem to be far more damaging than helpful to anybody.

Sure, if you totally ignore that experience is a huge factor in teacher effectiveness and that being put back in the job market in your 50's usually means you're fucked.


Posted by: gswift | Link to this comment | 02-22-12 7:00 AM
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78

Sure, if you totally ignore that experience is a huge factor in teacher effectiveness ...

Actually studies have shown the first couple of years help a bit but not much after that. Teacher pay scales don't have a lot to do with merit so absent contract provisions to the contrary districts have a big incentive to fire the highest paid teachers first.


Posted by: James B. Shearer | Link to this comment | 02-22-12 7:12 AM
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Actually studies have shown the first couple of years help a bit but not much after that.

I don't know what studies those are but anyone in the profession will tell you it's more than a couple. I could see it leveling off after five or six but it's definitely more than two.


Posted by: gswift | Link to this comment | 02-22-12 7:20 AM
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80: I want to say the book I just read thought 8 was the right number, but it might be more like 6. It's The Flat World and Education and I thought it was a very good overview of a lot that's going on here and abroad.

I'd really like to talk about what's going to happen to the states that were just exempted from NCLB, which includes mine, but I don't know enough about it yet to feel much except relief and hope.


Posted by: Thorn | Link to this comment | 02-22-12 7:33 AM
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Doesn't fit tidily into any of Minivet's categories, but I gave my biggest chunk of money last year to Planned Parenthood.


Posted by: Yawnoc | Link to this comment | 02-22-12 7:52 AM
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The book in 81.1 does not inspire confidence with its seemingly Thomas Friedman-inspired title.


Posted by: Sifu Tweety | Link to this comment | 02-22-12 7:57 AM
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80: That sounds right to me. My first year was incompetent, panicky flailing; my second year I was getting a sense of how a competent teacher would be doing things, but I mostly wasn't managing to do them right. I never taught a third year, but it felt as if I had at least a couple more years of a steep learning curve before I was reasonably competent.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 02-22-12 7:59 AM
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72 et seq.

I was prepared to be skeptical, because I automatically equated "perennials" with "orchards or vineyards" (as did a few others, apparently). It turns out they are trying to develop perennial cereal grasses, which seems like a genuinely worthwhile endeavor to me, not so much for reducing the capital intensity of agriculture, but for protecting against volatility of fossil fuel prices and for reducing the direct labor required for tillage. I can also imagine some soil conservation and environmental benefits (avoiding the trade-off between topsoil loss from tillage and heavy herbicide runoff from no-till methods).

That said, I do wonder whether their concept of "polyculture" is an adequate substitute for true crop rotation.


Posted by: knecht ruprecht | Link to this comment | 02-22-12 8:03 AM
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83: I was horrified by that myself, but luckily she never relies on him and was just trying to cash in on a sad buzzword, I think. I put it back on the library shelf three times because of the title, but eventually got it and I'm glad enough that I read it, though I'm sure there are better books out there.


Posted by: Thorn | Link to this comment | 02-22-12 8:26 AM
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The original title was Education Policymakers of Gor.


Posted by: | Link to this comment | 02-22-12 9:01 AM
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64: If you want your donated money to do something other than increasing their already large endowment, yes.

I'll pretend you aren't just being an "already large endowment" and assume that this says that you might want to carefully look at the relative proportions of income that go towards increasing the endowment, providing services and engaging in more fundraising. And the answer to that would be, "Yes, yes you would". And in fact, this thread has provided some good alternatives that I will certainly consider as alternatives to SPLC.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 02-22-12 11:06 AM
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Education Policymakers of Gor

I'm imagining a bunch of education policymakers huddling terrified in underground caves, like primitive Christians. Either that, or feasting on giant legs of lamb with their policy white papers in dockets on the woman-desks in front of them.


Posted by: Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 02-22-12 11:54 AM
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78, 80, 84

From experience I would say 3 years, with possibly minor improvement in the fourth year. Anything after 4 is so small as to be unimportant. That's the point at which excellent teachers can innovate, and lazy teachers can rest on their laurels.


Posted by: F | Link to this comment | 02-22-12 12:24 PM
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Just from watching my wife, I'm not sure that 90 is completely accurate. Mrs. Chopper seems to have gone through multiple spurts of professional development, one around the time she went for her Master's, a second time when she switched schools, a third time when she switched to working ESL/remedial, etc. Perhaps the needed factor for continued growth is repeatedly encountering new challenges rather than staying in the same classroom year after year.


Posted by: Chopper | Link to this comment | 02-22-12 3:31 PM
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I'm pro-labor, but seniority rules seem to be far more damaging than helpful to anybody.

deep sigh...



Posted by: PGD | Link to this comment | 02-22-12 3:43 PM
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Didn't Atul Gawande write a nice article about getting coached, with a big focus on coaching teachers specifically? Seems like anyone who went out of her way to get coached and address critiques would see improvement, even after a few years of developing skills.


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 02-22-12 3:50 PM
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93

Didn't Atul Gawande write a nice article about getting coached, with a big focus on coaching teachers specifically? Seems like anyone who went out of her way to get coached and address critiques would see improvement, even after a few years of developing skills.

Problem seems to be no one knows what makes a teacher effective making coaching, training, etc. of dubious utility.


Posted by: James B. Shearer | Link to this comment | 02-22-12 6:08 PM
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94: I thought it was well understood that at (a) having a clearly thought out and realistic curriculum and (b) learning to pay attention to what's going on in the class/with the students and catch problems early were the two major learnable teaching skills.

Is that wrong?

I've also read some anecdotal evidence (those of you who are or read stuff by teachers - have you found counterexamples?) that a fair amount of conventional wisdom is justified, and there really are things to learn.

There's a lot of data on teaching methods that students enjoy and learn from. I had some of these methods...inflicted...on me during my school days, and I had no intention of abusing my own students in the same way. And when I tried the sorts of really creative stuff I would have loved as a student...it fell completely flat. What ended up working? Something pretty close to the teaching methods I'd hated as a kid. Oh. Well. Now I know why people use them so much. And here I'd gone through life thinking my teachers were just inexplicably bad at what they did, never figuring out that I was just the odd outlier who couldn't be reached by this sort of stuff.

Posted by: Benquo | Link to this comment | 02-22-12 6:15 PM
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Although doubtless there are plenty of good teachers who would be bad at coaching and not know which of the many things they do are actually responsible for good results.


Posted by: Benquo | Link to this comment | 02-22-12 6:16 PM
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95

Fascinating link. I had nearly the same experience. But learning those things doesn't take too long.


Posted by: F | Link to this comment | 02-22-12 7:15 PM
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Perhaps the needed factor for continued growth is repeatedly encountering new challenges rather than staying in the same classroom year after year.

Definitely this.


Posted by: F | Link to this comment | 02-22-12 7:17 PM
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95

94: I thought it was well understood that at (a) having a clearly thought out and realistic curriculum and (b) learning to pay attention to what's going on in the class/with the students and catch problems early were the two major learnable teaching skills.

Is that wrong?

I think so. If you read the papers of the people pushing value added testing (for example this one) they seem to assume that teaching effectiveness is some mysterious innate quality that can not be taught and which can only be measured by testing students before and after they are taught by a particular teacher.

I don't trust these people myself (although the paper cited above had some interesting aspects) but if it was well understood that they are wrong their ideas wouldn't currently dominate thinking about education.


Posted by: James B. Shearer | Link to this comment | 02-22-12 7:44 PM
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99: Hmm. My (superficial) impression had been that there was substantial evidence that rigidly prescribed lesson plans tended to increase measured performance, but that teachers (understandably) hated it, and it doesn't help the best teachers get better.


Posted by: Benquo | Link to this comment | 02-22-12 11:11 PM
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93: Being criticized is an acquired taste. Most people hate it and avoid it.


Posted by: Benquo | Link to this comment | 02-22-12 11:11 PM
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100

Hmm. My (superficial) impression had been that there was substantial evidence that rigidly prescribed lesson plans tended to increase measured performance, but that teachers (understandably) hated it, and it doesn't help the best teachers get better.

If this is just saying that teaching specifically to the test helps test performance that wouldn't be surprising. But there would still be considerable room to doubt that this is a good idea.


Posted by: James B. Shearer | Link to this comment | 02-22-12 11:28 PM
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Also most criticism is pretty much useless. Speaking from experience in an environment where almost all teaching is done through critiques, almost nothing gets transmitted.


Posted by: Keir | Link to this comment | 02-22-12 11:28 PM
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