3) Keep All the Top Teachers - OpEd by Michelle Rhee, Sunday (Jan 22) - NYT
(toward the end) - In his State of the Union address, President Obama should call for a federal law that would require states to help parents ascertain whether their children are getting the high-quality instruction they need to prepare for college and the work force. Parents who find that their children are not being taught by an effective teacher in a successful school should have the right to vote with their feet by choosing a different school.
Now that 12 of the 50 states have laws that allow school administrators to consider teacher effectiveness in making layoff decisions, one in four children in America stand to benefit. President Obama must make an all-out effort to help the other three.

4) Does College Make You Smarter - OpEd Debate, Mon (Jan 24) - NYT
A recent book titled "Academically Adrift," claims that 45 percent of the nation's undergraduates learn very little in their first two years of college.
The study, by two sociologists, Richard Arum of New York University and Josipa Roksa of the University of Virginia, also found that half of the students surveyed did not take any classes requiring 20 pages of writing in their prior semester, and one-third did not take any courses requiring 40 pages of reading a week.
The research has come in for some criticism. But a larger question is: Have colleges, in their efforts to keep graduation rates high and students happy, dumbed down their curriculums?

5) Google and Mozilla Announce New Privacy Features - Tanzina Vega, Mon (Jan 24) - NYT
[In Firefox] The mechanism, being called a Do Not Track HTTP header, would rely on companies that receive the information to agree not to collect data.... Tracking Protection for Internet Explorer 9 that would rely on lists that users create that indicate which sites they do not want to share information with....Google’s approach relies on a browser extension, or plug-in, called Keep My Opt-Outs that will work with all versions of its Chrome browser. The extension would allow users to permanently opt out of being tracked by online advertisers who already offer opt-out options through self-regulation programs

6) Severe Mental Health Disorders Untreated in Many U.S. Teens - MedicineNet.Com
Researchers examined data from a nationally representative sample of 6,483 adolescents, aged 13 to 18, and found that only 36.2% of those with any mental disorder received treatment.
The disorders most likely to be treated were attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (59.8%) and behavior disorders, such as oppositional defiant disorder and conduct disorder (combined 45.4%), study author Kathleen Ries Merikangas, of the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health, and colleagues found.
On the other hand, only about one in five teens with anxiety, eating or substance abuse disorders received treatment. In addition, Hispanic and black adolescents were less likely than whites to receive treatment for mood and anxiety disorders, even when the disorders caused severe impairment, the researchers noted.

7) Barak Obama’s State of the Union Address - Racing to the Top =?= our Sputnik Moment

Endorsements:

Cammy: The Wave by Susan Casey

Kevin: the friend ID game in facebook when abraod and increased security in facebook

Tim: introducing the Apps Marketplace’s new EDU category

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