Rethinking school size

In our efforts to reduce class sizes in schools, we are missing a more important metric.
Son Adam noted years ago in his school safety findings that there's correlation between school size and school safety. A smaller school is more likely to be a safer school, irrespective of other factors in the community.
Researchers have published a working paper that shows this and other benefits of smaller schools in New York City.
Regionalization has been in use in Massachusetts for nearly 60 years. The goals was to save on administrative costs and make programs available to students who would not have had access in small-town schools. We're now seeing that the benefits of this consolidation weren't quite as grand as we'd hoped.

h/t Freakonomics

Lysistrata in the modern age

The Aristophanes play, Lysistrata, noted how women ended the Peloponnesian War by denying intimacy to their husbands and/or lovers until the war was ended.
Now, however, it's getting really serious. Global Post reports that a group of women in Colombia are refusing to have sex until the roads near their homes are repaired.

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Beyond Patents: SSL Trade Secrets

Patents aren't the only way or even the best way to protect your intellectual property. Read more in my All LED Lighting blog post, Beyond Patents: SSL Trade Secrets