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Elizabeth Merritt

How Germany Changed Its Mind, and Gave Benin Bronzes Back to Nigeria - The New York Times - 2 views

www.nytimes.com/...n-bronzes-nigeria-germany.html

repatriation voluntary repatriation benin germany

shared by Elizabeth Merritt on 21 Dec 22 - No Cached
  • by a changing social consensus about the ethics of holding on to such items, and further strengthened by a backlash against Germany’s flagship cultural project: the Humboldt Forum,
  • Germany’s approach also contrasts with those of the United States and British governments, which have left decisions up to individual institutions
  • some of the most important museums in England cannot return their Benin Bronzes, even if they wanted to, without a change in the law. That includes the British Museum, which owns about 900 of the artifacts, arguably the world’s finest collection.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • a key turning point there occurred in 2019, amid growing public pressure.
  • a rising awareness in Germany of its own colonial crimes — including the killing of tens of thousands of Nama and Herero people in what is now Namibia. The atrocity, carried out between 1904 and 1908, is widely seen as the first genocide of the 20th century.
  • Until then, the main vehicle for discussing the return of the Benin Bronzes had been the Benin Dialogue Group, a network founded in 2010 that brought together Nigerian representatives and figures from European museums with bronzes in their collections. The group, however, favored loans over transfers of ownership.
  • The agreement stipulated that all objects that had been obtained “unethically” would be liable for return and directed institutions to facilitate claims by producing publicly available inventories.
  • obstacles remained on the Nigerian side. Although the country had requested the return of the bronzes since the 1970s, there was conflict over who would take ownership of the artifacts. Both the Nigerian government and the oba of Benin, whose family ruled the historical Kingdom of Benin from which they were looted, claimed that they owned the items. Godwin Obaseki, the governor of Edo State, where Benin City is, said he acted as a facilitator to resolve the dispute.
  • Ultimately, he said, the oba’s family, Nigeria’s museum commission and the government of Edo State agreed to join a trust together, with independent directors that oversee the construction and operation of the new museum.
  • the agreement allows for 168 pieces chosen by Nigeria’s museum commission to remain in Germany “so that Benin’s art can be shown to the world.” The approximately 350 other bronzes that were part of the Berlin museum collections will be transported to Nigeria once the pavilion is completed.
  • Edo Museum of West African Art
  • It remains unclear who will pay for the shipment and insurance of the remaining items in Germany, and he noted that the bronzes’ storage and upkeep will come at a considerable cost, including electrical bills for climate control.
  • Elizabeth Merritt on 21 Dec 22
     
    The foreign minister's trip is the culmination of a yearslong process that upended Germany's approach to handling cultural items unjustly obtained during the colonial period. It is also part of a pioneering model for large-scale restitution, in which ownership is swapped before any artifacts change hands. Crucially, that approach allows for items to be restituted even if the country of origin does not yet have the facilities to store and exhibit them.
Ariane Karakalos

Four Ways to Keep the Museum Experience Relevant | Fast Company - 0 views

www.fastcompany.com/...the-museum-experience-relevant

CAMLF museums crowdsourcing community involvment

shared by Ariane Karakalos on 09 Apr 12 - Cached
  • The event was successful from both historical and new metrics. Attendance surpassed projections and 1,700 new memberships were generated just from people waiting in line for the exhibition. More importantly for Ferriso, the city-wide experience changed how people perceive the museum.
  • Chinese residents from Chinatown got involved for the first time.
  • Kids showed up by the busloads. Local restaurants hosted after-parties for young patrons, and robust blog discussions were moderated by some of Portland's design community. By extending the conversation throughout the city, the museum was able to attract a new audience and re-energize its traditional base.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • Ferriso understood that the ability of the museum to involve more people in the conversation was based on the relevancy of the content.
  • The CDN content was particularly relevant to Portland and had the potential to attract a new audience--the young creative class.
  • Portland has had a long trade relationship with China due to its location in the Pacific Northwest, and city officials intend to forge even closer ties. Portland's entrepreneurs and business people are interested in understanding more about this global force that is transforming the sociopolitical dynamic of the world. In addition, the exhibition's focus on design, though not traditional for the museum, connected with Portland's thriving design community.
  • triggered local businesses that were not previously involved with the museum to get involved
  • Discussions are ongoing about bringing in more exhibitions that are relevant to local businesses.
  • They invited a small number of people from the creative community who they knew would help stimulate conversation, like a good host at a dinner party. These creators hosted their own events and were invited to blog on the exhibition's Web site.
  • The bigger challenge for the museum was releasing control of the conversation. Museums are historically cautious, and protective of the intellectual rigor of each exhibition.
  • Curation: Stay true to who you are."At the end of the day, you still need to present a point of view," said Jay. "Curation is still king." The museum was able to successfully move beyond the traditional museum experience and remain authentic because it understood its core promise--inspiring conversations through art and culture. The medium of social media did not become the museum's promise, but a means to connect with a new generation of potential patrons. It remained committed to curatorial rigor, the selection of collaborators was strategic, and the topic was timely and meaningful. By staying true to its purpose, the museum was able to be relevant to this new generation without alienating its traditional patrons. An 85-year-old board member said it best: "CDN allowed the museum to rethink how it connects with people."
  • New metrics are being discussed to measure the value of the conversations generated by the museum. Ideas include measuring repeat visits to the museum, quality of conversations, and influence (how do you measure the impact of inspiring the next Frank Gehry?).
Ariane Karakalos

The Cost of "Free": Admission Fees at American Art Museums - 0 views

www.aam-us.org/...MN_JF07_cost-free.cfm

free admission access

shared by Ariane Karakalos on 09 Apr 12 - No Cached
  • Museum theorists such as Elaine Heumann Gurian point out that admission fees may be the single biggest obstacle preventing museums from fulfilling their missions as educational institutions that are open and accessible to the widest range of visitors from all income levels and backgrounds. But is the financial position of most art museums so precarious that the 5 percent of operating budget provided by admissions fees is indispensable to the survival of the institution? Is there a middle ground between free admission and a standard entrance fee?
  • Potential visitors—especially families with children—are often concerned about the financial costs associated with a museum visit, such as transportation, parking and lunch. As the costs have risen, visitors expect greater value for their admission dollars.
  • Many of us have visited museums and seen the words “suggested donation” or “recommended amount” next to the admission fees. The actual amount collected per visitor is often significantly lower than the suggested amount
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • he Art Institute of Chicago switched from free Tuesdays to free Thursday evenings, from 5-8 p.m.
  • At the time of this writing, there is not much more than anecdotal evidence available on the desired result of racially and ethnically diverse visitors during free evening hours, but the Art Institute of Chicago has every reason to believe its change in free hours achieved this. “We had Chicagoans in the museum who reported that it was their first-ever visit,” Lee said. “We had parents telling us that they were grateful that the free hours allowed them to easily bring their children after work. We had more visitors per free hour than we did when the free hours were on Tuesdays.
  • the competing priorities of ideology, practicality and economics. By designating periods of free admission to attract the infrequent visitor, museums can more easily justify charging an entrance fee on a regular basis
  • Cool Culture, an inventive nonprofit formed in 1999, has created a family pass to 71 cultural institutions in New York City. The pass is intended for low-income families, and the program’s primary clients are Head Start and other subsidized child-care centers. Two-thirds of participants have household incomes below the federal poverty line.
  • Although transportation is not provided, participants can visit at any time and return as many times as they wish.
  • Cool Culture’s success is in the numbers: Families who have the Cool Culture Pass are four times more likely to visit a museum than families without the pass, according to Linda Steele, executive director.    
  • one might logically conclude that museums with no admission fee will attract larger audiences and thus have a better chance at earning more revenue within the museum: more visitors, more sales in shops or restaurants. Upon closer scrutiny, this assumption may not be true.
  • museum visitors who did not pay an admission fee were likely to spend even less on additional goods or services than the average visitor who paid a fee to enter, even they were not museum members.
  • responses from museums of various sizes, settings and budgets. The most commonly mentioned benefits of free admission were service to the community and accessibility to a more diverse audience. Increased exposure, attendance and public relations opportunities also ranked high, as did improved opportunities for individual, corporate and foundation support. The primary drawbacks were lost revenue and the inability to build a membership base. Security concerns also figured prominently.
  • Do Not Touch” signs in art exhibitions. Of the 15 responding museums that offered limited free admission days or hours, more than half reported a significant difference in visitor demographics: seniors, large family groups, school groups, disabled persons and drug or alcohol recovery groups were most likely to attend at these times. Museums in Seattle, Scottsdale, San Diego and the San Francisco Bay area all reported an increase in student visitors on free admission days. Sue Cake, a longtime docent at the Oakland Museum of California, observed that free admission days enabled teachers to assign a museum visit as part of a class lesson, likely a factor for increased student visitation at many museums.
  • can discount or waive admission fees on a case-by-case basis. “The experience should have value like a movie, going out to eat, a concert or any other leisure-time activity,” said Deputy Director Amy Oppio. “It is . . . important for guests to believe in supporting the organization and its mission.” 
  • Not all respondents shared Oppio’s view. One of the survey questions asked about the ideal admission fee structure. Of the 24 museums that responded to this question, 30 percent said that free admission is the way to go. Midge Bowman, executive director of the Frye Art Museum, responded that art museums “should be free as public libraries are. Without this open admission, they remain elitist institutions.”
  • ents we write and the act of imposing an entry fee,” she wrote. “Museums, if they remain oriented toward their paying customers will not . . . feel motivated to become essential elements within the community and an important educational resource for all individuals wishing to learn.”
David Bloom

Coffee Shops in Brooklyn, New York - 1 views

youarehere.cc/...brooklyn

CAMLF Demographics 3rdSpaces Community Urban+Planning

shared by David Bloom on 10 Apr 14 - No Cached
  • David Bloom on 10 Apr 14
     
    This map shows the location of every independent coffee shop in Brooklyn and the walking-shed community associated with it. Independent coffee shops are positive markers of a living community. They function as social spaces, urban offices, and places to see the world go by. Communities are often formed by having spaces in which people can have casual interactions, and local and walkable coffee shops create those conditions, not only in the coffee shop themselves, but on the sidewalks around them. We use maps to know where these coffee shop communities exist and where, by placing new coffee shops, we can help form them. We applied two steps to generate the data displayed by the map. First, we used the Google Places API to locate all coffee shops in a given city. Second, for each point in the map we queried the walking route and distance to its nearest coffee shop using the Google Distance Matrix API. In the final map the colored areas represent a region which is walkable to a specific coffee shop (within one kilometer or 0.7 miles). The intensity of color at each point indicates its distance from its corresponding coffee shop.
Gina Hall

Sea Notes: Enjoy a Virtual Aquarium Experience in the Bay Area - 2 views

montereybayaquarium.typepad.com/...xperience-in-the-bay-area.html

aquarium virtual mobile truck badge outreach CAMLF tech

shared by Gina Hall on 03 Apr 12 - No Cached
  • Gina Hall on 03 Apr 12
     
    How does this virtual Aquarium on wheels work? You connect to the truck's wifi connection on your touch-enabled smart phone. Then you can login as a male or female diver and swim around the tank full of sharks, turtles, penguins, sardines and jellyfish, all displayed on the side of the truck. When you encounter one of the creatures, you and the creature react and you win a "badge." At the end of the interaction, you can post an image of the badges you won on Facebook.
Elizabeth Merritt

Quitting is just half the story: the truth behind the 'Great Resignation' | US unemploy... - 1 views

www.theguardian.com/...itting-us-unemployment-economy

Great Resignation

shared by Elizabeth Merritt on 05 Jan 22 - No Cached
  • “quits”, as the Bureau of Labor Statistics calls them, hit a high in September, with over 4.3 million people leaving their jobs, and was followed by a modest reduction of that trend in October and November.
  • n Tuesday the labor department said there were 10.6m job openings at the end of November and 6.9 million unemployed people – 1.5 jobs per unemployed person. The number of quits hit a new high of 4.5m.
  • The top reasons cited by experts continue to be lack of adequate childcare and health concerns about Covid
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  • many quit in search of better work opportunities, self employment, or, simply, higher pay.
  • The recent trend towards higher pay exists in the context of decades of low-wage growth, as until recently, wages in the US had stagnated.
  • The current competitiveness of the labor market – at least the proportion that is driven by gap between the high demand for workers and the supply of those searching for work – might be temporary.
  • in September and October of this year, there were 1.4 million fewer mothers actively engaged with the labor force than those same months in 2019.
  • Mothers with college degrees and telework-compatible jobs were more likely to exit the labor force and more likely to be on leave than women without children. She also found that teachers are most likely to leave the labor force as compared to their counterparts in other industries.
Ruth Cuadra

THE SHIFT AGE DAVID HOULE - 1 views

www.theshiftage.com/bookSummary.asp

CAMLF trends shift transformation

shared by Ruth Cuadra on 18 May 12 - Cached
  • Ruth Cuadra on 18 May 12
     
    The Shift Age is about humanity's new era. As the Information Age gives way to the Shift Age, we are entering a time of transformation and change that offers both great risk and incredible opportunity. Why do things happen so fast? Why do we feel unsettled, even out of control? David Houle identifies and explains the dynamics and forces that already have reshaped and will continue to reshape our world for the next 20 years. He comments from the front lines of the Shift Age on issues and topics that affect our lives. We have entered the final, global stage of humanity's cultural, social, and economic evolutionary journey: the Shift Age.
Kristen Olson

STANFORD: Robotic block party puts new high-tech creations on... | www.ktvu.com - 0 views

www.ktvu.com/...vGtjs

stanford robotic block party CAMLF museums technology education museum trends tech

shared by Kristen Olson on 12 Apr 12 - No Cached
  • Kristen Olson on 12 Apr 12
     
    I went to this great open house yesterday on campus, "Robot Block Party." Everything from the Nasa robotics team to amateur tinkerers frankensteining robots in their backyards. A couple people from the Exhibits team at the Cal Academy showed a kinect-powered robot they had been tinkering with as a side project, where - their idea - would be to put the robot (with a camera) on the roof, and you'd be able to "drive" it using the kinect inside the museum. And of course, there was the self-driving race car, complete with the ubiquitous Stanford parking sticker.
Elizabeth Merritt

A Texas superintendent ordered school librarians to remove LGBTQ books. Now the federal... - 0 views

www.nbcnews.com/...-library-books-texas-rcna61087

libraries censorship DEAI training

shared by Elizabeth Merritt on 21 Dec 22 - No Cached
  • The U.S. Education Department’s civil rights enforcement arm has launched an investigation into a North Texas school district whose superintendent was secretly recorded ordering librarians to remove LGBTQ-themed library books.
  • accused the district of violating a federal law that prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender. The ACLU complaint was based largely on an investigation published in March by NBC News, ProPublica and the Tribune that revealed that Granbury’s superintendent, Jeremy Glenn, instructed librarians to remove books dealing with sexual orientation and people who are transgender.
  • An Education Department spokesperson confirmed the investigation and said it was related to Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which prohibits schools from discriminating on the basis of sex, gender and sexual orientation.
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  • After a volunteer review committee voted to return all but a few of the titles, two disgruntled members of the committee filed a police report in May accusing district employees of providing “pornography” to children, triggering a monthslong criminal investigation by Hood County Constable Chad Jordan, which remained open as of August.
  • The ACLU of Texas made similar legal arguments in another civil rights complaint filed last month against the Keller Independent School District in North Texas in response to a policy banning any books that mention “gender fluidity.” The Education Department has yet to decide whether to open an investigation in Keller,
  • the nonprofit PEN America, which has tracked thousands of school book bans since last year,
  • If the Education Department finds Carroll students’ rights have been violated, experts said, the federal agency could require the district to implement the same types of diversity and inclusion training programs that conservative activists have fought to block in Southlake.
Gina Hall

A Future Full of Badges - Commentary - The Chronicle of Higher Education - 2 views

chronicle.com/...131455

badges elearning CAMLF education learning core+competencies systems+thinking

shared by Gina Hall on 12 Apr 12 - No Cached
  • Gina Hall on 12 Apr 12
     
    What is a digital badge, exactly? The MacArthur foundation says it's "a validated indicator of accomplishment, skill, quality or interest," Students will be able to customize learning goals within the larger curricular framework, integrate continuing peer and faculty feedback about their progress toward achieving those goals, and tailor the way badges and the metadata within them are displayed to the outside world. Students won't just earn badges-they'll build them, in an act of continuous learning.
  • Lisa Eriksen on 13 Apr 12
     
    We actually were intrigued by the badges concept for the LF project and considered applying for the grant through the Digital Media & Learning Competition. But we felt we had our hands full with the project at this time - perhaps in the future?
Elizabeth Merritt

Majority of U.S. Workers Changing Jobs Are Seeing Real Wage Gains | Pew Research Center - 0 views

www.pewresearch.org/...obs-are-seeing-real-wage-gains

wages Great Resignation research TrendsWatch 2023

shared by Elizabeth Merritt on 01 Aug 22 - No Cached
  • From April 2021 to March 2022, a period in which quit rates reached post-pandemic highs, the majority of workers switching jobs (60%) saw an increase in their real earnings over the same month the previous year.
  • 2.5% of workers – about 4 million – switched jobs on average each month from January to March 2022. This share translates into an annual turnover of 30% of workers – nearly 50 million – if it is assumed that no workers change jobs more than once a year. It is higher than in 2021, when 2.3% of workers switched employers each month, on average. About a third (34%) of workers who left a job from January to March 2022 – either voluntarily or involuntarily – were with a new employer the following month.
  • rom April 2020 to March 2021, some 51% of job switchers saw an increase in real earnings over the same months the previous year. On the other hand, among workers who did not change employers, the share reporting an increase in real earnings decreased from 54% over the 2020-21 period to 47% over the 2021-22 period. Put another way, the median worker who changed employers saw real gains in earnings in both periods, while the median worker who stayed in place saw a loss during the April 2021 to March 2022 period.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • A new Pew Research Center survey finds that about one-in-five workers (22%) say they are very or somewhat likely to look for a new job in the next six months
  • those who describe their personal financial situation as only fair or poor are about twice as likely as those who say their finances are excellent or good to say they’d consider making a job change (29% vs. 15%).
  • About half of job switchers also change their industry or occupation in a typical month, but this share has not changed since 2019. Women who leave a job are more likely than men who leave a job to take a break from the labor force, and men with children at home are least likely to do the same.
Elizabeth Merritt

Real driverless cars are now legal in China's tech hub Shenzhen | TechCrunch - 0 views

techcrunch.com/...-cars-legal-in-chinas-shenzhen

self-driving cars regulation signal of change

shared by Elizabeth Merritt on 25 Jul 22 - No Cached
  • The regulation, which is set to take effect on August 1, grants permission for autonomous driving vehicles to operate without a human in the driver’s seat
  • The rules also define the thorny issue of liability. When the vehicle is equipped with a driver, the driver will “be handled” by the transportation authorities in case of traffic rule violations and incidents. But if the car is completely driverless, the owner or manager of the self-driving vehicle is subject to handling by the authorities. If the accident is a result of a defect in the connected car, the owner or manager of the car can seek compensation from the manufacturer or vendor.
  • Major autonomous driving players in China have all opted for a lidar-based route instead of one that relies purely on vision tech like Tesla.
Elizabeth Merritt

Mastodon Isn't Just A Replacement For Twitter - 1 views

www.noemamag.com/just-a-replacement-for-twitter

Mastodon fediverse

shared by Elizabeth Merritt on 08 Dec 22 - No Cached
  • We need to learn how to become more like engaged democratic citizens in the life of our networks.
  • he challenge and the opportunity of spaces like the fediverse is that it is up to us which rules we want to follow and how we make rules for ourselves.
  • We believe that it is time to embrace the old idea of subsidiarity, which dates back to early Calvinist theology and Catholic social teaching. The European Union’s founding documents use the term, too. It means that in a large and interconnected system, people in a local community should have the power to address their own problems. Some decisions are made at higher levels, but only when necessary. Subsidiarity is about achieving the right balance between local units and the larger systems.
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  • On Social.coop, we don’t just post and comment about what’s on our minds; we also decide on our moderation practices and enact them through committees. The Community Working Group handles conflict resolution through accountability processes. Its members are paid with funds from our sliding-scale member dues. The Tech Working Group maintains our servers, while the Finance Working Group keeps an eye on our budget. Any member can propose new activities and policies, and we can all vote on them according to the bylaws. We adjust Mastodon’s moderation settings as we see fit.
  • a number of servers organized to collectively ban those that harbored white supremacists, like Gab, from the rest of the fediverse — even if it remained active on the network, most people using Mastodon would never see Gab users’ posts.
Ariane Karakalos

New School Leads Conversation on the Future of Learning | The New School News - 0 views

blogs.newschool.edu/...the-future-of-learning

CAMLF museums community involvement

shared by Ariane Karakalos on 09 Apr 12 - No Cached
  • The conference, hands-on workshops, science fair, performances, and other activities run October 10–16, one project is currently on view in the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center at Parsons The New School for Design. The Assignment Book is an exhibition curated by Scholz and Christiane Paul, director of the graduate media studies program at The New School for Public Engagement and Adjunct Curator of New Media Arts at the Whitney Museum of American Art, that poses questions for the audience. It features work by artist Luis Camnitzer that grapples with some unresolved questions about digital learning, and is solicited visitors to the gallery to add to the conversation, subverting the traditional role of the artist as teacher. There will be a discussion about this exhibition between Camnitzer and Paul on October 11.
Ileana Maestas

Alternative to Traditional School Funding - Walt Gardner's Reality Check - Education Week - 0 views

blogs.edweek.org/...raditional_school_funding.html

alternative funding school

shared by Ileana Maestas on 26 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • Budget shortfalls are forcing states to come up with novel solutions for the wide disparities between poor and affluent school districts. The latest reminder was a New Jersey Supreme Court ruling in May that ordered the Legislature to increase spending for only the 31 poorest urban districts ("Court Orders New Jersey to Increase Aid to Schools," The New York Times, May 24). Not surprisingly, the decision did not please the other districts in the state. In light of the problem in New Jersey and in other states as well, perhaps it's time to consider what is known as weighted student funding. The Summer 2011 issue of the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management contains a study by Helen F. Ladd and Edward B. Fiske titled "Weighted Student Funding in the Netherlands: A Model for the U.S.?" For the past quarter of a century, the Netherlands has been using a version of WSF for all its elementary schools serving children from ages 4 to 12.
  • Ileana Maestas on 26 Jun 12
     
    Alternative funding for traditional schools
Ruth Cuadra

Beyond the UX Tipping Point - 1 views

www.uie.com/...beyond_ux_tipping_point

CAMLF experience design wearable+technology

shared by Ruth Cuadra on 05 Dec 14 - No Cached
  • Ruth Cuadra on 05 Dec 14
     
    Surprisingly, few are talking about what could be the biggest user experience story of 2014: The introduction of the Disney Magic Band. Once activated, park Guests use the Magic Band to gain access to the park, get in priority queues for the attractions, pay for their purchases at the concession stands, and even get into their hotel room.
Ruth Cuadra

The Case Against Sharing - 0 views

medium.com/...e-against-sharing-9ea5ba3d216d

CAMLF Sharing economy

shared by Ruth Cuadra on 08 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • Ruth Cuadra on 08 Jul 14
     
    For the past few years, the "sharing economy" has characterized itself as a revolution. Across the U.S., high costs of living are driving more of the employed toward "side hustles," i.e. unprotected freelance work, the kind fostered by the sharing economy. 
Elizabeth Merritt

What the research says about 4-day school weeks - MindShift - 0 views

www.kqed.org/...-says-about-4-day-school-weeks

Future of Education K-12 4 day school week legislation

shared by Elizabeth Merritt on 29 Aug 22 - No Cached
  • (City students were excluded from the analysis because no city schools had adopted four-day weeks. Only rural, small town and suburban students were included.)
  • The switch seemed to hurt reading achievement more than math achievement.
  • Rural schools accounted for seven out of 10 schools on the four-day schedule in this study.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • Rural four-day students generally learned as much as rural five-day day students. Statistically, both groups’ test scores rose by about the same amount every year.
  • small town and suburban students who switched to four-day weeks were far worse off than other students in the state
  • One possible explanation, Morton says, is sports. Many rural athletes and young student fans leave school early on Fridays or skip school altogether because of the great distances to travel to away games. In effect, many five-day students are only getting four-days of instruction in rural America.
  • The four-day work week is an attractive work perk in rural America that may lure better teachers.
  • By this theory, four-day schools may make it easier to hire better teachers, who could accomplish in four days what a less skilled teacher accomplishes in five days.
  • five-day weeks have their own drawbacks in rural America: hidden absences, skipped lessons and lower quality teachers.
  • Hispanic students, who accounted for one out of every six rural students in this study, suffered much more from four-day weeks than white students did. (Native American students, who made up one of every 10 rural students, did relatively better with the four-day week.)
  • biggest surprise to me in this review of the research is how tiny the cost savings are: 1 to 2 percent.  It does save some money not to run the heat or buses one day a week, but the largest expenses, teacher salaries, stay the same.
Elizabeth Merritt

The great tax escape that is America's nonprofit sector | FT Alphaville - 2 views

ftalphaville.ft.com/...-is-America-s-nonprofit-sector

tax exempt status

shared by Elizabeth Merritt on 14 May 18 - No Cached
    • Elizabeth Merritt
      Elizabeth Merritt on 14 May 18
       
      Philip Hackney, @EOTaxProf, notes "same orgs were exempt back in 1862 when first income tax was enacted"
  • it turns out that the way the wealthy decide how to distribute cash is often even less fair than the way the state decides how to spend it.
  • More than half of the highly conspicuous donations of the ultra-rich were injected directly into the endowments of their already rich alma maters. Much of the rest was given to hushed museums in the form of very expensive donated art, or to other places that rich old people tend to congregate, like cultural arts centers and high-end hospitals. In other words, the funds the rich were giving went largely to institutions that tended to the needs and prerogatives of the rich and privileged.
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  • DAFs were being used to sidestep rules that require foundations to make annual donations to charities.
Elizabeth Merritt

How Community Design Advocates Can Be a Force for Design Justice - 0 views

nextcity.org/...-be-a-force-for-design-justice

design community development desigh justice restorative practice Black Panthers

shared by Elizabeth Merritt on 10 Jan 22 - No Cached
  • Currently, Colloqate is working with community design advocates on Midland Library in Portland and restorative justice space in Dallas.
  • The project in Dallas, which deals with a former jail, allows us to think about restorative justice through the lens of those who have been most harmed by that space. We were able to hire CDAs that were formerly incarcerated and hire others who were part of the broader network of the city and they were working together to ask questions of their own specific communities,
  • Design as Protest (DAP) began as a yearlong organizing effort, involving 250 design professionals and design advocates across the United States and Canada. They examined how injustice can be challenged through the built environment. Issues such as ending the prison industrial complex, defunding and reallocating the police, and advocating against architecture projects that are hostile to communities of color.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • The Black Panthers talked about removing capitalist intentions within communities which are the standard tropes around what gentrification is and what it means for capital to come into a neighborhood and wash away cultural institutions. The ethos of design justice is simply that for every injustice in this world there is an architecture, a plan, a design, that’s been built to sustain that injustice, and for so much of our work power is vested in land.”
  • Elizabeth Merritt on 10 Jan 22
     
    Community Design Associates are not only asked to talk about design, but also about their own experiences and the nuances that get missed in public consultations where the project is set and residents can only ask questions or give opinions.
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