Merit Pay for Teachers

So the private sector thinks we should adopt this merit pay model for teachers?  Pay us extra for good test scores and whatnot?  Forget the craziness of treating teaching like a business,  forget that teaching is a team effort, and forget that test scores are more closely correlated to socio-economic status than with teacher quality.  How about the fact that Merit Pay is  just a bad idea, even in business? 

A friend recently loaned me Jim Collins' "Good to Great" and I just recently read the tidbit in which he found no correlation between compensation packaging and effective management.  His summary, "Structure your compensation such that you attract great people and you keep them - but, beyond that, incentive payments to change behavior simply do not work."

Hmmm....

Who Says Science Class is not Fun?

Check out this video we made during Astronomy class.  It was kind of a high energy day so we went out to the football and spaced ourselves out as members of the Solar System to scale along the yardlines.  I can not confirm or deny the accuracy of the comet motion portrayed within...

Vacation Report

Storyland, NH

Cancun, Mexico

Bonifacio, Corsica, France

Time to get serious about...

...Paella!

Having my uncle's paella in Corsica this summer, reminded me of how I used to work on mine.  This was BK (Before Kids).  So, I'm proud to say, the first thing I did was order a full size pan and the specialized gas burner to go with it (separately lighting inner and outer rings!).

okay, this was nice, but now see the master (Uncle Roger and Cousin Julia):

And, now, a Paella from circa 1969 (my grandfather on the left):

What is Night?

Thanks to Ted Chiang, I now know "night for what it [is]: the shadow of the Earth itelf, cast against the sky." Why didn't I ever think to put it like that?         

Came across the great picture from 1992 (Galileo spacecraft on its way to Jupiter snapped this on its way out) so you can not only see the Earth's shadow but the Moon's as well and the orientation between the two that give us the "Phases" of the Moon:

I think it's a gibbous moon, but is it waxing or waning? I want to say waxing (getting bigger) but without knowing the Galileo spacecraft's trajectory I'm not sure...

Aaaw yeah...

A former student (CF) just emailed this to me.  She used an app that puts random quotes on pictures on a photo she snapped of me on a recent visit to the new high school. Please note the red pen and carefuly crafted Earth-tones look.

Eerily insightful, that app.

Astrophysics and Art

Thanks to the Boston Globe for turning me onto the glass artist Josiah McElheny:

Island Universe