Why Would Anyone Want to Become a Teacher? (orig. 4/19/2011)

1) That's the question asked by Missouri English teacher Randy Turner. You won't believe what may happen in his home state!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/randy-turner/the-smackdown-of-those-sp_b_850105.html

2) Interesting things about all those high-profile folks who are telling us how to reform public education: Seems they all went to private schools!

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/18/education/18winerip.html?ref=education

3) Most people have heard that failing to raise the U.S. debt ceiling would lead to some really bad stuff. The Washington Post's Ezra Klein has written an article that explains why this is so. According to Klein:

"To understand the danger posed by the debt ceiling, it helps to understand the financial crisis. A lot of banks and investors held assets based on mortgages they thought were safe. They weren’t. That meant that no one knew how much money they really had, or how much money anyone else really had. So the market did what woodland creatures do when they get confused and scared: It froze. And so, too, did the economy. As the unemployment rate shows, we’re still not completely thawed out. If Congress fails to lift the debt ceiling beyond its current limit of $14.29 trillion -- or even waits too long -- the chain of events will be similar, but the asset under question will be America itself, not some newfangled Frankenstein bond made out of mortgages from the Reno suburbs. Which would mean the aftermath would be much, much worse.The cornerstone of the global financial system is that the United States will make good on its debt payments,” says Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. “If we don’t, we’ve just knocked out the cornerstone, and the system will collapse into turmoil."

The entire article is worth reading:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/if-you-thought-the-financial-crisis-was-bad-wait-till-the-debt-ceiling-caves-in/2011/04/18/AFfz1y1D_story.html?wpisrc=nl_wonk