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Atlanta Test Cheating: Tip of the Iceberg?

Valerie Strauss Answer Sheet Blog
It would be easy to think that the Atlanta cheating scandal by adults on standardized tests is the worst we have seen, given last week’s startling indictment against former Atlanta schools superintendent Beverly Hall and 34 others under a law used against mobsters.

Dispatches from the Culture Wars - Spring Break Edition

Portside
Peru Billboard Wrings Water from Air; Tips for Facing Racist and Sexist Online Attacks; Catholic Colleges Go After Condom-Distributing Students; Model for Quality Academics Broken; Triangle Fire Building will get a Memorial Wrap; Wal-Mart Doesn't Have Enough Workers to Keep the Shelves Stocked; Conservatives Stick to Name Brands; Cuba Releases a Shoot-Em-Up Video Game Based on 1959 Revolution

Unions Focus Organizing Efforts on Service Sector Workplaces

Lorraine Mirabella Baltimore Sun
Labor experts say unions are focusing on the hospitality field and less traditionally unionized workplaces - car washes, retailers, taxi and limo companies - as membership rolls have decreased. The percentage of private sector workers represented by unions has fallen from a peak of about 35 percent in the mid 1950s to about 7 percent, said Fred Feinstein, a former general counsel with the National Labor Relations Board who now works as a union.

Cruel and Unusual Punishment: The Shame of Three Strikes Laws

Matt Taibbi Rolling Stone
Despite the passage in late 2012 of a new state ballot initiative that prevents California from ever again giving out life sentences to anyone whose "third strike" is not a serious crime, thousands of people – the overwhelming majority of them poor and nonwhite – remain imprisoned for a variety of offenses so absurd that any list of the unluckiest offenders reads like a macabre joke, a surrealistic comedy routine.

Syria: A Multi-Sided Chess Match

Conn Hallinan Dispatches from the Edge
In some ways the Syrian civil war resembles a proxy chess match between supporters of the Bashar al-Assad regime— Iran, Iraq, Russia and China—and its opponents— Turkey, the oil monarchies, the U.S., Britain and France. But the current conflict only resembles chess if the game is played with multiple sides, backstabbing allies, and conflicting agendas.