:: p-dog ::

Sad news.

After three years, I've had to put puddledog down. Tell the kids we gave him to a nice family on a farm, where he could run and play and chase butterflies. That is, if he could run without tripping over surplus skin.

Please join me at http://leslie.overt.org for future musings.

The blog is dead. Long live the blog.

:: Leslie H - 10:29 PM - ::

Back! I'm back! Back in school, back to blogging, back from a massive shopping spree at the Vacaville outlet mall. September 1 has always felt more like the beginning of the year than Jan 1. So here I am, getting started.

I've had a bit of a blogging crisis lately--seems to be going around--and puddledog will probably be going through some changes in the next few days/weeks (/months, depending on how on top of things I am). Call it puberty.

I have a long list of things to post about. The first: my classes. School began this week, and I managed to talk myself down from the 18 hours I wanted to take to a much more sane 14, a nice mix of math-y courses that teach skills and discussion-based courses focused on education policy. Here are the winners:

Leadership and Social Change - (MW 10-11:30) My last required course for the policy school (not counting the 9 hours of thesis work in the spring). This class rose from the ashes of "Agency Management," and I can't say I mind missing that one. Leave the bureaucracies to the MPAs! Robert Reich created and is teaching the course, which is heavy on the reading/reflection and light on the workload--we turn in a total of 7 2-page papers over the course of the semester. Pros: interesting reading, engaging instructor. Cons: fuzzy topic could mean little real learning, he cold calls on people--not cool.

Education Policy and School Reform - (M 12-3) First and possible only class I'm taking in the Ed school, which I have a rather dim view of. I didn't expect to like this course enough to take it, but it seems like a good group of students, examines interesting topics, and will hopefully expose me to some perspectives on education policy I haven't paid much attention to yet.
Cost Benefit Analysis - (M 5-8) Are you sensing what fun Mondays are going to be? This course is a practical follow-up to all my mircoeconomics last year--using economic tools to assess the relative effectiveness of a bunch of alternatives. The topics we examine in class are primarily related to energy/environment and health care, but we get to choose our own subject for analysis for the final project, so I'll probably look at programs related to poverty, education, or juvenile crime (for example: determining the most cost-effective literacy or crime prevention program).

Research Design and Data Collection - (TTh 2-3:30) A partial continuation of my quantitative methods classes last year, this class will hopefully help me to look critically at others' research as well as put together my own and anticipate potential objections people will have. It seems to be a very realistic look at the role of reports and studies (themes so far: studies don't convince anyone no matter how valid and reliable; people only believe you when your conclusions confirm their opinions; and few will hesitate to totally misstate your results). I also like what I've seen of the professor.

Education Reform Workshop: Policy and Law - (Th 4-6) The law school threw together this course a couple of weeks ago, but the line-up of instructors is impressive (they include the dean of law school, the CA Secretary of Education, and Clinton's deputy chief of staff), and it's drawn quite a group of grad students from all over Berkeley. Sadly, the first class/discussion was kind of bullshit: "Who is responsible for the achievement gap?" Ummm... I have faith it will get better, though.

So that's my semester (+ 15ish hours per week working for the non-profit org where I spent the summer). More soon on what the hell I was doing in August, wedding-related nonsense, etc.

:: Leslie H - 3:58 PM - ::