Al's Morning Meeting

The New York Times reports:

"I was at first taken a little aback by the idea: we're going to pay kids to come to school?" said the principal [of Chelsea High School in Chelsea, Mass.], Morton Orlov II. "But then I thought perfect attendance is not such a bad behavior to reward. We are sort of putting our money where our mouth is."

 

Chelsea High is not the only school trying to improve attendance with incentives for students. Across the country, schools have begun to offer cars, iPods -- even a month's rent. Some of the prizes are paid for by local businesses or donors; others come out of school budgets.

 

In Hartford last year, 9-year-old Fernando Vazquez won a raffle for students with perfect attendance and was given the choice of a new Saturn Ion or $10,000. (His parents chose the money.) At Oldham County High School in Buckner, Ky., Krystal Brooks, 19, won a canary yellow Ford Mustang. In Temecula, Calif., the school district prizes can include iPods, DVD players and a trip to Disneyland.  

Why would school systems do this? Partly it is because they can get reimbursements for each day a kid is in class, so the school systems have a financial stake in the matter. The Times explains:

In the Chicago public schools, students with perfect attendance for the first three months of the year are eligible to win $500 worth of groceries or up to $1,000 toward a rent or mortgage payment. Joi Mecks, a spokeswoman for the district, said that for every 1 percent increase in its attendance rate, the district received $18 million more in state money.

Schools in Fort Worth had a budget shortfall of $15 million last year, said Beatriz Mince, assistant coordinator for the district's Office of Parent and Public Engagement. "The only way to get extra money is average daily attendance," Ms. Mince said, adding that if average attendance increased by one student, the district would receive an extra $4,700.

The Airline Scorecard

Hawaiian Airlines, Independence Air and America West Airlines led the airline industry in on-time arrivals in 2005, according to U.S. Department of Transportation records [PDF]. The same report will tell you what percentage of flights to your big-city airport were on time.

You can also see which routes were the most likely to be late. There are many flights that are more than 15 minutes late at least 80 percent of the time. The number-one reason for delays is a "late-arriving aircraft." Overall, seven out of 10 flights last year were on time. (See Page 26 of the report.)

Industry-wide, about six out of 1,000 checked luggage bags were reported as "mishandled." Consumer complaints filed with the FAA fell in half last year, when compared to 2004. (See Page 36 of the report.)

With New Big-Screen Comes New Furniture

My family still has a pitifully outdated TV in our living room. One thing that stops us from "going big screen" is that our TV cabinet would then become useless. As it turns out, we are far from alone.

With people eyeing new TVs for the Olympics and other TV coverage, the question of where to put the darn thing is always top on buyers' minds. Reuters has a story idea for you.

Facebook Pages Follow You

I got this interesting note from Nate Karlin, a managing editor of The University Daily Kansan at the University of Kansas.

I'm a managing editor at The University Daily Kansan at the University of Kansas. We recently published a story about employers not hiring certain applicants because of information that [was] placed on their Facebook.com profiles.

I thought this would be a relevant piece to share after reading about schools watching students' online journals.

Here's the link.

 

This link is a staff editorial that ran on the same day.