The Baltimore Sun

Paying City Students Is a Wise Investment

Ron Tang — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 04:59:00 -0400

Summer has arrived in Baltimore, and so has summer school -- bringing with it a chance for students who improve on their High School Assessment exams to pocket something more than academic success. A few months ago, Baltimore schools CEO Andres Alonso unveiled a controversial proposal to improve city schools: Pay students to perform. It's a simple idea that has generated quite a bit of controversy from purists who cringe at the thought of paying students to learn and from realists who believe there simply must be a more effective way to spend $1 million in a failing school system.

Yet… more

Terry Tamminen in Baltimore Sun | 'Pollution Bill Attacked'

Communications — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 15:57:00 -0500

New America in the News:

Pollution Bill Attacked (The Baltimore Sun)

...Environmentalists, scientists, public health experts and alternative energy companies also pledged their support for the Global Warming Solutions Act during a Senate hearing yesterday. The supporters argue that state limits are necessary to spur federal action and will help to prevent deadly floods and economic chaos brought by climate change. ...

...Former California Environmental Protection Agency Secretary Terry Tamminen said costs for most customers and businesses would go down because regulations created by the state would encourage conservation. Tamminen said per capita energy consumption in California dropped 40 percent during the past decade because of its regulations.

Shannon Brownlee in Baltimore Sun | 'More Money, Less Health'

Communications — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 12:04:00 -0500

New America in the News:

More Money, Less Health (The Baltimore Sun)

A few years ago, health journalist Shannon Brownlee was going through some global health statistics. She noticed that even as U.S. health care costs were rising steadily, Americans were not getting healthier. How to explain this apparent paradox?

Brownlee became fascinated and began to collect data in search of answers. The result is Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine Is Making Us Sicker and Poorer, her analysis of how American health care has failed.

The book has received good reviews and was praised by one prominent economics columnist as the best business book of 2007. ... Last week, Brownlee, who lives in Annapolis with her husband and 12-year-old son, talked to The Sun about the perils of doing too much, and what might cure this ailment.

What's the key problem with our health care system?

Most physicians think of themselves as businessmen and -women. It's all based on the way we reimburse doctors and hospitals. Most payments to doctors and hospitals are called fee-for-service. In other words, they get paid for doing something, either having an office visit, giving you a test, putting you in the hospital, a consult in the hospital. This fee-for-service system basically rewards doctors and hospitals to do more rather than to do better. That's the central problem, I think, is the payment system. It's providing all these perverse incentives to do more. ...

Steven Clemons in Baltimore Sun | Examining Effect of Assassinations

Jerry Irvine — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 11:49:00 -0500

New America in the News:

Over the past century, assassinations of heads of state and other prominent leaders such as the Kennedy brothers and Martin Luther King Jr. in the United States and Rabin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in the Middle East have shifted the course of history one way or another.

The full consequences of yesterday's assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto remain to be seen. But some experts worry what impact the event will have in an era where conflict driven by religious extremism transcends the nation state.

"There are assassinations that lie in these moments when history can pivot one way or another, it can galvanize people or it can throw people in another direction," said Steve Clemons, director of foreign policy programs at the New America Foundation. "I think that Bhutto's death is probably a foreshock of other potential assassinations. It's the kind of assassination that hits sort of a soft spot in global tectonics."

For the complete article, click here.

Steve Clemons in The Baltimore Sun on Annapolis Conference

Communications — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 13:47:00 -0500

New America in the News:

At Camp David, Egyptian President Anwar el Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin held secret talks that led to a historic peace between their nations.

On the banks of the Wye River, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to give back part of the West Bank in return for concessions from Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

Now, Annapolis becomes the third Maryland locale to take a turn in the international spotlight as a venue in the long search for peace in the Middle East.

Limited to a single day, the Annapolis Conference on Tuesday will be both shorter and less ambitious than earlier negotiating sessions that put the state on the diplomatic map. It will be bracketed by private White House talks between President Bush and the leaders of Israel and the Palestinian Authority. ...

The Annapolis Conference is intended to build international support for new negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Bush administration officials hope the sides will conclude with a joint statement that will point the way toward a final settlement.

It will be the first Middle East conference held in the Colonial city on the Severn River, but hardly its first meeting of historic import. The capital of the United States for nine months in 1783 and 1784, Annapolis saw the Congress of the Confederation ratify the Treaty of Paris to end the Revolutionary War. Less than three months later, Gen. George Washington resigned his military commission at the State House, signaling that the new nation would be ruled by civilians.

In 1786, representatives of several states met in the city to reach resolution on trade issues, a gathering that came to be known as the "Annapolis Conference."

With key players absent, that conference fell apart - a "bungling," according to Steven C. Clemons of the New America Foundation. But it helped lay the groundwork for another meeting a year later, when representatives of even more states gathered in Philadelphia and drafted the U.S. Constitution. ...

For the complete article, please follow this link. For more information on the Annapolis conference, please visit the American Strategy Program website.

Daniel Levy in The Balitimore Sun on Mideast Peace Conference

Communications — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 10:26:00 -0500

New America in the News:

With a proposed Mideast peace conference in Annapolis only weeks away, the lofty goals outlined by President Bush seem to be fading beyond reach, with the meeting likely to be scaled back to a single day, according to senior U.S. officials and outside analysts.

The conference, originally expected to be set for late November, might not be held until mid-December, a State Department official hinted yesterday. Bush's spokeswoman called preparations for the conference "tenuous right now." ...

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice - who has pushed for what might be the last chance for the Bush administration to help arrest a deteriorating situation in the Middle East - has conceded that she does not expect Palestinian and Israeli negotiators to draft a joint statement before the meeting laying out "the basics of a deal" that she and others had anticipated. ...

Events could change quickly, diplomats caution, and agreements and arrangements for Annapolis could fall into place rapidly. Rice is to travel to the region this week to continue discussions, a White House official said.

But the last-minute uncertainty about the timing and substance of the Annapolis conference has renewed concerns about a failure to make progress that could energize radicals and extremists in the region, rather than galvanize moderates to work for peace, as Bush intended.

"I am worried. This is an ill-conceived and ill-prepared summit," said Daniel Levy, who was an Israeli negotiator during the last Arab-Israeli negotiations in 2002.

"You could describe Annapolis as an obstacle. How do we get to the other side without damage to the Israeli and Palestinian leadership?" Levy said this week in a briefing sponsored by the New America Foundation. ...

For the complete article, please follow this link.

Shannon Brownlee in Baltimore Sun on Funding for Medical Research

Communications — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 10:21:00 -0400

New America in the News:

With their efforts to win more government funding stymied in Washington, medical researchers at the Johns Hopkins University and elsewhere are taking their lobbying campaign on the road -- and into the presidential campaign.

The doctors and scientists plan to raise the profile of their issue by advertising and organizing in the early voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina. It is the latest move in an effort to reverse an erosion of federal funding for medical research, and another example of interest groups using the presidential campaign to push their individual issues.

Despite intense lobbying, funding has not kept up with inflation since the National Institutes of Health's budget climbed to $27 billion in 2003, double the amount from five years earlier. Since then, the agency's budget has leveled off. …

A few candidates have already touched on the topic [of pledging support for science research]. In August, Democrat John Edwards, whose wife Elizabeth is fighting breast cancer, voiced support for increasing the budget for cancer research. This month, Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton proposed doubling the NIH budget. Republican Fred Thompson's Web site mentions his support for promoting medical research, but it doesn't say whether that would mean more funding.

Still, raising the profile of biomedical research won't be easy in a campaign crowded with issues that include illegal immigration, high oil prices and national security. Just 2 percent of 1,500 adults surveyed by the Kaiser Family Foundation in August said they wanted to learn more about medical research.

Some say increases in funding would only help medical schools and research institutes fill the labs they built during the last round of increases, while others argue that if the goal is improving health care, the cash-strapped government should target any extra resources to research that helps doctors and patients choose the best treatments….

Many scientists resist studying the effectiveness of treatments because it involves number-crunching that isn't as rewarding as basic research. It could also invalidate lucrative procedures performed at their hospitals, said Shannon Brownlee, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation and author of Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine Is Making Us Sicker and Poorer.

"What we need is research on what works, what doesn't and for whom. The NIH doesn't focus on that. It spends a pittance on that," Brownlee said. ...

For the complete article, please visit BaltimoreSun.com.

Don't Militarize U.S.-Africa Ties

Articles — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 11:05:00 -0400

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have left little room for news coverage or informed discussion of what is going on in the rest of the world and how it relates to U.S. security interests. This goes double for Africa, which was largely ignored in policymaking circles even before Iraq and 9/11 began to dominate the foreign policy agenda.

Thus, few Americans are likely aware that the U.S. relationship with Africa has become increasingly militarized. In the long run, such a focus is not beneficial for either Africa or the United States.

When most Americans think of U.S. relations with… more

Help Kids via Junk Food Tax

Articles — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 10:41:00 -0400

In a few days, Congress will return to reauthorize the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP. The program will pay for expanded coverage for children through an increase in cigarette taxes. The logic is to raise revenue while discouraging a behavior harmful to child health. Instead of a cigarette tax, however, Congress should address the health problem that research indicates is the greatest crisis facing America’s young people by taxing junk food instead.

The new epidemic facing American children is obesity. The Foundation for Child Development’s 2007 Child Well-Being Index has found that the overall health of America’s children… more

The Baltimore Sun Highlights J.H. Snider

Communications — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 08:51:00 -0400

New America in the News:

Before he could begin to lead the fifth-largest school district in Maryland, Eric J. Smith was told he needed to make time to speak with one Severna Park family: the Sniders.

Smith sat across the dining table from Terra Ziporyn and Jim H. Snider, parents of three school-age children, and got an earful about the value of the arts and the need for new algebra textbooks and greater transparency in the district's decision making.

"They cared very much about the quality of education in Anne Arundel, and they were never shy about sharing their thoughts on what could be done to improve things," said Smith, who served as superintendent from 2002 to 2005. "They -- their participation -- was crucial."

Since moving to the county five years ago, the Sniders and their children have emerged as arguably the most influencial family in the system that educates 74,000 students each year.

The family's middle child, Sage, 17, sat at her first school board meeting yesterday, serving as a student representative two years after her sister Pallas held the same post. They are believed to be the only siblings in the state to serve nearly back-to-back stints on their school board, the only one in the country that gives a student full voting rights.

Jim Snider made an unsucessful bid for school board in 2002. These days, he writes a blog critical of the school board selection process and recently helped the Severna Park High parents' group with suggestions for an honor code to help the school heal from a cheating scandal...

For the complete article, please visit The Baltimore Sun website.