2003 MacArthur 'Genius Grant' Winners Announced

ccnull writes "This year's list of 24 MacArthur Fellows has been released. Each winner of the so-called 'Genius Grant' receives $500,000, no strings attached. 2003's winners include a blacksmith, a biomedical engineer, a computation geometer, a biophysicist, a nurse, and a short story writer 'crafting witty, experimental prose.'"

Comments

Re:How can you be a Democrat?

[Trolling4Dollars]

He's obviously a neo-con in Dem's clothing. Look at Bill O-lielly's "No Spin" approach to things. He claims to be non-partisan and be on YOUR side, but he always preaches from the right. Welcome to the new politics of politics.

Re:You bought your ticket...

[QuackQuack]

The problem with the Union is that they tend want pay based on seniority rather than how well you perform your job, so an ace teacher makes the same as the dead wood who has been teaching just as long.

Basically any Union exists for these reasons:
1) To get Better Pay and Benefits for its members
2) Better Working conditions, including getting reduced workloads
3) Better Job Security, including protecting the jobs of incompetant boobs.

I'm not anti-union, but most of the items on the list are not really in-sync with improving the quality of education. It just annoys me when the NEA runs ads bragging about how they care about the quality of our kids education. No... you are for the teachers, not the kids, let's be honest here. Just because the NEA or other union opposes certain reforms does not mean the reform is bad for education, if the union opposes it, it's most likely because they perceive it to be increasing the workload for teachers, or weakening their (the union's) power. Which is fine, that's what they are supposed to do. I just wish more people would see that for what it is, and not some noble act of fighting FOR their kids' best educational interest.

Paying the good teachers extra would be a good start, it would give other teachers incentive to perform better. But the unions are against it, basically because it's too arbitrary for them. Unions need clearly defined workplace rules and pay scales, when the administration can start making arbitrary decisions, the Union loses some of its power.