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Tag: 2009

The GoodPlay Project

Erhardt Graeff

Research Assistant on a MacArthur Foundation-funded project studying the ethical character of tween’s activities in the new digital media, December 2009 – March 2012.

Website

The GoodPlay Project at Project Zero

Details of Work

  • Managed research study approval with local public school district administration
  • Administered pre-interview surveys to tweens in three different public school districts, two online and one on paper
  • Developed and implemented SurveyMonkey filter for selecting survey participants for interviews based on reported internet and cell phone use, balanced sample for gender and race/ethnicity
  • Coordinated interviews with 43 tweens at their schools, two per participant
  • Personally conducted interviews with 16 tweens, or 32 total interviews
  • Coded half the interviews for instances relevant to the online ethical faultlines of “participation”, “credibility”, and “authorship/ownership”
  • Wrote four coding memos dealing with aspects of cyberbullying
  • Developed original research paper on cyberbullying, using ethical dilemmas posed in the interviews

Related Publications and Presentations

Is US Tax Policy Really Progressive?

Erhardt GraeffLeave a comment

Originally published at Unrhetorical.

An article in this week’s issue of The Economist compared tax policies across a number of countries. Specifically, the article looked at the way countries’ tax revenues were sourced from income, consumption, and property taxes.

Apparently, the US is the only industrial country without a VAT (value added tax) on products. The Economist claims this is an extremely efficient tax for generating revenues without deterring jobs; however, the burden “falls disproportionately on poorer people who spend a higher share of their income than richer folk.” As a result, The Economist stated:

Thanks to its reliance on income taxes, America—by some measures—has the most progressive tax system in the OECD.

I’m not entirely familiar with the economics of this discussion but I was definitely surprised by the statement. I knew that US income tax is progressive, but I never think of the US as having a generally progressive tax policy. I imagine my biases are based on comparing welfare policies instead, which would likely blind most people to this idea.

A Brief Overview of U.S. Public Policy on OER

Erhardt Graeff

Link

http://publius.cc/brief_overview_us_public_policy_oer_californias _community_colleges_obama_ad

Excerpt

“Criticism of Gov. Schwarzenegger’s initiative often takes issue with his money saving logic for deficit-laden California. Arguably, digital materials require a personal computer available to every student, an e-Book reader like Amazon’s Kindle, or mass printing of each reading assignment by the schools themselves. In a recent NY Times article, Tim Ward, an assistant superintendent in California, says his school district cannot afford any of those options.

“Additionally, what Schwarzenegger seems to not have captured is that OER is a reaction to the move of proprietary, analog educational materials management onto the network. OER encourages and enables the open production, sharing of, and access to educational content and resources. This alone is a valuable societal good, increasing the value of investments made in education. But OER creates the opportunity for a more fundamental and transformative change: the move from passive consumption of educational resources to the formal engagement of educators and learners in the creative process of education content development itself. Thus, the core benefits of OER should probably not be conflated with cutting the costs of materials.”