Majority of teens worry about school shootings, and so do most parents | Pew Research Center

Majority of teens worry about school shootings, and so do most parents | Pew Research Center:
A majority of U.S. teens fear a shooting could happen at their school, and most parents share their concern

In the aftermath of the deadly shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida, a majority of American teens say they are very or somewhat worried about the possibility of a shooting happening at their school – and most parents of teens share that concern, according to new Pew Research Center surveys of teens ages 13 to 17 and parents with children in the same age range.

Meanwhile, when it comes to what can be done to prevent this kind of violence, far more teens view proposals focused on mental illness, assault-style weapon bans and the use of metal detectors in schools as potentially effective than say the same about allowing teachers and school officials to carry guns in schools.

The surveys of teens and parents were conducted in March and April 2018, following the Feb. 14 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School – one of the deadliest mass school shootings in U.S. history. Seventeen people were killed in the attack and more than a dozen others were injured. The surveys also come as the nation prepares to mark the 19th anniversary of the shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado.

Overall, 57% of teens say they are worried about the possibility of a shooting happening at their school, with one-in-four saying they are very worried. About three-in-ten (29%) say they are not too worried about this, and just 13% say they are not at all worried.

Nonwhite teens express a higher level of concern than their white peers. Roughly two-thirds (64%) of nonwhite teens, including 73% of Hispanics, say they are at least somewhat worried about this, compared with 51% of white teens.

School shooting fears differ by gender as well: 64% of girls say they are very or somewhat worried about a shooting happening at their school, compared with 51% of boys.

Parents of teenagers express similar levels of concern as teens themselves, with 63% saying they are at least somewhat worried about the possibility of a shooting happening at their child’s school. And there are similar patterns when it comes to race and gender, with nonwhite parents and mothers expressing more concern. Lower-income parents are particularly worried – in fact, 82% of parents with annual household incomes under $30,000 say they are at least somewhat worried that a shooting could happen at their teen’s school, compared with 64% of those with incomes between $30,000 and $74,999 and 53% of those with incomes of $75,000 or more.

Some policies seen as more effective than others

Against the backdrop of organized school walkoutsand marches calling for new legislation to address gun violence, teens see more value in some proposed measures than others. Asked to assess how effective various measures would be at preventing school shootings, 86% of teens say that preventing people with mental illnesses from purchasing guns and that improving mental health screening and treatment would be effective, including majorities who say each of these proposals would be very effective. Roughly eight-in-ten teens (79%) say that having  Continue reading: Majority of teens worry about school shootings, and so do most parents | Pew Research Center:

Price Tags - March For Our Lives - https://wp.me/P9J85t-288 via @AMarch4OurLives

The World’s 50 Greatest Leaders of 2018 | Fortune #NeverAgain #NationalSchoolWalkout #MarchForOurLives

The World’s 50 Greatest Leaders of 2018 | Fortune:

The World’s 50 Greatest Leaders of 2018 
Our annual list of the thinkers, speakers, and doers who are stepping up to meet today’s challenges.

Though it seems unlikely, Tim Cook and Indira Jaising have something in common besides membership in Fortune’s 2018 ranking of the World’s Greatest Leaders. Cook (No. 14) is the wealthy CEO of Apple, the most valuable publicly traded company on earth; Jaising (No. 20) is an Indian lawyer who cofounded an NGO called Lawyers Collective, which promotes human rights issues. Yet they share this trait: Both have multiplied their organizations’ effectiveness by harnessing the power of unbundling. Following their example is a new imperative for the best leaders.

Unbundling means disaggregating enterprises of all kinds, from the smallest startups to entire nations. In business it can mean making a company more valuable by splitting it up, as Hewlett-Packard did and other companies (Honeywell, Pentair, DowDuPont) are doing. Or it can mean increasing value by delegating functions once regarded as necessary parts of the whole; Apple’s outsourcing of complex, high-tech manufacturing, and the staggering capital requirements that go with it, is a dramatic example.

Technology makes unbundling possible and often inevitable. For centuries, greater size made companies, nations, and other enterprises more efficient and effective. Increasingly, it doesn’t. Outsourcing and coordinating manufacturing, distribution, research, and nonemployee workers becomes easy and cheap in the digital era. The most extreme example is the Chinese appliance maker Haier, which is not so much a company as a platform that invites entrepreneurs to become one of thousands of microenterprises within its ecosystem. Crazy? Definitely not. Using this radically unbundled model, Haier has become the world’s largest appliance brand.

I asked the architect of Haier’s model, chairman Zhang Ruimin (on our WGL list in 2014 and 2017), why more business leaders don’t follow his example. “They’re afraid of giving up power,” he replied. Nearly all their incentives encourage empire building. “Bigger firms pay more, way more,” says Kevin Hallock, director of Cornell University’s Institute for Compensation Studies. The same is true among nonprofits and labor unions, he finds. Why would any leader want to unbundle?

This year’s list puts an emphasis on leaders who are navigating this challenge deftly. (That has meant sidelining some perennially worthy figures, from Pope Francis to Jeff Bezos; to see past years’ lists, visit Fortune.com.) At companies, one solution is to evaluate leaders on wealth creation rather than size as conventionally measured. Leaders of mission-driven nonprofits may face fewer disincentives. Indira Jaising’s little NGO punches far above its weight because it can outsource staff and infrastructure; the Internet lets it communicate widely at low cost and enables volunteers to pitch in from around the world.

Click on the names below to jump to their section of the list

THE TOP 10

1. The Students Marjory Stoneman Douglas and other schools
2. Bill and Melinda Gates Cofounders, Gates Foundation
3. The #MeToo Movement
4. Moon Jae-in President, South Korea
5. Kenneth Frazier CEO, Merck
6. Scott Gottlieb FDA commisioner
7. Margarethe Vestager Commissioner for Competition, European Union
8. Larry Fink CEO, BlackRock
9. General Joseph Dunford Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff
10. Liu He Vice Premier, China

11-20

11. Mary Barra CEO, General Motors
12. Nick Saban Football coach, University of Alabama
13. Emmanuel Macron President, France
14. Tim Cook CEO, Apple
15. Serena Williams Athlete
16. Isabelle Kocher CEO, Engie
17. Katie Bethell Executive director, PL+US
18. Ryan Coogler Film director
19. Huateng “Pony” Ma CEO, Tencent
20. Indira Jaising Founder, Lawyers Collective

21-30

21. Marc Benioff CEO, Salesforce
22. The Gymnasts and Their Allies
23. Kathleen McLaughlin Chief sustainability officer, Walmart
24. Mukesh Ambani Chairman and managing director, Reliance Industries
25. Mick Cornett Former mayor, Oklahoma City
26. Donald Hopkins Physician, the Carter Center
27. Oprah Winfrey CEO, OWN
28. Mitch Landrieu Mayor, New Orleans
29. Jacinda Ardern Prime Minister, New Zealand
30. Ma Jun Environmentalist, China

31-40

31. West Virginia Teachers
32. Leymah Gbowee President, Gbowee Peace Foundation
33. Jamie Dimon CEO, JPMorgan Chase
34. Michael Sorrell President, Paul Quinn College
35. Reese Witherspoon Actor/producer
36. Daniel Servitje Montull CEO, Grupo Bimbo
37. Izumi Nakamitsu Undersecretary general for disarmament, United Nations
38. Bashar Masri Founder, Rawabi
39. Leila de Lima Senator, Philippines
40. Angela Nyambura Gichaga CEO, Financing Alliance for Health

41-50

41. Timothy Keller Evangelical minister/author, Redeemer City to City
42. Gwynne Shotwell President and chief operating officer, SpaceX
43. Balkrishna Doshi Architect, India
44. Feike Sijbesma CEO, DSM
45. Kelly Chibale Scientist, South Africa
46. Ana Botín Group executive 
chairman, Banco Santander
47. Dina Meza Journalist, PEN Honduras
48. Ridwan Kamil Mayor, Bandung, Indonesia
49. Amy Gutmann President, University of Pennsylvania
50. Ed Bastian CEO, Delta Air Lines

The fiercest resisters of unbundling are national leaders. They have little to gain and much to lose by leading a smaller country. Yet they may have no choice, eventually. Many services that once were the province of governments—telecom, utilities, even Continue Reading: The World’s 50 Greatest Leaders of 2018 | Fortune:

Obama Profiles Parkland Survivors For TIME's '100 Most Influential' List | HuffPost - https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/obama-parkland-survivors_us_5ad8aed2e4b029ebe021cadd on @HuffPostPol

Cameron Kasky, Jaclyn Corin, David Hogg, Emma González and Alex Wind Is on the 2018 TIME 100 List |

Big Education Ape: #NeverAgain The Book by David Hogg, Lauren Hogg | #NationalSchoolWalkout #MarchForOurLives - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2018/04/neveragain-by-david-hogg-lauren-hogg.html

Price Tags - March For Our Lives - https://wp.me/P9J85t-288 via @AMarch4OurLives

The power Scam behind the search for a new L.A. schools leader

The power game behind the search for a new L.A. schools leader:

The power game behind the search for a new L.A. schools leader

The search for a new Los Angeles schools superintendent is proceeding behind closed doors, but the underlying power politics extend well beyond the room where seven elected Board of Education members are at work.

There now appear to be three finalists since Indianapolis Supt. Lewis Ferebee withdrew from consideration this week. They are, in alphabetical order: former Baltimore Supt. Andres Alonso, former investment banker Austin Beutner and Vivian Ekchian, who is L.A.'s interim superintendent.

Some of the city's power brokers seem to be invested in Beutner, 58, who is himself one of L.A.'s more influential leaders. But they are keeping a low profile, apparently working behind the scenes on his behalf.

The person who gets the job will have to confront the Los Angeles Unified School District's rising pension costs, vastly underfunded retiree health benefits and declining student enrollment, which could push the nation's second-largest school system toward financial crisis. Many schools also perform well below state averages academically.

What happened in closed session Tuesday, and who has the inside track?

The board met in private for about 10 hours. Much of that time was spent on second interviews with Alonso and Beutner. (Ekchian had hers last week.) Deliberation lasted until about 10 p.m. and often got heated, sources said. The meeting recessed with no announcement.

In any scenario, the majority would prefer to avoid a 4-3 vote if one of those four votes belongs to Ref Rodriguez, who faces criminal charges for alleged political money laundering. He has denied wrongdoing, but his reputation has suffered and he could be forced from office if convicted.

Informed speculation suggests that Beutner has the easiest path to a four-vote majority, and the core of that support would come from the four-member board majority elected with major financial backing from charter school advocates. Beutner has tried to avoid polarizing comments on charter-related issues, though he has served on the boards of charter school organizations and contributed to charter-backed candidates for public office.

But his lack of experience in managing schools or school districts could give some board members pause, including those in the charter-backed bloc.

If that bloc holds for Beutner, a fifth vote could come from Richard Vladovic, who has triangulated between opposing district factions without alienating them.

If Beutner cannot get past four votes, the board could turn to Alonso, especially if switching gears could bring him five or six votes.

From 2007 to 2013, Alonso, 60, managed to navigate opposing political forces in Baltimore, forging a respectful relationship with the teachers union while also winning praise from advocates, such as charter backers, who frequently do battle with unions.

In the current climate, the 57-year-old Ekchian, the insider, looks like a fallback choice. She would not be the first L.A. superintendent to ascend this way. Were she to be selected, a 7-0 vote is possible, as a gesture of goodwill.

What happens next?

The board meets Friday at noon. It's possible that the choice is already made and that the delay until Friday is simply to prepare for the announcement or to hash out contract details. Or maybe the debate continues.

How might the new board majority affect the superintendent selection process?

Supt. Michelle King was hired in 2016 by a board that wanted her to win back students who had left the school system for charter schools. These independently operated campuses Continue reading: The power game behind the search for a new L.A. schools leader:

 

Big Education Ape: Beutner emerges as a top pick for L.A. schools superintendent amid last-minute jockeying - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2018/04/beutner-emerges-as-top-pick-for-la.html