NYC Education Gets More A's

It looks like Bloomberg's focus on the city's education has yielded some high grades.

From the NYT article: "The number of New York City high schools receiving top marks on the Bloomberg administration’s contentious report cards jumped this year, with more than 83 percent earning an A or B, the Department of Education announced on Wednesday." Also, "the number of schools receiving grades in the second year of the program grew to 284 from 236, reflecting the shifting of the city’s high school map toward more and more new small schools (new schools do not get graded until a senior class has graduated). These small schools, broadly speaking, did better on the report cards: The average size of schools earning A’s was less than half the size of those getting D’s and F’s, and schools with fewer than 500 students were twice as likely to earn A’s as those with more than 500."

And Brooklyn Technical High School stepped up from a B to an A this year. All eight specialized high schools received an A. This sounds good, but at the maybe at the cost of waves and waves of standardized exams and assessments on students.

Going Meat-free, Sort of

I recently came across a New York Times article titled "Putting Meat Back in Its Place", under the Dining and Wine section. What struck my attention was that I have been thinking about the same points as the article brings up, namely:

1. Forget the protein thing.
2. Buy less meat.
3. Get it out of the center of the plate.
4. Buy more vegetables, and learn new ways to cook them.
5. Make nonmeat items as convenient as meat.
6. Make some rules.
7. Look at restaurant menus differently.

My reason for reconsidering meat is simply a practical one. Vegetables are generally easier to cook, and easier and quicker to prepare. Cheaper too. The drawback, I think, is that it is harder to make an all-vegetable dish seem more impressive, by virtue of point #3 from above; meat generally claims the center of the dish.

I'm not going to claim to become a vegetarian, but I will also not try as hard to get meat in to every night's dinner.

Having started cooking for myself this summer, I don't think I have eaten this healthy in a long time, since I was away from home. I have put aside Collegetown food for a while, to save money, and to eat healthy.

It also saves gas and helps fight against global warming, or at least I'd like to think.