Nine Shift

Thanks for a great NineShift week!

We had at least 1,000 visitors and 2,000 page views this week!
Thanks to the 28 people who made comments this week.
Comments are now over 700 lifetime.
Your involvement, comments and support make the NineShift blog a big success!

Gas hits $4 a gallon: time to celebrate!

Gas is now hitting $4 a gallon around the U.S.

There’s also been a rash of articles on alternative travel, including bikes, train ridership going up, carpooling, and much more. 

NineShift is celebrating. Higher gas prices help the growth of alternative travel, especially trains and light rail. People are driving less, combining trips, cutting back to just one car, riding bikes, walking, buying electric cars, carpooling, and taking the bus, train and light rail. Some are even moving out of the suburbs. Now tell us what you are doing. Make a comment now!

Home Offices Surge

Home offices ranked as the fourth most important feature in a new upscale home, just ahead of security. Here’s 3 more facts from a great NY Times story on home offices:

1. Some 7 in 10 Americans now have offices or designated workstations in their homes, a 112% increase since 2000, according to the American Home Furnishings Alliance.

2.  More than 28 million Americans now work from home at least part time.

3. Working from home has increased 10% from just the year before, and up 40% from 2002, according to the Dieringer Research Group, a marketing research company in Brookfield, Wisconsin. Do you have a home office? Does yours have a feature special to you? Are you jealous of Julie's home office?

Photo: Fireplace and Persian rug in NineShift co-author Julie Coates new customized home office. 

In historic decision, students no longer penalized for late work

In an historic education decision last month, the Toronto, Canada, schools will no longer punish students for late homework.  To repeat, Toronto schools will no longer punish students for late homework. 

Here's what administrator Karen Grose told Nine Shift: "Homework is not marked/evaluated--it is assessed to direct students in their learning goals. As it is not marked, there is no mark deduction for being late--rather progressive consequences (ie a range of supports to then help the student get it done). Assignments of course are evaluated. Again, if late a range of progressive consequences are applied.  After the large range of supports and progressive consequences, mark deduction could be used as a very last resort."

Why is it important not to penalize students for late work? Because grading in this century should be based on learning and knowledge, not behavior or neurology. Feel free to tell us your thoughts.   

New! Audio Presentations online

Our first online audio presentation! 
"The 100th Anniversary,"  a 7 minute audio with slides.
Find out about three great inventions of 100 years ago:  plastics, the Model T, and debt.
Then learn why each is obsolete today.  Click here for the audio.

Will the Web Close the Gender Pay Gap?

Just like 100 years ago, today’s transition from one economic age to a better one will help narrow the gender pay gap. But will it close the gap?

Women earn about 73% of men. There were steep advances in pay for women for most of the 20^th century. But the current 73% glass pay ceiling has not cracked for the past several decades.

The web will narrow the gender pay gap for these Nine Shift reasons: 1) when women work from home, they can spend more time with their family with less sacrifice to work. 2) when men work from home, they can spend more time with their family with less sacrifice to work. 3) women working from home, like men, will find a global knowledge workplace, where employers at a distance pay based on output, not office or gender politics.

Will the Internet close the gender pay gap? Tell us what you think. 

Gas and Democracy

I don't know what is more fascinating. Watching the 21st century values emerge, or the 20th century values collapse.

Thomas Friedman continues to shout out for a collapsing set of values.  His latest column advocates the incredulous (to me) belief that oil prices are tied to democracy.  Get this:  the lower the price of gas, the more democracy flourishes.

Friedman continues to believe in the oil based economy, and America as right and moral and leader of the world.  The same state of denial going on in the British Empire 100 years ago.

(Photo: Isabel Allende. Her uncle was President of Chile when the U.S. overthrew his democratically elected government 35 years ago.  I remember it with great pain and embarrassment for our country.)

AAA funds trains to replace cars

National Train Day is May 10 in the USA.
Americans will "celebrate" by whining.  Most will whine about high gas prices for their cars.
I and other Train advocates will whine about American trains being so far behind European trains.

Irony of the week.  American Automobile Association (AAA) gives a 10% discount for Amtrak train tickets.
So AAA is, in effect, helping to fund trains to replace cars.
We like it.

(Photo: Julie gets complimentary coffee, newspaper and meals on our Amtrak trip from New Orleans  to Wisconsin this week. We got a roomette, cost still cheap.)

Gas prices not driving cars down

NineShift has always maintained that the high price of gas is not why cars are in decline.
The high gas prices help the transition to trains, but the main reason is that you cannot work and drive.

We've wondered, however, whether hay prices were similarly high in 1908, as carriages went into decline.
Car sales are on pace to decline 10% from 2000 to 2010, just like carriage sales declined 10% from 1900 to 1910.

But, according to this New York Times story from 1908, hay prices were low that year. 
Either way, hay prices of course had no impact on the decline of the horse and buggy.
(Photo courtesy of freefoto.com)
Just like gas prices have no serious impact on the decline of the car today.