Dear Commons Community,

Tom Friedman has an interesting column today entitled, Pass the Books.  Hold the Oil.   He refers to “a study mapping the correlation between performance on the Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA, exam — which every two years tests math, science and reading comprehension skills of 15-year-olds in 65 countries — and the total earnings on natural resources as a percentage of G.D.P. for each participating country. In short, how well do your high school kids do on math compared with how much oil you pump…?”

The results indicate:

“that there was a “a significant negative relationship between the money countries extract from national resources and the knowledge and skills of their high school population,” said Andreas Schleicher, who oversees the PISA exams for the O.E.C.D. “This is a global pattern that holds across 65 countries that took part in the latest PISA assessment.” Oil and PISA don’t mix. (See the data map at: http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/43/9/49881940.pdf.)”

So hold the oil, and pass the books, students in Singapore, Finland, South Korea, Hong Kong and Japan stand out as having high PISA scores and few natural resources, while Qatar and Kazakhstan stand out as having the highest oil rents and the lowest PISA scores.    Schleicher concluded:

“knowledge and skills have become the global currency of 21st-century economies, but there is no central bank that prints this currency. Everyone has to decide on their own how much they will print.” Sure, it’s great to have oil, gas and diamonds; they can buy jobs. But they’ll weaken your society in the long run unless they’re used to build schools and a culture of lifelong learning. “The thing that will keep you moving forward,” says Schleicher, is always “what you bring to the table yourself.”

A lot to think about!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Sarah Palin dismissed the HBO film “Game Change” — airing publicly for the first time on Saturday night — as unimportant.

In an email to ABC News, Palin said her “family has the right priorities and knows what really matters,” according to the Chicago Tribune.  Both Palin and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) have said they won’t watch the made-for-tv movie that takes a look inside the behind-the-scenes drama of the 2008 campaign. McCain said “it’ll be a cold day in Gila Bend, Arizona” when he views the film.

“Game Change” director Jay Roach said the film humanizes the GOP duo. In a recent interview with CNN, Roach said he wished the two would watch the movie.

“I wish they’d see the film because it has a very evenhanded tone to it, in trying to get the story right and allow anybody with any prejudices against the main characters to go past the media iconography and see them as human beings,” Roach said. “They are human beings who are trying to do what they think is right. They have strengths and they have weaknesses.”

I watch the film last night and thought it was an even portrayal and not a “hit job” on Sarah Palin. I also thought that John McCain came off rather well.  Movie critics have been mostly positive.   I thought Julianne Moore (Palin), Ed Harris (McCain) and Woody Harrelson (Steve Schmidt) played the lead characters very well.

Tony