Nonresidents no longer welcome at Beverly Hills public schools. NY Times columnist David Pogue reviews the decade in tech. Blake Hounshell of Foreign Policy magazine on the year's overlooked stories, and critics Wade Major and Claudia Puig on the best and worst films of the decade.
School's out for permit students in the 90210
The Beverly Hills school board is poised to end a program that allows nearly 500 out-of-district students to attend school in Beverly Hills on opportunity permits. Steep education cuts have left the school district paying more to the state in taxes than it receives for schooling non-resident students. Parents of permit-students are asking that their children be allowed to finish their educations where they started them – in Beverly Hills, rather than LAUSD, where more than a quarter of high school students drop out. Should students be allowed to attend public schools in a district where they do not live? Or is the Beverly Hills school board right to focus their resources on taxpaying residents only?
Guests:
Lisa Korbatov, Vice President, Beverly Hills School District
Steven Wasserman, “permit parent” with two children in the Beverly Hills School District
Sharon Wallin, President of the Irvine School Board which implemented a resident requirement last year
Decade in technology
Faxes pretty much died. VHS is all but gone. DVD's are on life support. But iPhones and other smart phones were born. And streaming video is becoming the norm. It's been a decade of massive technological change. What gadgets caused the most change in your life? And what formerly favorite devices are now sitting in the back of your closet, gathering dust?
Guest:
David Pogue, Technology Reporter and Columnist, The New York Times
Foreign Policy's top ten overlooked stories of 2009
Lots of important events take place in the world, but, to a degree, it's the choices of major newspapers and television outlets that decide what people focus on. That's why every year Foreign Policy magazine publishes its "Top 10 Stories You Missed." What was big--and overlooked--in 2009? How about the opening of the Northeast passage (a water route from East Asia to Western Europe) thanks to melting ice? The establishment of a "hotline" between China and India? Or various flashpoints in Iraq that are now largely ignored as the U.S. focuses more on Afghanistan? Find out what's likely to top the news in 2010, by looking at what was overlooked in 2009.
Read the full list here.
Guest:
Blake Hounshell, managing editor of Foreign Policy Magazine
Best & worst movies of the noughties
District 9, The Lives of Others, and Pan’s Labyrinth are just three of the best films since 2000, according to users of Internet Movie Database (IMDB). As the noughties come to a close, guest host David Lazarus and KPCC film critics Claudia Puig of USA Today and Wade Major of boxoffice.com look back at the best and worst in film. What are your favorites? And what films should die with the decade?
Guests:
Claudia Puig, USA Today film critic
Wade Major, BoxOffice.com film critic