StudentsFirst chief Michelle Rhee is a lightning-rod figure in educational reform, and I talked to her at length for my ''Patt Morrison Asks'' column. Her goal of a tough-love, top-to-bottom overhaul of public schools doesn't stop in the classroom or with teachers; even how we reward our children is in need of a makeover, she told me.

As an example, her own daughters, she says in a radio commentary, "suck" at soccer, yet they have so many medals and ribbons, "you'd think I was raising the next Mia Hamm."

And that is not, to her mind, a good thing:

The practice of applauding kids for taking part and trying their best, whatever the results -- you are concerned that we overpraise kids.

I think it's a huge problem. We don't want to make kids feel bad. I tell the soccer story: One of the soccer leagues my kid was in wanted to stop keeping score because they didn't want the kids on the losing team to feel bad. That's so ridiculous. Life is about sometimes losing and being able to tough it out, and if you're not as good, you know you've got to put in the hard work to get better. If we're creating this cocoon for kids where they think that if they just try their best, we can tell them that's sufficient -- that is doing a disservice to kids in the long run.

Shouldn't you also hold the soccer coach responsible, the way you'd hold the teacher responsible?

Saying "we're not going to keep score" is the same as saying "we're not going to look at student achievement levels." A coach's win-loss record is the basis on which [the coach] is paid. If you were to say, "We're going to stop keeping score; we're going to evaluate coaches on how they're inspiring team spirit" -- are you kidding me? People would go ballistic!

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-- Patt Morrison

Photo: Michelle Rhee is seen at Good Housekeeping's 'Shine On' Women Making History theatrical event at Radio City Music Hall on April 12, 2011 in New York. Credit: Evan Agostini / AP Photo

Anyone who has survived a high school Valentine's Day dance, a prom, New Year's Eve and the alleged Mr. or Ms. Right (Nos. 1 through 5) knows that celebrating Feb. 14 is an exercise in futility.  Restaurants are overcrowded, no one wants to fall off a diet with a giant box of chocolates, and I don't know where all those bushels of red roses that florists are jacking up the prices on are going, but they're not showing up at my place or any of my girlfriends' doors.   The only institutions I know of where people will be reveling in Valentine's Day festivities are elementary schools and my mother's elderly living community.

So it seems fitting that Valentine's Day would be going to the dogs -- and cats and rabbits and lions and tigers.  In the last few years, rescue groups, municipal animal shelters and the L.A. Zoo have cleverly turned Valentine's Day or the weekend near it into an occasion for events for lovers of furry creatures, wild and domestic.  Shelters and rescue groups plan adoption events and reduce fees to draw people looking for pets.

The Los Angeles County Department of Animal Care and Control and the Los Angeles Animal Alliance are hosting a "FURever Yours" event from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday at two of the county shelters, the Carson Animal Care Center, 216 W. Victoria St., Gardena; and the Downey Animal Care Center, 11258 S. Garfield Ave. in Downey.  Adoption fees will be 50% off.

The nonprofit Pet Care Foundation is hosting adoption events  at all of the L.A. city shelters on Sunday, Feb. 12, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. ("Adopt a Shelter Sweetheart!" cries the online announcement.)  It promises refreshments, Valentine card making, pet matchmaking and discounted fees.

And although you can't take home wild animals, you can learn about their romantic rituals and mating habits  at the Los Angeles Zoo's "Sex and the City Zoo"  lecture the evening of Feb. 12,  given by Jason Jacobs, the zoo's director of marketing and public relations. The zoo is selling tickets online to the adults-only event, which starts at 5 p.m. with a pre-lecture champagne-and-wine reception.

Most shelters and rescue groups discourage giving pets as surprise gifts to people for holidays,  and some  outright ban the adoption of black cats at Halloween and rabbits at Easter.  Caring for  a pet is a  years-long obligation, and adopting an animal should not be done impulsively for yourself or anyone else without the adopter having thought through the commitment.   Of course,  shelters are advertising their animals on Valentine's Day as that special love-ball-of-fur, and that could certainly prompt someone feeling down on Valentine's Day to get a dog or cat on a whim.  "I'll be your Valentine every day of the year," one independent website offers as a marketing tip for shelters.   

But as animal welfare advocates urge people to adopt from shelters,  Valentine's Day does seem to be the perfect day to emphasize how much unconditional love you get from a pet year-round.  Just remember: You can't break up with your cat or dog.

And keep whatever roses you do get from your human honey out of reach of your furry love.  On those occasions when I have had roses in my apartment, my cat always assumed they were there for his chewing pleasure.

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--Carla Hall

Photo: Kittens up for adoption in 2007 at the North Central animal shelter in Los Angeles. Credit: Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times

Mitt Romney's speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference included a "greatest hits" of conservative policy positions, but what was striking about it was the repetition of the "C-word." I counted 23 references to "conservative," "conservatives" or "conservatism." 

Would a politician comfortable with his conservatism feel the need to wrap himself so tightly in the term? It's as if President Obama were to refer to himself repeatedly as a "liberal"  -- or  "progressive," the new preferred usage -- in a speech to a liberal-leaning group. (Or as a "centrist" if he were addressing the moderate Democratic Leadership Council.)

Just as converts to Catholicism often call attention to their religion more than do cradle Catholics, Romney clearly felt that he had to blatantly burnish his conservative credentials before an audience of longtime right-wingers. It's a wonder he didn't write "conservative Mitt Romney" on his CPAC name tag.

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Contraception and women's rights -- it's still a man's world

The White House wishes away the cost of contraception coverage

 --Michael McGough

Photo: Mitt Romney speaks during an address to the 39th Conservative Political Action Committee on Feb. 10 in Washington, DC. Credit: Mandel Ngan /AFP/Getty Images

When it comes to contraception, it's still a man's world.

President Obama offered a compromise Friday on health insurance coverage for contraceptives. (For a thoughtful take on how that's likely to work, read my colleague Jon Healey's post, "The White House wishes away the cost of contraception coverage.")

Really, though, this issue isn't about health insurance, or healthcare costs, or even religious freedom and the 1st Amendment. This is about power.

It's about men telling women what they can and can't do with their bodies.

And that's ridiculous.

The Roman Catholic Church is dominated by men. So, for that matter, is Islam. And so are a number of Christian churches -- the Mormon Church, for example.

Which is why we find ourselves, in the 21st century, with these faiths -- and the men who run them --  dictating to women on that most vital issue: the health of their own bodies.

It's a very old story: Men have power over women, and they certainly don't seem to want to give it up.

No, no, it's about religious freedom, you say. That's what the Catholic bishops argue, anyway. You could ask their female peers in the church what they think, but -- oh, that’s right, they don't have any female peers!

Huh.

No. This is about women's freedom -– the freedom too many women don't have.

If a woman chooses not to use birth control, or chooses not to have an abortion, that's freedom.

If a man, whether a religious leader or a pandering politician, tells her what she's able to do, that's, well, it's certainly not freedom.

These same religious leaders and politicians often talk about respecting women. 

Respecting women isn't telling them what to do "for their own good." And hiding behind religion to deny contraceptive coverage is simply another way to perpetuate that abusive, illogical and antiquated notion.

Want to respect women?

Then make sure they have the freedom to decide for themselves.

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-- Paul Whitefield

Photo: President Obama on Friday announces revamping of the policy on health insurance coverage for contraceptives. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is at left. Credit: Susan Walsh / Associated Press

The Obama administration announced Friday that it's not backing away from the mandate that employers affiliated with religious institutions include contraception in their health insurance coverage. Instead, it's relying on magical thinking in the hope of making the political firestorm disappear.

The administration said it has come up with a win-win for employers affiliated with religious groups that object to contraception (such as Catholic universities and hospitals) and their female employees who want free access to birth control. It plans to revise its health insurance rules to exempt those employers from having to provide coverage for contraception. At the same time, however, it will require insurers to restore the dropped coverage at no cost to those employers' workers.

Sounds great, right? Churches won't have to subsidize contraception, and their workers won't have to pay for it! That's a considerable savings -- birth-control pills can cost $600 a year.

Except that the money has to come from somewhere. This is the point that advocates of contraception coverage routinely gloss over. The Affordable Care Act required insurers to cover preventive services with no out-of-pocket costs, on the theory that it would promote better public health and save money in the long run. It left a federal task force to decide what those services should be; the group later included contraception on the list. As a consequence, the cost of every preventive service will be buried in every policyholder's monthly insurance premiums. In other words, what appears to be free to the user is actually being paid for by everyone.

Here's where the magical thinking comes in. The following is from the fact sheet the White House released Friday:

Covering contraception saves money for insurance companies by keeping women healthy and preventing spending on other health services. For example, there was no increase in premiums when contraception was added to the Federal Employees Health Benefit System and required of non-religious employers in Hawaii. One study found that covering contraception lowered premiums by 10 percent or more. 

Making everyone in a pool carry coverage whether they need it or not spreads the cost, saving money for those who really do need it and who'd choose to carry it if it were merely optional. But costs faced by the insurer are the same -- and when the care is provided with no out-of-pocket costs, the insurer's costs are likely to go up because more people will use it. Such is likely to be the case with contraception.

The administration's bet is that the cost of all those birth-control and morning-after pills, among other forms of contraception, will be more than offset by a reduction in other healthcare costs. A report by the Institutes of Medicine backs up the White House; it found that contraceptive use would save $19.3 billion a year -- far more than the estimated $5 billion annual cost of unintended pregnancies.

But whether this particular mandate produces that kind of result is something only time will tell. Although 28 states require insurers to cover contraception, the new federal rules are the first to require that contraceptives be available at no cost. The only certain result is that more women will get prescriptions filled for contraceptives. There will be a short-term cost to that, unquestionably; the administration's hope is that there will be long-term savings.

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-- Jon Healey

Credit: Bettmann / Corbis

Hope versus anger: It's not just shaping up as the theme of the November presidential race; it's the clashing musical theme of the presidential campaigns.

David Fahrenthold pointed out in the Washington Post on Wednesday that GOP hopeful Mitt Romney is taking a new tack with the music played at campaign rallies. His main theme remains the rather bland but inspirational ballad "Born Free" by Kid Rock, but at the end of Romney's speeches, the campaign has taken to playing a much edgier tune, "American Ride" by country singer Toby Keith. Meanwhile, President Obama released a list Thursday of 29 songs picked out by his election staffers to represent the themes of his 2012 campaign. David Graham at the Atlantic does a nice job sifting through the political rationale for Obama's choices, pointing out in particular that the list contains zero rap songs even though Obama has identified himself as a devoted rap fan, and that it's heavy on country tunes because he's courting white middle-class voters. But I'm more intrigued by the contrast between Toby Keith and Sugarland.

Romney and Obama would both like to win votes from the country/Western demographic. The Romney campaign's choice for reaching it is a tune that's a perfect encapsulation of conservative protest: heavy on anger while a little fuzzy on the details. The most cutting criticisms in Keith's song are actually directed at pop culture and the media, but there's plenty of political stuff too, particularly in the first verse:

"Winter gettin' colder, summer gettin' warmer

 Tidal wave comin' 'cross the Mexican border

Why buy a gallon, it's cheaper by the barrel

Just don't get busted singin' Christmas carols."

The video version of the song makes this political content even more overt: An animated Al Gore is depicted naked and sunburned in the desert heat, and a bunch of arms wearing red-white-and-blue sleeves slap gags over the mouths of caroling children. Whether any of this makes sense -- if Al Gore is boiling in the sun, doesn't that imply that his climate warnings are accurate? And when has the government ever prevented anyone from singing Christmas carols? -- is a bit beside the point. It fits the narrative of an aggrieved populace oppressed by science wonks, illegal immigrants and the government. The only sour note in Romney's campaign symphony is that Keith also seems to be criticizing profit-gouging oil companies, which is not something one would ever hear coming from the mouth of a GOP candidate.

Contrast this with the country songs on Obama's playlist, in particular "Stand Up" by Sugarland. It, like Romney's tamer "Born Free," is an inoffensive ballad, but some verses seem as if they were lifted from Obama's hope-and-change campaign of 2008:

"There's a comfort, there's a healing

High above the pain and sorrow

Change is coming, can you feel it?

Calling us in to a new tomorrow."

In this video for "Stand Up," singer Jennifer Nettles spray-paints the word "Home" on a banner, with a peace sign in the middle of the "O," and then gives it to a child in the crowd. Had this been a GOP theme song, the banner would have said "America" and the letter "A" would be crossed with an assault rifle.

Campaign music matters because, like a commercial jingle, it tends to stick in one's head long after the speeches have been forgotten, and music can travel a more direct path to the heart than mere words. Romney's campaign wants to leave listeners steaming; Obama's wants to leave them hopeful and inspired. Of course, when it comes to their personal musical stylings, Romney likes to appeal to patriotism while Obama just wants us to know he still loves us.

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--Dan Turner

By temporarily holding out from the settlement talks between five major banks and other state attorneys general, California Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris says she was able to obtain a significantly better deal for the state's homeowners and borrowers. In particular, she pointed to an agreement by the five banks -- Wells Fargo & Co., Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Ally Financial -- to guarantee at least $12 billion in relief to state borrowers over the coming three years, and to make that commitment enforceable in state court. And instead of waiving all claims related to loan origination, Harris said, the state's unique agreement with the banks preserves its ability to sue them for discriminatory and fraudulent lending practices.

Give Harris credit for all those things because they're helpful to Californians. But the more important part of the deal is that it gets the ball rolling on a new, more effective type of mortgage modification that could help far more borrowers than the billions that have been guaranteed.

The proposed national settlement grew out of a joint investigation by all 50 state attorneys general into "robo-signing," the banks' practice of giving judges in foreclosure cases documents that had been signed without anyone reviewing them. Robo-signing was mainly an issue in states that required lenders to go to court to foreclose on a home, and California does not. But the investigation uncovered many other abuses in the way the banks serviced the loans -- for example, the "dual tracking" that led one arm of a bank to foreclose on a house while another arm was negotiating a loan modification with the homeowner.

The national settlement, which still must be approved by a federal judge, calls for the five banks to provide more than $20 billion worth of relief to borrowers, including refinancing of underwater homes, loan modifications that write off some of the borrower's debt and support for "short sales" that enable borrowers to sell homes that are worth less than the balance of their mortgage. It also requires that $5 billion in penalties be paid mainly to state agencies and to borrowers who've already been foreclosed on.

About 1 million financially troubled homeowners across the country would be helped through mortgage modifications, short sales and other forms of relief. But about 6 million U.S. homeowners are in some stage of default, and about 2 million enter the foreclosure process every month. Millions of additional homeowners owe more than their homes are worth, putting them at risk of defaulting if they run into financial trouble. So as large as the settlement is, the problem is considerably larger.

That's why it's critical for banks to step up efforts to identify and help troubled borrowers whom they could rescue with a modified loan and lose less money than they would on a foreclosure. The settlement pushes them to do so, which is what makes it so important. First, it would require banks to meet new standards for how they respond to borrowers who fall behind on their payments, ensuring that every borrower is considered for a modification before foreclosure proceedings are started. And second, it would provide a template for modifications that write off a portion of a borrower's debt -- a technique that's proved to be more effective (because fewer borrowers re-default) and less costly than foreclosing, yet one that banks have eschewed because of the short-term cost and the potential for encouraging more defaults. Once the industry sees how well the modifications work, more lenders will adopt them, housing advocates hope. The relief would then spread far beyond the million borrowers covered by the settlement.

Harris' agreement with the banks gives them more incentive (or rather, less disincentive) to write down mortgages in communities with the highest foreclosure rates and greatest losses in property value. According to Brian Nelson, a special assistant attorney general, it also allows her office to sue any of the five banks if she finds evidence of discrimination in their lending -- for example, if they sold ethnic minorities costlier mortgages than they offered other borrowers. In addition, Nelson said, the agreement lets Harris sue the banks if she finds evidence that they defrauded borrowers, such as by willfully misrepresenting the terms of a loan. The latter claims only apply to loans made since July 2009, and banks would be liable only for the actual harm suffered by the borrowers.

Again, those are potentially helpful. We won't know how helpful, though, unless and until Harris' office actually brings cases. Besides, with the clock running on the state's four-year statute of limitations, and with the most predatory forms of subprime and exotic loans coming from lenders other than these five banks, it seems unlikely that Harris will be able to haul in many fish with these nets.

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Photo: Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris announces the details of California's settlement of mortgage-related claims against five major banks. Credit: Los Angeles Times

This post has been corrected. See note below.

Los Angeles City Atty. Carmen Trutanich officially announced his candidacy for county district attorney  Thursday. That took a good deal of chutzpah because during his 2008 campaign, he signed a pledge to seek a second term as city attorney and to forgo running for any other office, including district attorney. If he violated his promise, Trutanich said four years ago, he would donate $100,000 to an after-school program and take out full-page newspaper ads declaring "I am a liar." As far as we can tell, The Times has yet to receive an ad request from his campaign -- and Trutanich hasn't addressed his seeming hypocrisy. Below, editorial writers Jon Healey and Dan Turner debate the issue. 

Healey: When running to succeed City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo, Trutanich argued that Delgadillo's outsized political ambitions made him a distracted and ineffective leader of the city's law office. His target wasn't just Delgadillo; it was also then-City Councilman Jack Weiss, the front-runner in the race for city attorney who was also viewed as a political climber. Trutanich hammered home this point in late 2008 by publicly swearing to serve two full terms if he were elected and reelected. He also challenged the other candidates to join him in signing a pledge to "not seek any other elected position including Mayor, U.S. Congress, Attorney General or Los Angeles County District Attorney while serving as Los Angeles City Attorney."

By his own standards, Trutanich is a liar. And considering his willingness to lie to voters, I don't expect him to keep his pledge to the local print media or to the L.A.'s Best After School Program either.

Turner: There are certain words and phrases that, when emitted from politicians' mouths, have ceased to have much meaning. When I hear them being uttered, I tend to substitute them in my head with those muted horns used on the old "Charlie Brown" specials whenever an adult was talking. (In Charles Schulz's world, the words of adults were so superfluous that they could be reduced to background noise.) So, for example, when Mitt Romney pledges not to "go negative" against his fellow candidates, what I hear him saying is "Wah wohh, wah woh, wah wa wa wa." Another good phrase worthy of a mental horn section: "If elected, I will not use this position as a springboard to higher office."

Well, of course you will. Politicians routinely lie about this for the same reason most job seekers lie about the same thing: If I'm applying for a lousy job at a banana stand because I need to beef up my resume so I can apply for a commissioned job selling used cars, I'm not going to admit that to my prospective employer -- and woe to the banana-stand owner who’s naive enough to believe me when I claim that it is my greatest ambition in life to spend my career selling chocolate-covered bananas. In 2003, a former Assemblyman named Antonio Villaraigosa claimed he was solely interested in serving on the City Council and wouldn't interrupt his term to run for mayor; two years later, I doubt he stopped to think twice about whether to jump into the mayor's race. When Jerry Brown was running for California attorney general, he told The Times' editorial board that he had no interest in higher office -- he was too old and tired to consider running for governor, he said. We all know how that ended.

Obviously, just because it's common doesn't make it right. And Trutanich's promises were so emphatic that he now finds himself in an unwinnable position: If he honors his promise he has to admit to being a liar, while if he fails to honor his promise he is implicitly a liar. But another problem with this kind of about-face is that neither Trutanich -- nor Brown, Villaraigosa or any other politician guilty of such a flip-flop -- was necessarily lying at the time they made the promise. Many of them might genuinely have thought they were telling the truth. But circumstances change; an office that seemed unattainable might suddenly open up because an unbeatable incumbent chooses not to run, for example. There's nothing wrong with adapting to changing circumstances. You just have to explain your reasons to voters, which is a case we have yet to see Trutanich make.

Healey: I'll concede that the job of city attorney is a political one, so it's not necessarily bad for voters if the person holding that office sets his or her eyes on higher office. After all, term limits force those who win the job to think prematurely about where they'll go next.

The problem with Trutanich is that the centerpiece of his sales pitch to voters was that he wouldn't do that. The office had been so neglected by Delgadillo, he argued, that its main client -- the City Council -- refused to rely on its advice. The lawyers there needed a committed manager who could turn them into the city's best law firm. So, three years into the job, Trutanich finds out that the office doesn't really need a full-time, hands-on manager?

I don't think that's what Dan means by "circumstances change." Trutanich didn't have a revelation about the city attorney not really needing to focus on, you know, his job. He had a revelation that Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley wasn't going to run for a fourth term after all. Trutanich also evidently learned that he liked being an elected official and figured he'd enjoy it more in a more powerful seat.

Humble, deferential people do not win a lot of elections. Ambitious ones do. Yet there's a difference between pols facing term limits who cast about for the next place to land and those whose eyes have been on a different prize all along. Now that Trutanich has made it clear that the city attorney's job was just a stepping stone, he's put himself into the latter category. And that makes me wonder whether he's really interested in being district attorney, or is that just a rung on the ladder too?

Turner: Your point about Trutanich making his pledge a centerpiece of his campaign is a good one. Now, it's up to voters to decide whether they can forgive him for that. Trutanich surely knows that he's got some explaining to do, but I'm not sure that we should fault him for not yet coming to the plate -- he just announced his candidacy today, after all. He's got plenty of time to lay out his rationale for changing his mind.

Personally, I'm not sure why it matters whether or not Trutanich considers the district attorney job to be just another rung on the career ladder (Next stop: state attorney general?) If he is a successful DA, he might deserve to be elected attorney general; if he isn't, he won't win. Don't we want successful politicians to bring that success to higher offices? When managers succeed in the private sector, they get promoted, which is good for the company, and the same principle can and should apply to government. But I take your main point: The real question is whether Trutanich can be trusted. If he's lying about his future ambitions in order to get elected, what else is he lying about? I just think that in politics, there are forgivable lies and unforgivable ones. "I did not sleep with that woman" seems a forgivable lie because it's one that powerful married men conducting affairs can be expected to tell, and it doesn’t really impact a politician's job performance. "I am not a crook" -- when you've been caught eavesdropping on political opponents and performing an array of other dirty tricks -- seems like an unforgivable one.

On this scale, I tend to put "I promise not to seek higher office" on the forgivable side. But I'll be more or less convinced about that depending on Trutanich's skill in justifying his actions.

[For the record, 6:09 p.m. Feb. 9: Good grief! The original version of this post misspelled Charles Schulz's name. Rats.]

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Photo: L.A. City Atty. Carmen Trutanich. Credit: Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times

Jonah Goldberg took President Obama to task in an August column about green jobs. “[T]he windfall in green jobs,” he wrote,  “has always been a con job.”

The record in America has been no better, Obama's campaign stump speeches notwithstanding. The New York Times, which has been touting the green agenda in its news pages for years, admitted last week that "federal and state efforts to stimulate creation of green jobs have largely failed, government records show." Even Obama's former green jobs czar concedes the point, as do other leading Democrats, including Rep. Maxine Waters of Los Angeles.

But Next 10’s Many Shades of Green report tells a different story. The new report documents California’s green economy, finding that  green jobs haven’t been as vulnerable to recession. Tiffany Hsu explains on Money & Co.

From January 2009 through January 2010, the overall state economy lost 7% of its jobs, according to nonprofit research group Next 10’s Many Shades of Green report. During the same period, the core green economy -- composed of businesses involved in renewable energy, clean-fuel cars, water conservation, emissions trading and more -- suffered a 3% job loss.

That left 169,800 green jobs in the state at the start of 2010. Regions such as San Diego, the Bay Area and Sacramento remained resilient with less than a 2% green employment decline. Los Angeles, which has more than 20% of all green jobs in the state, saw its positions slip 4% to 26,600.

Stephen Lacey at ThinkProgress cheers the good news.

The big story was job creation in the clean energy/materials manufacturing sector, which increased by 53% from 1995 to 2010 while jobs in the rest of the manufacturing sector dropped by 18%. […]

These figures echo those in a recent report from the Brookings Institution showing that clean energy jobs nationwide expanded by 8.3% per year from 2003 to 2010, with the rest of the “clean economy” (a broader definition including public transit, recycling and next-generation materials) growing 8.3% during the height of the recession between 2008 and 2009.

But is the green economy destroying other industries, leaving those workers unemployed and hurting the broader economic landscape? This issue played a role in Goldberg’s argument.

For instance, Barack Obama came into office insisting that Spain was beating the U.S. in the rush for green jobs. Never mind that in Spain — where unemployment is now at 21% — the green jobs boom has been a bust. One major 2009 study by researchers at King Juan Carlos University found that the country destroyed 2.2 jobs in other industries for every green job it created, and the Spanish government has spent more than half a million euros for each green job created since 2000. Wind industry jobs cost a cool $1 million euros apiece.

Then again, as Many Shades of Green points out, green companies have created new revenue streams for traditional occupations. Here’s Hsu's article again:  

Long-standing occupations such as electricians and machinery mechanics will have a new outlet through green jobs, according to the report. And new roles such as solar energy installation manager, chief sustainability officer and biofuels production manager could earn workers annual incomes well into the six figures.

All of which would seem to undermine Goldberg’s theory that green jobs are a con job. If only this latest report would get as much play as September's Solyndra drama.   

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-- Alexandra Le Tellier

Photo: James Cahill of SolarCity, which installs thin film technology solar panels. Credit: Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times

The allegations of sexual abuse at Miramonte Elementary School have brought with them some predictable online chatter about whether it might be smart to place video cameras in classrooms as a deterrent to molestation and for evidence if it occurs anyway.

The debate about cameras in the classroom comes up from time to time -- a number of schools in England have them -- not just because of concerns about crime but as a way to evaluate teachers' work. After all, some underperforming teachers will put on their best act when the principal comes in to watch. There are stories of teachers who spend more time regaling their students with personal stories than actually teaching, and knowing that any segment of their teaching time might be viewed could be an incentive to stay on task. Taping would allow school districts to send excerpts anywhere in the world for experts to analyze and share their thoughts.

Right now, of course, this is a nonstarter for financial reasons. The state needs the money to put more teachers in classrooms before it can remotely worry about installing cameras to watch them. But every argument for recording the classroom has a strong argument to counter it. True, we're at the point of placing cameras on street corners, but is there no place for privacy? Is every whispered interchange between students in the back of the classroom then fodder for examination, investigation and action?

PHOTOS: Sex abuse scandal at Miramonte Elementary

Molesters might be deterred from crimes in the classroom, but they'd just look for places without surveillance. And while awareness of cameras in the classroom might prod a certain amount of conscientious behavior among teachers, it could also detract from instruction by making them nervous, stiff and more conscious of the need to look good on tape than the need to connect with students.

Is it time for the camera debate to return?

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Photo: A newly posted teacher leads her students out for recess at Miramonte Elementary school. Credit: Los Angeles Times