Word: nationes
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Lankans lived in fear of random attacks on buses and markets, and relentless political assassinations. Four Presidents before Rajapaksa had tried a combination of military action and negotiation against the Tigers; within a year of his presidency, he abandoned talks and bet everything on force. He appealed to Sinhalese nationalism to recruit soldiers, promising them good salaries, pensions and respect. The cost was high. At least 6,200 troops were killed in the last three years of the war - more than the total U.S. military deaths so far in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet Rajapaksa's popularity remains undiminished...
...When asked about the future of Tamils in Sri Lanka, Rajapaksa says all the right things: that Sri Lanka is one nation, which respects all peoples and faiths. Yet the strident Sinhalese nationalism, in Rajapaksa's party and in his more extreme allies, helped mobilize support for the war and influenced the way it was conducted. The U.N. issued several warnings - which Colombo ignored - about civilian casualties as the Sri Lankan army closed in on the Tigers, and estimates Tamil civilian deaths at 7,000. Nearly 300,000 Tamils from the northern war zone - including 45,000 children - have been...
Duncan, as the nation's educator in chief, has repeatedly plugged a longer school day and year. He views today's standard six-hour, 180-day calendar as way too old school, a holdover from not only 19th century agrarian society but also mid-20th century Donna Reed-style parenting. "Our children are no longer working in the fields," Duncan says. "And Mom isn't waiting at home at 2:30 with a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich. That just doesn't happen in many American families anymore." (Read an interview with Duncan...
Educators have been eyeing more class time for decades. The landmark 1983 federal report A Nation at Risk, which highlighted the growing achievement gap between the U.S. and other countries, recommended that school districts "strongly consider" a seven-hour day and a 200- to 220-day academic year, which would hew more closely to the schedules in higher-performing Europe and Asia. Although the practice has yet to go mainstream, there's a big push to add school hours in underperforming urban districts. One champion of this movement is Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy, who on July 8 introduced the Time...
...nation's most closely watched experiments along these lines is Massachusetts' Expanded Learning Time (ELT) Initiative. Launched in 2006, the program involves 26 low-performing schools that have each added approximately 1½ to 2 hours per day to their school calendar. "We're in the early innings of proving how to extend school hours responsibly and effectively," says Chris Gabrieli, chairman of Massachusetts 2020, which helped originate the ELT idea. "But clearly, focusing on the students that are furthest behind is where it makes the most sense. Middle-class kids, they get a lot more learning time outside...