Linking Back: Harry Potter (figures), Coach Walker, and Obesity

More articles on things I didn't get to cover/are outside the general scope of this blog:

- The typically on-the-money Joanne Jacobs writing this in the City Journal.

- If your friends and family get fat, chances are you will too from The Economist blog.

- Hmm... something to think about regarding GRE scores and teachers.

- Hard luck can get you into college?

- Interesting story about Coach Walker.

- About the Harry Potter figures, from the WSJ's Number's Guy:

Sales numbers for the last volume in J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter” series came in quickly. U.S. publisher Scholastic Corp. announced on Sunday that 8.3 million copies were sold in the first 24 hours after the book’s release at 12:01 a.m. Saturday, according to “early reports.” And on Monday, U.K. publisher Bloomsbury Publishing PLC said 2,652,656 copies were sold in the first 24 hours, citing Nielsen BookScan U.K. These numbers were widely reported, with the stunningly precise U.K. total often rounded to 2.7 million.

Though they were presented side by side in this case, book-sales numbers are gathered differently on both sides of the Atlantic. U.K. numbers from outside trackers appear to be more complete, and faster, meaning some U.S. publishers report their internal data instead.

Scholastic compiled its own numbers from distributors’ reports, as Nielsen BookScan in the U.S. didn’t report sales figures until Wednesday and misses at least one-quarter of book sales, because it doesn’t track sales from Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and nontraditional book retailers like drug stores. Nielsen in the U.K., however, claims to cover at least 95% of the market.

“There is next to nobody who doesn’t deliver their data to us,” Jeremy Neate, head of research and international development for Nielsen BookScan U.K., told me. The company gets data directly from cash registers for nearly all major retail outlets, while extrapolating its reports from about one-fifth of independent booksellers to those that don’t share numbers. Lucy Holden, Bloomsbury’s head of publicity for children’s books, told me she’s confident in the Nielsen numbers: “They monitor them independently.”

In the U.S., Nielsen BookScan spokeswoman Cara Milo told me just 5.2 million sales of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” were recorded by her company’s tracking service in the first 48-hour period* — or just 63% of the total reported by Scholastic in the book’s first 24 hours on sale. But Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club don’t share their data.

Linking Back: Playtime, Valedictorians, and Starbucks

- Here's the problem with comparing apples to oranges. In this case, it's comparing Starbucks to Web 2.0 companies. Lesson learned when trying to make apples to oranges comparisons in education...

- An interesting grading scale, from the Trenches of Public Ed. blog. I can't say I agree with it, since it disproportionately rewards effort over skill instead of striking a balance. However, it's better than most grading scales I've seen, so kudos for that.

- From the consistently good Joanne Jacobs, on rejecting the use of race in school assignments, but not the use of socioeconomic status.

- How to get more charitable donations, from Wharton. This logic also applies to business and certainly education.

- Great stories from the NY Times about valedictorians in NYC.

- On the need for taking time out of your day and being less structured, from Slate.

- I will probably come back to this next week in a full post, but boy doesn't this plan by Bloomberg written up in the City Journal just irk you?

... as always, please feel free to comment, send a message, or write an email ...

Whoa! Pay for performance?

Who would have ever thought to propose an idea of paying for academic performance? Actually, this blog visited that topic a while ago which you can read right here. In it I talk about the hybrid scholarships I've been trying to tweak.

But it's been making the rounds in other blogs, namely in yesterday's post from Joanne Jacobs' blog. Here's the link.

I'll be making another post later in the day, probably about a concept I've been toying with comparing problem solvers versus solution finders. More to come...

Linking Back: College Admissions, Donations, Graduations, and more

- The Freakonomics Blog pointed out the recent increased volume of articles and reporting in the NY Times talking about the difficulty of getting into college.

- CNN reports that a donor gave $100 million to UChicago... anonymously.

- Here's a good article from the WSJ on sleep (or lack thereof) having an influence on performance.

- A dad, son, and granddaughter are graduating together.

- Here's a great post on special ed. students and the honor roll. A sampling: I think it would be nice if we could find a way to reward people... without pretending that her performance is on par with kids who are taking much tougher classes.

- Joanne Jacobs touches on the 5 year plans... in high schools. I have many friends who are graduating Georgia Tech and other schools in 5 years, but I'd never heard of such high amounts of high schoolers doing the same.

- Here's a new set of wealthy investors getting involved in education as reported in Whitney Tilson's School Reform Blog.