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The U.S. Department of Education has quietly released a new study, which compares the reading and math scores of fourth- and eighth-grade students enrolled in more than 6,900 public schools and more than 530 private schools. The test scores were culled in 2003.

At first comparison, the study reports, researchers found that children who attend public school don't score as well in reading and math as kids who attend private schools. But when the test scores were adjusted for student characteristics, some of those dynamics changed.

At the adjusted levels, fourth-grade math scores in public schools were higher than those from private schools, for instance, but private schools still scored higher in eighth-grade reading. The study also found that eighth-grade math students enrolled in "conservative Christian schools" scored lower than their counterparts enrolled in public schools.

But take a look at the study's executive summary before you start reporting. It includes several cautions about the way the data should be used. You can download the complete study here. [PDF]

The Wooden vs. Metal Bat Debate

Here is a follow-up to a previous Al's Morning Meeting story about the growing movement to prohibit aluminum baseball bats in youth leagues. Bat manufacturers, as you might imagine, oppose the notion.

The New York Times ran a Sunday piece about the debate, saying:

Next year, all North Dakota high school games will be played with wood bats. A number of other high school, amateur and college conferences, including the New York Collegiate Baseball League and the Great Lakes Valley Conference, have gone back to wood. The Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association briefly banned metal bats for high school playoff games, but the rule was later abandoned. The professional minor and major leagues use wood bats.

Manufacturers take the position that, given the some 20 million baseball players in the United States, metal bats do not cause any more injuries than wood bats. Others, like Jim Quinlan, the national program coordinator for American Legion Baseball, say that wood bats can also be dangerous. One example he used was of a teenager in Utah who was killed by a ball off a wood bat in batting practice.

Last month, Erik Davis, a Stanford junior, was pitching in the high-end amateur Cape Cod League, which uses wood bats. Davis was hit in the face with a batted ball. He had reconstructive surgery to repair damage to his right eye.

Between 1991 and 2001, 17 players were killed by batted balls, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Eight involved metal bats and two involved wood bats. In seven instances, the kind of bat was not documented.

Steve Keener, the president and chief executive of Little League International, which uses metal bats, said that injuries from batted balls had decreased over the years. He said the ratio of weight to length in youth bats had been adjusted so that the velocity of a ball from the bat was about equivalent to that of a wood bat. Similar bats are used in some other amateur settings.

In 2001, a proposal before the New York City Council to ban metal bats in youth leagues failed to pass. That was after testimony in the Youth Services Committee by Jack MacKay Jr., a former metal bat engineer for Hillerich & Bradsby, which makes Louisville Slugger bats. He told the committee that metal bats posed "unnecessary danger."

A May 2005 American Legion press release said:

Following a nine-month review, The American Legion's National Baseball Subcommittee has concluded that there is no substantial evidence in scientific research to support the claim that baseball bats made from wood are "safer" than bats manufactured from metal or composite materials.

The issue has been examined for years. Statistics compiled from numerous studies by the National Collegiate Athletic Association, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and the National Institute for Sports Science and Safety, were among the several studies considered by The American Legion in reaching their conclusion.

The subject was brought to the national level by Legionnaires in Florida and Montana, where in 2003 an American Legion baseball pitcher died as a result of a head injury from a baseball hit with a metal bat.

"We were concerned then and we are concerned now for the safety of the game and the safety of the young athletes who participate in it," said Larry Price, chairman of the subcommittee. "With deference to the family of the young man we have given the matter our fullest attention over the last nine months. We have collected, compiled and distributed for the committee's study a great deal of technical information, scientific analysis and expert opinion. We have heard from both camps -- wood and non-wood -- and we have found no clear evidence of unreasonable risk of injury or death with the use of non-wood bats in the game of baseball."

In a twenty-year study by the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research (1982-2002), seven deaths of high school aged baseball players were recorded. In that same period, there were six deaths in soccer, 20 deaths in track, and 92 deaths associated with football.

Price offered that the game of baseball is one of the safest sports played today in high school and at the college level, noting that, "Injuries and, tragically, deaths occur in nearly every sport. By comparison, death on a baseball diamond is extremely rare."

Here are some more resources for you as you pursue this story:

• The Physics of Baseball
• Acoustics of Baseball Bats: "Crack" vs. "Ping"
• Find links to nationwide wood-bat leagues here
  

• "Family Bat Company Connects with Purists," The Denver Post (July 18, 2006)
• "Wood Bats, Safety Are on Deck," The Associated Press (June 24, 2006)
• "Bill Seeks to Ban Aluminum Bats in Youth Baseball," North Jersey Media Group (June 23, 2006)
• "State Steps Into Debate After Youth-Leaguer's Injury," The Press of Atlantic City (N.J.) (June 24, 2006)
• "This Bat Man Knows His Knocks on Wood," St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times (July 16, 2006)
• "Ingrained for Life," St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times (July 16, 2006)
  

FEMA Bans Reporters

The (Baton Rouge, La.) Advocate reported a head-scratcher of a story. A few months ago, FEMA built a big $7.5-million trailer park and, today, hundreds of the trailers are still empty. But, the newspaper reports, officials have barred reporters from interviewing residents within the trailer park.

The Advocate reports:

FEMA rules make it hard for reporters to talk freely to the few park residents about life there. During an interview in one trailer, a security guard knocked on the door, ordered the reporter out and eventually called police, saying residents aren't allowed to talk to the media in the park.

Similar rules were enforced in Plaquemines Parish, where 242 new travel trailers in a FEMA park in Davant recently were empty. Security guards there allowed a reporter and photographer to drive through the two side-by-side parks, but ordered them not to talk to anyone or take pictures.

And as with the Morgan City facility, FEMA refuses to say how much it cost to build the Davant park. FEMA spokeswoman Rachel Rodi gave no reason for not disclosing how much was spent.

"We're not going to talk about cost," she said.

Rodi also said the empty trailers are going to be moved.

Rodi wouldn't say whether the actions of the security guards in Morgan City and Davant complied with FEMA policy, saying the matter was being reviewed. But she confirmed that FEMA does not allow the media to speak alone to residents in their trailers.

"If a resident invites the media to the trailer, they have to be escorted by a FEMA representative who sits in on the interview," Rodi said. "That's just a policy."

Gregg Leslie, legal defense director for The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said FEMA's refusal to allow trailer park residents to invite media into their homes unescorted is unconstitutional. 

Dreary Days for Record Stores

These days, with iTunes, MySpace, podcasts and online radio stations, traditional record stores are having a tough time staying afloat.

The New York Times reports:

In the era of iTunes and MySpace, the customer base that still thinks of recorded music as a physical commodity (that is, a CD), as opposed to a digital file to be downloaded, is shrinking and aging, further imperiling record stores already under pressure from mass-market discounters like Best Buy and Wal-Mart.

The bite that downloading has taken out of CD sales is well known -- the compact disc market fell about 25 percent between 1999 and 2005, according to the Recording Industry Association of America, a trade organization. What that precipitous drop indicated by the figures doesn't reveal is that this trend is turning many record stores into haunts for the gray-ponytail set. This is especially true of big-city stores that stock a wider range of music than the blockbuster acts.

"We don't see the kids anymore," said Thom Spennato, who owns Sound Track, a cozy store on busy Seventh Avenue in Park Slope, Brooklyn. "That 12-to-15-year-old market, that's what's missing the last couple of years."