Rand Corp

Researchers at the RAND Corp., knocking down some of the most glib tenets of the mythology of narcotics, reported Tuesday that the typical Washington drug peddler is already employed in a legitimate full-time job and sells drugs to supplement his or her income.

The city's Airport Commission voted unanimously Monday to award the Rand Corp. a $900,000 contract to research security enhancements at Los Angeles International Airport. The Santa Monica nonprofit will work to implement recommendations it made 13 months ago. These include moving travelers more quickly from lobbies and sidewalks -- where they are more at risk of a bomb attack -- into the more secure gate areas.

Rand Corp. is seeking feedback in its effort to sort out how best to teach reading to the nation's schoolchildren. Earlier this month, the Santa Monica-based think tank posted a draft report that outlined how literacy researchers, educators and policymakers should work together to develop a long-term research plan. It is now inviting these groups to respond to the report, which can be found at http://www.rand.org/multi/achievementforall. The $1.

A senior official in the White House Office of Management and Budget has been appointed dean of the Rand Corp.'s public policy graduate school, Rand officials said Monday. John D. Graham, a former Harvard faculty member, has headed the office of information and regulatory affairs within the management and budget office since 2001. He is scheduled to take his post at the Pardee Rand Graduate School in March.

Thank you for your May 3 article on Mater Dei High School's innovative Dimension 3 classroom. I found Rand Corp. social scientist Brian Stecher's comments poignant: Testing educational policy before implementing it in the classroom is extremely important but rarely happens. Mater Dei's programs, enriching local grade-school students and testing the true usefulness of technologies in a classroom setting, clearly demonstrate a deep commitment to the community and an abiding concern for the well-being of students.

UCLA and the Rand Corp. have agreed to expand and formalize their health-care partnership. The 30-year association between the university and Rand, a Santa Monica-based think tank, has resulted in such research as the largest study to date of the quality of health care provided to AIDS patients and a continuing study of the quality of cancer care in the Los Angeles area.

Kotkin says that the RAND Corp. study indicates that Latinos commit crimes at rates slightly lower than blacks or whites. However, most, if not all, of L.A.'s Hispanic barrios are littered with ugly, intimidating gang graffiti made by the violent street youth that inhabit those neighborhoods. I have spent more than two dozen Saturdays helping paint over the graffiti. After growing up in mostly white neighborhoods where this type of behavior was virtually unheard of, I deeply resent this low-class aspect of Hispanic culture.

Economic sanctions against employers who hire illegal aliens have done little to stem the flow of immigrants slipping into the United States but inroads could be made if Congress spent more money on enforcement, according to a new RAND Corp. study. The study, released this week, is designed to examine the effects of the employer-sanction provisions of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986.

All four of the Commentary articles in today's (Nov. 8) paper are excellent. I wish to add a point to Tom Bethell's "Paradox of the Common Pool." Bethell argues that voters can quite rationally reelect their own federal and state legislators, at the same time voting to impose term limits on all. A contributing factor that he fails to mention is the effect of seniority. Because seniority plays such a large role in legislative power, the longer a legislator remains in office the greater his ability to direct resources from the common government pool to his own jurisdiction's benefit.