When a child is born or diagnosed with deafness or hearing impairment, both medical responses and educational interventions are available. But how are parents to make informed choices? That’s the subject of a bitter debate right now in Sacramento.

All of this debate is focused on a bill that mainly sets out to create an informational brochure intended to give parents of hearing-impaired infants a roster of resources they can explore. The brochure is to be created by a panel of 15 people knowledgeable about this issue, but even that has become a point of contention. Jim Brune, Executive Director  of the Deaf Counseling Advocacy and Referral Agency, Director of charges that the panel will not be representative, but Assemblyman Tony Mendoza says that's not accurate, as the most recent changes in the panel will make it more inclusive.

Perhaps the most vehement opponents of AB 2072 is the The California Deaf Newborn Identification & Advocacy Stakeholder Coalition, a lengthy list of organizations who have mounted a web-based campaign against the bill that includes this list of arguments against it.

They also strongly support early access to American Sign Language.  Sheri Farinha, CEO of Deaf Newborn Intervention and Advocacy, says that past failures to do this are now being reflected in the academic performance of students whose exposure to language was delayed past their earliest formative years.

You can read the full text of Assemblyman Mendoza's AB 2072, including the most recent amendments made last Aug. 2o, here.

Promoting educational opportunity for all is good economic policy, says Stanford  Professor Martin Carnoy, while perpetuating inequality is bad for business.

From an economic perspective, there are clear benefits for greater educational attainment, but in California, Carnoy says, policies to encourage that are lagging,

 Learning to read is a critical first step on the educational ladder, so Carnoy suggests emphasizing that key skill is more important in the long term than promoting bi-lingualism.

Dr. Carnoy has written more than 30 books on economic issues, racial inequality and education policy. He will give a free public lecture on April 1 at 7 pm in the Person Theater  at Sonoma State on the topic, “Educational Equity and Social Justice as Smart Economic Policy. Dr. Carnoy also blogs regularly for the Huffington Post. Read his blog here.

There are short stories, and then there’s “micro-fiction,” such as the ultra-brief vignettes featured in Weekend All Things Considered’s “Three-Minute Fiction” contests.

Approximately 15,000 writers have submitted their creations in the first three rounds of the 3-Minute Fiction contests, and Guy Raz says that, even among the finalists, only a fraction of them have ever had anything published

With this level of participation, the process of reading and judging all the entries has become a bigger job, but Raz says listeners to his program will be kept apprised of the process as it unfolds.

Details on how to submit a story for the fourth round of the contest (which will be judged by author Ann Patchett , right) , as well as samples of some of the best submissions from the previous rounds can be found at  3-Minute Fiction.

Long-time NPR listeners will recognize Guy Raz as a well-traveled reporter for the network (his professional bio appears below) . It was just about a year ago that he made the transition to hosting the weekend afternoon newsmagazines, which he says required him to make a considerable adjustment.

Guy Raz joined NPR as an intern in 1997 and became Berlin bureau chief in 2000. In 2003, he was moved to London as NPR's bureau chief. In 2004, Raz left NPR for two years to work as CNN's Jerusalem correspondent.

During his six years abroad, Raz reported from more than 40 countries with a focus on Iraq, Israel and the Palestinian Territories, Afghanistan, Eastern Europe and the Balkans.

His reporting has been part of two Alfred duPont Awards and one Peabody awarded to NPR. He's been a finalist for the Livingston Award four times. For his reporting from Germany, Raz was awarded both the RIAS Berlin prize and the Arthur F. Burns Award.

He has profiled and interviewed dozens of world leaders, including Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Shimon Peres, General David Petraeus and Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Michael Mullen.

As CNN's Jerusalem correspondent, Raz chronicled everything from the rise of Hamas as a political power to the incapacitation of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to Israel's withdrawl from the Gaza Strip in 2005. In May 2004, he spent six weeks with U.S. forces in Najaf during a period of heavy fighting with Shiite insurgents.

In 2006, Raz produced a a five-part series called "The Language of our Times" which ran on All Things Considered. The stories attempted to turn words and terms like "Jihad" and "War on Terror" into "audio characters."

Raz's written work has appeared in Salon, Washington City Paper, The Washington Post, The Christian Science Monitor and the German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung.