Category Archives: Education

Higher Education And North Carolina

Posted on January 31, 2013 | Leave a comment

Our new governor, Pat McCrory, made some news this past week when he commented on higher education, and some majors, in North Carolina:

On the show, McCrory said “educational elite” had taken over, offering courses that have no path to jobs. He said he instructed his staff Monday to draft legislation that could alter the state money that universities and community colleges receive “not based on how many butts in seats but how many of those butts can get jobs.” (Listen to the audio here.)

The governor joined Bennett in criticizing certain academic areas, such as gender studies and philosophy. When Bennett made a crack about women’s and gender studies at nationally ranked UNC-Chapel Hill, McCrory said, “If you want to take gender studies that’s fine, go to a private school and take it. But I don’t want to subsidize that if that’s not going to get someone a job.”

In typical fashion, the response from the University:

“I wasn’t surprised,” said Joanne Hershfield, chair of UNC-Chapel Hill’s department of women’s and gender studies. “But it is kind of frightening. These kinds of attacks on women’s and gender studies are pretty prevalent.”

Indeed – Attack.

In any event, the general response to push-backs like these are:

McCrory’s comments on higher education echo statements made by a number of Republican governors – including those in Texas, Florida and Wisconsin – who have questioned the value of liberal arts instruction and humanities degrees at public colleges and universities.

Sign me up as one of those question that value.

I went to the University of Minnesota’s Institute of Technology.  We openly mocked the general population at large, the CLA’ers – College of Liberal Arts. *  The idea being that the truly rigorous study took place in the hard sciences and not the softer social ones.

Now, do I think that the knowing of things “softer” is valuable?  Sure, to a degree.  I think it rounds a person out, I think it contributes to their awareness of themselves and of others.  But when I hire, I hire on the basis of the hard sciences; computer science, math, engineering.  And given equal qualifications in such, I may give the nod to the more generally rounded individual.

In a larger point, is there room for the PhD in Scandinavian  Art History?  Sure, but in what quantity?

Finally, I’ll leave you with this.  The cry from the left has been that of wage inequality.  All the while claiming that education should be valued for its own merit; career be damned.  So, it’s one or the other.  If education has merit on its own, then so be it, study your philosophy, your women’s studies and your art appreciation.  Just don’t come bitching to me when you find that no one is willing to pay you for those services.

* Full disclosure, I graduated with a degree in Mathematics, a minor in Philosophy and a teaching license.

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Posted in Education, Idiots on Parade, Life, Politics: North Carolina

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Laffer Curve – Who Is John Galt

Posted on November 8, 2012 | Leave a comment

So, it took, literally, 3 business minutes for our financial planner to e-mail us the morning after the election.  He suggested that we talk, asap, in order to adjust our portfolio.

The call occurred this morning and this is the takeaway:

  • We immediately stopped the auto investment of equities that rely on Capital Gains and Dividends.  The money that was designated for such investments will now be routed to cash
  • Begin the auto investment of purchasing municipal bonds.
  • Develop a plan to determine how much of our cash position should be allocated to those muni’s in a lump sum purchase.
  • Develop a plan to determine how much of our equity position should be sold to protect our risk to the market.
  • Review the household budget and identify the cash flow impact of maxing out 401k contribution.
  • Initiate a tax exposure picture at key levels of income.
  • If our salary  hits a level that triggers negative tax implications strongly consider giving the money away to reduce our taxable income to more favorable conditions.
  • Consider acceleration of retirement.  In essence, negotiate a more work/life balance friendly role at the office in exchange for less money/salary.  Enjoy life more and stress less while maintaining the ties to the corporation until such time as a higher income is better protected.

The advice was jarring.  The analysis was clear, direct and immediate.  The market’s reaction to the election was negative and complete.  Investors all over America were having conversations just like this one.  A massive sell off is underway with people moving money out of equities and into safer tax free vehicles like the bonds mentioned above.

Or just getting the hell out of the equities and sit on the cash.  And wait.

And that wasn’t the most chilling advice, that came in the later recommendations.  The first was somewhat humorous and carried an element of a gut reaction:

If the government is going to take 40% of your property move out of the way of that and just give the money to your favorite charity.

Seriously.  Just give it away.  The thinking is that I’m really only out 60 cents on the dollar and the charity is much more efficient at handling the money than the federal government of the United States.

But it was the third piece that really got me.  The advice was to “Go Galt.”  Negotiate, in essence, a demotion at the office in order to reduce the salary to a more friendly level and have more time to enjoy the things we might be pushing off or rushing through.

Just quit and walk away.

My wife and I hold jobs that are incredibly specialized.  The work we do, the hours we allocate to that work and the degree of competence is exceptional.  In the case of my wife I’m simply reflecting fact and you’ll just have to believe me.  As far as MY level of expertise goes, some of you may have your doubts based on the content and style of this blog; I don’t blame you that discretion.

If we did leave, the jobs wouldn’t be back-filled; they’d be absorbed.  No one would get promoted as a result.  The company would be out our production and expertise and the economy would be out the money we now couldn’t spend because we aren’t earning it anymore.

Now, for the Laffer Curve.

Let’s pretend that I’m right smack dab in the middle of the 28% tax bracket.  If I double the 401k contribution we make I will reduce my tax exposure by $7,929.  That means the government gets $7,929 x 28% = $2,220 LESS than they would have had we not gone and elected this unqualified train wreck of a President.

Not to mention the 28% of the money they lose if I just give it away.  Or the 28% they lose if I take a lower salary.

And if I DO increase my 401k contribution that means I’ll have 8 grand a year less to spend on just random stuff here in North Carolina.  It’ll mean fewer dinners out at my favorite pizza joint.  The BBQ shack down the road?  Out my business.  Ice cream for the kids and coffee at the local coffee joint?  Gone.  Jeans will have to last a few months longer, there will be fewer books paid for and less craft beer from the local beer store that just opened around the corner.

All this on top of the losses they have already incurred as a result of me investing in tax free municipal bonds. [Which, by the way, is how people like Romney get to such a low tax rate – they invest in tax free vehicles.  The nerve, right?]

Any money that Obama THOUGHT he was gonna get as a tax hike has actually resulted in a net LOSS to the coffers of the Federal Government.

But hey, Obama knows better than Romney in things like tax policy and how to increase revenues.

Good job America!

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Posted in Economy, Education, Idiots on Parade, Politics: National

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Thoughts On Chicago Teacher Strike

Posted on September 11, 2012 | 6 comments

Teachers Walk Out On Strike!

The emotions of a strike are sure to supersede the rational negotiations.  However, this struck me as interesting:

Lewis said among the issues of concern was a new evaluation that she said would be unfair to teachers because it relied too heavily on students’ standardized test scores and does not take into account external factors that affect performance, including poverty, violence and homelessness.

I’ve often encountered this line of reasoning when discussing teacher evaluations.  First, I find it unfathomable that an educated group of experts who routinely adjudicate proficiency of very subjective materials find it completely out of the realm of possibility to measure the effectiveness of teachers themselves.  Second, if they are unwilling to allow themselves to be measured on their effectiveness based on poverty, violence and homelessness, can we expect them to adjust grades so that such impacts are taken into account?

For example, I’ve heard that teachers won’t accept performance based measurements because, “a dog may be barking during the test.”  Yet, are these same teachers willing to change the test scores of those kids subjected to the barking dog?

Utter nonsense.

 

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Posted in Education, Government, Politics: National

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One Possible Reason Why Education Won’t Innovate

Posted on August 22, 2012 | 4 comments

Two teachers in Chapel Hill, North Carolina have been reassigned to another school in the district.  They haven’t lost their jobs.  They haven’t had a reduction in pay.

They simply have been assigned another work location.

And finally, today, they have dropped a lawsuit brought against the Orange County Schools:

CHAPEL HILL — Two teachers say they will end their fight to stay at Chapel Hill High after a judge denied requests to delay their forced transfers to other schools.

Anne Thompson and Bert Wartski said it would not make sense to keep challenging Superintendent Thomas Forcella’s removing them from the school they’ve taught at a combined 45 years.

If you believe that schools in America are in horrible shape, and some don’t, this is a leading reason why:

Soo countered that some coworkers saw Thompson, who taught at Chapel Hill High for 26 years, and Wartski, who taught there for 19 years, as the “old guard” standing in the way of change.

Organizations require flexibility in order to meet new challenges.  Systems need to be developed and implemented so that new technologies, techniques and innovations can be leveraged.

Employees entrenched with a fixation on “how things have always worked” often lead to delays in such innovations.  New ideas require adaptable personalities.

Now, to be very sure, this doesn’t imply that a simple embrace of new things is more desirable than years of experience.  26 and 19 years in place is an extraordinary amount of very valuable experience.  However, the need to adapt can often be more of a driving need than expertise in an obsolete method.

 

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Posted in Education

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Education Reform In America: A Critique I Resonate With

Posted on August 16, 2012 | 2 comments

While I don’t think that I’m alone in  my call that America’s educational system is in trouble I do find myself in the minority when it comes to ideas for possible reform.  Included in my list of ideas are:

  1. Reducing the power of teacher’s unions.
  2. Merit pay -merit pay is paying the good teachers more, not offering bonuses for targets-.
  3. Firing poor performing teachers.
  4. Continuing the public funding of education but allow the money to follow the backpack; public or private.

I’d imagine that for those that know me, this list isn’t shocking.  It might be cringe worthy, but not out of line for how I think.  For those that don’t know me, the list reads like the regular right-wing scree seen everywhere.

Whatever you think of the list, in favor or against, that list isn’t the point.  The point is that the traditional view of America’s performance is being taken to task  by Diane Ravitch in her recent CNN article:

It’s time to set the record straight. The only valid measure of academic performance in our schools is the federal test called the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). NAEP has been testing American students since the early 1970s.

This is something I didn’t know.  I have always thought that tests like the SAT, ACTs and the Iowa Standard were legitimate tests.  But whatever, I won’t quibble on the testing.

The NAEP test scores of American students are at their highest point in history: for black students, white students, Hispanic students, and Asian students.

They are at their highest point in history in fourth grade and in eighth grade, in reading and math.

 

To be sure, encouraging news.  Further, news I must admit I didn’t know.

As for the international test scores, which Rhee loves to recite to knock our public schools, she is obviously unaware that our nation has never had high scores on those tests. When the first international test was given in 1964, our students ranked 11th out of 12 nations.  Yet our nation went on to become the most powerful economy in the world.

In the 50 years since then, we have regularly scored in the bottom quartile on the international tests or at best, at the international average. Clearly, the international scores do not predict our future as we are the dominant economy in the world despite the scores.

I can’t resist to mention that things like economic freedom contribute to such things….

Why are our international rankings low? Our test scores are dragged down by poverty.   As the poverty level in the school rises, the scores fall.

…

Rhee ignores the one statistic where the United States is number one. We have the highest child poverty rate of any advanced nation in the world. Nearly 25% of our children live in poverty.

THAT is the point of this post.

THAT is an argument that I resonate with.  Of course, when comparing scores across nations, it’s important to normalize in some way across the variable that impact performance.  And to Ms. Ravitch, poverty is just such a variable.

Watch:

On the latest international test, called PISA, our schools with low poverty had scores higher than those of Japan, Finland, and other high-scoring nations. American schools in which as many as 25% of the students are poor had scores equivalent to the top-scoring nations.

When normalized on poverty, the United States performs among the top in the world.

Should this be surprising?  For me, it is.  But then again I’ve bought into the narrative that we suck.  So, taking our performance in new light…maybe it isn’t surprising.

One thing, however, I wonder if Diane Ravitch would be willing to slice the data in equivalent ways when it comes to healthcare?

Somehow I doubt it.

 

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Posted in Education, Politics: International

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Education: Socioeconomics vs IQ – The Bell Curve

Posted on August 6, 2012 | Leave a comment

The second installment of the comparison of socioeconomic status and IQ.  This post examines the impact of each on:

  1. Dropping out of school
  2. Obtaining a GED
  3. Graduating from college

In a previous post, I showed various charts.  Among them is the probability of cropping out of school based on the SES of the family:

The pattern is clear, kids from wealthier families have a better chance of obtaining a high school education.

The came the data showing the probability of a kid, who has dropped out, obtaining a GED:

This is a tale that is counter-intuitive.  We expect the narrative to be that rich kids do better than poor kids.  But this data shows the opposite for folks who obtain a GED after dropping out of school.

Finally we show data that speak to college degrees.  College is, arguably, a key factor to the success of an individual in today’s society.  Maybe.

The data suggests a massive SES impact.  Very few kids from the poorest families are graduating college while nearly 40% of the wealthiest kids are achieving that milestone.

The data is somewhat mixed.  High school and college graduation rates seem highly dependent on the SES of the parents while attainment of a GED is the exact opposite.

Now, what if we add in the predictive value of IQ?

First, dropping out of school:

The first thing that should be apparent is that dropping out of school is rare for kids of either average SES or intelligence.  But dropout rates escalate dramatically for those of below average intelligence.  IQ is more than a 3x predictor than SES of the school dropout.

How does GED look?

The data including IQ doesn’t change the fact that obtaining a GED goes against the commonly held belief that kids from poorer households do worse than the rich kids.  Even accounting for IQ, the folks from the poorer families obtain a GED at higher rates than do kids from wealthier households.

Our last look into education is the college graduation rate:

Again, a dramatic difference.  With one exception; the data shows very little difference between low SES and low IQ.  But when it comes to highly intelligent kids, it doesn’t matter if they come from poorer families or wealthier families; the kids are graduating college at a better than 75% clip.

As with poverty, IQ plays a dominant role in the educational attainment of our children.  All else being equal, the smarter the kid, the better they will achieve educationally.

 

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Posted in Education, Middle Class, Politics: National, The Bell Curve

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Victim Of The Feminist Revolution – School Children?

Posted on July 30, 2012 | 10 comments

Am reading Super Freakonomics tonight after swimming at the “Y”.  Consider this:

In 1960, about 40% of female teachers scored in the top quintile of IQ and other aptitude test, with only 8% in the bottom.  Twenty years later, fewer than half as many were in the top quintile, while more than twice as many in the bottom.

…

Between 1967 and 1980, U.S. test scores fell by about 1.25 grade-level equivalents.

Jeepers.

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Posted in Economics, Education

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State Of Education In North carolina

Posted on July 23, 2012 | Leave a comment

Saw this at the Y a couple of weekends past.  I went to the Children’s Defense Fund and found this:

I’m gonna have to do something about that.  Maybe if I put it into print I’ll actually get off my ass.

 

 

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Posted in Education, Politics: North Carolina

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Free College Courses At Elite Universities

Posted on July 20, 2012 | 2 comments

Education:

  • Gotta have it
  • Too expensive to buy

What to do?

Why, take the courses for free of course:

Durham, N.C. —

Duke University is joining what has been labeled the revolution in education – online and free of charge.

Duke, Johns Hopkins University and the California Institute of Technology have joined Stanford and Princeton universities in offering courses through startup Coursera Inc.

A total of 16 schools are now partners with Coursera, the Mountain View, California-based company said Monday in a statement.

Caltech and the University of Pennsylvania are partnering to an even greater degree, investing a combined $3.7 million in the company.

Coursera, founded last year by two Stanford computer science professors, Daphne Koller and Andrew Ng, offers university classes online, with the aim of educating millions of people globally for free. The company, which raised $16 million earlier this year from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and New Enterprise Associates, will receive an additional combined $2.3 million from the venture capital firms, both of which are based in Menlo Park, California.

Duke, CalTech, Stanford, Princeton.  For free.

If you aren’t taking these courses…if you aren’t advocating the attendance of these course among our kids…I’m not saying that you don’t value education, I just think you’re valuing fair access to success and not fair access to opportunity.

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Posted in Education, Life

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One At A Time: Taking Schools Back From Teacher’s Unions

Posted on June 26, 2012 | 3 comments

It’s no secret that teacher’s unions don’t serve the interest of the students; they serve the interest of the union.  They’re about power.  Power to influence how their members are protected and compensated.  As more and more people come to this realization more and more people are beginning to realize that taking schools back from those unions is a good thing:

(Reuters) – Hundreds of mayors from across the United States this weekend called for new laws letting parents seize control of low-performing public schools and fire the teachers, oust the administrators or turn the schools over to private management.

The U.S. Conference of Mayors, meeting in Orlando, Florida, on Saturday unanimously endorsed “parent trigger” laws aimed at bypassing elected school boards and giving parents at the worst public schools the opportunity to band together and force immediate change.

Now, guess who opposes these types of laws?

Such laws are fiercely opposed by teachers’ unions, which stand to lose members in school takeovers.

I know you’re shocked.  Shocked that a union would oppose a law that diminished its influence.  But, has this process worked?

Parent trigger laws are in place in several states including California, Texas and Louisiana and are under consideration in states including Michigan, Pennsylvania and New York. So far, though, the concept has never successfully been used to turn around a school.

Damn!

But why not?

Parents in two impoverished, heavily minority California cities, Compton and Adelanto, gathered enough signatures to seize control of their neighborhood schools but the process stalled in the face of ferocious opposition from teachers’ unions. Both cases are now tied up in court.

Ahh, not because they were given the chance and then failed.  Rather, they haven’t worked because the unions fight ’em every inch of the way.

The good news?  The power of the unions have continued to fade:

But in a sign of the unions’ diminishing clout, their traditional political allies, the Democrats, abandoned them in droves during the Orlando vote.

Democratic Mayors Michael Nutter of Philadelphia, Antonio Villaraigosa of Los Angeles and Kevin Johnson of Sacramento led the charge for parent trigger – and were backed by scores of other Democrats as well as Republicans from coast to coast.

“Mayors understand at a local level that most parents lack the tools they need to turn their schools around,” Villaraigosa said. Parent trigger laws, he added, can empower parents to do just that.

Let’s hope that the victory in Wisconsin will usher in a new era not just in fiscal reform but in actual education reform.

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Posted in Education, Liberty, Lobby/PAC, Politics: National

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