Talk about Boards with Conflicts of Interest!
Melvyn D. Magree
Originally published in the
Northland Reader
now the
Reader Weekly
April 27, 2000
Revised October 20, 2006, February 9, 2017
In the last election, some criticized candidates for the school board who were teachers or spouses of teachers. The critics claimed this was a conflict of interest. The same criticism was raised during the contract negotiations in January.
The contract that was signed called for an 11.4 percent or 6.4 million dollar raise over two years. (Duluth News-Tribune, Jan. 25, 2000) Six million dollars seems like a lot of money to most of us, but let’s see what it means to an average teacher. There are approximately 1,000 teachers in the Duluth Public Schools. That means the average teacher would get a $6,400 raise over two years or $3,200 each year. If that is an 11.4 percent raise, then the average teacher got $28,000 per year ($6,400 divided by 0.114 divided by 2 years). For the second year of the contract, the average teacher will receive $34,400 per year.
Is it any wonder there is a teacher shortage? Many college graduates can get that as starting pay in some companies, especially those involved with technology. Why be a math or science teacher?
What does 6.4 million dollars buy in private industry? How about more than ten times that? A single CEO! The CEO of Hewlett Packard, Carleton (Carly) Fiorina had pay of 69.4 million dollars in the fiscal year ending October 1999. (1) Granted her salary is exceptionally high, but many executives take home 6.4 million dollars or more a year. Forbes Magazine published the total compensation of fifty executives this month. (2) Thirty-five of the fifty had compensation for the 1999 fiscal year in excess of 6.4 million dollars.
Well, they earned it because the stockholders decided these CEOs increased the value of the company; at least that is how many justify these salaries. But is it the stockholders that really decide the executive pay? The mechanics are that the boards of directors decide the executive compensation. Who sits on the boards of directors? The CEO who is often also board chair. Academics, foundation heads, former politicians, and executives from other corporations.
For example, the board of Hewlett-Packard includes Philip M. Condit, CEO of Boeing, and Patricia C. Dunn, chairman and CEO of Barclays Global Investors. The board of Boeing includes Lewis E. Platt, former CEO of Hewlett-Packard. Ms. Dunn sits on the Group Executive Committee of the parent Barclays PLC and Barclays Bank PLC. The chairman of the Executive Team is Sir Peter Middleton who is also on the board of Bass PLC. Bass PLC owns Holiday Inns. (3)
I didn’t think the Barclays path would lead to as close ties as the Hewlett-Packard/Boeing tie, and so I decided to try some of the largest Minnesota companies. Wow! What a community!
I started with http://finance.yahoo.com/ and entered the symbols for several of the largest Minnesota-based corporations. I looked at the profile of each company then clicked on the link to their home pages. From the home pages I searched for “board of directors” or worked from investor relations. The only exception was Cargill which is privately traded. For it I went to http://www.cargill.com/ and then searched for the relevant pages. I looked at these pages on March 17-18, 2000 with a few rechecks on April 5, 2000.
Let’s start with Michael R. Bonsignore, CEO of Honeywell, recently merged with Allied Signal. He was listed on the boards of Cargill, The St. Paul Companies, and Medtronic. He was on the compensation committee of The St. Paul Companies and Medtronic. He has resigned from the board of Cargill according to a Cargill press release. The Honeywell 1999 Annual Report lists him as on the Medtronic board.
William W. George is the CEO of Medtronic. He is also on the board of Target. Medtronic’s board includes Richard L. Schall, consultant and retired vice chairman, Dayton Hudson Corporation now known as Target Corporation.
Robert J. Ulrich is the CEO of the Target Corporation. I didn’t find him listed on any other boards, but Target’s board includes Livio D. DeSimone, CEO of 3M; Richard M. Kovacevich, CEO of Wells Fargo & Co. which recently merged with Norwest Banks; William W. George, CEO of Medtronic; Stephen W. Sanger, CEO of General Mills; and Solomon D. Trujillo, CEO of US West. Messrs. Sanger and Trujillo are on the compensation committee.
Charles M. Lillis is an executive vice president of US West. He serves on the board of SuperValu.
Michael W. Wright is the CEO of SuperValu. He serves on the boards of Cargill and Honeywell.
There are more links than these, but your mind is probably boggled by now. Maybe an example line of links would make the kind of relations clearer.
Honeywell -> Medtronic -> Target -> US West -> SuperValu -> Honeywell
I’ll leave it to you to decide if this little network and others like it are “old boy networks” (even if they contain some middle-aged women) and “foxes guarding the chicken coop” (as some critics described teachers on the school board) or if it is merely shared expertise to enhance shareholder value.
(1) Many of the original sources are no longer available online. When I did a search on October 20, 2006, I found only six sites with "fiorina pay '69.4 million'"; only one had much relevant detail -
The Winner-Steal-All Society and the persistence of the CEO-market myth
I also found her employment agreement when she was hired by Hewlett-Packard. You'll have to calculate her total pay for her first year from all the details. Interestingly, she was given 600,000 shares of HP stock at a price determined by the 1995 Employee Incentive Plan. What that price really was is harder to come by. I accessed these October 20, 2006.
(2) Forbes Magazine, April 3, 2000. The online article is no longer available.
(3) Barclays has changed much since I wrote this article. If you would like to do your own tracing, you could start at "About Barclays", https://www.home.barclays/about-barclays.html
©2000, 2006, 2007, 2017 Melvyn D. Magree
Showing posts with label education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label education. Show all posts
Thursday, February 09, 2017
Failing public schools?
“If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it, and you will even come to believe it yourself.” Falsely attributed to Joseph Goebbels.
"The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly and with unflagging attention. It must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over. Here, as so often in this world, persistence is the first and most important requirement for success.” - Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf
For more on both of these quotes, see https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Joseph_Goebbels.
“Failing public schools” is a sweeping statement that implies no public school is doing its job.
But nobody ever turns it around and says much about failing parents or bad peer pressure. If a family constantly has the TV on, how well can a student do homework? If peers constantly bad-mouth school, how much grit does it take to ask questions in class? If a home has lots of lead contamination, how much can schools do to increase a student’s cognitive ability?
I think the “failing schools” mantra is pushed by those who don’t want to pay taxes to educate all the children and those who want to make a profit by taking away students from the public schools.
Well, my parents were products of public schools. My wife and I are products of public schools. Our two children are products of public schools. Our grandchildren are products of public schools. Two of these are products of Japanese public schools, but they are welcome as visitors to U.S. public schools.
If public schools have failed, it is not teaching enough civics. We have to look no farther than “president” Donald Trump to learn how badly private schools have taught civics.
See also “Charter School Achievement: Hype vs. Evidence”.
"The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly and with unflagging attention. It must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over. Here, as so often in this world, persistence is the first and most important requirement for success.” - Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf
For more on both of these quotes, see https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Joseph_Goebbels.
“Failing public schools” is a sweeping statement that implies no public school is doing its job.
But nobody ever turns it around and says much about failing parents or bad peer pressure. If a family constantly has the TV on, how well can a student do homework? If peers constantly bad-mouth school, how much grit does it take to ask questions in class? If a home has lots of lead contamination, how much can schools do to increase a student’s cognitive ability?
I think the “failing schools” mantra is pushed by those who don’t want to pay taxes to educate all the children and those who want to make a profit by taking away students from the public schools.
Well, my parents were products of public schools. My wife and I are products of public schools. Our two children are products of public schools. Our grandchildren are products of public schools. Two of these are products of Japanese public schools, but they are welcome as visitors to U.S. public schools.
If public schools have failed, it is not teaching enough civics. We have to look no farther than “president” Donald Trump to learn how badly private schools have taught civics.
See also “Charter School Achievement: Hype vs. Evidence”.
Wednesday, November 30, 2016
Who is the us in U.S.?
Way back when, a bunch of Puritans fled England to practice their religious beliefs. They pushed back the people who were already here. Later, they persecuted Quakers who publicly preached a different religious view.
Opportunists saw large areas of land to raise cotton and tobacco. By hook or crook they laid claims to that land, pushing back the people who were already there. To make matters worse, they bought people who were kidnapped from their homes and put on ships in chains. They put these people to hard work, whipping them if they slacked off or showed any signs of independence. They often quoted select passages from the Bible to justify the situation, completely ignoring “Do unto others…"
Later on, Irish escaped the famine brought on partly because the English took away some of the best farmland. When they came to the U.S., they were often greeted with signs “No Irish need apply!” Now people who have no Irish ancestry celebrate St. Patrick’s Day.
Swedes came in large numbers for better farmland than was available in Sweden. Because their English was not perfect they were often called “dumb Swedes”. This dumb whatever naming continued when immigrants from many other lands came to the U.S.
Russian Jews had their land expropriated by Tsarist thugs. They fled to the U.S. and made many cultural and business contributions. At the same time they were ostracized by “Christians” and kept out of many groups.
People of European descent kept pushing west taking land from Indians and Mexicans. For a variety of reasons, successive governments in Mexico were often corrupt and did not create an economy that benefited all the people. Many of these people sought jobs in the U.S., often in land that once was Mexico. They are paid lower wages than those whose ancestors took the land would accept.
The U.S. waged several wars in the Mideast to ensure a supply of oil, often corrupting or overthrowing governments to do so. Many people from these countries fled to the U.S. for a more stable life. Also large corporations hired many of the highly educated of these people because they worked for less and the corporations didn’t have to pay the taxes to educate them.
On and on it goes. “Why don’t you go back to where you came from?” This is directed at people whose families have been here for generations as well as people who have helped enhance the bottom line of large corporations. And how does one go back to where they came from if their ancestors came from many different places?
On top of all of this, the descendants of dissenters who left their homelands now want others to believe just as they do.
“When will we ever learn!”
Opportunists saw large areas of land to raise cotton and tobacco. By hook or crook they laid claims to that land, pushing back the people who were already there. To make matters worse, they bought people who were kidnapped from their homes and put on ships in chains. They put these people to hard work, whipping them if they slacked off or showed any signs of independence. They often quoted select passages from the Bible to justify the situation, completely ignoring “Do unto others…"
Later on, Irish escaped the famine brought on partly because the English took away some of the best farmland. When they came to the U.S., they were often greeted with signs “No Irish need apply!” Now people who have no Irish ancestry celebrate St. Patrick’s Day.
Swedes came in large numbers for better farmland than was available in Sweden. Because their English was not perfect they were often called “dumb Swedes”. This dumb whatever naming continued when immigrants from many other lands came to the U.S.
Russian Jews had their land expropriated by Tsarist thugs. They fled to the U.S. and made many cultural and business contributions. At the same time they were ostracized by “Christians” and kept out of many groups.
People of European descent kept pushing west taking land from Indians and Mexicans. For a variety of reasons, successive governments in Mexico were often corrupt and did not create an economy that benefited all the people. Many of these people sought jobs in the U.S., often in land that once was Mexico. They are paid lower wages than those whose ancestors took the land would accept.
The U.S. waged several wars in the Mideast to ensure a supply of oil, often corrupting or overthrowing governments to do so. Many people from these countries fled to the U.S. for a more stable life. Also large corporations hired many of the highly educated of these people because they worked for less and the corporations didn’t have to pay the taxes to educate them.
On and on it goes. “Why don’t you go back to where you came from?” This is directed at people whose families have been here for generations as well as people who have helped enhance the bottom line of large corporations. And how does one go back to where they came from if their ancestors came from many different places?
On top of all of this, the descendants of dissenters who left their homelands now want others to believe just as they do.
“When will we ever learn!”
Tuesday, November 22, 2016
Where have all the jobs gone? Part 2
Originally published in
Reader Weekly
June 10, 2004
Sorry, I can’t find “Where have all the jobs gone? Part 2” on this computer. I’m at a coffee shop and will have to look for “Part 1” on an older computer. It might be in an old email account.
I sympathize with Amy Hoff in her job hunting ("Where have all the jobs gone?" Reader Weekly, May 27, 2004). I didn’t feel successful in my own search in 1999-2000, but then I didn’t put as much effort in as she has. I do think we both may have been overly optimistic about opportunities. A region the size of the Twin Ports will rarely have as many job opportunities as many of us would like. It is almost impossible in a modern, complex economy. Few employers want generalists who can learn on the job. Either the job does require skills that require special training or the employer doesn’t want to pay for on-the-job training. No employer is going to hire a liberal arts major to be a geologist, and some employers will not hire a person to work with left-handed widgets who has only worked with right-handed widgets.
She blames the job market as a reason “youth are leaving this area”. I think many young people will leave this area regardless of the job market.
In 2004, about 3,500 students received degrees, diplomas, and certificates from area colleges(1). There are about 86,000 people over 21 years old in the labor force in the Duluth Superior Metropolitan Statistical Area(2). That means that area colleges are graduating enough students to replace every worker in 25 years. If most people work for 40 years and if degreed students would not be interested in many of the available jobs, then many will have to go elsewhere to seek employment. Besides many students came from elsewhere (why do we have a rental housing crunch) and don’t plan to stay in the area.
Even if there were jobs going begging, many people, raised here or not, would choose to move elsewhere. There are certain jobs that will never be available here and people will move elsewhere to get them. How many opera companies or oil exploration companies are there in the Twin Ports area? Other people will move elsewhere because they want warmer climate or a longer ski season or … And this is true for any area of the country.
I came from elsewhere to the Twin Cities, went yet elsewhere, came back to the Twin Cities, and then moved to Duluth. I may or may not move to Brimson. I have many friends and acquaintances that moved from elsewhere to the Twin Ports – from farm communities and from cities like New York and Chicago.
Other problems Amy Hoff cites are poor hiring practices, low wages, and high cost of living. The indifference to prospective employees is not unique to Duluth. Wages are definitely lower in Duluth but the cost of living is relative. The cost of living is not as low as it has been in Duluth but it might not be as bad as elsewhere. One 900 sq. ft house in south Minneapolis was recently listed for $200,000.
What can be done to improve the job situation in the Twin Ports area? The simple answer is import more money. Sound trite? Let’s explore this a bit.
An area of 250,000 people or a million people or ten million people cannot be economically self-sufficient given today’s expectations. Could the Twin Ports support an automobile plant if the only customers were local residents? Autos have to be imported from elsewhere. To import Rangers from St. Paul or Saturns from Tennessee we have to export money. Since we can’t print money here we have to import it from somewhere else. That means we either have to have goods and services to export or figure out how to import people who will spend their money here. Once upon a time this was all covered with timber, taconite, and tourists.
The timber isn’t what it once was. There may be plenty of aspen and spruce but the big pines are long gone. Why is it that The Pinery on Lake County 2 with its 200+ years-old trees is an attraction? Taconite is a replacement for the long-gone rich ore that made the Mesabi Range famous, and taconite has many competitors including scrap iron. Tourists, bless them, are still abundant. However, tourism doesn’t create high-value opportunities except for entrepreneurs. The resulting jobs are retail; these are generally low-wage unless there are large commissions to be made.
One of the largest regional industries is health care, but that is almost a wash for importing money. Most of the patients are regional and what money comes from outside the region is offset by insurance premiums and tax dollars going out.
Education is another large regional industry. Students come to Duluth from all over the world but are there enough from outside the region to provide a significant “importation” of money? Research done in the new UMD science building may provide some spin-off into an industry. This bears considering, but can government officials do anything to influence this?
Manufacturing has been cited as a creator of good-paying jobs. Cirrus is a good example of an expanding company both in itself and in the suppliers it supports. But we have to remember that private airplanes are a unique product and most manufacturing is of commodities. Commodities, be they agriculture or manufacture have many, many competitors. Trying to attract a manufacturing company is a zero-sum game. Duluth may attract a company from Wisconsin, but some other community will be working to attract companies from Duluth. Communities just get into bidding wars subsidizing companies. And companies enticed from elsewhere can go elsewhere just as quickly, especially if the managers have no stake in Duluth.
One good export industry is culture – literature, art, and music. This area does have some successful writers, artists, and musicians. Unfortunately, they are a small drop in the economic bucket and do not create a lot of additional jobs. But here is a clue for other economic successes. Why are these writers, artists, and musicians in Duluth? Could it be that they like to live here?
It gets back to my old argument. Why worry about attracting this business or subsidizing that business? Create an infrastructure that supports any business – good transportation, good utilities, and consistent application of rules. But more importantly, make Duluth a city that people from elsewhere want to move to. If the range of people so attracted is broad enough, entrepreneurs will be part of that range. They will figure out what businesses may be a good fit for this area and build them. With roots established here, they will be likely to keep them here through good times and bad.
(1) I added these up from graduating class figures in the Duluth News Tribune, May 8, 2004,
(2) I derived this figure from U.S Census figures. Go to http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/nav/jsf/pages/community_facts.xhtml and enter your community.. You’re on your own then. You may also find some very depressing info about our area.
See also
http://magree.blogspot.com/2010/08/if-you-really-want-to-create-jobs.html
http://magree.blogspot.com/2010/07/have-good-paying-jobs-really-been.html
http://magree.blogspot.com/2010/05/did-jobs-ever-return.html
http://magree.blogspot.com/2010/03/jobs-times-they-are-changin.html
http://magree.blogspot.com/2009/11/dentistry-and-economy.html
http://magree.blogspot.com/2009/09/stop-creating-jobs-and-start-creating.html
http://magree.blogspot.com/2006/10/where-have-all-iron-range-jobs-gone.html
Reader Weekly
June 10, 2004
Sorry, I can’t find “Where have all the jobs gone? Part 2” on this computer. I’m at a coffee shop and will have to look for “Part 1” on an older computer. It might be in an old email account.
I sympathize with Amy Hoff in her job hunting ("Where have all the jobs gone?" Reader Weekly, May 27, 2004). I didn’t feel successful in my own search in 1999-2000, but then I didn’t put as much effort in as she has. I do think we both may have been overly optimistic about opportunities. A region the size of the Twin Ports will rarely have as many job opportunities as many of us would like. It is almost impossible in a modern, complex economy. Few employers want generalists who can learn on the job. Either the job does require skills that require special training or the employer doesn’t want to pay for on-the-job training. No employer is going to hire a liberal arts major to be a geologist, and some employers will not hire a person to work with left-handed widgets who has only worked with right-handed widgets.
She blames the job market as a reason “youth are leaving this area”. I think many young people will leave this area regardless of the job market.
In 2004, about 3,500 students received degrees, diplomas, and certificates from area colleges(1). There are about 86,000 people over 21 years old in the labor force in the Duluth Superior Metropolitan Statistical Area(2). That means that area colleges are graduating enough students to replace every worker in 25 years. If most people work for 40 years and if degreed students would not be interested in many of the available jobs, then many will have to go elsewhere to seek employment. Besides many students came from elsewhere (why do we have a rental housing crunch) and don’t plan to stay in the area.
Even if there were jobs going begging, many people, raised here or not, would choose to move elsewhere. There are certain jobs that will never be available here and people will move elsewhere to get them. How many opera companies or oil exploration companies are there in the Twin Ports area? Other people will move elsewhere because they want warmer climate or a longer ski season or … And this is true for any area of the country.
I came from elsewhere to the Twin Cities, went yet elsewhere, came back to the Twin Cities, and then moved to Duluth. I may or may not move to Brimson. I have many friends and acquaintances that moved from elsewhere to the Twin Ports – from farm communities and from cities like New York and Chicago.
Other problems Amy Hoff cites are poor hiring practices, low wages, and high cost of living. The indifference to prospective employees is not unique to Duluth. Wages are definitely lower in Duluth but the cost of living is relative. The cost of living is not as low as it has been in Duluth but it might not be as bad as elsewhere. One 900 sq. ft house in south Minneapolis was recently listed for $200,000.
What can be done to improve the job situation in the Twin Ports area? The simple answer is import more money. Sound trite? Let’s explore this a bit.
An area of 250,000 people or a million people or ten million people cannot be economically self-sufficient given today’s expectations. Could the Twin Ports support an automobile plant if the only customers were local residents? Autos have to be imported from elsewhere. To import Rangers from St. Paul or Saturns from Tennessee we have to export money. Since we can’t print money here we have to import it from somewhere else. That means we either have to have goods and services to export or figure out how to import people who will spend their money here. Once upon a time this was all covered with timber, taconite, and tourists.
The timber isn’t what it once was. There may be plenty of aspen and spruce but the big pines are long gone. Why is it that The Pinery on Lake County 2 with its 200+ years-old trees is an attraction? Taconite is a replacement for the long-gone rich ore that made the Mesabi Range famous, and taconite has many competitors including scrap iron. Tourists, bless them, are still abundant. However, tourism doesn’t create high-value opportunities except for entrepreneurs. The resulting jobs are retail; these are generally low-wage unless there are large commissions to be made.
One of the largest regional industries is health care, but that is almost a wash for importing money. Most of the patients are regional and what money comes from outside the region is offset by insurance premiums and tax dollars going out.
Education is another large regional industry. Students come to Duluth from all over the world but are there enough from outside the region to provide a significant “importation” of money? Research done in the new UMD science building may provide some spin-off into an industry. This bears considering, but can government officials do anything to influence this?
Manufacturing has been cited as a creator of good-paying jobs. Cirrus is a good example of an expanding company both in itself and in the suppliers it supports. But we have to remember that private airplanes are a unique product and most manufacturing is of commodities. Commodities, be they agriculture or manufacture have many, many competitors. Trying to attract a manufacturing company is a zero-sum game. Duluth may attract a company from Wisconsin, but some other community will be working to attract companies from Duluth. Communities just get into bidding wars subsidizing companies. And companies enticed from elsewhere can go elsewhere just as quickly, especially if the managers have no stake in Duluth.
One good export industry is culture – literature, art, and music. This area does have some successful writers, artists, and musicians. Unfortunately, they are a small drop in the economic bucket and do not create a lot of additional jobs. But here is a clue for other economic successes. Why are these writers, artists, and musicians in Duluth? Could it be that they like to live here?
It gets back to my old argument. Why worry about attracting this business or subsidizing that business? Create an infrastructure that supports any business – good transportation, good utilities, and consistent application of rules. But more importantly, make Duluth a city that people from elsewhere want to move to. If the range of people so attracted is broad enough, entrepreneurs will be part of that range. They will figure out what businesses may be a good fit for this area and build them. With roots established here, they will be likely to keep them here through good times and bad.
(1) I added these up from graduating class figures in the Duluth News Tribune, May 8, 2004,
(2) I derived this figure from U.S Census figures. Go to http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/nav/jsf/pages/community_facts.xhtml and enter your community.. You’re on your own then. You may also find some very depressing info about our area.
See also
http://magree.blogspot.com/2010/08/if-you-really-want-to-create-jobs.html
http://magree.blogspot.com/2010/07/have-good-paying-jobs-really-been.html
http://magree.blogspot.com/2010/05/did-jobs-ever-return.html
http://magree.blogspot.com/2010/03/jobs-times-they-are-changin.html
http://magree.blogspot.com/2009/11/dentistry-and-economy.html
http://magree.blogspot.com/2009/09/stop-creating-jobs-and-start-creating.html
http://magree.blogspot.com/2006/10/where-have-all-iron-range-jobs-gone.html
Thursday, June 02, 2016
Lift yourself by your bootstraps?
How do you lift yourself by your bootstraps when somebody else has cut your bootstraps off?
Inspired by Nicholas Kristoff, "Too Small to Fail", New York Times, 2016-06-02, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/02/opinion/building-childrens-brains.html.
He mentioned a study in which one-fifth of the children in West Virginia are born with alcohol or drugs in their system.
Or put another way, how can you win a race barefoot against those who have the latest high-tech shoes? Sure, some Kenyans practice barefoot and win a lot of long distance races, but they have lots of opportunity to practice. And they have lots of role models. How much practice in study can a child get in a house without books where the TV is on constantly?
Thursday, March 24, 2016
STEM is only part of a plant
It needs roots, leaves, and flowers.
STEM refers to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. It is all the rage to ensure that a large number of public school students be grounded in STEM. That’s “where all the jobs are.”
But is that all our public schools should produce: “skills” that are “hot” today for large corporations? What happens when large corporations want different “skills”? How many FORTRAN or COBOL programmers are still working? How many large corporations were willing to let them learn C on the job? Or would the large corporations rather let them go and hire C programmers taught by a university? Programmers who would be cheaper because they didn’t have seniority. Or programmers who would be cheaper because they were H1-B hires? The old programmers would be familiar with how the company functioned. The new programmers would probably take longer to learn how the company functioned than the old programmers could upgrade their “skills”.
Tech innovation in and of itself is devoid of meaning. We need the humanities and art to give meaning. The humanities are the roots of a learning plant. They feed the STEM with ideas of what has worked in the past and insight to what might work in the future. The arts are the flowers of the STEM. Without music, drawing, and theatre, STEM is only more and more gadgets which became ends in of themselves. See Sherry Turkles’ “Alone Together” for how much are society has become tools of our gadgets rather than our gadgets being our tools. The leaves are the parts that extract learning from whatever sources are available.
Even before STEM became a buzz-word, I had plenty of STEM training.
I had the science of Physics and Chemistry in high school and college. I really haven’t used much Physics or Chemistry since then. I do remember that speed equals the acceleration multiplied by the square of time. I don’t know what use this has been to me except that I don’t think sky diving is a good idea. I do remember that water is two-parts hydrogen and one part oxygen and the carbon dioxide is one part carbon and two parts oxygen.
In college I took the technology of AC Circuits and flunked it. But all I really need to know today is that the wall sockets are AC circuits that when properly used can provide light as well as power for the computer I am typing this article on.
Oops, an aside. From English I learned the last phrase should be “for the computer on which I am typing this article.” And of course, from other reading I have learned that this is a forced construction based on the idea that English should follow Latin grammar.
In college I had “Engineering Tools and Processes”. I don’t remember my grade (not an A), but as all the others did, my brazing of one piece to another exceeded the base line. On the other hand, I never did get the hang of arc welding. I always got the rod stuck to the work.
Now Math is something I really got immersed in: calculus, differential equations, complex variables, mathematical logic, and more: two years at a liberal arts college and two years in graduate schools. But what do I use math for now: balancing my checkbook, doing my taxes, and guessing an appropriate tip. I do remember that the squares of the sides of a right triangle equal the square of the hypotenuse. But might I have learned this just doing some carpentry? The 3-4-5 rule for making a right angle. About the only other formula I remember is the integral of e to the x equals a function of u sub n. I didn’t learn that in the class room!
With all that STEM, how did I learn so much about computers? On the job training and my own curiosity. I got a summer job between my junior and senior years to learn computing. With a text book from the company library and the help of others, I successfully completed a program that was used after I left.
When I went to graduate school as a graduate assistant, we were given some manuals and pointed at the computer room. It was the days of cards-in, cards-out but it was self-serve. None of this priesthood behind locked doors that gave back your work when they damn-well decided to.
Now computers have gotten both easier to use and harder to use. But how many of those who get the full STEM treatment will get and hold jobs in industry. Will a programmer be able to easily change jobs if he or she doesn’t have the right “skill set”? Or will companies look for new grads from other countries on H1-B visas. And after the visas expire just send them back home because the companies can get new grads with “up-to-date” “skill sets”.
This all reminds me of Kurt Vonnegut’s “Player Piano”. Workers were spit out of the system because their jobs were replaced by computer systems. Even managers were getting spit out. Vonnegut saw this back in the bad-old-days of cards-in, cards-out.
But what I really learned in school and on my own that was of lasting importance was in the roots, flowers, and leaves. What would my life be without all the literature I learned? Would I have enjoyed and learned from Shakespeare and other great books without being exposed to them in school? Would I have learned about government without civics and American history? Would I have enjoyed a wide range of music without a class in music appreciation. It is all of these that allowed me to enjoy life and contribute more than sitting in a cubicle designing “the next great thing.”
Also in the Reader Weekly of Duluth on 2016-03-24 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2016/03/24/6930_stem_is_only_part_of_a_plant-1.
Also "complex various" was corrected to "complex variables".
STEM refers to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. It is all the rage to ensure that a large number of public school students be grounded in STEM. That’s “where all the jobs are.”
But is that all our public schools should produce: “skills” that are “hot” today for large corporations? What happens when large corporations want different “skills”? How many FORTRAN or COBOL programmers are still working? How many large corporations were willing to let them learn C on the job? Or would the large corporations rather let them go and hire C programmers taught by a university? Programmers who would be cheaper because they didn’t have seniority. Or programmers who would be cheaper because they were H1-B hires? The old programmers would be familiar with how the company functioned. The new programmers would probably take longer to learn how the company functioned than the old programmers could upgrade their “skills”.
Tech innovation in and of itself is devoid of meaning. We need the humanities and art to give meaning. The humanities are the roots of a learning plant. They feed the STEM with ideas of what has worked in the past and insight to what might work in the future. The arts are the flowers of the STEM. Without music, drawing, and theatre, STEM is only more and more gadgets which became ends in of themselves. See Sherry Turkles’ “Alone Together” for how much are society has become tools of our gadgets rather than our gadgets being our tools. The leaves are the parts that extract learning from whatever sources are available.
Even before STEM became a buzz-word, I had plenty of STEM training.
I had the science of Physics and Chemistry in high school and college. I really haven’t used much Physics or Chemistry since then. I do remember that speed equals the acceleration multiplied by the square of time. I don’t know what use this has been to me except that I don’t think sky diving is a good idea. I do remember that water is two-parts hydrogen and one part oxygen and the carbon dioxide is one part carbon and two parts oxygen.
In college I took the technology of AC Circuits and flunked it. But all I really need to know today is that the wall sockets are AC circuits that when properly used can provide light as well as power for the computer I am typing this article on.
Oops, an aside. From English I learned the last phrase should be “for the computer on which I am typing this article.” And of course, from other reading I have learned that this is a forced construction based on the idea that English should follow Latin grammar.
In college I had “Engineering Tools and Processes”. I don’t remember my grade (not an A), but as all the others did, my brazing of one piece to another exceeded the base line. On the other hand, I never did get the hang of arc welding. I always got the rod stuck to the work.
Now Math is something I really got immersed in: calculus, differential equations, complex variables, mathematical logic, and more: two years at a liberal arts college and two years in graduate schools. But what do I use math for now: balancing my checkbook, doing my taxes, and guessing an appropriate tip. I do remember that the squares of the sides of a right triangle equal the square of the hypotenuse. But might I have learned this just doing some carpentry? The 3-4-5 rule for making a right angle. About the only other formula I remember is the integral of e to the x equals a function of u sub n. I didn’t learn that in the class room!
With all that STEM, how did I learn so much about computers? On the job training and my own curiosity. I got a summer job between my junior and senior years to learn computing. With a text book from the company library and the help of others, I successfully completed a program that was used after I left.
When I went to graduate school as a graduate assistant, we were given some manuals and pointed at the computer room. It was the days of cards-in, cards-out but it was self-serve. None of this priesthood behind locked doors that gave back your work when they damn-well decided to.
Now computers have gotten both easier to use and harder to use. But how many of those who get the full STEM treatment will get and hold jobs in industry. Will a programmer be able to easily change jobs if he or she doesn’t have the right “skill set”? Or will companies look for new grads from other countries on H1-B visas. And after the visas expire just send them back home because the companies can get new grads with “up-to-date” “skill sets”.
This all reminds me of Kurt Vonnegut’s “Player Piano”. Workers were spit out of the system because their jobs were replaced by computer systems. Even managers were getting spit out. Vonnegut saw this back in the bad-old-days of cards-in, cards-out.
But what I really learned in school and on my own that was of lasting importance was in the roots, flowers, and leaves. What would my life be without all the literature I learned? Would I have enjoyed and learned from Shakespeare and other great books without being exposed to them in school? Would I have learned about government without civics and American history? Would I have enjoyed a wide range of music without a class in music appreciation. It is all of these that allowed me to enjoy life and contribute more than sitting in a cubicle designing “the next great thing.”
Also in the Reader Weekly of Duluth on 2016-03-24 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2016/03/24/6930_stem_is_only_part_of_a_plant-1.
Also "complex various" was corrected to "complex variables".
Monday, July 20, 2015
A little math test
A headline on Yahoo! Finance reads:
American families spent 16% more on college this year
Just what does it mean?
Did all the families who spent money on college last year spend 16% more this year?
Or:
Did 16% more families spend money on college this year?
The article does mention that tuition only rose about 2%, and it does mention that some families are spending more because they can afford to.
So, the short answer is that more analysis is needed and that headline writers have to be careful of their wording. Good journalism is factual, not sensational.
American families spent 16% more on college this year
Just what does it mean?
Did all the families who spent money on college last year spend 16% more this year?
Or:
Did 16% more families spend money on college this year?
The article does mention that tuition only rose about 2%, and it does mention that some families are spending more because they can afford to.
So, the short answer is that more analysis is needed and that headline writers have to be careful of their wording. Good journalism is factual, not sensational.
Thursday, February 05, 2015
People, government, and spending money
“The people know how to spend their money better than the government.” Really?
A Minnesota politician was quoted last month stating some variation of this Libertarian statement, but I can’t find it in a search of the Duluth News Tribune or the Star Tribune. This mantra keeps popping up when a Republican doesn’t like a particular program or a given tax. Funny how they rarely apply it to the bailout of the big banks. And it never applies to any government activity that they support.
Let’s start with the military budget. Do the people really know how to spend their money on the military better than the government does? Those who spout my introductory statement seem to want to throw even more money at the military budget. Regardless of your attitude toward the military, it is in the Constitution that the government should spend money on the military: “provide for the common defense”. I don’t think the signers meant for the government to take up a collection to support our numerous wars. Wars are often strongly supported by those who make the claim about the people knowing best how to spend money.
If your house were burglarized, would you want to be responsible for paying for an investigation, a trial, and a prison term for the culprit? Would you want to have to buy insurance to ensure the thief was brought to justice? We buy insurance to cover the loss, but we pay taxes for a criminal justice system. Who runs the criminal justice system? The government. Who runs on platforms of “tough on crime”? Those who are first to put government down.
If your neighbor’s house catches fire, do you want to pay for your private fire department to ensure the flames don’t reach your house? Government pays for and organizes fire departments that are a phone call away for taxpayers and tax dodgers alike. Even when local fire departments are all volunteer, they seek support from local taxes and state and federal grants.
We complain about the condition of our streets and the congestion of our freeways. If we know best how to spend our money, do we want to be responsible for the condition of the streets in front of our houses? You pay for a nicely paved street in front of your house, and your neighbor leaves the street a muddy mess. We need government to co-ordinate this so we don’t get our cars stuck in the mud.
We go to restaurants and buy groceries without giving any thought to the cleanliness or condition of the food. Most restaurateurs and grocers are scrupulous about what they provide, but they aren’t in control of every step of processing the food or even have the time or means to give a thorough quality check. Government provides some oversight with food inspections, for example, in meat-packing plants. Many corporations complain about this government “intrusion”, but without it we would have many more food-borne illnesses. Think about Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle”. Think about the City of Duluth closing a couple of local restaurants because of numerous health violations. Would “the people” have all the resources to make these checks?
Corporations complain about the lack of “qualified” employees, but they complain about the taxes to train these “qualified” employees. Industrialized countries invest heavily in public education supported by taxes. And they provide a range of subjects that provide skills to learn more about technical subjects and about subjects that make for better informed citizens. What if education were only supplied by parents, either directly or by paying tuition to schools. First, few parents know enough about all the subjects to fully education their children. Second, many parents don’t have the resources to pay tuition for professional teachers. Think of the literacy rates in countries where parents must pay school fees. Only the well-off in these countries are sufficiently literate.
Speaking of education, a parallel statement to the one about spending money is that “parents know best what is good education for their children”. A close example is the sweeping generalization that “Parents know kids don’t need Common Core, so politicians should listen”, Ben Boychuk, republished in Duluth News Tribune, February 1, 2015.
We were involved in helping our children with schoolwork, but we didn’t even pretend to know how to teach them the various subjects they took. Except for the six years we lived in Europe, we sent them off to the local public schools. In Europe, we sent them to Anglo-American schools because we expected to be in a given country for only two years. About the only curriculum shock I had was when our daughter showed us the catalog for American history. Rather than an overview, she had to select one or two narrower subjects, such as Andrew Jackson.
My own education experiences were more self-directed or teacher-encouraged than parentally involved. My mother encouraged my brother and me to do well, but I doubt she knew much about what we learned or how we learned it. For the most part we went to schools in the neighborhood. However, we rarely stayed in the same neighborhood for more than three years. When we moved after I started high school, I selected an out-of-area high school to be with friends who I had known before. And as Robert Frost wrote, “that made all the difference”.
It was Mr. Rush, a math teacher who punctuated his remarks with “when you go to Case”. Six of us in my class went to Case Institute of Technology. It was Mr. Cameron, the assistant principal who recommended that I apply for a Huntington Fund scholarship, which paid full tuition my first year.
Thank you, government, for spending so much money on me to get to that point.
Also published in the Reader Weekly, 2015-02-05 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2015/02/05/4777_people_government_and_spending_money.
A Minnesota politician was quoted last month stating some variation of this Libertarian statement, but I can’t find it in a search of the Duluth News Tribune or the Star Tribune. This mantra keeps popping up when a Republican doesn’t like a particular program or a given tax. Funny how they rarely apply it to the bailout of the big banks. And it never applies to any government activity that they support.
Let’s start with the military budget. Do the people really know how to spend their money on the military better than the government does? Those who spout my introductory statement seem to want to throw even more money at the military budget. Regardless of your attitude toward the military, it is in the Constitution that the government should spend money on the military: “provide for the common defense”. I don’t think the signers meant for the government to take up a collection to support our numerous wars. Wars are often strongly supported by those who make the claim about the people knowing best how to spend money.
If your house were burglarized, would you want to be responsible for paying for an investigation, a trial, and a prison term for the culprit? Would you want to have to buy insurance to ensure the thief was brought to justice? We buy insurance to cover the loss, but we pay taxes for a criminal justice system. Who runs the criminal justice system? The government. Who runs on platforms of “tough on crime”? Those who are first to put government down.
If your neighbor’s house catches fire, do you want to pay for your private fire department to ensure the flames don’t reach your house? Government pays for and organizes fire departments that are a phone call away for taxpayers and tax dodgers alike. Even when local fire departments are all volunteer, they seek support from local taxes and state and federal grants.
We complain about the condition of our streets and the congestion of our freeways. If we know best how to spend our money, do we want to be responsible for the condition of the streets in front of our houses? You pay for a nicely paved street in front of your house, and your neighbor leaves the street a muddy mess. We need government to co-ordinate this so we don’t get our cars stuck in the mud.
We go to restaurants and buy groceries without giving any thought to the cleanliness or condition of the food. Most restaurateurs and grocers are scrupulous about what they provide, but they aren’t in control of every step of processing the food or even have the time or means to give a thorough quality check. Government provides some oversight with food inspections, for example, in meat-packing plants. Many corporations complain about this government “intrusion”, but without it we would have many more food-borne illnesses. Think about Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle”. Think about the City of Duluth closing a couple of local restaurants because of numerous health violations. Would “the people” have all the resources to make these checks?
Corporations complain about the lack of “qualified” employees, but they complain about the taxes to train these “qualified” employees. Industrialized countries invest heavily in public education supported by taxes. And they provide a range of subjects that provide skills to learn more about technical subjects and about subjects that make for better informed citizens. What if education were only supplied by parents, either directly or by paying tuition to schools. First, few parents know enough about all the subjects to fully education their children. Second, many parents don’t have the resources to pay tuition for professional teachers. Think of the literacy rates in countries where parents must pay school fees. Only the well-off in these countries are sufficiently literate.
Speaking of education, a parallel statement to the one about spending money is that “parents know best what is good education for their children”. A close example is the sweeping generalization that “Parents know kids don’t need Common Core, so politicians should listen”, Ben Boychuk, republished in Duluth News Tribune, February 1, 2015.
We were involved in helping our children with schoolwork, but we didn’t even pretend to know how to teach them the various subjects they took. Except for the six years we lived in Europe, we sent them off to the local public schools. In Europe, we sent them to Anglo-American schools because we expected to be in a given country for only two years. About the only curriculum shock I had was when our daughter showed us the catalog for American history. Rather than an overview, she had to select one or two narrower subjects, such as Andrew Jackson.
My own education experiences were more self-directed or teacher-encouraged than parentally involved. My mother encouraged my brother and me to do well, but I doubt she knew much about what we learned or how we learned it. For the most part we went to schools in the neighborhood. However, we rarely stayed in the same neighborhood for more than three years. When we moved after I started high school, I selected an out-of-area high school to be with friends who I had known before. And as Robert Frost wrote, “that made all the difference”.
It was Mr. Rush, a math teacher who punctuated his remarks with “when you go to Case”. Six of us in my class went to Case Institute of Technology. It was Mr. Cameron, the assistant principal who recommended that I apply for a Huntington Fund scholarship, which paid full tuition my first year.
Thank you, government, for spending so much money on me to get to that point.
Also published in the Reader Weekly, 2015-02-05 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2015/02/05/4777_people_government_and_spending_money.
Monday, December 01, 2014
George Will and “Failing” schools
Here’s another letter to the editor that probably wasn’t published. This was in response to George Will’s “Tall Order for a Few Federal Dollars”. It was published in February 2001. The only easily available copy I could find was from the Southeastern Missourian, 2001-02-03 at
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1893&dat=20010203&id=H60fAAAAIBAJ&sjid=ftYEAAAAIBAJ&pg=2443,4795189
The text of my letter, dated 2001-02-03 follows.
I am amazed how ideology leads a deep thinker like George Will to be as shallow as he is in “Tall Order for a Few Federal Dollars”.
At the beginning of his article, he talks about “failing schools” and how transfers to other public schools or vouchers to private schools would allow students to leave these failing schools. He goes on to list what factors lead to students’ success but he says that schools can only influence one of those factors and that additional resources won’t change any of these factors.
He also compares the “success” of private schools to the “failure” of public schools but with a superficial assumption that the student populations are identical.
He gives a measure of the skills of public school teachers without examining whether his measure is appropriate to what the teachers are doing. He also links that measure to a comparison of “cognition” of American students with that of students in other developed countries.
Furthermore, he uses that measure to show that class size won’t make any difference.
From his article and from a couple hours of newspaper and Web research, I see a different picture.
First, if students are allowed to leave “failing schools”, which students will leave? The “failing” students who are most in need of “better” teaching, or the successful students who have the advantage of the five factors of
- number of parents in home
- days absent from school
- hours spent watching television
- quantity and quality of reading matter in home
- amount of homework
If the successful students leave, won’t the failing schools fail even more? If the failing students leave, won’t they be taking their problems to other schools and lead those schools to “fail”?
Will ignores that additional resources can change four of the five factors, including the only one he says that the schools can control - amount of homework. If classes are smaller, then teachers can give and check more homework. Schools can influence absenteeism with truant officers and counselors, neither of which work for free. Schools can help reduce hours spent watching television by providing more after school activities; activities like sports, music, and theatre cost money in material and staff time. Schools can provide a quantity of quality reading matter, but books and librarians cost money. The only factor additional resources can’t change is the number of parents.
Will writes that most failing schools serve inner-city children but inner-city Catholic schools “do better with fewer resources”. Are the public schools and the Catholic schools serving students with the same lack of success factors? Because some parents choose to send their children to Catholic schools, might more of the success factors be present in those families? Will doesn’t raise this question. Furthermore, the Catholic schools can select their students; the public schools have to take all students.
Will states that “38 percent of American teachers had college majors in academic subjects” and implies that majoring in education makes a teacher inadequately trained. However, most schools don’t get deeply into “academic subjects” until junior high. Many elementary teachers teach a wide range of subjects, especially in the lower grades. In 1997 there were about 1.2 million secondary public and private teachers and about 1.85 million elementary teachers. That means about 39% of the teachers were junior and high school teachers. That is rather close to the percent of teachers who had a major in an academic subject.
Will relates his perception that too few teachers had academic majors to how “American students’ cognition [compares] with students around the developed world”. Again, is he comparing similar groups of students? The Department of Education warns in Digest of Education Statistics 1999, Chapter 6 - International Comparisons of Education (http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2000/digest99/chapter6.html) “...international data users should be cautioned about the many problems of definition and reporting involved in the collection of data about the educational systems in the world.” Could it be that different kinds of students are being measured in different countries? For example, are the students being measured in some countries only those on an academic track as opposed to all students in the U.S.? If all students are being measured in those other countries, do they have the same mix of socio-economic classes as the U.S. does? More specifically, is there a large portion of students who lack some of the five significant success factors?
Finally, Will claims small class size “simply increases the attention each pupil gets from an inadequately trained teacher.” The Student Achievement Guarantee in Education program in Wisconsin has shown that smaller class sizes give better results (Duluth News-Tribune, Jan. 18, 2001). As one teacher put it, with larger classes “it's a lot of tying shoes”.
Follow up email to the Washington Post:
In today's Star Tribune I found a more factual rebuttal than mine to George Will's Feb. 1st column on education. It is about the ACE (A Commitment to Excellence) program in Minneapolis. [The link I had no longer works. The article was from 2001-02-04.] In short, it is about a program that targets at-risk black males to give them tutoring and counseling to help them succeed. The $500,000 program is sponsored by the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis Public Schools, and Hennepin County Children and Family Services.
You can find a link to the start of the article at http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-69979742.html.
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1893&dat=20010203&id=H60fAAAAIBAJ&sjid=ftYEAAAAIBAJ&pg=2443,4795189
The text of my letter, dated 2001-02-03 follows.
I am amazed how ideology leads a deep thinker like George Will to be as shallow as he is in “Tall Order for a Few Federal Dollars”.
At the beginning of his article, he talks about “failing schools” and how transfers to other public schools or vouchers to private schools would allow students to leave these failing schools. He goes on to list what factors lead to students’ success but he says that schools can only influence one of those factors and that additional resources won’t change any of these factors.
He also compares the “success” of private schools to the “failure” of public schools but with a superficial assumption that the student populations are identical.
He gives a measure of the skills of public school teachers without examining whether his measure is appropriate to what the teachers are doing. He also links that measure to a comparison of “cognition” of American students with that of students in other developed countries.
Furthermore, he uses that measure to show that class size won’t make any difference.
From his article and from a couple hours of newspaper and Web research, I see a different picture.
First, if students are allowed to leave “failing schools”, which students will leave? The “failing” students who are most in need of “better” teaching, or the successful students who have the advantage of the five factors of
- number of parents in home
- days absent from school
- hours spent watching television
- quantity and quality of reading matter in home
- amount of homework
If the successful students leave, won’t the failing schools fail even more? If the failing students leave, won’t they be taking their problems to other schools and lead those schools to “fail”?
Will ignores that additional resources can change four of the five factors, including the only one he says that the schools can control - amount of homework. If classes are smaller, then teachers can give and check more homework. Schools can influence absenteeism with truant officers and counselors, neither of which work for free. Schools can help reduce hours spent watching television by providing more after school activities; activities like sports, music, and theatre cost money in material and staff time. Schools can provide a quantity of quality reading matter, but books and librarians cost money. The only factor additional resources can’t change is the number of parents.
Will writes that most failing schools serve inner-city children but inner-city Catholic schools “do better with fewer resources”. Are the public schools and the Catholic schools serving students with the same lack of success factors? Because some parents choose to send their children to Catholic schools, might more of the success factors be present in those families? Will doesn’t raise this question. Furthermore, the Catholic schools can select their students; the public schools have to take all students.
Will states that “38 percent of American teachers had college majors in academic subjects” and implies that majoring in education makes a teacher inadequately trained. However, most schools don’t get deeply into “academic subjects” until junior high. Many elementary teachers teach a wide range of subjects, especially in the lower grades. In 1997 there were about 1.2 million secondary public and private teachers and about 1.85 million elementary teachers. That means about 39% of the teachers were junior and high school teachers. That is rather close to the percent of teachers who had a major in an academic subject.
Will relates his perception that too few teachers had academic majors to how “American students’ cognition [compares] with students around the developed world”. Again, is he comparing similar groups of students? The Department of Education warns in Digest of Education Statistics 1999, Chapter 6 - International Comparisons of Education (http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2000/digest99/chapter6.html) “...international data users should be cautioned about the many problems of definition and reporting involved in the collection of data about the educational systems in the world.” Could it be that different kinds of students are being measured in different countries? For example, are the students being measured in some countries only those on an academic track as opposed to all students in the U.S.? If all students are being measured in those other countries, do they have the same mix of socio-economic classes as the U.S. does? More specifically, is there a large portion of students who lack some of the five significant success factors?
Finally, Will claims small class size “simply increases the attention each pupil gets from an inadequately trained teacher.” The Student Achievement Guarantee in Education program in Wisconsin has shown that smaller class sizes give better results (Duluth News-Tribune, Jan. 18, 2001). As one teacher put it, with larger classes “it's a lot of tying shoes”.
Follow up email to the Washington Post:
In today's Star Tribune I found a more factual rebuttal than mine to George Will's Feb. 1st column on education. It is about the ACE (A Commitment to Excellence) program in Minneapolis. [The link I had no longer works. The article was from 2001-02-04.] In short, it is about a program that targets at-risk black males to give them tutoring and counseling to help them succeed. The $500,000 program is sponsored by the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis Public Schools, and Hennepin County Children and Family Services.
You can find a link to the start of the article at http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-69979742.html.
Thursday, July 10, 2014
Free market and education
From an undated note on my desk:
Inspired by a letter in the Wall Street Journal (1983-05-05) extolling free enterprise in education.
The free market is not an ideology in itself; it is a realization of a philosophy of diversity of ideas.
The trouble with our free enterprise is that goods and services are judged solely on how much somebody with money (or other barter) is willing to pay.
Inspired by a letter in the Wall Street Journal (1983-05-05) extolling free enterprise in education.
The free market is not an ideology in itself; it is a realization of a philosophy of diversity of ideas.
The trouble with our free enterprise is that goods and services are judged solely on how much somebody with money (or other barter) is willing to pay.
Friday, May 30, 2014
Reading, writing, and coding?
Some parents, school districts, and companies are pushing for kids as young as seven to be involved in programming computers. See “Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, and Lately, Coding”, New York Times, May 10, 2014. Part of the rationale is it is a “basic life skill, one that might someday lead to a great job or even instant riches.”
Or, “Computer science is big right now — in our country, the world,” a mother said. “If my kids aren’t exposed to things like that, they could miss out on potential opportunities and careers.”
Really?
Coding is a means to problem solving. One can code all kinds of things, but if one doesn’t use the “right” language, no amount of coding work will get one a job. The job market is littered with people who were whiz-bang coders but can’t get jobs because they don’t have the right “skill set”. Never mind that many programmers have learned and keep learning new languages, if they haven’t learned the language of the day yet they won’t be hired. See the writings of Norman Matloff.
Matloff, a college professor, is in an enviable position. He can learn a new computer language, write a book about it, and get people to buy the book; no personnel department checks on his “skill sets”. He wrote “The Art of R Programming”. R? What is that? I bet most readers never heard of R. I don’t have space for more description here, but it “is the world’s most popular language for developing statistical software”. According the publisher, No Starch Press, “Archeologists use it to track the spread of ancient civilizations.” Didn’t learn R in elementary school? According to the statements of some, there goes your career in archaeology!
Remember when learning BASIC was the rage. How many who learned BASIC got jobs using BASIC?
I posted the following comment to the New York Times article. Unfortunately, it was not accepted, possibly because there were so many more like it already.
“I have been involved with computers for over 50 years, and in some cases was considered a whiz. But I feel somewhat left behind. Not because my problem solving abilities have deteriorated, but because programming languages have become more obtuse.
“The real skill people need is problem solving, whether its why their computer doesn't behave as it did yesterday or why the answering machine message disappeared. I just replaced the answering machine message, now to figure out how to get my wife's iPad to once again access my iPhone hotspot through Bluetooth.
“I might do it, or I might not. I do know I recently figured out a problem that the Geek Squad couldn't. In short, it was about what program was active at the time of the problem.
“Oh, by the way, how well did the rush to learn BASIC a few years ago really work out.”
A better approach might be courses in problem solving in many different disciplines. How do you make a pleasant melody? How do you draw? How do you settle an argument? What is the true meaning of a set of “statistics”? What data is needed? Are we working on the right problem? How to read a map and plan a route?
“Corporations increasingly are looking for skill-sets. Thinkers need not apply. But is that what we want emerging from our schools? Easily disposable cogs?” A comment by RuthMarie to “Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, and Lately, Coding?”
As an example of how narrow skill sets are, consider that energy traders in Europe are being laid off because of the move to alternative energy. They are considered so specialized that they aren’t being hired for other trading jobs. “Energy Trader Turned Caribbean Surfer Watches Wind for Waves”, Bloomberg, May 21, 2014. So, a trader in energy can’t learn to trade in steel or bonds or …?
What is happening in the Duluth Public Schools regarding computers and other skills? You can find the middle and high school course catalogs on the schools’ website (http://www.isd709.org).
Sixth graders take a one semester course on computers (see Business Education). The primary focus is on development of touch typing. Along the way they learn to produce “letters, flyers, memos, tables, outlines, spreadsheet[s],…and slide show presentations.”
To me, these are skills almost all of us need sometime in life. How many people do you know that still hunt and peck at a keyboard? How often have you watched a speaker get lost in his or her own PowerPoint presentation?
I had to wait until 11th grade to take typing; it was an elective for me, not a requirement. It has been one of the two most important classes I took in high school. The other was driving. I use these two skills more than anything else I learned in high school. Driving is no longer offered in many high schools. I did not find it in the Duluth “High School Course Book”.
What I did find is something for more interesting than the shop courses I took (wood working, metal working, and printing): Pre-engineering! Who sets print by hand anymore? All seventh graders are required to take it, and the focus will be on design and modeling. They will work both individually and in groups. The lone coder bent over a coding sheet is a myth; his or her work has to mesh with that of lots of other people.
Pre-engineering is part of the “Project Lead the Way” curriculum. It continues in high school with other courses. One of the objectives is to “develop students’ innovative, collaborative, cooperative, problem-solving skills.”
Now all we need is more employers who look for generalists rather than narrow specialists.
Mel learned coding at 20, programmed main frames until 44, programmed personal computers until 57, and is still debugging the coding of hotshots at 76.
Published in the Reader Weekly, 29 May 2014 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2014/05/29/3449_reading_writing_and_coding.
Or, “Computer science is big right now — in our country, the world,” a mother said. “If my kids aren’t exposed to things like that, they could miss out on potential opportunities and careers.”
Really?
Coding is a means to problem solving. One can code all kinds of things, but if one doesn’t use the “right” language, no amount of coding work will get one a job. The job market is littered with people who were whiz-bang coders but can’t get jobs because they don’t have the right “skill set”. Never mind that many programmers have learned and keep learning new languages, if they haven’t learned the language of the day yet they won’t be hired. See the writings of Norman Matloff.
Matloff, a college professor, is in an enviable position. He can learn a new computer language, write a book about it, and get people to buy the book; no personnel department checks on his “skill sets”. He wrote “The Art of R Programming”. R? What is that? I bet most readers never heard of R. I don’t have space for more description here, but it “is the world’s most popular language for developing statistical software”. According the publisher, No Starch Press, “Archeologists use it to track the spread of ancient civilizations.” Didn’t learn R in elementary school? According to the statements of some, there goes your career in archaeology!
Remember when learning BASIC was the rage. How many who learned BASIC got jobs using BASIC?
I posted the following comment to the New York Times article. Unfortunately, it was not accepted, possibly because there were so many more like it already.
“I have been involved with computers for over 50 years, and in some cases was considered a whiz. But I feel somewhat left behind. Not because my problem solving abilities have deteriorated, but because programming languages have become more obtuse.
“The real skill people need is problem solving, whether its why their computer doesn't behave as it did yesterday or why the answering machine message disappeared. I just replaced the answering machine message, now to figure out how to get my wife's iPad to once again access my iPhone hotspot through Bluetooth.
“I might do it, or I might not. I do know I recently figured out a problem that the Geek Squad couldn't. In short, it was about what program was active at the time of the problem.
“Oh, by the way, how well did the rush to learn BASIC a few years ago really work out.”
A better approach might be courses in problem solving in many different disciplines. How do you make a pleasant melody? How do you draw? How do you settle an argument? What is the true meaning of a set of “statistics”? What data is needed? Are we working on the right problem? How to read a map and plan a route?
“Corporations increasingly are looking for skill-sets. Thinkers need not apply. But is that what we want emerging from our schools? Easily disposable cogs?” A comment by RuthMarie to “Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, and Lately, Coding?”
As an example of how narrow skill sets are, consider that energy traders in Europe are being laid off because of the move to alternative energy. They are considered so specialized that they aren’t being hired for other trading jobs. “Energy Trader Turned Caribbean Surfer Watches Wind for Waves”, Bloomberg, May 21, 2014. So, a trader in energy can’t learn to trade in steel or bonds or …?
What is happening in the Duluth Public Schools regarding computers and other skills? You can find the middle and high school course catalogs on the schools’ website (http://www.isd709.org).
Sixth graders take a one semester course on computers (see Business Education). The primary focus is on development of touch typing. Along the way they learn to produce “letters, flyers, memos, tables, outlines, spreadsheet[s],…and slide show presentations.”
To me, these are skills almost all of us need sometime in life. How many people do you know that still hunt and peck at a keyboard? How often have you watched a speaker get lost in his or her own PowerPoint presentation?
I had to wait until 11th grade to take typing; it was an elective for me, not a requirement. It has been one of the two most important classes I took in high school. The other was driving. I use these two skills more than anything else I learned in high school. Driving is no longer offered in many high schools. I did not find it in the Duluth “High School Course Book”.
What I did find is something for more interesting than the shop courses I took (wood working, metal working, and printing): Pre-engineering! Who sets print by hand anymore? All seventh graders are required to take it, and the focus will be on design and modeling. They will work both individually and in groups. The lone coder bent over a coding sheet is a myth; his or her work has to mesh with that of lots of other people.
Pre-engineering is part of the “Project Lead the Way” curriculum. It continues in high school with other courses. One of the objectives is to “develop students’ innovative, collaborative, cooperative, problem-solving skills.”
Now all we need is more employers who look for generalists rather than narrow specialists.
Mel learned coding at 20, programmed main frames until 44, programmed personal computers until 57, and is still debugging the coding of hotshots at 76.
Published in the Reader Weekly, 29 May 2014 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2014/05/29/3449_reading_writing_and_coding.
Monday, April 21, 2014
Proof of poor education system
From my note pile:
We must have a poor education system. Just look at the quality of the politicians and at the judgment of the voters who keep electing them again and again.
We must have a poor education system. Just look at the quality of the politicians and at the judgment of the voters who keep electing them again and again.
Saturday, March 01, 2014
Welfare queens are small potatoes compared to welfare kings
Some politicians love to cite that some people on welfare are driving Cadillacs. Therefore all welfare is a waste of taxpayer money. My first question is if the “welfare queen’s” “Cadillac” is a late model or a 10-15 year old Cadillac with 200,000 miles. My second question is how many people that truly need help would be hurt because politicians assumed they were all driving Cadillacs.
Some of these same politicians love to give barrels of cash to multi-millionaire CEOs as direct subsidies to continue doing business as they are or to move from one place to another. Why does a billionaire need a subsidy to build a stadium for which he will take most of the profits? Why does a company need a subsidy to move from one city to another? Either there is a sound business reason to move, like closer to markets, suppliers, or labor pool or there isn’t.
The welfare kings are also leeches in that they expect a pool of trained labor they did not train and an infra-structure they did not build. And they holler loudly if anyone expects them to pay taxes to have these. And they complain loudly if anyone expects them to clean up the messes they create, like harmful particles in the air and toxins in the water.
Some of these same politicians love to give barrels of cash to multi-millionaire CEOs as direct subsidies to continue doing business as they are or to move from one place to another. Why does a billionaire need a subsidy to build a stadium for which he will take most of the profits? Why does a company need a subsidy to move from one city to another? Either there is a sound business reason to move, like closer to markets, suppliers, or labor pool or there isn’t.
The welfare kings are also leeches in that they expect a pool of trained labor they did not train and an infra-structure they did not build. And they holler loudly if anyone expects them to pay taxes to have these. And they complain loudly if anyone expects them to clean up the messes they create, like harmful particles in the air and toxins in the water.
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
Immigration: in an ideal world…
In an ideal world, anybody should be able to move anywhere they can find a place to live and work.
I was fortunate to live in a time when I was welcome anywhere as a Univac employee. I requested a transfer to Europe and wound up in Switzerland and then Italy. I requested a transfer from Italy to Sweden and was given it. From both places I worked in or traveled to almost all of the countries of Western Europe.
Because I was "from Roseville", the place where most of the 1100 series of Univac computers originated, I was perceived as an "expert", even when local people could solve many problems better than I could.
I had friends ask me to transfer to South Africa or Iran, both of which I declined.
I really think that anybody anywhere should have the mobility that I have had all my life. I grew up and was educated in Ohio. But I chose to work in Minnesota. From Minnesota I spent six years in Europe. Then I spent three years in SE Pennsylvania. Then I was able to transfer back to Minnesota. After 22 years in Plymouth MN, my wife was able to get a transfer to Duluth.
I think everyone should have such chances for the changes we had.
But... It is not an ideal world. Many of those who claim to want immigration reform don't want reform for its own sake, but "reform" to exclude those they don't like and “reform” to have access to those who will reduce their costs.
The people that "immigration reform" proponents want are immigrants who are highly-skilled. If you think about it and look behind the curtain, what they really want is lower-paid workers and is having somebody else pay for the education of these "highly-skilled" workers.
These potential immigrants were educated with the help of taxes in other countries. When "immigration reform" proponents entice these people to the U.S., they are depriving those countries of the benefits of their investments. Those investments could pay off for a better political and economic culture in those countries. As the saying goes, "Those with get up and go, go!"
The irony is that who want more "skilled" immigrants are destabilizing many of the countries where they immigrants come from. Rather than paying taxes for a bloated military that goes more places than it should, these people should be willing to pay for taxes to give the children in the United States a high-quality education.
I was fortunate to live in a time when I was welcome anywhere as a Univac employee. I requested a transfer to Europe and wound up in Switzerland and then Italy. I requested a transfer from Italy to Sweden and was given it. From both places I worked in or traveled to almost all of the countries of Western Europe.
Because I was "from Roseville", the place where most of the 1100 series of Univac computers originated, I was perceived as an "expert", even when local people could solve many problems better than I could.
I had friends ask me to transfer to South Africa or Iran, both of which I declined.
I really think that anybody anywhere should have the mobility that I have had all my life. I grew up and was educated in Ohio. But I chose to work in Minnesota. From Minnesota I spent six years in Europe. Then I spent three years in SE Pennsylvania. Then I was able to transfer back to Minnesota. After 22 years in Plymouth MN, my wife was able to get a transfer to Duluth.
I think everyone should have such chances for the changes we had.
But... It is not an ideal world. Many of those who claim to want immigration reform don't want reform for its own sake, but "reform" to exclude those they don't like and “reform” to have access to those who will reduce their costs.
The people that "immigration reform" proponents want are immigrants who are highly-skilled. If you think about it and look behind the curtain, what they really want is lower-paid workers and is having somebody else pay for the education of these "highly-skilled" workers.
These potential immigrants were educated with the help of taxes in other countries. When "immigration reform" proponents entice these people to the U.S., they are depriving those countries of the benefits of their investments. Those investments could pay off for a better political and economic culture in those countries. As the saying goes, "Those with get up and go, go!"
The irony is that who want more "skilled" immigrants are destabilizing many of the countries where they immigrants come from. Rather than paying taxes for a bloated military that goes more places than it should, these people should be willing to pay for taxes to give the children in the United States a high-quality education.
Tuesday, January 07, 2014
Monday, December 09, 2013
Quote of the day: military spending
"A dollar appropriated for highway construction, health care, or education will create many more jobs than a dollar appropriated for Pentagon weapons procurement: The jobs argument is thoroughly specious."
The PARTY is OVER: How Republicans Went CRAZY, Democrats Became USELESS, and the Middle Class Got SHAFTED, Mike Lofgren
The PARTY is OVER: How Republicans Went CRAZY, Democrats Became USELESS, and the Middle Class Got SHAFTED, Mike Lofgren
Thursday, September 19, 2013
If government is so bad then why…
...do so many companies try to get government business?
Privately run prisons
Military contracts
Highway and bridge contracts
Private schools with government vouchers
Sports stadiums with tax money
And to boot they want government to protect their businesses with
Courts to adjudicate disputes among companies
Courts to protect copyrights with large judgments against individuals (what's this about tort reform?)
Enforcement of patents
Trade negotiations
Employees educated and trained at government expense
I'm sure you can think of many more things that governments want from government without paying any taxes to support their wish lists.
Like a little kid, they want the tooth fairy to leave a quarter under their pillow every morning. That's a quarter million or even a quarter billion.
Privately run prisons
Military contracts
Highway and bridge contracts
Private schools with government vouchers
Sports stadiums with tax money
And to boot they want government to protect their businesses with
Courts to adjudicate disputes among companies
Courts to protect copyrights with large judgments against individuals (what's this about tort reform?)
Enforcement of patents
Trade negotiations
Employees educated and trained at government expense
I'm sure you can think of many more things that governments want from government without paying any taxes to support their wish lists.
Like a little kid, they want the tooth fairy to leave a quarter under their pillow every morning. That's a quarter million or even a quarter billion.
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
Intergenerational payments are not a zero sum game
Many complain that Social Security is taking from the young to pay for the old. That is, this transfer is a zero sum game where the winnings of one are equal to the losses of others.
But consider that we play another zero sum game. Think about those who complain about paying for schools because they don't have children or grandchildren in school.
Now if the older people are paying taxes to support public schools and the younger people are paying taxes for seniors' Social Security payments, isn't the combined system a win-win situation?
And there is more to support this win-win situation.
If older people don't pay for children's education where are the doctors going to come from? Police and fire? Government? Inventors of devices and medicines to prolong life? Sports figures to entertain?
If younger people don't pay for older peoples' retirement and health, might the older people stay working longer, leaving fewer jobs for younger people?
And the list goes on. Older people paid for the infra-structure that younger people use today. Would we have highways, communication systems, buildings, and much else that was paid for in full by people now dead?
But consider that we play another zero sum game. Think about those who complain about paying for schools because they don't have children or grandchildren in school.
Now if the older people are paying taxes to support public schools and the younger people are paying taxes for seniors' Social Security payments, isn't the combined system a win-win situation?
And there is more to support this win-win situation.
If older people don't pay for children's education where are the doctors going to come from? Police and fire? Government? Inventors of devices and medicines to prolong life? Sports figures to entertain?
If younger people don't pay for older peoples' retirement and health, might the older people stay working longer, leaving fewer jobs for younger people?
And the list goes on. Older people paid for the infra-structure that younger people use today. Would we have highways, communication systems, buildings, and much else that was paid for in full by people now dead?
Friday, July 12, 2013
Whatever happened to foreign students and foreign languages?
I wrote the above title and the text below in response to "On campus beat: University of Minnesota and EMC team up to teach world languages", Lydia Coutré, Star Tribune, 2013-06-25. http://www.startribune.com/local/212860091.html I submitted it as a letter to the editor, but the Strib did not publish it. Apropos foreign languages, the Strib put the accent mark on Coutré's name.
When I was in college students coming from another country were foreign students. They were welcomed by many and considered part of the student body. I remember eating often with three Arabs whose conversation went beyond their complaints about Israel.
Now their grandchildren studying in the U.S. would be called "international students". But if a student body at a U.S. school included students from other countries, wouldn't all the students be international students?
When I worked and lived in Europe, I wasn't an international worker but a foreigner. I was called Ausländer, utlänning, étranger, straniero, and various forms of American. And gaijin (outside person) when I visited Japan.
When I was in school and beyond, languages other than English were called foreign languages; now it is the fashion to call these other languages world languages, no matter how widely they are spoken. I would consider only a handful of languages world languages; English, French, Spanish, Arabic, and Chinese are spoken in a large number of countries. Swedish and Japanese would be local languages, spoken almost exclusively on a daily basis only in their countries of origin.
No matter what you call other languages, Lydia Coutré is right to point out that Americans are woefully illiterate in foreign languages. We need to stop considering foreign languages a frill. Being multi-lingual gets you friends, business, and security. I wonder if there would have been fewer terrorists if our schools could have provided more Arab speakers.
When I was in college students coming from another country were foreign students. They were welcomed by many and considered part of the student body. I remember eating often with three Arabs whose conversation went beyond their complaints about Israel.
Now their grandchildren studying in the U.S. would be called "international students". But if a student body at a U.S. school included students from other countries, wouldn't all the students be international students?
When I worked and lived in Europe, I wasn't an international worker but a foreigner. I was called Ausländer, utlänning, étranger, straniero, and various forms of American. And gaijin (outside person) when I visited Japan.
When I was in school and beyond, languages other than English were called foreign languages; now it is the fashion to call these other languages world languages, no matter how widely they are spoken. I would consider only a handful of languages world languages; English, French, Spanish, Arabic, and Chinese are spoken in a large number of countries. Swedish and Japanese would be local languages, spoken almost exclusively on a daily basis only in their countries of origin.
No matter what you call other languages, Lydia Coutré is right to point out that Americans are woefully illiterate in foreign languages. We need to stop considering foreign languages a frill. Being multi-lingual gets you friends, business, and security. I wonder if there would have been fewer terrorists if our schools could have provided more Arab speakers.
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