My office manager -- who is a reader here, so hi! -- has been trying for months to try to cut down on the number of junk faxes we receive. The university has encouraged staff to first website and fill in info and submit – noting confirmation number and file by name (although about half do not have known names) – FCC then send me a letter for each complaint I file – often time sealed with tape (which means who ever stuffs them does not like to lick the envelopes either ...

FCC emailed me one time about a company asking me for more info – responded telling them to look at what I submitted on website since that details everything (tells me they obviously do not check closely) ... no one ever called me or ever followed up on this one time.

Waste of my time, gov time, our paper (figure 2-3 reams a year – this is including the gov paper waste – not to mention envelopes, tape, and postage), fax film – am I missing anything?

Has anyone else used this service? Have you ever heard of the FCC taking action on these unwanted faxes? It seems to me that they are more interested in collecting numbers and names of marketers than they are in reducing the traffic of junk faxes.

About a year ago I reported on a faculty member fired at Southern Utah, and the work David Tufte had done in getting the story straight on the nature of his dismissal. One year later, it appears Tufte is still right.

SUU administration asserted that this was a confidential personnel matter and revealed nothing. They still haven't. The scuttlebutt was that this was a case of extreme inability to get along with colleagues and students.

Roberds repeatedly threatened legal action. None was ever taken. Free speech advocacy groups reported that he was uncooperative. His supporters rallied a bit; this fizzled as the story took a bizarre twist.

This blog was instrumental in getting out the information - suppressed by the local and school papers - that Roberds had been fired from the University of North Alabama under almost identical circumstances several years before. Even worse, the same pattern of free student labor and student contributions (!!!) was used to smear the university. A few thousand hits later, and the issue was quickly and quietly removed from everyone's radar screen. The students website in support of Roberds stopped paying its bills several months ago, and was shut down.

Sounds like it was much ado about nothing. Tufte thinks Roberds should get another post somewhere, since "he's a really inspring professor that many students were deeply attached to, and from whom they learned a great deal." If this guy has had problems like this at two universities, I'm not sure I'd want to be the administrator that gives him a third chance.

Categories: higher_ed

The Tax Foundation has come out with a new listing of which states have the best business climate. Minnesota comes in at 38th overall, 41st in state business taxes. At least this is an improvement over its 41st overall ranking in 2004, but it's nothing to write home about (or for some incumbents to hang their hats on in the next election.) Other facts about Minnesota from the study:

• sixth highest effective income tax rate on business income (where we have in fact gone backwards from 2004) -- we pay a flat rate of 9.8% on every dollar of income;


• there is an alternative minimum tax in Minnesota for both corporations and individuals (I didn't know that);


• we have the highest maximum tax rate for unemployment insurance in the country.

Categories: economics, Minnesota

I'm trying to figure out the subtext of a story in The Chronicle of Higher Ed (subscriber link) in which a grad student appears to have discovered "a culture of cheating" in 44 theses that may have been plagiarized.

Thomas A. Matrka, who received his master's degree in mechanical engineering last summer and now works at a chemical plant, said he stumbled on several instances of plagiarism after his adviser told him initially that his thesis was unacceptable.

"I went to the library to see what he had approved and see why mine wasn't satisfactory," said Mr. Matrka on Monday. As he was looking through the theses, he noticed passages that were identical and were not cited. In one case, he said, more than 50 pages had been plagiarized from a previous Ohio University thesis. Mr. Matrka estimated that he spent 10 hours a week for four months looking for evidence of plagiarism.

Think about that. That's about 170 hours spent searching. I'm glad he did it, and I'm glad the school is now investigating the charges. Disciplinary action against the faculty who signed these theses is a possibility.

But let me also add that 170 hours is a LOT of time out of a faculty member's workplan, in return for which she or he has the headache of trying to prove the charge to an administration that may not want to hear it, and threatening to end a grad student's career. It's hard for me to imagine many faculty choosing that risk/return profile. It may be that the only people incented enough to take on the task are disgruntled grad students. I'm not sure that's a great enforcement mechanism, but I also wonder what other cost-enforcement mechanism we could use. Software?

Categories: higher_ed

One way to evaluate whether some claim works or not is to ask whether you could do it elswhere. Take for example the peace studies class offered at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School in Maryland. There, a very noted peace activist, the retired columnist Colman McCarthy, volunteers his time to teach the class from a book of essays he edited which the school system approved, while the high school uses some (presumably licensed) teacher to check attendance and issue grades. That's fine, and I can even manage to admire McCarthy's generosity of time.

Now let us imagine:

• Mitch Berg offers a class in World War II military history as taught through old Avalon-Hill games (believe me, he'd do it for free);


• Sam Walton offers to teach young students in a business class the finer points of national distribution systems (since we're imagining, imagine he's alive);


• Milton Friedman offers to teach economics students ... well, anything.

Would the fact that none of them are licensed teachers raise a fuss in that setting? But somehow McCarthy gets a pass by teaching under cover of some other school district employee.

As Bill Quick points out, the first agenda of public education isn't education.

Categories: education

I've been to City Lights; in fact, whenever in San Francisco I try to make a stop there because they have such unusual books and its layout is so conducive to grabbing something and reading. Most bookstores are owned by granola-and-sandals types, who for the most part love books as much as I do and we can have a great time talking about them even after they realize I do not share their political views. So I find this story really sad:

A friend of mine took his young daughter to visit the famous City Lights bookstore in San Francisco, explaining to her that the place is important because years ago it sold books no other store would - even, perhaps especially, books whose ideas many people found offensive. So, although my friend is no fan of Ward Churchill, the faux Indian and discredited professor who notoriously called 9/11 victims "little Eichmanns," he didn't really mind seeing piles of Churchill's books prominently displayed on a table as he walked in.

However, it did occur to him that perhaps the long-delayed English translation of Oriana Fallaci's new book, "The Force of Reason," might finally be available, and that because Fallaci's militant stance against Islamic militants offends so many people, a store committed to selling banned books would be the perfect place to buy it. So he asked a clerk if the new Fallaci book was in yet.

"No," snapped the clerk. "We don't carry books by fascists."

Let's be clear that it's perfectly within City Light's rights to choose not to carry any title, for any reason. It's a private company. And it might be worthwhile for them to take this stance to develop loyalty among its leftist portion of its customer base. Perhaps it makes business sense to turn yourself into a niche book store given the glut of Barnes and Noble and Borders in the 'burbs, or the presence of Amazon. I have even noticed that B&Ns in smaller cities like St. Cloud often end up being meeting places and a public space in which discussion of ideas and love of books can occur.

That said, I still find B&Ns and Borders stores antiseptic. I don't feel any different reading a book in the Starbucks of the Borders in Richfield -- a frequent stop after NARN broadcasts -- any different than reading a book in the food court of Mall of America. Yeah, a little less noisy, but it has all the contrived charm of your out-of-the-box Olive Garden.* I don't find myself reading for an hour in there ever. The same for the local B&N. And when I say this to people who work there and they ask "what can we do to make it that kind of place?" what can I say? Go buy a funky house somewhere and make each room a section?

I have often thought I would open a restaurant after I quit academia. #1 son and I love to cook; Mrs. S and Littlest teach cooking classes for community ed here. But I'm beginning to think a niche book store for the rest of us, those willing to stock both Ward Churchill and Oriana Fallaci, rocking chairs and a pot of "just coffee" -- I'm not even sure I'd serve decaf, let alone latte -- might be profitable. At least, it'd be a place I felt welcome to sit in.

Search my blog and you'll find this is a periodic rant of mine.

*-speaking of contrived charm and completely off-point: What the hell is it about the shouts of "hot bread" or "hot bagels" at Panera? All my friends and I can think of when we hear this is "Pannekoekken"! And if you're going to do it, sound like you really are excited.

Categories: economics, politics

The South Dakota Senate rejected an intellectual diversity bill by a mere three votes. ACTA is getting good publicity for this, including a conference next month in Montana organized by the president of Montana State. That in and of itself is a good thing.

Categories: higher_ed

Via Phil Miller, a pointer another enforcement of Minnesota's minimum gas price law.

The Minnesota Commerce Department on Thursday announced plans to fine a gas station chain $140,000 for repeatedly selling gas below the state's legal minimum price.

The fine against Midwest Oil of Minnesota is twice as large as any imposed on a company since 2001, when the state established a formula based on wholesale prices, fees and taxes to determine a daily floor for gas prices.

The fine is large because of the repeated violations (293 days worth), and "had not cooperated with the department on a penalty, and was accused by the department of using several delaying tactics before the matter could be resolved." But the fine works out to $477 per day, spread over at least three stations; last June, the fine was reportedly to be as much as $1.6 million. (I discussed that here.) From $1.6 million to $140,000 is quite a climbdown.

They are selling gas at, let's say, 5% below the minimum. Think: How many extra daily sales would Midwest have to make to get back $477?

(For the amateur economist: This is a question about elasticity, and you'd have to assume something about Midwest's costs versus the cost of mom & pop gas stations. Stations are required to charge 8 cents over cost. How many more cars drive in? How much do they put in the tank? The assumptions needed to make the $477/day worth paying aren't all that unreasonable.)

You'd be hard pressed to find an economist willing to give an economic rationale for this law, and we've heard complaints about it in the past, so its continued existence would seem to indicate somebody likes it. Who would that be? I noticed driving through Hutchinson, MN, over the weekend that three gas stations at the intersections of Hwys. 15 & 7 were closed. Were they mom and pop stations? It's worth noting that the south side of Hutchinson has an Evil Empire with its own gas station, but that's four miles away. Would people drive four miles to save a buck or two on a fill-up? And if WalMart did raise prices afterwards, how long before those three stations are reopened?

Minimum gas price laws raise prices for consumers. You sell products based not on what you paid for what's on the shelf but on what you will pay to replace the product sold off the shelf. By setting prices based on past cost, consumers are forced to pay higher prices for gas while wholesale prices are falling. (The converse does not apply, since you can always charge more than the 8 cents over wholesale cost. Not that gouging laws work, either.)

If the state wanted lower gas prices, it could cut its 20 cent per gallon tax. But instead, it thinks of raising it.

Categories: economics

He goes from baseball to curling??? Well, then NARN has got to do candlepin bowling. (And with a better theme song, too.) I hear there's this guy who just bought a bowling alley, too...

Is there any way to get one guy's RSS feed to blink orange for me? Every time HedgeFundGuy posts, I love what I read. This is exemplary.

I was watching some show where the questioner prefaced his statement with the phrase "with all due respect," and then slammed the guy. I have never heard this phrase preface a statement that evinced any respect. I don’t see why people say it, because it’s such a cliché it doesn’t palliate anymore. There are words, called autoantonyms, that mean both themselves and their opposite, such as moot, which can mean debatable or irrelevant (others include: literally, weather, fine, fast). But then there are phrases that only mean their opposite.

He then offers a list of these. My favorite: "The fact is or History proves – I will assert without any empirical support." Reminds me of the list of common phrases in research literature and what they really mean.

1. “It has long been known that ...” (I haven’t bothered to look up the references, but ...)
2. “Of great theoretical and practical importance ...” (interesting to me)
3. “While it has not been possible to provide definitive answers to these questions ...” (the experiment didn’t work out, but I figured I could at least get a publication)
4. “Three of the samples were chosen for detailed study.” (the results of the others didn’t make any sense)
5. “Typical results are shown.” (the best results are shown)
6. It is suggested..., it is believed..., it may be that...” (I think)
7. “It is generally believed that...” (a couple of other guys think so too)
8. “Agreement with the predicted curve is”:
   
   • Excellent......................fair
     
   • Good............................poor
     
   • Satisfactory.................doubtful
     
   • Fair...............................imaginary
9. “It is clear that much additional work will be re- quired before a complete understanding ...” (I don’t understand it)
   
10. “Unfortunately, a qualitative theory to account for the results has not been formulated.” (no one else understands it either)
    
11. “Correct within an order of magnitude.” (wrong)
    
12. “It is clear ...” (it is not clear)
    
13. “It is obvious ...” (I think that is the way it should be, but I can’t figure out why)
    
14. “Thanks are due to Joe Glotz for his help, and John Doe for his insight.” (Glotz did all the work; Doe figured out what it meant)

To those who disagree with Minnesota Families United: The answer to free speech you don't like is more speech, not supression. These folks have been doing it for years.

Alan Dershowitz wrote a scathing column in the Boston Globe on the resignation of Larry Summers, and then followed it up with an interview with Hugh Hewitt last night which had me frozen in my chair. Dershowitz was calling out faculty:

Hewitt:...You wrote a magnificent column in the Boston Globe today that I think summarizes what is going to be the reaction of 90% of alumns, students, faculty. Am I overshooting that estimate?

AD: I don't think so. I think certainly, you're right about alum, and students, probably it'll be 70-75%. Faculty? I would say it's probably half and half in the faculty of arts and sciences, and probably 90-10, or 80-20 in the graduate school faculty. Certainly, the law school was generally very supportive of Larry Summers, and it was incredible chutzpah for the arts and sciences faculty, merely a plurality of them, to engineer this coup. And let me tell you who engineered it. It was engineered by particularly an anthropology professor, a guy named Randy Matory, who teaches Afro-American and Afro-South American studies. And basically, what he said in his resolution that he first proposed, was Summers has to go because number one, he's too patriotic. He's trying to tell us to be more patriotic. And that, by Matory, is regarded as the great sin, that he's teaching patriotism...

HH: Let's pause on that, professor. Did he actually make that statement in a faculty meeting, or reduce it to writing somewhere?

AD: Yeah, he said it on a television show last night, and I can, I think, find it and read you his exact quote, because it is just remarkable that a person would say this. He says, "He (Summers) was telling us we should be more patriotic," and that's among the list of things that he says he should be fired for. He said, "He was also telling us that people who insist that Palestinians have rights should be quiet, because they're being anti-Semitic." Now that second one is just an out and out lie.

Dershowitz goes on to say nobody outside the Arts and Sciences faculty were consulted, and just beats Prof. Matory like a drum for almost a half-hour. Radioblogger has the sound as well as the transcript, and there is pleasure in the listening.

Thomas Sowell provides a good summary of the problems Summers had.

His fatal flaws were honesty and a desire to do the right thing. That has ruined more than one academic career.

That and the opinion of many that Summers does not suffer fools gladly. Summers is not a conservative. He worked in the Clinton Treasury department through two administrations, the last three years as the secretary. He is a very practical Democrat, though -- see for example his discussion of NAFTA and convincing Democrats to embrace it -- and debate, bruising though it may be at times, is part of his style. Anne Neal is absolutely right in pointing to Summers' public questioning of the divide between the Harvard faculty and the public as being the broader context that lead to his resignation (e.g., his statements on military recruiting.) He was unable to get the Arts and Science faculty to do much with a curriculum review that had the promise of bringing back some understanding of the Western canon.

In some sense his resignation makes sense: The things that mattered most to him were dead in the water; his was a spent force. But the force was spent by continued attacks from an entrenched, radical faculty that leaves Alan Dershowitz seeming like a right-wing ideologue. One must wonder why the governing Harvard Corporation would tolerate such lunatics taking over their asylum.

Categories: higher_ed

I would be eager to know who it is this student is writing about.

I am in one of these such classes right now where the professor is giving his opinion just as much as he is giving us fact. He continuously is saying that Bush should be impeached and that all right wing people have an IQ of about 30.

...I tried once to speak out about this but I was told that in his class we had to raise our hands if we wanted to speak so he ignored me and went on to someone else who didn't raise their hand either but was agreeing with him.

A question for my readers: Should the university contact this student to investigate the statements made in this letter? I sincerely doubt they will, or this one from last week.

UPDATE: Reader David thinks it's the student's responsibility to report this to the university. That is indeed current practice. But at Columbia we found that students were intimidated by the process and unwilling to initiate a complaint. I have had several students talk to me personally about these issues but when I explain I cannot talk to the faculty member on their behalf without a formal complaint they do not go further. Sometimes all they want to do is have someone hear them and express understanding or even sympathy. But others say "it's too big a hassle" or "I want to graduate some day".

Categories: higher_ed

Via voracious reader jw we learn that business schools are having a hard time hiring faculty.

The schools have been competing for students for years as the number of master in business administration programs at universities has soared. Now the schools also are competing for a dwindling supply of doctoral business faculty to teach those students.

Major accrediting groups and business school officials say the diminishing supply of people with doctorates in business and the rapidly increasing demand for their services globally have pushed doctoral salaries through the roof. It's also forced business schools to devise ways to effectively compete for doctoral faculty and find alternatives for filling vacant faculty positions.

Many years ago a large university advertised a position for a sports economist. I thought that was interesting and, since I was doing more research in the area at the time, thought I might try to apply for it. Given it's a prestigious school I thought it a lark that might at least get me to talk to some people there. They not only flew me to campus, they offered the job. But the salary was less than I made in a college of social sciences here, and the money was soft money. I was perplexed at their penurious offer, and inquired why. "Well, if we wanted to pay you that much we would have hired someone in finance, since that's what we really wanted." Amazingly, they thought they could buy an economist on the cheap. As much as I liked the school, I declined.

We're seeing this now with salaries in economics for new PhD's, particularly for those who have some interest or background in finance. This is the natural course of markets, and the article here tells us how rising prices lead to substitution.

Other solutions to the shortage problem include hiring people with doctoral degrees in related areas such as statistics, math and social sciences to teach in business schools. They would then take business courses to help the transition.

Business schools also are hiring more part-time instructors from the private sector who have MBA degrees combined with real-life business experience.

Categories: higher_ed

9am. I am sitting in Ritsche Auditorium at SCSU at the 44th Annual Economic Education Winter Institute and listening to Andrew Zimbalist present on sports economics. These will be raw notes until late this afternoon. I have now updated these with a few links made by me rather than him, and with a comment by me added at the bottom.

At the time of Kelo, this is an interesting time to be studying sports stadia. A backlash has arisen, so that the FLA legislature has told the Florida Marlins are not geting a rebate of the sales tax they pay. At the same time, the Yankees and Mets are asking for public money to build new stadia, and the Twins can opt out of their lease at the Metrodome, Zygi Wilf, etc.

Fiscal situation in 2006 is more dire. There has been a movement from DC to decentralize, to put more responsibilities on state and local governments. Sales tax revenue is harder to come by. Higher interest rates are causing debt service costs to rise. So cities and states don't have as much to spend on teams and ballparks.

Coalitions form to make a "stadium drive". They hire consultants to do an economic impact stadia. The studies use faulty techniques -- input-output analysis -- that are giving wrong advice. Data are too aggregated, they use old coefficients that make no sense now. They neglect to differentiate between gross and net spending. Example: $1 billion to build Yankee stadium proposal, on the west side of Manhattan, to create 440 jobs, which comes out to more than $2 million per job.

All economists agree: You cannot expect that a new stadium will raise the level of economic development in your city. What is the basis of this conclusion?

1. Although an immense presence, the team is a small enterprise economically. 75-100 work permanently, maybe another 200-300 part time jobs. Yankees contribute less than 1/20 of 1% of the economic value created by NYC.
2. Substitution effect. What you spend at the ballpark isn't spent elsewhere; much of that money would have been spent elsewhere in the city (probably on entertainment.) Some dollars are new, but not that many, and even those people travelling from outside the area might travel here anyway.
3. Leakages. Contrast dollar spent at restauarant and dollar spent at ballpark. 60% of the revenue generated by sports teams goes to players. Most players don't live in the cities they play in. Much of their money is spent elsewhere. And they save a great deal of the money. So too with owners. Local restauranteur lives in town, spends in town, hires local labor, etc. So constructing the ballpark might cause some money to leave the economy more than otherwise.
4. Budgetary. The government has to put out more money to service the debt, for security around the ballpark, sanitation, infrastructure, operating costs and improvements to the park (depending on the lease). If you compare the outflows and inflows of money to the municipal budget, the net effect is usually negative. This inhibits the ability of the city to spend elsewhere, or it causes taxes to rise; each lowers the level of economic activity in the local economy. All of this depends on the lease terms. But the point is that stadiums are NOT free goods. Tourist taxes (hotels, rental cars) don't cover the costs. Tourists not only don't come for ballgames, they don't come for other things either. Conventions looking at where to go look at the higher taxes and hold that against the cities who raise them. If raising taxes wouldn't effect these decisions, why didn't the city raise those rates already? (Those are already set at revenue-maximizing rates.).
5. Possibility of cost overruns. When plans are made, the first plan is for a barebones stadium. Cost is small, they get approval. Then they add bells and whistles. When the initial plans were to renovate Yankee Stadium, the cost was $23 million; it ended up $110 million. Milwaukee Brewers $230 million --> $400 million and climbing. The new Washington DC park, $535 million to now $670 million plus another $80 million to buy the land. Etc.

Is the construction process good for the economy? If all that was needed to help the local economy was to borrow $300 million and hire construction workers, why build a park? Why not just hire them to dig a big hole, and then fill it in? (Or bury pounds in the park and give out shovels?)

Things change when you have substantial private investment and a good deal of non-sports development with it (like the Wilf proposal.) Wilf says he will put $1 billion into a $1.5 billion project. His money is new. But even here you have to be aware that the local construction industry might already be fully employed. All Wilf does then is put a new project in the queue, which raises construction prices, generating local inflation.

What about the success stories (Cleveland, Denver) -- wasn't there a positive impact there? As a general proposition, Coors Field was built in an area that was going to develop anyway. It's growing fast anyway; what did Coors Field displace in private investment? Did the stadium create the development, or would it have happened naturally? Parking lots help capture fans to spend only on things that give the sports owner revenue. Cleveland had growth for awhile, but it's not as apparent now.

A more positive argument. Quality of life. Having a sports stadium creates something that brings local people together. Cheering for the home team creates a bond that isn't usually there in our individuated society. Following the local team creates a benefit even if they don't go to the game. And the fans at the park are getting quite a deal. Should the local government pay for these things? This is totally subjective. Some people don't get the benefit. The problem with this argument is that the sports leagues are monopolists. Scarcity is artificial; with fewer franchises you get cities competing with each other, offering higher and higher subsidies. The quality of life argument then leads to overpayment.

NFL team profits are huge. There's extensive revenue sharing. TV money is all national, all equally shared. Gate revenue shared 66/34 (including premium seats.) None of the luxury suites, catering, concession, naming and scoreboard revenues, etc. Only new stadiums generate this last part of the revenue, so it helps. NFL G3 program, loans to local owners which are actually grants. $50-$100 million by city size. This is part of Zygi's share. In baseball, 2/3-3/4 teams are profitable. Revenue sharing has started, based on net local revenue. Twins got $22 million from revenue sharing last year. If they paid $200 million towards a $500 million stadium, they get to take some of that and count it against its net local revenue and increase their take of revenue sharing money. probably about $90 million of the $200 million.

NFL salary cap, most teams about at it. So if you spend more money to help the team build a new stadium, it doesn't change how the team plays on the field. Without salary cap in baseball, new stadiums lead teams to spend more on payroll, and performance improves.

You hear threats of relocation or contraction. Very unlikely this will happen. NFL teams could be populated in many other places. The problem for Wilf is that the league would be mad that a large TV market would be abandoned. The NFL can use the G3 money as a stick to keep him in place. It can also charge a relocation fee. For baseball, no revenue sharing, but you need to fill the stadium 81 games a year, but none are in a position right now to build them a new stadium. DC bid against itself for the Expos. They've got no place viable to go to. Contraction requires a whole year's notice, and the industry is growing. Not likely to happen. Strong demand means that they want to grow. (Lights went out here, and Zimbalist jokes he's talked too long. Now back on.) Also the threat of losing the antitrust exemption.

Economics are clear, quality of life is an issue, but it gets used against them. Twins and Vikes have no good leverage, so local authorities should bargain hard for a good deal for local taxpayers.

My comments: One frequent comment I heard after this encyclopedic presentation was that Zimbalist saw some merit in the Vikings proposal insofar as it promises private money. Of course, sometimes these promises are broken, as it is probably impossible to get the Wilf money escrowed somewhere. It's not all his -- the private development around the Blaine proposal is to come from a variety of sources. But I do think his point is valid.

The other thing that struck us was his optimism that the Vikings really have no leverage here. I fully agree. Part of the mythology up here is that the Pohlads are greedy, that Red McCombs is greedy. Wilf has yet to be tarred with that brush, but I suspect at some point he will. Everyone acts on the leverage at their disposal. Another person who is from the San Antonio area laughed that Red sold Zygi a bill of goods -- it's worth remembering that the Blaine proposal existed prior to Zygi's purchase of the team and was developed in large part with Red's active participation. "Red's a car dealer, and he never leaves a dollar on the table," said this observer. I think as Zygi realizes that the NFL will make it difficult for him to move the Vikings, he will have the same problem Red had -- pressuring Minnesota voters and politicians who will react by calling a business owner greedy.

I had a blast driving Zimbalist to the airport after, the first time I have ever talked to him. He's a fan of the Red Sox like me, familiar with the team's operations, and we shared an interest in Eastern Europe as well. We went in our careers in opposite directions -- me from sports to comparative economics, him from comparative to sports. But we still have interests in both. Damned fun.

Categories: economics, sports

I will be a little bit busy today and tomorrow as SCSU and its Center for Economic Education produces the 12th annual Economic Outlook and 44th annual Economic Education Winter Institute. Dan Laufenberg of Ameriprise, Minnesota state economist Tom Stinson and I will be speaking on the national, state and local economies at the Outlook; the program begins at 5pm at the Kelly Inn in St. Cloud (map). Admission to the talk is free.

If you are thinking about sports stadiums or conventions centers, the Winter Institute is the place for you on Wednesday morning, beginning at 8:30am at Ritsche Auditorium on the SCSU campus. Andrew Zimbalist, who I think qualifies as the premier "baseball economist", will talk about sports stadiums. After reading up on Zygi's pitch to Blaine last week, I think some people in the Cities will want to come up to hear whether these things are ever worth it. His talk begins around 9. An hour later Heywood Sanders will talk about convention centers. I remember twenty years or so ago there was a guy who would write the local paper each month saying we didn't need one in St. Cloud and would refer to it simply as "the white elephant". He never used the word 'civic center'. Well, we have one, and from what we hear we need another or at least a bigger one. Or not. Sanders will tell us why or why not that's a good idea.

This message will stay atop the blog for today. I may try to liveblog the Zimbalist talk Weds. for either here or the Sports Economist.

In this discussion about math, we may add another wrinkle. A Harvard study concludes that taking AP courses in science do not lead to better grades in college for those students than those who never took AP. According to a press release on the event,

Mathematical fluency is the single best predictor of college performance in biology, chemistry, and physics, giving a strong advantage to students whose high school science courses integrate mathematics. "Draining the math out of high school coursework does students a disservice," Sadler says. "Much of college biology, chemistry, and physics are taught using the language of math, so students without fluency quickly become lost."

Categories: education

My loyal reader jw sent a link to me of a Newsweek story on the lack of successful businesswomen in Europe.

According to a paper published by the International Labor Organization this past June, women account for 45 percent of high-level decision makers in America, including legislators, senior officials and managers across all types of businesses. In the U.K., women hold 33 percent of those jobs. In Sweden—supposedly the very model of global gender equality—they hold 29 percent.

Germany comes in at just under 27 percent, and Italian women hold a pathetic 18 percent of power jobs.

It does seem odd. Mark Steckbeck points out that this is an unintended consequence of the welfare state. Odder still is the story's conclusion of what to do: more welfare.

This past December, France passed a law mandating pay equity between men and women within five years. Over the past two years the French business school HEC has launched a major campaign to recruit more female M.B.A.s, raising the percentage of women in the program from 16 to 32. Norway recently decreed that all corporate boards must be 40 percent female within two years, or face being shut down, while the European Commission for Employment and Social Affairs will soon begin a yearlong study to determine whether discrimination laws in Europe are being properly enforced. Meanwhile, the EU has set aside funds for the creation of a gender-equality institute in 2007.

Steckbeck points out this increases cost to businesses and would cause more firms to flee Europe, a continent with stagnant economies already. But think what else this would do? Europe is already a continent of declining populations, with whole areas of Eastern Europe soon to be depopulated. Do we really want to bribe women in Europe into career tracks?

Think about this again, reading from the article:

By offering women extremely long work leaves after children, then pushing them to take the full complement via tax policies that discourage a second income, coupled with subsidies that serve to keep them at home, Europe is essentially squandering its female talent. Not only do women get off track for long periods, many simply never get back on. Nor have European corporations adapted to changing times. Few offer the flextime that makes it easier for women to both work and manage their families. Instead, women tend to get shuffled into part-time work, which is less respected and poorly paid. Those who want to fight discrimination find themselves hamstrung by laws favoring employers.

Among Europe's myriad problems, this one is huge—with ramifications way beyond gender relations. In fact, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that Europe's future hinges on it. "We have got to get more women into the labor market," says Vladi mir Spidla, the EU commissioner of Employment and Social Affairs. Declining birthrates and aging populations threaten the financial stability of almost all European nations, he explains. With a massive skills gap and pension crisis looming, the Continent must bring in more high-level workers. Immigration—the main solution thus far—presents obvious cultural challenges. Taking better advantage of existing female populations is an obvious answer.

So, in order to not use immigrant labor to supply high-level workers, the EU wants to use the current seed corn that could alternatively provide future high-level workers? How would this solve the demographic problem facing Europe?

Categories: economics

St. Cloud has a water problem, with an e. coli outbreak found in the city water supply sometime this afternoon. What I like about St. Cloud is that I not only got this message, but when I called Mrs. S she already knew, and that my email and cellphone voicemail had four messages to this effect within two hours. Connectivity in the 21st Century. Can't beat it.

So too did Psycmeistr.

I am amazed by how many comments my article on English skills continues to receive. In the campus paper, a student points out a big pronunciation problem.

I'm not one who is fresh from the farm, whose only exposure to another culture is the interaction with the person running the local convenience store. In my world travels, I've worked projects with a wide variety of ethnic groups and diverse societies so I have heard "the mother tongue" with numerous dialects. This has given me an ear for extracting the basic information. The breakdown comes when technical jargon is added to the presentations. This is where articulate speech is crucial to the learning process. Believe me, I always enjoy the occasional misuse of expressions. Recently a professor described e-commerce online stock traders as "jacking-off the price." (I think the intended word is "jacking-up".)

That's not technical jargon, that's slang, either way. I have a few younger, internationally born professors who have mistakenly used a slang term that causes titters in the room (for instance, one thought 'hot' meant simply 'cute' rather than implying a desire for intimacy.) I'm still unimpressed by the claim that these faculty are especially odious, and I will continue to assert that if state university students expect low tuition, they would be wise not to limit the pool of potential faculty from which we can draw their teachers.

Categories: higher_ed

The First Ring pointed out this NR column about the possibility that the forces defeated in the Orange Revolution -- particularly, the thuggish Viktor Yanukovych, who damn near turned out the army against the mass protests -- taking control of the parliament in Ukraine in elections next month. Forgive me for yawning. Polls in Ukraine are notoriously unreliable, as LEvko points out. And that contains its own danger:

The disparity in the OPs devalues the reliability of them all, which may be quite important because opinion polls during the 2004 Presidential elections persuaded some Yushchenko supporters that the elections had been rigged - helping spark off the O.R.

It's also worth noting that party alignments in the Rada shift rather frequently, so whatever the lineup of parliamentarians elected on March 26, we won't know the effect on the presidency of Viktor Yushchenko for a few months yet. He is proposing new constitutional changes, and it would be fun to see if he does the one thing really needed for reform there -- pull complete immunity away from parliamentarians.

Yushchenko's biggest worry continues to be the economy and that bad gas deal.

Categories: Ukraine

The St. Cloud Times reported over the weekend that $350,000 was spent on the two special elections here last December. That's a lot of cabbage (as my uncle would have said) on a job that lasts one year.

The Minnesota DFL and its related legislative caucuses spent about $113,000 on Rep. Larry Haws' successful House 15B race and about $100,000 on Sen. Tarryl Clark's successful Senate 15 campaign, according to Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board annual reports filed at the end of January.

The Republican Party of Minnesota and its legislative caucuses put up about $80,000 for the unsuccessful Senate 15 campaign of Dan "Ox" Ochsner and about $60,000 on the abbreviated House 15B candidacy of Sue Ek, according to their required annual reports

...

The combined candidacies of Ek and her mother, Kay Ek, who replaced her daughter in a write-in campaign after the Minnesota Supreme Court removed Sue Ek from the race, raised almost $25,800 and spent almost $18,900 on the race.

The Haws campaign, by comparison, raised almost $23,700 and spent about $10,200 during the race.

Clark's campaign raised almost $17,900 and spent about $7,400 during the campaign, according to the documents.

But Clark said those numbers were from a report she filed in mid-November, when Gov. Tim Pawlenty set the special election date, and that her total was closer to the $65,000 limit set by the state.

And that doesn't count the third party spending. It's unlikely that would have offset the DFL advantage in direct spending. I like Clark's comment in the end: "I can raise the cash" she's saying, mostly to whomever steps up next.

Categories: politics, St._Cloud

After reading the comments on my post about English skills of non-native speakers, I thought this ad was appropriate.

I had wanted to write something about the discussion Bill Polley is having on the uses of math and students distaste and disrespect for it. He cites a CNN report saying that both parents and teachers don't think math and science are all that important, and that there's little clamor for the types of reforms many are proposing. Bill comments,

Calculus is negotiable. Basic math and science competency is not. Ability to do estimation and mental arithmetic is not negotiable.

He sees the problem as people "thinking math is arithmetic." In a followup he writes:

Basic competency in math and science is now, and will continue to be, necessary for people who want to be flexible enough to survive in an ever changing job market.

Asking students what skills they need is rather silly, because they haven't yet reached a level of knowledge about the world to make informed judgments. (I say the same thing about general education requirements in college, by the way -- which some people will take as elitist. I answer that I'm a professional hired to make those decisions in concert with 700 other faculty.)

I would write more about this, but my attention is averted by Richard Cohen in this morning's WaPo, in an early contender for stupidest column of the year. (Non-Monkey, you have work to do.) Writing about the Los Angeles' school requirement of algebra (we discussed it here), Cohen says it would be better to keep kids in school and skip algebra.

You will never need to know algebra. I have never once used it and never once even rued that I could not use it. You will never need to know -- never mind want to know -- how many boys it will take to mow a lawn if one of them quits halfway and two more show up later -- or something like that. Most of math can now be done by a computer or a calculator. On the other hand, no computer can write a column or even a thank-you note -- or reason even a little bit. If, say, the school asked you for another year of English or, God forbid, history, so that you actually had to know something about your world, I would be on its side. But algebra? Please.

PZ Myers gives Cohen a great and good dose of Thomas Jefferson, and notes:

Algebra is not about calculating the answer to basic word problems: it's about symbolic reasoning, the ability to manipulate values by a set of logical rules. It's basic stuff—I know many students struggle with it, but it's a minimal foundation for understanding mathematics and everything in science. Even more plainly, it's a basic requirement for getting into a good college...

Now, we in economics have debates over how much math students should know. And we do negotiate over calculus. But "the ability to manipulate values by a set of logical rules" is not negotiable. If we wish to have a workforce that can compete globally, we must have workers who can think about values and symbols and perform some analysis on them. Cohen, alas, I think actually does this without knowing how it is he learned the skill. Somewhere, there's an algebra teacher he hasn't thanked yet.

Categories: education

Joanne Jacobs:

Good teachers don't like to work with bad teachers. But I've noticed many
don't trust their principal to tell the difference.

Word. Same is true with higher ed.

Categories: education

I wish they had had this when I had to read Hemingway. (Link for Chronicle of Higher Ed subscribers only, sorry.)

College students in Arizona may be able to opt out of required reading assignments they consider personally offensive, under a bill approved on Wednesday by the State Senate's Higher Education Committee. The measure would allow students to decline assignments that 'conflict with the student's beliefs or practices in sex, morality, or religion.'

"That old man is so MEAN to the fish!"

UDPATE: Eugene Volokh eviscerates the bill.

Categories: higher_ed

Answers Mitch's question:

When did Spencer's turn into a one-stop novelty shop for a**holes?

Spencer's Gifts used to be the place I got all my black light posters and those cool filament lights. I still have a Lava Lamp from the one at the Mall of New Hampshire (which I still prefer to Mall of America). My High School Girl Friend (tm) and I would go in there at least once a week to dream about buying a painted mirror for the place we would get some day, and giggle over the sex joke gifts. (Which, Mitch, were right there for all to see. Remember?)

But yeah, when I walk out of the place now, I think I need a bath.

I think I was listening to Dennis Prager the other day when I heard this line (very paraphrased), "Used to be I would go to the ball game and nobody would swear and everyone would smoke. Now there's no smoking at the ball park, but lots of bad language."

That's what happened to Spencer's.

Categories: MOB, lost_childhood

Let me stray a little from the normal remit of this blog and say something about Dick Cheney and the shooting of his friend. I'll probably regret this.

Virginia Postrel's post just rang a chord with me.

It's not a crime (not paying a $7 quail-hunting stamp fee is less serious than speeding), but it's an embarrassment: to the office, the administration, and the United States. The vice president should be more careful with guns. I can't make a rational policy case for it, but my gut says he should resign.

In an update, Postrel elaborates, "Guns aren't the issue. Life-threatening mistakes are. Mistakes have consequences, including professional ones."

I am not a hunter; I haven't handled a rifle or shotgun since my Boy Scout days. There's no strong reason for this except for living mostly in cities and not being inclined to go to the woods. My vegetarianism at one time was due to concern for animals (now it's mostly that I can't stand the smell of meat -- Hell would be strapped to the exhaust vent at a Bonanza.) But for me this isn't a gut reaction, and I'm glad Postrel elaborated.

Mistakes have consequences. Honorable men and women accept those, even when they are not to blame for these mistakes. I spent time this morning talking with sportsmen, including one who hosts a TV show on hunting. I had it all explained to me about hunting lines, the order in which people get out to shoot, the protocol for who gets out of the wagon and where they stand, etc. As I say, it's all Greek to me. They explained how Whittington might have erred in straying from the line and not announcing himself. But there was no question that it was a mistake for Cheney to fire (and perhaps more so after hearing during the Brit Hume interview that the sun was in his eyes.)

All I could see was the upper part of his body — but I didn't see it at the time I shot, until after I fired. And the sun was directly behind him there, affected the vision too, I'm sure.

If it affected your vision, how can you pull the trigger? I asked my friends. No, that would not be a good thing to do, they answered.

The timeline of events afterwards, frankly, doesn't interest me. If he had called David Gregory personally from the scene, it wouldn't matter. In a more honorable world, he'd accept the consequences of his mistake.

That the world isn't so honorable is not his fault either, and I'm not going to say he should resign. Nor do I think Peggy Noonan is at all correct for thinking the Bush White House would like to move on from him. You create more problems than you solve by trying to usher Cheney out the door.

I'm not faulting Cheney for anything. If I had had to put up with the treatment he gets from the press, I might have chosen the same actions he took in notifying the world of the events. I would have had the same concerns that night, the same chagrin four days later, and the same resolve to not let the bastards get me. Perfectly understandable, perfectly reasonable, and probably right to wait this thing out.

All I'm saying is that I wish we had a world where events like this would allow Cheney to do the honorable thing, and for the world to treat that act with the respect it deserves. Instead we will have to watch a disgusting spectacle played out. How did we arrive at this place?

Categories: politics

One of the questions I get from many people who learn I am a department chair is what do we do about hiring faculty who are non-native English speakers. Most of them are students or alumni -- such as this student -- who have had a bad experience in a class because they had difficulty understanding lectures due to a "thick accent". I confess to being not very sympathetic to their plight. I have learned over the years to quickly tune my ear to accents others have. Working overseas certainly helped with this, but I'm not sure it's necessary to have immersion. It's a survival skill in a world increasingly interconnected. Will employees go to their supervisors and ask that Mahmoud be moved to another department because they cannot understand him? (And how will you tell that complaint apart from one where the employees just don't like Mahmoud because he works hard, or worse, because of his skin color?)

Categories: higher_ed

Back from the forum with Scott Johnson and Eric Black, a few observations:

1. Having a cold while moderating isn't too big a problem. In fact it's good because I just didn't want to talk very much with my shredded voice. But it might have made me timid in dealing with one rude member of the audience who thought it OK to blurt out his uninvited question.
2. Scott did a great job getting his point out in the 20 minutes we had allotted him, covering the 61st Minute and the Swift Boat stories. The one thing I learn from being around Scott and John Hinderaker is that lawyers think about things differently than social scientists do. Not better always, but sometimes better and always different. Even though I've heard the story several times now, the manner in which Scott builds up evidence is a beautiful to watch. I don't quite understand fully the beauty of legal argument, but I believe it exists. I saw this as well when the first question was about one of PowerLine's posts on the "Terri Schiavo talking points memo" without managing to read the entire thread of posts on Schiavo. Scott neatly put it back in context.
3. Eric Black looked worse by comparison, though I think most of us would versus Scott. For about twenty minutes I thought he had done well enough giving a positive outlook for the MSM. He did suggest that newspaper profits were up, and that the biggest issue for them was to find a model that derives revenue from the many eyeballs that get their news from the newspaper's website. I think that's whistling past the graveyard. The New York Times reports how newspapers are spending large amounts of cash trying to drive ad revenue back from direct and online marketing. While bloggers aren't capturing lots of those dollars, they certainly are not helping newspapers maintain market share.
4. Black's last ten minutes were spent, however, in a tawdry descent into Bush hatemongering. I saw Scott taking notes and I fully expect him to have something more to say. But Black's repeated use of "confirmation bias" was little more than calling the blogosphere an echo chamber and calling bloggers hypocrites. I thought it spoiled the rest of his lecture, and it unfortunately invited more of the questions to be about press coverage of Bush than about blogs and journalism, which was supposed to be the point.

Douglas from Crossword Bebop was there and was liveblogging, and hopes to have a cleaned up transcript of the event soon over at MOBANGE. There's an unedited set of notes there now.

UPDATE: Douglas now has pictures! We should note the presence of eminent bloggers Craig, Peg, and Eva, who sat side by side, and here's a shoutout to Peace in our Time -- get blogging again, sir! And Douglas' picture reminds me to thank that last blog's owner (IIRC) for a copy of the inaugural issue of the Minnesota Republic, "The U of M's Conservative Voice." It takes over for the Minnesota Patriot. No website yet, but a nice-looking magazine complete with Cox and Forkum cartoons.

Just a reminder that today there is a discussion with Powerline's Scott Johnson and the Star Tribune's Eric Black from 12:00 to 1:30, about the blogosphere and the future of journalism. The event is at the University of Minnesota Law School, in room 25. I'll moderate the discussion, and best of all, free pizza will be provided. The event is free and open to the public.

I find hyperinflations fascinating. I collect currency from them. I research their central bank histories. I try to visit countries that have had them recently.

Looks like I have Zimbabwe in my future.

The governor of Zimbabwe's reserve bank last week admitted that his country is in the grip of hyperinflation, with some economists predicting an inflation rate of 1,000% within two months.

This week saw the introduction of a so-called "bearer cheque" worth 50,000 Zimbabwean dollars - 50 times the highest available banknote - but actually worth around half a US dollar and only enough to buy a loaf of bread.

It's part of a pattern with hyperinflations, to introduce new currencies with higher denominations. It isn't much of a currency to look at, but I'll have to grab one of these:
Looking at the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe we can see that money supply is growing more than 400% per year. If prices are heading to 1000% inflation (and inflation was 613% year-on-year to January 2006) the Zim-$ is going out of circulation. While looking for material I saw this interesting article of someone going golfing in Zimbabwe a few years ago. He talks about how the US$ was king even in 2001:

It was a bit painful to realize that the 2,500 Zim I had withdrawn from the bank a few days earlier had cost me about $40. At 120/1 I got 4,800 Zim for $40 – and I hadn’t even bargained. Over the next few days the rate increased daily. From 120/1 to 130/1 and then to 135/1. In a country gripped by hyperinflation the strategy is always to exchange on the curb (counting the money carefully to look for counterfeit bills) and pay in local currency. Two bedroom cottages in the municipal campsite cost $7US per person – or 350 Zim. It doesn’t take long to do that math, at the curb rate you are actually paying only $3!

And the exchange rate now is about 100,000/1! That pictured bill, worth 50 cents on the street right now, is selling for about $3.75. (Three pieces of the common currency in much smaller denominations would probably cost $1.) The country has used these bearer cheques in the past, but the highest one before was Z$20,000.

One thing worth pointing out here: Countries with hyperinflation seldom reform without a major change in government. Those who hope Zimbabwe can be delivered from the misrule of Robert Mugabe should take heart as the inflation begins to spiral upward.

Categories: economics

You should follow this debate going on about diversity requirements in law schools. The Chronicle of Higher Education this morning (temp link) notes its passage. David Bernstein wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal (temp link) about it. Bernstein's argument, in short:

If passed, the new written standards will only embolden the accreditation bureaucracy, composed mainly of far-left law professors, to demand explicit racial preferences and implicit racial quotas -- all in brazen defiance of the law.

The Chronicle article quotes someone from the American Bar Association saying it is not a requirement. But, the Chronicle continues,

If they do not, however, they must demonstrate specific steps they are taking to achieve the goal of diversity, such as recruiting at historically black colleges, offering scholarships to minority or disadvantaged students, or holding summer programs to help potential applicants prepare for law school.

The policy says that law schools must demonstrate, "by concrete action, a commitment to providing full opportunities for the study of law and entry into the profession by members of underrepresented groups, particularly racial and ethnic minorities," and that the schools must commit "to having a student body that is diverse with respect to gender, race, and ethnicity."

It also says: "Consistent with sound educational policy and the standards, a law school shall demonstrate by concrete action a commitment to having a faculty and staff that are diverse with respect to gender, race, and ethnicity."

The revised standard also clarifies that "the mere fact that you may be in a state that has a statutorial provision prohibiting the consideration of race in the admissions process does not relieve you" of that obligation, Mr. Sebert said.

That last line is a killer, says Bernstein -- the bar is going to require law schools to find a way to circumvent the results of Grutter.

Bernstein quotes a statistic saying 42% of black students entering law school never become lawyers. What are the numbers for other ethnic groupings? I don't see them easily through Google.

Swiftee has a story about Nicholle Birch, a student with high promise and modest means, who seeks funds to go to the National Young Leaders Conference. Those types of conferences aren't cheap. If you can help out, there's an address at the bottom of Swiftee's post for you to send donations.

I think Arnold Kling and Robert Lawson are on to something: Universities are like summer camp. Lawson:

Ultimately I've concluded that colleges are all about selling an experience. Football in the fall; basektball in the winter; frats and sororities; bad food in the cafeteria, and even boring professors, are all part the image that people find appealing. Basically, they're buying idea of a college education. It's an identity thing. They want to say "I went to college at _______."

I can see that for a bigger school with a bigger name, but SCSU? Kling:

I think that the "summer camp" model explains why colleges have done more in recent years to improve their amenities than to improve education. It may explain grade inflation, since you want to keep the campers happy. It may explain why rural small colleges have fallen out of favor, while universities with top-ranked basketball teams have become more popular.

Someone noted in comments the new commercials SCSU is airing on cable and (I believe) some Twin Cities TV markets. We offer a number of videos about the school to prospective students. What are these selling? The university is spending a great deal of money trying to figure out how to sell itself better.

Categories: higher_ed

Thomas Benton:

'No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money,' said Samuel Johnson. And I think most professors should accept the truth of that observation, at least in our present time.

You have probably heard the saying, 'Promotion committees don't read books. They weigh them.' As a result, too many of the books published by university presses serve no purpose besides credentialing professors. But for at least 30 years, since the academic job market collapsed in the early 1970s, the relentless drumbeat of the profession has been 'publish, publish, publish,' as if we were rowing a Roman trireme. Never mind whether anyone is willing to plunk down cold, hard cash for your mandatory brilliance.

It doesn't surprise me that editors at university presses rarely respond to e-mail messages. The average inquiry from an aspiring academic author probably merits little more respect than the daily spam e-mails pushing cheap Viagra. And yet the unsolicited proposals keep coming, even as the university press budgets shrink to microscopic proportions of their former selves until they vanish out of the known universe into the world of -- I don't know -- anti-matter publishing. It surprises me that we don't hear about academic editors going postal from time to time.

As Lindsey Waters, an editor of Harvard University Press, has long argued, the current system of faculty promotion -- basically outsourcing evaluation to university press editors -- can no longer support itself without big infusions of cash that are not forthcoming, probably ever.

It's time for most us -- and I am thinking in particular of younger academics -- to abandon the genteel pose of being aloof from the sordid marketplace. We should stop acting as if we were monks, destined for a lifetime of cloistered self--denial. Or romantic poets who die penniless and forgotten in their own time, but whose genius and poignant suffering will, one day, move the world to tears.

If we are going to avoid being blockheads, we are going to have to start writing books that more people will want to buy as something besides remainders.

Source. H/T: reader jw, and thanks, because I've got a brutal head cold that makes looking at this screen quite painful right now.

You're invited to a discussion with Powerline's Scott Johnson and the Star Tribune's Eric Black on Wednesday, February 15th, from 12:15 to 1:30, about the blogosphere and the future of journalism. The event is at the University of Minnesota Law School, in room 25. Yours truly will be moderating. Free pizza will be provided. The event is free and open to the public. It's being sponsored by The Tocqueville Center for the Study of Liberty and Free Institutions, the Institute for New Media Studies, and the Federalist Society.

Remember Q-Comp? That was the plan the state legislature gave us for improving teacher performance in Minnesota. Craig Westover has covered this issue in depth. Q-Comp allows school districts to define for themselves what constitutes professioinal development of teachers, and Craig reported last December that there were some real doozies in the definition:

Some districts went as high as 80 percent teacher evaluation with only 10 percent of performance pay based on standardized testing. One plan identified 73 individual criteria of teacher performance. "Safety and Arrangement of Furniture" in the classroom and the teacher's handwriting carried the same weight as "Knowledge of Content."

Craig credits the Minnesota Department of Education for trying to revise the more egregious plans from the districts, but the language of the enabling legislation permits too much latitude nevertheless because negotiation is between district and state, not district and parents.

Last week, Florida's Department of Education revealed a new plan called E-Comp. It is quite simple, according to the AP's definition:

The top 10 percent of elementary, middle and high school teachers across Florida, as determined by gains their students have made on FCAT reading and math tests, would receive 5 percent bonuses.

Of course, it's not quite as simple as the AP wants you to think. What the Department's site says is that if you teach reading and math or something else tested in a standardized format, that's how you are assessed. If you teach art, however, what is required is some form of external assessment. FDE has a chart comparing E-Comp and Q-Comp, along with the plans in Denver and Houston.

So, as long as gain on FCAT scores are what parents would seek from teachers -- Craig's objection to Q-Comp should be met in E-Comp. I'll be interested in seeing whether he agrees.

Unsurprisingly, the teacher monolith has launched an attack on the plan, as the AP story describes. The AP previously ran a story using a poll of high school principals to attack the use of FCAT scores. Well, of course they do! What does the use of external assessment do to the power of principals vis-a-vis teachers and parents? And in the later AP story we find this nugget:

The Florida Education Association quickly filed an administrative challenge arguing that state law does not permit such a plan and denouncing it as an arbitrary, vague and incomplete way to determine which teachers are the best.

...The Florida School Boards Association will urge that approval be delayed so state officials can try to work out problems with teachers, local officials and others, said Wayne Blanton, the association's executive director.

"Logistically, this thing's a nightmare," Blanton said.

He said he told Winn it would also be a public relations disaster to run approximately 180,000 teachers through a state ranking system, noting 23 districts currently would not have a single teacher qualify for the statewide part of the pay plan.

Note that the plan doesn't take score levels, but score gains, so those districts with students that are at lower educational levels generally would not have to get students to the same levels as districts with academically more advanced students. Maybe they are hoping to get the exam curved?

The connection between the Florida and Minnesota plans, in case you haven't figured it out yet, is quite obvious. This could have been Minnesota's plan. Ask your legislator, why isn't it? Make it part of your caucus' platform proposals.

Categories: education

Res ipse loquitur:

The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) announced Thursday it would postpone a conference on academic boycotts scheduled to begin next week in Bellagio, Italy.

The conference, which was originally sponsored by the Ford, Rockefeller and Nathan Cummings Foundations, came under attack due to the fact that more than 8 of the 21 academics invited to participate in the conference publicly support boycotts of Israeli universities. Another decisive revelation that led to the postponement of the conference was that material distributed prior to the conference included an anti-Semitic paper by a Holocaust denier.

Source.

Categories: higher_ed

Cranky Prof is cranky about publishers giving different prices for the same book. Mightn't it be true that Harvard Univ. Press' mailing to professors about books is appealing to a market with more inelastic demand than a book on Amazon? Different channels entirely.

UPDATE: And sometimes you have two channels in the same building!

Categories: economics

After discussing this yesterday, John, Phil and myself were bandying some of the codes we use. This morning in the jobs section of the Chronicle of Higher Ed we find translations of what administrative candidates say when you ask them "Why do you want this job?"

• What the candidate said: I have aspired to, and worked hard to prepare myself, for a position like this. What the committee heard: I don't want you; I only want a job at this level.


• What the candidate said: This is a great time in my career to make a move like this. What the committee heard: I am looking to get out of my current job.


• What the candidate said: It is time for me to assume the mantle of leadership. What the committee heard: I am sick of working for others and want others to get sick of working for me.


• What the candidate said: I don't resonate with the leadership of my department. What the committee heard: They don't like me.


• What the candidate said: I want to run my own shop. What the committee heard: I am a control freak.

&c. Looking over our own nonselect codes, I found a couple of dandies:

• Area of secondary competence not compatible with the needs of the department as advertised -- what the hell is "secondary competence"? I consider my baby sky hook a "secondary competence" insofar as it sucks more than my jump shot, which sucks too but not as much.
• Seminar/lecture failed to demonstrate scholarly substance (there are whole departments that would meet this reject code)
• Candidate not interested in the teaching component of the position. (Who is?)
• Candidate requires a higher salary than authorized. (Don't we all!)

Categories: higher_ed

As a department chair I have noticed an increased number of complaints by my faculty about students cheating. Sometimes it's so obvious that you have to do something just to discourage those at the margin that would cheat if they thought it was easy to get away with it. But like Alex Tabarrok, I seldom find anyone ever got a good grade from cheating.

Almost invariably the cheaters get abysmally low grades even without penalty. Some people I know get annoyed when students without evident handicap ask for and receive special treatment such as extra time on exams. I comply without rancor as the extra time never seems to help. Over the years I have had a number of students ask for incompletes. None have ever become completes.

I call this the law of below averages.

You still need a credible threat of enforcement (Alex suggests that the Lucas critique applies here), but you may be able to create this at relatively small cost. And having had the student in the room who denies it even when the faculty member has prima facie evidence (and administrative reluctance to pursue these cases), you do not want to have to play the punishment card too often. Sounds like another place for game theory.

Categories: education, higher_ed