The Curmudgeon Speaks

After being prepared to teach high school biology, I ended up as a college prof working with preservice and inservice teachers. There is an expression “when the tool you have is a hammer, everything begins to look like a nail” (my version) and I admit to leaning in this direction when it comes to education. To be fair, I think the public often takes the same position. Educators are expected to solve an ever increasing number of problems. What about the various forms of inequality citizens of this country face? Sure, we sometimes think we can and are expected to fix those issues. We can develop tolerance and cultural sensitivity. Sure we can feed those kids who didn’t have breakfast this morning and provide a safe place to be for a couple of extra hours after instruction is finished. We can take students no matter their background and prepare them to make decent income. etc. If we can’t do it, then specialized charter schools can. By the way, a little extra money for resources, salaries, and specialized personnel would be very helpful.

Government has been reluctant to contribute the extra resources, but some of the rich have been willing to provide assistance especially when they have ideas about how existing educational approaches have been doing it wrong. While these folks might have headed off some of the problems by sharing some of the wealth their corporations generated, there is another expression that may apply here = “better late than never”.

Now, some of these benefactors have started to admit that things are not getting better and perhaps to even conclude that education is not the answer. A recent position taken by Nick Hanauer (my summary of the original post) has brought this realization into the main stream. Hanauer’s conclusion is that income inequality must be attacked directly (pay workers more) rather than assuming education will eventually fix things.

I think educators kind of always knew this. With the exception of parents, educators probably spend more time with kids than anyone else. Educators also spend time with everyone’s kids. At least this is true of educators collectively and in some locations pretty much in any given classroom. This breadth of exposure provides a perspective even parents don’t have.

My conclusion has become that while educators cannot remedy the multiple equity issues that are seriously disrupting the progress of this country, they have a perspective that needs to be heard. Part of their job should be to speak out. Dismissing and even demanding silence of educator voice limits public awareness of the reality of inequity. Many may not want to hear what educators have to say, but like any citizen and more so than most, their perspectives need to be considered.

Let me begin this post by providing an important data point. I am 70 years old and I retired from my position as a college professor when I was 65. Many college profs retire later than this, but I decided at age 65 it was time to move on. Academia is highly competitive, but you can pretty much stay around as long as you can function if you are tenured. I believed there were many young folks of high ability trying to get a tenure-track job and it was their time to have a chance. No regrets.

This article in the Atlantic entitled “Your professional decline is coming (Much) sooner than you think” is going to receive a lot of attention. As the title suggests, the author organizes and integrates evidence to explain that productivity declines more quickly than most are willing to admit and in many professions is well underway in the 40s and 50s. The result in many people who enjoyed early career success is depression and I am guessing a sense of being a fraud.

This argument was not a surprise to me. My career was in educational psychology and I was aware of work in Cattell’s work in proposing fluid and crystallized intelligence.

Cattell defined fluid intelligence as the ability to reason, analyze, and solve novel problems – what we commonly think of as raw intellectual horsepower.

Crystallized intelligence, in contrast, is the ability to use knowledge gained in the past. Think of it as processing a vast library and understanding how to use it. [these explanations as provided by Atlantic contributor Luci Gutierrez]

When I taught this topic I used to use the example of the difference in the achievements of mathematicians and historians. I tend to think about the circumstances of my career based on other variables, but I have to admit that I published my most significant research papers early and I published books later in my career.

When it comes to careers, we all may share more with the reality of being a professional athlete than we assumed.

There is always the opportunity to blog.

The 2016 election turned me into a political news junkie. I mostly listen and watch CNN and MSNBC and read the New York Times. The one podcast I follow is Pod Save America.

Pod Save America is voiced by four Obama aides so you will probably not be a follower if you are a Fox News “No Spin Zone” type.

One of the nice Pod Save America is doing is providing program length interviews with Democratic presidential candidates. The Dems have so many good candidates that is difficult for any given candidate other than the most familiar names (and Pete) to get much attention, While I don’t have a solution, this situation is unfortunate.

I have long respected Amy Klobuchar and found her performance on the recent committee hearings impressive. To me, she seems insightful and practical with the necessary traits of toughness and persistence. I decided to recommend Podcast Save America after listening to their session with Senator Klobuchar.

NPR has just released an interesting article on teacher salaries. The article begins noting that this is the campaign season and focusing on Democratic candidates lists several campaign promises related to teacher salaries. Bernie Sanders proposes raising the starting salary to $60,000.

The article continues using this $60,000 mark as a starting point. At present the average teacher salary is $62,000 and the average starting salary is closer to $40,000. The average teacher makes about $10,000 more than that average working citizen, but nearly 20% less than those with comparable education. If you visit the NPR site for this article you will have to use the link within the article for the comparison among professions.

I have been responsible for hiring new PhDs in my administrative role before retirement from a mid-level university and what Bernie proposes was about what we were hiring new PhDs at. The topic of what is a comparable profession is complicated and even though the NPR article suggested that the Economic Policy article provided data on comparable professions equating on years of college is overly simplistic. I am not certain what I consider comparable. I used to think Nursing and K12 Education were comparable, but I don’t think this is still the case.

What is a fair salary is a very difficult issue to determine. So many factors are different across occupations and even salaries can be misleading without the consideration of benefit packages that come with jobs. There is also the 9 month contract which as a college professor I also know is very misleading. Salary increases in most universities are competitive so you may have the summer off from teaching and a regular pay check, but if you have a research expectation you pretty much have to work on grants and writing if you want to compete. K12 teachers can spend time and money taking additional college courses to move up the pay scale. There are things the general public do not see (or more dangerously see in a local case or two) that are necessary to understand the actual circumstances of a profession.

Most people probably don’t think carefully about the revenue model underlying their online experiences. They pay their monthly fee to their Internet provider and their phone company, they pay for a few apps, and they assume this covers their responsibility. This is not logical. The cost of the services Google, Twitter, Facebook and the thousands and maybe millions of content creators incur are substantial and have nothing to do with these consumer payments. Since most understand Google, Twitter, and Facebook are doing very well financially, how does this work?

Some folks find targeted ads to be objectionable. They may find the ads distracting. They may object to the collection of their personal information whether or not this information is used in a way to display ads suited to personal interests. Technology companies not benefitting from ad revenue have begun offering ways to block ads. From the perspective of some consumers, this fixes this problem and this may be the case in the short run. However, without ads there is still the problem of how to pay the companies that provide the services and content.

The present model works mainly because of targeted ads. Consumers of Internet content and services see ads that are often selected based on the online data they have shared with these companies. Consumers pay with personal information that is valued by someone. This information is useful to some companies because it allows the consumers to be targeted for something. The something is often an ad that the ad companies believe will be more influential because the information collected suggests the consumer should find the ad to be useful. We do know that personal information has been used in other ways such as the delivery of ads assumed to impact political decisions.

A recent study by economists offers a suggestion. These economists have evaluated the benefit of targeted ads versus ads not requiring personal information. They have concluded that targeted ads provide only a 4% advantage to the companies paying for the ads (not the ad companies). As I understand their conclusion, ads not requiring the collection of personal information should be good enough. I think a more subtle message is that those who purchase ads in the first place are being misled by ad companies that sell these companies the targeted ads. This is my interpretation. I am uncertain how seriously Google or any of the companies that target ads would be impacted by a requirement that they not be able to collect personal information when selling ads. From the perspective of the consumer, this solution would still require the display of ads, but not the collection of personal information.

You can read more about this proposal from several secondary sources (TechCrunch summary, Wall Street Journal). I tried to locate the study used to generate the 4% estimate, but I was unsuccessful. I was able to find a segment of video in which the principle investigator briefly describes his results and his proposal (start about 5 minutes in). The methodology of research is important to my personal interpretation of results so I can only describe the results at present.

I think that the ad model (sometimes called surveillance capitalism) supporting the Internet environment will come under political scrutiny in the near future. A combination of preventing targeted ads (based on cookies) AND preventing the use of ad blockers would seem to offer a reasonable solution for all parties.

The situation with the indictment of a sitting President would seem to fall into that “things they did not tell you in school” (even if you were listening) category. That thing that “no one is above the law” that is supposed to make we little people feel better evidently comes with some strings attached and is not as straightforward as it sounds. Evidently, a sitting President can function as an unindicted law breaker for 8 years and maybe 9+ if he/she can elude being charged during a campaign. So, if you were 70+ or so and lacked ethical principles, it might seem reasonable to commit crimes betting your age and the passage of time might make it worth the risk. What were the framers of the Constitution thinking? There must be some level of egregious behavior – say obstruction of the investigation of collusion with a foreign power – that was not considered. Would some constitutional scholar show me where it says this type of thing is OK? So the unwritten procedure (so much of what the law expects to me seems unwritten and established through precedent) must be impeach and then prosecute. Wouldn’t you also have to impeach the VP to prevent a pardon? Which Republican would that put in office? I don’t see a solution here.

This comparison of viewers aligned with the broadcast networks, CNN, MSNBC, and Fox reveals striking differences in reaction to questions regarding Trump and the Mueller probe. The responses clearly show that the opinions of Fox viewers are much different than the opinions of those who primarily get their news from one of the other sources.

The interesting question is whether viewers select an outlet consistent with their beliefs or whether beliefs are associated with content differences across outlets. However the relationship works, Fox viewers are clearly distinct.

One of the pollsters compared the situation to a hung jury in which one jurist prevents a conclusion. Of course the analysis of news access does not offer totals across what appear to be two camps, but it does appear that Trump’s claim of “fake news” is focused on a diverse set of outlets rather than a distinct target. The distinct outlier in this case is Fox.

This article from the Verge explains that the White House believes conservatives are being treated unfairly by social media companies and that it intends to make this a campaign issue in the next election. Pointing to the lack of transparency in social media services explanations for how ranking of content works or how the decision is made to block certain sites, it evidently follows that something nefarious is afoot.

In an effort to collect its own data, the White House now offers a form users can use to report what they feel is political bias directed at them. I would suggest that this data collection be viewed with some caution as you are asked to provide a “little information about yourself” before getting to the issue you want to report. The page also contains multiple ad trackers. I am not claiming these “features” are unusual. I am just suggesting that use of this site should be understood to involve the collection of information about you. I guess if you sign in with a report you are a supporter and don’t mind having your name and information entered into a database.

Are Trump supporters not being treated equally online? The lack of transparency of social media companies make them vulnerable to all kinds of claims. They protect their “methods” as as business secrets. It is true that Breitbart News, Alex Jones, and Russian bots have been “deprecated”. I assume most would accept these limitations on open access. Beyond blocking certain individuals for hate speech and the elimination of bots falsely spreading content, it would be interesting to know exactly what these claims of discrimination involve. Conservative posts are less likely to be passed on to “friends”? Trump tweets magically disappear and don’t get to his followers?

In an era in which “fake news” claims are made by politicians against news sources that hire actual reporters, it is hard to know what citizens expect as proof. Perhaps this is the intent.

We have made a road trip to Amish greenhouses near St. Charles, MN, an annual event. Several different Amish families have constructed greenhouses on their farms as a revenue source and the forms are located close enough together that is easy to pay a visit to multiple greenhouses.

This is not a cost-effective venture, but on a nice Spring day just spending time on the farms of these interesting folks is worth the trip. I really like to take photos of my experiences, but understanding the reluctance of the Amish folks to being photographed I also read up on what is considered appropriate.

The greenhouses are beautiful and plants were available at very reasonable prices. It was a little early for vegetables so we stuck mostly to purchasing flowers.

This area of Minnesota is a great study in contrast. You have the giant farms making use of massive farm equipment next to these smaller Amish family farms maintained by horses and equipment suited to this level of horse power. The greenhouses also are unique in that they are heated by wood stoves inside of boilers to maintain the heat. Elsewhere, horses are everywhere.

This final picture says more than might think. This is a receipt for one of our purchases. This was completed by a teenaged Amish girl who seem to always take care of the payments. These girls seem so shy and tend not to look at you. Everything is done by hand. They generate this old fashioned, carbon-paper receipt and add up your bill without use of a calculator. They prefer taking cash, but are very careful recording the tax they must pay. Render onto Caesar ….

Ah, it’s tough out there, a good muse is hard to find
Living one word to the next, one line at a time
There’s more to life than whiskey, there’s more to words than rhyme
Sometimes nothing works, sometimes nothing shines
Like Hemingway’s whiskey

A Kenny Chesney nod to those folks who struggle to put words together to create meaning. The original by Guy Clark is probably what I should suggest as the word man should get the credit.