Grantcoulson's Blog

    Do not think about, write about or deal with  human behavior until determining the effects of incentives.

    A few days ago, I went to York University, in Toronto, to search for an article in their paper archives and purchased a card to get access to their photocopiers dutifully giving the machine twenty dollars. It then required me to remove the card, place it in another slot and “authenticate” it in a manner I’m sure few humans could understand. I lost my first twenty, accidentally did the authentication and got my photocopier card. My wife advised me to get a refund on my first twenty dollars, but I couldn’t be bothered. This was a government institution and I expected vast incompetence. No place other than one where people are not customers would ever have such a complicated method of obtaining a card. Put in your money and get a card. What could be simpler? Simplest never occurs when the customer is irrelevant.

    The Olympics are over and Canada did very “well”. The only people who didn’t do very well were the taxpayers underwriting this extravaganza. The security alone probably cost me $130 or so. What the whole thing cost me is unknown, but my guess is well over one thousand. I expected the Olympic propaganda machine to pump out reams about the “stimulus” provided by the show, but the only thing I saw was an estimate of $770 M as stimulus to the host province. The apologists for these circuses have even stopped pretending it’s economically sensible. This is well below the $990 M  security cost (This is the official cost–No one knows the real cost).     

     "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." H. L. Mencken.

    Here’s another example from George Will concerning federal involvement in  K-12 education.

    “Doubling down on dubious bets is characteristic of compulsive gamblers and U.S. federal education policy. The nation was essentially without such policy for grades K through 12, and better off for that, until 1965. In that year of liberals living exuberantly, they produced the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Now yet another president has announced yet another plan to fix education. His aspiration has a discouraging pedigree.”

     “In 1983, three years after Jimmy Carter paid his debt to teachers’ unions by creating the Education Department, a national commission declared America “a nation at risk”: “If an unfriendly power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.” So in 1984, Ronald Reagan decreed improvements.”

      “They did not materialize, so in 1994 Congress decreed that by 2000 the high school graduation rate would be “at least” 90% and students would be “first in the world in mathematics and science achievement.” Even inflated by “social promotions,” the graduation rate in 2000 was about 75% (it peaked at 77.1% in 1969), and among 38 nations surveyed, Americans ranked 19th in mathematics, just below Latvians, and 18th in science, just below Bulgarians.”

   “NCLB gives states an incentive to report chimerical progress, so, unsurprisingly, state tests almost always indicate much more progress than does the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the federal test.”

    Look Maude, he can tie his shoe. Never saw a boy more ready for university.

     “NCLB’s emphasis on measuring students’ expanding knowledge has improved education policy that until recently was exclusively focused, as the public education lobby preferred, on monetary inputs rather than cognitive outputs. From the time the baby boom generation began going through the school system like a pig through a python, policy, until NCLB, assumed that cognitive outputs varied positively with financial inputs.”

     “Abundant evidence demonstrates that money is not an Archimedean lever for moving the world of education. Inflation adjusted per-pupil spending tripled over four decades; pupil-teacher ratios were substantially reduced as the number of teachers increased 61% while enrollments rose about 10%. Yet test scores stagnated or declined.”

    If money is the answer no matter the question, why do educational, and other problems remain unsolved?

     Having "identified" the problem in a manner most hysterical, the government proceeds to do nothing but spend more money. This is a textbook example (according to my textbook) of the INTEND-IS-DOES distinction. The INTEND part is noble–aren’t they all? The IS part is expensive–aren’t they all? The DOES part is farcical–aren’t they all. They intended to do something, spent a lot of money and produced no change.

Cheerio and ttfn,
Grant Coulson
Cui Bono–Cherchez les Contingencies

    Here are some unbelievable quotes from an article about turning around government schools. I, and many others would not have trouble. First, get rid of the unions. Second, use programs which work. Third, create an environment in the school which demands accomplishment. The people that don’t know are the same kind who go to a farm and wonder why they can’t get milk from a cow by pumping her tail and, then, keep pumping.

    The rationale for these steps are simple. The union does everything to obstruct effectiveness. Many programs have been demonstrated to work. Many of them are in this blog. The third step is how effective military organizations and private companies have been run for years.

      Here are the quotes and my comments.

     “The second important lesson is the “Law of Ongoing Ignorance.” Despite years of experience and great expenditures of time, money, and energy, we still lack basic information about which tactics will make a struggling school excellent. A review published in January 2003 by the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation of more than 100 books, articles, and briefs on turnaround efforts concluded, “There is, at present, no strong evidence that any particular intervention type works most of the time or in most places.”“

    These people are obviously looking in the wrong place.

     “An EdSource study that sought to compare California’s low-performing schools that failed to make progress to its low-performing schools that did improve came to a confounding conclusion: clear differences avoided detection. Comparing the two groups, the authors noted, “These were schools in the same cities and districts, often serving children from the same backgrounds. Some of them also adopted the same curriculum programs, had teachers with similar backgrounds, and had similar opportunities for professional development.”“

    The problem is that the criteria for improvement are weak. Nothing useful comes from looking at small differences.

       “Maryland’s veteran state superintendent of schools, Nancy Grasmick, agrees: “Very little research exists on how to bring about real sea change in schools…. Clearly, there’s no infallible strategy or even sequence of them.” Responding to the growing number of failing Baltimore schools requiring state-approved improvement plans, she said, “No one has the answer. It’s like finding the cure for cancer.”“

    What better source of information than a person who has not been able to do it?

    “ Many have noted that flexibility and dynamism are part of the genetic code of private business, so we should expect these organizations to be more receptive to the massive changes required by a turnaround process than institutions set in what Hess calls the “political, regulatory, and contractual morass of K–12 schooling.” Accordingly, school turnarounds should be more difficult to achieve. Indeed, a consultant with the Bridgespan Group reported, “Turnarounds in the public education space are far harder than any turnaround I’ve ever seen in the for-profit space.”“

      Hard to reform something run by a government bureaucracy? With that I can agree.

     Do not think about, write about or deal with  human behavior until determining the effects of incentives.

    Reform the incentives, use powerful programs, create a community emphasizing effectiveness. Fini.

Cheerio and ttfn,
Grant Coulson
Cui Bono–Cherchez les Contingencies

     One of the many conceits of politicians is that, if they don’t do anything, nothing is being done, has been done, or ever will be done. “How did you get along before I got here? How can you get along now? What will you do in the future?

      Trendy governments everywhere are “investing” in “green” technology so they won’t be left behind when economic necessity forces green technology on the rest of us who are too stupid to see the future. Investing has displaced spending because it’s such a nicer word. Governments try to be more like free enterprise and it’s quite precious to watch with the cuteness being tempered by the waste and overblown sense of importance. Investing also means giving to groups which are currently in government favor. Like atomic energy and aircraft subsidies, the amount of economic advantage will never outweigh the amount of subsidy. Keeping up with idiots internationally is very expensive.

    The “green” technologies such as wind power will never be economically viable and we will either see continued subsidies or covert dismantling and decommissioning. It’s difficult to tear down those big structures without anyone noticing, but reasons will be found.

     “A northern New Brunswick city that has endured one economic blow after another is bracing to learn the fate of a homegrown company on the brink of collapse, despite receiving millions in public funds in the last decade.” Canadian Press. How could it fail?

    According to the New York Times, schools are hiring recess “coaches” to whip the students into shape with compulsory games to keep bullying at bay. One of the arguments for compulsory schooling has been that children need to be “socialized” by their peers. Leaving aside the fact that socialization must be done by someone who is old enough to have been socialized, i.e., an adult, bringing hundreds of children together is a recipe for disaster with exposure to bullying and contagious diseases being two disadvantages. Ally this to really poor teaching, constant leftist propaganda and making most of the children feel inferior, the school system has little to recommend it.

Cheerio and ttfn,
Grant Coulson
Cui Bono–Cherchez les Contingencies

      Staff from a low performing high school in Central Falls, Rhode Island will be, or have been fired. With government bureaucracies, separating fact from fiction is impossible.

    “A mediator will lead negotiations meant to avert the mass firing of all teachers from long-troubled Central Falls High School as part of a plan to improve student performance, Superintendent Frances Gallo said yesterday.”

      Here’s the key statement, in bold italics, which gives a clue to what’s really going on. Cooler heads will prevail because of the immense goodwill of all parties. Everyone involved must be seen to be reasonable and having “the best interests of the students at heart.”.

    Jane Sessums, president of the Central Falls Teachers’ Union, described the meeting as a good start, although its focus was on the qualities needed in the school’s new leadership team, including a new principal.

      Sessums said she wants negotiations between officials and the union to start as soon as possible. “As long as we’re talking, we can solve this,’’ she said.”

    The problem they’re solving is continued employment in a system which hasn’t worked. The problem is not, again I quote,  that “Just 7 percent of 11th-graders tested in the fall were proficient in math. Only 33 percent were proficient in writing, and just 55 percent were proficient in reading. In 2009, more than half of students failed to graduate in four years.”

    The solution to the poor performance of the teaching will not be fixed by these steps proposed by the official, Gallo, responsible for the “firings”.

    “Gallo said she initially asked the union to accept changes, including a longer school day, a formalized tutoring schedule, additional professional training, and implementation of a program in which teachers would eat lunch with students once a week.”

    It will be interesting how the government and union spin will make this seem like a victory for everyone. How will they spin student results?  The world wonders.

Cheerio and ttfn,
Grant Coulson
Cui Bono–Cherchez les Contingencies