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The days are shorter now, and we wobble more.
Sudden subduction of the Nazca plate carried large amounts of mass closer to the center of the Earth — which, conceptually but on a vastly different scale, works like spinning skaters bringing their arms closer to their bodies, says Richard Gross, a geophysicist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. As a result, Earth’s day is now about 1.26 microseconds shorter than it was before the massive quake, Gross estimates.
And because the quake’s shift in mass occurred deep in the Southern Hemisphere, Earth was slightly tipped off balance — a result similar to a spinning skater bringing in one arm but not the other. The planet’s “figure axis,” the line about which the Earth is balanced, shifted about 8 centimeters, Gross notes.
Earth’s axis is constantly wobbling at various frequencies, with some oscillations measuring several meters and taking months to unfold. Forces driving those cycles, including those resulting from winds and ocean currents, act continually across Earth’s surface and often are about a thousand times larger than those generated during the Chilean quake.
Earth knocked for a loop, Science News, 3/3/10
It’s hard to believe that consolidation is working as intended. Be sure to read Paul Stearns’ piece — Consolidation penalties are a shameful response — in the BDN.
In another context, some truths:
I wish I could say I found it surprising, but it seem to me to be of a piece with too many other brutalities in American law. We pass a law with the best of intentions, and find it doesn’t work, and so we pass new regulations and policies designed to crack down on non-compliance, until we are brutalizing the population all out of proportion to the original good we were pursuing. — The Majesty of the Law, Megan McArdle, Asymmetrical Information Blog (The Atlantic), 2/19/10
The reference is to the prohibition-era denaturing of alcohol. More here.
That Megan, she’s sharp!
Weekend reading:
I got a-plenty of friends who’ve taken all they could get and were honest in figurin’ they had it comin’ to them. They’ve paid taxes for years and seen other people take the benefits. Now at least they’re gettin’ a little of it back. That’s the whole point, though, that’s what’s wrong. There was a time when we looked up to Uncle Sam; he was somethin’ to be proud of and respect. Now he’s turned into some kind of muddle-brained Sugar Daddy givin’ out goodies right and left in the hopes that everybody’s goin’ to love him. And people are playin’ a selfish game with him, all tryin’ to grab more than the next man, tryin’ to get more out of the pot than they put in. Let the other man pay. Gore the other man’s ox but leave mine alone.
It’s divided us into little selfish groups, snarlin’ and snappin’ at each other like hungry dogs, grabbin’ for what we can get and to hell with everybody else. We beg and fight and prostitute ourselves. We take charity and give it a sweeter name. And when we get what we ask for it’s never what it looked like it was. The sweet milk generally turns to clabber.
– Charlie Flagg, in The Time it Never Rained, Elmer Kelton, 1973
Monday morning reading:
In his weekly radio address, Baldacci says Maine must show a commitment to improved K-12 education in order to receive funding that’s part of an education reform initiative called Race to the Top. He says Maine’s done that.
To be successful in Race to the Top, Baldacci said he’s submitting legislation to allow Maine to adopt national standards that identify where Maine schools excel and where they need improvement. He says steps to measure the effectiveness of teachers also will be proposed.
Baldacci: Maine strong contender for federal school funds, AP, 2/20/10
You go, John!
It’s entirely possible that the press didn’t get this right, and by error, selection, or omission, end up misrepresenting this exchange.
But I doubt it.
The news that Maine had signed on to the pilot program came as a surprise for some, including Maine Education Association President Chris Galgay. “For the last couple of hours, I have been on the phone trying to find out about this,” Galgay said Wednesday afternoon. “I’m very frustrated. I know few of the details. It sounds absolutely like a major initiative, but it also sounds like a top-down decision — one of many made with no input from practitioners in the field.”
Galgay’s association is the professional organization that represents the state’s teachers, who he said will be pivotal if the initiative is to succeed. “This is a think-tank in Washington who came up with this,” he said. “I’m not questioning the commissioner’s sincerity on this. I just know that to have anything work, you’ve got to have everybody at the table to agree on the goals.”
Connerty-Marin disagreed that the initiative is “top-down.”
“If districts don’t want to participate, they don’t have to,” he said. “This is an opportunity for districts that are looking to provide another pathway to students. It’s very in line with what we’ve been talking about over the years. There’s no imposition of anything here.” (Maine schools join plan allowing early entry to college after 10th grade, BDN, 2/18/10)
Long-time readers know it’s not often I back up the MEA leader, but in this case he’s right. There’s no evidence of any participation by interested parties before this announcement, nor is here any sign that input will be solicited now.
And the spokesperson comes off as snide*.
This brilliant piece offers a likely explanation of where the irritation and high-handedness come from.
“Their program is premised on believing a select group of superior people should be empowered to organize everyone else’s affairs.”
Indeed!
*OED Definitions: 1. Counterfeit, sham, bogus. Also more widely, inferior, worthless. 2. Of a person: cunning, sharp. 3. Insinuating, sneering, slyly derogatory.
Dozens of public high schools in eight states will introduce a program next year allowing 10th graders who pass a battery of tests to get a diploma two years early and immediately enroll in community college.
Students who pass but aspire to attend a selective college may continue with college preparatory courses in their junior and senior years, organizers of the new effort said. Students who fail the 10th grade tests, known as board exams, can try again at the end of their 11th and 12th grades. The tests would cover not only English and math but other subjects like science and history.
The new system of high school coursework with the accompanying board examinations is modeled largely on systems in high-performing nations including Denmark, England, Finland, France and Singapore.
I’ve not been very tuned in to the education world for the last few months, so maybe I missed this. Did you know about this?
The eight states include Maine!
More:
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has provided a $1.5 million planning grant to help the national center work with states and districts to get the program up and running, Mr. Tucker said. He estimated that start-up costs for school districts would be about $500 per student, to buy courses and tests and to train teachers.
To defray those costs, the eight states intend to apply for some of the $350 million in federal stimulus funds that Education Secretary Arne Duncan has designated for improving public school testing, Mr. Tucker said.
High school students will begin the new coursework in the fall of 2011 in Connecticut, Kentucky, Maine, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont. The education commissioners of those states have pledged to sign up 10 to 20 schools each for the pilot project, and have begun to reach out to district superintendents. (Plan Would Let Students Start College Early, NYT, 2/18/10)
I’ve long felt (ever since I was about 14) that 4 years of high school was not for everyone.
Now if we could have an early 4-year college path out of that joint called high school!
Addendum: I hadn’t missed anything during my absence. This was new to a lot of other people too:
The news that Maine had signed on to the pilot program came as a surprise for some, including Maine Education Association President Chris Galgay. “For the last couple of hours, I have been on the phone trying to find out about this,” Galgay said Wednesday afternoon. “I’m very frustrated. I know few of the details. It sounds absolutely like a major initiative, but it also sounds like a top-down decision — one of many made with no input from practitioners in the field.”
(Maine schools join plan allowing early entry to college after 10th grade, BDN, 2/18/10)
 Click on picture to link to more indescribable dogginess!
We all know unemployment is high, approximately 10% nationally.
And you’ve probably heard that public-sector employment and unionization (as a percentage of all unionized workers) and compensation have grown significantly in the last decade.
And in many cases, the public sector is — so far — recession proof.
While private-sector workers in the capital [Albany, NY] region have, in fact, suffered like everyone else during the downturn, many of those cars likely belonged to the favored not-so-few: state employees.
New York’s statewide unemployment rate in January hit 9%, the highest level in 26 years. New York City’s rate was 10.6%. In addition, untold thousands of New Yorkers have seen their hours or wages slashed, their health benefits cut, and their retirement accounts plummet.
But in New York’s capital region, the unemployment rate most recently stood at 7% — and around Albany, involuntary joblessness is mainly a private-sector phenomenon.
Unionized state workers (94% of the work force) got 3% raises last year and are scheduled for 4% raises in April. The average employee earns $63,750 plus fringe benefits, according the state budget division. Those benefits average about $28,000 per employee.
The state government — including its two public university systems — had 228,595 full-time-equivalent employees in January, down 3,640, or 1.6%, from the previous year, according to the state comptroller’s office. This decrease was achieved mainly through attrition, not layoffs.
Health, dental and vision benefits are untouched. Retirees still get heavily subsidized health insurance for life — even after only 10 years on the payroll. And, despite a precipitous drop in the state pension fund, employees and retirees will feel no pain, because the state Constitution requires taxpayers to backfill any investment losses. (Public workers feel no pain in recession, NY Post, 2/14/10)
But maybe government workers — including teachers — need to be a bit flexible, if they’re going to avoid becoming the targets of public wrath.
A school superintendent in Rhode Island is trying to fix an abysmally bad school system.
Her plan calls for teachers at a local high school to work 25 minutes longer per day, each lunch with students once in a while, and help with tutoring. The teachers’ union has refused to accept these apparently onerous demands.
The teachers at the high school make $70,000-$78,000, as compared to a median income in the town of $22,000. This exemplifies a nationwide trend in which public sector workers make far more than their private-sector counterparts (with better benefits).
The school superintendent has responded to the union’s stubbornness by firing every teacher and administrator at the school.
A sign of things to come? (Unionized Rhode Island Teachers Refuse To Work 25 Minutes More Per Day, So Town Fires All Of Them, Business Insider, 2/15/10)
Work with me here!
Think of what you’re saying.
You can get it wrong and still you think that it’s all right.
Think of what I’m saying,
We can work it out and get it straight, or say good night.
– We Can Work it Out, The Beatles, 1965
 Left: Buttermilk; Right: Light Wheat
The average young American now spends practically every waking minute — except for the time in school — using a smart phone, computer, television or other electronic device, according to a new study from the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Those ages 8 to 18 spend more than seven and a half hours a day with such devices, compared with less than six and a half hours fie years ago, when the study was last conducted. And that does not count the hour and a half that youths spend texting, or the half-hour they talk on their cellphones.
And because so many of them are multitasking — say, surfing the Internet while listening to music — they pack on average nearly 11 hours of media content into that seven and a half hours.
If Your Kids Are Awake, They’re Probably Online, New York Times, 1/20/10
It’s hard to believe this can end well.
It just gets worser!
“It will destroy your family, your happy home is gone
No one can protect you from it once you turn it on.”
“It will led you into some strange pursuits,
Lead you to the land of forbidden fruits.
It will scramble up your head and drag your brain about,
Sometimes you gotta do like Elvis did and shoot the damn thing out.”
– TV Talking Song, Bob Dylan, 1990
A little vignette from another place on this beautiful earth, North Korea:
Children learn a ditty called “Shoot the Yankee Bastards” in music class. One verse goes:
Our enemies are the American bastards
Who are trying to take over our beautiful fatherland.
With guns that I make with my own hands
I will shoot them. BANG, BANG, BANG.
– North Korea Keeps Hiding, and Fascinating, NYT, 1/26/10
How about you? Fascinated?
The MEA seems to have vowed to “fight the cuts” in the proposed education budget*.
We just say “Good luck!”
Take a look around at state finances. California is bankrupt, and as a functioning governmental entity, at least as we’ve understood such of late, is imploding.
New York state is cutting their budgets, especially education; in fact the state is on the verge of bankruptcy, only one step behind California.
You can watch the crisis unfold in state after state at Stateline.org. (Here’s some international perspective: 2010: The year of bankrupt gov’ts.)
Reality is a harsh mistress.
In this context, observers have to ask whether “fighting the cuts” is the best strategy for the MEA.
MIght as well try to hold back the storm!
I went down Virginia, Seekin’ shelter from the storm.
Caught up in the fable, I watched the tower grow.
Five year plans and new deals, Wrapped in golden chains.
And I wonder, Still I wonder Who’ll stop the rain.
- John Fogerty (CCR), Who’ll Stop the Rain (1969)
* There’s a good roundup of these developments in the December 22 postings at MDISchools.
That’s the message from this new study:
“We were startled to find that there is so much research published on learning styles, but that so little of the research used experimental designs that had the potential to provide decisive evidence,” says Harold E. Pashler, a professor of psychology at the University of California at San Diego and the paper’s lead author.
“Lots of people are selling tests and programs for customizing education that completely lack the kind of experimental evidence that you would expect for a drug,” Mr. Pashler says. “Now maybe the FDA model isn’t always appropriate for education—but that’s a conversation we need to have.”
and
Mr. Pashler’s study does not dispute the existence of learning styles. But it asserts that no one has ever proved that any particular style of instruction simultaneously helps students who have one learning style while also harming students who have a different learning style.
Of the hundreds of research papers that have been published on learning styles, Mr. Pashler says, almost none have randomly assigned students into one classroom type or another. Only that kind of experiment, he says, can suggest anything definitive about causation. And the few studies that have used an adequate research design, he adds, have mostly failed to support the hypothesis that teaching styles should match students’ learning styles.
Wow! Is nothing sacred?
Perhaps what’s proven is that “theories”, the theories that make careers and sell books and programs, and the theories that linger like swamp miasma over ed schools have little to do with classroom realities and the hard, ordinary, and valuable work of teaching.
Maybe?
Revealed: the young can learn mathematical concepts.
Is this truly news? How often do you read of some educational research results and say “I knew that”?
The follow-on: So educational professionals thought 5-and-youngers couldn’t learn math. There’s a frightening and shocking thought!
Maybe we should focus on that troubling revelation and ask exactly why the professionals missed this. Maybe theory got in the way. Mebbe they don’t know any kids!
The Governor’s budget: Brian has it all over at MDISchools (see the December 20 post).
It’s slash and burn time, the wolf is at the door, fly away home your house is on fire. Use any image you want, but we’re up against it. You knew it was coming.
Matthew Stone has the story here. Read it all.
Particularly worthy of notice is this section:
Aside from mergers, the education commissioner called on local teachers unions to consider pay freezes, rather than stick to contracts that bind school districts to annual, incremental pay raises. The move, she said, would prevent some school staff members from being laid off.
Teacher and staff salaries covered by contracts account for more than half of school district budgets, Gendron noted. “Saving 2 or 3 percent of that cost would be a great savings for our local school districts.”
Chris Galgay, president of the Maine Education Association, called Gendron’s comment unfortunate. “I don’t think she should use the bully pulpit” to command local pay freezes, he said.
“They make these decisions locally,” said Steve Crouse, the teachers union’s government relations director.
Galgay and Crouse, if I remember aright, were silent on consolidation. Talk about the “bully pulpit”!
It’ll be interesting to see if anything comes of Gendron’s suggestion.
The initial reaction suggests that the MEA will sacrifice some of its members rather than consider freezes. A bit out of touch, eh?
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News & Reading- Consolidation penalties are a shameful response, Paul Stearns, BDN, 2/22/10 - #
- Study Finds Public Discontent With Colleges, NYT, 2/17/10 - #
- Transgender rights spark debate, BDN, 2/17/10
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- Phone texting 'helps pupils to spell', BBC, 1/20/10 - #
- School consolidation remains the law of the land, PPH, 11/4/09 - #
- Patriotic photo refused, Concord Monitor, 10/31/09 - #
- More state cuts on tap, KJ, 10/30/09 - #
- Report Questions Duncan’s Policy of Closing Failing Schools, NYT, 10/29/09 - #
- Schools cut spending as state aid loss loom, PPH, 10/28/09 - #
- Vote yes on 3 to repeal school consolidation law, BDN, 10/27/09
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