Mitch Daniels Attempts Disruptive Innovation in Higher Ed

(p. A17) Last month’s announcement that Indiana’s Purdue University would acquire the for-profit Kaplan University shocked the world of higher education. The Purdue faculty are up in arms. The merger faces a series of regulatory obstacles. And it’s unclear whether the “New U,” as the entity is temporarily named, can be operationally viable or financially successful.
But Purdue’s president, Mitch Daniels, is willing to give it a shot.
The venture is unexpected, unconventional and smart. The nature of the partnership–in which Kaplan will transfer its assets to Purdue, a public university–is unprecedented. It’s also a rare instance of attempted self-disruption.
There are lessons here from the business world. In the seminal 1997 book, “The Innovator’s Dilemma,” Harvard professor Clayton Christensen describes how leading companies can do everything “right” and still be thwarted by disruptive competitors. In an effort to appease stakeholders, leaders focus resources on activities that target current customers, promise higher profits, build prestige, and help them play in substantial markets. As Mr. Christensen observes, they play the game the way it’s supposed to be played. Meanwhile, a disruptive innovation is changing all the rules.
. . .
The higher-education industry, full of brilliant and competent leaders, is ripe for disruption. Despite mounting political pressure–not to mention the struggles of indebted alumni–most college presidents believe that their institutions are providing students with good value. By and large, they remain comfortable making small, marginal tweaks to their business models. In the meantime, college becomes ever more expensive.
In contrast, Mr. Daniels has a long history of bold, innovative moves.
. . .
Mr. Daniels is setting Purdue on the right course, for good reasons, and he deserves a great deal of credit. As the saying goes, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. For Purdue, the next thousand miles will consist of navigating regulatory approvals, winning the support of stakeholders, and, not least, the hard work of building New U. We can be hopeful, on behalf of those left behind by today’s higher education system, that Purdue treads a path that others can follow.

For the full commentary, see:
Alana Dunagan. “The Innovator’s Dilemma Hits Higher Ed; Purdue’s acquisition of Kaplan University is risky, unconventional, unexpected–and smart.” The Wall Street Journal (Tues., May 16, 2017): A17.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date May 15, 2017.)

Christensen books relevant to the passages quoted above, are:
Christensen, Clayton M. The Innovator’s Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book That Will Change the Way You Do Business. New York: NY: Harper Books, 2000.
Christensen, Clayton M., and Henry J. Eyring. The Innovative University: Changing the DNA of Higher Education from the inside Out. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2011.
Christensen, Clayton M., and Michael E. Raynor. The Innovator’s Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 2003.

Fearing FDA, Schools Stop Students from Using Sunscreen Lotions

(p. A11) The Sunbeatables curriculum, designed by specialists MD Anderson Cancer Center, features a cast of superheroes who teach children the basics of sun protection including the obvious: how and when to apply sunscreen.
There’s just one wrinkle. Many of the about 1,000 schools where the curriculum is taught are in states that don’t allow students to bring sunscreen to school or apply it without a note from a doctor or parent and trip to the nurse’s office.
Schools have restrictions because the U.S. Food and Drug Administration labels sunscreen as an over-the-counter medication.
. . .
Melanoma accounts for the majority of skin cancer-related deaths and is among the most common types of invasive cancers. One blistering sunburn in childhood or adolescence can double the risk of developing melanoma, says Dr. Tanzi. And sun damage is cumulative. The Skin Cancer Foundation notes that 23% of lifetime sun exposure occurs by age 18. Regular sunscreen application is a widespread recommendation among medical experts though some groups have raised concerns about the chemicals in certain sunscreens.
“Five or more sunburns increases your melanoma risk by 80% and your non-melanoma skin cancer risk by 68%,” Dr. Tanzi says.
Pediatric melanoma cases add up to a small but growing number. There are about 500 children diagnosed every year with the numbers increasing by about 2% each year, says Shelby Moneer, director of education for the Melanoma Research Foundation.

For the full story, see:
Sumathi Reddy. “YOUR HEALTH; It’s School, No Sunscreen Allowed.” The Wall Street Journal (Tues., May 16, 2017): A11.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date May 15, 2017, and has the title “YOUR HEALTH; Where Kids Aren’t Allowed to Put on Sunscreen: in School.”)

Seeking a “Safe Space” to Protect Taxpayers from Wasteful “Spending on Political Correctness”

(p. A1) WORCESTER, Mass. — A freshman tentatively raises her hand and takes the microphone. “I’m really scared to ask this,” she begins. “When I, as a white female, listen to music that uses the N word, and I’m in the car, or, especially when I’m with all white friends, is it O.K. to sing along?”
The answer, from Sheree Marlowe, the new chief diversity officer at Clark University, is an unequivocal “no.”
The exchange was included in Ms. Marlowe’s presentation to recently arriving first-year students focusing on subtle “microaggressions,” part of a new campus vocabulary that also includes “safe spaces” and “trigger warnings.”
. . .
(p. A3) In August [2016], the University of Wisconsin system, which includes the Madison flagship and 25 other campuses, said it would ask the State Legislature for $6 million in funding to improve what it called the “university experience” for students. The request includes money for Fluent, a program described as a systemwide cultural training for faculty and staff members and students.
But that budget request has provoked controversy. “If only the taxpayers and tuition-paying families had a safe space that might protect them from wasteful U.W. System spending on political correctness,” State Senator Stephen L. Nass, a Republican, said in a statement issued by his office, urging his fellow lawmakers to vote against the appropriation.
Mr. Nass’s objection to spending money on diversity training reflects a rising resistance to what is considered campus political correctness. At some universities, alumni and students have objected to a variety of campus measures, including diversity training; “safe spaces,” places where students from marginalized groups can gather to discuss their experiences; and “trigger warnings,” disclaimers about possibly upsetting material in lesson plans.
Some graduates have curtailed donations, and students have suggested that diversity training smacks of some sort of Communist re-education program.
The backlash was exemplified recently in a widely publicized letter sent to new freshmen at the University of Chicago by the dean of students, John Ellison.
He warned that the university did not “support so-called trigger warnings, we do not cancel invited speakers because their topics might prove controversial, and we do not condone the creation of intellectual safe spaces where individuals can retreat from ideas and perspectives at odds with their own.”

For the full story, see:
STEPHANIE SAUL. “Campuses Cautiously Train Freshmen Against Subtle Insults.” The New York Times (Weds., SEPT. 7, 2016): A1 & A3.
(Note: ellipsis, and bracketed year, added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date SEPT. 6, 2016, and has the title “Campuses Cautiously Train Freshmen Against Subtle Insults.”)

“High Expectations, High Support” Charter Schools Work Well

(p. 2) The briefest summary is this: Many charter schools fail to live up to their promise, but one type has repeatedly shown impressive results.
Hannah Larkin, the principal at Match, refers to such schools as “high expectations, high support” schools. They devote more of their resources to classroom teaching and less to almost everything else. They keep students in class for more hours. They set high standards for students and try to instill confidence in them. They focus on giving teachers feedback about their craft and helping them get better.
. . .
The latest batch of evidence about this approach is among the most rigorous. Professors at M.I.T., Columbia, Michigan and Berkeley have tracked thousands of charter-school applicants, through high school and beyond, in Boston, where most charters fit the “high expectations, high support” model.
Crucially, the researchers took several steps to make sure the findings were real. They compared lottery winners with losers, controlling for the fact that families who applied for the lotteries were different from families who didn’t. They also counted as charter students all those who enrolled, including any who later left.
When you talk to the professors about their findings, you hear a degree of excitement that’s uncommon for academic researchers. “Relative to other things that social scientists and education policy people have tried to boost performance — class sizes, tracking, new buildings — these schools are producing spectacular gains,” said Joshua Angrist, an M.I.T. professor.

For the full commentary, see:
Leonhardt, David. “Schools That Work.” The New York Times, SundayReview Section (Sun., NOV. 6, 2016): 2.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date NOV. 4, 2016.)

The “latest batch of evidence” mentioned above, includes:
Angrist, Joshua D., Sarah R. Cohodes, Susan M. Dynarski, Parag A. Pathak, and Christopher R. Walters. “Stand and Deliver: Effects of Boston’s Charter High Schools on College Preparation, Entry, and Choice.” Journal of Labor Economics 34, no. 2 (April 2016): 275-318.

“Thank You, Industrialization” (Thank YOU, Hans Rosling)

The TED talk embedded above, is one of my favorites. I sometimes show an abbreviated version to my Economics of Technology seminar.

(p. B8) Hans Rosling, a Swedish doctor who transformed himself into a pop-star statistician by converting dry numbers into dynamic graphics that challenged preconceptions about global health and gloomy prospects for population growth, died on Tuesday in Uppsala, Sweden. He was 68.

The cause was pancreatic cancer, according to Gapminder, a foundation he established to generate and disseminate demystified data using images.
. . .
Brandishing his bubble chart graphics during TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) Talks, Dr. Rosling often capsulized the macroeconomics of energy and the environment in a favorite anecdote about the day a washing machine was delivered to his family’s cold-water flat.
“My mother explained the magic with this machine the very, very first day,” he recalled. “She said: ‘Now Hans, we have loaded the laundry. The machine will make the work. And now we can go to the library.’ Because this is the magic: You load the laundry, and what do you get out of the machine? You get books out of the machines, children’s books. And Mother got time to read to me.”
“Thank you, industrialization,” Dr. Rosling said. “Thank you, steel mill. And thank you, chemical processing industry that gave us time to read books.”

For the full obituary, see:
SAM ROBERTS. “Hans Rosling, Swedish Doctor, Teacher and Pop-Star Statistician, Dies at 68.” The New York Times (Fri., FEB. 10, 2017): B8.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the obituary has the date FEB. 9, 2017, and has the title “Hans Rosling, Swedish Doctor and Pop-Star Statistician, Dies at 68.”)

“More Women in Their 60s and 70s” Work in Fulfilling Jobs

(p. 1) Kay Abramowitz has been working, with a few breaks, since she was 14. Now 76, she is a partner in a law firm in Portland, Ore. — with no intention of stopping anytime soon. “Retirement or death is always on the horizon, but I have no plans,” she said. “I’m actually having way too much fun.”
The arc of women’s working lives is changing — reaching higher levels when they’re younger and stretching out much longer — according to two new analyses of census, earnings and retirement data that provide the most comprehensive look yet at women’s career paths.
. . .
Most striking, women have become significantly more likely to work into their 60s and even 70s, often full time, according to the analyses. And many of these women report that they do it because they enjoy it.
. . .
Nearly 30 percent of women 65 to 69 are working, up from 15 percent in the late 1980s, one of the analyses, by the Harvard economists Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz, found. Eighteen per-(p. 4)cent of women 70 to 74 work, up from 8 percent.
. . .
Of those still working, Ms. Goldin said, “They’re in occupations in which they really have an identity.” She added, “Women have more education, they’re in jobs that are more fulfilling, and they stay with them.” (Ms. Goldin happens to be an example of the phenomenon, as a 70-year-old professor and researcher.)

For the full story, see:
Claire Cain Miller. “With More Women Fulfilled by Work, Retirement Has to Wait.” The New York Times, First Section (Sun., FEB. 12, 2017): 1 & 4.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the article has the date FEB. 11, 2017, and has the title “More Women in Their 60s and 70s Are Having ‘Way Too Much Fun’ to Retire.”)

The paper by Goldin and Katz, mentioned above, is:
Goldin, Claudia, and Lawrence F. Katz. “Women Working Longer: Facts and Some Explanations.” NBER Working Paper #22607. National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc., Sept. 2016.

Jewish Medical Inventor Invested in Human Capital Because That “Could Never Be Taken from Me”

Louis Sokoloff’s son Kenneth authored, or co-authored, important papers on how patents aided invention in the 1800s.

(p. A21) Dr. Louis Sokoloff, who pioneered the PET scan technique for measuring human brain function and diagnosing disorders, died on July 30 [2015] in Washington.
. . .
. . . he leapt at the opportunity when he won a scholarship to the University of Pennsylvania, guided by his grandfather’s advice.
“He advised me to choose a profession, any one,” he wrote, “in which all my significant possessions would reside in my mind because, being Jewish, sooner or later I would be persecuted and I would lose all my material possessions; what was contained in my mind, however, could never be taken from me and would accompany me everywhere to be used again.”
. . .
Dr. Sokoloff’s wife, the former Betty Kaiser, died in 2003, and his son, Kenneth, an economic historian, died in 2007.

For the full obituary, see:
SAM ROBERTS. “Louis Sokoloff, Pioneer of PET Scan, Dies at 93.” The New York Times (Thurs., AUG. 6, 2015): A21.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the obituary has the date AUG. 5, 2015.)

Students Learn Less, and Score Worse, When Hot

(p. 11) A clever new working paper by Jisung Park, a Ph.D. student in economics at Harvard, compared the performances of New York City students on 4.6 million exams with the day’s temperature. He found that students taking a New York State Regents exam on a 90-degree day have a 12 percent greater chance of failing than when the temperature is 72 degrees.
The Regents exams help determine whether a student graduates and goes to college, and Park finds that when a student has the bad luck to have Regents exams fall on very hot days, he or she is slightly less likely to graduate on time.
Likewise, Park finds that when a school year has an unusual number of hot days, students do worse at the end of the year on their Regents exams, presumably because they’ve learned less. A school year with five extra days above 80 degrees leads students to perform significantly worse on Regents exams.
The New York City students in Park’s study do poorly on hot days even though the majority of city schools are air-conditioned (perhaps in part because the air-conditioning often barely works).

For the full commentary, see:
Kristof, Nicholas. “Temperatures Rise, and We’re Cooked.” The New York Times, SundayReview Section (Sun., SEPT. 11, 2016): 11.
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date SEPT. 10, 2016.)

The working paper by Jisung Park on the effects of heat, is:
Park, Jisung. “Heat Stress and Human Capital Production.” Harvard University, 2016.

Udacity Entrepreneur Counters Creeping Credentialism

(p. B2) Udacity, an online learning start-up founded by a pioneer of self-driving cars, is finally taking the wraps off a job trial program it has worked on for the last year with 80 small companies.
The program, called Blitz, provides what is essentially a brief contract assignment, much like an internship. Employers tell Udacity the skills they need, and Udacity suggests a single candidate or a few. For the contract assignment, which usually lasts about three months, Udacity takes a fee worth 10 to 20 percent of the worker’s salary. If the person is then hired, Udacity does not collect any other fees, such as a finder’s fee.
For small start-ups, a hiring decision that goes bad can be a time-consuming, costly distraction. “This lets companies ease their way into hiring without the hurdle of making a commitment upfront,” said Sebastian Thrun, co-founder and chairman of Udacity.
. . .
Mr. Thrun, a former Stanford professor and Google engineer who led the company’s effort in self-driving cars, said he was also trying to nudge the tech industry’s hiring beyond its elite-college bias.
“For every Stanford graduate, there are hundreds of people without that kind of pedigree who can do just as well,” he said.

For the full story, see:
STEVE LOHR. “Udacity, an Education Start-Up, Offers Tech Job Tryouts.” The New York Times (Fri., NOV. 18, 2016): B2.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date NOV. 17, 2016, and has the title “Udacity, an Online Learning Start-Up, Offers Tech Job Trials.”)

Uncredentialed Loner Saved Lives with Respirator Invention

(p. B9) When the fraternity of inventors celebrate the geniuses who came up with super glue, kitty litter and the cellphone, they sometimes talk about Dr. Bird, an American original who began tinkering with gizmos concocted out of strawberry-shortcake tins and doorknobs and eventually developed four generations of cardiopulmonary devices that came to be widely used in homes and hospitals.
. . .
Dr. Bird was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1995 for developing the first low-cost, mass-produced pediatric respirator, known as the Baby Bird, which has been credited by medical experts with significantly reducing the mortality rates of infants with respiratory problems.
The device, he said, saved two Idaho neighbor boys born with breathing distress. Among those aided by his inventions was his first wife, Mary, who learned she had pulmonary emphysema in 1964; his respirators, including one that used percussion to loosen secretions in her lungs, helped prolong her life until 1986.
Dr. Bird, who received the Presidential Citizens Medal from George W. Bush in 2008 and the National Medal of Technology and Innovation from President Obama in 2009, lived a self-contained but busy life on a remote, 300-acre compound on Lake Pend Oreille, surrounded by majestic mountains and forests 50 miles from the Canadian border.
On the estate was his home; the headquarters of his Percussionaire Corporation, with dozens of employees who develop and market his inventions; a working farm that sustained all the residents; an airfield and hangars for his scores of restored vintage airplanes, seaplanes, helicopters, cars and motorcycles; and the Bird Aviation Museum and Invention Center, which he opened in 2007.
. . .
His first prototype, cobbled together from shortcake tins and a doorknob in 1953, was revised often and tested on volunteer patients with limited success. But in 1958, he introduced the Bird Universal Medical Respirator, a green box that reliably assisted breathing and sold widely to patients and hospitals. He later developed improved versions, as well as his Baby Bird ventilator.
Much of Dr. Bird’s formal higher education came after his successful inventions. His curriculum vitae includes a doctorate in aeronautics in 1977 from Northrop University in Inglewood, and a medical degree in 1979 from the Pontifical Catholic University of Campinas in Brazil.

For the full obituary, see:
ROBERT D. McFADDEN. “Forrest M. Bird, Inventor of Respirators, Dies at 94.” The New York Times (Tues., AUG. 4, 2015): B9.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the obituary has the date AUG. 3, 2015, and has the title “Dr. Forrest Bird, Inventor of Medical Respirators and Ventilators, Dies at 94.”)

Many Great Inventors Grew Up Poor and Had Little Education

(p. A13) Mr. Baker is good at pointing out the unanticipated consequences that arose from some inventions: Richard Jordon Gatling, inventor of the Gatling gun, a fearsome instrument of battlefield butchery still in use in some forms today, believed that his contribution would save lives–depending on which side of the gun you were on–because one man operating the weapon would reduce the need for other soldiers. The inventor who created television, Philo Farnsworth, believed that his device could bring about world peace. “If we were able to see people in other countries and learn about our differences, why would there be any misunderstandings?” he wrote. “War would be a thing of the past.” And you wouldn’t need the Gatling gun.
Like Farnsworth, many of the inventors in “America the Ingenious” came from impoverished upbringings and had little formal education. Walter Hunt, creator of the safety pin, was educated in a one-room schoolhouse but went on to invent scores of other items, including a device that allowed circus performers to walk upside-down on ceilings. Elisha Graves Otis, of Otis elevator fame, was a high-school dropout who, according to his son, Charles, “needed no assistance, asked no advice, consulted with no one, and never made much use of pen or pencil.” Of the innovators who undertook world-changing engineering feats, it is remarkable how often they brought them in under budget and ahead of schedule, among them the Golden Gate Bridge, Hoover Dam and New York’s Hudson and East River railroad tunnels.

For the full review, see:
PATRICK COOKE. “BOOKSHELF; The Character of Our Country; Copper-riveted jeans, the first oil rig, running shoes, dry cleaning and the 23-story-high clipper ship–as American as apple pie.” The Wall Street Journal (Sat., Oct. 5, 2016): A13.
(Note: the online version of the review has the date Oct. 4, 2016.)

The book under review, is:
Baker, Kevin. America the Ingenious: How a Nation of Dreamers, Immigrants, and Tinkerers Changed the World. New York: Artisan, 2016.