Category: Education

“We Liberals” Oppose Diversity of Ideas

(p. 11) We liberals are adept at pointing out the hypocrisies of Trump, but we should also address our own hypocrisy in terrain we govern, such as most universities: Too often, we embrace diversity of all kinds except for ideological. Repeated studies have found that about 10 percent of professors in the social sciences or the humanities are Republicans.
We champion tolerance, except for conservatives and evangelical Christians. We want to be inclusive of people who don’t look like us — so long as they think like us.
I fear that liberal outrage at Trump’s presidency will exacerbate the problem of liberal echo chambers, by creating a more hostile environment for conservatives and evangelicals. Already, the lack of ideological diversity on campuses is a disservice to the students and to liberalism itself, with liberalism collapsing on some campuses into self-parody.
. . .
Whatever our politics, inhabiting a bubble makes us more shrill. Cass Sunstein, a Harvard professor, conducted a fascinating study of how groupthink shapes federal judges when they are randomly assigned to three-judge panels.
When liberal judges happened to be temporarily put on a panel with other liberals, they usually swung leftward. Conversely, conservative judges usually moved rightward when randomly grouped with other conservatives.
It’s the judicial equivalent of a mob mentality. And if this happens to judges, imagine what happens to you and me.
Sunstein, a liberal and a Democrat who worked in the Obama administration, concluded that the best judicial decisions arose from divided panels, where judges had to confront counterarguments.
Yet universities are often the equivalent of three-judge liberal panels, and the traditional Democratic dominance has greatly increased since the mid-1990s — apparently because of a combination of discrimination and self-selection. Half of academics in some fields said in a survey that they would discriminate in hiring decisions against an evangelical.
The weakest argument against intellectual diversity is that conservatives or evangelicals have nothing to add to the conversation. “The idea that conservative ideas are dumb is so preposterous that you have to live in an echo chamber to think of it,” Sunstein told me..

For the full commentary, see:
Kristof, Nicholas. “The Dangers of Echo Chambers on Campus.” The New York Times, SundayReview Section (Sun., DEC. 11, 2016): 11.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date DEC. 10, 2016.)

Cass Sunstein’s research on the effect of political orientation on federal judges’ decisions, mentioned above, was most fully reported in:
Sunstein, Cass R., David Schkade, Lisa M. Ellman, and Andres Sawicki. Are Judges Political?: An Empirical Analysis of the Federal Judiciary. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2006.

Code Schools Provide Intense 12 Week Training, and Jobs

(p. B1) Across the U.S., change is coming for the ecosystem of employers, educational institutions and job-seekers who confront the increasingly software-driven nature of work. A potent combination–a yawning skills gap, stagnant middle-class wages and diminished career prospects for millennials–is bringing about a rapid shift (p. B4) in the labor market for coders and other technical professionals.
Riding into the breach are “code schools,” a kind of vocational training that rams students through intense 12-week crash courses in precisely the software-development skills employers need.

For the full commentary, see:
Christopher Mims. “Code-School Boot Camps Offer Fast Track to Jobs.” The Wall Street Journal (Mon., Feb. 27, 2017): B1 & B4.
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date Feb. 26, 2017, and has the title “A New Kind of Jobs Program for Middle America.”)

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.”)