Education – Page 25 – artdiamondblog.com

When Labor Markets Are Flexible, Workers Need Not Fear New Technology

(p. 6) Driverless vehicles and drone aircraft are no longer science fiction, and over time, they may eliminate millions of transportation jobs. Many other examples of automatable jobs are discussed in “The Second Machine Age,” a book by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, and in my own book, “Average Is Over.” The upshot is that machines are often filling in for our smarts, not just for our brawn — and this trend is likely to grow.
How afraid should workers be of these new technologies? There is reason to be skeptical of the assumption that machines will leave humanity without jobs. After all, history has seen many waves of innovation and automation, and yet as recently as 2000, the rate of unemployment was a mere 4 percent. There are unlimited human wants, so there is always more work to be done. The economic theory of comparative advantage suggests that even unskilled workers can gain from selling their services, thereby liberating the more skilled workers for more productive tasks.
. . .
Labor markets just aren’t as flexible these days for workers, especially for men at the bottom end of the skills distribution.
. . .
Across the economy, a college degree is often demanded where a high school degree used to suffice.
. . .
The law is yet another source of labor market inflexibility: The number of jobs covered by occupational licensing continues to rise and is almost one-third of the work force. We don’t need such laws for, say, barbers or interior designers, although they are commonly on the books.
. . .
Many . . . labor market problems were brought on by the financial crisis and the collapse of market demand. But it would be a mistake to place all the blame on the business cycle. Before the crisis, for example, business executives and owners didn’t always know who their worst workers were, or didn’t want to engage in the disruptive act of rooting out and firing them. So long as sales were brisk, it was easier to let matters lie. But when money ran out, many businesses had to make the tough decisions — and the axes fell. The financial crisis thus accelerated what would have been a much slower process.
Subsequently, some would-be employers seem to have discriminated against workers who were laid off in the crash. These judgments weren’t always fair, but that stigma isn’t easily overcome, because a lot of employers in fact had reason to identify and fire their less productive workers.

For the full commentary, see:
TYLER COWEN. “Economic View; Automation Alone Isn’t Killing Jobs.” The New York Times, SundayBusiness Section (Sun., APRIL 6, 2014): 6.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date APRIL 5, 2014.)

The Brynjolfsson and McAfee book mentioned is:
Brynjolfsson, Erik, and Andrew McAfee. The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2014.

The Cowen book that Cowen mentions is:
Cowen, Tyler. Average Is Over: Powering America Beyond the Age of the Great Stagnation. New York: Dutton Adult, 2013.

Fair Use Doctrine Allows Copying for Educational Purposes

(p. 23) I am a public-school teacher with a limited budget for supplies. Is it unethical to illegally download copyrighted instructional materials for use in my class? BEN L., BROOKLYN
It is not. In fact, it’s sometimes not even illegal. In 1976, Congress created copyright exceptions for educational purposes. Copyright law allows “face-to-face” exhibition and presentation of a copyrighted work, assuming the purpose is academic. There is also the doctrine of fair use, which states that copies “for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship or research, is not an infringement of copyright.”
Now, it’s worth acknowledging that these guidelines were implemented before downloading a textbook was even possible. And even in an educational setting, using an entire copyrighted work, and thereby diminishing its market potential, might constitute a violation of fair use. But in my opinion, the principles are the same, even if you do violate copyright law: If your sole motive for downloading material is educational (and there is no free or low-cost equivalent that serves your purposes equally well), there should be no problem.

For the full commentary, see:
Chuck Klosterman. “THE ETHICIST; Piracy 101.” The New York Times Magazine (Sun., MARCH 30, 2014): 23.
(Note: italics and bold in original.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date MARCH 28, 2014.)

Television Improved Test Scores

“Economist Matthew Gentzkow found media slant to be a function of audience preference.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the WSJ article quoted and cited below.

(p. A2) An economist known for pioneering work on slanted coverage in the news media won the John Bates Clark Medal, one of the profession’s most prestigious honors.

Matthew Gentzkow, a professor at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, on Thursday was awarded the Clark medal by the American Economic Association, which every year honors the nation’s most promising economist under age 40.
. . .
A big theme in Mr. Gentzkow’s work is finding innovative ways to tackle questions that expand economists’ tool kits.
. . . , in 2008, he and Mr. Shapiro examined the fact that different parts of the U.S. got access to television at different times to gauge TV’s effects on high-school students in the 1960s.
The economists found that children who lived in cities that gave them more exposure to TV in early childhood performed better on tests than those with less exposure. The work also suggested TV helped American children in non-English-speaking households do better in school.

For the full story, see:
NEIL SHAH. “Economist Honored for Work on Media Slant.” The Wall Street Journal (Fri., April 18, 2014): 12.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date April 17, 2014.)

The Gentzkow and Shapiro paper on the effects of television, is:
Gentzkow, Matthew, and Jesse M. Shapiro. “Preschool Television Viewing and Adolescent Test Scores: Historical Evidence from the Coleman Study.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 123, no. 1 (Feb. 2008): 279-323.

Gary Becker’s Grandson Ponders Opportunity Cost of College

“Louis Harboe with his parents, Frederik Harboe and Catherine Becker. Louis, now 18, got his first freelance tech job at age 12. Last year, he attended the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. 1) Ryan was headed to South by Southwest Interactive, the technology conference in Austin. There, he planned to talk up an app that he and a friend had built. Called Finish, it aimed to help people stop procrastinating, and was just off its high in the No. 1 spot in the productivity category in the Apple App store.
. . .
Ryan is now 17, a senior at Boulder High. He is among the many entrepreneurially minded, technologically skilled teenagers who are striving to do serious business. Their work is enabled by low-cost or free tools to make apps or to design games, and they are encouraged by tech companies and grown-ups in the field who urge them, sometimes with financial support, to accelerate their transition into “the real world.” This surge in youthful innovation and entrepreneurship looks “unprecedented,” said Gary Becker, a University of Chicago economist and a Nobel laureate.
Dr. Becker is assessing this subject from a particularly intimate vantage point. His grandson, Louis Harboe, 18, is a friend of (p. 6) Ryan’s, a technological teenager who makes Ryan look like a late bloomer. Louis, pronounced Louie, got his first freelance gig at the age of 12, designing the interface for an iPhone game. At 16, Louis, who lives with his parents in Chicago, took a summer design internship at Square, an online and mobile payment company in San Francisco, earning $1,000 a week plus a $1,000 housing stipend.
Ryan and Louis, who met online in the informal network of young developers, are hanging out this weekend in Austin at South by Southwest. They are also waiting to hear from the colleges to which they applied last fall — part of the parallel universe they also live in, the traditional one with grades and SATs and teenage responsibilities. But unlike their peers for whom college is the singular focus, they have pondered whether to go at all. It’s a good kind of problem, the kind faced by great high-school athletes or child actors who can try going pro, along with all the risk that entails.
Dr. Becker, who studies microeconomics and education, has been telling his grandson: “Go to college. Go to college.” College, he says, is the clear step to economic success. “The evidence is overwhelming.”
But the “do it now” idea, evangelized on a digital pulpit, can feel more immediate than academic empiricism. “College is not a prerequisite,” said Jess Teutonico, who runs TEDxTeen, a version of the TED talks and conferences for youth, where Ryan spoke a few weeks ago. “These kids are motivated to take over the world,” she said. “They need it fast. They need it now.”

For the full story, see:
MATT RICHTEL. “The Youngest Technorati.” The New York Times, SundayBusiness Section (Fri., MARCH 9, 2014): 1 & 6.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date MARCH 8, 2014.)

Better Policies Explain Why Poland Prospers More than Ukraine

“Yaroslav Rushchyshyn, a garment manufacturer, wants to end penalties when his company reports a financial loss.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. B1) LVIV, Ukraine — Every kind of business in this restless pro-European stronghold near the border with Poland has an idea about how to make Ukraine like its more prosperous neighbor.

For Yaroslav Rushchyshyn, founder of a garment manufacturer, it is abolishing bizarre regulations that have had inspectors threatening fines for his handling of fabric remnants and for reporting financial losses.
For Andrew Pavliv, who runs a technology company, it is modernizing a rigid education system to help nurture entrepreneurs.
For Natalia Smutok, an executive at a company that makes color charts for paint and cosmetics, it meant starting an antibribery campaign, even though she is 36 weeks pregnant.
. . .
(p. B10) Victor Halchynsky, a former journalist who is now a spokesman for the Ukrainian unit of a Polish bank, said the divergence of the two countries was a source of frustration.
“It’s painful because we know it’s only happened because of policy,” he said, adding that while both countries had started the reform process, Poland “finished it.”
Ukraine has been held back by a number of policies. Steep energy subsidies have kept consumption high and left the country dependent on Russian gas, draining state coffers. Mr. Pavliv said the state university system, which he called “pure, pure Soviet,” was too inflexible to set up a training program for project managers, or to allow executives without specific certifications to teach courses. An agriculture industry once a Soviet breadbasket has been hurt by antiquated rules, including restrictions on land sales. Aggressive tax police have been used to shake down businesses.

For the full story, see:
DANNY HAKIM. “A Blueprint for Ukraine.” The New York Times (Fri., MARCH 14, 2014): B1 & B10.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date MARCH 13, 2014.)

“Andrew Pavliv, who runs a technology company, wants to help turn Lviv into a little Ukrainian Silicon Valley.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited above.

Khan’s Cousins Liked Him Better on YouTube than in Person

“Salman Khan at the offices of Khan Academy, which reaches more than 10 million users. Bill Gates invested in the school.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. D5) In 2008, Salman Khan, then a young hedge-fund analyst with a master’s in computer science from M.I.T., started the Khan Academy, offering free online courses mainly in the STEM subjects — science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Today the free electronic schoolhouse reaches more than 10 million users around the world, with more than 5,000 courses, and the approach has been widely admired and copied. I spoke with Mr. Khan, 37, for more than two hours, in person and by telephone. What follows is a condensed and edited version of our conversations.
. . .
Did you have background as a math educator?
No, though I’ve had a passion for math my whole life. It got me to M.I.T. and enabled me to get multiple degrees in math and engineering. Long story shortened: Nadia got through what she thought she couldn’t. Soon word got around the family that “free tutoring” was going on, and I found myself working on the phone with about 15 cousins.
To make it manageable, I hacked together a website where my cousins could go to practice problems and I could suggest things for them to work on. When I’d tutor them over the telephone, I’d use Yahoo Doodle, a program that was part of Yahoo Messenger, so they could visualize the calculations on their computers while we talked.
The Internet videos started two years later when a friend asked, “How are you scaling your lessons?” I said, “I’m not.” He said, “Why don’t you make some videos of the tutorials and post them on YouTube?” I said, “That’s a horrible idea. YouTube is for cats playing piano.”
Still, I gave it try. Soon my cousins said they liked me more on YouTube than in person. They were really saying that they found my explanations more valuable when they could have them on demand and where no one would judge them. And soon many people who were not my cousins were watching. By 2008, I was reaching tens of thousands every month.
Youtube is a search engine where producers can upload short videos at no cost. Would the Khan Academy have been possible without this technology?
No. Before YouTube, the cost of hosting streaming videos was incredibly expensive. I wouldn’t have been able to afford the server space for that much video — or traffic. That said, I was probably the 500th person to show up on YouTube with educational videos. Our success probably had to do with the technology being ready and the fact that my content resonated with users.

For the full interview, see:
CLAUDIA DREIFUS, interviewer. “A Conversation With Salman Khan; It All Started With a 12-Year-Old Cousin.” The New York Times (Tues., JAN. 28, 2014): D5.
(Note: ellipsis added; bold in original; the first two paragraphs, and the bold questions, are Claudia Dreifus; the other paragraphs are Salman Khan.)
(Note: the online version of the interview has the date JAN. 27, 2014.)

Fired Dissident Xia Yeliang Warns that Chinese Universities Do Not Value Academic Freedom

“Xia Yeliang in New Jersey. Professor Xia, whose firing by Peking University provoked an outcry, is joining the Cato Institute.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. A10) A Chinese dissident, dismissed from his job as an economics professor at Peking University after clashes with his government over liberalization, will become a visiting fellow at the Cato Institute on Monday, he said.

In an interview on Friday, the dissident, Xia Yeliang, warned that American universities should be careful about partnerships with Chinese universities. “They use the reputations of Western universities to cover their own scandals,” he said.
“Perhaps Western universities do not realize that Chinese universities do not have the basic value of academic freedom, and try to use Western universities to cover their bad side,” Professor Xia added.

For the full story, see:
TAMAR LEWIN. “Chinese Dissident Lands at Institute With a Caution to Colleges.” The New York Times (Mon., FEB. 10, 2014): A10.
(Note: the online version of the story has the date FEB. 9, 2014, and has the title “Chinese Dissident Lands at Cato Institute With a Caution to Colleges.”)

The Use of Note Cards to Structure Writing

(p. A21) I tell college students that by the time they sit down at the keyboard to write their essays, they should be at least 80 percent done. That’s because “writing” is mostly gathering and structuring ideas.
For what it’s worth, I structure geographically. I organize my notes into different piles on the rug in my living room. Each pile represents a different paragraph in my column. The piles can stretch on for 10 feet to 16 feet, even for a mere 806-word newspaper piece. When “writing,” I just pick up a pile, synthesize the notes into a paragraph, set them aside and move on to the next pile. If the piece isn’t working, I don’t try to repair; I start from scratch with the same topic but an entirely new structure.
The longtime New Yorker writer John McPhee wonderfully described his process in an essay just called “Structure.” For one long article, McPhee organized his notecards on a 32-square-foot piece of plywood. He also describes the common tension between chronology and theme (my advice: go with chronology). His structures are brilliant, but they far too complex for most of us. The key thing is he lets you see how a really fine writer thinks about the core problem of writing, which takes place before the actual writing.

For the full commentary, see:
DAVID BROOKS. “The Sidney Awards, Part 2.” The New York Times (Tues., December 31, 2013): A21. [National Edition]
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date December 30, 2013.)

The article praised by Brooks is:
McPhee, John. “Structure.” The New Yorker (Jan. 14, 2013): 46-55.

Malcolm Gladwell, on Harvard, Rings True to Debbie Sterling

Debbie Sterling, GoldieBlox entrepreneur. Source of photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. 2) Debbie Sterling is the founder and chief executive of GoldieBlox, a toy company dedicated to encouraging girls’ interest in engineering and construction.

READING I just started “David and Goliath,” by Malcolm Gladwell. He has some really interesting statistics about how at the top-tier universities like Stanford and Harvard, freshmen who go into engineering often fall out versus if those same students had gone to a second-tier school, they would have been in the top of their class and therefore would have stayed in. It really spoke to me because I was definitely one of those engineering students at Stanford who constantly felt like I was surrounded by geniuses. I was intimidated, but I stayed because I am just so stubborn.

For the full interview, see:
KATE MURPHY, interviewer. “DOWNLOAD; Debbie Sterling.” The New York Times, SundayReview Section (Sun., December 22, 2013): 2.
(Note: bold in original, indicating that what follows are the words of Debbie Sterling.)
(Note: the online version of the interview has the date December 21, 2013.)

Book that “spoke to” Sterling:
Gladwell, Malcolm. David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants. New York, NY: Little, Brown and Company, 2013.

Carnegie Objected to $2 a Year Fee to Use Private Library

(p. 44) The story of Andy Carnegie defeating the villainous adults played well in his Autobiography and the biographies that drew from it, but there is another side to the tale which we should not neglect. The Anderson Library was not a free public library, funded by the city, but a subscription library, which relied in great part on the support of its patrons.* Although “working boys” should, as he had argued, have been allowed to borrow books without paying the two-dollar subscription fee, Andy Carnegie, six months from his eighteenth birthday, was hardly a “working boy.” He held a man’s job and received a man’s pay of twenty-five dollars a month. Was it unreasonable for the librarians to ask him to contribute a two-dollar annual subscription fee to keep the library from having to close its doors for the third time in its young history?
Andy thought so. With a talent for cloaking self-interest in larger humanitarian concerns, he made a premature case for free public libraries.

Source:
Nasaw, David. Andrew Carnegie. New York: Penguin Press, 2006.
(Note: italics in original.)
(Note: the pagination of the hardback and paperback editions of Nasaw’s book are the same.)

Carnegie Attended a Private School Where Teacher Was an Entrepreneur

(p. 15) At the age of eight, Andra had begun attending school. Although he implies in his Autobiography that it had been his decision to put off school until then, eight, in fact, was the age at which most Scottish boys entered the classroom. There were numerous schools in Dunfermline in the early 1840s, thirty-three of them to be exact, almost half endowed or supported by the kirk (church) or the municipality. Andra was sent to one of the “adventure” schools, so called because they were started up and supported “entirely on the teachers’ own adventure.”

Source:
Nasaw, David. Andrew Carnegie. New York: Penguin Press, 2006.
(Note: italics in original.)
(Note: the pagination of the hardback and paperback editions of Nasaw’s book are the same.)