Education – Page 28 – artdiamondblog.com

Debating Grammar: “Think Different” or “Think Differently”

(p. 329) They debated the grammatical issue: If “different” was supposed to modify the verb “think,” it should be an adverb, as in “think dif-(p. 330)ferently.” But Jobs insisted that he wanted “different” to be used as a noun, as in “think victory” or “think beauty.” Also, it echoed colloquial use, as in “think big.” Jobs later explained, “We discussed whether it was correct before we ran it. It’s grammatical, if you think about what we’re trying to say. It’s not think the same, it’s think different. Think a little different, think a lot different, think different. ‘Think differently’ wouldn’t hit the meaning for me.”

Source:
Isaacson, Walter. Steve Jobs. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011.

Students Protest (and Toss) Federally Mandated “Healthy” (“Gross”) Food

“Lunch hour at Middle School 104 in Manhattan, where, on Friday, several seventh graders pronounced vegetables “gross.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. A1) Outside Pittsburgh, they are proclaiming a strike, taking to Twitter and Facebook to spread the word. In a village near Milwaukee, hundreds staged a boycott. In a small farming and ranching community in western Kansas, they have produced a parody video. And in Parsippany, N.J., the protest is six days old and counting.

They are high school students, and their complaint is about lunch — healthier, smaller and more expensive than ever.
The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, which required public schools to follow new nutritional guidelines this academic year to receive extra federal lunch aid, has created a nationwide version of the age-old parental challenge: persuading children to eat what is good for them.
Because the lunches must now include fruits and vegetables, those who clamor for more cheese-laden nachos may find string beans and a peach cup instead. Because of limits on fat and sodium, some of those who crave French fries get baked sweet-potato wedges. Because of calorie restrictions, meat and carbohydrate portions are smaller. Gone is 2-percent chocolate milk, replaced by skim.
“Before, there was no taste and no flavor,” said Malik Barrows, a senior at Automotive High School in Brooklyn, who likes fruit but said his classmates threw away their mandatory helpings on the cafeteria floor. “Now there’s no taste, no flavor and it’s healthy, which makes it taste even worse.”
Students organized lunch strikes in a suburb of Pittsburgh, where in late August the hashtag “brownbagginit” was trending on Twitter, and outside Milwaukee, where the Mukwonago High School principal, Shawn McNulty, said participation in the lunch program had fallen 70 percent.
. . .
(p. A3) In Sharon Springs, Kan., lunch protesters at Wallace County High School posted a video on YouTube, “We Are Hungry”; in it, students faint in the hallways and during physical education class, acting as if they had been done in by meager helpings of potato puff casserole and chicken nuggets. To the tune of the song “We Are Young” by Fun, one student on the video sings, “My friends are at the corner store, getting junk so they don’t waste away.”
Since it was uploaded three weeks ago, “We Are Hungry” has had nearly 900,000 views.
Callahan Grund, a junior who stars in the video, said, “My opinion as a young farmer and rancher is that we produced this protein and it’s not being used to its full advantage.” He wakes up early every morning to do chores, stays after school for two hours of football practice and returns home for another round of chores. If it were not for the lunches his mother now packs him, he said, he would be hungry again just two hours after lunch.
In New York City, where school officials introduced whole-wheat breads, low-fat milk and other changes several years ago, the most noticeable change this year is the fruit and vegetable requirement, which has resulted in some waste, according to Eric Goldstein, the Education Department official who oversees food services. It is not hard to see why. At Middle School 104 in Gramercy Park on Friday, several seventh graders pronounced vegetables “gross.”
“I just throw them out,” said Danielson Gutierrez, 12, carrying a slice of pizza, which he had liberally sprinkled with seasonings, and a pear. He also offered his opinion on fruit: “I throw them out, too. I only like apples.”

For the full story, see:
VIVIAN YEE. “No Appetite for Good-for-You School Lunches.” The New York Times (Sat., October 6, 2012): A1 & A3.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the article has the date October 5, 2012.)

“Dissatisfied with healthier school lunches, some Kansas students made a video parody.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited above.

Internet Posting May Be Replacing Peer Reviewed Publishing

The article quoted below provides additional signs that institutions of knowledge production and dissemination may be changing in important ways. (Wikipedia is another, even bigger, sign.)

(p. 635) Over the past decade, there has been a decline in the fraction of papers in top economics journals written by economists from the highest-ranked economics departments. This paper documents this fact and uses additional data on publications and citations to assess various potential explanations. Several observations are consistent with the hypothesis that the Internet improves the ability of high-profile authors to disseminate their research without going through the traditional peer-review process.

Source:
Ellison, Glenn. “Is Peer Review in Decline?” Economic Inquiry 49, no. 3 (July 2011): 635-57.

With Scorned Ideas, and Without College, Inventor and Entrepreneur “Ovshinsky Prevailed”

“Stanford R. Ovshinsky and Iris M. Ovshinsky founded Energy Conversion Laboratories in 1960.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT obituary quoted and cited below.

(p. A23) Stanford R. Ovshinsky, an iconoclastic, largely self-taught and commercially successful scientist who invented the nickel-metal hydride battery and contributed to the development of a host of devices, including solar energy panels, flat-panel displays and rewritable compact discs, died on Wednesday [October 17, 2012] at his home in Bloomfield Hills, Mich. He was 89.
. . .
His ideas drew only scorn and skepticism at first. He was an unknown inventor with unconventional ideas, a man without a college education who made his living designing automation equipment for the automobile industry in Detroit, far from the hotbeds of electronics research like Silicon Valley and Boston.
But Mr. Ovshinsky prevailed. Industry eventually credited him for the principle that small quantities or thin films of amorphous materials exposed to a charge can instantly reorganize their structures into semicrystalline forms capable of carrying significant current.
. . .
In 1960, he and his second wife, the former Iris L. Miroy, founded Energy Conversion Laboratories in Rochester Hills, Mich., to develop practical products from the discovery. It was renamed Energy Conversion Devices four years later.
Energy Conversion Devices and its subsidiaries, spinoff companies and licensees began translating Mr. Ovshinsky’s insights into mechanical, electronic and energy devices, among them solar-powered calculators. His nickel-metal battery is used to power hybrid cars and portable electronics, among other things.
He holds patents relating to rewritable optical discs, flat-panel displays and electronic-memory technology. His thin-film solar cells are produced in sheets “by the mile,” as he once put it.
. . .
“His incredible curiosity and unbelievable ability to learn sets him apart,” Hellmut T. Fritzsche, a longtime friend and consultant, said in an interview in 2005.

For the full obituary, see:
BARNABY J. FEDER. “Stanford R. Ovshinsky Dies at 89, a Self-Taught Maverick in Electronics.” The New York Times (Fri., October 19, 2012): A23.
(Note: ellipses and bracketed date added.)
(Note: the online version of the article was dated October 18, 2012.)
(Note: in the first sentence of the print version, “hybrid” was used instead of the correct “hydride.”)

The Economics of Intercollegiate Athletics

Here is more evidence that the role of athletics in higher education should be reconsidered. Another useful discussion occurs in the book by Christensen and Eyring. An earlier entry on this blog is also relevant.

(p. 230) The Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics offers “College Sports 101: A Primer on Money, Athletics, and Higher Education in the 21st Century.” “In fact, the vast majority of athletics programs reap far less money from external sources than they need to function. Virtually all universities subsidize athletics departments through general fund allocations, student fees, and state appropriations, and the NCAA estimates in a given year that only 20 to 30 athletics programs actually generate enough external revenue to cover operating expenses. Institutional subsidies to athletics can exceed $11 million, according to data provided by the NCAA. With costs in athletics rising faster than in other areas of university operations, it is not clear how many institutions can continue to underwrite athletics at their current level . . . Rigorous studies of the subject, however, suggest that there is no significant institutional benefit to athletic success. . . . Indeed, donations to athletics departments may cannibalize contributions to academic programs. . . . There are two other myths to be dispelled. First, there is no correlation between spending more on athletics and winning more . . . Second, increased spending on coaches’ salaries has no significant relationship to success or increased revenue . . . October 2009, at 〈http://collegesports101.knightcommission.org〉.

Source:
Taylor, Timothy. “Recommendations for Further Reading.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 24, no. 2 (Spring 2010): 227-34.
(Note: ellipses in original.)

The Knight Commission report can be downloaded at:
Weiner, Jay. “College Sports 101: A Primer on Money, Athletics, and Higher Education in the 21st Century.” Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, 2009.

The Christensen and Eyring book is:
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.

Coase: “Firms Never Calculate Marginal Costs”

Source of YouTube video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ZAq06n79QIs#!

(p. 257) You can watch a 99 year-old Ronald Coase speaking in December 2009 for 25 minutes on the subjects of “Markets, Firms and Property Rights.” “One of the things that people don’t understand is that markets are creations. . . . In fact, it’s very difficult to imagine that firms act in the way that is described in the textbooks, where you maximize profits by equating marginal costs and marginal revenues. One of the reasons one can feel doubtful about this particular way of looking at things is that firms never calculate marginal costs . . . I think we ought to study directly how firms operate and develop our theory accordingly.” From the conference “Markets, Firms and Property Rights: A Celebration of the Research of Ronald Coase,” held at the University of Chicago Law School by the Information Economy Project at George Mason University School of Law. The webpage also includes video of seven panels of prominent speakers, along with PDF files of a dozen or so papers given at the conference. Available at 〈http://iep.gmu.edu/CoaseConference.php〉.

Source:
Taylor, Timothy. “Recommendations for Further Reading.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 24, no. 3 (Summer 2010): 251-58.
(Note: ellipses in original.)

Thiel Fellows Avoid Formal Education to Pursue Entrepreneurial Projects

“Eden Full, 20, tested her rotating solar panel in Kenya in 2010.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p.1) EDEN FULL should be back at Princeton by now. She should be hustling to class, hitting the books, acing tests. In short, she should be climbing that old-school ladder toward a coveted spot among America’s future elite.

She isn’t doing any of that. Instead, Ms. Full, as bright and poised and ambitious as the next Ivy Leaguer, has done something extraordinary for a Princetonian: she has dropped out.
It wasn’t the exorbitant cost of college. (Princeton, all told, runs nearly $55,000 a year.) She says she simply received a better offer — and, perhaps, a shot at a better education.
Ms. Full, 20, is part of one of the most unusual experiments in higher education today. It rewards smart young people for not going to college and, instead, diving into the real world of science, technology and business.
The idea isn’t nuts. After all, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs dropped out, and they did O.K.
Of course, their kind of success is rare, degree or no degree. Mr. Gates and Mr. Jobs changed the world. Ms. Full wants to, as well, and she’s in a hurry. She has built a low-cost solar panel and is starting to test it in Africa.
“I was antsy to get out into the world and execute on my ideas,” she says.
At a time when the value of a college degree is being called into question, and when job prospects for many new graduates are grimmer than they’ve been in years, perhaps it’s no surprise to see a not-back-to-school movement spring up. What is surprising is where it’s springing up, and who’s behind it.
The push, which is luring a handful of select students away from the likes of Princeton, Harvard and M.I.T., is the brainchild of Peter A. Thiel, 44, a billionaire and freethinker with a remarkable record in Sil-(p. 7)icon Valley. Back in 1998, during the dot-com boom, Mr. Thiel gambled on a company that eventually became PayPal, the giant of online payments. More recently, he got in early on a little start-up called Facebook.
Since 2010, he has been bankrolling people under the age of 20 who want to find the next big thing — provided that they don’t look for it in a college classroom. His offer is this: $50,000 a year for two years, few questions asked. Just no college, unless a class is helpful for their Thiel projects.
. . .
Ms. Full is friends with another Thiel fellow, Laura Deming, 18. Ms. Deming is clearly brilliant. When she was 12, her family moved to San Francisco from New Zealand so she could work with Cynthia Kenyon, a molecular biologist who studies aging. When Ms. Deming was 14, the family moved again, this time to the Boston area, so she could study at M.I.T.
“Families of Olympic-caliber athletes make these kinds of sacrifices all the time,” says Tabitha Deming, Laura’s mother. “When we lived nearby in Boston, we were lucky to see her once a month. She never came home for weekends.”
John Deming, Laura’s father, graduated from Brandeis University at the age of 35 but says he disdains formal education at every level. His daughter was home-schooled.
“I can’t think of a worse environment than school if you want your kids to learn how to make decisions, manage risk and take responsibility for their choices,” Mr. Deming, an investor, wrote in an e-mail. “Rather than sending them to school, turn your kids loose on the world. Introduce them to the rigors of reality, the most important of which is earning your own way.” He added, “I detest American so-called ‘education.’ ”
His daughter’s quest to slow aging was spurred by her maternal grandmother, Bertie Deming, 85, who began having neuromuscular problems a decade ago. Laura, a first-year fellow, now spends her days combing medical journals, seeking a handful of researchers worth venture capital funding, which is a continuation of her earlier work.
“I’m looking for therapies that target aging damage and slow or reverse it,” she says. “I’ve already spent six years on this stuff. So far I’ve found only a few companies, two or three I’m really bullish on.”

For the full story, see:
CAITLIN KELLY. “Drop Out, Dive In, Start Up..” The New York Times, SundayBusiness (Sun., September 16, 2012): 1 & 7.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the article is dated September 15, 2012, and had he title “Forgoing College to Pursue Dreams.”)

“Laura Deming, left, at age 6 with her grandmother, whose neuromuscular problems have now inspired Laura to work on anti-aging technology.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited above.

Instead of Fixing “Inadequate Schools,” Adderall Is Prescribed to “Struggling” Students

“Amanda Rocafort and her son Quintn in Woodstock, Ga. Quintn takes the medication Risperdal.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. A1) CANTON, Ga. — When Dr. Michael Anderson hears about his low-income patients struggling in elementary school, he usually gives them a taste of some powerful medicine: Adderall.

The pills boost focus and impulse control in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Although A.D.H.D is the diagnosis Dr. Anderson makes, he calls the disorder “made up” and “an excuse” to prescribe the pills to treat what he considers the children’s true ill — poor academic performance in inadequate schools.

For the full story, see:
ALAN SCHWARZ. “Attention Disorder or Not, Pills to Help in School.” The New York Times (Tues., October 9, 2012): A1 & A18.

Abigail Fisher “Devastated” by “Holistic Review”

“Abigail Fisher, 22, at the Supreme Court last month. “I probably would have gotten a better job offer had I gone to U.T.,” Ms. Fisher said.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. A1) WASHINGTON — Abigail Fisher is a slight young woman with strawberry blond hair, a smile that needs little prompting, a determined manner and a good academic record. She played soccer in high school, and she is an accomplished cellist.

But the university she had her heart set on, the one her father and sister had attended, rejected her. “I was devastated,” she said, in her first news interview since she was turned down by the University of Texas at Austin four years ago.
Ms. Fisher, 22, who is white and recently graduated from Louisiana State University, says that her race was held against her, and the Supreme Court is to hear her case on Wednesday, bringing new attention to the combustible issue of the constitutionality of racial preferences in admissions decisions by public universities.
“I’m hoping,” she said, “that they’ll completely take race out of the issue in terms of admissions and that everyone will be able to get into any school that they want no matter what race they are but solely based on their merit and if they work hard for it.”
. . .
(p. A17) The majority opinion in the Grutter case, written by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, rejected the use of racial quotas in admissions decisions but said that race could be used as one factor among many, as part of a “holistic review.” Justice O’Connor retired in 2006, and her replacement by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. may open the way for a ruling cutting back on such race-conscious admissions policies, or eliminating them.
. . .
She said she was trying to come to terms with her role in a case that could reshape American higher education. Asked if she found it interesting or exciting or scary, she said, “All of the above.”
But she did not hesitate to say how she would run an admission system. “I don’t think,” she said, “that we even need to have a race box on the application.”

For the full story, see:
ADAM LIPTAK. “Race and College Admissions, Facing a New Test by Justices.” The New York Times (Tues., October 9, 2012): A1 & A17.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date October 8, 2012.)

The Entrepreneurial Resilience of a Business School Dean

“Mark Zupan is the dean of the Simon School of Business at the University of Rochester. Baggage carts once were his salvation.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. B4) Once I landed in Boston without my wallet or any money, I was able to put into practice what I learned from watching the wonderful movie “The Terminal” featuring Tom Hanks.

Like the character he portrayed, Viktor Navorski, I wandered through the airport and rounded up and returned six baggage carts. I was refunded enough change to be able to afford the subway fare to get to my first meeting. Then, I was able to borrow enough cash from the amused alum I was meeting with to get through the rest of the day and back home to Rochester that night after my assistant faxed a copy of my driver’s license and passport to me.
I have to admit I felt a little idiotic rounding up the carts, but it was one of my finest entrepreneurial ventures.

For the full story, see:
MARK ZUPAN. “FREQUENT FLIER; How to Cope at the Airport Without a Wallet.” The New York Times (Tues., September 4, 2012): B4.
(Note: the online version of the article is dated September 3, 2012.)

School Competition Benefits Students

(p. 150) We study competition between two publicly funded school systems in Ontario, Canada: one that is open to all students, and one that is restricted to children of Catholic backgrounds. A simple model of competition between the competing systems predicts greater effort by school managers in areas with more Catholic families who are willing to switch systems. Consistent with this insight, we find significant effects of competitive pressure on test score gains between third and sixth grade. Our estimates imply that extending competition to all students would raise average test scores in sixth grade by 6 percent to 8 percent of a standard deviation.

For the full article, from which the above abstract is quoted, see:
Card, David, Martin D. Dooley, and A. Abigail Payne. “School Competition and Efficiency with Publicly Funded Catholic Schools.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 2, no. 4 (Oct. 2010): 150-76.