Creating Right Incentives
Today was serendipitous in a number of ways. For starters, I got tired of staring at the smarmy host on our local Fox affiliate, and hit the channel button a few times, only to land on BBC World Service. They were talking about Lincoln Electric, a manufacturers of welding equipment. Later in the day, I sat down and sifted through a stack of sales ads, and almost missed it - an article in the Sunday AJC jobs section this weekend that discussed high value workers and how to keep us them engaged.
Read More >>RIP: PT Cruiser, 1999-2010
I remember standing just out from under the rain in the covered lot of the Emerald Club. An hour earlier I had landed at Lambert-St Louis International. I had my choice of vehicles before me, and the only two choices I saw were a couple of oddly colored minivans and the Chrysler PT Cruiser. It was a choice I never want to have to make. The minivans were roomy and would be more comfortable for a 6' 2" man with a large frame. But then, a mini-van doesn't exactly scream "power" or "handling". It screams "I've got 4 kids who need go get to soccer safely." Then there is the PT Cruiser, which along with the Mazda Miata and the Geo Metro are cars that I can only admire from a distance, because after I get one leg in, there's no more room.
Read More >>Tenure: Should Teachers Get Fired Like Everyone Else?
Dr. Steven Levitt, who coauthored the hit book Freakonomics, has an article at the New York Time's Freakonomics blog today about tenure. Specifically, he argues for abolishing it, citing how it distorts the incentives for a teachers. The notion of tenure has been eviscerated in recent years as nothing more than a golden parachute that allows bad teachers unlimited license to wreak havoc on the educational system.
With all due deference to the good doctor (whom I am still waiting on to autograph my copy of Freakonomics), I think he's making a fundamental attribution error. Nobody goes into teaching because of incentives, least of all job-related incentives. A good number of the teachers I know would do it for free if there wasn't the small issue of starving to death involved. Consider this: why do Supreme Court Justices have lifetime appointments to the bench? Anyone who has made a decent grade in a civics class knows that the founders wanted the Justices to be insulated from the passions of the electorate. Tenure does the same thing for teachers who face rapidly shifting standards and performance metrics. If we started firing teachers every time a new metric is instituted, we would lose those quality educators who have actually stood the test of time.
No CommentsPolitickin’ – Fayette Style
Since I'm running for school board, someone sent me a link to this conflagration occurring next door in Fayette County. I'll boil the story down for you: Janet Smola apparently started a rumor that her arche nemesis on the schoolboard, Dr. Robert Todd, favored a plan to redistrict the High Grove sub division so that their students would go to Whitewater High School instead of Starrs Mill High school. The intention behind the rumor is to allegedly send voters running to Todd's opponent in the November elections - Charlie Cave. The rumor was allegedly spread in an email authored by Peachtree City Attorney and High Grove resident Doug Warner. The redistricting rumor is categorically denied by Todd as a "bold faced lie".
Whew... glad I'm in Coweta.
No CommentsThe Sorry State of Higher Education
Stephen Spruiell over at the National Review writes at length about the recent move by the Obama administration to clamp down on private universities. Note that they use the code word "for profit" in place of private. If success has become a dirty word, then that would explain the "ivory towers" recent hardships in overseas markets. I got to hear about the difficulties that some public universities are having from NPR on the way home from work today. Apparently, the University of Michigan chose to spend public monies on building new campuses... in Dubai. Having overstretched their budgets by capitalizing foreign campuses, they were unable to sustain themselves through the growth period and are having to shut down those campuses. US students will have to pay the costs, and since they are now directly borrowing federal funds, it's really the American tax payer that's going to carry the burden.
Read More >>Gravitational Transformers
Of the four fundamental forces of nature, we have known about gravity the longest. It governs every action we take. It has predictable effects which bind us to the surface of the planet. Our understanding of it makes everything from taking a sip of water to orbiting a satellite tricky. And yet, it's deceptively simple. Here on earth, two equations describe almost every action of gravity; the law of gravitation, and the ballistic formula. Yet, we know next to nothing about it. All the research has been directed towards weak-nuclear, strong-nuclear and electromagnetic forces. In fact, the most significant advance in the science of gravity occurred just over a week ago.
Read More >>No, Seriously, I am Running… for School Board
When my wife and I found out about the opportunity of having a charter school in Senoia, we were ecstatic. Our hopes were quickly dashed when the Coweta County School System filed suit to block the schools approval at the State level as well.
Read More >>Equipment Review: The SportLine SX
Over at my brother's page at the Triathlon Journey blog, he's begun to review equipment that he uses and share the pro's and con's. One item he's chosen to review is his Garmin 310XT. This is a fancy-schmancy heart-rate monitor plus GPS tracker. That's useful because when you collapse of a pulmonary embolism and die, and some random hiker finds your remains years later, they'll at least know that you did a 7-minute mile before you died.
Read More >>iOS 4.0… First Impressions
Obviously, it took a good long while to update my iPhone. It shouldn't have - one of my frustrations with iTunes for Windows is that it insists on backing up your phone on every sync, even if there is a fresh backups. I'm sure this seemed sensible to some programmer out there, but not for me. I personally wouldn't care if I had to wipe my iPhone and reinstall everything, but taking three hours to update software and firmware... not kosher.
Read More >>iOS 4.0 Installing… Eventually
I would not classify myself as an Apple Fanboy, but I certainly admire the company and the products they make. In an era where people are throwing around words like "innovate" and "two-point-oh", Apple sticks to the now thirty-year-old "Think Different" slogan. Other companies are crazy enough to make a logical appeal based on value added features and benefits. Boring. Apple sells you on an idea. That's why with less than 8% of the market, Apple has 98% brand recognition. Even people who prefer something else, can't afford Apple products or just don't get it... still like Apple.
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