Monthly Archives: February 2015

What is a Normal Amount of Sadness?

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Carol Graham posted some interesting data over at Brookings.

Before I dig in, one caveat: all of this data is based on surveys, which I find useful but always take with a grain of salt.

In my opinion, revealed behavior is much more useful data than that which comes from surveys.

All that being said, here’s the chart:

poverty stress

Reflections

1. The Physical Pain Numbers are Striking

~37% of people living in poverty report suffering from physical pain, while only ~16% of the rich report such ills.

There have been periods in my life when I’ve suffered from physical pain, and these periods were not  good. Physical pain affects everything from mood to ability to work to relationships.

I hope Obamacare and other such health interventions reduce these rates.

2. There’s Not Much Difference Between the Middle Class and the Rich

Nearly every category is within ~5% reporting rates across the middle class and the rich. Once you hit middle class levels, it appears that money can’t buy you reduced stress, anger, worry, pain, or sadness.

This might, depending on your views, lead you to believe that poverty reduction should be a greater policy focus than middle income stagnation.

3. Causation and Correlation Issues  

Particularly when it comes to something like physical pain, it could be that the source of the pain caused the poverty, and not that poverty is causing the pain.

4. What is Normal? What is Optimal?

Whenever I read data like this, I wonder: what is normal?

Over the course of humanity, what would average trend lines look like?

Humans are not designed to be happy machines.

At any point in time, some of his are going to be feeling stressed, angry, or sad.

If we optimized our environment, psychology, culture, etc. – what would optimal levels look like?

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On American Warfare

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I’m currently a Presidential Leadership Scholar.

Over the past two days, I’ve had the opportunity to hear Robert Gates speak, as well as many thoughtful presidential researchers. All of this has taken place at Mount Vernon, and there has been a focus on George Washington’s presidency.

It’s been quite stimulating, as well as useful to step out of the education bubble.

See below for some reflections on American warfare, of which I’m not an expert.

Also, none of the below should be mistaken as opinions of any of the speakers of the program.

1. George Washington relinquished twice. First, when he gave up being the head of the army after the revolutionary war. Second, when he stepped down after serving his second term as president. At either point, he had the opportunity to make a run for King of the United States of America, but he did not. This is a great contribution to our nation, and perhaps to future education leaders, especially future superintendents.

2. Robert Gates did not call on me during Q&A, but this would have been my question: from LBJ onward, what wars did we fight that we should not have fought; and, were there any wars we should have fought that we did not? My personal answer would have been numerous on the former (Vietnam; our excursions in South America; Iraq; to name a few, and I could go on) and zero on the latter. Rwanda would be the only situation to make me think twice about a war we should have entered but did not. Even there, it’s hard for me to predict what our intervention would have accomplished.

3. Some of my biggest questions around warfare have to do with counterfactual scenarios of just wars. Clearly, in both the Civil War and World War II, the victorious side was also in the moral right. However, this does not mean that war was justified on utilitarian grounds. Perhaps sustained political efforts would have ended slavery in the next few decades without a civil war. Perhaps Hitler’s land grab could have been slowly unwound over time without armed resistance. I don’t know. But I think these scenarios need to be grappled with deeply; and, in the lay media at least, I don’t think they are given enough serious consideration.

4. Here would be my advice to future presidents: when in doubt, don’t go to war; when confident, don’t go to war; when certain, consider the fact that many president have erroneously been certain before.

5. People whose stock is rising on my brilliant strategist list: Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi, and the Dalai Lama.

Again, none of this reflects the opinions of those who run or participate in the program.

These are simply my reflections on a few days worth of programming.

The Case for All Charter Districts

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Screen Shot 2015-02-25 at 6.42.35 AM

Yesterday I had a piece in Education Next on charter districts.

Interestingly enough, Scott Pearson, the executive director of the D.C. charter board wrote the opposing piece, arguing for a blend of charters and district schools.

I admire Scott and consider him to be one of the best authorizers in the country. You should read his piece as well.

Some Reflections

1. Something interested occurred in our two pieces: I used very liberal arguments (leaning heavy on equity) to make a case for a somewhat conservatively supported outcome (all charters). Scott used conservative arguments (schools need not all be treated equally / play by same rules) to make a case for a more liberally supported outcome (keep government operating a good portion of schools).

2. I was surprised but appreciated the fact that Scott came and out said charters should not be required to serve every child, every time. Many charter sectors operate under such rules. I don’t agree with this structure, but if you’re going to allow it, you should explicitly defined it, as Scott does.

3. I ended the piece on this note:

Yet, given the current limits of our knowledge, I do not believe all urban districts should transform into charter districts immediately. Rather, the next phase of the work should be focused on learning how best to build these systems. Ideally, within a decade, 5 to 10 additional cities will make the transition to all charter systems. From these cities we will learn what works, what does not work, and whether structural change continues to deliver performance gains across a variety of contexts.

Hopefully it will work.

I think it will, but time will tell.

Goals

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What would be inspirational, achievable, and impactful goals for the charter movement over the next ~10 years?

How about this:

1. 3-5 cities grow to 75% market share and achieve ~.1 effects.

2. 10 cities grow to 50% market share and achieve ~.1 effects.

3. National charter sector doubles in size to ~6 million students and achieves ~.05 effect.

Question: could anyone argue that attaining these goals would be bad for children? If so, why?

Perhaps you could argue that the short-term academic gains for children would be wiped out overtime by the eroding of existing educational institutions.

I’m skeptical that this argument is of merit, but it’s hard to falsify.

What Netflix Public Communications Tell Us About Education Best Practice Adoption

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netflix

I tweeted about this yesterday: on its investor relations website, Netflix basically tells the world the broad outlines of its strategy.

The “Netflix Longterm View Page” provides: an analysis of the overall market; what the future will hold; in what areas Netflix will compete; how it will compete; what markets it will enter; and its margin structure.

In short, if you want to create a Netflix competitor, the basic playbook is right there for you to copy.

Clearly, Netflix does not think it will win because of its overarching strategy.

The strategy is necessary but not sufficient.

Rather, my guess is that Netflix thinks it will win because it will execute better than any of its competitors (as well as capitalize on its current market position, given the high barriers to entry in its business).

All this is to say: if it were possible to simply adopt all of Netflix’s “best practices,” you could become a billionaire within a few years.

Of course, you won’t be able to do this. Netflix is an organization, not a set of practices. And organizations are very difficult to replicate.

And yet so much of education reform is based on best practice adoption, not organizational building.

This is foolish.

Of course, organizations can learn some things from each other. And we should support this transfer of knowledge.

But, ultimately, it is great organizations, and not a menu of great practices, that will provide us the best chance to give children the education they deserve.

This is why I believe we should relinquish power to educators; let them form non-profits to operate schools; and scale the best of these organizations to serve students across the country.

Sentences to Ponder

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ponder

1. Georgia looks to New Orleans

“I don’t want to oversell this. It’s not like we have a silver bullet,” said Recovery School District Superintendent Patrick Dobard. “We went from awful to pretty good. We’re not great … This is going to take decades to create all of the great schools I know we can have.”

2. Economic freedom and size of government

“These results challenge the common preconception that taxes and economic freedom are negatively related. In addition, the divergence between tax revenue and spending in this regard is more consistent with a ;fiscal contract’ model of the state, in which taxation and economic freedom go together, as governments attend to their legitimacy and the health of the private sector in order to increase revenue, but flag in these efforts when they enjoy sources of income other than taxes.”

3.

From Michelle Obama to John Legend.

4. Oliver Sacks is dying

“Here I depart from Hume. While I have enjoyed loving relationships and friendships and have no real enmities, I cannot say (nor would anyone who knows me say) that I am a man of mild dispositions. On the contrary, I am a man of vehement disposition, with violent enthusiasms, and extreme immoderation in all my passions.”

5. How countries are transitioning from lower to middle income

“The number of low-income countries has dropped by nearly half since 2001, following the graduation of mainly mineral exporting and transition economies in Sub-Saharan Africa and Europe and Central Asia to middle-income status.”

The MySpace Strategy

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my space

The Philadelphia School Reform Commission just approved five new charters. It received 39 applications.

All new charters were granted to existing operators.*

I don’t know enough about Philadelphia to weigh in on the optimal political strategy for increasing high-quality charters. Perhaps this was all that was politically feasible at the moment.

More worrisome is the implicit strategy of these approvals: only expand what already exists.

In other words: don’t allow to form; keep Facebook from going live; squash Tumblr before it begins; reject LinkedIn; no need for Instagram.

Why take risks on new organizations when you have MySpace?

*Note: nothing in this post is meant to diminish the great work of existing operators such as Mastery. Their accomplishments are irrelevant to the point I’m trying to make.