A Thought For Your Pennies...

Oh, Canada!  How smart you are!  The Canadian government just announced that they are doing away with the penny.  It seems that one Canadian penny costs more than a penny to produce; they estimate that they will save $11 million per year by no longer producing the coin.  Canada is not the first country to make this all-too-logical decision - other countries who have eliminated their smallest-valued coins in recent years include the United Kingdom, Australia, and Israel.  So if it's good enough for our friends north of the border, why not for us?  A US penny actually costs 2.4 cents to make - imagine what our country could save by eliminating it.

I can't imagine that the repercussions would be very significant.  Cash payments could be rounded to the nearest nickel, and legislation could guarantee that.  All electronic transactions, especially credit card purchases, could still be made to the exact cent.  In fact, my favorite pizza parlor has already eliminated the penny.  If I order a pizza and the final amount shows $16.48 on the register, the cashier tells me the amount is $16.45.  Imagine that - I actually save money this way!  And all those $19.99 prices that sellers think make them sound like they're less than $20 may very well get changed to $19.95.

If it were up to me, I'd go one step further; I would do away with the dollar bill.  We already have dollar coins, and I personally think it's a pain that there is virtually nothing you can buy without reaching into your billfold for paper money.  Wouldn't it be easier to just pluck a few coins from your pocket the next time you pick up a newspaper or a soft drink?  And don't tell me, "people don't use dollar coins!"  They will, if it's the only game in town.  Now a dollar coin costs about 5 times as much to produce as a dollar bill, but it lasts 15 to 25 times longer.  So the initial investment might be a bit higher, but the federal budget would be reduced in the long run.

Well, it all makes sense to me.  How about you?

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Mega-Madness

So the MegaMillions lottery jackpot was up to $363 million this week, and it was of course a major news story.  Now it's rather intuitive that a major news story about something which hasn't actually happened yet is kind of difficult to report on, so the creative juices were really flowing on all the television networks.  A few days ago, I caught an in-depth report on one of the network news shows about the lottery.  The story featured an interview with an "expert" on how to win the lottery.  His advice included such gems as studying the numbers that have come up in past drawings, and choosing the numbers that are "due" to come up.

I spent my life teaching Math, so I count folks like this guy among the failures of the efforts of my colleagues and me.  How many times did I ask the question, "If a fair coin is flipped and comes up heads, what is the probability that the next flip comes up heads?"  (I hope you know the answer is 1/2.)  The only way that previous results could become relevant is if the lottery ping-pong balls are rigged, either intentionally or not.  However, great pains are taken to insure that the drawings are fair, including selecting the set of ping-pong balls randomly from several available sets, weighing them before and after the drawings, and using an independent auditing agency to oversee the drawing process.  So it still all comes down to probability, and you can no more predict which numbers are likely to come up than you can predict whether that proverbial coin is going to come up heads or tails.

So nobody won the drawing last night, and the jackpot is up to $476 million.  I suppose the news coverage between now and Friday will be even more intense, and people may be lining up to buy tickets.  That's a mentality I can't understand - would the folks going crazy now not be content to win a paltry $20 million or so?  I say, just calm down, everyone.  Buy a ticket if you want - the probability of winning is incredibly small, but when you think about it, virtually every event in your life is the result of an incredibly unlikely occurrence happening.  We don't notice, because nobody gives us a few million dollars for things like walking out the door at the exact same time as your next-door neighbor.

So please, news networks, let's not go crazy with this.  And for goodness sake, don't feed into the mentality that people can actually do something to improve their chances of winning.  Let's keep things in perspective - lotteries are entertainment, not an alternative to a 401k.

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NRA's Target:  Perpetuating Lies

My phone rang a few minutes ago, and I was greeted by a robo-call from none other than Wayne LaPierre, President of the National Rifle Association.  Good ol' Wayne was kind enough to warn me that President Obama has found a way to circumvent the US Constitution by signing a treaty that will allow the United Nations to come onto US soil and take away our rights to gun ownership.  I'm not exaggerating - that's what he said.  The call even ended with a "survey" question, asking if I thought it was OK for the UN to be allowed onto our soil to enforce a gun ban.

The "information" in LaPierre's call is apparently based on the same source as a chain email that has been circulating of late. The email starts off by stating that President Obama " intends to force gun control and a complete ban on all weapons for US citizens through the signing of international treaties with foreign nations." It goes on to state that the administration will "bypass the normal legislative process in Congress" by signing treaties, and that "we will wake up [some] morning and find that the US has signed a treaty that requires US citizens to deliver any firearm they own to the local government collection and destruction center or face imprisonment."

OK, I've admitted in a previous post that Social Studies was my weakest subject in school, but I didn't exactly major in Stupid.  Even I know that any treaty signed by the President is subject to ratification by at least two-thirds of the Senate, and we all know how hard it's been lately to achieve that level of agreement in the august body.  I also know that no treaty with a foreign nation can supersede the US Constitution and laws.  And I honestly can't even begin to believe that this is on the Obama agenda, since the only piece of gun legislation he's signed since he took office called for an expansion of gun ownership rights, by allowing loaded and concealed weapons in national parks.  Seriously, Wayne, how little do you think of us American citizens to figure that we'd fall for your claptrap?

If you want to debate the merits of gun control, fine - that's what our system of government is all about.  But how does it serve the public good to perpetuate partisan lies?

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If This is Socialism, Just Call Me "Marx"

This morning, I made the short trip down to our public library on Main Street to attend my weekly Yoga class.  When I was a young man, I was quite accomplished at Yoga, was trained extensively, and even taught a few classes myself.  Now that I'm in those "golden" years, I find that I don't have that same flexibility I had when I was half this age.  However, I'll be damned if I'll let myself get stiff - at least, not without putting up a pretty good fight.  So I get myself out to class once a week and do some basic stretches, twists, bends, and balances along with the good number of other folks in the class.  

I imagine that not all of the people in the class could afford to maintain this regimen if it were not for the affordable price of the class, which is part of the public library's program.  I could probably get a class of the same or even better quality in a private studio - of which there are plenty around here - but probably at nearly ten times the cost.  So how does the library manage to offer such a useful program at such a low price?  There's a tax levy specifically for the library district, which amounts to less than I would pay just for weekly Yoga classes in a private studio.  And for this, I also have access to books, audio discs, videos, downloads, and much more.  Just last year, when a hurricane knocked out power to our area for four days, that same library set up extra stations for people to come in to charge their cell phones and use their laptops to check email.  I took advantage of their friendly service, after striking out at our local Starbucks and other private establishments not equipped to handle the demand.

When I hear arguments from the right side of the political spectrum, it seems that all I hear is that services are better offered through the private sector, and that public services provided by taxation smack of Socialism.  Now, I'm not advocating a socialist economy where the means of production are publicly owned - there is certainly a place for capitalist businesses in our country.  But there should also be a place reserved for services like libraries, schools, sanitation collection, transportation, and anything else that serves the common good.  Let's not be bullied into being afraid to support these public agencies because of a label slapped on them by partisan political interests.

So next week, I'm going out to vote "yes" on the proposed library budget.  How about you?

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Redefining "Majority"

ma·jor·i·ty   [muh-jawr-i-tee, -jor-] noun, plural -ties.

1.

the greater part or number; the number larger than half the total ( opposed to 
minority): the majority of the population.

2.

a number of voters or votes, jurors, or others in agreement, constituting more than 
half of the total number.

A local school district recently announced that they are preparing two separate budget proposals, one that stays within the confines of the 2% tax cap imposed by state law, and a second that reflects the true financial needs of the school district but will require a 60% majority vote in order to enact.  That's right - in case you didn't know it, New York State now requires a 60% majority vote for any municipality to adopt a budget that would result in more than a 2% tax increase.

Before you get upset with me, let me firmly state that I am not advocating bloated budgets or high taxes.  I am advocating letting the majority of the voting constituency to make the decision they think is best.  Allowing 40% of the voters to decide what should happen runs counter to everything I was ever taught about the American democratic process, and strikes me as pure nonsense.


This is not the only place where this happens; the US Senate also comes to mind.  In the Senate, a 40% minority can sustain a filibuster and block legislation that is supported by the other 60%.  And don't think filibusters work like you saw in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.  The minority doesn't need to have someone stand on the floor of the Senate until he/she passes out, they just have to vote and then go about their normal business.


I also liken the concept of term limits to this "tyranny of the minority."  If the majority of US voters (or at least electors) had wanted to see Bill Clinton or George W. Bush serve a third term, that should have been their choice.  I figure term limits came about because one political party couldn't find an opponent good enough to be a reasonable alternative to the incumbent.  In my mind, we've always had term limits and always will - all we need do is vote out the person we don't like.


So the New York State tax cap is, to me, just one more way to limit our voices as voters.  I'd be delighted if it were stricken from the law, along with the Senate filibuster rule and term limit laws.

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On a Personal Note ...

I may not be able to blog regularly for the next week or so.  We're packing up our beloved Cavaliers and heading for a dog show in Virginia.  I hope you miss me.

I Love a Parade

I grew up on suburban Long Island during the 1950's, when the small-town atmosphere was prevalent.  One of the highlights of my childhood was the not-often-enough opportunity I had to see a local parade with my family.  On Memorial Day, the staging area for the parade was at the elementary school at the top of our block, so all we had to do was to step out of our front door to watch the parade go by.  For the other parades, we would trek the half-mile or so into the village, and cheer as our friend, Fred the barber, marched by with the Fire Department, or as my brother marched by with the Boy Scout troop.  The operative word here is "marched."

Yesterday, I walked into our village with my wife, grandson, and two dogs, to see the St. Patrick's Day parade.  The old thrill of my childhood returned when I heard the leading bagpipe-and-drum corps coming down the street.  I couldn't wait to hear the nostalgic sounds of the marching bands, and to honor the local service groups marching down the street.

Well, my anticipation died quickly, as what seemed like hundreds of groups from Cub Scouts to local dance schools meandered sloppily through town, as if on a leisurely stroll on a beautiful spring day.  A few groups, like the local Fire Department and the US Marines, managed to march in the way I was expected to when I was a Cub Scout all those years ago, but much of the "parade" was little more than a bunch of people walking and waving at another bunch of people watching.  We couldn't even muster the strength to stay until what was apparently the one and only marching band came by.

I also noted something of a mixed message, as I see in pretty much every modern parade.  To my mind, every parade has a purpose.  Yesterday we came out to honor the Irish-American heritage, so I expected to see groups like the Ancient Order of Hibernians.  On Veteran's Day, I show up to honor the local VFW posts, and on Columbus Day I look forward to seeing the Sons of Italy march with pride.  

The next parade up on the queue this year is Memorial Day, and I'm hoping I don't see a repeat of what happened last year.  On that day, we went to honor those who have given so much to defend our country, but we were totally taken aback by the appearance of a group called the Conservative Society for Action, a right-wing tea party political group that desecrated the real purpose of the parade to hand out literature and blast a purely political message on their PA.  Their "literature" sent a clear message that Democrats like me are not true patriots, and that we need to get more Republicans of their ilk into office.  Sure made me feel good about coming out to honor those who gave their lives in military service!

I have a few suggestions, just in case there are any parade organizers among my readers:

• Line up several marching bands for each parade, and intersperse them among the other community groups.
• Try to keep to a theme for each parade that's consistent with the purpose of the day.
• Ask the groups that march to march.  I'm not one to advocate indoctrination of our youth into paramilitary organizations, but there's nothing wrong with expecting a parading group to walk in uniform, in line, and in step.  It's something worth coming out for.
• For Heaven's sake, don't allow groups with a political agenda to ruin the experience!

Are you listening, parade organizers?

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Your Friday Quiz

As a teacher, I always liked giving tests and quizzes on Fridays - it seemed such an appropriate way to wrap up the week!  So here's your quiz for this week.  It's easy - just figure out which of the following "news" stories is fake:

• A bronze bust of Rush Limbaugh is to be enshrined in the Missouri State House, along with one of Dred Scott.
• "Joe the Plumber" is a legitimate Republican candidate for Congress.
• Representative Scott Brown of Massachusetts is criticizing his Democratic challenger for being heavily funded by Hollywood stars.
• The NAACP is actively fighting state election laws that have disenfranchised an estimated five million minority voters this year.
• The number one viral video on YouTube is a documentary about a Ugandan child-killer.
• On the campaign trail, Mitt Romney raved about his breakfast of biscuits and grits.
• A Florida woman ran herself over with her Oldsmobile Toronado.

So which is the fake story?  Don't go on to the next paragraph until you've got your answer...

Do you have your answer yet?  No, the answer is not in this paragraph - I was just testing you to see if you can follow directions.  Don't go on until you have your answer!

Surprise - they're all true stories!  To me, this is especially disturbing, because every one of these seven news stories has some aspect that is disturbing to me.  So here's the real quiz:  Can you truthfully say that there is any story there that doesn't disturb you at least a little?

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Where Have You Gone, Dwight D. Eisenhower?

With all the media attention focused on the continuing Republican tragi-comedy of the primary races, a story that to me deserves much more attention got buried.  Long-time liberal anti-war Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich lost his primary bid in a newly combined congressional district.  More significantly, his opponent (who now faces an election against none other than Joe the Plumber) is clearly a much more moderate - sometimes conservative - Democrat than the fiery Kucinich.  

Here's the conundrum:  It seems that, as the political heat gets turned up, Republicans move further to the right, but Democrats move further toward the center.  The effect is to move the entire country to the right.  Yesterday's solidly conservative Republicans would be today's centrist Democrats.  A case in point is Dwight Eisenhower, who was the Republican President while I made the journey from an innocent 9-year-old to an opinionated 17-year-old.  Eisenhower came from Kansas, and embodied all the conservative Republican values of the day.  But he also helped dethrone Joseph McCarthy, expand Social Security, develop the Interstate Highway System, and protect civil rights.  He was a former five-star general who eventually warned the country about the "unwarranted influence ... of the military-industrial complex."  He couldn't possibly fit in today with the likes of Romney, Santorum, or Gingrich.

Kucinich's exit from the political scene disturbs me as much as the disappearance of sensible Republicans like Ike.  Eight years ago, my wife and I had the pleasure of meeting Kucinich in a setting where we took part in a small one-on-one discussion.  He took the time to listen to our views and answer all of our questions without rushing us off.  I found him to be as sincere in his beliefs as he was passionate in his causes.  His departure from government will be yet another symptom of the wholesale movement of the country to the right.  I will miss having him in Congress ... but I think I miss the old-guard Republicans even more.

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Are Public Sector Jobs Real Jobs?

With the national unemployment rate coming down slowly but steadily, about the only criticism the Republican contenders for the Presidential nomination can level is that it's not bouncing back fast enough.  So if the Obama administration's efforts to bring the economy back are on the right track, why isn't unemployment coming down faster?

One key part of the answer is the current attitude toward public employees; it's like private sector jobs are the only ones that count.  If that were the case, then the 35 years I spent teaching in public schools didn't really count for anything.  Tell that to the thousands of students I helped educate!

The fact is that the current attitude of austerity being pushed by the tea party Republicans in Washington is impacting all the way down to state and local governments, and we're seeing unprecedented layoffs of teachers, police, firefighters, and other public employees.  Yet some of the greatest economic recoveries in our history were the result of increasing public sector jobs.  You're probably thinking I'm now going to bring up FDR's public programs like the WPA and the CCC.  Sure, but how about looking at the "Reagan recovery" that is so admired by Republicans today?  During that period, characterized by excellent short-term economic improvement, public employment increased by more than 3%, as opposed to the nearly 3% decrease that has taken place over the last few years.  The effect of public employment cuts on the Obama recovery is best summarized by noted economist Paul Krugman:

• "If government employment under Mr. Obama had grown at Reagan-era rates, 1.3 million more Americans would be working as schoolteachers, firefighters, police officers, etc., than are currently employed in such jobs.  And once you take the effects of public spending on private employment into account, a rough estimate is that the unemployment rate would be 1.5 percentage points lower than it is, or below 7 percent — significantly better than the Reagan economy at this stage."

For those of you who deal well with graphs, just look at this comparison from summer of 2009 through summer of 2011 of the actual unemployment rate (the blue line) vs. what the unemployment rate would look like without taking into account public sector job loss (the pink line).  The public sector effect on unemployment in the last year and a half has been nothing short of devastating.

So do we really want to cut the jobs of the people who teach our children, protect our safety, put out our fires, and maintain our roads?  And can anyone with a conscience stand up for public sector layoffs while complaining about the pace of recovery?

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Fool Me Once, Shame on You

Fool Me FOUR TIMES, ...

The Republican candidates for President have just come off the rounds of weekend appearances leading up to Stupor Tuesday, and it's kind of fun to watch them trying to trample each other in their race to the top of the right-wing heap.  The one area they all seem to agree on, however, has to do with reducing taxes on the nation's high-income earners in order to stimulate job creation.

When I was in high school about a million years ago, I was fortunate to have a dynamic and innovative teacher named David Kellum in Social Studies, which was admittedly my weakest subject area.  In those pre-internet days, Mr. Kellum taught us how to go into a library, wade through the maze of card catalogs and periodical rooms, and eventually get the factual answer to pretty much any question about history, no matter how obscure.  It was a lot of work.

Well, I guess Romney, Santorum, and their partners in crime think we're still back in those dark information ages, because they don't seem to realize that we can now check facts with a few clicks of the mouse.  Take a look at this graph, which compares job creation to the top marginal tax rate over the last 15 administrations:

• Back in the 1970's, Nixon adhered to what was then called "supply side economics."  His administration implemented SSE by lowering the top tax rate by about 15%, and what happened?  Job growth decreased from almost 40% to barely over 20%.  Fooled me once!
• In the 1980's, Reagan put forth the "trickle-down" theory of economics, and cut the top tax rate in half.  The benefits were supposed to make their way down to the rest of us.  What happened?  Job growth all but disappeared by the time Bush I took over.  Fooled me twice!
• In the 2000's, Bush II implemented his tax cuts, and he couldn't even come up with a clever new name for the policy.  What happened?  The worst job growth record since Hoover.  Fooled me three times!

So now they're calling it "tax relief for job-creators" or some such euphemism, but it's the same old failed policy being put before us once again.  With such easy accessibility to information today, do they really think we're going to be fooled again?

Just in case you think the above graph is incorrect or biased, here are two other graphs from two different sources that you might want to look at:

The first one compares the top tax rate to unemployment rates over the last fifty years or so.  The pink line represents the top tax rate, and the blue is the unemployment rate.  Notice how much the reduction in tax rates has reduced unemployment.  Oh, wait...

The second graph arranges the data by tax rates rather than chronologically.  Notice that the very best job growth was achieved when the top marginal tax rate was way up at 75 to 80%.  Even a rate of just under 40% produced pretty darn good results!

So what are we going to do - go back to "supply-side-trickle-down-job-creator" policies one more time in the hopes that all the data from the last 75 years is wrong?  Or maybe that most voters won't bother to check what the facts are?  Not me!  Thank you, David Kellum, wherever you are, for teaching me to be a critical thinker and base my opinions on FACTS.  You have the facts - what are YOU going to do?

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Real Teacher Empowerment

Oh, the joys of retirement!  When I was still working as a teacher, I would have been at my desk before 7 AM, coffee in hand, developing my lesson plan materials.  Now, I still have my coffee in hand by 7 AM, but I can relax and catch up on the news.  Today I tuned in to "Morning Joe" on MSNBC, and I was delighted to see that the focus of the entire show was on education.  My delight soon turned to frustration, however, as guests like Michelle Rhee and Chris Christie kept coming back to the old saws about how to quantify teacher evaluation, how to fire ineffective teachers, and how to battle the teacher unions.

Well, they can keep working on those areas, and I'm sure they and their union counterparts will continue to work toward a compromise solution, but that's not what's going to make teachers more effective.  Again, all we have to do is look at the facts.  The research is out there - it's been around for at least 30 years, and it continues to this day.  What truly makes teachers more effective is a non-evaluative system of peer mentoring - just Google "teacher coaching research" if you want to see how much evidence there is of the power of having teachers coaching other teachers.

Irrespective of evaluations, tenure laws, teacher unions, and the like, the basic fact I've seen in my 44 years in the profession is that teachers want to do a good job.  I've mentored plenty of teachers, from the most effective to the least, and I've never run into one who didn't get engaged in the process of improving effectiveness as long as the spectre of negative evaluation is taken off the table.

If someone gave me carte blanche to change the way a school was organized, here's what I would do:

• Train 20% of the teaching staff in the use of a method such as Cognitive Coaching for mentoring their colleagues.  I'd have to be careful not to allow administrative prejudice to enter into the process of selecting these teachers.
• Assign each of these trained coaches to 4 other teachers in the school.  During the course of the school year, each coach would go through a series of 4 or more observation cycles with each teacher assigned to him/her.  The observation cycle typically would consist of a preconference, a classroom visit, and a postconference.
• Make positively certain that all information about these observations and conferences is held in absolute confidence between coach and teacher.  This is key to the effectiveness of the process - just check the research by people like Carl Glickman.
• Allow the coaches to select a leader to coordinate the entire program and troubleshoot problems.  I've already seen good mentoring programs go down the drain because they were taken over by administration!
• Make sure that the teacher coaches are paid a fair stipend that is commensurate with the extra work they are doing, and also make sure they are given sufficient time to do the job.

Of course, this all costs money, so I'm not holding my breath until I see it happen.  But I'm willing to bet that most people would gladly pay more if they had access to a process that has been proven by research to be far more likely to effect change than traditional adminstrative supervision.

So let the politicians and school bureacrats keep battling over the process of hiring, evaluating, and firing teachers.  You want real change?  There is a way.

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Snowe Job

Olympia Snowe, Republican Senator from Maine, announced that she will not be seeking another term.  Snowe was known as one of the leading moderates in the Republican wing of the Senate - but what does that mean?

Like it or not, in our two-party political structure, things get done in the middle.  Any time human beings are in a situation where there are two sides with opposing goals, nothing gets done until they both address the concerns of the other party and meet in the middle to get an agreement.  I spent much of my teaching career as a union leader, and I therefore found myself often in a position where I had to look at the other side's needs as well as my side's, and come to an agreement that addresses both, even if only partially.  It's really easy to dig in your heels and not give an inch, but that only results in conflict, not progress.  In the case of union negotiations, that would mean a strike, and both sides usually lose in that event.  In the case of the United States Congress, it means that nothing gets accomplished while the economy is in a fragile state, the infrastructure is crumbling, and people have real needs to be filled.

The fact that Senator Snowe is leaving, admittedly because she is frustrated by the gridlock in the Senate, is just another symptom of the times.  We could just as easily have pointed to Evan Bayh, a moderate Democrat, choosing to leave the Senate two years ago, or to Barack Obama's dogged insistence on trying to get the tea party Republicans to work with him on compromises in legislation.  The moderates are leaving, and with them goes any hope of making the deals that need to be made.

Can anything be done?  Well, sure, we could make sure that the President, a majority in the House, and at least 60 percent of the Senate are all from the same party, but what's the chance that will happen?  Maybe the Senate would change the filibuster rule to make it harder to block legislation with just 41 votes, but the minority party (whichever it is) would never go along with that.  No, I think our way out of this mess lies in the root cause of extremism ... something I'll save to discuss another day. 

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