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Elections 2012 -- Kull Wahad!!!

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Re: Elections 2012 -- Kull Wahad!!!

amherstblackbear said:
Careful when interpreting time series data. The author chose a year when baby boomer school enrollment peaked, to minimize the apparent growth in enrollment.

To be sure, enrollment hasn't increased at the same rate as staff employment -- just know that you're seeing the worst-case comparison. :)
Click to expand...


When the numbers in question are 8.5% and 100% I would ask the question...if both numbers were off by 100% would it change my opinion?

If somebody said students were up 17% and personnel were up 50% would anybody say "oh, that makes perfect sense"? No. It is still completely unacceptable.

Private school students appear to have grown at a slightly higher rate...does anybody think large parochial school districts have 100% more staff than they did at the start of this period?

If we also looked at some comparisons in big companies and controlled for a 8.5% change in units over the 40 years...would the relationship of personnel to units reflect a 100% increase in staff?

Assuming an average of 12.5 years service, this would cost the US taxpayer $2.5trillion dollars if nobody got a raise*. I didn't calculate the pension risk...I don't want my computer to explode.


* assuming attrition wasnt replaced...otherwise this is $1T every 5 years.
 
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Re: Elections 2012 -- Kull Wahad!!!

Al says Romney "wanted" to get booed at the NAACP convention. I see, does that make the people who did boo boobs for failing to see Romney's obvious tactic? What would Al have said if Romney had bypassed the convention? If only Romney had brought enough "skillets" to share with the conventioneers, things would have been okey dokey.

http://dailycaller.com/2012/07/11/al-sharpton-romney-wanted-to-get-booed-at-naacp-convention/
 
Re: Elections 2012 -- Kull Wahad!!!

Ahhh, here's a blast from the past. Denise Rich is renouncing her American citizenship. Remember her? Remember her ex- husband? He was on the F.B.I's ten most wanted list, and a fugitive, when Bill Clinton pardoned him after a blizzard of, uh, donations from Mrs. Rich (quite by co-incidence, she was a White House guest the night before the pardon was announced and Hill and Bill left, taking some of the furniture with them). Recall the grubby Clinton administration had Bill's half brother and brothers-in-law out soliciting bribes for pardons. Oh, and a gentleman by the name of Holder is the one who green lighted the Rich pardon to Bill. Ethics schmethics.


http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/10/politics/denise-rich-citizenship/index.html?hpt=hp_t2
 
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Re: Elections 2012 -- Kull Wahad!!!

Old Pio said:
Al says Romney "wanted" to get booed at the NAACP convention. I see, does that make the people who did boo boobs for failing to see Romney's obvious tactic? What would Al have said if Romney had bypassed the convention? If only Romney had brought enough "skillets" to share with the conventioneers, things would have been okey dokey.

http://dailycaller.com/2012/07/11/al-sharpton-romney-wanted-to-get-booed-at-naacp-convention/
Click to expand...
skillets?? Have you ever seen an angry black women armed with a frying pan?

Old Pio said:
Just minutes after NBC reported JJ jr. is drying out in Arizona, his office is out with a statment that he's being treated for a "mood disorder." Anybody buy that? Anybody at all?

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/...-to-disclose-illness-20120711,0,4731687.story
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Which color?
3963020_f1024.jpg
 
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Re: Elections 2012 -- Kull Wahad!!!

pirate said:
When the numbers in question are 8.5% and 100% I would ask the question...if both numbers were off by 100% would it change my opinion?

If somebody said students were up 17% and personnel were up 50% would anybody say "oh, that makes perfect sense"? No. It is still completely unacceptable.
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What is unacceptable, exactly?

I agree that the editorial is provocative. But it's the beginning of a discussion - not ironclad proof . . . of anything.

The author cites a provocative bivariate relationship - I agree. But that's all it is. If someone were tasked with developing a forecasting model of (pretty much anything of interest to Wall Street), and came back with a bivariate correlation, they'd be laughed out of a job. And that's just forecasting. Never mind causal arguments.

There's also a correlation between educational achievement and scotch consumption - and fwiw it's actually pretty strong. So let's combine those correlations, fire a bunch of teachers, and have the little b@st@rds focus on whiskey. "D@mmit, Ellie, I said drink it neat! :mad: "

edit:

The most generous interpretation of the editorial: "We need to have a hard look at public education, and . . . . I'll leave that hard work to others."
But, really, this strikes me as a simple exercise in throwing red meat to the WSJ audience. It's the WSJ equivalent of Ed Schultz saying that if we just return the top marginal tax rate to where it was in 1994, we can have GDP growth and employment levels where they were in 1994.
 
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Re: Elections 2012 -- Kull Wahad!!!

Nancy P. Losi joins the Sharpton chorus: Romney wanted to get booed at the NAACP convention. I'll help you translate. What Nancy really means is how stupid those people were to fall into Romney's trap, not smart like Al and me. She's also saying: "These people belong to us. Stay off of our plantation."

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-brief...-made-a-calculated-move-to-get-booed-by-naacp

I can't recall, but I'd bet she characterized Clinton's Sister Souljah moment as Churchillian.
 
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Re: Elections 2012 -- Kull Wahad!!!

We've got an update on some polls. One continues to show Obama with an uncomfortably small lead nationwide:

Obama by +2 and +3...as Ras with Romney by +1

Two shows still healthy Obama leads in states that matter:

Pennsyvania +7
Wisconsin +6
Wisconsin +8
New Mexico +11
Maine +14

Not that the latter states are critical, but a flip to Romney could have been problematic.
 
Re: Elections 2012 -- Kull Wahad!!!

5mn_Major said:
We've got an update on some polls. One continues to show Obama with an uncomfortably small lead nationwide:

Obama by +2 and +3...as Ras with Romney by +1

Two shows still healthy Obama leads in states that matter:

Pennsyvania +7
Wisconsin +6
Wisconsin +8
New Mexico +11
Maine +14

Not that the latter states are critical, but a flip to Romney could have been problematic.
Click to expand...

Being able to bag Wisconsin twice should be a real boon for Obama's chances :p
 
amherstblackbear said:
What is unacceptable, exactly?

I agree that the editorial is provocative. But it's the beginning of a discussion - not ironclad proof . . . of anything.

The author cites a provocative bivariate relationship - I agree. But that's all it is. If someone were tasked with developing a forecasting model of (pretty much anything of interest to Wall Street), and came back with a bivariate correlation, they'd be laughed out of a job. And that's just forecasting. Never mind causal arguments.

There's also a correlation between educational achievement and scotch consumption - and fwiw it's actually pretty strong. So let's combine those correlations, fire a bunch of teachers, and have the little b@st@rds focus on whiskey. "D@mmit, Ellie, I said drink it neat! :mad: "

edit:

The most generous interpretation of the editorial: "We need to have a hard look at public education, and . . . . I'll leave that hard work to others."
But, really, this strikes me as a simple exercise in throwing red meat to the WSJ audience. It's the WSJ equivalent of Ed Schultz saying that if we just return the top marginal tax rate to where it was in 1994, we can have GDP growth and employment levels where they were in 1994.
Click to expand...

Don't even try to change it to WSJ bias. 100% and 8.5% . Are you saying those numbers are wrong? Dance around it with any mumbo jumbo you want, it Is a ridiculous ratio and you don't need an advanced math degree to see it. Screw the interpretation, 100% and 8.5%. Only the government could pull that off and still have people making excuses for them.
 
Re: Elections 2012 -- Kull Wahad!!!

I'm not not making excuses, but I'm also not going to give it credit for being more than partisan advocacy masquerading as social science (Albeit kindergarten level).

I repeat, what specifically is unacceptable? You can't fire a ratio. So what do you do? Go after administrative bloat? Consolidate special services? Raise classroom sizes? [other examples I don't have the energy to think of]?

The obvious answer is "yes," but that still leaves the issue of diagnosing the extent of the problem here vs there vs there. Unless you want to propose a federal edict that applies to every system, indiscriminately. Good luck relying on the Dept of Educ running that successfully.

So, back to my original point about the editorial just being the start of a conversation. And not a particularly useful one. If the author is sure that there are too many teachers, an easy double-check would be to report mean class sizes. If it's teachers, then class size should be roughly half today what it was in '70. Did the author's data not include that? Was there no breakdown of employment by occupation? Not a rhetorical question - no source was given.

Those are some of things I'd look for in a journalistic piece designed to generate light, as opposed to knee-jerk partisan heat.

Full disclosure: It's just a sore spot for me. Knowing that I could trade in all standards of quality control and integrity for a well-honed partisan axe, work 1/10th as hard, and make 2-3 times the money . . . I'm not bitter. :)
 
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Re: Elections 2012 -- Kull Wahad!!!

pirate said:
Don't even try to change it to WSJ bias. 100% and 8.5% . Are you saying those numbers are wrong? Dance around it with any mumbo jumbo you want, it Is a ridiculous ratio and you don't need an advanced math degree to see it. Screw the interpretation, 100% and 8.5%. Only the government could pull that off and still have people making excuses for them.
Click to expand...
Exactly. The author wasn't trying to "prove" any sort of causality. He's not arguing that the 100% increase in teachers caused an 8.5% increase in students (or vice versa). He's just reporting (possible -sources would be nice!) facts. It's not even a correlation - just two pieces of data showing changes in two independent parameters over the last 40 years.
 
Re: Elections 2012 -- Kull Wahad!!!

LynahFan said:
Exactly. The author wasn't trying to "prove" any sort of causality. He's not arguing that the 100% increase in teachers caused an 8.5% increase in students (or vice versa). He's just reporting (possible -sources would be nice!) facts. It's not even a correlation - just two pieces of data showing changes in two independent parameters over the last 40 years.
Click to expand...

Your're right in the trivial sense that there's no relationship being presented directly in the piece. That's part of the problem. The author presents the values of two independent parameters at two points in time and presents a conclusion. In your version, the conclusion is a non sequitur. I was at least giving the guy enough credit that some sort of reasoning was going on.

The implicit correlation is not directly between students and teachers (duh), but corr(y:x) where y = outcome and x = (student/teacher ratio). The author clearly implies that r= (something really fricken' small. :) )

Or to give him more credit, maybe the author has an exponential functional form in mind, where there are diminishing returns after a certain point on the student-teacher ratio curve. This is the problem with implying causality, rather than addressing it (however imperfectly) head-on.
 
Re: Elections 2012 -- Kull Wahad!!!

amherstblackbear said:
Your're right in the trivial sense that there's no relationship being presented directly in the piece. That's part of the problem. The author presents the values of two independent parameters at two points in time and presents a conclusion. In your version, the conclusion is a non sequitur. I was at least giving the guy enough credit that some sort of reasoning was going on.

The implicit correlation is not directly between students and teachers (duh), but corr(y:x) where y = outcome and x = (student/teacher ratio). The author clearly implies that r= (something really fricken' small. :) )

Or to give him more credit, maybe the author has an exponential functional form in mind, where there are diminishing returns after a certain point on the student-teacher ratio curve. This is the problem with implying causality, rather than addressing it (however imperfectly) head-on.
Click to expand...
Um, no.

If we stipulate his observations for now:

A) Teacher-to-Student ratio has gone down by a factor of 1.08/2.0 = 54%
B) Test scores on NEAP are stagnant at best or perhaps declining

He then draws the conclusion that the data shows no positive (r>0) correlation between class size and test scores.

Which part of that are you disputing, exactly?
 
Re: Elections 2012 -- Kull Wahad!!!

The numbers aren't partisan.

I don't recall commenting on the writer's opinions.

In any other setting besides government spending, those ratios wouldn't be tolerated and it wouldn't take 40 years to figure it out.

The reason I say it is unacceptable, and I tried to offer a few comparisons to help demonstrate the absurdity of the numbers, is because I would expect the math to run something like this:

baseline-efficiency+programs: second language, special ed - cuts: sports, arts = result

So, if students grew at 8.5% and personnel grew anywhere from 4-15%, I'd say that sounds logical. BUT, my expectation would be that whatever personell growth there was, 33% wasn't staff/admin.

What would I do about it? Well, I wouldn't start by ignoring facts and pointing toward partisanship, look how far that normally gets us. It isn't politics, it is math. Now, clearly math isn't a strongpoint when somebody has allowed the numbers to get this far out of whack.

The federal government finds lots of ways to curtail or influence activities they don't approve of, even at the state level...they introduce new departments, new regulation and new oversight on things far less expensive and egregious than this. They spend billions protecting people from all kinds of things but convince people they don't need protection from the government.

If they need somebody to come in and fix it, despite having tens of thousands of people working in DC already, then I'll solve it for a percentage of the savings.
 
Re: Elections 2012 -- Kull Wahad!!!

LynahFan said:
Which part of that are you disputing, exactly?
Click to expand...

That's just it. Though I find the choice of data points to be convenient for the author's predetermined ends, I'm not really disputing them so much as I'm disputing their usefulness absent other information. Perhaps because my implicit goals are twofold: improve outcomes and efficiency. If we leave things as the author presents them, what sort of solutions are likely? Crude analysis begets crude policy. I figured I'd have more support, at least on this part. Haven't we all seen enough examples of well-intended but poorly designed federal initiatives? Isn't it worth putting in a little elbow grease to try and make sure we get it right?

That's the annoying thing about the editorial. Sure, you can't publish a paper on the editorial page. But if you're serious, you can summarize arguments, present evidence, etc. The fact that the author has chosen an important topic doesn't mean it isn't a hack job.

I'd start by doing a better job of modeling y, figuring out which factors are important, in which circumstances, which are less so, and which don't contribute much of anything. Then figure out how to optimize the level of the good factors under given resource constraints. (NB: This isn't some ploy to buy time for teachers' unions. They're going to oppose any serious change to the status quo. And since I wouldn't leave anything off the table, I'd absolutely expect to run afoul of them if I were in charge of reform.)

Let me make another clarification. I never - never - charged the WSJ with bias. This may seem like a pedantic distinction, but it's a pet peeve. "Bias" in the everyday sense connotes a departure from some ideal state -- in this case, ideological neutrality. This is why the claim of MSM bias is so potent; the MSM does not acknowledge itself as being an advocate. An editorialist (like a primetime host on MSNBC/Fox) is open about advocacy. Bias isn't really relevant. My concern is whether analysis is fueling advocacy or, as I suspect here, the reverse.
 
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Re: Elections 2012 -- Kull Wahad!!!

FlagDUDE08 said:
It seems the government HAS been spending a lot of money on education. Just not here. http://www.wnd.com/2012/07/obama-sp...ng-schools-in-arab-kingdom/?cat_orig=politics
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Yup...foriegn aid. Its not so much a desire to educate others over our own...but rather its been our objective to control world events for generations. I would imagine we could cut it in half across the board...that is for Jordan, Egypt and Israel...and it would likely have little longterm impact on relations.
 
Re: Elections 2012 -- Kull Wahad!!!

FlagDUDE08 said:
It seems the government HAS been spending a lot of money on education. Just not here. http://www.wnd.com/2012/07/obama-sp...ng-schools-in-arab-kingdom/?cat_orig=politics
Click to expand...

Quibble over the $30M on principle, but don't tell me it's a lot. :)

The mistake that most folks make when they advocate eliminating foreign aid is to interpret it literally: "Why are we building a hospital in (corner of world) and not at home?"

Foreign aid is foreign policy. The feel-good stuff is simply the tribute that vice pays to virtue. We're buying support, coopting opposition, etc. We don't always get it right, but it's not an irrational policy.
 
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