A shortage of teachers

From Walt Garder's Reality Check.

The Commission on Teacher Credentialing said that the number of credentials issued annually fell 29 percent over the past five years, from 28,039 in 2004-05 to 20,032 in 2009-10. Although the decline was most evident in state colleges and universities, private colleges and universities also saw decreases. Even National University, a nonprofit school that offers mainly online credential classes, reported a drop of about 30 percent since 2006.

 And more...

The changing landscape is not limited to California. Virtually all states are undergoing similar experiences. The result is that teaching has lost its appeal for far too many college graduates. The timing couldn't be worse. Large numbers of baby boomers are starting to retire from teaching just when even larger numbers of children enter elementary school. Who will teach them?

With US demographics changing and less people deciding to enter the teaching profession, what can the public education system do to solve this problem? What is scaring potential teachers away from the profession? What can be done attract more teachers as well as brighter teachers to the public education system? When will teaching "get it's groove back" and be the highly respected profession that it deserves to be? These are some of the challenges that education policymakers are facing, and it is obvious that something needs to be done.

US Population Infographic

If you are curious about the demographics in the area in which you live, I recommend checking out this fascinating infographic from the NY Times. Using this interactive applet, you can explore population trends, population density, racial breakdown, and even data on vacant housing units broken down by each census tract.

I posted another infographic before from the NY Times, the CPI Interactive Chart. I find it impressive how enormous data sets can be presented in accessible formats. Feel free to share your favorite infographics and applets in the comments section.

Budget Deficit

Apparently my Dear Government post did not make it to Washington. The cuts thus far are a move in the right direction, but not substantial enough. Here's a chart from the Economist.

We'll be running a budget deficit for at least the next five years. Although the deficit is projected to shrink as a percentage of GDP, debt as a percentage of GDP is expected to grow. Hopefully reality plays out differently than is expected at this point. If serious changes are not made by policymakers, I am predicting a US government default sometime roughly in the next three to six years.

Closing the Gap

People in education love to hate on Michelle Rhee due to the painful changes that she championed in DC schools. Well, how did DC schools do under Rhee's leadership? Although her methods were unpopular, aren't student gains (or losses) what truly matters?

Despite the poor press, Paul Peterson says that "a case against Rhee has yet to be established," in a recent article. He refutes a couple of major studies, one by Alan Ginsburg and one by the the National Research Council. We all know that academics can never agree! Based on Peterson's analysis, the acheivement gap appears to have closed under Rhee on NAEP test data - although admittedly the time horizon was fairly short. What about the cheating scandal you might ask? The suspicious erasures appear to be limited to the DC high stakes tests to my knowledge. The only subject that lagged during Rhee's tenure was 8th grade reading. See the graphics below via Educationnext.org. The article is here,and here is a brief podcast with Paul Peterson. Does he have a point?

 

Additional links:

The Rhee DC Record by Alan Ginsburg that Peterson refutes.

My Favorite Things About the Economist

Anyone with an interest in economics, business, finance, politics, technology, war, current events... ok you get the point! Just about anyone with an interest in anything can find something that they like at The Economist. I wanted to share some of my favorite things from the Economist and how I consume the content.

• The Daily Chart
• I subscribe to this RSS feed in Google Reader. They post one interesting chart, map, or infographic every day. I will occasionally share a chart or two here on the blog.
• The Economist App

• I had been looking for an Economist app since I got my iPod touch a couple of years ago. It finally hit the app store last November. I can only imagine how useful the app must be on the iPad (sadly I do not own one). But given that it is free, I find it pretty useful to have on my iPod. (I still prefer reading on the computer if it is handy though). Having it on the iPod has been nice while travelling because I can preload several magazines worth of reading material onto my device, so even when I have no wifi reception I can read articles. I'll even listen to articles on long drives.
• They say on the website that complete access is only free to print and digital subscribers, but I have complete access to all of the articles. I must have found a loophole. I used to be a print subscriber and still have a username and password, but I am not paying any sort of monthly fee.
• They also have audio for each article if you prefer listening to reading
•  The Magazine
• Nothing can replace the experience of paging through the actual magazine. While I am not currently subscribing due to the high cost, if I can afford it in the future I will definitely indulge. It is only $2 to $3 per magazine depending on your plan, but magazines come out every week so it starts to add up.
• There is also a student rate that is a little bit more affordable if you have a student email.
• Economist.com
• Even if you are not a subscriber, there is a ton of free material on the website. I always learn something new every time I visit.
• The Global Perspective
• As a US citizen, it is easy to focus on domestic issues only. I really enjoy the global perspective that the economist offers whether or not I agree or disagree with the conclusions. 
• The Science & Technology Section
• This might be my favorite section of the website. There are articles about cutting edge energy technologies, global warming, diseases, and scientific breakthroughs, all dumbed down enough for an economist to understand.

A Life Changing Article

I was looking through some old emails the other day, and I came across an article from 2008 that I had filed away. That article is called The End by financial journalist Michael Lewis. If you have not read it, take the time right now. It is lengthy, but well worth the read.

Rereading Lewis's account of Wall Street reminded me why I chose not to go into finance and continues to make me question aspects of the industry today.  It also made me question my own motives and what type of life I wanted for myself. I never aspired to work on Wall Street, but I studied finance in college and seriously considered working in the finance industry outside of Wall Street. I am not suggesting that finance is evil. I do not regret studying it in college and think that it is great stuff to know as a consumer and business person. I am just acknowledging what greed and twisted incentives can do to people.

Image: Ji Lee @ Portfolio.com

The Class Size Trade-Off

Founder of Harlem Success Academy Charter Schools, Eva Moskowitz, thinks like an economist and discusses the trade-offs involved in determining class size in her Washington Post opinion piece titled The cost of small class size. Here is her conclusion:

Overspending on class-size reduction is particularly unconscionable in tough fiscal times. We need to invest in ways that will help teachers be more effective, such as professional development, technology, school leadership and abundant curricular materials. Spending in these areas, already too low, should not be cut further in blind adherence to the cult of small class size.

While I don't agree with every point that she makes in the article, I am encouraged by her sound economic thinking. We need more administrators and policymakers to think like she does. There is not a one-size-fits-all strategy when it comes to education. For example, decreasing class size in a school with a high proportion of rookie teachers may have a greater impact on learning than decreasing class size in a school with mostly veterans.

In another scenario, if a school has a strong academic culture where behavior management is not a big issue, then increasing class size could make economic sense if it frees up funds for a new computer lab, teacher training, new curriculum, field trips, etc. Class size could also be varied within a particular school based on the course, the time of day, and the teacher's ability.

For more from Eva Moskowitz, she also spoke on NPR today about class size.

Dear Government....

Dear Government,

Please learn to live within your means.

For the truly math savvy politicians working for you, I will offer a most difficult inequality. If your politicians learn to follow this magical law of finance, then you can avoid defaulting on the $14 trillion of debt that you have racked up, and hopefully start to ween yourself off of those addicting lines of... credit. Government, I urge you to immediately start adhering to the following law of finance that has saved countless American citizens from financial ruin and pain: spending < revenue.

If you need help understanding this mathematical law, I am ready to offer my assistance for a small consulting fee. FYI, that would go under the spending category for you.

Spend wisely,
Z.O.

Free eBook Alert - The Simple Dollar Kindle Edition

If you have a Kindle, The Simple Dollar: How One Man Wiped Out His Debts and Achieved the Life of His Dreams by blogger Trent Hamm is free right now on Amazon.com. Here's the link. I haven't read the book yet, but Trent runs the Simple Dollar blog and writes insightful commentary on personal finance.

Addendum - no longer free as of 3/27/11

Barclays Bank Has a New Venture... Bicycles?

While in London last week, I came across a great new service sponsored by Barclays bank. The service is called Barclays Cycle Hire and opened in July 2010.

Docking station near Buckingham Palace

The premise of the service is the following: Instead driving your car, taking the underground, walking, or riding your own bike, you can rent a bike from a Barclay's docking station and turn it into a different Barclay's docking station near your workplace, gym, etc. To use the service, you have to pay a daily, weekly, or annual access fee plus a usage fee based on how long you rent the bike for on each trip. I have not run the numbers yet, but the apparent benefits are that one does not have to buy a bike, pay for maintenance and storage, or worry about your bike or parts of your bike being stolen. I rented a cycle while in London for a 30 minute trip and saved about a pound ($1.60) compared to what I would have payed using the underground and got to my destination just as fast.

One thing that I found very interesting was the pricing scheme. See below.

The pricing scheme is clearly encouraging short, quick trips, and heavily discouraging longer trips. They recognize this on the website as well.

"To hire for more than a couple of hours it might be cheaper for you to use a company that specialises in hiring for longer periods."

A ride less than 30 minutes has no additional cost other than the access fee that you pay upfront, whereas if you rent a bike for 3 to 6 hours you have to pay 35 pounds (roughly $60)! No quantity discounts here. For more info on the pricing scheme, click here.

By adding a financial penalty for longer rides, Barclay's is trying to manage the supply of cycles at docking stations so that the service does not lose the convenience factor. Imagine showing up expecting a bicycle and they have all been checked out, the nearest docking station is a 10 minutes walk away, but you need to be at work in 20 minutes. I assume Barclays is profit maximizing here and thinks that this pricing structure will help them the earn the highest return possible on their investment. In addition to potentially losing other customers, longer rides could mean there is a greater chance for the bike to be damaged or stolen by other citizens.

I think Barclay's is really onto something here. I am sure they will need to make adjustments to their model as they gain more experience in this business, but I think they will do very well in a city like London where transportation costs and living expenses are high, and the city is becoming more and more biker friendly. A company called B-Cycle appears to be offering a similar service in the US at a much smaller scale, although the pricing scheme seems to be somewhat different.