The King's Speech

The King's Speech is a must-see movie, although, I'll have to admit that I did not expect it to be for whatever reason. It turned out to be a captivating look at the reluctance of King George VI to take the throne due to a speech impediment and fear of public speaking. During this personal yet quite public ordeal, a special connection is developed between the soon-to-be king and his quirky speech therapist. I can not do the film justice, so check out reviews at Metacritic and the trailer below.

Here are a few more links about the movie...
Slashfilm.com - The Making of the King' Speech
Interview with Colin Firth
Interview with Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush

The King's Speech is not a movie that has to be seen in the theater. Personally, I would enjoy this movie just as much (if not more) in my living room paying only a dollar to rent it from redbox. However, a copy may be hard to by as it should be in high demand.

US Higher Education: Is it the Best in the World and How Can We Improve it?

The United States outsources billions of dollars worth of business to China, India, and other developing countries every year (e.g. solar energy). However, China is also "outsourcing." The culprit? Higher education. China outsourced the higher education of 127,000 Chinese students to the United States alone in the past year. On the flip side of that, the US has only sent 14,000 students to study at Chinese universities in the past year. These stats and the graphic below via The Economist.

The Economist (Jan 18th, 2011)

Is the US Higher Education System the Best in the World?
China is obviously not the only country sending a lot of their university students to the US. Our country has a global comparative advantage in higher education at this point in history. I think most people would agree. Perhaps the UK is nipping at our heels, but given their relative geographic size and population, there is no way that they can ever support a University system as robust as ours.

THE World University Rankings (Sept 16th, 2010)

For more info on these rankings and the global higher education picture, click here.

How Can We Improve the System? 
Given that domestic industry and manufacturing will continue to chase cheap labor abroad, the United States must continue to invest in the University Economy to build human and intellectual capital. However, it needs to develop a more efficient, faster, and cheaper method of allocating funds. In my opinion, the federal grant system appears to be outdated. So why is this important?

Federal research dollars account for roughly 50% to 75% of our universities' total research funding each year, if not more in some cases. Aggregate federal research at the university level in 2007 was over $30 billion. It is smart to allocate a lot of money towards university research only if allocated to the right places. And let's face it, government is not always the best mechanism for allocating funds. A market based system could do much better, but designing one that would work is a significant challenge. Perhaps, we can ask the foreign students to figure it out for us...

MLK Day - Segregation Statistics

Fifty-five years after the Brown decision, blacks and Latinos in American schools are more segregated than they have been in more than four decades.

This is from a report by Gary Orfield of The Civil Rights Project titled "Reviving the Goal of an Integrated Society." I find this extremely worrisome, especially since this trend could continue to worsen in the future. More from Dana Goldstein:

American schools are more segregated by race and class today than they were on the day Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed, 43 years ago. The average white child in America attends a school that is 77 percent white, and where just 32 percent of the student body lives in poverty. The average black child attends a school that is 59 percent poor but only 29 percent white. The typical Latino kid is similarly segregated; his school is 57 percent poor and 27 percent white.
Overall, a third of all black and Latino children sit every day in classrooms that are 90 to 100 percent black and Latino.

If we truly want to achieve integration and diversity of race in our schools, this will require policy changes at various levels. For example, I know that Title 1 funds are well-intentioned. Schools with a higher percentage of poor children are given more funding to provide "additional academic support and learning opportunities to help low-achieving children master challenging curricula and meet state standards in core academic subjects." While I understand this logic, it does not account for the fact that there may be diminishing marginal returns on each dollar spent as a student population becomes increasingly disadvantaged. Also, the department of education seems to be providing a financial incentive for schools to increase their amount of low income students. Are there any financial incentives out there for schools that strive to attract students of different races and cultures? I have never heard of any.

I would be interested to see a study that shows if Title 1 funds have led to more segregation in our schools. I would also like to see the impact of Title 1 funds on student achievement. Please share if you are aware of any research on these topics.

Nuclear Finance?

Check out this interesting piece by Financial Times columnist Tim Harford that draws a parallel between nuclear power plants and the financial system. The main thesis of the article:

A series of measures intended to guarantee the safety of individual financial institutions had brought the system to its knees.

And more...

[T]he safety system introduced what an engineer would call a new “failure mode” – in other words, a new way for things to go wrong. And that was precisely the problem in the financial crisis.

I hope that Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke reads this unique perspective on the financial meltdown and the inevitable future crises to come.