Will members rise up against AARP over its health care stand?

Mark Tapscott predicts in the Washington Examiner:

There will be hell to pay for AARP with its members when this ugly reality becomes crystal clear, as it most certainly will.

UPDATE: From the looks this video, Mark might be on to something.

Service-learning opportunity for students in Baltimore County Public Schools

Yesterday I wrote about Arin Gencer's article in the Sun on service-learning.

The article has a sidebar which includes this bit:

Examples of projects tied to service-learning

• Writing a letter to a delegate or senator regarding a particular issue or piece of legislation, or advocating a community need

Which gave me an idea:

Students in Baltimore County could lobby the Maryland General Assembly to repeal the 75-hour service-learning graduation requirement. And get service-learning credits for it!

Sounds like fun to me, and for a worthy cause. Win-win!

p.s. I'm serious about this. If any high school students in the BaltoNorth area* would like to get organized and do something along these lines, send me an email. I'd be happy to help out with ideas, publicity, or introductions to some legislators in Annapolis.

*The BaltoNorth areas corresponds roughly to the districts for Dulaney High School, Loch Raven High School and Towson High School. And perhaps Pikesville High School too.

Sun article on "service learning" program in Maryland schools

Arin Gencer interviewed me for it.

Kathleen Kennedy Towsend and some school administrators defend the program in the article. I found their comments unconvincing and bland.

I'm glad Arin wrote the piece, but I was hoping that the article would dig deeper into the issues, and I was hoping that she would challenge KKT a bit more aggressively.

My original post on the topic of service learning is titled Oxymoron Squared! Mandatory volunteerism now optional in Baltimore County Public Schools. And here's my followup to it.

For more of my posts on schools, go here.

UPDATE: The Sun's dead tree headline was relatively lively and interesting: "Service-learning in classroom stirs debate". But for some reason they toned it down online to the boring: "Reflecting on service learning".

Curveballs: have the dangers to young arms been exaggerated?

Mark Hyman reports in the NY Times on two new studies:

[They] evaluated more closely than before the effects of curves on young arms [. . . and . . . ] compared the forces across the elbows of pitchers as they fired fastballs and curves. [. . .] Each study concluded that curves are less stressful than fastballs and, based on the data collected, contributed little, if at all, to throwing injuries in youth players.

I don't buy it, partly because of this bit from later in the article:

[Dr. James] Andrews cited several limitations of the study. The fact that it was conducted entirely in a lab also needed to be considered, he said. Under game conditions when youth pitchers are fatigued, Andrews suggested, curves could be dangerous.

“I just operated on one kid this morning,” he said. “At age 12, he tore his ulnar collateral ligament in two. His travel ball coach called 30-something curveballs in a row. He became fatigued. Then he threw one that snapped his elbow.”

Mark wrote an excellent article but the headline (written by a someone else presumably) was simplistic and misleading:

Studies Show That the Curveball Isn't Too Stressful for Young Arms

Don't wait for top-down ObamaCare ... let's start fixing our healthcare system now, from the bottom up

Since much of the center-right libertarian punditocracy seems to think that (1) Obama's honeymoon is over and (2) ObamaCare is sinking*, I decided now would be a good time to start my own tiny local campaign to point out the micro problems with our healthcare system as I (and my extended family) come across them in the real, outside-the-Beltway world.

For the next week or so--maybe longer--I'll be posting about recent experiences some of my family members have had with Lyme disease and colonoscopy screening.

Now there are two sexy topics!

*see Charles Krauthammer, Peggy Noonan, and John Stossel. [Hat tip to Instapundit for many of the links.]

UPDATE: Another centrist weighs in . . . Mickey Kaus.

Funny & frightening

After hearing Ron Smith mention it many times, I finally got hold of Nassim Nicholas Taleb's book The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable (the CD/audio version).

Although the book is pessimistic in many ways, it's written with humor and elegance. Taleb is blunt, but thoughtful and thorough too. He's original in his thinking and also in his writing style. He demonstrates a broad, deep and interconnected understanding of many subjects--from statistics and finance to literature and philosophy. He tells entertaining stories about dry topics. And he bridges the gap between academics and practitioners, apparently without breaking a sweat.

Wow!

And David Chandler did a terrific job reading it.

Highly recommended. Amazon reviews here.

Thank you Ron.

Senators Ben Cardin & Barbara Mikulski vote for the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act (S.909)

Worse yet, they sponsored it.

Although I belong to one of the protected groups often victimized in "hate crimes", I see no benefits to hate crime laws. But there are costs:

[S. 909 will] award grants to assist [state & local] agencies with the extraordinary expenses associated with the investigation and prosecution of hate crimes.

It's difficult--and probably expensive--to figure out what people were thinking when they committed a crime. So I'm guessing that prosecution of nearly every hate crime case costs significantly more to prosecute than an equivalent "non-hate" case.

Here's video of Eric Holder dancing around legitimate questions about the bill. He seems unable to cite specific cases or statistics in support of the bill. Probably because there aren't any.

My prediction: any law based on S. 909 will cost plenty but do nothing to reduce the frequency of hate crimes.


UPDATE: A definition:

[S. 909] adopts the definition of "hate crime" as set forth in the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (i.e., a crime in which the defendant intentionally selects a victim . . . because of the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, gender, disability, or sexual orientation of any person).

Tour de France

I enjoy watching the Tour. Phil Liggett, Paul Sherwen and Bob Roll are terrific announcers.

But I miss the pronunciations from a few years back. For some reason Phil stopped saying "LEAK-y gas" has become LEE-quee gas (for Liquigas). And Bob seems to have dropped his trademark "Tour DAY France". Now it's just the standard "Tour de FRONCE" for him.

Barbara Boxer injected race into "green jobs" testimony . . .

. . . and Harry Alford didn't like it:



For a more substantive, temperate analysis of green jobs, go to the folks at PERC.

Alford is CEO of the National Black Chamber of Commerce. He was interviewed later by Andrew Breitbart.

Gibby's Seafood

Taken a day or two ago on York Road in Timonium:

On-the-job "social networking" for research scientists

This kind of thing could have a big impact on scientific productivity and even help make science cool again.

It also includes a new concept: object-oriented research. Wow!

We are introducing new approaches to make research more reproducible, reusable and reliable,’ Professor De Roure said. ‘Research Objects are self-contained pieces of reproducible research which we will share in the future like papers are shared today.’

Unless you're familiar with the concept of "objects" through software or architecture, the concept can be tough to grasp. But it is very powerful.

You can play around with MyExperiment here.

Via Glenn

National K-12 curriculum?

From Liz Bowie, writing in the Inside Ed blog at the Baltimore Sun:

... for years, every state developed its own curriculum, standards and tests. That process will likely change soon. For a good story on the subject, go to Education Week.
...
This year, Maryland and 45 other states decided to jointly develop a common group of standards for what should be taught in kindergarten through high school.
...
[a list of who] will be writing and reviewing the new national or "common core" standards for math and language arts [...] here.

Two good groups

F.I.R.E. and the Sunlight Foundation

York Road & Joppa in Towson

Looking east through Towson Circle from the farmers market today. [Click photo to see larger panorama.]

"Sustain-a-Biz" legislative scorecard for MD District 42

Most legislative scorecards are crude, narrow and unhelpful.

So as a service to voters in District 42 I've created a quick-and-dirty scorecard for those who want to balance environmental protection and economic prosperity. It's a simple average of the ratings given out by the Maryland League of Conservation Voters and Maryland Business for Responsive Government. The resulting hybrid is still crude but it is broader and, I think, more useful.

Dels. Sue Aumann & Bill Frank get the top marks this year while Sen. Jim Brochin and Del. Steve Lafferty bring up the rear:

"SUSTAIN-A-BIZ" SCORECARD 2009 -- MD DISTRICT 42

Del. Sue Aumann ... ]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]] 72%
Del. Bill Frank ........ ]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]] 67%
Sen. Jim Brochin ... ]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]] 64%
Del. Steve Lafferty. ]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]] 60%

In most cases I give a black mark to politicians who get 100% ratings from single issue groups like Md LCV and MBRG. Both Brochin and Lafferty got 100% scores from LCV this year.

UPDATE: A critique of the Maryland LCV scorecard that I wrote five years ago.

"Everybody hates the teachers' unions now"

Mickey Kaus writes about a new new report on education reform. He suggests that the report

implicitly serves as an argument against trying to reform the schools in cooperation with the unions, and in favor of trying to reform the schools by defeating the unions

The title of the report: National Teachers Unions and the Struggle Over School Reform.

via Joanne Jacobs

"Making gentlemen out of savages"

In his superb book Managing the Non-Profit Organization*, Peter Drucker talks about the Do's and Don'ts of writing mission statements.

One of our most common mistakes is to make the mission statement into a kind of hero sandwich of good intentions. It has to be simple and clear. As you add new tasks, you de-emphasize and get rid of old ones. You can only do so many things. Look at what we are trying to do in our colleges. The mission statement is confused - we are trying to do fifty different things. It won't work, and that's why the fundamentalist colleges attract so many young people. Their mission is very narrow. You and I may quarrel with it and say it's too narrow, but it's clear.

One example Drucker seemed to like:

Arnold of Rugby, the greatest English educator of the nineteenth century, who
created the English public school, defined its mission as making gentlemen out of savages.

Compare this to the BCPS mission statement, which is too long for my taste and comes too close to the problematic "hero sandwich":

... provide a quality education that develops the content[,] knowledge, skills, and attitudes that will enable all students to reach their maximum potential as responsible, life-long learners and productive citizens.

For good measure, here's the "vision" statement that BCPS came up with:

Baltimore County Public Schools’ graduates will have the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to reach their potential as responsible, productive citizens in a global economy and multicultural society.

*If you can find it, listen to the audio version. His rumbly Viennese accent is soothing and inspiring, and his personality shines through.

Webtools for online polls and project management

A polling tool and an online project management tool for websites via WebWorkerDaily

Time Magazine officially dead

My parents used to subscribe to Time. I recently scanned a few issues. It has gotten badder than bad.

Exhibit I is Joel Stein's recent exercise in self-reference titled Give Hockey (And Me) One More Shot. It includes this delusional statement:

TIME is one of the last places that tries to satisfy the intellectually curious.

Mmmm-kay.

Exhibit II is a piece by Josh Tyrangiel, who writes about his attempt to bankrupt the New York Yankees by overeating at a luxury box buffet. Tyrangiel is Stein's boss (a factoid that I picked up from Stein's navel-gazing effort).

The setup from How to Beat the Yankees with Your Stomach:

I was gifted a $325 ticket to the new Yankee Stadium to see Satan's pinstriped nine play my beloved Baltimore Orioles. It turns out that $325 buys not just an excellent seat but access to the all-you-can-eat buffet in the superswanky Legends Suite.

The plan:

[It] was simple: eat enough so that at the end of the season, the accountants would say ... We lost so much on concessions that night that we can no longer afford to steal a small-market team's best starting pitcher."

I fasted all day [in preparation]...

Tyrangiel serves up standard MSM snark delivered from on high and down low -- with a grating tone that mixes the sensibilities of middle school and the Ivy League. And he bites the hands that feed him:

Sure enough, upon entering the Legends Suite with my ludicrously expensive [free] ticket ... After a survey of the rest of the buffet ... I began to wonder where my seat was.

It goes on:

Turns out you can't really see the game from the buffet area, and it dawned on me that I had been in a room like this before — at Foxwoods Resort Casino. During a brief foray into high-stakes gambling, a friend and I got comped and dove into a mountain of shrimp and lobster tails before stepping out into the casino jacked up on seafood and self-loathing. Well, the Legends Suite is just like that. So many bankers and so much excess that I felt kind of gross for enjoying myself so much.

Hunter Thompson sans personality, insight, talent and style.

More self-reference and cynical snark-as-humor, plus gluttony:

When I arrived at my seat — after grabbing a movie-theater-size bag of peanut M&Ms ($5) to tide me over for the walk — I could admit to being impressed. Third row behind the Yankee dugout. So close I could see the spot where Alex Rodriguez injects his steroids. The great thing? That statement's not even slanderous.

The article dribbles off into nothingness:

I forget who was winning.

Ugh.

R.I.P. Time Magazine.

The art of apology

Tom Peters interviews John Kador on how to make and effective apology. According to Kador, executives who apologize are more success than those who don't. And they make more money.

The five elements of an apology:

1. Recognition
2. Responsibility
3. Remorse
4. Restitution
5. Repetition

I made one a few weeks ago. In retrospect, I only covered the first three. Next time I'll try for all five.

[Webtool note: Peters links to the book using a site called LinkBaton.]

First things first

Now that I'm looking into the BCPS curriculum, I thought I'd take a look at the definition of curriculum:

The set of courses, coursework, and their content, offered at a school or university.

The schools my kids go to (or have gone to) in Baltimore County don't seem to publish even a basic list of course titles on their websites. Nor does the central BCPS website have a list.

"All experience hath shewn" ... insights on parents & schools in the Declaration of Independence

I read the Declaration of Independence yesterday on the 4th of July.

The public school system came to mind when I read this part from from the second paragraph:

all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

Most parents don't bother trying to change or improve the public school system. They just try to game it as best they can while their kids are enrolled.

If a president wants to create jobs, the essential first step is to create a predictable regulatory environment

According to Jerry Bowyer, business people think Obama is failing at this. Or at least they are behaving that way:

America isn't hiring precisely because of government policy. Small business owners, who are usually the first into and the first out of the job pool, are standing by the fence and watching. They are paralyzed by regulatory uncertainty. If they hire someone who ends up doing poorly, will they be able to fire that person? Will they have to pay their health care bills after they've been terminated? If so, for how long? ...

Jobs aren't languishing despite the government's best efforts. They're languishing because of them.

via Glenn

Black & Decker hiding green benefits of cordless mower under a bushel basket?

It costs only about a nickel to charge B&D's cordless electric mower (model CMM1200 ) from a fully depleted state. Here's the math: 0.38 KWH (see reading above on a Kill-A-Watt energy meter) x $0.14 cents/KWH = 5.3 cents.

I wonder why B&D doesn't compare the CMM1200 to a two-stroke gas mower and brag about the difference in cost of fuel and carbon emissions.

And here's another green thing you can do with it.

"Top Secret" curriculum at BCPS?

Can someone explain to me why public school administrators talk incessantly about "the curriculum", but seem determined to ensure that parents don't get to see it?

The mission of the Baltimore County Public Schools' Department of Curriculum & Instruction includes this bit:

development of curricula, based on research and best practices, provides teachers, students, and parents with a quality instructional program

But the BCPS website hides nearly all details of the curriculum behind a password-protected intranet.

All we parents get to see on the website is fluff, peripheral material, and educational mumbo jumbo about "seeds", "clarifications", "sample assessments", "thinking skills", "Articulated Instruction Modules", "Core Learning Goals toolkits", "parent summaries" that don't exist yet, and so on. And this comes in an Alice-in-Wonderland format that is impossible to skim in an efficient way.

UPDATE: Joanne Jacobs links, and asks her readers, "Do other school districts make it hard for parents to access the curriculum?" Thanks Joanne. The comments she gets are enlightening. Another thing I'd like to know: which largeish school systems out there (1) have an excellent curriculum, and (2) make the curriculum easily accessible on the web?

Health care reform: Obama shies from the cold stove because Clinton was burned by a hot one

David Brooks explains:

The great paradox of the age is that Barack Obama, the most riveting of recent presidents, is leading us into an era of Congressional dominance. And Congressional governance is a haven for special interest pleading and venal logrolling.

When the executive branch is dominant you often get coherent proposals that may not pass. When Congress is dominant, as now, you get politically viable mishmashes that don’t necessarily make sense.

Clive Crook on cap & trade bill: "a travesty"

I haven't looked at the details yet, but this doesn't sound promising:

The cap-and-trade bill is a travesty. Its net effect on short- to medium-term carbon emissions will be small to none. This is by design: a law that really made a difference would make energy dearer, hurt consumers and force an economic restructuring that would be painful for many industries and their workers. Congress cannot contemplate those effects. So the Waxman-Markey bill, while going through the complex motions of creating a carbon abatement regime, takes care to neutralise itself.

It proposes safety valves that will ease the cap if it threatens to have a noticeable effect on energy prices. It relies heavily on offsets – theoretical carbon reductions bought from other countries or other industries – so that big US emitters will not need to try so hard. It gives emission permits away, and tells utilities to rebate the windfall to consumers, so their electricity bills do not go up. It creates a vastly complicated apparatus, a playground for special interests and rent-seekers, a minefield of unintended consequences – and the bottom line for all that is business as usual.

Dutch Ruppersberger votes for Waxman-Markey cap and trade "travesty"

Clive Crook of the Financial Times has some choice words for the bill: it "neutralizes itself", it would create a "vastly complicated apparatus", the "net effect ... will be small to none", and it constitutes a "minefield of unintended consequences".

Many green lobbyists don't like the bill either.

The official name of Waxman-Markey (HR 2454) is the American Clean Energy And Security Act of 2009. I haven't looked at the details yet, but from 30,000 feet it doesn't look promising:

The cap-and-trade bill is a travesty. Its net effect on short- to medium-term carbon emissions will be small to none. This is by design: a law that really made a difference would make energy dearer, hurt consumers and force an economic restructuring that would be painful for many industries and their workers. Congress cannot contemplate those effects. So the Waxman-Markey bill, while going through the complex motions of creating a carbon abatement regime, takes care to neutralise itself.

It proposes safety valves that will ease the cap if it threatens to have a noticeable effect on energy prices. It relies heavily on offsets – theoretical carbon reductions bought from other countries or other industries – so that big US emitterswill not need to try so hard. It gives emission permits away, and tells utilities to rebate the windfall to consumers, so their electricity bills do not go up. It creates a vastly complicated apparatus, a playground for special interests and rent-seekers, a minefield of unintended consequences – and the bottom line for all that is business as usual.

This is one very large black mark for Dutch.

UPDATE: Looks like Dutch probably didn't even read the bill .

You are not a credible environmentalist unless

you seek out and understand the arguments of thoughtful skeptics like Bjorn Lomborg, Steven Hayward, and the folks at PERC.

A "criminally stupid war on drugs"

Clive Crook of the Financial Times looks with 20/20 vision at the total failure of the US war on drugs:

How much misery can a policy cause before it is acknowledged as a failure and reversed? The US “war on drugs” suggests there is no upper limit. The country’s implacable blend of prohibition and punitive criminal justice is wrong-headed in every way: immoral in principle, since it prosecutes victimless crimes, and in practice a disaster of remarkable proportions. Yet for a US politician to suggest wholesale reform of this brainless regime is still seen as an act of reckless self-harm.

Even a casual observer can see that much of the damage done in the US by illegal drugs is a result of the fact that they are illegal, not the fact that they are drugs. Vastly more lives are blighted by the brutality of prohibition, and by the enormous criminal networks it has created, than by the substances themselves. This is true of cocaine and heroin as well as of soft drugs such as marijuana. But the assault on consumption of marijuana sets the standard for the policy’s stupidity.

It's time for my state legislators in Maryland District 42 to step up to the plate. Are you listening, Sue Aumann, Jim Brochin, Bill Frank and Steve Lafferty?

Same goes for Congressman Dutch Ruppersberger, Senator Cardin and Senator Mikulski.

In my book, all of them get an "F" for their (non)effort on drug policy.

Carefirst listened and responded ... I like it

They redesigned their health insurance cards just as I suggested last year. Nice going Carefirst, and if you played a role Chet Burrell, thank you.

Shelby Steele on why people change

Something about this phrase (at 5:00 min) stopped me short, in a good way:

People don't change because the government intervenes with a social program. People change when they become exhausted with their suffering.

Despite the subtitle, his book on Obama is well worth reading today.

On the happiness of roadkill-picker-uppers & the "war on work"

Gary Jones at Muck & Mystery wrote recently about thinking and manual labor.

It reminded me of a wonderful short talk that Mike "Dirty Jobs" Rowe gave about an epiphany he had while castrating a lamb.

Rowe also skewers the tendency of semi-informed staffers at places like the Humane Society (and the SPCA and PETA) to lecture the rest of us when far too often they don't have personal experience and don't really know what they're talking about.

I wonder whether any of these groups have responded to Rowe's video.

UPDATE: Gary and his readers area way ahead of me. Here's his take on the Dirty Jobs show:

My reaction is usually that I wish he'd explore the thinking side of the dirty jobs, though I understand that this isn't the show's purpose.

For example, his show on insemination of dairy cattle focused on the squick factor of palpating a cow rather than the knowledge and skill of doing the right thing at the right time. Dairies fail because of lack of knowledge and management skill rather than because someone is too delicate to shove his arm into a cows rear.

If he did a show on office workers the emphasis would be on paper cuts and carpal tunnel injuries, the horrors of the shared coffee station, and the indignities of the daily commute. Those are real issues, and popular TV fare, but not the ones that intrigue me

I don't think you can say it any better than that.

"Green jobs": PERC punctures politicized projections parroted by progressive policy wonks

PERC (the Property & Environment Research Center) is a Montana-based think-tank specializing in free-market environmentalism. They have a new report, 7 Myths About Green Jobs. It critiques four recent reports put out by (1) the American Solar Energy Society, (2) the Center for American Progress, (3) the US Conference of Mayors, and (4) the UN Environment Program.

There are many convincing arguments in the PERC critique. Here's a memorable one:

No doubt it is true that requiring all public buildings to be retrofitted or offering "strong financial incentives" to private building owners to engage in retrofitting would created jobs (CAP 2008, 6-7). Of course, so would requiring all public buildings to be painted purple or offering tax incentives to private building owners to paint their buildings purple. Painting jobs would increase, paint manufacturers would increase production of purple paint, paint stores may hire additional delivery help, paint brush manufacturers would increase production, and so forth.

The question is: What would have happened to the resources used to meet the purple paint mandate in the absence of the government program? Those resources would have been put to the building owners' highest and best use, and those uses would have also created demand for goods and services, even if not for purple paint. The same is true of [green] retrofitting mandates. The implication of the necessity of a mandate is that profit-seeking building owners are too foolish to make investments in energy saving despite the alleged short-term paybacks.

Here are the seven myths that PERC debunks:

1. Everyone knows what a "green job" is.
2. Creating green jobs will boost productive employment.
3. Green jobs forecasts are reliable.
4. Green jobs promote employment growth.
5. The world economy can be remade by reducing trade, relying on local production, and lowering consumption without decreasing our standard of living.
6. Government mandates can substitue for free markets.
7. Wishing for technologicial progress is sufficient.

There's also a long version of the PERC report.

I have nothing against green jobs per se (I've held a few myself) but it seems to me that most of the people hyping the concept are either (1) political types whose technical knowledge and economic reasoning are shallow or just plain wrong, or (2) opportunistic government contractors maneuvering for a place at the subsidized feeding trough.

UPDATE: For some "green jobs" excitement, watch this YouTube exchange between Harry Alford and Barbara Boxer.

Are ophthalmologists thinking "outside the eyeball"?

Perhaps not, if my recent experience is any indication.

A family member was suffering from eye pain whenever she moved her eyeball, so I took her to the Wilmer Eye Institute. After Dr. B examined her, the gist of what he told me was something like this:

Dr. B: Her eyes are fine. I don't see anything wrong.
Me: So if the pain comes back, should she see a doctor or can we safely ignore it?
Dr. B: I can't say that. It depends.
Me: What do you think caused it?
Dr. B: I have no idea.
Me: If a thousand patients like her were to come in with these symptoms, what are the odds that it's a serious problem that needs treatment?
Dr. B: I haven't seen any cases like this--ever--where there was a serious problem.

Dr. B's answers didn't ring true. Like so many other doctors in my experience, he was unwilling to give any type of probabilistic estimate. [Why is that, I wonder? - Ed.] I asked some more questions but eventually gave up trying to elicit anything of use from him.

For the record, we later discovered that my family member had Lyme disease, which apparently can cause eye pain. It was serious, and she did need treatment.

My guess is that Dr. B is a fine doctor within his specialty, recognizing and treating diseases of the eye. But in our case it seems that he was thinking only inside the eyeball. When the symptom was in the eye and the cause was elsewhere, he essentially was implying to us that "It's not my problem". And he didn't seem to be in a mood to think about or discuss what the real problem might be.

Somehow I expected more than that.

Four-eyes vs. half-wit -- a thought for everyone who wears glasses

Years ago a third-grader complained to me that a mean kid at school was calling her "four-eyes". She was bothered and wanted to know how she could put an end to the name-calling. I suggested this reply:

"Half-wit."

It gives a nice symmetry to the exchange. One person multiplies by two and the other divides. And if the sequences continue, the numbers characterizing the tormentor shrink to nothingness (1, 1/2, 1/4, ...) while those describing the victim (2, 4, 8, ...) grow to infinity and beyond.

By the way, it worked very well at school the next day, and it still makes me smile when I think about it.

A great resource for learning who's who in the MD General Assembly

Whether you lean left or right, the place to go for info on the Maryland state legislature is the Roster of Maryland Elected Officials put out by the Maryland Business for Responsive Government (MBRG).

It's nicely laid out, with plenty of photos that help you recognize every delegate and state senator. Plus committee and subcommittee assignments.

Service Learning, Part II: a response to comments on Joanne Jacobs's blog

One of Joanne Jacobs's readers, Catherine, commented on my earlier Service Learning post:

>Actually, service experiences are often
>more meaningful when tied to curriculum
>and thoughtful systematic analysis.

Catherine's assertion sounds good at first blush, but is it really true? If a student shovels a sidewalk for an elderly neighbor or delivers meals to a shut-in, does "thoughtful systematic analysis" really make the experience more meaningful? I don't think so.

Even if you accept her assertion, reality gets in the way. At BCPS, the thoughtful systematic analysis is not happening for the kids that I know:

1. In most cases, the students don't even realize that in-class projects are part of Service Learning,
2. Students don't fill out the reflection forms for in-class projects, and
3. Even if they were to fill out the forms, what teenager would do anything but roll his eyes at the questions? One example: "How did you build character from your service learning activity?"

>It’s true that service integrated into a course
>probably doesn’t fit the definition of “volunteering.”
>That’s probably why it’s called “service learning”
>instead.

"Service learning" is educational jargon. Most people outside the school system don't know the official meaning. No matter how schools define it in their manuals, parents and kids will take it to mean community service. And because there is no pay, parents and kids will call it volunteering. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend led the effort to create Maryland's service learning graduation requirement. On her own website, she does not use the term "service learning". She calls it "community service".

I wonder how she feels about the state of her brainchild now.

Here's yet more evidence that BCPS's official definition of Service Learning ("not volunteerism") contradicts the reality of the program: The Dulaney High School website encourages Service Learning students to apply for Prudential's Spirit of Community Award, a "youth recognition program based solely on volunteering".

>I think you’ve taken something out of context

I don't think I've taken anything out of context. If anyone with knowledge of the BCPS system believes that I've done so, I'm happy to listen.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
In a second comment, Catherine says:

>It’s not because service learning is inherently
>bad or a waste of time, as [BaltoNorth] suggests.

I am not suggesting that service learning is inherently bad. I am suggesting that:

(1) Mandatory service learning, as implemented in Baltimore County and throughout Maryland, has not succeeded and never will.
(2) The current BCPS implementation of Service Learning does not live up to the vision of its creators. Not even close.
(3) The BCPS implementation is worse than a waste of time. By breeding disrespect and cynicism, it damages our kids in a real--if small--way.
(4) The General Assembly in Maryland should 'fess up to its mistake, eliminate the graduation requirement, and divert all Service Learning resources (a non-trivial amount that includes administrators at the state, county, high school and middle school levels) to programs that are far more worthy.

Oxymoron squared! Mandatory volunteerism now optional in Baltimore County Public Schools

If a student at Ridgely Middle School reads his report card carefully, he might well ask, "why do the Service Learning hours on my report card go up every semester even though I haven't done any community service work yet?"

The answer: Over the past decade or so, Service Learning has slowly become "infused" in the curriculum. Students get community service credits just for going to class! They don't have to leave the school or do any extra work!

This means, of course, that community service in Baltimore County Public Schools has come full circle. Before 1992, it was voluntary. Then, thanks to Kathleen Kennedy Townsend and the Maryland General Assembly, volunteering became mandatory across the state. Now, thanks to infusion, mandatory volunteerism is optional.

Lovely.

On the bright side, the only kids who need to volunteer now are the ones who actually want to do community service. But there's a dark side too. Failed programs like Service Learning look ridiculous to students, breeding disrespect for schools and cynicism about government.

UPDATE: Joanne Jacobs linked, with a great headline. There is some interesting discussion in her comments. In response to Catherine's comments I wrote this.

UPDATE: Peter Wood at the National Association of Scholars says students have another name for mandatory volunteerism: voluntyranny.

Service Learning background: the Dulaney High School website

The service learning coordinator at DHS, a school librarian, suggests that students fulfill their requirement by doing community service projects in ... the school library:



The DHS service learning web page:



The DHS Service Learning "reflection form" asks students, "How did you build character from your service activity?":