A "Progress"ive spirit

Today, while leaving the office premises, I ran into a security guard. We started talking about the hot weather. A friendly older gentleman, he talked to me about his job, which requires him to be outside in the brutal heat all day, and going from place to place checking on the vehicles that are parked and assisting people. Working in hot weather and on his feet. He had passed his Intermediate (high school) but never went to College. Now he is spending a lot of his money to send his children to College so that they can have a better life. He felt a lot of regret that he could not study and do bigger things, but felt good that his children can contribute more to the country than him. A remarkable story of sacrifice, unnoticed by many, but also performed by many millions of parents around the world. The interesting aspect was his notion of contribution to the country.

'Wage"ing a war on standard of living

A couple of days ago, students in one of my classes discussed the potential for a lower standard of living for their generation. While this is a distinct possibility, the students' argument is that wages in the U.S. will come down due to global competition. However, this does not take into account deflationary pressures on certain goods and inflationary pressures on others, not to mention the policies of the governments. If, in the aggregate, prices come down at a rate that is faster than the drop in income, standard of living might not be unduly affected.
Another consideration is that the U.S. enjoys a standard of living that is not commensurate with the underlying education, skill level and work ethics of the current generation. Like a pendulum that overshoots, the standard of living, often supported by wild credit and binge borrowing, has far out-shot the limit supported by underlying income generation, for the masses. A correction is underway, and it is likely that the pendulum will go the other way. The key question is whether the current young generation has learnt lessons from the past, and whether it is willing to buckle down and work hard and get a solid education. Some of us are trying- we have to wait for more evidence.

Timing is everything....

According to the NYT, "On Tuesday, from 6:30 to 6:50 p.m., and on Wednesday from 9:45 to 10:45 a.m., there was a slowdown at the Common Application Web site, which handles online applications for some 350 colleges and universities. With the clock ticking toward a Jan. 1 deadline, the briefest delay can feel like a full-blown crisis to panicky high school seniors......Seth Allen, dean of admission at Grinnell College and president of the Common Application, said many students worked on their applications for weeks but waited until the deadline to submit them. “I think having an online application has exacerbated waiting till the last minute,” Mr. Allen said, “and if they’re getting timed out on the site, on New Year’s Eve day, that’s certainly going to make them nervous.”"

NYT has another interesting story- "SAT Changes Policy, Opening Rift With Colleges" by Sara Rimer. According to the article, "This March, high school juniors taking the SAT will have the option of choosing which scores to send to colleges while hiding those they do not want admissions officials to see. The new policy is called Score Choice, and the College Board hopes it will reduce student stress around the SAT and college admissions. But when it comes to college admissions, few things are ever simple. Some highly selective colleges have already said that they will not go along with Score Choice, and the policy is stirring heated debate among high school counselors and college admissions officials."

FT has an interesting report titled "Industry’s chance to lure top graduates." It discusses a potential shift in business school graduates to more operational and manufacturing jobs and away from finance, which is where everyone flocked to the past eight years.

Making Education Priority # 1, or Why students drive me to Prozac

My students did group projects the past few weeks and recently submitted their reports. I had the great (mis)fortune of grading them. Here are some extracts:

*****

Bright should be upfront with Iberia, that he is willing to negotiate up to the point where his plane is valued since he does not want to waist his time again and rather spent the time with promising clients.

If Iberia were on the market to purchase more planes, Mr. Bright should handle the situation very wearily

"When we looked up the coarse catalog in class..."

“The American empire is reaching the end of its road, and its next rulers must limit their interference to their own boarders”…

Obama On Income taxes... "Not to increase takes for people making less than $270,0 per year."

Because Austria had such a socialist economic history, it seems more rationale.

The economy lately has been a very hot topic. With global economies all declining and .......

The future President also has to deal with foreign countries, and the dependence of the good received from them.

Topics such as global warming, and oil dependency are hurting major economies throughout the world.

Importing the sugar can ethanol from Brazil would greatly benefit not only the United States by giving them a large supply of ethanol, but it would also help Brazil ...

China being the world's third largest trader is impart due to the fact that the...

Through the crash of the stock market in the U.S. it has affected Germany in the loss of capital shortage in regional banks. In regard, it shrinks Germany's capital growth to a mere zero percent.

When China trades directly on the U.S. financial market, China will feel the effects of the financial crash.

The main focus for Brazil is that they are not able to compete with the U.S. farmers market because ....

Brazil's economy was ranked in 2007, as the world's tenth largest economy, which out ways all the other South American countries.

***This is one good reason behind the decisions of news agencies (like AP and Reuters) to hire writers in foreign countries to cover events in the U.S.A.

Duncan...No Slam Dunk as Head Ed Guy

In perhaps the most important cabinet selection so far, PEO has chosen Arne Duncan as his Secretary of Education. I get seriously concerned when Duncan gets a ringing endorsement from the current U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, who said she believed the Chicago Public Schools chief had the necessary skills to take her place(Tribune).

In an exam I gave last week, only 1 out of 16 students could do a simple math problem that involved computing x% of y, for a set of (x,y) values. Even that one student could not complete the next question, that involved understanding these percentages.

Putting an Education "CEO" to run Education in the country, in light of the scandals and bailouts in the corporate world, is not the proper signal to send. Obama would have been wiser to choose a person like Andy Grove, the former top dog of Intel, or a person who is an Educator first and an administrator last.

Students need to be culture-shifted to focus more on acquiring solid fundamental skills and less on other stuff, like sports or even working part-time to make minimum wage money. Otherwise they will be toast....or toasted by people in other countries.

Education

The Indian Institutes of Technology, a.k.a. the IITs, are well-known for their entrance exams, the famous JEE, the Joint Entrance Exam. I ranked #524 (I think) back in 1978, when the questions were essay-type. I remember having to solve detailed problems in math. physics and chemistry. Now, even the IITs have gone to a multiple-choice exam format.

Today, the WSJ has an interesting article titled "India's Colleges Battle a Thicket of Red Tape" in which describes the labyrinth of Indian regulations. What the article does not describe is the scale of corruption in Indian Education. One of my friends was closely involved with the JEE and also the oversight of other Indian engineering schools and expressed his great frustration at the sheer scale of corruption involved.

On a different note, WSJ had an interesting article on the South Korean Entrance Exam- On College-Entrance Exam Day, All of South Korea Is Put to the Test. This exam determines which university a student can get admitted to.
Video-clip from WSJ.

These stories come on the heels of my recent harrowing experience- grading project reports of my students.

Time to Elect a High-GPA High IQ Candidate

Some facts about Obama/Biden and McPain

Barack Obama:
Columbia University - B.A. Political Science with a Specialization in International Relations.
Harvard - Juris Doctor (J.D.) Magna Cum Laude


Joseph Biden:
University of Delaware - B.A. in History and B.A. in Political Science.
Syracuse University College of Law - Juris Doctor (J.D.)

vs.
John McCain:
United States Naval Academy - Class rank: 894 of 899


Sarah Palin:
1978-1982: Wasilla High School, diploma, 2.2 GPA
1982: Hawaii Pacific College (dropped out)
1983: North Idaho Community College (dropped out)
1984-1985: University of Idaho (dropped out)
1985: Matanuska-Susitna Community College, AK (dropped out)
1986-1987: University of Idaho, BA Communications

A Rewarding Education......

With all the problems facing the country including the destruction from the divisive McPalin campaign, little things can mean a whole lot more....

For the second time this Fall, I had a former student of mine come back and talk to one of my classes. DM graduated with a degree in Accounting earlier this year, and works for a tax and audit firm where he interned in his final term in College. This morning, he took a hour off from work. He came into my office and I had a brief chat with him for twenty minutes and then he talked to my class of 25 students for about half an hour. He discussed the importance of internships, work culture, the adjustment from taking classes in College to working professionally, and other topics. I had advised DM when he joined our College as a freshman four years ago. I was amazed and delighted to see his maturity and his poise now. I was also pleased to observe how much he had learnt in the short time he has been working as a professional. Earlier in the term, I had another former student, JB, come and talk to my current students about her work. She is a 'high potential' star and is climbing the corporate ladder at one of the country's largest packaged food manufacturers. JB talked about her experiences, and how she had decided to major in Supply Chain Management. She is quite an amazing person to watch.

While the 'job' of educating the students pays my bills, the 'Education' I get is the greatest reward. Observing the products of my process, and engaging in continuous process improvement is an enriching experience- a "no brainer" reward for the thinking educationalist.

Chicago Tribune, OTOH, takes a gloomy perspective in its article "Is college worth it?" where it states that 'Money is only one of the reasons to go to college, of course. But with college costs skyrocketing and the economy worsening, the question of whether higher education is a worthy financial investment is no longer a no-brainer."

Gunning after Education

NYT reported on Thursday, in a piece titled "In Texas School, Teachers Carry Books and Guns" that the school board in Harrold, a rural hamlet in North Texas, has decided to let some teachers carry concealed weapons. “Our people just don’t want their children to be fish in a bowl,” said David Thweatt, the schools superintendent and driving force behind the policy. “Country people are take-care-of-yourself people. They are not under the illusion that the police are there to protect them.”

Yesterday I asked my students if they could identify the richest country on the planet. UAE, Saudi Arabia, and a few others were suggested but not the U.S. However, students readily identified the U.S. as the most powerful country, militarily, in the world. It is ironic that the richest and the most powerful country cannot keep its people- children, students, and adults, safe from drunk driving, drive by shooting, and so on. Power, individually and systemically, is corrupting and easy to use, and it takes a lot more courage and conviction to restrain oneself from exercising power.

Obama "Corsi"fied, like John Kerry

Jerome R Corsi is at it again. His latest book, 'The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality' has made it to the top of the NYT best seller list. The NYT article "Obama campaign issues rebuttal to book's claims" makes the following points:
"...In an interview with The Associated Press, Corsi defended raising the issue of drugs without any evidence.''I don't need more,'' he said. ''I'm putting this question forward. I'm putting the evidence forward. Voters can make up their own minds.''
In a series of Web posts several years ago, Corsi said Pope John Paul II was senile and unconcerned about sexual molestation of boys, referred to Islam is ''a worthless, dangerous Satanic religion'' and suggested Kerry was secretly Jewish.
Corsi apologized for the remarks and now says he didn't mean them and was simply trying to provoke discussion.
''Obama Nation'' is published by Threshold Editions, a division of Simon & Schuster that is run by Mary Matalin, the former aide to Vice President Dick Cheney.
Corsi readily acknowledges the political goal of his book. He considers Obama a ''radical leftist'' who should not be elected president. Corsi said he has no plans to work against Obama with groups comparable to 2004's Swift Boat Veterans for Truth but said he would be willing to consider it."

This guy apparently has a Ph.D. from Harvard, the same school which awarded George Bush an MBA. In both these instances, education was divorced from the attainment of the degree. Both of them, like the Fox News hacks, do not take pride in their education, do not believe in doing thorough research, and thrive on making claims that appeal to the basest feelings of the citizenry...fear, hatred, suspicion, and bigotry,among others...(In Corsi's case, his book contents lead to this conclusion; in GWB's case, his publicly reported comments are the justification).

I just looked up Amazon.com and it lists Corsi's book as #2 on the best seller list overall, behind 'Breaking Dawn' and ahead of 'The Last Lecture.' It lists for $28 but is priced at $15.40, at a discount of 45%. Corsi's book got 164 five-star reviews and 260 one-star reviews, with an average 2 1/2 stars rating. The Last Lecture has a 4 1/2 stars rating.

Can Technology Prevent Ethical Lapses?

With cheating and plagiarism rearing their ugly heads quite often these days, especially in business schools, the headline in the WSJ, Business Schools Try Palm Scans To Finger Cheats, caught my attention. According to the article, vein scans will be required of students taking the GMAT.

What a shame that so many resources are being invested in preventing students from cheating, when the great irony is that students are cheating to ostensibly get an education?

Turning Green - with Optimism

There is no dearth of reasons for having a negative outlook these days, with a crisis around every corner. But there is one reason for this writer to have an optimistic outlook going forward.

I teach at a private liberal arts college, and once the spring term gets over I don't hear from students until classes start at the end of August. This summer I have had quite a few students email me and update me on their summer activities. I had taught a first year seminar course last Fall titled 'Local Choices, Global Effects' that dealt with sustainability before the word 'Green' entered the vocabulary of the media. Students who took that course have been regularly emailing me about products or services they have encountered that are 'green' or that promote sustainability. Others have emailed me to let me know about some economic developments and how they found relevance in what they learnt in my courses. Some have updated me on the wonderful stuff they have been learning in their internships and how that relates to their 'academic' knowledge of the world.

This is the first time in my teaching career that I am seeing this level of engagement, from freshmen to juniors and seniors. Clearly, with thinking and engagement, progress lies ahead.
Makes me 'green' in many ways- I wish I was a lot younger so that I could do new product development with these kids!

Capital Punishment of Human Capital

"Employees and ideas are really our core assets." Paul Jacobs, CEO, Qualcomm Inc.
"Technology is important, but we're in the service business, and if we don't respect and understand our people – our most valuable asset – then we can't be successful." Gary D. Forsee, former Chairman & CEO, Sprint Nextel Corp.

Every CEO spouts off about what a valuable asset employees are and how the firm is based on knowledge workers and intellectual capital. But

1) Employees never show up on the asset side of the Balance Sheet
2) Firm-wide Intellectual capital does not show up on the Balance sheet (apart from patents that have been filed and approved)

Whenever mismanagement results in poor earnings performance, the corrective action is to execute mass layoffs- essentially writing down significant knowledge capital.
More critically, the failure of managers, ably illustrated through the Dilbert cartoons, to recognize, develop and nurture talent results in many potential innovations never seeing the light of day. A recent experience of a good friend of mine illustrates that many managers still threaten and abuse the key knowledge assets that are supposed to create 'value.' These 'managerial jerks' still run rampant in the workplace- private and public sector alike.

In a May 2007 McKinsey Quarterly article titled "Building the civilized workplace" Robert Sutton describes workplace jerks and quotes a 2003 study² of 461 nurses which found that in the month before it was conducted, 91 percent had experienced verbal abuse, defined as mistreatment that left them feeling attacked, devalued, or humiliated. Physicians were the most frequent abusers.
The article " When the Bully Sits in the Next Cubicle" describes workplace abuse and the serious health toll bullying can have. According to the article "Some victims become physically ill from the stress, with depression, anxiety and even symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Surveys also suggest that victims of office bullies call in sick more often — although it’s not clear whether they really are sick or just avoiding the abusive environment at work. A large share of the problem involves women victimizing women. The Zogby survey showed that 40 percent of workplace bullies are women." Women managers abusing women is quite commonplace and tragic-putting their sisters down instead of helping them move up when everyone is fighting the glass ceiling.

A sad commentary on human inability to maximize collective human ability.

PAC your problems- Look through RBV Lenses

PAC = Partition and Conquer; RBV = Resource-Based View

Doc has made an intriguing comment on my last post, referencing a resourcer-resource mismatch and the efforts of the affected to reach the resource in a quicker, better and efficient manner. This broad topic can be explored in many ways.
An Operations Researcher like myself looks at the world through a 'Resource-Based View' lens- or RBV. To him, the world (or the individual) has finite (often scarce) resources that have to be allocated so as to maximize (or minimize) certain objective functions. Often there are constraints on these resources, so this view is also referred to as Constraint Based Optimization (CBO).
At an institutional level, taking this view and using the PAC (partition and conquer) approach to the bigger problems has resulted in solutions that may be locally optimal for certain groups or individuals but are far from being optimal in a broader social sense.
As an example, by a number of estimates the world food supply in the recent past has been more than sufficient to feed the entire world population, but clearly dire hunger exists in several parts of the U.S., not to mention other countries. This resource has been allocated 'optimally' or dismally, depending on who's asked. Currently the shift by farmers to planting corn for ethanol is 'optimal' for one constituency, painful for another. There are plenty of lung surfactant drugs available to treat babies born with small lungs, but still babies die because of lack of access or affordability. OTOH Bill Gates decided that the optimal way to 'consume' his resources is through not-for-profit socially benefiting activities.

For an individual to get access to a resource he/she needs another resource to exchange or substitute, and information about resource availability and costs. Information asymmetry can distort resource constraints and allocation and deployment, but at the end of the day, it is the objective function- what we want to maximize or minimize, that matters. To that end, universal access to information and the education to process that information is, IMHO, the only long-term solution. Part of the education is 'social justice.'

An enjoyable and interesting book: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life
by Barbara Kingsolver et al.

Education in America- An Article I wrote on January 25, 2007

Reports of potential employers and educators expressing serious concern at the skill levels of our high school and college students and their inadequate preparation for professional life are appearing with increasing frequency. A report[i] released on Oct. 2 by a consortium of business research organizations states that “The future U.S. workforce is here—and it is woefully ill-prepared for the demands of today’s (and tomorrow’s) workplace.” While this is a serious issue, a more ominous one is the preparation of today’s youth to be the ‘public’ citizens of the future. The youth of today are learning from the examples set by their parents, business leaders, politicians, educators and the like- examples that stand out for their notoriety.

A recent study[ii] found that 56% of graduate business students admitted to cheating one or more times in the past academic year, compared to 47% of nonbusiness students. Other reports indicate that acts of academic dishonesty, including cheating, are common in colleges and universities. On December 3, 2006, Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism announced that it was investigating charges of academic misconduct, i.e. cheating, in the final exam for the required ethics course "Critical Issues in Journalism." Before vilifying the students, the American public at large needs to examine its own acts, and the way it rewards positive and negative behaviors and actions. It is also imperative to remember that a “corporation” is a legal entity, and the actions of a corporation are always performed by people. Here are a few examples.

1. On January 2, a New York subway rider, Wesley Autrey, jumped onto the tracks of the New York Subway to save a man’s life from an oncoming train. He later pointed out that while many people were present, only he and two women aided the distressed person. He was later rewarded with the Bronze Medallion, New York City’s highest civilian honor, by the Mayor. Donald Trump cashed in on some publicity by giving a gift of $10,000, and a few others made other gifts to Mr. Autrey, a true hero.
On the other hand, on January 3, the Board of Directors of Home Depot Inc., removed Robert Nardelli from the Chief Executive Officer position for poor performance. After paying him $225 million during his six-years as the CEO, the Board gave him a farewell gift of $210 million as part of his separation package. Pfizer Inc.'s Board asked its CEO, Henry (Hank) McKinnell, to take “an early retirement,” in part because Pfizer’s stock price declined more than 40% when the market was up . However, the Board gave him a retirement package valued at more than $180 million as a farewell gift.

2. President Bush, in his address to the Nation on January 10, said “The situation in Iraq is unacceptable to the American people -- and it is unacceptable to me. …Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me.” Without saying that mistakes have been made, it is unclear as to what he meant by the statement “the responsibility rests with me.” Taking responsibility means paying a personal price for a person’s actions. For instance, on Mar 14, 2006, South Korean Prime Minister Lee Hae-chan resigned because he accepted responsibility for playing golf at a time when the country’s rail workers were on strike.

3. In the same January 10 speech, Bush reminded people that “The year ahead will demand more patience, sacrifice, and resolve.” While the families of those serving in the armed forces have demonstrated plenty of patience and sacrifice , the President’s sacrifices are unknown, as yet. Of course, he has taken more than 330 vacation days during his tenure, including an extended retreat at his Texas ranch last year which Hurricane Katrina rudely cut short. President Bush, based on public reports, apparently does not even sacrifice his sleep.

4. In a December 29, 2006 SEC filing, Apple Computer Inc. disclosed that records were falsified to support a 2001 options grant to its CEO Steve Jobs of 7.5 million shares. Apple disclosed that this grant was ``improperly recorded as occurring at a special board meeting on Oct. 19, 2001. Such a board meeting did not occur.'' The Company recognized total additional non-cash stock-based compensation expense of $84 million after tax, including $4 million and $7 million in fiscal years 2006 and 2005 respectively. In addition, the company reported that “although the investigation found that CEO Steve Jobs was aware or recommended the selection of some favorable grant dates, he did not receive or financially benefit from these grants or appreciate the accounting implications.” It does not seem to matter that a person who made hundreds of millions by exercising stock options is not expected to know the immorality of “backdating” options, or appreciate the accounting mischief. Apple has cleared him of wrongdoing, and the shareholders have bid up Apple’s stock price to an all time high.

5. On January 9, 2007, Lou Dobbs railed against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on his Lou Dobbs Tonight show on CNN. In a piece titled a “Leftist Menace” he said that “Venezuela's leftist president, Hugo Chavez, takes a major step toward socialism with his plans to nationalize two key industries in his country.” Earlier, President Chavez had said that he would consider nationalizing Venezuela's electrical and telecommunications assets because they "ought to be the property of the Venezuelan nation." Ironically, a little later in the same broadcast, Mr. Dobbs severely criticized state governments, including New Jersey and its governor John Corzine, for selling state toll ways to private interests. He claimed that these assets belonged to the ‘American people.” Of course, Mr. Dobbs does not call himself a socialist or a “leftist menace” for suggesting government control of assets.

America’s future depends on its youth. It is vital that parents, politicians, businesspeople, teachers, and others collectively educate them, with personal examples, to engage in broader intellectual discourse than to just apply labels, and reward them for socially positive behaviors.

---

[i] Report titled “Are They Really Ready To Work? Employers’ Perspectives on the Basic Knowledge and Applied Skills of New Entrants to the 21st Century U.S. Workforce.” Published Oct. 2, 2006 by The Conference Board, Corporate Voices for Working Families, the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, and the Society for Human Resource Management.

[ii] Paper titled "Academic Dishonesty in Graduate Business Programs: Prevalence, Causes, & Proposed Action,” by Trevino, Linda., et al, to be published in an upcoming issue of the Academy of Management Learning and Education.