Michael Braun's Blog

New York City has done a bold thing with the evaluations of their public school teachers: they have put the scores online for anyone to view. Though this action may be a source of distress for the city’s teachers, it is useful for the public, especially as a way to critique not education quality but instead the metric itself. Specifically, I am curious to know just how teachers at high and low performing schools get evaluated by the city’s metrics. This question is interesting because New York City uses a “value-added” approach to teacher evaluation. They predict how well the students in a teacher’s class will perform and then attribute differences between expected performance and actual performance as caused by the teacher. This is intended to balance out the effects of poverty, parent education, past test scores, etc.

The problem is that there is much reason to suspect that teachers in high and low performing schools may be subject to increased error in their evaluations. And if this error is associated with the measurement, then a key assumption of testing theory is violated. Think of it this way. Let’s say you are trying to use a set of addition problems to measure how well some students have learned math. You believe that the score on the math test is a decent measure of the students’ actual learning, if you also include some error. That error could be caused by a host of factors; say, for example, one student didn’t sleep well the night before while another ate a great breakfast and is feeling alert. As long as this error is random, we won’t be concerned about it distorting scores. But now imagine that half the class is blind and the test is written only. In this case, we should see the amount of actual knowledge explained by the test score be much smaller (and thus error be much bigger) for those students who are blind compared to sighted students. Thus, we conclude that our test is not an accurate measure of student learning.

This same thing may be occurring in teachers in high performing schools. Consider this New York Times article in which they discuss 73 cases of teachers whose students produced exceptionally high scores (at or above the 84th percentile) but were rated as below average. This occurred because the city’s metric expected the students to perform even better.

What may be occurring here is called a “ceiling effect,” a case in which the measurement can go no higher and thus limits the upward expansion of the data. In this case, the students are expected to perform exceptionally well, such that the teacher’s own efforts may not be able to have much of any effect. Any teacher could do well with students whose parents are highly involved, perhaps by working through schoolwork with their children each night or paying for additional tutoring after school. In the most possible extreme, the city’s metric might predict that all students in a given classroom perform at the 99th percentile on the test. In this case, it is by definition impossible for the teacher to be rated anything but average.

The same process may occur as a “floor effect,” whereby the lowest performing students can do no worse. In these cases, it should be much easier for teachers to receive at least an average rating, given how low the expectations are for the their students. That’s not to suggest that these teachers can show up and do nothing all day. But it does indicate a problem with the evaluation system. In the cases of teachers with either a high or low bar, the feedback given by the performance evaluations is much less useful than a teacher whose students have average expectation.

The article points out that the city has found the metric to be “too sensitive” and Sean Corcoran, associate professor of educational economics at New York University, has also noted that, even among the city’s best students, teachers will still have stratified ratings. This recognition of problems is very valuable, and the city should be credited with acknowledging problems in the system.

The trouble is that acknowledgement doesn’t go nearly far enough. The ratings do not meet basic assumptions in testing theory, meaning we should question their meaning. Yet they have been released to the public and will (likely) be used in making decisions about teacher performance. These tests should serve as a dry run for changes that must be made before the tests can actually be used to make administrative decisions. Only through careful adjustment and fine-tuning, including removing correlation between error and measured score, can the city’s metric be applied fairly. As it stands now, it is only doing a disservice to teachers, students, parents, and administrators.

Wisconsin governor, Republican Scott Walker, will not challenge any signatures submitted in an effort to recall him from office. This news may initially seem shocking, especially to those (myself included) who had planned to help rebut Mr. Walker’s challenges. It seemed quite likely that Mr. Walker would issue challenges to a large number of signatures. But, given court decisions that denied his campaign further extended time (citing the campaign’s own estimate of 10-20% of signatures being worthy of challenge, far fewer than the percent needed to prevent recall), Mr. Walker has stated that he doesn’t have enough time to properly vet the signatures and will thus challenge none at all. What does this mean for the state of the recall?

Foremost, the recall is most definitely going forward. There is basically nothing that can stop things now, meaning Wisconsin will hold an election sometime this spring or early summer. Mr. Walker’s challenges did not seem on track to derail the process, and thus perhaps it was pointless to issue challenges. Given that the recall organizers submitted over one million signatures, or nearly twice the number required to force a recall election, perhaps it was always a foregone conclusion.

This inevitability doesn’t mean that Mr. Walker has done himself any favors by not challenging the signatures. Every piece of evidence that he can hold up to suggest dirty tactics by his opponents is something that his supporters can rally around. Trying to demonstrate that the recall may be unlawful or at least operated under questionable ethics, means more chance of winning his seat again. To take a martyr-like position against a court decision seems unlikely to do his campaign any favors.

This lack of challenge may actually indicate problems with Mr. Walker’s campaign. Consider the organization that his opposition has. In just 60 days, they collected over one million signatures from people all over Wisconsin. Furthermore, they submitted these signatures as soon as allowed by law, one year after Mr. Walker took office. Even further, the movement toward recall was started February 2011 and sustained all this time! Each of those petition signatures represents a potential motivated voter. Mr. Walker’s campaign will need to build a strong organization quickly. The extensive amount of money he has raised will help this effort, but ultimately money can’t buy enthusiasm. If vetting signatures for challenges that would allow Mr. Walker to avoid recall couldn’t muster enough support (given that Mr. Walker’s campaign said 30 days to review signatures – already 20 more than allowed under law – wasn’t enough time), then what about actual campaign work? Will Mr. Walker be able to find enough motivated volunteers for that?

It’s difficult to predict just what will happen in the upcoming recall election. The Democrats have several candidates in position to run, but none is an obvious front-runner. Mr. Walker, no matter how well he was known prior to getting elected, is now a statewide name. Further, plenty of voters still support Mr. Walker and his controversial efforts to close Wisconsin’s budget deficit and restrict the rights of workers to collectively bargain. Nevertheless, not issuing any challenges to recall signatures doesn’t mean an easier road for Mr. Walker. Instead, while perhaps not shocking, it does represent a missed opportunity that may signal weaknesses in Mr. Walker’s campaign.

I’ve had the pleasure of working on multiple papers (one published, three others currently in preparation) looking at linguistic differences between liars and truth-tellers. The research questions guiding such work go something like this. We expect there to be cognitive differences between people lying and people telling the truth. Liars likely feel guilty about what they are doing, and they have to manage a higher cognitive load, trying to keep the parts of their story straight and monitor whoever they are talking to in case that person were to become suspicious. Because of these facets, we might expect the words they use to be different.

If differences are indeed found, the question then becomes, just what is the cognitive process that produced the differences? Some scholars have argued that differences in pronoun use (for example, fewer first person pronouns and more third person pronouns) occur because liars are trying to distance themselves from the lies they are telling; this is a result of their guilt manifested linguistically. The same process might occur with words that express negativity. The liar’s guilt turns into more negative words.

Given that these claims have received support in some research, we might conclude that these explanations are correct. Though the studies offer no measurement of guilt or other emotions associated with lying, the logical connections seem firm. If we observe significant differences in use of negative words between liars and truth-tellers, then it makes sense to connect this back to the negative emotions the liar is likely feeling.

But what if the differences, while real, are actually contextually driven? That is, what if it is the circumstance surrounding the production of the words that shapes what words are chosen much more so than lying or telling the truth? What if a liar uses third-person pronouns because it makes it seem like he himself has no control over what is happening in the interaction? In one of the experiments I have worked on, participants (called “allocators”) were given a small amount of money to divide between themselves and another participant (called “recipients”). The allocator was free to say anything she wanted to the recipient, but the recipient had to accept the offer or the allocator had to give back all the money she chose to keep. In this circumstance, if the allocator can craft a believable reality, then the recipient is more likely to accept the offer. Talking a lot about how the money was given to the allocator (e.g., describing how the amount of money was chosen and awarded) may do just that, but requires the use of third-person pronouns.

What about circumstances that are naturally highly cognitively demanding? In these cases, the speaker already has a lot on his mind, regardless of whether he chooses to tell the truth or lie. This, separate from deception, may drive linguistic differences. For example, if a situation is highly cognitively demanding, then the speaker may use shorter words and shorter sentences. We might predict that this would interact with deception (if we believe deception to be cognitively demanding), but we shouldn’t be surprised if the context itself has a stronger effect than the deception.

What results from this type of reasoning are two possible explanations. The first is that complex emotional and non-conscious psychological processes result in changing linguistic patterns beyond the speaker’s ability to recognize and control. For example, the speaker who lies uses fewer first-person pronouns to distance himself from the lies he is telling. The second explanation is that linguistic differences are real, but that they are contextual; in other words, we can predict more differences based on a careful consideration of the situation in which the speech is produced without even considering whether deception is present or not.

If we wish to choose the more parsimonious answer, then the second explanation is far preferable. Though not as interesting or as useful, given the lack of evidence for either side (as no one has sought to directly test these underlying presumptions guiding the non-conscious, distancing explanation), we should choose the more parsimonious answer. You can expect that line of reasoning to emerge in more papers with my name on them in the near future.

If becoming a teacher involves years of education and specialized training, and if even that isn’t enough for many people to trust that the educated and licensed teacher actually can teach, then we should be worried when states try to roll out their own methods for evaluating teachers. Given that a big part of instruction is evaluation of student learning, politicians who think they can devise ways to evaluate teachers fairly and accurately should be held to the same standards as teachers: if their performance falls below acceptable levels, then they should be summarily fired. States need teachers to know how to evaluate teachers; only someone with extensive education and experience in testing and evaluation can put together an effective system.

But, as this New York Times article reports, politicians aren’t stopping to take logic into consideration when putting together evaluations. Schools around the country are dealing with problems in the evaluation systems that their states have produced. The article notes an anecdote from a school district in Tennessee, in which each teacher’s lesson is evaluated on 12 dimensions, including one that measures how well the teacher broke students into groups. Should every lesson include a groups-based component? Of course not, and thus a teacher is either forced to produce a lower quality lesson in order to do well on this item or take a low score on this item and hope to do well on all other dimensions.

States aren’t the only ones implementing poorly constructed rubrics for teacher evaluation. Administrators are just as bad. Says Troy Kilzer, principal of a high school in Tennessee, “[You] know when a good lesson is being taught without looking at a rubric.” Whether Mr. Kilzer is referring to some kind of “instinct” for figuring out which teachers are good or whether he means that a good lesson is apparent to all with no rubric needed, these kinds of statements do nothing to instill confidence in the evaluation process. If a good lesson is so readily apparent, then a rubric can easily be developed. And if Mr. Kilzer wishes to use instinct to evaluate teachers, then teachers under his supervision should be very worried. It’s easy to imagine a personal difference turning into a biased gut reaction to the teacher’s ability in the classroom.

Even teachers who support the system seem to be hurt by it. The Times reports on one such supporter: “in Chester County [Tennessee], a gym teacher recently spread playing cards around and had students run to find three that added to 14.” This sounds like an innovative way to work math into physical education curriculum, but we should evaluate this performance not against criteria for broader learning, but rather against the standards for physical education. Does running around help promote lifelong physical fitness? No. Does finding cards encourage a healthy relationship with exercise? Again, no. Does the activity help kids get better at math? Absolutely not. This integration of multiple curricula into one lesson produces worse outcomes on all reasonable measures. Yet this teacher is driven to think “outside the box” because of nebulous and poorly implemented standards of evaluation.

Some, like Daniel Weisberg, executive vice president at The New Teacher Project, a nonprofit agency, argue, “[you] have to start the process somewhere.” And such sentiment is reasonable. New teacher evaluations may not be perfect the first time around. But Mr. Weisberg’s reasoning behind starting somewhere (even with bad results) is quite poor: “If you don’t solve the problem of teacher quality, you will continue to have an achievement gap.” Once again, we see someone convinced that all problems in America’s public education begin and end with teacher quality. And thus, new evaluations, even if they cut like a cleaver rather than a scalpel, will do more good than harm. Mr. Weisberg has lots of experience working with schools, but his background is in political science and law not in education or testing. And thus he is not in a position to suggest that starting with something of poor quality is better than waiting until a better metric can be developed.

States must realize that the science of testing and evaluation is a complicated one, with a rich theoretical foundation and thousands of scholars working in the field. Not depending on this firm basis for producing teacher evaluations hurts everyone. It hurts the teachers who do not receive valuable feedback. It hurts schools by not allowing them a useful tool for meaningful evaluation. And it hurts kids, whose teachers are put on edge by inaccurate and ineffective measurement devices. We wouldn’t subject our children to tests that do nothing to measure their learning; we shouldn’t force our teachers to endure it either.

Social comparison theory describes our tendency to compare our views to others in order to evaluate if they are right or wrong. For example, you hear about a certain piece of legislation on the news but don’t make a judgment about your position until you hear if your favored political party supports or opposes it. This idea has been expanded further to include the idea of directional social comparison. Upward social comparison involves comparing yourself to someone who is better than you – perhaps “better off” or more talented at something. Downward social comparison involves just the opposite – comparing yourself to someone worse off or less talented.

Though upward social comparison is often suggested as the formation for aspiration (working hard to become like someone better than you), I think downward social comparison, in some cases, can actually provide more of a boost toward hard work, especially in the short term. The next time you need to get something done, try these steps to motivate yourself.

First, consider the task and imagine it being done by other people who are less able than you. For example, let’s say you know you need to clean your kitchen but don’t feel particularly motivated. Think to yourself about what would happen if your roommate or partner were to do the job for you. Would they do as good a job as you would? Or let’s say you need to write the introduction to a research paper that you just aren’t excited about. Can anyone else write it as well as you can?

Second, imagine how successfully you will be able to complete the job compared to those unskilled others. For the kitchen, think about how much nicer the counters will look after you’ve gone over them. Think about how much neater the refrigerator will be arranged if you are the one who does it right. For the paper, think about how much better written it will be if you do it. Imagine the feeling of pride when you produce a product that no one could do as well as you.

Third, use this feeling of success and skill as a motivator to get started on the project. Think most on the short term. Cleaning the kitchen is easier to motivate yourself to do using downward social comparison than a much larger project (like redecorating the kitchen). It makes more sense to use this technique for writing the intro to a paper than doing an entire dissertation.

This practice likely won’t work if you generally consider yourself unskilled at the task you need to do. If you think you are just miserable at cleaning, then you will have a hard time using downward social comparison. If your writing skills make Stephanie Meyer (author of the Twilight books) look like Charles Dickens, then you won’t be able to imagine yourself doing the task better than someone else. But in realms where you have some degree of skill, this technique may come in handy.

This morning, I discovered that my blog had been hacked!  Specifically, some malicious program had injected code into all .php files on my blog.  That caused users to be redirected to some other websites.  This has happened to me once before, so I knew what to do.  In this case, I went to this helpful website and downloaded a script to cleanup the infected files.  Five minutes later, my website was clean and ready to go again.  I’ve changed passwords and usernames, though I don’t think that that was the point of entry for the malicious code.  In any case, everything should be back up and running now.

My sincere apologies if this malicious code affected your ability to access content on this blog.

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is a conservative group that produces “model” legislation for states and provides assistance in getting that legislation passed. The group is behind sweeping changes in the power of workers to collectively bargain, and it seems that finally people are starting to take notice. According to this article, two professors at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have worked to uncover ALEC’s tentacles as they worm their way into laws around the country.

The problem is not that ALEC is attempting to have influence; this kind of action is done by thousands of groups every year. Instead, the problem is that ALEC’s talking points are being taken up by numerous people, conservative or liberal, and ALEC uses this to sow discontent in groups that should be united. Just like White supremacist David Duke opposing the Iraq War, individuals must be careful to find nuance in their positions to avoid making groups like ALEC more powerful.

Chief among the talking points is opposition to tenure for public school teachers and rights of teachers to collectively bargain. Many who oppose ALEC’s agenda may also speak out against the rights of teachers, claiming that such rights systematically degrade education quality. Though these arguments ignore fundamnetal truths about the nature of tenure (including information on dismissing a tenured teacher), they are still persuasive because they suggest that unions are causing poor education outcomes.

Yet few among those educated people who link the rights of teachers with poor education would take up the rest of ALEC’s agenda. ALEC’s ultimate goal is to remove power from local school boards and place power in the hands of state governments; this way, ALEC can have more direct influence over a state’s education system and use that power to encourage more school vouchers, greater control for corporations, and increased reliance on charter schools, rather than public schools. Reducing the rights of teachers is just the first step in ALEC’s master plan.

Thus those who inadvertently take up ALEC’s talking points are making it easier for ALEC to get their way. If teachers have reduced rights, then dismissing teachers becomes much easier. If a school can be shown as “failing” because it produces students with merely average test scores, then all those teachers can be summarily fired. And if an entire school is dismissed, then there is little other choice than to replace that public entity with a private one. “Public institutions have, yet again, failed our children,” ALEC will cry. “And therefore the only solution is to let the success of private industry take over.”

The question becomes, when will it be easier to fight ALEC – now, even if it requires protecting the rights of teachers, or later, when teachers are no longer a potent entity in the battle to save public education? Opposing the rights of teachers in their entirety (e.g., favoring eliminating tenure rather than small modifications; preferring to get rid of all collective bargaining, instead of carefully tailored adjustments) gives ALEC and their patsies in state legislatures around the country the ability to dramatically reshape our education landscape.

ALEC will not rest until they have removed government from the business of education, resulting in an even more dangerously tiered system in which the rich get the best education and the poor get none at all. This is the natural outcome of a market-based education system; it is a byproduct of ALEC’s plans that will come about if market logic is followed through to its end. Aligning with ALEC in these early stages, even inadvertently, ushers in the beginning of the end for public education. In other words, it is not possible to oppose teacher rights while also supporting strong public education.

Mitt Romney, former Massachusetts governor and current candidate for the Republican party’s presidential nomination, has sought to clarify a burning issue while on the campaign trail in Michigan: what does he love about Michigan? Here’s Mr. Romney’s answer.

“I love this state. It seems right here. The trees are the right height. I like seeing the lakes. I love the lakes. There’s something very special here… the great lakes, but also all the little inland lakes that dot the parts of Michigan. I love cars. I don’t know, I mean, I grew up totally in love with cars.”

For those of us who felt Mr. Romney hated lakes because they represented a thorn in the side of private industry, this should clarify things. For anyone who felt Mr. Romney didn’t car about cars because he loved private jets better, this should help set the record straight. Mr. Romney does love Michigan, the state he grew up in. It’s got everything he loves.

If you watched the video linked above (apologies for the low quality), then you may be wondering just how in the world this man was able to run a large, successful business. Contrast Mr. Romney with a CEO like Steve Jobs; there is no comparison. Mr. Jobs was known for his ability to create a new reality, to say something that was arguably or factually false and have people believe it. Mr. Jobs could pitch a product that no one knew they wanted and, by the end of the presentation, have consumers around the world ready to buy immediately. Mr. Romney can’t even convincingly say what he loves about the state he grew up in. Mr. Jobs says the iPad is magical and demonstrates why. Mr. Romney says he loves Michigan because the trees are the right height.

One might rightly judge that this is politics, not business. Mr. Romney’s ability to speak off the cuff matters very little in an age of heavy control by campaign managers. Mr. Romney’s supporters can wish this to be true all they like, but if Mr. Romney wins the Republican nomination, he’s going to face no mere politician; he’s going up against the Steve Jobs of presidents. Barack Obama’s speaking gaffs, what few there have been, are caused by Mr. Obama speaking too truthfully, suggesting, for example, that desperation about the future is what makes people cling to guns and religion and thus vote against their best interests. We worry about a statement like that not because it doesn’t reflect what Mr. Obama thinks, but because we wish Mr. Obama wouldn’t be quite so honest.

Mr. Romney has the opposite problem: in matters of no importance, he gives answers that sound like lies. What will happen to Mr. Romney during a debate with Mr. Obama, when asked about a particularly contentious issue, and Mr. Romney has to explain his position? If he answers like he did about his love of Michigan, A) no one will know what his position is, and B) he’ll look exceptionally uncertain. If Mr. Romney appears flustered expressing his love for his home state in front of a friendly crowd, how will he deal with real issues speaking to a national audience?

Maybe Mr. Romney can handle the big issues much better than the little ones, but what Republican voter in Michigan or elsewhere is excited by these gaffs? The Michigan example isn’t even something taken out of context, like previous problematic statements about corporations being people, liking to fire people, being worried about getting fired himself, and not caring about the poor. It’s just “Mitt being Mitt” – uncomfortable, unconvincing, and unresponsive to what must be dozens of hours of coaching from his campaign staff. It won’t take many more answers like the Michigan one before you can add another “un-” to that list: “Unpresidential.”

As many people know, current candidate for the Republican party’s presidential nomination Mitt Romney is a Mormon and a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Mormonism is a religion started in the United States, focused around a belief that Jesus Christ, whom Christians believe is the son of God, came to America after his death and resurrection. Though Mormons consider themselves Christian, their beliefs do not agree with the beliefs of many mainstream Christians. This particular issue may be a sticky one, should Mitt Romney win the nomination and go on to face President Obama in the general election.

Of particular importance is the fact that Mormons do not recognize any baptisms performed outside of their faith. A baptism is meant to remove from the receiver the “original sin” of man that prevents a person from entering into heaven after death. It is a sacred ritual for Christians and one with strong cultural and religious significance. Thus all Mormons who practice their faith in line with the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints must believe that all non-Mormons will go to hell.

This extreme view has lead to some extreme practices, including “proxy baptisms” by the Mormon Church. This process involves the baptisms of living people as proxies for a person who is already dead. In other words, it allows Mormons to retroactively baptize people into their faith so that they may go to heaven instead of hell. Mr. Romney is reported to have done this for his father-in-law, a man who was not Mormon.

The trouble is that the practice doesn’t end with a family ceremony. Author and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel has criticized the Mormon Church for their proxy baptisms of Holocaust victims; that is, the Mormon Church has proxy baptized Jews killed by the Nazis into the Mormon faith, believing this to rescue them from hell and allow them to ascend into the “Celestial Kingdom.”

Given that Mr. Romney did this for his father-in-law, it is clear that he believes the practice is necessary in order to enter into heaven after death. This suggests that, while Mr. Romney might say that he does not support proxy baptism for Jews or others against their wills, he also believes that those people are still damned. Though many Christians should believe the same thing for Jews, Muslims, and atheists alike, Mormons take this one step further. Mr. Romney is essentially saying that any Christian baptism is not enough to get into heaven. Mr. Romney believes that most of America is going to hell, no matter how virtuous a life a person has lead. If you aren’t Mormon, you aren’t “saved.”

For a man who already has trouble exciting the Republican base and who can’t seem to connect with conservative Evangelicals, this issue will not and should not be ignored. After all, this isn’t an issue of private faith or of faith with many different variants, like Christianity. Not all sects of Christianity believe that a personal faith in Jesus Christ as the one true son of God is necessary for salvation. Some believe that Christ’s crucifixion is salvation for all mankind, no matter what. And thus a Christian politician could legitimately say that he does not believe a lack of baptism is akin to a life in hell.

But Mr. Romney is not just any Christian; he is Mormon. He spent two years of his life preaching the faith in France, because he believed it was necessary in order to save people’s souls. He was kept from serving in the Vietnam War thanks to a missionary exemption. And he proxy baptized his father-in-law against the his wishes. Mr. Romney is not a man with passing or happenstance faith. This is a man who looks into the eyes of a potential voter, shakes his hand, asks for his vote, wishes him the best of luck, and HONESTLY AND COMPLETELY believes that that man is going to hell when he dies, unless he converts to Mormonism or has a proxy baptism. Those kind of extreme religious views make a conservative Catholic like Rick Santorum look downright liberal.

In one of the funniest scenes from the first (and only truly great) season of television show 30 Rock, Liz Lemon’s boyfriend Dennis Duffy comes into the office to sell pagers to the staff. After Liz questions the value of a pager, Dennis informs her that “technology is cyclical.” It’s funny because, upon further consideration, the statement is absurd. If anything is not cyclical, it’s technology.

But consider one technological advancement that may indeed be showing a cyclical trend – the link between instant messaging and text messaging. Though email remains the longest surviving internet-based communication technology, instant messaging (IM) is a close second. IM allows two individuals who are concurrently online to exchange text-based messages in real time. IM had its (first?) heyday in the early 2000s, as internet connectivity was widespread but cell phone text messaging was not. Though for a while the ability to access IM on a phone was a touted feature, IM soon lost popularity to text messaging.

There are many reasons we can speculate as to why text messaging won out over IM. The messages are more private (on a phone, rather than on a computer screen). The devices are more portable. Cell phones also became nearly ubiquitous among young people, whereas a computer needed to be shared with a family. But some data suggests that text messaging may have reached its (first?) apex. In countries with early and high text messaging penetration, rates of text messaging are down for the first time ever.

Couple this with a new feature Apple has rolled out, iMessages. Apple has integrated into its iOS mobile devices the ability to send text-like messages, circumventing the mobile carriers lock on text messages. At first, this appeared to be simply a nice perk for iOS users, especially because Apple would automatically switch to sending a free iMessage rather than a (potentially) costly text message. But now, Apple is bringing the same functionality to their desktop operating system with a new application called Messages.

This application allows for nice and helpful integration between phones, tablets, and computers, but in reality it is nothing more than an instant messaging application. In other words, Apple is touting old technology as new, albeit under a different name (Messages instead of their previous iChat). And while the new features will be more tightly integrated into their OS than, for example, an app like Skype, there is fundamentally nothing different in Apple’s iteration.

Was Dennis Duffy right? Is technology cyclical? Perhaps only in Apple’s “reality distortion field,” where a “new” feature can make even the old feel exciting again. Are people aching to return to the days of all-night IM sessions? Are the disadvantages of tiny cell phone keyboards finally winning out over the privacy of the device? Has computer ownership reached an appropriate saturation point that the “family computer” no longer exists? I’m still skeptical. Marketing an old feature as a new one doesn’t yet mean we will see a resurgence of computer-based instant messaging. But in case that does happen, let me know your screen name in the comments. I’ll IM you… er, sorry, iMessage you… later.

Hip Hop collective Odd Future (short for Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All) is a controversial bunch of young, restless performers and musicians from Southern California. Their antics have caused controversy in numerous areas, most specifically due to group leader Tyler, the Creator’s lyrics which have been widely decried as mysogynistic and homophobic. So when Out magazine featured a story about group member Syd the Kyd, a lesbian, there was bound to be questions about just how she could tolerate Tyler’s lyrics. Fortunately, she had an answer.

From the article:

“Most of the homos I know use homophobic slurs, and it’s never a problem unless someone who’s not a part of the group is using the word,” Syd says. “But a lot of people take things out of context, and you’ve got to understand that there is a difference between saying, ‘Hey, you faggot’ and ‘Hey, faggot.’ When Tyler says ‘faggot,’ he’s not referring to gays, he’s referring to lame people. And in our vocabulary, that’s what the word ‘faggot’ means. I’m not offended by the word ‘faggot’ — and I am one.”

The problem with this answer is that it’s not particularly satisfying. She may not be offended, but should other people be? After all, the repurposing of a hateful word into a word that is still derogatory, just with a different meaning, isn’t exactly some kind of emancipating act, as some have argued the repurposing of certain racial epithets has been.
Syd herself seems confused – she is a “faggot,” she says, but the word means a person who is lame.

This confusion has launched some critics into a bit of a flutter. For example, Mindy Abovitz, editor of Tom Tom Magazine, recently canceled a planned piece on Syd because of her actions in a music video. Others seem to engage with Syd’s response to Out’s question, suggesting that her answer at least deserves some critical evaluation.

Here’s the truth: Syd’s answer deserves no critical attention. She is a 19 year old woman with music talent but no particular intelligence. She has no understanding of the nuance or history of the use of a gay slur to instead mean something derogatory to all people. And she isn’t capable of writing some kind of treatise on homophobia and language. So just like we shouldn’t try to parse Tyler, the Creator’s misogynistic and homophobic response to Tegan and Sara’s criticism of his lyrics, we shouldn’t waste time trying to find an inherent truth in Syd’s nonsensical and defensive answer to those same lyrics.

The same consternation occurred in criticism of M.I.A.’s lyrics supporting a Sri Lankan terrorist group. While some tried to find intelligence in her lyrics, others (like me) pointed out that M.I.A. claimed no real knowledge on the topic. We shouldn’t waste time trying to figure out a deeper meaning behind those lyrics, and we shouldn’t bother parsing Syd the Kyd’s defense of homophobia. Suffice it to say, she’s ignorant and the only thing that will make a difference is a good dose of education. Considering she claims to never travel beyond a two block radius from her apartment, that education may take a while.

NPR reported last week that one of the reasons Mitt Romney hasn’t yet secured the Republican Party’s nomination for president is that conservative voters don’t see him as having a clear vision for the United States. This particular perspective could have many sources. Romney isn’t known for any particular campaigning skills. His abilities to speak off the cuff have resulted in numerous flubs, whether taken out of context or not. And his record (as a relatively liberal governor in Massachusetts) most certainly does not speak for itself. And what it does say has some voters picking other candidates.

But it is still worth considering just how a general election Romney campaign would shape up against President Barack Obama, a consummate campaigner and a person who is sometimes accused of presenting nothing but vision. The race may look a lot like the dichotomy that Hillary Clinton tried to draw between herself and Mr. Obama in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary. She suggested that her own leadership style was one of CEO, leading the government on a day-to-day level, while Mr. Obama was content to sit back and let the legislative branch do the work. Mr. Obama did all but agree with this assessment.

Given Mr. Romney’s business background, this comparison seems like it could emerge again. Mr. Romney can present himself as a careful leader, accustomed to running companies, a state government, and a large event (the Olympics). He can suggest that Mr. Obama’s lack of similar leadership has hurt the economy, or at least failed to make it grow as fast as possible. It’s likely to be the only line of attack that seems consistent with Mr. Romney’s many, many different positions on issues.

But will it sting Mr. Obama? This is the reason why conservatives may be uncomfortable with Mr. Romney running on his record as a business leader. Certainly some shady practices of Bain Capital don’t help Mr. Romney look like an ordinary guy. Buying a business, breaking it into pieces, selling those pieces, laying off thousands of workers, and making a profit along the way: this is not a practice to tout when running for president. Mr. Romney, in essence, grew his own business by stepping on other businesses. Is this the kind of vision Mr. Romney has for the United States?

If this was England when Margaret Thatcher became prime minister, we might see it as a powerful vision: sell off state industry and let the economy flourish, as free market thinkers declare it will. Today in America, however, though the federal budget deficit is large, the government’s size is small, at least in terms of what can be cut. Will Mr. Romney overhaul Medicare and Social Security, saving money while keeping people’s benefits the same? This is unlikely. Will he cut defense spending? Again, that’s an unpopular position to run on, let alone sell to Congress.

And thus, unless Mr. Romney presents some kind of new vision, he sounds like a generic candidate. His points are, first, that Mr. Obama has failed because the US economy isn’t recovering fast enough from the biggest recession since the Great Depression. Second, that he can do a better job because of his leadership experience. But there’s little else to get voters fired up. Democrats know the pain of trying to win an election on an “anybody but him” platform. Senator John Kerry failed to defeat President George W. Bush in 2004 because, in part, there wasn’t enough excitement from voters; ousting Mr. Bush for Mr. Kerry seemed like too little change.

Will the thrill of ousting Mr. Obama be enough to get Republican voters to turn out for Mr. Romney (or whoever the eventual nominee is)? Time will tell. But if Mr. Romney can’t present a compelling vision for the country, then it doesn’t bode well for the other potential nominees, each of whom has many more weaknesses, whether multiple infidelities or comically extreme conservative views. In the race between visionary and CEO, a little pizazz can go a long way. We’ll see if Mr. Romney ever finds his inner showman.

Embattled Wisconsin Republican governor Scott Walker took dramatic efforts a year ago to cut Wisconsin’s budget deficit without raising taxes. Mr. Walker declared any tax increases off the table before he took office, which meant all budget balancing came in the form of dramatic cuts in state funding, especially for vital areas like education. Mr. Walker also pushed through legislation that severely curtailed the rights of public employees to collectively bargain. All this, he declared, was necessary to put Wisconsin on sound economic footing.

Critics suggested that much of Mr. Walker’s efforts had nothing to do with the economy, and in fact, may have hurt Wisconsin’s chances for prosperity. These claims seem meted out by job losses; for the last six months, Wisconsin has lost jobs while the nation has added them. But Mr. Walker’s claims of getting everything right for Wisconsin’s books still could stand. Indeed, with states like Michigan showing unexpected budget surpluses, it may have been possible for Wisconsin to do the same.

Alas for Mr. Walker, such an outcome was not to be. Despite all of Mr. Walker’s cuts to the state budget, Wisconsin is once again showing a projected budget deficit of $143 million for the 2013 fiscal year. This, after all the “repair” bills that were supposed to fix the state’s budgeting. This, after the national economy is on the rebound with good economic numbers not seen for years. This, after Mr. Walker blamed state workers for the budget woes and in turn severely restricted their rights. And this, after Mr. Walker pushed through another severe round of budget cuts for the University of Wisconsin system, in addition to the heavy cuts already imposed.

Scott Walker’s policies have failed Wisconsin. This is evident even without this bad budget news, as Mr. Walker is facing almost certain recall, meaning he will have to run again just to keep his job. But the recall was mostly over differences in rights for workers and preferences for how to solve the state’s budget crisis. These new budgetary numbers add a quantifiable way to see the extent of Mr. Walker’s failed policies.

The debate over how to balance Wisconsin’s budget begun a year and a half ago, as the campaign for governor was under way. Mr. Walker won the election and had an opportunity to push through his plans: no new taxes and instead austerity for all. Imagine this as a grand experiment to see which is better, cuts only, tax increases and cuts, or only tax increases. Mr. Walker favored only cuts and we now have evidence that this kind of policy is a failure.

This failure should become, newly, what the recall election is about. Separate from differences in budgetary priorities, removed from ideological differences about the rights of workers, this recall fight can and should be about one simple question: did Scott Walker’s policies help or hurt Wisconsin’s economy? There is no evidence that they helped, and plenty of evidence that they hurt. Wisconsin can no longer afford Scott Walker as our governor.

For individuals and groups seeking to improve the quality of teaching in American public schools, high on their list of demands is the ability to quickly dismiss (often without proper procedure) teachers deemed “poor” by performance measures. This particular proposal would be rather pointless if the reformers didn’t also believe that “bad” teachers could be replaced with “good” teachers. But what are the chances that schools will be able to replace all those underperforming teachers with high performing ones? Do we really trust that school administrators can spot “good” teachers when it comes time to hire? And what happens when a “bad” teacher’s replacement ends up doing just as poorly? These questions must be dealt with prior to granting increased hiring and firing power to school administrators.

First, can schools replace bad teachers with good teachers? In some school districts, I imagine there is healthy competition for jobs. The districts may be located in desirable areas, have high tax bases (meaning good school funding), and generally be known as places for good schools. In these cases, it should be easy to get a large number of applicants for teaching jobs. That means that if an underperforming teacher is let go, a better applicant will likely be found.

But what about school districts that are far less desirable? Inner city schools are underfunded, present more challenges to education, and are located in undesirable areas. An underperforming teacher in a school like this still represents a teacher who was willing to work in the school. Perhaps that was out of desperation, but in many cases it is likely because that teacher wanted to try to do some good. Finding a better quality replacement may be a large challenge. The same is true for small towns; not many teachers will want to live in a remote farming community when a better job is also an option, and for the “best” teachers, there should be many more options available.

We can’t conclude that firing bad teachers will automatically result in their replacement with good teachers in cases where the job itself is not appealing. Schools still must rely on market forces when it comes time to pick a candidate. Indeed, in some cases, underperforming teachers who are allowed to reapply for their jobs may end up the best candidate, just like they were when they applied for the jobs in the first place.

In addition to market forces, school administrators must know how to pick the best teacher. In some cases, the comparisons may be easy. A teacher with 10 years of experience and average performance ratings won’t look as good as a teacher with the same experience and high performance ratings. But how often will administrators have such a straightforward comparison to make? The most vexing case will be an experienced teacher whose students perform around average compared to a new teacher, with no experience but an incredible excitement and passion for the job. It’s easy to see how the new teacher would outshine the experienced teacher; that optimism and idealism can be contagious. But what does the evidence say about the success and abilities of new teachers? It would seem unlikely for new teachers to regularly outperform their experienced counterparts on average.

The administrator has a very difficult choice to make. How can all the evidence be weighed in order to produce one clear winner candidate? Financial issues may also come into play. The new teacher will make a lower salary, freeing up district resources. The new teacher may only have a BA, while the experienced teacher has an MA; many states require that better educated teachers be paid higher salaries, thus giving the district a financial incentive to higher the less educated applicant. Politics may matter too. The experienced teacher being considered for dismissal may have rankled some teachers over the years, while the new teacher will be willing to go along to get along. With all these complicating factors, do we really trust the administrator to make the choice based solely on learning outcomes for students?

In some cases, such trust will be misplaced, and expectations of high performance by the replacement teacher will fall short. Not all teachers can be above average by definition, and most replacements will end up being comparisons between teachers in the middle of the pack. In other words, if administrators are regularly seeking to replace underperforming teachers, then many replacements will also end up being underperforming, simply by the laws of statistical sampling.

What are administrators to do in these cases? The challenges facing school districts will likely mean that very few districts exercise any additional power to fire underperforming teachers, except in the most egregious of cases. But therein lies the rub. No organization – not politicians, not parents’ groups, not school districts, and not teachers’ unions – would oppose the fair dismissal of a grossly incompetent teacher. So what change to the law is really needed?

Indeed, school districts have the ability to deal with these exceptionally poor teachers right now, even when the teachers have tenure! Every state in the nation has policies for dismissing a teacher with tenure; tenure simply grants the teacher the right to certain protections under the law. For example, some states require that teachers with tenure get a hearing about the reasons for their firing prior to being dismissed; for teachers with no tenure, there is no such protection. Other states require that the teacher’s failings be documented prior to firing, something that only the stupidest school districts wouldn’t do. After all, not documenting what the employee has struggled with makes for great evidence in a lawsuit alleging discrimination.

Specifically, consider North Carolina’s laws for dismissing a teacher who has tenure. Teachers with tenure can be dismissed for inadequate performance, neglect of duties, failure to fulfill statutory duties of teachers as defined by state law, insubordination, failure to comply with requirements set forth by the board of education, immoral or inappropriate conduct, incapacity (physical or mental), failure to maintain teaching license, failure to pay money owed to the government, or advocating the overthrow of the government. With all those pieces laid out, who wants to argue that the school district’s hands are tied by tenure?

No district can honestly say they are crippled by poor teachers, none of whom can be dismissed. The poorest teachers can currently be dismissed in a fair way, whether that teacher has tenure or not. These worst teachers can easily be replaced by better teachers in almost all cases. The average teachers won’t be fired, because districts know the chances of replacement with a better teacher are small, and the repercussions of getting rid of a teacher with average performance could be huge. Thus giving greater power to school administrators to hire and fire would likely not improve education significantly. Instead, it would serve to put more power into the hands of a single individual. If critics believe that the education system in America is failing, then rewarding administrators is like giving a bonus to a CEO when the company goes bankrupt.

Last night’s mostly meaningless GOP primary events (in Missouri, Colorado, and Minnesota) handed three victories to one candidate: Rick Santorum. Mitt Romney failed to win like he did in the previous two contests (Florida and Nevada) and came in a distant third in Minnesota (where Ron Paul was second). And thus the primary process seems to be moving not forward toward selecting a nominee, but rather backwards into uncertainty. Who will win the nomination? Mr. Romney still seems most likely, but his “organization,” no matter how well organized, doesn’t seem to know how to generate wins. And, as many have noted, Mr. Romney has yet to win a contest in the pivotal Midwest.

After South Carolina, I suggested courses of action for each candidate. For Mr. Santorum, I suggested he drop out of the race. How wrong I was! Mr. Santorum, either through polling, strategy, or dumb luck, held on, and it paid off. South Carolina and Iowa looked like anomalies after Floridan and Nevada gave victories to Mr. Romney, but now it isn’t clear just who the front runner is.

Can Mr. Romney do anything different at this point? First, he’s demonstrated that he is not interesting to evangelical conservatives and tea party types. His Mormon faith makes him suspect to evangelicals, but he isn’t likely to convert (though his flip-flops so far would suggest no option is off the table). His record in Massachusetts makes him seem anything but a small-government type.

Second, he’s demonstrated an inability to get ordinary Republicans excited. Voter turnout in the Republican primaries is down 10% from 2008. Mr. Romney is not a draw at the polls, meaning he needs momentum in the primaries to have a good chance at winning. In close primaries, momentum gets people casting their vote for a winner. And at the convention, Mr. Romney doesn’t want to roll in looking tired and spent. But even with all this on the line, Mr. Romney’s awkward stump speeches and personal interactions repeatedly fail to turn out regular Republicans. Rich Republicans support Romney, but they won’t be enough to give him the general election.

Third, Mr. Romney can’t win on a moderate position, but he also can’t run as any more conservative. Other candidates might demure on issues like immigration or energy, only then to breakout new policies to fire up the base when things aren’t going so well. But Mr. Romney, in a possibly vain attempt, has painted himself as broadly conservative, despite his LONG record indicating otherwise.

Fourth, it isn’t clear that an argument about being the most able to beat President Obama matters at all to Republican primary voters. Rick Santorum is comically unelectable. Personally, I am rooting for Mr. Santorum to take the nomination because Mr. Obama would have such an easy time defeating him. If Mr. Santorum was his opponent, and the economy were in better shape, it could result in a President Reagan in 1984 kind of landslide. Why would voters then pick Mr. Santorum? It seems possible that they wish to demonstrate support for a “real conservative” rather than choose the inevitable candidate.

Inevitability is Mr. Romney’s salvation and curse. If he campaigns on that message, he looks presumptive and unappealing. But he knows that his campaign organization keeps him limping along and that he will probably take the nomination before the convention. But thus far there is no indication that NOT being the inevitable nominee actually excites Mr. Romney. While some candidates relish being the underdog, Mr. Romney seems lost in that position. Mr. Romney’s campaign doesn’t have a reverse, but they better back up and figure out what they are doing wrong, or this mess of a primary will look neat and tidy when it comes time for the nominee to face against the ultimate campaigner in Barack “No Drama” Obama.