It's Halloween and the political parties are exchanging costumes.

I have a big file of "stuff I'd like to eventually get around to using" in these blog posts. I was looking through it this morning, and came across a special report done by the Washington Post earlier this year titled "Running in the Red: How the U.S., on the Road to Surplus, Detoured to Massive Debt."

The opening paragraphs caught my attention: "The nation’s unnerving descent into debt began a decade ago with a choice, not a crisis."

"In January 2001, with the budget balanced and clear sailing ahead, the Congressional Budget Office forecast ever-larger annual surpluses indefinitely. The outlook was so rosy, the CBO said, that Washington would have enough money by the end of the decade to pay off everything it owed."
"Voices of caution were swept aside in the rush to take advantage of the apparent bounty. Political leaders chose to cut taxes...."

Out of curiosity, I clicked on the "voices of caution" link and found myself reading a January 20, 1999 article covering Bill Clinton's next-to-last State of the Union address. I had long ago forgotten what he said. Here is some of the article:

"President Clinton appeared before a joint session of Congress last night to present an ebullient vision of a nation enjoying vast prosperity after six years under his leadership, a newfound abundance that he said should be used to prepare for the burden of a rapidly aging population in the next century."

"....announcing a policy barrage that includes one of the more ambitious initiatives of his presidency: a plan to devote some $2.7 trillion in projected budget surpluses over the next 15 years to Social Security"

"Clinton also proposed directing billions of the surplus to the Medicare health insurance program for seniors. Cumulatively, the president anticipates spending nearly 90 percent of the surplus on programs for the aged."

Clinton's ideas struck me as "prudent." a term which used to be closely associated with the Republicans. Many of you will remember Dana Carvey's imitation of George H.W. Bush on Saturday Night Live. "Wouldn't be prudent" was the big laugh-getter.

Thomas Friedman's new book "That used to be us: How America Fell behind in the world it invented and how we can come back" contains a wonderful description of how our parties have traded costumes:

"Neither of America's two major parties seems to be able to address in serious fashion the challenges the country confronts. Their political philosophies are worlds apart, and neither outlook is suitable for the present moment. The Democrats act as if government is the solution to all of America's difficulties; the Republicans act as if government is the cause of all of them. The Democrats behave as if virtually every program the government created in the twentieth century is perfect and cannot be changed in any way; the Republicans seek to send the country back to the nineteenth century, before any of those programs existed. Neither approach will give the country the policies it needs to succeed in the decades to come."

"In fact, the parties have reversed their historical positions. A generation ago Democrats stood for progressive change. Now they defend every federal program as if each were sacred. They have become the most conservative force in American politics. The term "reactionary liberalism" is not a contradiction in terms; it is an accurate description of the Democrats' approach to governance."

"The Republicans used to be the conservatives in the original, genuine, European sense, opposed to sudden, rapid shifts in public policy and prudent [NOTE: there's that word!] when it came to public finances. Now they are the party of fiscal radicalism and recklessness, cutting taxes without reducing spending and thereby pushing the United States ever deeper into debt."

"The two parties are, however, united on two things--unfortunately. Neither has the courage to take the necessary steps to address the dangerously high budget deficits: reduce spending on the main entitlement programs (Social Security and Medicare), raise taxes, and invest in the programs on which economic success depends. And neither has the courage to reduce America's, and therefore the world's, ruinous dependence on oil by raising the  price of gasoline."

Trick or treat!

I saved $700 in 45 minutes last Sunday.

Last month I did a blog post about the new "open enrollment" dates for Medicare, which run from October 15 through Dec. 7 of this year. If you missed it, click here to go to that post.

Practicing what I preach, I went to www.medicare.gov last Sunday morning, and looked at part D drug plans. In 45 minutes I had discovered a drug plan that would save me $700 in out-of-pocket costs next year compared with my current plan.

I used the "personalized search" option, which required that I know my medicare number and some other information which you can find on the front of your medicare card. Using the personalized--rather than general search--I was able to handle the whole enrollment process at the Medicare site, and Medicare will take care of canceling my current drug plan at the end of this year.

You will also need to know the names of the medications you take, as well as their dosages, so collect your prescription bottles and have them handy when you go searching for a new part D drug plan.

At $700 for 45 minutes of work, that's $933/hour. It's tough to find a job that pays that well, and you can do it from home in your bathrobe!

I'll bet you didn't know this about nursing home care.

I was thumbing through the latest AARP magazine this afternoon, and ran across something both fascinating and frightening. It's on page 93. Here's the question that was asked:

"A nursing home recently sued my friend for $10,000 to pay for her father's end-of-life care. She had signed no papers and had no say in his choices or expenditures--is she responsible?" Here's the answer:


"In 30 states "filial responsibility" laws, while seldom enforced, say that adult children must care for parents who can't aford care for themselves....Some long-term care facilities that can't get payment for services--through the resident's funds of through Medicaid--are turning to the resident's children for restitution. Everyone with a parent in assisted living or a nursing home should understand the laws in the state their parent lives in. Check out the info at aarp.org/filial."

Here are the states WITHOUT filial responsibility laws:ME, NY, SC, FL, AL, MI, WI, MN, IL, MO, NE, KS, OK, TX, WY, CO, NM, WA, AZ, ID, HI.

Any state not listed above DOES have a filial responsibility law.

American Teacher: A movie you should know about.

Remember how angry you got when the film Waiting for Superman told the world that the problem with our educational system is greedy, lazy, unionized teachers? Well, it's time for the other side of the story!

The new film, American Teacher, is directed by Academy Award winner Vanessa Roth and narrated by Matt Damon. It's produced by the Teacher Salary Project. Here's their description:

"THE TEACHER SALARY PROJECT encompasses a feature-length documentary film, an interactive online resource, and a national outreach campaign that delves into the core of our educational crisis as seen through the eyes and experiences of our nation's teachers. This project is based on the New York Times bestselling book Teachers Have It Easy by journalist and teacher Daniel Moulthrop, co-founder of the 826 National writing programs Nínive Calegari, and writer Dave Eggers. American Teacher is produced by Eggers and Calegari, produced and directed by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Vanessa Roth, and narrated by Matt Damon."


"Weaving interviews of policy experts and startling facts with the lives and careers of four teachers, our film, American Teacher, tells the collective story by and about those closest to the issues in our educational system—the 3.2 million teachers who spend every day in classrooms across the country. Through an interactive and evolving website and a feature-length documentary that brings together educational experts, student interviews, and a year of documenting the day-to-day lives and sacrifices of public school teachers, THE TEACHER SALARY PROJECT will bring an awareness to the real and imminent crisis in our educational system—how little we value our strongest, most committed, and most effective teachers, and the ripple effect this has on how our children learn and their potential for future success."


"In keeping with the storytelling styles of both Dave Eggers (writer) and Vanessa Roth (director), American Teacher is a character-driven film that explores this urgent issue through humor, irony, and the energy of the teachers who fill the screen. Since 2008, our team has closely followed the stories of four teachers living and working in disparate urban and rural areas across the country. The film's narrative balances the personal stories of each character with a mixture of interviews and animated facts and statistics by Stefan Nadelman, each highlighting the big sacrifices made by our nation’s teachers, and how these demanding costs force many of our greatest teachers out of the profession. The film is narrated by Matt Damon, who is passionate about education, and includes an original musical score by Thao Nguyen. American Teacher won the silver award in the documentary category of the 34th Annual Philadelphia International Film Festival."


"Research has shown that the top-performing school systems in the world all share one consistent feature: top-performing teachers. In the next five years, over one million teachers will retire. By following four feature teachers as they reach different milestones in their careers, our film tells the deeper story of the teaching profession in America today, and what we can do to invest in it for tomorrow."


Here is the trailer for American Teacher:




Just in case you have a continuing battle with a relative or neighbor who agrees with the Waiting for Superman model, the American Teacher website provides some interesting information, all nicely sourced as you would expect from teachers. [NOTE: If you click on any of the "source" links below, you will go to the same list on the American Teacher website. Mouseover the source link on that site to get the source citation.]

Studies prove that a great teacher can impart a year and a half's worth of learning to a student in one year. source

46 percent of teachers in public schools leave the profession within five years. source

Teachers make 14 percent less than people in other professions that require similar levels of education. source

In the next 10 years, more than 1.8 million of the 3.2 million teachers will become eligible for retirement. source

14 percent of teachers leave the profession each year; in urban districts, the turnover is higher: 20 percent.source

High turnover of American teachers costs our country over $7 billion every year. source

Teachers are priced out of home ownership in 32 metropolitan areas. source

Only 4.7 percent of college juniors would consider teaching at the current starting salary. 68 percent of college students said they would consider the teaching profession if it paid 50 percent more than the current occupations they were considering. source

The average starting salary for teachers in our country is $39,000; the average ending salary—after 25 years in the profession—is $67,000. source

In 1970 in New York City, a starting lawyer going into a prestigious firm and a starting teacher going into public education had a differential in their entry salary of about $2,000. Today, including salary and bonus, that starting lawyer makes $160,000, while starting teachers in New York make roughly $45,000. source

Teachers work an average of ten hours per day. source

92.4 percent of teachers spent their own money on their students or classrooms during the 2007-2008 school year. source

62 percent of teachers have second jobs outside of the classroom. source

61 percent of adults think teachers are underpaid given their level of training and importance to society. source

77 percent of U.S. adults feel teaching is among the most under-appreciated professions in the U.S. source

76 percent agree that many of the smartest people in society don't go into teaching because being a teacher doesn't pay enough. source

Good teaching over a sustained period can [help students] overcome the disadvantages of poverty. source

There are currently no screenings listed in the Buffalo area, but I'm on their newsletter list and will let you know when one is scheduled. You can click here for a current list of screenings.

Are colleges letting us down?

I remember the first piece of advice I received when I started college in the fall of 1961. "Don't learn to play bridge, "said the dorm RA, "it's the surest way to flunk out."

The members of my fraternity were dead set against having a TV in the house. They saw it as a time-waster and a start along the road to flunking out. When Kennedy was assassinated, we had to trudge to the student union to find one of the few TV's on campus.

How things have changed! Kathleen Parker addresses the college problem in her September 30 Washington Post column, Our Unprepared Graduates.

"We often hear lamentations about declining educational quality, but the focus is usually misplaced on SAT scores and graduation rates. Missing from the conversation is the quality of what’s being taught. Meanwhile, we are mistakenly wed to the notion that more people going to college means more people will find jobs....Fundamentally, students aren’t learning what they need to compete for the jobs that do exist."

"The failure of colleges and universities to teach basic skills, while coddling [students] with plush dorms and self-directed “study,” is a dot-connecting exercise for Uncle Shoulda, who someday will say — in Chinese — “How could we have let this happen?”

"A 2010 study published by the Association of American Colleges and Universities found that 87 percent of employers believe that higher-education institutions have to raise student achievement if the United States is to be competitive in the global market. Sixty-three percent say that recent college grads don’t have the skills they need to succeed. And, according to a separate survey, more than a quarter of employers say entry-level writing skills are deficient."

Parker refers to a new book, Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses, based on a study by  Richard Arum of New York University and Josipa Roksa of the University of Virginia. Among the conclusions of their study:

"Our findings confirm earlier warning signs that college students on average are learning less, even as tuition costs in many institutions have risen sharply and competition for jobs has increased. With a large and diverse sample of over 3,000 students drawn from 29 four-year accredited colleges and universities, our study has broad implications." 

"45% of our sample showed little or no evidence of improvement in critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing after two years. After four years at college, 36% showed no significant growth."


"If your association is with a highly selective institution, you may be thinking that these findings only apply to other colleges and universities. That is not so. There is more variation within institutions than across institutions: in other words, even students at the “best” schools have too often been provided with ways to navigate through four years of college with little academically asked of them. If students are not exposed to rigorous academic courses, they are likely to leave college with limited growth in the core collegiate skills that we measured. We found that certain programs and majors were consistently less successful in building reasoning and writing skills. Students in education, communications, and business had the lowest measurable gains." [Emphasis mine.]


According to Parker: "College students may be undereducated, but they’re not dumb and many feel short-changed. A recent Roper Organization study found that nearly half of recent graduates don’t think they got their money’s worth. The problem with education isn’t money — we spend plenty — but quality. Yet, instead of figuring out how to make education pay future dividends, higher-educational institutions are building better dorms with flat-screen TVs, movie theaters and tanning salons, according to a recent CNN report. If parents aren’t furious, they’re not paying attention."

Colleges have changed. They now view their students as "customers" and try their best to give the customer what he/she wants. 

Note to college folks: What your customer "wants" is a degree from your institution involving as little work as possible, leaving as much time as possible for fine dining experiences and the social arts. What your customer "needs" is something else entirely. 

Imagine it's December 8, 1941...

Imagine it's December 8, 1941. Yesterday, the United States suffered a surprise attack at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. We need to do something, and do it damn fast!

Now imagine that the defense powers of the country do not rest with a central, federal body but, instead, rest in the hands of 15,000 local "defense districts." This might have been done because we wanted "local control" of guns and the military. We didn't want any central authority in Washington controlling our local military hardware or personnel.

Oh, by the way, there is no central authority which can make the local defense districts work together in time of emergency. To ensure local control, the Dept. of Defense--along with the position of Sec. of Defense--was eliminated. There is some organization within each state, but that's still 50 organizations with which to work.

With a setup like this, just how do you imagine WWII would have gone?

Welcome to education in the United States of America!

We're getting out-educated by most of the world. Almost all of these nations have strong national control over their educational systems. They made out-educating the USA a matter of national security, and jumped in with both feet, with the aid of national standards and a national curriculum.

Us? Well, for a start, one of our two great political parties holds debates at which the candidates for national office try to top each other with how quickly they will eliminate the Dept. of Education if they are elected. No national organization needed here. It's clear that the good folks on the local school board in South Bubba Creek are perfectly capable of deciding how much algebra or physics their students need to succeed in today's world, and how it should be taught.

In reality, most Americans--including those good folks on the school board--have no idea how much the world has changed in the last 15 years. They think that the schools that were good enough in the 60's and 70's are good enough to protect our standard of living.

As Bill Gates told Thomas Friedman (also the author of The World is Flat) in his new book, That Used to be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back: "You always have to renew your lead. But we have to ask: Where did this lead come from in the first place? It was that we educated more people than the other guys, and we attracted more talent, and we built better infrastructure. We need to get back to work in renewing the sources of our advantage." [Emphasis mine.]

There is general agreement that we need to vastly improve our schools, and we'd better get to it quickly if we want to maintain our standard of living in America. Science, technology, engineering and math will be the key to our efforts.

So what are we doing? Our schools are losing teachers at an alarming rate. We're told that we can't afford teachers. That's like saying that we couldn't afford to build bombers during WWII. You don't cut back on the thing you need to win!

The math and science stuff? Well, we have one of our great political parties being actively antagonistic to science. That can't help.

Friedman's book has some great stuff about how the world has changed, and about the educational system we need to respond to these changes. I'll be sharing some of it with you. If you're a reader, it's well worth the money and the time.

Fact checking last night's debate.

Draw whatever conclusions you wish from last night's Republican debate, but please begin the argument from actual facts. As with any political event, the candidates made some correct statements, but managed to slip in lots of half-truths, opinions masquerading as facts, and outright falsehoods.

Here are a couple of fact checks:

From the Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/fact-checking-the-post-bloomberg-debate/2011/10/11/gIQAdAugdL_blog.html

From Politifact.org:
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2011/oct/11/fact-checking-dartmouth-gop-debate/