Collected Thoughts

GrokLaw is at it again

2008-11-29T14:41:00.002-05:00

A friend of mine sent me a link to a GrokLaw article about the cyberbulling case. You know, the one where the mother of another child set up a fake friendster page and pretended to be a boy who was interested in a girl so that she could have the fake boy eventually crush the girl's spirit by breaking up with her or ending the fake friendship that had been nurtured online. That one. Well, she was found guilty of violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) because she violated Friendster's terms of service (TOS). The GrokLaw piece depending heavily on an amicus brief (i.e. a third party brief).

The amicus brief overstates things, and the groklaw piece overstates things even further.

The central issue in the case is the nature of the false identity assumed by Ms. Drew, the defendant. Was it fraudulent and in violation of the terms of service to an extent that might make fall under the CFAA?

First, it obviously was not her full and real identity.

Second, it was not an obviously anonymized identity (e.g. Publius, the name given as the author of the Federalist Papers, or my identity as "ceolaf").

Third, it was not a partially obscured version of her identity. That is, the brief says, "child safety advocates like the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre of the British government specifically encourage children to protect themselves by providing misleading identifying information instead of real names on social networking sites." Obviously, children are not expect to creating entirely fictional identities in such situations, but rather the obscure and mislead on some particularly identifying details while allowing them to still have their own personalities in their interactions.

Fourth, it was not done for satire or any LAPS (i.e. literary, artistic, political or scientific) purpose. (The LAPS test comes from obscenity jurisprudence.)

The groklaw article assumes, quite without any justification, that US vs. Drew would make all violations of websites' TOS into legal violations of the CFAA, as though it would be a black and white issue with that clear line. It assumes that then entire history of first amendment jurisprudence would be entire inapplicable, that there would be not room for judgement as to whether a particular TOS violation rose to the level of a CFAA violation.

I don't buy it. I don't buy it for a second.

Ms. Drew's violation of Friendster's TOS were gross violations of a flagrent degree. It violated the TOS in multiple ways, all of which were obvious violations. No reasonable person could believe that this behavior would be condoned or even allowed. Ms. Drew's behavior was the sort that is only justified by the immature claim, "It's a free country; I can do what I want," the kind of thinking that says that people can do or say whatever they want without any regard to its impact on others. The kind of thinking that says because we have freedom of speech we can yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater.

As a matter of practicality, websites must be able to protect themselves with terms of service (TOS), or else they can be held liable for anything that users might put on their sites or use their sites for. I understand that the question here is whether such TOS violations could ever rise to criminal violations of the CFAA. That's the issue.

But is not whether all TOS violations should be viewed as criminal violations. That law does not work that way in this country. Our courts recognize that many issues are NOT black and white, that there are shades of grey and varying contributing factors that must be taken into account when deciding whether something passes a threshold, and that there are human judgements to be made.

Only small children and developmentally stunted adults cannot accept that.

GrokLaw, it seems, does not.

*************************

I can see plenty of reasons why this might be a bad decision, or a bad precedent. Or reasons why TOS violations should be civil offenses and not criminal offenses. But I can also see the other side. More importantly, for the purposes of this post, GrokLaw's hyperbolic ranting entirely misses the the point.

iPhone 2.0!

2008-07-12T10:31:00.002-04:00

While yesterday marked the release of the new iPhone 3G -- adding GPS and faster network access when away from WiFi -- the more important news was the new software that came on this new model. It it was freely downloadable for all owners of the the original iPhone. I was one of the people who dared to install the software a day early, and I've got to say that I love it.

New Features from Apple

The most important new features from Apple are not important to me. For example, with Apple has positioned

the iPhone to compete better with RIM's Blackberry by giving it full compatibility with Microsoft's Exchange right out of the box. But I don't have an have an Exchange account. So, this is a big deal, but not for me. Multiple language support is great for Apple, as it allows them to ship the same model around the world. It is great for other developers (see below), too, as they also can make just one version of their software available around the world.

Other new features from Apple are relatively minor. The calculator, now doubles as a scientific calculator. Occasionally useful for some; frequently useful for few. The new stand alone contact application -- it had been embedded in the phone application -- is more useful for me, but the old one usually met my needs. Improvement support for viewing attachments is good, but rarely do I need to read them anywhere other than my computer. As the iPhone still lacks the ability to edit even the simplest Word and Excel documents, something that Palm devices have supported for nearly a decade.

Probably the most significant new feature from Apple for people like me is that it can now automatically sync email, contacts and calendar data without needing to be plugged in to a computer, or even being anywhere near it. Subscribers to Apple's MobileMe (nee .Mac) service -- approximately $100/year -- can take advantage of this feature, which ends up acting much like the Exchange support that I cannot use.

New Features from Others

The most important thing that Apple has done with its this new software is to open up all iPhones to third party software. Apple has made it easy to distribute their applications by making them available through the iTunes store -- both from a computer and directly from an iPhone. Apparently, the development tools are incredible, which makes it easier and fasted for developers with good ideas to get the software to me and consumers.

Even before the new iPhone 2.0 software was easily available to most users, the App Store in iTunes was up and running with over 500 applications available. I grabbed a few of them quite quickly.

Lightsabers for Everyone The first application I downloaded was the free Phone Saber. A couple of years ago, someone write an application that would make a MacBook Pro or a MacBook sound like a lightsaber when you swing it around. There's something cool about about that, but it pales before awkwardness and geekiness of swinging around a laptop computer. Now, however, there's a similar application for the iPhone. Much less awkward, of course. More portable, surely. Even more secretive, if the user is wearing headphone. So, the iPhone is absolutely no doubt a better platform for this entire class of applications. Last night I showed this to a 4 year old who was not as impressed as I thought he should be. I mean, this kid is already really into Star Wars and known the entire Skywalker family genealogy. He grabbed his own lightsaber -- whose black is only about 12" long -- which I had to admit might even have been better than mine. The blade, little more than a plastic tube, lit up in many colors and made all the sounds that my Phone Saber did. So, until Phone Saber can project a blade, it's not necessarily the best platform for lightsabery.

Recording, at Last The one feature from my iPods that I have missed in my iPhone -- even needed from time to time -- is the ability the record audio. There are no less than six (!!) different audio recording applications available for iPhones. They vary quite a bit in price ($0, $.99, $.99, $4.99, $9.99, $9.99), but they all do the generally same thing, as best I can tell. The best of the bunch might be the $4.99 SpeakEasy Voice Recorder. But none of them can transfer their recordings to my computer, which is incredibly important to me. Given the power of the iPhone platform, I would also like the to record to an compressed format, rather than uncompressed (wav?) files. But even without those features, I am glad at least one of them exists.

Let There Be... There are a few flashlight applications available, some free, some not. The all turn on the screen so that it can be used as a weak flashlight. myLite is one of the free ones, and it can also act as a strobe light and the user can change the color of the screen.

Reading Without Network Access I grabbed two applications that would allow me to read online articles while on the subway. NYTimes is an application from the New York Times that grabs a whole bunch of articles from the day's paper, and stores them so they can be read later. I do not know exactly which articles it grabs, but it certainly includes the OpEd pages and at least the top stories in every other section. It has a an iPhone appropriate interface, and an ad appears under each article as your read it. I would have paid for this application, but it is free.

A friend of mine told me weeks ago that NetNewsWire would save webpages to read offline, so I grabbed that one, too. I've not used a dedicated RSS reader in the past, but I've already been so impressed with this implementation on the iPhone that I am going to start use the full version for my MacBook Pro.

Fidgeting I needed something to play with while I listened to podcasts if I wasn't doing something else (e.g. walking, cooking, etc.). I decided to buy ($9.99) Cro-Mag Rally, a little racing game. It is as fun and as mindless as I wanted it to be. But critically, even if you turn off all of Cro-Mag's sounds, it stops whatever the iPod is playing. So I downloaded the free, and far inferior, Cube Runner. It's graphics are slightly inferior to Tron, but the game is appropriately mindless.

Other Applications I also grabbed a few other applications. Twitterific, Apple's Remote for iTunes, MLB's at Bat are the headliners.

But...

I am incredibly pleased with the new software because it makes these third party applications possible. Once again, the iPhone is unlike virtually all other technology products because it is meeting the expectations that its developer and the press have set. Cro-Mag is a great game. NYTimes, Twitterific, and NetNewsWire are great apps, without having to make any apologies for being run a phone. These are, as best I can tell, no compromise applications. The iPhone truly is a mobile computing platform.

But there are a few limitations. Because third party applications cannot run in the background, NetNewsWire and NYTimes cannot update their data unless they are launched and allowed to run. Even when push for third party apps is supported in the fall, NetNewsWire cannot get data that way because the application grabs data from multiple third party (fourth party?) web sites. NYTimes could use push to update data, but I cannot forecast whether or not they'll take advantage of it.

Last, during my first full day using the new software, it looked like my battery was running down very quickly. Most of the day, the phone was just sitting on a table without being used. Perhaps I had left a network application running during this time and did not realize it because the screen had turned off. But the battery should be brand new, as Apple replaced by old iPhone just two or three weeks ago. If the original iPhone's battery cannot make it through a whole day, even though it does not use the higher power 3G network, this is a huge problem that Apple must fix. If it is simply the result of a poorly written third party app, Apple should pull that app from the App Store until the problem is fixed.

Four Question About Babysitting

2008-06-29T16:23:00.005-04:00

I have four questions that I use all the time to demonstrate how important our high school educations were, one for each of the four major academic subjects. Here they are, and the point I think that they demonstrate.

English: What is the rhyme scheme of a Shakespearean (i.e. Elizabethan) Sonnet? (Bonus: What is the meter?)
Math: log (A*B) = ?
Social Studies: What century was The Declaration of the Rights of Man? (Bonus: What century was The Universal Declaration of Human Rights?)
Science: What is the atomic number of Nitrogen? (Bonus: What is its atomic mass?)

I've been asking people these questions for at least 10 years, perhaps as many as 20, and I never expect anyone to get them right. In fact, in all these years, I've only met one person who got all four right. I don't think think that I've had even a handful get more than one right. The vast majority don't get any of them right, or think that they might get one of them right.

And yet, I always explain, we were all taught these things. The odds are they we were tested on each of them.

So, if we don't remember these individual tidbits today, then why were we tested on them back in school?

Well, Ted and Nancy Sizer wrote, "Education is the worthy residue that remains after the lessons have been

forgotten." I wholly agree with them. This, therefore, begs the question of what is the worthy residue that remains of those lessons, the one where you were working on the information I asked about above?

I think that the answer is, "None." The odds are that those lessons did not leave any worthy residue. And if that is true, the lessons were part of your education. Instead, they are part of your babysitting. If that is true, high school was about keeping you supervised and out of trouble, instead of about teaching you anything.

But this is not about condemnation of chemistry, poetry, logarithms* or Enlightenment Thinking. I think that all of those lessons can be geared towards meaningful education, can all contribute to a worthy residue. Unfortunately, they rarely are.

*Actually, I would like to condemn logarithms. I don't think that they should be part of the algebra

curriculum anymore. We don't use slide rules, so it is far less important that we understand logarithm. Those weeks should be spent on something else. So, I suppose I should change my math question to, "What is the quadratic formula for? (Bonus: What is the the quadratic formula?)

My point is that we know that students will forget today's lessons. Maybe tomorrow, maybe in a week, maybe in a year, but almost certainly in five or ten years. Knowing that, why do we bother? Are we making sure that for the thousands of hours that students spend in high school they are getting something that lasts? Are they learning larger lessons worth learning for a lifetime?

Unfortunately, doing this requires an incredibly thoughtful approach to schooling. This is not compatible with the standardized testing the we do. It is not compatible with how we evaluate teachers (i.e. lessons taught in isolation). It is not compatible with short term evaluations of schools. There is so much about the American system of schooling that would need to be revisited if we were to making those lessons worth students' time.

But with doing that, isn't high school just about babysitting?

****************

Answers:

Engligh Elizabethan Sonnets: abab,cdcd,efef,gg & iambic pentameter.
Math Logarithms: log (A) + log (B). The quadratic formula is to solve quadratic equations (i.e. those with x-squared, but not cubed or higher, and only one variable), and is

Social Studies Declaration of the Right of Man: 18th century, part of the French Revolution. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 20th Century.
Science Nitrogen: atomic number 7, mass 14.

McCain: Not Moderate at All

2008-06-13T17:45:00.003-04:00

John McCain has a reputation as a maverick. That certainly used to be true. There are enough examples in his past to give such a statement a basis in fact. But he is not a moderate and never has been.

You see, there is a difference between being a conservative and being a Republican, just as their is a difference between being a liberal and being a Democrat. While it is true that there is a strong correlation between the conservative-liberal spectrum and the Republican-Democrat spectrum, they are not actually the same thing. And someone like McCain -- who has been known to buck his party's interest -- might have an independent streak, even while being a very consistent conservative.

I cannot think of single example of when McCain has gone against his party and gone against the conservative position.

Conservatives don't like big government and they don't like taxes or spending, but they certainly don't like deficits. John McCain has bucked his party on spending -- likening his colleagues to a bunch of drunken sailors on shore leave. He wanted lower spending. In fact, back when he was against the Bush tax cuts, it was because they were not accompanied by the necessary spending to prevent deficits.

He went against the Republican party to take the conservative position.

Honest and clean government is not particularly a Democratic or liberal position. In fact, if I had to pick, I'd actually point to it as a conservative issue, if anything. Certainly, neither party has a great interest in losing the power or positions that is has. Efforts to clean up election spending is, therefore, not a liberal position at all. Of course, the GOP has long had a been money advantage under the old rules, so the party does not want a change in the rules.

So, on campaign finance, he went against the Republican party, but not towards particularly liberal position.

It simply is not accurate to say that John McCain is a moderate. He is in favor of lower taxes. He is in favor of lower government spending. He is anti-choice/pro-life. All conservative position. He is in favor of states' rights on gay marriage, a conservative position, even if the religious right doesn't like it.

I cannot think a single instance when his maverick streak pushed him to take a liberal position. I can only think of occasions when he stepped away from some of the insanity of his party to take a conservative or non-ideological position.

This, actually, is something that I respect him for. He was not bound to his party beyond all reason -- at least not before he started running for his party's nomination for the presidency this cycle. When he feels it strongly enough, he stands up for what he believes in -- or at least he used to -- even when those beliefs do not match the interests of his party.

But that doesn't make him a moderate, which is a statement about his liberal-conservative tendencies. He simply has no record of taking liberal positions on anything. Is sometimes went against the Republican position, but extremely rarely to a Democratic position. Rather, sometimes he found anti-partisan position.

At best, that made him somewhat independent of his party and his caucus. But still conservative.

In fact, the only thing has has pushed him from his general conservatism has been his recent embrace of GOP positions. The best current rankings have him in the the most extreme quintile of the Senate, whereas Obama is in the middle quintile, even closer to the middle than McCain has been been across his entire career.

Bonds

2008-06-13T13:17:00.002-04:00

The excellent Joe Posnaski wrote a post this morning about hot streaks in baseball. As usual, it is an interesting read, one that shows Mr. Posnaski's personality and intelligence. Oddly enough, he entirely misses the obvious.

In writing about hot streaks, he settles on Ted Williams as having one of the most notable hot streaks in history. Ted Williams is often referred as "The greatest hitter who ever lived," and there's a decent case to made on that point. The problem with Mr. Posnaski's post is that he ignores Barry Bonds, who played the same position as Ted Williams.

Bonds, who had four whole seasons that were better than Ted Williams amazing 38 game hot streak in 1957.

I admit it, I have always liked Bonds. And I like Kobe Bryant, too. I don't know either of them, so I can't vouch for their character. I don't know anyone who knows them, either, so there are real limits to how seriously I can take what others say about them. To my knowledge, their friend -- however few they may be -- have never come out publicly to explain what makes either of them tick or to explain why they act the way they do with the media or teammates.

What I do know is that both of them have been the best in the world at what they do. Kobe is a top notch offensive player and a top notch defensive player. I don't mean "above average." I mean that he might be the best in the world at his position at each of them. Bonds has a record number of MVP awards, has broken records previously thought unbreakable and was perhaps the best player in the game many years before steroids took over. He won three MVP awards in four years -- and it likely should have been four straight -- in the early 1990's, all of this five years before anyone suggests he began using performance enhancing drugs.

All I really care about with Mr. Bonds and Mr. Bryant is how they play the game. To me, they play sports. They are entertainment on the court/field. I know that I will never know them well enough to be able to judge them as people, or even as teammates. I just want them to be great in the only way I am in a position to judge them, in their performance on the field and court.

So, what's the deal with Mr. Possnanski? Honestly, I think that he just overlooked Bonds. I think that he just took Bonds for granted.

But I want to defend Bonds.

Bonds is the greatest offensive player who ever lived. He is in the same class as Ruth and Gehrig and Williams. He had better seasons. He broke their records.

Ruth was a better baseball players, because he was a good -- sometimes great -- pitcher before he turned to hitting full time. Ruth was a greater baseball player because he changed the game. Williams was a war hero.

But Bonds had more home runs. More walks. More total bases. He had slightly lower on base and and slugging %s, but he more than makes up for that with his stolen bases. Hie peak was greater. His total was greater.

Only some people disqualify him for the use of steroids. I think that there are many responses to this.

First, obviously, his accomplishments from before the steroids count, too. He was already a first ballot Hall of Famer, even with many more years to go in his career.

Second, Bonds did not bring steroids to the game. He was not the first celebrated player to do steroids. He was not the first record breaker to do steroids. He was not not even first MVP to do steroids. Mark McGuire has gotten nothing like the condemnation that Bonds has received. One might argue that McGuire has been off the national stage, but Jason Giambi is still playing. Mr. Giambi won an MVP while using steroids and is still playing for the Yankees.

In fact, if Game of Shadows is to be believed, it was McGuire's use of steroids and Major League Baseball's response that pushed Bonds to begin using performance enhancing drugs (PEDs).

Barry Bonds looked at the game of professional baseball early in his career, one where both speed and power were important, and became the best offensive player in his sport. Then, in the middle of his career, he looked at the game of professional baseball and saw that power was important, speed was not and PEDs were were an accepted way to prepare, and he regained his position as the best offensive player in his sport.

Moreover, Bonds was not the first all time great player to take advantage of the immoral rules of Major League Baseball. He was not the first law breaker to play the game. And there have been far more assholes in the game than just him.

If you want to condemn baseball, that's fine with me. If you want to condemn all the alleged steroids users, that's fine with me.

But that is not what is happening. Bonds has been getting special condemnation. Bonds has been singled out, both in the eyes of the public and the media. He has been singled out by Major League Baseball. The greatest offensive player who ever lived, no doubt one of the top four hitters of all time, has been vilified and virtually excommunicated.

And I can only think of one reason.

Newsflash: We have a constitution

2008-06-13T10:30:00.002-04:00

Yesterday, in a 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court ruled that we do -- in fact -- have a constitution.

I don't know why, but very few people understand why we have a constitution, or even what the Constitution is. Shockingly, this includes many politicians and political leaders. It is not really that hard to understand.

It is not hard to understand what laws are. They are rules. Of course, people have different relationships to laws and rules. Some think that they only need to follow them if they might get caught/in trouble if they don't. Some think that you always have to follow them, not matter what. Some think that they can flout them whenever they are inconvenient for them. Some think that they are bound to follow laws as part of social contract, even then they inconvenient. And some think very deeply about the morality of particular laws and feel morally bound to disobey immoral laws.

Too many people think of the Constitution as simply a set of laws, albeit and old set of laws. That is not correct.

At its most fundamental, any state's -- in the sense of county -- constitution is the basic blueprint for its government. It defines the rules by which the government operates. It laws out the powers and authority of that government, and its limits. As such, it is supreme to other laws that are made by that government, and if any of those laws fall outside or violate the government's constitution, those laws are invalid.

The United States Constitution has a Bill of Rights -- the fist ten amendments -- that guarantee protections for certain rights. These are particular rights that the people are assured, that the government cannot violate. These are not the only right addressed by the Constitution, but they are the most commonly cited. (Actually, originally those were only protections from the federal government, but they were eventually extended to apply to states, as well.)

Not only is the Constitution supreme to regular laws -- and to states' constitutions, as well -- it is harder to change. In fact, it is intentionally difficult to change. The usual process is for 2/3 of each house of Congress to pass an amend, which sends it out to the states. If 3/4 of the states approve it, it becomes an amendment. However, it is not impossible to change; it has been changed seventeen times since the Bill of Rights was passed.

****************

To really understand the Constitution, you have to think about when it was written. The Founding Fathers -- certainly the elites of their times -- had recently broken away from a tyrannical king. They were afraid of the powers of the state, of the ways in which the state could overwhelm the rights of individuals and overstep what was appropriate. They also were going through the failure that was the Articles of Confederation (i.e. USA 1.0). They knew that the country needed a stronger central government than the Articles allowed. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights really recreated the country (USA 2.0), accounting for their fears of uncheck governmental power and concern about the dysfunctions of a confederation. The Civil War Amendments extended the protections of the Constitution to apply to the states, further centralizing power (USA 2.5?).

Those who argue against the protections of the Constitution are not simply arguing with liberals or Democrats. They are arguing with the founding fathers. They are arguing against the lessons of the Civil War. And they are usually arguing to expand state power and limit individual rights.

****************

An example: No Religious Test Clause

Most people don't know this, but the Constitution expressly forbids any religious tests to serve in any office or position in the government. Jews can be judges. Catholics can be clerks. Muslims can managers. The government may not bar anyone from any position in the government because of their religion.

It is easy to imagine some people saying that Muslims should not be allowed serve in the CIA, or that fundamentalist Muslims should not be allowed to serve in Department of Homeland Security. However, the fact of their religions cannot be used to keep them from a governmental position. This is not a problem because we are not at war with Islam or even Fundamentalist Islam. There are many fundamentalists Muslims who are not at war with the United States. Most do not actually want to kill Americans. And so, the the CIA can hire Muslims while not hiring the "death to America" crowd.

And so, there are many who might bar follows of particular religions from holding many governmental positions. There certainly are some who would require a Christian faith, or even an evangelical faith. But the Constitution prevents the government from having religious tests for any office. Simply passing a law would not be enough to overrule that, and were such a law passed it would rightly be quickly struck down by the courts. Changing that constitutional protection requires amending the Constitution.

(It should be noted that this prohibition on religious tests applies to the government, not to individuals. Voters can apply whatever tests they want when selecting among candidates for elected office. If you think that Muslims should not serve in Congress, you are free to apply that test yourself -- even though I personally would disapprove of your criteria.)

Obviously, there is something a little undemocratic about this. If a majority of the American people want to ban Muslims from the CIA, one might think that in a democracy this should be allowed. A constitution serves to limit pure democracy. It declares that there are certain areas in which a majority ought not to be enough to change things. It declares that there are certain rights and/or ideas that ought to quite difficult change or remove, and that it ought to be quite difficult add other rights/ideas to that group.

Not only does our Constitution require more than a simple majority to change certain rights, it also prevents the passions of a moment from changing our government and our rights. The process of amending the Constitution takes enough time that even if the entire country wants a change at a particular moment, that popular will must remain long enough to see the entire process through.

*******************

And so we get to this week's court decision, Boumediene v. Bush.

The Constitution makes very clear that habeas corpus is very important. "The Great Writ" allows those held in custody by the government to demand that the government prove in court that it has the the legal right to do so. This right goes back at least 350 years in England, and perhaps as much as 900. The Constitution says that this right may only be suspended in cases of rebellion or invasion. We are neither in state of rebellion nor invasion.

The Bush administration and the the compliant Congress keeps trying to declare that those held in Guantanamo do not have the right of habeas corpus. If they succeeded this this -- simply by executive order (struck down in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld) or conventional law (struck down in Boumediene v. Bush) -- then the Constitution would be meaningless. The rights of individuals would not be protected. The status of the Constitution as the "supreme law of the land" would have ended.

Quite simply, the Supreme Court had to rule as it did. Disturbingly, four justices did not agree. In fact, the author of the dissenting opinion claims that he is an originalist who believes that the constitution means only what it meant that the time it was written. But the Constitution could not be more plain on this point. "The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it."

Fortunately, there is a still a majority of justices who believe in the Constitution.

Criteria

2008-06-06T11:05:00.001-04:00

Count Every Vote

2008-05-22T15:21:00.003-04:00

I believe in counting every vote, and that every vote counts. You wouldn't think that that would be that controversial a position, but these days it actually is.

I. Choosing a Nominee: The Basics

Each party has as process for choosing their nominee for the presidency. They are a little different, and I am going to focus on Democratic Party's process.

First, we have so-called pledged delegates. I say "so-called" because their pledges have no binding force, according to the DNC rules. When they were selected, they said (i.e. "pledged") that they would support a particular candidate, but they actually can do whatever they want. We all, especially the media, generally ignore that fact.

These pledged delegates are selected in two ways, caucuses and primaries. Technically, a primary is paid for by the state, and a caucus is paid for by the party. Generally, we ignore that, too. Instead, we talk about primaries as though they are like elections, but just with the candidates for the nomination of one party. We talk about caucuses as though they are more complicated affairs that take much longer, people do not have secret ballots and you can try to convince people to change their votes. All primaries are actually primaries, but some some caucuses actually work like primaries -- with the state party paying for them, of course,

Second, we have superdelegates. They are part of the rules, too. They add up to less than 1/5 of the total number of delegates. They, too, are selected democratically. Your senator is a superdelegate, and s/he was elected. Your congressman, too. Other superdelegates are elected by members of the party, both state and national. If you want to take part in that process, you have to be much more active in your party that you are. There are state conventions, to say nothing of local meeting and any other events I know virtually nothing about. You can be elected a member of the DNC (Democratic National Committee) that way. To be honest, these are not all direct elections. In the same way that you don't get to vote on federal laws, but instead the people you vote for get to vote on federal laws, some of the superdelegates are voted on with a representative system. There are also a very small number of unelected superdelegates, selected by elected leaders the state parties.

There are over 4,000 delegates, total. The nominee needs to get over half of them.

II. Degrees of Democracy

Clearly, direct vote for candidates would be the most democratic system. But we don't have that for presidential elections -- instead we have the Electoral College -- and we don't have that for selecting nominees. I don't like it, but that's that way it is.

Superdelegates are, generally, selected democratically, but not for this particular purpose. Whether or not this is a good idea or not does not matter in this discussion. They are a part of the process, but one might argue that they are the least democratic part of the process.

Primaries, on the other hand, are probably the most democratic part of the process. They are the quickest way to vote, and therefore have higher turnout than caucuses. I can't even tell you how many times my mother took me with her to vote, counting primaries. We'd go down to the school and she'd take me into the booth with her. A parent with an infant could easily take him/her to vote, or a child of any age. Childcare responsibilities does not preclude participation. Because polls open all day, generally before and/or after working hours, having a job -- even on an odd shift -- does not preclude participation. I would certainly argue that higher turnout is more democratic, and therefore primaries (and primary-like caucuses) are the most democratic.

Traditional caucuses are somewhere in the middle. Delegates chosen this way are chosen directly for this purpose, but the inconvenience of these things (e.g. they take hours; they happen at a particular time) prevent many people from taking part. Less participation means less democratic, in my book.

III. Choosing the Nominee: The Anti-Democratic Part

There are a few ways in which our system is actually anti-democratic.

First, this is not a national system. By cutting the system up into states, there are some inefficiencies that can mess things up around the margins. Think about the Electoral College and the 2000 presidential election. No one questions that Gore had more votes nationally, but if without Florida, he lost in the Electoral College.

Second, pledged delegates are not apportioned proportionally by total primary/caucus results in each state. Rather, the state is cut up into small pieces and the the delegates are won in each of those small pieces. This is like a little electoral college in each state. This principle is why we do not have third parties (e.g. Green, Libertarian) in the House of Representatives, even though they could win enough votes in the largest states to get a seat, were they allocated proportionally even by state. This does weird things to the math, so you actually have to look at each district to see how many delegates someone won in a state. This is why we need CNN on election nights.

Third, delegates are assigned to the pieces not by population, registered democrats or turn out in the primary/caucus. Instead, they are assigned based on Democratic turnout last election. So, if your district was more turned off by Kerry/Bush than most, but is super-excited about Hillary/Obama, your old boredom prevents your greater turnout this time from having proportional weight.

Fourth, all the little state things. In Nevada, some votes count more than other, as much as 20x more. That is how Obama got 6 more deletes, despite Hillary getting 600 more votes. In Texas, they have a primary and a caucus, which is how Obama got 5 more delegates despite Hillary getting 95,000 more votes.

All of these issues hamper the system's ability to respond to the will of the people, as expressed by the simple idea of that the candidate with the most votes should win the nomination.

IV. Who Set the Rules

Each state sets its own rules. If the state wants a primary, it has a primary. If it wants a caucus, it has a caucus.

However, states are concepts, right? States don't make decisions; people make decisions. Which people? Well, the state government. So, the legislators and their governors. It's fairly democratic, as democratic as superdelegates.

But there is a problem. You see, some states governments are controlled by Democrats, and some Republicans. For example, Florida is controlled by Republicans. They set the rules of the primary. They set the date. They set the rules and the date of the Democratic primary. And this time, that caused a problem. The Republican controlled government set a date that the DNC did not approve of. But why should Republicans care? What can the DNC do them?

Usually, this is not a problem, but it is a problem this year.

V. The Schedule

The DNC announced a schedule for this year's primaries and caucuses. First Iowa (1/14), as always. Then Nevada (1/19), to give the Southwest and Hispanics more a voice. Third was to be New Hampshire (1/22), as always the first primary. Fourth was to be the South Carolina primary (1/29), to give the South and African-Americans and early voice.

Then, other states could go, but only after February 5. The two caucuses in the first week. Then a week just for New Hampshire and a week just for South Carolina. And then everybody else.

But Florida decided to go early. They didn't leap ahead of any of the four early states, but they wanted to go the same day as South Carolina. The Florida Republicans made this decision. Not the Democrats in the legislature. Not the Democratic voters. Not even the Republican voters. And once Florida went early, Michigan did not see a reason why it couldn't go early, too. Michigan was willing to respect the tradition of Iowa and New Hampshire going first, but it had no respect for Nevada or South Carolina.

And once Michigan went early, Iowa and New Hampshire decided to go even earlier. And New Hampshire even jumped ahead in line, ahead of Nevada.

VI. Meting Out Punishments

Iowa was not punished. They were alway supposed to the first and they stayed first. They went even earlier, but who cares, right? New Hampshire, on the other hand, they skipped ahead in line. But they weren't punished, either.

Florida and Michigan were punished, however. The Republican Party cut half the delegate count for the primaries that moved their dates before 2/5, including New Hampshire. But the DNC did not punish the New Hampshire for its convention.

Just focusing on Florida here, think about who was punished for what. It was the state Republicans who scheduled the primary, but it is the Democratic voters who are being punished here. The party stripped Florida of all of its delegates to the convention. The DNC disenfranchised every single potential Florida Democratic primary voter. They did this last August, in an effort to get the state to moved its primary back. But why would the Republicans in charge care? No delegates to the Democratic National Convention? That's no skin off their backs.

The Republicans violated the principal of "One man, one vote," going to "One man, half vote" for some states. But the Democratic Party violated the principal of "Every Vote Counts."

VII. Good Idea or Bad Idea?

There are rules, and I understand this. There is a Rules committee that makes and tries to enforce the rules. Sometimes they make good decisions, and sometimes they make bad decisions.

This is a bad decision.

First, they are punishing the voters, not the people who made the decisions.

Second, if their decision ends up affecting the outcome of the nominating process, that would mean that they are leading to the selection of a candidate who is less appealing to Florida and Michigan voters. I can see why the GOP would want that. But why would that be good for the party? Doesn't it hurt the party's chance's of winning the White House?

Third, in a close race, it makes Obama look weak. Whether or not it actually makes a difference, it looks like Obama could not win the nomination outright, and that he needed to resort to technicalities to secure it. With blowout losses in late states, its puts his own legitimacy into question. And I believe that in order to win a nominee has to look like he deserves to win it. People want strong winners. If he can win it, even counting Florida and Michigan -- and he can -- he looks stronger. If he can only win it if the DNC does not count Michigan and Florida...?

VII. Pledged Delegates or Total Votes

The superdelegates are part of the rules. People who claim that they are not part of the rules are deluded. Furthermore, people who say that the superdelegates are deciding this for themselves are also deluded. The superdelegates are deciding it along with the pledged delegates.

Obama is ahead in pledged delegates, superdelegates and the popular vote total, even if you count Michigan and Florida. He will remain ahead in pledged delegates, no matter what. However, nearly 200 superdelegates have yet to announce anything, and the others can easily change their minds.

And then we get to the popular vote, which is all I really care about. It is possible that Hillary will win the total popular vote.

(Explanation: Four caucus states don't actually count individual votes, so you have to impute those results a little bit. Obama and Edwards took their names off the ballot in Michigan, so you have to split the "uncommitted" vote there somehow. If you do both of those things, the popular vote total is very close right now, with Obama up maybe 0.33%, with Puerto Rico, South Dakota and Montana still to vote.)

What happens to Obama's legitimacy if he goes into the convention with more pledged delegates, even counting Florida and Michigan, but fewer popular votes. How should the superdelegates respond to that.

I entirely grant that Barack Obama deserves the nomination more than Hillary Clinton. He ran from behind, he out-raised her, out-organized her, understood the rules better and actually has won more pledged delegates.

But what do the voters deserve? Isn't that what this should be about? Isn't that what a democracy should be about?

There is a lot of complicated mess in this system. I would hope that at the end of the day it can find a way to give the voters what they deserve. The superdelegates can do that. They can fix an obviously mistaken outcome without breaking any rules. I have said all along that superdelegates should support the candidate with the most votes. If that is Barack Obama, then they should support him. If it is Hillary Clinton, they should support her.

Not because Obama or Clinton deserve it. But because the voters do.

Gay marriage

2008-05-18T12:10:00.003-04:00

First, let me say that I am in favor of gay marriage. But it is more complicated than that, and I think that most of the arguments about it more conclusion driven and honest and sharp thinking. So, here's my take on them, in no particular order.

I. The Word "Marriage" Matters

Obviously, the word itself matters. The very fact that giving same-sex couples all the legal rights and privileges of marriage, but calling the institution "civil unions," is such a popular option proves that the word matter. Those who who argue that the label doesn't matter, but it shouldn't apply to same-sex unions are contradicting themselves. If you don't want to call it marriage, then clearly the word matters.

How does it matter? Well, even if we ignore the countless the tiny legal issues that would be easily handled by calling it "marriage," there are social associations with the word. There are links to the long history of marriage. There's the fact that we have all grown up having a sense of what marriage is. The majority in the California Supreme Court is right. The word matters. Anything less than the the whole shabang, including the label itself, is less than equality.

II. There Might Not Be Discrimination Against Individuals

I am straight and so long as I am unmarried, I can marry any member of the opposite sex. The same is true of homosexuals. Neither of us are entitled to marry members of the same sex. It is not clear to me that anyone is being discriminated against.

I understand that a gay man is not going to be interested in marrying the same people that I am. I understand that we each have a right that I want and he doesn't care for. I understand that there is a parallel right that he would want and I don't care but, one that neither of us has. But, in fact, we each have the same rights.

Rather, I think that it is same-sex couples that are discriminated against. Opposite-sex couples can marry, and same-sex couple cannot. But gay men and women have been allowed to marry all along. They could even marry each other. Gay men could marry straight women. Gay women could marry straight men. Gay men could marry gay women. Gay men and women were treated exactly like straight men and women. Straight men have been no more able to marry each other than gay men.

Should couples have rights? I think so, in some fashion. I think so, in this fashion. But we should acknowledge that this is about couples, not about individuals.

III. Marriage Has Been About Men and Women, Historically

Marriage has existed for a very long time. But over its history, it has changed quite a bit. It has been about property. It has been about cementing unions of larger families/clans. It has been about having children. It has been about economic units. It has been about love.

We no longer talk about arranged marriages to cement unions between families or clans, at least not in this country. We no longer demand that people marry in order to have children, nor must married couples have children, at least not in this country. We don't expect families to work business as a unit, either a farm, or a shop or anything else. The institution of marriage has changed over the centuries. We don't even demand that a church be involved, at least not in this country. However, we do now demand that the state be involved. We certainly do not demand that couples be in love, though we might expect it.

Almost everything about marriage has changed over the centuries. Except one thing about marriage has been constant until very very recently; marriage has been about joining men and women. Sometimes is been about multiple men and women, but it has always been about at least one men and at least one women. That was the only constant.

Anyone who claims otherwise is either being disingenuous or dishonest with his/herself. I don't say this to end the debate. I only say this to make the debate clear.

IV. The Legal Debate Is Not About Anyone's Church

I think that the dumbed argument that anyone brings forth in this debate is that this will force your church to marry gay people. That is just untrue. It is a simply a lie.

The Catholic Church has rules about who it will marry and what they have to do before being married. Many religious officials won't marry anyone outside of their faith (i.e. mixed marriages). A church can refuse to marry people of different races.

We have a separation of church and state in this country. The state (i.e. state and the federal government) cannot tell churches who to marry. Your church will never be told by the state that it must marry gay couples.

Ever. Never ever ever.

No one is talking about your religion. Get over it.

V. Is Marriage Legal or Religious?

I think that the real argument, the real discussion, should be about the dual nature of marriage. Historically, marriage was more a religious institution than a legal one. Priests would marry couples, and marriages did not have to registered with the state. In more recent centuries, the state got more involved, but it is only in the most recent times that the church's role became optional.

In some other countries, especially those with official state religions, the church maintains a huge role. For example, in Israel -- and I think France as well -- the church has complete control of marriage. And, as I said, it is only relatively recently that the marriage without a church or religious official entered the mainstream.

And yet, at the same time, marriage is also a legal institution. There are legal rights and privileges that are associated with marriage, only the most obvious of which are inheritance right and tax files status. And these have nothing to do with the religious institution.

And so, people on both side of the debate should recognize the other side is not entirely incorrect. Those who decry same-sex marriage because marriage is a religious institution are not entirely incorrect. Those who clamor for same-sex marriage because it is a legal institution are not entirely incorrect.

Of course, it is also a social institution. But that aspect of marriage has been the most fluid. That's where the change has occurred over the years, decades and centuries. But those who want to defend their religious institution do have a point. And those who want equivalent access to the legal institution do have a point.

VI. Is Same-Sex Marriage a Threat to "Traditional" Marriage?

Frankly, I don't even understand this argument. If you and your spouse are both heterosexual and/or in love with each other and/or committed to each other, how does legalization of same-sex marriage threaten your marriage? There are many things that may be viewed as a threat to existing marriages, but same-sex marriage?

Of course, there is some small fraction of men and women who are in opposite-sex marriages, but would rather be in a same-sex marriage. Yes, legal recognition of such unions would be a threat their their marriages, but I don't think that that is what people are referring to.

So, that means those who put forth this argument are not referring to existing marriages, but rather the appeal of marriage to non-married people. Somehow, allowing same-sex couples to marry would prevent or dissuade opposite couples from getting married. Moreover, those dissuaded would outnumber the same-sex couple who did get married. I guess that they mean that if same-sex couples are allowed to get married, it would take some of the luster or exclusivity of marriage away, making it less attractive. I would think that allowed mixed-race marriages would have had the exact same impact, but I've never heard them mention that.

But here is why I really don't understand the argument. Let us accept this premise for a moment, that for some people, allowing same-sex marriage makes opposite-sex marriage a little less attractive. Obviously, this wouldn't be true for everyone. Those godless heathens and/or liberals who clamor for same-sex marriage already have distorted views of marriage. It is obviously only those who have a proper and biblical reverence for the institution who will really feel this attack on "traditional" marriage. Right? O.K.

But those who have the "proper respect" for marriage would not let this hit on the dignity of marriage hold them back. They have so much respect for marriage that they still would have enough left to get married, anyway. And the godless heathens and/or liberals -- those who purportedly already lack the "proper respect" for marriage and therefore sometimes don't even bother to get married anyway -- they won't notice the hit. So, the only ones who might notice are those whom the hit is not great enough to dissuade them.

Really, I ask who has a view of marriage that would have them believe that marriage is so tarnished by allowing same-sex marriage that they no longer would want to partake in the institution. I don't mean people who project that onto unidentified others. I mean identified people who are in the sweet spot? Show me a single survey that identifies any of them. Show me a single non-satirical interview with a single one.

Until then, either the argument is deluded, or I am simply not understanding it.

VII. Separation of Church and State?

Unfortunately, I don't see a great answer here. I don't see us getting to a a solution that honors the valid arguments of people on both sides of the issue.

Honestly, I think that the best answer -- and one that the California Supreme Court said is a legal one -- would be for the state to get out of the marriage business. Give marriage back to the church and let the state have all the legal stuff. The state could call it "civil unions" for both same-sex and opposite-sex couples. Or, the state could call it larriage (i.e. legal marriage). More specifically, the state could get out of the marriage game, and leave individuals and couples to decide whether or not they want to call their unions marriage, leave to them the basis on which they might make such a decision.

I understand that were the state to get out of the marriage game, many on the right would feel that that was itself an assault on marriage. They would not see it as a move to protect their conceptions of marriage from the actions of the state. Rather, they likely would see it as another attack on their faith, an attempt to exclude faith from the public square. Of course, these are people are want more of their faith and religious beliefs reflected in government policy, people who do not understand that the separation of church and state is about protecting each from the other. These are people who might not support the Bill of Rights, were it to come up for a vote today.

VIII. My Answer

As much as I think that it should, the state is not going to get out of the marriage business. But I don't buy tradition as being a good enough reason to restrict marriage to opposite-sex couples. The institution has changed over the years, and it is now about building a loving and/or stable family, with or without children. Gay men and women can adopt and can have their own children, and they can even bring children they already have into a marriage, just as my mother and her husband have. Other traditional institutions have gone the way of history, from slavery to segregated water fountains, from small children working in factories alongside their parents to the one room schoolhouse.

So, that means that we have to get to legal recognition for same-sex marriage, not just "civil unions." The nation's most populous state decided democratically, by a vote of legislature and a signing of the governor, to give same-sex unions all of the legal rights of opposite-sex unions, but for the word marriage. That is an enormously popular position throughout the nation. All that that leaves is the word marriage, and the arguments for denying that word quickly fall apart under any fair examination. You simply cannot say that you want to treat them equally, and yet at the same times make sure that they don't get access to the word that means so much to you.

Dear Hillary,

2008-05-07T14:11:00.003-04:00

I've favored Hillary throughout the Democratic Primary race. It's not that I don't like Barack Obama, because I think that he is a very strong candidate with the potential to be a transformative president. Given two differently appealing candidates, I've leaned towards you, Hillary. But it's time to gracefully withdraw.

My wife and I had a long discussion on Super Tuesday about superdelegates and how they should make their decisions. I tried to lay out all the legitimate lines of argument that I could think of.

Because they are selected by their constituents, whomever their constituents (i.e. district or state, as appropriate) supported in the primaries/caucuses.
Because they have special responsibility to the party as a whole, whomever wins the national popular vote.
Because they have been entrusted by their constituents to use their best judgement, whomever they believe will make the best president for the country.
Because they are specially responsible for their constituents' interests, whomever they think will be the best president for their district.
Because they have been entrusted by their constituents to use their best judgement and it is critical that the Dems win the general election, whomever they believe has the best chance of winning in November.

I respect that their are different arguments. I only asked that they declare their preferred argument and make their thinking transparent. Of course, they'll make some decision or other, and cite whatever logic they think will hurt them the least and perhaps help them the most. But I hate it when people change their argument to suit their pre-ordained conclusion . Hate it!

However, I don't respect the argument that the superdelegates must automatically reinforce the so-called "pledged delegate" count. Were that the case, they would not need to exist. If they exist, they must have some sort of purpose. They are part of the rules. If race is tight enough for a margin in superdelegates to overwhelm a margin in pledged delegates, so be it. That's how the rules were set up. Keep in mind that superdelegates are the elected representatives of the party. Democratic senators, congressmen, governors and former presidents were elected by the people. DNC members were elected by the party members who chose to show up and state party meetings and conventions. Yes, there is a small number of "unpledged add-ons," but the majority of them are elected by state party leadership -- who was elected by state party members.

So, my wife pressed me for which argument I thought was the strongest, which I would use. That wasn't hard for me to answer. I think that the Democratic Party should always nominate the candidate preferred by the members of the party, by which I mean primary voters and caucus-goers. There are lots of rules in each state, inconsistent across states, rules that distort the will of the people. Obama got more delegates out of Texas and Nevada, even though he lost the popular votes in each state. In my view, superdelegates should correct that kind of mistake.

We are the Democratic Party. We should stand for democracy. Especially after the 2000 election. Whomever gets the most votes should win, regardless of which states they came from. Regardless of when they came. More votes is more votes.

Now, I understand that this argument diminishes the role of caucus states because turnout is lower in caucus states. That does not bother me. I don't care about states; I care about people. Caucus states can adopt primaries or run their caucuses like primaries. A state should have a bigger voice only if it has more people turning out for this election.

Obviously, a tight three-way race could lead to one candidate having more first place votes, but the other being preferred in a two-way race. Yes, I can foresee that. But that it not what we have today, and I hope we do not have to deal with it. Though, to be honest, computerized voting makes any number of solutions to that problem easy to implement.

So, I've been favoring you, Hillary, all year. And though it has been clear for quite some time that you could not catch Obama in the pledged delegate count, I did not think that you should drop out of the race. If you could pull ahead in the popular vote count, I thought that you should stay in the race. But after the North Carolina and Indiana primaries, it is now clear that you cannot. And without that, you don't have a strong enough argument to sway enough superdelegates to overwhelm your pledged delegate deficit.

If you could say to John Kerry, "Look, the Democratic voters of your state favor me, the Democratic voters of the nation favor me and I am the party's best matchup again John McCain," you would have an argument. But the matchup argument is not clear, and you don't have the national vote argument. I even buy the the matchup argument. That is, based on exit poll data over the course of the last three months, I don't think that Obama has appealed to swing voters as much as I thought he would and I don't trust the young to turn out. I honestly think that you have a better chance of winning swing voters and base voters with Barack campaigning his heart out for you than he does with you campaigning you heart out for him.

But you have lost the popular vote. Even with Michigan and Florida, which I believe do count, you cannot win the popular vote.

And that means that it is time to drop out.

My wife has been a fervent Obama supporter, but she had not given any money to his campaign. You see, we did not think that it made a lot of sense for us to give offsetting contributions. Moreover, we knew that the winning candidate would need primary money after s/he had the nomination locked up. So, we've been waiting. Well, last time, at 1am, we gave $250 to the Obama campaign.

I am sorry. I am sorry for the party and the country that my preferred candidate, the one that I think the country needs most at this time, has not won the nomination. However, I am glad that the Democratic Party has an exciting, brilliant and inspiring candidate to lead us to victory in November. I look forward to your campaigning for him.

Oh, whatever will we do?

2008-05-06T17:33:00.002-04:00

Salon's Farhad Manjoo wrote today about a story I read about many months ago -- a 27 year old prospective teacher who was denied her teaching degree for posting a picture of herself drinking on MySpace. I think it ties in with the current wringing about Roger Clemens. In both cases, there has been a huge over-reaction to entirely typical behavior.

The prospective teacher, Stacy Snyder, was of legal drinking age. She is not giving alcohol to minors. She is not doing anything the least bit risque. She is just wearing a pirate hat and drinking out a cheap plastic cup; she's labeled the pic "drunken pirate."

Obviously, this is shocking result. Teacher preparation programs are charged with ensuring the appropriate "dispositions" in their graduates, and I suppose that that is what the dean was thinking about when he denied her the teaching degree. But it is not as though teachers don't drink. The New York Times wrote a story last summer about teacher drinking and teacher bars last summer. Young workers in every industry go out for drinks after work, especially on Fridays, and teachers are no different.

So, what's the problem? That someone took a picture? That students could find out that their teacher drinks? Perhaps it was the cheap plastic cup? Maybe, if she looked more poised, and had a wine glass in her hand, it would have been viewed differently. But so what?

27 year olds drink after work and on weekends.

It has come out in the past week that Roger Clemens might have cheated on his wife. A baseball player has cheated on his wife! Stop the presses!

What was the last baseball movie that did not allude to, mention or even depict ballplayers hooking up with groupies, even married ballplayers? What is your best guess as to the fraction of players in the Hall of Fame who did not cheat on their wives?

Do you think that it resembles the percentage of 27 year old teachers who don't drink?

And yet, in both of these cases, each of the the individual engaging in these expected behaviors was selectively vilified.

This garbage happens all too often. Barak Obama has been vilified for not wearing a flag-pin, even though neither Hillary Clinton nor John McCain wear flag-pins.

I've got to admit, I don't get it. I don't understand what prompts this kind of selective outrage.

One criteria is not enough

2008-04-22T15:38:00.004-04:00

More from Scott Adams. This time, he proposes a rating system for movies to help him identify movies he might like. He has 11 different criteria, and that's just for a 1-3 hour experience. Don't we need at least that much to figure out what is going on in schools?

Mr. Adams criteria are impressive. Shape of story arc, star power, mumbling quotient, bladder, artistry, sadism, originality, incomprehensibility, humor, scariness, suspense. All but the first on on a ten point scale, whereas story arc is a series of high/medium/lows.

It's important to note that he does not suggest adding all these up. Rather, together they give profile of a film, so that people with different tastes -- or perhaps we can think about it as 'needs' -- can find what they are looking for.

Unfortunately, our current paradigm in education calls for a single rating for each school. Under NCLB, it is the simplest possible rating: yes/no. Either a school is making all the progress it is supposed to making, or it is not. In New York City, we have a wider set of criteria, but it is still reduced to a single rating, A-F.

If I were to design a system to describe schools, I would never reduce it to a single rating; schools do too many different things. There's teaching basic skills and complex thinking. There's teaching analytical problem solving and teaching open-ended creativity. There's working with average children, special education student and the gifted. There are academic issues, and non-academic (e.g. teamwork, perseverance, work ethic). All of these are important, but not equally important to every parent -- perhaps not equally important to every community. Reducing measures of schools to a single measures loses that detail that parents want to know about.

Moreover, losing that detail equates schools that do many things extraordinarily at the expense of doing some terrible with with schools that do everything well but nothing extraordinarily. To put that another way, is a C average a result of a bunch of individual C's, or is it a result of a mixture of A's and F's?

How do we judge schools, or those who work in them, with just a single composite measure? If Mr. Adams can even jokingly suggest that he needs a dozen criteria to understand a movie, shouldn't we need even more for a school?

What is patriotism?

2008-04-21T15:00:00.001-04:00

Last week, Scott Adams (the author of Dilbert) posed the following question on his blog:

If a person is relatively certain that going to war will end his ability to enjoy the rest of his life, one way or another, and the war does not present a plausible threat to the homeland, is such a person unpatriotic for dodging the draft to save himself?

Some of comments struck me as rather asinine. For example, they keep referring to you "your country calling you to serve," or questioning the value of patriotism. And yet, they don't actually get to the real question Mr. Adams is posing: What is patriotism?

Many arguing that patriotism itself is a bad thing seem to be operating under the assumption that patriotism mean blind acceptance of the president's views/beliefs/orders/desires. But plainly that can't be true.

Obviously, one element of patriotism is love of country. I would suggest that that is actually the root of patriotism, it's essence. Love of one political party over another is not patriotism, nor is love of a particular leader, though perhaps either could be compatible with patriotism.

Refusing to defend one's country against and existential threat is clearly unpatriotic. No question.

Refusing to enable internal powers to twist one's country to support their new goals or ends is not unpatriotic.

But the line is not clear. If you love your country enough, wouldn't you want to see its interests furthered? For example, if the United States needed to annex Canada in order to survive an energy crisis, it strikes me as being unpatriotic to refuse to take part in the invasion. Of course, allowing the country to get to point -- or enabling others to do so -- would also be unpatriotic.

An essential element of modern (liberal) democracies is the peaceful handover of power from one faction/party to another. George Washington stepped down after two terms, peacefully. And Al Gore refused to challenge the results of the 2000 election past the Supreme Court decision, though many urged him to and the Constitution allowed for it. Is it inevitable that power will change hands, and with that so will policy. Louis XIV said, "L'Etat c'est moi" (i.e. "The state is me"), but democracies' leaders cannot say such a thing. Therefore, aggrandizement of a particular leader or blind devotion to his/her policies cannot be patriotism, as both will change shortly, perhaps even radically.

Criticism of a leader is not unpatriotic, on it face. And refusal to serve an unjust cause that does not protect the nation or its interests is not unpatriotic, either.

Of course, one must come to some kind of answer of what it is that is loved, when on proclaims love of country. Is is the land itself? Is the original peoples? The powerful classes? The masses? The messy diversity that exists in that particular country, be it ethnic, socio-economic, regional, what have you? Their common denominator? Some set of value or principals or some sort?

I think that there are different kinds of countries and that there different answers for these different countries. I don't think that Iceland and the United States can have the kind of patriotism. Icelanders share a common language that goes back centuries, a homeland which their forbearers have inhabited for as least as long, a common culture and way of life. The US is almost entirely made of immigrants and their descendants. Has even a quarter of our population's families been here for even 100 years? (Half of New York City either immigrated here themselves or are the children of immigrants.) The French might love their common culture and language, both of which go back far further than this country's.

I think that this country, the United States, is especially a country of values. 230 years ago, it was not out ethnicity that set us apart from England, and yet we broke apart from the British Empire. Patriotism in the United States cannot simply be about our ethnic heritage, as that varies. It cannot be about the land, as we have grown through our history and out founding documents barely reference it at all. Clearly, the United States is largely about our governing values and principals.

However, I would not argue that the Constitution is the entirety of what matters about the US. There are other values that are a part the very fabric of this nation that do not about in the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution. Pluralism, the common school, economic opportunity, freedom from many areas of discrimination.

I acknowledge that there are some questions as to which values actually should be included in that group. Simply projecting all of my own values cannot work, as others have different values. There will always be arguments about what values are the essential American values, and some incontestable values likely can be in conflict with others, so the prioritization of those values will also be an area of debate.

But blind faith in the leader of the moment or the powers of the day? That is not patriotism. Temporary control over the levers of power does not make a group, however powerful, the same thing as state.

So, dodging a draft that exists to fight an unjust war that does not protect whatever it is about a nation that is loved when one is patriotic? That is not unpatriotic. And it might even be patriotic itself.

Wireless Disk Speed Test

2008-04-16T19:13:00.001-04:00

There are so many ways to access data with Apple hardware. It could be on an internal drive. It could be on an external drive, either FireWire or USB. It could be on a disk attached to an AirPort Extreme (AirDisk), or a TimeCapsule. It could even be on the disk inside a TimeCapsule. How do the speeds of these various methods compare?

I used XBench, a free benchmarking tool, to compare the speeds of these different forms of storage. I don't have anything in particular to say about this tool, nor can I vouch for its usefulness generally. But it was free. Regardless of its details, it provides a common measuring stick, especially because I have run it from the same machine (i.e. a stock early 2008 black Macbook) for each test.

Unfortunately, other issues have varied across groups of tests. For the first group of tests, the external drive was a 300GB/7200rpm IDE drive in a Metal Gear Box USB2.0/FireWire enclosure. For the second group of tests, the drive was a 750GB/7200rpm SATA drive in a USB2.0 enclosure.

XBench Disk Test Score

A: Internal Disk 28.70

B: FireWire Disk 49.01

C: USB Disk 33.82

D: AirDisk (802.11n/2.4MHz) 3.91

E: AirDisk (100bT) 6.94

The internal disk is a 2.5" SATA disk, which explains why it scored so much lower than the USB and FireWire disks. Note that the USB and FireWire disks are actually the same disk, in the same enclosure. Of course, the two tests use different chipsets in the enclosure, and the pair serves to demonstrate the speed advantage of FireWire. Moreover, FireWire outperformed USB in every disk subtest. This same enclosure was attached by USB to an original AirPort Extreme BaseStation, which supported 100bT Ethernet. The wireless connection was 1/10 the speed of the direct connections. While the wired Ethernet connection was twice as fast as the wireless, that was still about 1/5 of the direct USB connection.

For the second group of test, I attached the same 750GB/7200rpm SAT/USB drive to the same Apple BaseStation (BS) and to an Apple TimeCapsule (TC) , which also had its own internal 500GB/7200rpm SATA drive.

XBench Disk Test Score

F: USB 2.0 30.67

G: BS AirDisk (802.11b/g/n) 3.55

H: BS AirDisk (802.11n/5MHz) 5.10

I: BS AirDisk (100bT) 7.03

J: TC AirDisk (802.11b/g/n) 2.41

K: TC AirDisk (802.11n-only 2.4MHz) 3.27

L: TC AirDisk (802.11n/5MHz) 6.64

M: TC AirDisk (1000bT) 12.96

N: TC Disk (802.11b/g/n) 3.03

O: TC Disk (802.11n-only 2.4MHz) 3.56

P: TC Disk (802.11n/5MHz) 6.32

Q: C Disk (1000bT) 15.10

Clearly, switching to 5MHz band -- at the cost of backwards compatibility with 802.11b & 802.11g, and the ability to penetrate as many walls -- gives a huge speed boost, both for the Extreme BaseStation and the TimeCapsule. Simply turning off compatibility itself results in a speed boost, though not as great. A wired connection, however, is always much faster than a wireless connection, topping out at 5x as fast as the b/g/n network. Note, however, that the same disk was still more than 2x as fast when hooked up directly with a USB connection.

Wireless benchmarking is notoriously flakey, and so you have to put assume some margin of error in each of these scores. That would explain why each of the disks had the top score in at least one test, despite clear trends suggesting that the TimeCapsule disk is the fastest and BaseStation's AirDisk is the slowest.

Why K12 teachers need tenure

2008-04-10T11:16:00.001-04:00

Brian Lehrer keeps asking why we need tenure, given the teacher shortage we face. Unfortunately, he keeps doing it in the context of other education discussions, and he never gets an answer.

So here I go.

******************

First, a little history. Tenure is not a product of collective bargaining. It is not in teacher union contracts. It is a matter of state law, and goes much further back than when teachers unions gained collective bargaining rights. Though in higher ed it has been about academic freedom, in K12 education it has equally been about patronage (i.e. new administrators replacing existing teachers with their cronies).

Second, a point of clarification. Tenure for K12 teachers is not guaranteed lifetime employment. Rather, after three years of teaching with good evaluations, tenured teachers cannot be fired at the drop of a hat or at the whim of an administrator. Rather, the principal must document the teacher's problems, let him/her know about them, given him/her a opportunity to correct them, and then check to see whether they were corrected. If all of these steps are documented, the teacher can be dismissed. For an employee who has already proven him/herself over years of employment, it's just good management practice.

*******************

So, why do we still need tenure? Patronage is not the problem it once was, certainly not with a teacher shortage and licensure requirements. And what kind of academic freedom do K12 teachers need?

A) The teacher shortage is not evenly distributed. High performing schools don't have the same problems attracting teacher. High paying district don't have the same problems attracting teachers. English, social studies and art teachers are in good supply for most schools. Low performing schools, lower paying districts, math and science positions, these are the areas of teacher shortages. So, the shortage issue is not a factor for most teachers.

B) This really comes down to the question of why principals might want to be rid of a teacher. I would suggest that any manager would want to be rid of any employee who makes his/her job or life harder. Ideally, this would only be low performing teachers, but that is a fantasy view.

Any kind of rabble rouser can make a principal's job harder. Encouraging parents to express their concerns to a principal ends up costing principals a lot of time. Encouraging parents to go high up in the organization of the principal does not give them fair hearing can cost a principal far more. Encouraging students to organize and express their concerns to administrators is not always taken well, either. And yet, teachers who feel a strong drive to teach for social justice commonly do both of these things.

Obviously, union activists are already protected by other labor laws.

C) Academic freedom in K12 is not like in higher education, that's true. But it is still an issue.

A teacher who tries to raise the bar in his/her classes can create no end of problems for a principal. If standards in school have been too low, and a teacher demands more than students are accustomed to, students and their parents can demand enormous amounts of principal's time. This is a different form of rocking the boat, but can still be enough for a principal to wish to be rid of the teacher.

Principals cannot be experts on everything. Once, when teaching high school English, my principal as a former middle school math teacher. He insisted that I as an English teacher, "not worry about critical and analytical thinking" and "just teach English." Though he had no training or experience with high school English, he had ideas about what it meant. He did not approve of the fact that I was spending as much time on teaching my student how to reason as on the mechanics of writing. His assistant principal insisted that we not teach students to write essays at all any more, and instead focus on other forms of non-narrative writing.

Another principal might be an old school traditionalist and insist that English classes only be about books. He might not approve of using film or video to teach about theme, plot, symbolism, character development, story arcs, allegory and any of the rest. But a teacher might feel that this would be the best way for students to learn these lessons. I never had this experience, but I have spoken to those who have. Quite simply, teachers who insist on doing something different than what has been done before can face blowback from administrators and from parents (i.e. "if it was good enough for me...").

******************

No, we don't need tenure if principals can be counted on to make good decisions in the best interests of children. But they are human, and therefore often make decisions in their own interests. Moreover, we have a real shortage of high quality principals, even as we are breaking up large schools into multiple small schools and opening up charter schools.

Which brings me to something that Richard Rothstein talks about. We have regulations not to ensure the highest quality of anything, rather to prevent the lowest quality. Once a teacher proves him/herself over three years, tenure ensures that s/he will only be dismissed for a valid reason after s/he -- who has already demonstrated that s/he can do the job well -- has been given a chance to correct the situation.

I do not suggest that there are not problems with our tenure system. A lot falls to principals, perhaps too much. Teacher observation and evaluation is not easy, and the tenure process in dependent on principals making good decisions about teachers during those first three years. Principals, coming from the teacher ranks, know far more about how to teach or have difficult conversations with children than with adults, and yet they are expected to do these thing in the process of trying to remove a tenured teacher. Principals need support and training that they rarely receive.

And that is why we still need tenure. It takes a series of bad decisions over a number of years for a poor teacher to get tenure. But without tenure, it only takes one bad decision for a good to be dismissed.

Can a teacher be expected to ensure every one of his/her students makes progress?

2008-04-10T10:14:00.000-04:00

Can a teacher be expected to ensure every one of his/her students makes progress?

I don't know. It's a tough question.

Obviously, we want the answer to be "Yes! Of course!" But what is the reality of the situation?

The question is really comes from the debate about whether to hold teachers accountable for student progress. To what degree should individual student data be the basis for kind of system, even leaving aside problems with the tests themselves.

During my last year teaching in New York City -- where the state maximum class size for high school classes is 34 -- I had as many as 37 students in class. Could I ensure that every one of those 37 student made progress. The previous year, I had a class roster of 41, but I was told that most of them would never show up. (This was a class for sophomores held during the the last period of the day, a period that usually was only for freshman, who did not start the day until second period.) Less than a dozen of them showed up even once, and only half a dozen showed up more than a small handful of times. That spring I also taught an extra class during first period for freshman who had failed English the previous semester, giving them a chance to catch up on that missing credit. Again, a roster of 40+, but only a fraction of that showed up even once.

Would it have been appropriate to expect each of the students on my roster make progress?

What about students who are pulled out of classes regularly for speech therapy, to speak to a social worker or psychologist or even is suspended? Should their teachers be expected to ensure that they make the same kind of progress as other students?

What about the students who show up to class, but don't do their homework? Or those who sleep through class most of the time? Should the teacher be accountable for their progress? How much progress? How about the student who misses the first 20 minutes of his/her first class every day because s/he is drops of his/her little brother at school every morning before coming to his own school?

If a teacher is working one on one for even half and hour with just one student, of course the teacher should be accountable for the student making progress. But how much progress? Whether we like it or not, some kids are smarter than others, or have more aptitude in a particular area. Some are better prepared for the content of a particular class. And some have more support out of class (e.g. people who encourage them to do their homework, a quiet place to do their homework, etc.).

If a teacher is working with just five students for 38 minutes a day, I think that it is fair to hold the teacher accountable for them making progress. But if they were never properly taught arithmetic, if is not fair to hold the teacher accountable for their learning algebra at the same rate as another group who have mastered arithmetic. Each group might start knowing no algebra, but the educational experiences of one group makes them much better prepared to learn algebra than the other.

I am not making excuses. Rather, I think that these different situations should result in different expectations for progress. If we are to hold teachers accountable, our system must take these kinds of issues into account. Moreover, I would suggest that issues tend to cluster in schools, mostly as a function of socio-economic and immigration factors in neighborhoods,

But even if we take all this stuff into account, we still have the original question. How many students must a teacher have before we would expect one of them to fall through the cracks? 50? 100? 150? 300? 500? Surely there is point where it would be inevitable, right? Surely this is some point where it becomes more likely than not -- what I mean by "expect" in this case. I mean, even for an above-average teacher, there's got to be a point.

Of course, I want the answer to be far above the student loads that teachers face. I want every teachers to be able to reach every student. But is that a reasonable expectation?

This is a great part of why Ted Sizer, Debbie Meier and Paul Schwarz call for teachers to have smaller student loads. This does not necessarily mean smaller classes. The same number of students in a class, but for twice as long (e.g. double periods) would results in halving student loads, whereas a 20% reduction in class size combined with 20% increase in the number of classes taught would keep student loads the same. Their point is that every student should known well by at least one adult, and that is unlikely when every high school teacher has over 100 students. Some may be known well, but many will slip through the cracks.

Probably

2008-04-09T14:18:00.000-04:00

I like Hillary and I like Obama. Both are smart. But have demonstrated since their early adulthood that they care about the issues that I care about. Neither of them has any red flags that warn me off of them.

But I've favored Hillary all along.

Obama's speeches are things of wonder, not question. He is capable of addressing issue and bring them to the nation that Hillary is not, and I don't just mean race. He is a big issue, ideals and principals guys. That is his nature, and some of his many gifts make him perhaps uniquely able to discuss them in ways that resonate with many Americans. (We'll see whether or not it is most Americans come the general election.) I don't think that he is just about speeches. He understands the legislative process. He has a sense of how to work with people. He is capable of discussing policy, no question.

But for some reason, I've favored Hillary all along. No knock on Obama, whom I find inspiring on many levels. My favor for one does not have to come at the expense of the other. In fact, I voted for Obama because at the time I felt that he was a better match up again John McCain.

But I've favored Hillary all along.

Without getting into each of the candidates strengths and weaknesses, I want to explain why. In fact, I don't think that it is about their general strengths and weaknesses. They are each a great candidate. They simply are different candidates. I don't think that one is definitively better than the other. Either would make a great president. Either can beat John McCain -- I'm now not so sure which would be a better match up. I've thought a lot about each of their strengths and weakness, but I don't think that that has really made a difference.

So, why have I favored Hillary all along? These are not reasons that I am necessarily proud of, but I am not ashamed of them either. They exist in the context in which I like both of them, and would happily support either of them. These are the results that I think I have uncovered in myself.

First, I feel like I know her better. Obviously, I've known her longer. I was in college when Bill ran for president and I really liked her then. After Nancy Reagan and Barbara Bush, Hillary was exciting to me. She was the kind of woman I respected. She was more like my Mom, in that she was a well-educated professional with her own career. She did not pretend to take a backseat to her husband, despite his political successes. She was interesting, smart and opinionated, even sarcastic. She was a real feminist, and was portrayed as a radical liberal. Every one of these things was good. (I must admit, though, she is not as liberal as she was painted, as not as liberal as my ideal president would be.)

I could only hope that I might marry so well. I don't mean that I wanted to marry her, but certainly I wanted someone with every one of those traits.

Through the years, I've learned more about her. She was bookish and strong, clearly awkward during during formative years. She never was fashionable, even when she tried. But that didn't diminish her at all, as she demanded to be evaluated on entirely different standards. I learned how thoughtful she was, how she she consciously came to liberalism and the Democratic party. She could have been one of my friend in high school or college.

Perhaps she was too aggressive or pushy for that. We might have clashed and fought. Maybe we couldn't have been friends, but I'd like to think that that was the of person I wanted as my friend. And even if my pushiness and her aggressiveness wouldn't have mixed well, that didn't mean that she wasn't suitable to lead. In fact, her aggressiveness might even make her more suitable to lead.

I just like her. Always have. Probably always will.

Furthermore, there's something about the abuse that she had taken all these years, not just during this campaign. Sure, Chris Matthews has been horrendous. But when she was first lady she was a huge target of the right. Even when Bill was running for president she was a huge target. Even when Bill was governor of Arkansas, she was a huge target, this feminist from up north. I'm sympathetic to that. I feel for her. Perhaps that shouldn't matter, but I think that it does. I know that years of experience a target of ad hominem politically motivated attacks really shouldn't be a qualification for presidents of the United States, but if I am being honest I've got to admit that it has resonated within me.

On the other hand, there is Obama. He's handsome. He's smooth. He's is, quite simply, more cool than I ever could be. He's arrogant - which I like - and he pulls it off with panache. Second City has a great line about him, "He's just the right amount of black." I think that that cool he's got is part of what they are referring to -- though clearly not the only part.

I was never the cool kid. Moreover, I never wanted to be the cool kid, or hang out with the cool kids. I wasn't in love with the homecoming queen, and I wasn't impressed with my high school's quarter back. Did I reject all of this because I knew I couldn't be a part of it? I don't think so, but who can really be sure? Regardless, I was one of the smart kids and I was happy to be one of the smart kids. I never looked enviously as the other groups, be it in high school, college or since.

Perhaps Obama was one of the smart kids. I mean, he was smart enough to be in that group. But he projects that he was always one of the cool kids. And I always felt like they were more about style than substance.

I think that Hillary's near tears in New Hampshire is relevant here. Obama wouldn't have that moment, not publicly. It's not his style. He is an incredible public speaker and have an amazing presence about it. He's one of those guys who never seems to be working hard, even when he is. But in that moment, Hillary genuinely showed her frustration. She was at ropes' end. She'd been working hard for decades for these causes that matter to her, getting more and more immersed over time (i.e. from being first lady of Arkansas while being a partner at a law firm, to being full time first lady of the U.S., to being a full time senator). She's been working her ass off, and it actually is hard work. She was sure that she was what America needs, and people weren't listening. She was frustrated. She was tired. She might even have been a touch despondent. What more did she have to do?

I've had moments like that, when I look back on all my efforts and feel like people just aren't listening, are making my work harder than it need to be, when I feel that something important is not going to get done properly, despite everything that I have done for it. Passionate people everywhere have had those moments.

Does Obama have those moments. It's hard to think that he doesn't. But we'd never see them. That's not who is he is. He doesn't project as a grinder who gets things done. Rather, he's the leader, the rock star.

Look, this isn't about which would be a better president. This is not about the most important strengths of each candidate, or their important weaknesses. They add up in my head to be just about comparable, though different. This is not about who had a tougher childhood, who faced more barriers to their success, who was touched more by MLK's death, who had had tougher odds to overcome, who is smarter, who is a harder worker, who is more liberal or anything like that. This is about why, despite my conscious and rational conviction that these two candidates are both great, just different, that I have consistently favored Hillary all along.

Use of test data

2008-04-09T10:48:00.000-04:00

Today, the Brian Lehrer show attempted to address the question of the proper use of student achievement data in making tenure decisions for teachers. This was prompted by a NYT story from today's paper.

Two important quotes from the story came from state legislation.

Original, but scrapped language: "That section said teachers would be evaluated for tenure based on, among other things, an 'evaluation of the extent to which the teacher successfully utilized analysis of available student performance data.'"
Final (?) language: "'The teacher shall not be granted or denied tenure based on student performance data.'”

I understand that on the surface this change seems a travesty, but it is not. Let me explain.

To help you to understand the issue, I am going to give some other measurement examples that are likely more familiar to you.

Kitchen measuring cups come in two basic varieties: liquid (the transparent ones you read from the outside) and solid. You can use solid measuring cups for liquids, but it'll be a little in accurate. At the same time, however, you really cannot use the liquid measuring cups for solids with any real accuracy. Note that even though the context (i.e. the kitchen) and the purpose (measuring and cooking food), different tools are needed to measure the different substances well. Especially note the asymmetry in substitution, in that one can come close to replacing the other, but not the other way around. Small changes in what you are trying to measure can necessitate a whole different tool to measure it well.
Most of us have a simple device to measure our own size in our homes: the bathroom scale. However, it only measures one aspect of size well; while it is a good tool to measure weight, it has a horrible tool to measure height. It's really not a good tool for width or depth, either. Or waist size. Or any number of other aspects of size. Of course, you could use it to measure height, a little bit. If you know that the person weights 32 lbs, you've got a clue as to how tall they are. If you know that they weight 180 lbs, you again have a clue. But in either case, you could be far off, depending on whether the person is think or fat. And, of course, that assumes that you are measuring a person, instead of dog or a box of books. Similar constructs, or different aspects of the same construct (e.g. size) are not necessarily measured the same way.
That bathroom scale has some other limitations. It assumes that it is being used in a particular context. If you take it to the moon to measure my identical twin, you will get quite a different answer. It is calibrated to earth gravity. Of course, that's usually not a problem. But if you work for NASA, it's something to keep in mind. Furthermore, while you can use your doctor's fancy scale on the moon, even it won't work in space. Context matters.
Bringing it back to the kitchen, some of us have food scales in our kitchens. We can't use them to measure people, but you can't use a bathroom scale to measure food for cooking. Though they each measure the same thing (i.e. weight) they are useful for different ranges and precision. My kitchen scale is 160 times as precise as my bathroom scale (1/20 ounce vs. 1/2 lb), but only goes up to 5 lbs. Precision matters, as the range at which a tool can be accurate
Another kitchen example is measuring flour. The best cooks measure it by mass rather than by volume, because flour volume is notoriously unreliable. (Think about sifted flour vs. unsifted, for example.) But flour is sensitive to moisture in the air. In a more humid environment, you use a little more flour, as whatever you measure will include some moisture that the flour absorbed from the air, and in a less humid environment, you need to use a little less four. Environment matters.
One last kitchen example. We presume that if water is boiling that that means that it is 212 degrees (100 Celsius, of course). But at higher elevations this is no longer true, because of differences in air pressure. So, in Denver, the boiling point is 201F/94C. If you don't take this into account when calibrating your kitchen thermometer, your meat will be underdone and your cheesecake will be runny. Calibration is critically important.

All of these issues are apparent in achievement tests for student, the ones we use in our schools for NCLB and many other purposes, too.

There are many problems with our tests, and none of them are new. E.F. Lindquist wrote about them in 1951 in a book called Educational Measurement. Now let's be clear here, he was no opponent of standardized testing. I mean, this is the guy who invented the scantron machine! But he was concerned that people would misuse test results, or misunderstand their meaning.

One of his biggest concerns, and I think that this one underlies virtually all of the big problems with testing today, is that people can get confused between the items being tested and the "construct" that the items are supposed to stand for.

For example, I might give an essay test on particular novel. As the teacher, I act under the assumption that the the scores students get on the test represent students' writing ability, understanding of the novel or even ability to analyze literature in general. Maybe that's a fair assumption. Or, maybe if I used different questions, some student would do better on the test, and some would do worse. Perhaps the boys would do better if I asked about some aspects of the novel, and the girls better if I asked about other aspect. Perhaps some questions might be easier for students who had read a particular other novel in another class the previous year, and those who were not in the same class last year -- and did not read that novel -- would do worse.

Technically, this is called "person x item interaction," meaning some students do better on some items (i.e. questions), and some do better on others. This is not to say simply that some items are harder than others, rather that different items are harder for different students. And when we confuse their performance on those item with their underlying ability, we are making a big mistake.

I won't get into the ways that our current testing system makes that problem more likely, at least not today. But clearly taking a test designed for one purpose and using it for another makes that far more likely.

**************

Now, to get back to the particular issues of the day. First, the change in the legislative language and the question of whether "performance data" (i.e. test scores) should be used to make tenure decisions.

Our current tests are usually, at best, designed to measure current performance levels. But eve Brian acknowledged that going by performance level would not be fair, because teachers working in low performing schools should not be punished for their commitment to work with the most needy student.

So, measure improve in scores, year to year, right? Well, the tests are usually not designed to do that, and rarely do it well. Moreover, even if they were, recent studies have shown that lower income students lose more ground over the summer than higher income students. It's easy to imagine why, as higher income students are more likely to attend richer summer programs that build on their learning in schools. This is entirely beyond the control of schools and teachers, but this would imply a weaker teacher performance in low income schools than those in higher income schools, if we measured year over year growth.

There are issues with using the same tests for low performing schools and Stuyvessant High School.

Should we expect students' math and reading scores to go up by the same amount in 7th grade as in 3rd grade, or are some years more critical than others?

What about the subjects for which we don't have high stakes tests? Do students perform differently on high stakes tests than low- or no-stakes tests?

These problems go on and on. Sure, there are answers to most of them, but they usually require more costly tests and analysis procedure. And some problems do not have answers.

But the real point, the biggest problem, and what I wanted to mention on Brian's show today, is that these tests are not known to be "instructionally sensitive." That is, none of them have been designed to differentiate good instruction from bad instruction. None of them have been validated for that. None of them have even been checked for that. We have no reason to believe that these tests -- or the individual items on the tests -- are capable of providing information that would allow us to identify good teaching or good teachers. Heck, we don't even yet know how to design items that are instructionally sensitive. This is what James Popham was talking about two weeks ago at the annual meeting of the American Education Research Association. (He is a former president of the association.)

Sure, if all you have is a hammer, than everything looks like a nail. But that'll break the lightbulb and it's not going to do anything useful when you are trying to change a flat tire. And that is what we are talking about here. We do not have the tool to accomplish that, and until we do we need to back off.

If the state of New York wants to invest a couple of million dollars in such a research effort, out of the $20 billion it spends on education each year, perhaps that would be a good idea. The Department of Defense spends billions of dollars each year on the next generation of weapons and equipment, paying defense contractor to invent/develop them before using them in the field.

**********************

None of the previous section addresses the original language in the legislation and why it might be bad. But there are problems there, too, even though it doesn't call for teachers to be evaluated on student performance.

I am all for teachers using performance data to help guide their teaching. I think that teacher education programs should teach pre-service teachers how to make sense of such data. But I'm not convinced that it should yet be a factor in tenure decisions.

First, we better make damn sure that the tests are good and actually provide meaningful measures of student performance before we demand teachers make use of them day to day. The original language calls for teaching to the test. That is what it means. It means that teachers should take test data to guide their instruction so that students do better on the next test.

At its worst, it means teaching how to take these tests, or even how to answer the kinds of problems that appear on the test, rather than focusing on the core lessons of the topic. It means narrowing application of material to how they appear on tests, rather than real world use that might not be able to appear on the test.

It means that the tests -- regardless of their quality -- will drive instruction, rather than the tests providing information about student performance, or even about instruction. It confuses the cart and the horse.

And then there's the bottom line. It is principals who are responsible for evaluating teachers. This language is about what principals should consider. Unfortunately, principals do not know how to do this stuff, either. Moreover, no one teaches principals the dangers and concerns in depending on potentially problematic tests, that might be used in appropriately to draw conclusions about things that the tests are not capable of supporting. I do not blame principals for this, rather I look to their preparation programs and their districts, both of whom have failed to teach them about this valuable material. But if they do not really understand it, why would anyone put them in a position to evaluate it?

***********************

But I am not just a hater. I am happy to recommend resources that might help principals and other the learn more about this.

DataWise is a book about using assessment data to guide instruction. It addresses the immediate problem at hand, how principals and teachers can use test results.

More importantly, Measuring Up: What Educations Testing Really Tells Us is a brand new book about tests, testing and educational measurement in general. It is written for a lay audience, without all of the complex mathematics and statistics that underlie testing.

The credibility and expertise of the authors of both books are beyond reproach. These are not one-sided political screeds by any means.

Research and Policy: What conferences can teach us

2008-04-08T13:45:00.000-04:00

A couple of weeks ago, attended the big education research conference (i.e. the annual meeting of the American Education Research Association). It's a week long, with hundreds or even over 1,000 of panels, thousands of papers, over 13,000 presenters, over 16,000 attendees. It lasts a week, taking over all the conference rooms in a few large hotel the middle of the host city, New York this year.

There are always a few panels on the topic of how research can inform policy, or why it does not. I always attend a few of these, as I only care about doing research insofar as it will actually make a difference for schools and children.

A good friend of mine had an odd experience during her session. One of the presenters failed to show up, meaning that there were only three papers to present. They had been grouped under a common theme, but the papers were quite different. The additional time gained by only having three presenters resulted in a real conversation between them, something that there hardly ever is time for at these things. Sure, panels that bring together for discussions might take the form of a conversation, but rarely do those based on presenting papers (i.e. research).

You see, the timing just doesn't work out. Each session gets about 90 minutes, with perhaps 5 minutes taken up for introductions and transitions. Each presenter gets about 15 minutes, and the discussant gets the same. That leaves ten minutes for questions from the audience, at best. If presenters or the discussant go long, that come out of the Q&A. Obviously, there just isn't time for a real discussion. Moreover, if the panelists knew there would only be three papers, they'd present for 20 minutes each. It was just the accident of the missing panelist that gave them the extra time for discussion -- and likely a discussant who was more interested in letting the panelists speak than in hearing his/her own voice. Obviously, sessions with five papers are even more crunched for time.

My friend remarked to me on what a great experience this was, and how she wished that all sessions could be like this. She conceded that it would mean that fewer papers would be accepted, but thought that it was worth it.

In my opinion, she was missing the purpose of this conference. She was accepting it on face value, that it was to spread knowledge and learning. I think that she was just wrong in this.

The purpose of this conference, like virtually every other academic conference, is to have somewhere to present papers. It is so that we can fill up our CVs. It is so we can show that we are doing real work. Of course, other people rarely actually read the papers we write for these conferences. If we are doing it right, we actually just present drafts of articles that we hope to get published in journals. Journals that few people people will read except to find references and citations to add to the papers and articles that they themselves are writing.

An exaggeration? Sure, but not much of one.

Of course, these conferences also exist for networking purposes. There are any number of social events, and everyone in the field is in town for this one. I know that every year I see people whom I both like and respect, but whom I never see otherwise.

But no one actually thinks that people are going to read their papers. The association tells presenters to print 12 copies of their paper, and two more with large text for those with poor vision. A small minority of presenters actually do this. Most presenters tell people to email them to ask for a copy of the paper, but they seem surprised when this actually happens. Some respond that their papers are still in process, or data is still being added, or they are being revised based on the feedback they received at the conference.

This year, I emailed nearly 90 requests for copies of papers presented this year. Only about half replied by sending them to me, and most of them seem surprised at the reqest. Five more just emailed me copies of their slides. Half a dozen said that their papers would be ready in a 2-5 weeks. And the rest, more than a third, did not even respond at all. This matches my experience in years past. (Of course, I don't ask discussants for their notes, or people on discussion panels for papers. These numbers only refer to people who were supposed to present papers.)

I don't think that this means that the conference is a fraud, or that the presentations are frauds. Rather, it indicates that the purpose of the conference is not actually the sharing of papers, that it is not learning on the part of attendees. And it is not fraudulent because everyone knows already knows this. I only think that one of my two papers this year was really any good, but I am not worried about it because I do not think that anyone is ever going to read it.

**************

And now, back to the point. Why don't people who make policy listen to researchers?

There are standard reasons given all the time. Researchers can't answer questions fast enough for policy-makers. Researchers come up with different answers over time. Researchers often can't explain that the single salient feature or trait is, making their answers too complicated to be the basis of policy -- or even too incomplete. Policy-makers care more about the appearance of making a difference than actually solving problems. Etc., etc..

These reasons may all be true. But I don't think that any of them are the most fundamental problem.

Rather, I think that the major reason is that most researchers just don't care.

Their job is to do research. Or, perhaps, it is to get papers published. But their job is not to make a difference in schools or for students. It is not even to have influence in their profession. And the rest is just not of concern to them. If so many researchers don't care if anyone reads their papers, why should anything think that they care about influencing policy. Moreover, these attitudes are learned somewhere.

I had an interesting conversation with a professor from the midwest who used the phrase, "Caught, not taught" to explain how most lessons in schools are transmitted, be they for the better (e.g. the value of hard work, the importance of treating people with respect) or worse (e.g. the relative importance of style over substance, of politics over results). It is not that anyone means to teach young researchers (i.e. doctoral students and junior faculty) that making a difference in schools does not matter, but that view is caught by them nonetheless.

We, as group, are rewarded for publication and have not insisted on other measures of success, nor have put those other measures first in our own careers. We are not actually interested in sharing our work with others, and certainly not in a form that does not contribute to the particular system in which we are locked.

So, is it any wonder that policy-makers don't listen to us? I don't think that we actually are trying to say anything to them.

Drobo v. ReadyNAS V: Conclusion

2008-04-01T15:13:00.000-04:00

So, what's the bottom line? I've written about what I am looking for, the obvious differences between Drobo and ReadyNAS, differences in connectivity and use of disks, and some of the more technical advantages that favor ReadyNAS. What does it all add up to?

Speed is not a huge issue for me. Sure, I would like a faster solution. But it is not that important. If things go well, I'll never need the fastest speeds. And I'd have to upgrade other equipment to take advantage of it. More importantly, Drobo is already faster than 802.11n wireless networking, so it is fast enough for me. However, others, especially those working with large graphics or video files over ethernet could really make use of ReadyNAS's huge speed advantages.

Cost, on the hand, is a concern for me. Drobo makes better use of its disks, and costs less up front, especially if you don't need DroboShare to put it on a network. That's a major advantage for Drobo, regardless of how you use it.

ReadyNAS has many features that Drobo does not. I am especially intrigued by the ease with which you can back up the data on the unit. This would be important desktop users, as their computers and any backups on their ReadyNAS are always in the same place and if disaster strikes all the data could well be lost. It is also important if any data is kept exclusively on the device. However, keep all my data on my laptop, so the device itself is a backup. I am a laptop user, and I usually have my machine with me, meaning that the laptop itself acts as offsite storage, much of the time. And if there were a fire in my home, you can be damn sure that I'm not leaving without my laptop, anyway. But older backups themselves are valuable, and Drobo does not make it easy to copy them. To be entirely honest, though, as much as I like this feature, I am not disciplined enough to use it. And ReadyNAS's other advanced features really are of no use for me.

Apple supports Time Machine -- its cool backup system built into the latest version of OS X -- to devices attached directly to its routers or other Mac OS X computers, but not to other network devices. For my purposes, this virtually cinches it for Drobo, as it can be plugged into my Apple router with USB. I'd rather not try unsupported hacks to make Time Machine work with ReadyNAS.

In fact, I tend to wonder why home users would want ReadyNAS. For basic use, Drobo is cheaper and simpler. Its advanced features are more appropriate for small offices than even most home offices, even even most most offices wouldn't know what to do with them.

And so, despite the recommendations that I have received to check out ReadyNAS, I don't think that the decision is close at all. When my current network drive gets full, I'll get a Drobo and another internal drive or two and be good to go!

Drobo v. ReadyNAS IV: ReadyNAS Just Does More

2008-04-01T14:05:00.000-04:00

In previous posts, I've discussed what I am looking for, some obvious differences between Drobo and ReadyNAS and differences in their connectivity and use of drives. They have tended to favor Drobo. But ReadyNAS does some things that Drobo does not.

As I have already mentioned, ReadyNAS is faster. It does not have to deal with a USB bottleneck (40-60MB/sec, theoretically) when doing gigabit Ethernet (100BM/sec).
Drobo is not even as fast as USB 2.0. Drobo claims throughput of up to 22 MB/sec, but most people report around 15MB/sec. On the other hand, ReadyNAS can push through as much as 37.9MB/sec, and there are reports of 50+MB/sec or even 70+MB/sec. ReadyNAS is known for its speed, and it blows away Drobo in this area.
While you cannot connect ReadyNAS to a computer with USB, ReadNAS can share devices that are hooked up to its own USB ports, including flash drives, USB hard drives and even printers. Drobo and DroboShare can only share the data on the Drobo itself.
ReadyNAS supports many file service protocols (i.e. SMB, AFP, NFS, HTTP, FTP). Drobo only supports SMB.
ReadyNAS devices can be set to back themselves up, and Drobo cannot. This itself can be a very big deal, as it easily allows you to create backups to take offsite.
ReadyNAS comes with backup software for other computers to backup to ReadyNAS (Retrospect for Windows and for Mac OS X). Drobo does not.
ReadyNAS can automatically shut itself down if the UPS it is attached to notifies it of power loss. Drobo cannot.

I'm sure that there are even more differences that favor ReadyNAS, too.

Of course, there are more similarities, too. They both have built-in system monitoring and notification of problem, though surely ReadyNAS's is more complete. They both support remote administration, though ReadyNAS's is more complex as there is more to administer. Moreover, I believe that ReadyNAS can be administered from a web browser -- so long as it supports Java -- whereas Drobo requires a particular application be installed on the machine.

When you pay for ReadyNAS, you clearly get more. In fact, if these features matter to you, they are easily worth more than the price difference between the devices. Be it data security, speed or protocols, these differences are so great that one might even think that ReadyNAS is in a whole difference class than Drobo.

Drobo v. ReadyNAS III: Connectivity and use of drives

2008-04-01T13:01:00.000-04:00

Previous posts have addressed by needs/criteria and some of the obvious differences between ReadyNAS and Drobo. This time, I'm getting a bit more technical.

Drobo does not do Ethernet by itself. That means that it is not a truly a "network attached storage" device. However, DroboShare is designed to work with Drobo to put it on a network. There are some advantages and disadvantages to this setup.

If you want to connect it to your computer by USB, you have that option, unlike with ReadyNAS (RN). You can even switch it up from time to time, without impacting your data.
If you know that you don't need an Ethernet connection, you don't even need DroboShare, and can save the $200.
USB 2.0 is not the fastest way to connect a drive to a computer, FireWire is. Moreover, gigabit Ethernet can be faster than USB. Drobo is stuck with that USB bottleneck on speed, because it connects to DroboShare with USB.

However, my router -- Apple AirPort Extreme BaseStation -- can share USB drives plugged into its USB port. Therefore, I don't need DroboShare. Because my computers access the network wirelessly --being laptops -- USB is not the bottleneck. Rather, the slower speed of wireless networking is the bottleneck. The only times that I might be able to take advantage of ReadyNAS's real speed advantage (i.e. gigabit Ethernet) would be when I plugged a network cable into my laptops. And to do that, I'd have to replace my router and the hub in my office with new gigabit equipment. For me, ReadyNAS's faster connections just don't matter.

The second big technical difference is how each device handles expandability. This expandability is the coolest thing about each of them. When they close to full, you can add more drives until they are full. If you are already using all four drive bays, you can replace the smallest drive with a larger drive and get more space. Yes, they each can use drives of varying sizes simultaneously! This means that you can just by the most cost effective drive -- by which I mean the least $/GB -- at the time. Later, when you need more space and storage prices have dropped further, you can buy another larger disk. They both grow as you grow, and each allows you to take advantage of the fact that larger drives become available every few months and the cost per GB keeps going down.

However, there are some differences in how they handle disks of difference sizes.

ReadyNAS treats every drive as though it is the size of the smallest drive. This means that the extra space on the larger drives are ignored. When you replace the smallest drive with a larger drive, ReadyNAS will then use more space on every drive. For example, if it has four different drives - 100GB, 200GB, 300GB, 400GB -- it only uses 100GB on each disk. If you replace the smallest disk, say with a 500GB disk, it then checks what the new smallest disk is (in this case, 200GB), and only uses that much space on each drive. It's a very simply approach. If you have larger disks, it doesn't use that space now, but will use it later when other disks catch up.

Drobo also ignores some space, but far less. Rather than ignoring space on all the drives, it just ignores space on the single largest drive. It ignores the extra space on the largest drive in excess of the size of the second largest drive. So, in the previous example, it ignores 100GB, because 400GB - 300GB = 100GB. Unless the three smallest drives are the same size -- and the fourth can be the same size or larger -- Drobo ignores less space than ReadyNAS, and it never ignores more space.

Both devices essentially use one drive for redundancy, so that if anything happens to any of the drives you data is still safe. For Drobo, the spaced used for redundancy and the space ignored add up to the capacity of the largest drive. With ReadyNAS, it's a bit more complicated, but always more than than.

So, here's how it works out for each device in various configurations.

Example 1:

Drives: 100Gb, 200GB, 300GB, 400GB

ReadyNas Drobo

Available 300GB 600GB

Redundancy 100GB 300GB

Ignored 300GB 100GB

Example 2: Replace the smallest drive above (100gb) with a 500GB drive.

Drives: 200Gb, 300GB, 400GB & 500GB

ReadyNas Drobo

Available 600GB 900GB

Redundancy 200GB 400GB

Ignored 600GB 100GB

Example 3: Start with the most cost efficient drives available today, and add larger drives later.

Drives: 750GB, 1000GB, 1250GB & 1500GB

ReadyNas Drobo

Available 2250GB 3000GB

Redundancy 750GB 1250GB

Not used 1500GB 250GB

Almost regardless of your configuration, Drobo uses more of the drives' capacity. This means that, in addition costing less upfront, it will cost less over time for a given amount of available storage. Or, you'll get more storage for the same amount of money. And once you have filled all four drive bays, regardless of your configuration, if you replace your smallest drive with a larger drive you will get more space. Whereas with ReadyNAS, if your smallest drive is not the only drive that size (i.e. you have another drive the same size as your smallest drive, or even all four drives are the same size), you have to replace multiple drive to get more usable space.

Clearly, advantage Drobo.

Drobo v. ReadyNAS II: Obvious Differences

2008-04-01T12:24:00.000-04:00

Yes, I am talking about ReadyNAS (from Netgear) and Drobo (from Drobo).

But which one should I get? Well, my previous post laid out what I was looking for. This leaves the question of which of these two products best fits my needs.

First, what they have in common:

Both use multiple drive so that if a single drive fails, you don't lose any data.
Both can be expanded more or less on the fly, simply by replacing smaller drives with larger drives.
Both are fairly easy to set up.
Both start under $1000.
They are about the same size, each about 5" wide and 6" tall and 9" deep. (Drobo a little deeper and wider, ReadyNAS a little taller.)

There are some important obvious differences, however.

First, ReadyNAS looks like it is geared more towards pros at home (i.e. real techies), whereas Drobo is aimed more at advanced users. ReadyNAS does more, has more features, is more powerful. Drobo is simpler. To me, ReadyNAS just looks like a windows product, both in terms of specs and appearance. Drobo seems more like an Apple product, both in appearance and simplicity.

Second, ReadyNAS is more expensive. The basic unit, without drives, is over $900. Drobo is around $450, plus $200 for DroboShare -- which you need if you want to hook it with Ethernet, as opposed to via USB. To be fair, though, it is only marginally more expensive to get a ReadyNAS unit with 1TB of storage in it, though this only lessens the price difference, and does not actually wipe it out.

So, on the surface, if you want more features and power, get ReadyNAS. But if you want a prettier and easier to use solution, or you want to save money, get Drobo.

But that's not the end of the story.

Drobo v. ReadyNas I: My Needs

2008-04-01T09:45:00.001-04:00

DJ and I have had some major technology failures the past few months, and this had prompted me to revisit our computer storage.

What does that mean? Well, individual computers store stuff on their hard drives. File servers -- often just called "servers" -- store stuff on their hard drives, in a way that other computers can access them. While it is pretty easy to set up a way to share files between our computers, that is not the only issue. We also need somewhere to back up our data.

You see, if a computer has a problem, it can be a pain to copy data off of it. If the problem is the hard drive, the data can even be lost. Which is bad.

In my view, Apple's Time Machine (TM) -- part of the latest version of Mac OS X -- is a great backup solution. However, it's not perfect. At times, it needs quite a bit of storage. The other issue -- one I've long pointed to -- is that laptop users cannot simply plug in an external drive as easily as desktop users. The laptop might not even be in the same room as the external drive, and the laptop moves around, even when it is in the same room. Therefore, the shared storage/backup drive should be on a network. Now that Time Machine allows backing up across a network, I've been thinking about how I want to set things up.

(Yes, TM has supported backing up to another computer's external drive for a while, but we don't have -- or even want -- that desktop computer. Nor would we want it on all the time, sucking up power. Yes, TM works with Apple's Time Capsule, but that's not what I want. 1) It's largely redundant with my existing wireless router. 2) The cost of storage is too high. 3) The storage is not expandable. 4) The storage is a single source of failure.)

The list in that previous parenthetical paragraph forms the basis for what I am looking for.

I want to hook up my shared/backup storage to my network.
I am cost conscious about it, especially looking forward. I understand startup costs, of course. But I don't want it to be extra expensive to add storage later. And I'd rather not spend money to replace equipment I already have, unless I am really adding something new.
I want the storage to be expandable. I've been using a serious of external drives to hold my backups, and I am sick of that. I don't want to have to look though multiple volumes to find something. Moreover, TM backup stores cannot span volumes. So, what ever I do must support expandable volumes.
I want some sort of data redundancy, so a single drive failure does not mean lost data. You see, all hard drives die. The only question is whether you will still be using them when they do. If you are lucky, no. But if you are not, well, that really sucks.

These features strike me as really advanced. When I was working in IT, there were expensive solutions to handle all of this. You see, these are not new issues at all. The shocker is that there are consumer level products that can deal with all of this.

Greeting and salutations...

2008-04-01T09:36:00.000-04:00

It's about time that I got a blog, right? Here I go!

I expect that posts will be about education issues, technology & politics, primarily. There might be a little on cooking and the kitchen. Perhaps a bit on living in Brooklyn. And maybe even a little bit on my favorite sports.

A blog. The ultimate procrastination tool. But at least I'll be writing - though not doing much proofreading.