Liberal and Loving It

Boulder needs a new mayor

For those considering Crystal Gray, please remember this, and this, and this, and this. And I say this as someone who publicly endorsed Crystal.

Our mayor is a role model and an example for the city. Someone who resigned under major ethical questions and never provided any real answer to those allegations does not come even close to the minimum we should require of our elected officials.

It's bad enough that she's on the City Council as it sets a now low for what we find tolerable. But to then select her as mayor - how do we then with a straight face require any full-time city employee to put in over 20 hours a week. Because they too can be "working" while shopping and getting their hair done.

My lunch with Superintendent King

I had lunch today with Chris King the superintendent of the Boulder Valley School District (BVSD). The discussion ranged over a lot of topics - yes Columbine Elementary was one of them but by no means the major item.

So what do we get with Chris? There was no common message in what he said, but yet out of all of that what consistently struck me was that he is just trying to do his job well. He's not on some crusade to remake education. He lives with the limitations of the system. He knows he can't do everything at once.

It was interesting listening to this as he laid out his approach in each area and the limitations he must work within. Our public education system is so screwed up and has been stuck in place forever and so on the one hand you want someone who will storm the ramparts an effect major positive change. On the flip side, many have tried and all have failed to do this and so small improvements within the system may be the best approach.

In the case of Columbine he discussed how they went in assuming the parents understood how bad the situation was and would be thankful for the effort to rebuild the system there. Instead they had parents upset that they wanted to change things. What does this tell us?

First, that Chris King blew it here. He should have gotten a feel for the parent's views and then realized he needed to walk them gently through the school's status so they would see that significant change is needed.

Second, it shows one of the reasons that effecting change in a public school is so hard. By every measure Columbine is a disaster. And that disaster is sentencing those children to a life of economic poverty because without a College degree nowadays - forget it. And yet the parents...

Chris was also surprisingly honest about the major problems he faces and the limitations he has on addressing those. I think that honesty serves him well in the job because without honestly facing your problems, you can't resolve them.

He returned numerous times to the issue that many teachers, and all of their representatives, discuss what's best for the teachers. The question of what is best for the students never comes up. Never. This makes improving things for the students difficult because the point that it will help the kids is irrelevant to getting change.

In terms of replacing a lousy teacher he was very positive about teachers that are mediocre but want to improve. On the plus side they have a lot of assistance to help a teacher improve. And as he said, it's not rocket science and so most can learn to do better. And on the negative side, if a teacher wants to do better and just can't learn to teach well - they will usually leave because they know they aren't cutting it.

Now those teachers that know they suck and are just putting in the time... He said the bottom line is their job protection is such that they cannot be fired. So the district just has to carry them. And at the district level there is nothing that can be done because the teacher job security is in state law.

With that said, he does think this is going to change. The political demand for requiring competence from teachers is growing from what he has seen. He says at present all eyes are on the D.C. school system to see if the new superintendent there is able to get merit pay in and keep it as part of the system. He thinks she will lose because the unions see it as a battle they must win to keep absolute job security, but the battle is being fought.

He brought up Greeley and Pueblo as districts that are doing better with poor kids and they have studied each (and have a group going up to Greeley shortly) and are copying the ideas there that they think make sense.

He also discussed BVSD successes with improving schools, primarily the ones out in Lafayette where they have made a concerted effort and seen a significant improvement in results. Of interesting note is that Lafayette is not that different from Columbine demographically.

He also talked about a number of ways they are measuring how schools are doing, how teachers are doing, and how students are doing. He says the ability to track this now is far beyond what they had even 10 years ago. They have a clear measure and can use that to figure out what needs to be worked on.

This information is available on a per-school basis. They are trying to figure out how to make it public on a per-teacher basis but there are privacy concerns because some teachers have zero kids at proficient and that then makes public that every student in that class is below proficient.

But while all this information is being used internally so that BVSD can figure out how best to improve the system. It's not being used to educate the public. I think this may be Chris' biggest weakness - that he is not talking the public through what the status is, how they are addressing it, and where they expect to be next year and thereafter.

I don't think Chris ever mentioned parents aside from how the ones at Columbine don't realize how bad it is there. He reports to the board, works with the staff and teachers, and the kids are his charge. So parents have no official role. But they hold the most political power when they choose to wield it. And if they are ignored most of the time, then how they react when riled up is anyone's guess.

Yes most districts ignore the parents as much as possible, and are terribly dismissive of them in most conversations. But it is our kid's future that the district has in their hands and as such - we have arguably the most skin in the game. Chris (and all superintendent ) would probably find that they can accomplish more if they put in the effort to report what they are doing and why and get feedback from the parents. And put in the effort to reach significant numbers of parents. If you sell the mom network on something, then you have tremendous politcal firepower.

With all that said, Chris' focus is exactly what you want. Because the one phrase he kept repeating was that he wants to increase the number of kids they graduate who are ready for college. If I had to pick a single concrete goal for a superintendent, I can't think of a better one.

Rethinking transportation

Like most things in life, for transportation we keep handling it the same old way, assuming that what we have done in the past is the best way to handle it in the future. But what if we think outside the box for a bit, maybe there is some improvement to be made.

First lets look at the basic approach to transportation. The goal is that all roads are free of charge and we are all better off rom having unfettered access. And where use is low enough, this is the most effective approach.

But for a lot of our main roads & highways during rush hour, we have surpassed maximum use. And increasing the roads won't work as the whole concept of individual cars on a roadway has pretty much hit the maxuimum we can run. The technology can't be built to keep expanding the system - we've hit it's natural limit.

Now lets look at two tools we have at hand that did not exist 5 years ago, drive-by sensors and smart phones. With sensors we can charge cars as they drive through the toll booths on the express lanes and tollways. Just as the state requires all cars to have a license plate, it can require one of these transponders.

We also are at the point where virtually every driver has a smartphone. Not all, but an incredibly high percentage do.

So...

What if we charge for travelling on the major roads and highways, based on traffic at the time. If traffic is sparse, it's free. As it get sbusier, it becomes more expensive. Through direct financial incentives we cause people to spread out when they drive. And these sensors are not limited to the freeway, they can be on major roads too.

Equally important, the state then needs to provide estimates of what the cost will be at various times. Once the system is in place for a couple of months it will be possible to give a very accurate estimate of both charges and the time required to go from location A to location B.

And this info needs to be available through smart phones. Yes the web also but what is key is someone can txt the system with a start and end location and their preferred arrival time, and they will get back a series of departure, arival, and cost estimates.

And this may let us move TABOR out of transportation funding. This can be set up as a state enterprise, the primary funding for transportation comes from these use fees. This would allow gas taxes to then be added to the general fund for other needs.

What's key about making this acceptable is that everyone would spend less time driving. Those continuing to drive during rush hour would see less traffic. And those that change when they drive would also see less traffic during their new commute time.

Equally important, companies would change how they operate. Under employee pressure, shift start/end times would get spread out. And trucking companies would get their trucks through the major arteries earlier or later than rush hour.

The present approach has hit its limit and baring a radical change in approach, we are going to see traffic get worse & worse.

Interesting auto union piece

from Kausfiles

But the resemblance ends at physical appearance. This [German] plant produces some 1,200 cars a day, more than the 1,015 that Ford planners had anticipated, and requires 7,762 workers. Its counterpart at Halewood, with virtually identical equipment and production targets, has averaged only about 800 cars a day this year, and 10,040 workers have been needed to achieve even that production level.

''Our standards say it should take something like 20 man-hours of labor in both the body and assembly plants to make an Escort,'' said Bill Hayden, vice president of manufacturing for Ford Europe Inc., in an interview. ''At Saarlouis, they do it with 21 hours. At Halewood it takes 40 hours.''

Looking worse for the GOP in '10

from PolicticalWire

Sources close to Sen. George Voinovich (R-OH) tell CNN he will announce Monday afternoon he is retiring from the Senate.

Voinovich plans to serve out his term, which expires in 2010.

He will be the fourth Republican senator to announce he will not run for re-election in 2010, joining Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO), Sen. Mel Martinez (R-FL) and Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS).

My guess is the GOP isn't going to be putting much in to defeating Bennet as they now have 4 seats to defend in open elections. Ow!

The most important part of the stimulus - is missing

At the end of WWII our country provided the G.I. Bill for returning servicemen. A key part of the bill was funding college education. This was done solely to keep servicemen out of the job market so as not to return to the economy of the great depression.

But the G.I. Bill had an even larger effect than keeping us at full employment. By sending people to college who otherwise never would have gone, those people then moved in to jobs they otherwise never would have been able to hold, making more money for themselves and their families. A large part of the reason our economy grew so well after WWII was we significantly increased the number of college graduates in the workforce.

We face the same issue today as to the end of WWII. We need to get people out of the job market and we need more college graduates for the information-rich economy of today and tomorrow. The most valuable stimulus effort medium term is one that will get people out of the workforce and in to college. It eliminates high unemployment today and in 2 - 4 years starts injecting highly trained people back in to the economy.

So lets look at this for Colorado, and we can then multiply it by 63 to see numbers for the country as a whole. Colorado has 2 million employees. Very roughly we want to pull about 5% out of the job market so we want to send 100,000 additional students to college in Colorado.

My rough estimate is we have 400,000 college students presently in Colorado. We have roughly 100,000 at the 4 largest campuses. But there are a boatload of additional schools and to pick just one, CCD has 13,000 students.

To this would add 25% to the student body at each college. This is significant, but doable. The business school at C.U. has virtually no classes on Friday (by student & faculty quiet agreement) so they merely need to spread classes across the entire week. This additional 25% also means that the colleges will be hiring a lot of people - putting a further dent in unemployment.

What will this cost? Lets say $20,000.00/student to put it on the high side for tuition, books, room & board. That would be 2 billion for Colorado or 126 billion for the country. In the scope of the stimulus package, this is very doable. And I think this could replace the tax cuts for business because most businesses would much prefer to see a significant increase in the number of college graduates available to them than a small tax cut.

What about the speed to put this in place? It's there. Between the present federal college financial aid system and the G.I. Bill administration, we have the systems and people in place. Once again some more people would need to be hired, but at a rate that is very manageable.

We could have this in place for this spring semester if it was made a top priority and the bill was ready for Obama's signature in January. It easily can be in place for this summer's semester. So it is clearly "shovel ready."

Now lets get to the final key piece of this proposal. Giving a college education for free won't fly politically. It would be unfair to all those who have paid to date and the political consensus is that while K-12 should be free, higher-ed should not. (This will change, but not tomorrow.) So this comes with a pair of requirements:

1. For each year of college the student owes the country 1½ years of community service. This can be teaching in a designated school, joining the Peace Core, AmeriCorps, the military, etc.
2. For each year of college, for the same number of years after completing their community service, that person pays 10% of their salary back to the government as repayment of the loan.

This would provide a system that people would see as equitable where people are given a hand up, but they are then repaying that effort. Not only that, but it then injects into the workforce people who have contributed back to society and that viewpoint will carry over to the workplace.

I think if this is done that 40 years from now when people look back on our response to the financial meltdown this will be seen as the effort that had the largest long term benefit for our society.

The Jerusalem Conundrum

The most difficult problem of all for a final permanent peace between Israel and Palestine is how to handle Jerusalem. And the question is not what solution is acceptable to all - there isn't one. Any solution will have gigantic reasons why it won't work. The question is, are those reasons larger than the arguments against all other proposals.

We also have to face the issue that there is more religious history in this location for three major religions than any other place on earth. And there are fist fights between sects within each group over who will administer their part of a building.

So what we need is an entity to administer Jerusalem who is a strong democratic government that has experience dealing with multiple religious parties, but whose religion is not any of the three that lay claim to Jerusalem.

What if we have India administer Jerusalem? With a requirement that the administrators they send may not be Christian, Jewish, or Muslim.

India is not perfect but they are a large vibrant democracy. They have faced their own internal issues with religious schisms. Yes their primary enemy is Muslim Pakistan, but their largest minority in India is also Muslim.

I can give you a large number of reasons why this wouldn't work. But... I think that list may be smaller than the list of reasons against any other administration setup.

Helping the State of Colorado through the downturn

Ok, we're in a world of hurt. And just like the rest of us, the state has to cut back as its budget tightens. Unfortunately, at the same time, we need the state to actually provide more as the number of unemployed and under-employed increases.

The first reaction in a lot of cases like this is to cut expenses. It's fast, it's easy, and if you cut enough, you hit the targets. However, it's also the least efficient way of doing this.

For the last 30 years I've worked in the high-tech industry and our whole effort has been to enable people and companies to do more for less. (Well, that and in the spare time, provide new ways of entertaining you.)

A much harder, but more efficient response, is to find ways to provide the same services at a lower cost. So let's hear it from everyone here, where can the state become more efficient. And please, not the generic "cut the fat" or "fire the slackers", but let's hear of specific places where systemic change can bring about significant savings.

Here's my initial list.

• All medical providers that get state health money must use an interconnected computer system for all medical records, treatment, etc. It is estimated that doing this will cut 5 - 15% off the medical bill total.
• Fully fund preventitive health care for those without insurance. Treating problems in the emergency room is the most expensive way of doing so. This should reduce total medical outlays.
• Comprehensive publicly available reviews of all medical practioners. Incompetent doctors are expensive as it requires additional cost to make up for their mistakes. Empowering everyone to find quality care eliminates a lot of this.
• Decriminalize drug use. This will drastically reduce our prision costs, and it's a better way to handle a mental sickness.
• Throughout the state look for ways to improve the system. On drivers licenses for example, most of that could be done by individuals at computers, with one employee watching to make sure no one has help when taking the test. For any one department it's a small savings. But across the state - it adds up to a lot.
• Centralize parts of the local school system that are more efficient handled state wide such as purchasing, auditing, central IT, etc.

Improving our schools

If I got one wish to improve society, it would be to fix our education system - K-12 & HigherEd.

First off, this is not a funding issue. There is no coorelation between money spent and quality of education. And most other industrialized countries spend about half what we do on education. So even with TABOR, the recession, etc - we can fix this today.

Here are what I think are the major problems we face for K-12.

• Lack of parental involvement. Ask any kid who made it through college from a poor background and they will tell you there was someone encouraging & pushing them the whole way. Look at most (not all) of the failures in a rich area like Boulder and their parents are checked out.
• Crappy teachers. School teachers, like any large group, fit along the Bell curve. The problem is a single bad teacher has widespread impact because they harm every kid who passes through their class. If 5% of the teachers are horrible, then every child gets 2 by the end of K-12. Two subjects they did not learn for a year, two classrooms that made them hate school day in and day out.
• No accountability. Up here in Boulder they finally "blew up" Columbine Elementary so we see some accountability. But every teacher there with tenure, if Columbine does not take them back, gets a gauranteed spot in another school. And it's not just teachers, we need to hold principals, administrators, staff, & school boards accountable. Those doing a bad job must be put on probation, and if they don't improve, be fired.
  (Now high school football coaches are held accountable - do a bad job and you will be replaced. Apparently success in football is more important than success in academics.)
• Piss-poor system. We are still teaching children the same way we did 200 years ago. Can you name anything else that has not evolved in the last 200 years? Standing in front of a room giving a lecture is probably the lest effective way to teach. The wonder is that some kids do learn under this system.
• Neighborhood schools. This was a great idea when the blue collar kids all went from high school to the factory and the rich kids all went on to college - they each had schools that trained them for their pre-defined future. But now when we want virtually all kids to have an equal chance and the jobs they go to are so diverse, having the same focus for all the kids in a neighborhood makes no sense. Especially in middle and high school the system should be designed that the schools are different and the child goes to the one that is somewhat convinient and is a goo fit.

I think we need to face up to the fact that our present arangement of local school boards running school districts is an abysmal failure. Tweaking it on the edges won't fix it.

I also don't think a monolithic state controlled system is the answer either.

I think we need to find some system where responsibility and control of the school is pushed down to the school level. But we have oversight and requirements that come from the district level, and the districts are measured by the state.

I think we need to include a couple of things with this.

1. Pay is tied to performance. 1/3 of teacher/staff salaries and 2/3 of principal/administrator salary is tied to student graduation rates of their students 2 grades beyond the top grade that person was responsible for. So the district administrators get 2/3 of their salaries on the number of students who complete 2 years of college.
2. Improve the way we teach. It's the school's job to draw the kids in - so they find they want to learn.
3. Eliminate tenure. Require that 1% of the teachers are fired each year for the next 5 years to break the mindset of no one is ever fired.
4. Include the parents. I'm not talking a parents night or two, but that there is an ongoing concerted effort to get the parents involved day by day in helping their children succeed.

Saving Colorado lives, one puff at a time

from the Boulder Daily Camera

A smoking ban in one Colorado city led to a dramatic drop in heart attack hospitalizations within three years, a sign of just how serious a health threat secondhand smoke is, government researchers said Wednesday.

If someone wants to smoke themselves - go crazy. Ruin your health, have trouble breathing from moderate exercise, get cancer - that's all your choice.

But killing others with you, call me a nanny state proponent but I think we should not allow people to kill those around them.

In the new study, researchers reviewed hospital admissions for heart attacks in Pueblo. Patients were classified by ZIP codes. They then looked at the same data for two nearby areas that did not have bans -- the area of Pueblo County outside the city and for El Paso County. In Pueblo, the rate of heart attacks dropped from 257 per 100,000 people before the ban to 152 per 100,000 in the three years afterward. There were no significant changes in the two other areas.

105 people are alive today who would otherwise be dead due to the actions of the Pueblo City government. Major kudos to them.

As to our state legislature, and the City Council in the rest of our cities, it's illegal to fire a gun in the air because the bullet comes back down and can kill someone when it does. How is letting someone light up any different from that?

This is one of those places where the legislation not only costs nothing, but saves money in reduced medical costs, which are borne by all of us. Lives saved, lower costs, what's not to like...

And meanwhile up here in Boulder where the City Council is happy to tell us exactly how we should live our lives, remodel our homes, care for our pets, and look but not touch our open space - puff away because citizens dying from heart attacks, that's not important. Contact them if some prairie dogs are having heart attacks - that will get some action.