Sean's tunage

Hope yall are ready for some good new tunes.  Give them a chance and hopefully you'll find a new band you like. 

Never Wanted To Dance                  Mindless Self Indulgence

A couple months ago I saw this band live and am addicted now.  The bassist is beautiful.  Oh ya, and its a song about getting turned down at a dance.  Check out 'Get it Up' if you like this song.

Was in der Zeitung steht                  d.o.c.h.!        

I have absolutely no clue what these guys are saying.  But I get a sense of righteousness while listening.  Yall from German club may get more out of it

 Kill the Director                                  The Wombats

The lyrics of this one are just too darn relatable.  I like their insights into relationships and whatnot.  They're from England so you may have already heard of them Mark.

Something To Believe                  Lucky Boys Confusion

This song captures the torment of agnosticism.  LBC is one of my top three favorite bands.  They're in the Chicago area and play tons of live shows.  Check out 'Anything, Anything' if you like this band.

long before rock'n'roll                          Mando Diao

The greatest band in Sweden.  I think the song is about wishing for the remembered purity in a relationship before sex complicates things.  or something like that

Sleepless                  Until June

Such a very pretty song.  Its about the first days in love

Colorado Sunrise          3OH!3

This band from Boulder Colorado is one of my new favorites.  What I especially like is that they sing hardcore lyrics about uncool things, like getting beat up.  At the very least their songs will get you moving

Twistinside          Everclear

The best everclear song you never hear.  Art's depressed angst about not amounting to anything in life picks me up when I'm down.

Yeah Yeah                  Matt and Kim

I dare you not to enjoy this song.  Fun pop

Golden Skans                                  Klaxons        

I really like relaxing to this song.  A nice chill peppy beat to get you feeling good after a tough day.

String of Pearls                           Jimmie's Chicken Shack   (Bonus Song as Drew only used 9)

The guy is singing about not being able to give his girlfriend what she wants.  Or something.  I really have no idea but love singing along on a warm summer day.

Assumptions Galore!

Ok, so hopefully some of you made it through my last tome.  While compiling all that information I found some common threads.  Or more precisely I figured out what assumptions are being argued.  Maybe this will let us have a proper discourse.

Assumption divide 1 - The purpose of education is for personal attainment vs societal enculturation.  The whole argument usually boils down to this.  Are we learning to help ourselves or learning to help others.  Particular nuances get sticky but I lean heavily towards the former.  A neat RAND policy document from 1982 was quite illuminating about the government's desire to program citizenship behaviors into American children.

Assumption divide 2 - Education can be measured by test scores.  This was surprisingly common, especially amongst policy makers and educators and those who felt the second way on the last assumption.  Another way to look at it is - education's effectiveness is in the eye of the beholder.  Why should a future plumber pay thousands of dollars to learn about symbolism in early 20th century literature?  How will this help him or her pay the bills or be a successful parent or enjoy life?

Assumption divide 3 - There is a universal best way to educate.  This parallels a hang up I have with evolutionary eugenicists (digression averted).  Maybe rote memorization of multiplication tables is better for some children.  With a national Board of Education a one size fits all approach is inevitable and those kids will be left out.  The idea of a universal best has been disproved most prominently with spaghetti sauce.   Check out Malcolm Gladwell's speech to TED if you wanna learn more.

Assumption divide 4 - More education is better.  This ties in with the 2nd assumption.  But obviously there is a point where the marginal benefit of education is less than the marginal cost.  Only an individual can dynamically respond when this happens.

Assumption divide 5 - Government knows best vs Parents know best.  This one speaks for itself and is highly controversial

Assumption divide 6 - More resources should be provided to low achievers vs more resources to those with greater potential.    Kurt Vonnegut's 'Harrison Bergeron' dealt with this dilemma

Assumption divide 7 - More facilities and individualized programs are better.  The DC study seems to disprove this sadly.

I know this isn't everything but at least it is a start.

So what do you guys think???  What am I missing?  What is left to ponder?  How can we use this information to make a difference?  Should we make a difference?  Does the current situation appeal to you based on how you lean regarding the aforementioned assumptions??  

Education - some numbers

A couple of weeks ago I wrote questioning the conventional 'wisdom' of current practices.  And I was rightly questioned about unsubstantiated claims regarding private market based education vs public education.  In an effort to redress the lack of evidence or data I have been searching for the past week for hard facts on the subject.  I have to admit though, that I have neither the resources nor inclination to unearth more and so am left with an incomplete understanding.  But as zefrank pointed out, thats the way to start.  So here is what I found-

In Milwaukee (Hoxby, 2001) the gov spent 11,000k per public school student.  They offered an 8k voucher for children to go to private schools.  Test scores in public schools went up 8% in math, reading, and science.  And more money was left for public schools.  

Adam Smith spent a whole chapter in 'Wealth of Nations' giving examples of the costs of socializing education.  He argued that it cheapened the worth of the product (learning) and allowed inferior educators into the system causing a downward spiral.  

High school science scores decreased following the push for science education in public schools in the 1960's.  There is at least a small correlation.

Levitt of Freakonomics showed that academic achievement was correlated with the number of books in a household, when a kid's mom had her first child, the socioeconomic status of the parents, and the desire to change schools (notice not the actual attainment of that goal).  This would imply a more deterministic view.  No matter what, those destined for achievement will rise to the top.  Interesting side note - a recent longitudinal study in Wisconsin found each extra close friend by high-school friends correlated with 2% higher earnings later in life.  We'll be rich!

Lubienski 2008, adjusting for demographics found no difference in 4-8th grade test scores amongst private and public school kids.  The adjustment of data is questionable, but interesting to note

Lips and Feinberg of the Heritage Foundation 2006, studied the DC voucher program and found that parents of students involved became more attentive, public school scores improved, and african americans were helped the most.

Helen Ladd of Duke, 2003, argues that there is no data to show new school openings due to vouchers.  

Susan Choy 1997, found that private school teachers were paid less, had less credentials, taught more advanced classes, and were happier and more satisfied.  

Robert Costrell 2009 found that Milwaukee saved $32 million dollars because of the voucher program last year alone

Brandl 1998 found that per pupil government spending, inflation adjusted, has quintupled since 1950 while test scores have been stagnant.  

Wolf and Hoople 2006, tried to figure out what caused the improvements in African-American test scores in the DC voucher program.  Surprisingly the most important variable was that the schools where voucher kids went and excelled had fewer facilities and optional programs.  The authors did not anticipate this result and postulated several reasons - it created an 'all for one' atmosphere and focused on education rather than sports or other activities.

I apologize for the exceeding length of this post but I felt it was necessary to understand the current evidence before discussing improvements.  The articles and data were collected with the help of EBSCO.  Also, I tried to avoid any Cato commentary to avoid the semblance of bias.

Do you Tweet?

So who Tweets? If people don't know what that is, it's twittering at www.twitter.com. I don't do it all that much but i think it's pretty cool how you can follow people like Shaq and Steve Nash and a few others and sorta get their thoughts on everyday type of stuff, not to mention hearing what people you actually know are doing and stuff. I guess it's just another way for me to fuck around on the internet and waste my life away, but i have so much fun wasting my life. Anyway, if you're interested i'm on there and so is matt so follow me if you want.