The evidence is phenomenally consistent that the online self-paced stuff works great for professional people who've mastered college-level skills in reading, writing, and math... but falls on its face for people who don't have that. For example, every attempt at getting the horde of people who need algebra remediation through online course has been a disaster. UDacity tried it at San Jose state and was suspended after one semester. Community colleges in Philadelphia tried it and concluded "The failure rates were so high that it seemed almost unethical to offer the option". So I highly doubt you can replace elementary/secondary schools with this method; at that level, most student need a personal face and hand-holding through the material, especially with technical stuff like using, interpreting, and debugging online resources in the first place.
Christ, a one-semester programming course is not a commitment to a particular career. No more than it is for chemistry, physics, or biology. Everyone should have an idea of the basic building blocks of the world around them; cargo cultists are not what we need.
"Right now, the 15% capital gains tax rate is so high that it discourages middle- and lower-income people from investing..."
That seems incoherent/illogical. If they can "only" pocket 85% of the free money from investing, what, people make the decision to blow it on a new TV or car instead? And if that rate was changed by 5% or something they'd change their behavior? That's nonsense.
Bullshit, and a pox on the prequel apologists. As an adult in the last decade or so I've seen all kinds of movies (et. al.) that fill me with equal enjoyment as the original Star Wars movies when I was a kid/teen. Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies, most of the Marvel superhero movies, etc., truly amazing works of wonder. But Lucas' prequels were appalling, offensive crap. Even among the original movies the standout is Empire which he didn't direct.
"My wife and I are even considering allowing our older child to take the Metro (public transit) to ballet by herself next year when she's in middle school."
That's totally the culture here in NYC... around 3pm when the schools get out the sidewalks, buses, and subways are mobbed with kids traveling from school to wherever on their own. I'm guessing, like, on the order of a million every day. It's so strange to read about such a different culture just a couple states down.
I must admit, I was unfamiliar with the concept of little corner stores lining all the streets around the corner from where I lived until I moved from a rural area to New York City. I found it to be crazy wonderful and convenient.
For what it's worth, here in New York City (I live in Brooklyn) there are kids all over the place commuting between home & school by themselves all the time. Around 3pm when the schools get out the sidewalks and city buses are literally swarming with the little folks, definitely all ages from elementary through junior high school. They all seem pretty confident, content, and safe about it (if rambunctious). The idea that half the city would have to mobilized to follow around this million-magnitude number kids one-at-a-time would immediately gridlock the entire metropolitan area!
About 48%? Currently about 52% of Americans own stocks (including mutual funds and retirement accounts), and that number has been trending lower each year since 2007.
Please. We have all of those things in our household, and every time we ever interview a CPA they only thing they can do is (a) remind us to put receipts in a folder, (b) type the info into probably the same software, and (c) boil us with a multi-hundred dollar charge. I let that happen to me once at H&R Block and vowed never again.
My partner has interviewed other CPAs, and when we ask how they can improve our process and they say, "remember to put your receipts all in a folder", we roll our eyes and thank them for their time.
There was a head of IT at one place I worked who, when asked where the weight goes when a person diets, answered that it's due to the nuclear fusion inside a person's cells. So hey, apparently that already happens, np.
False, the effect is not very great. Plus, do you not know what an index fund is (per GP)? The fund management takes care of that for you.
For example, the Vanguard 500 Index fund is indeed up 48% in that time period. If you'd invested $10,000 in the fund on 12/1/2012, then the value in your account would today be $14,843.15, with zero additional work on your part.
A lot of that's true, but I'm not sure how you think public money passes through universities to textbook companies? (In reality, it's students paying textbook companies directly.)
The thing about the Pythagorean Theorem is completely true and well-documented (by maybe one or two hundred years). Pretty sure it's in a sidebar to the college algebra text I teach out of.
Wikipedia: "In India, the Baudhayana Sulba Sutra, the dates of which are given variously as between the 8th century BC and the 2nd century BC, contains a list of Pythagorean triples discovered algebraically, a statement of the Pythagorean theorem, and a geometrical proof of the Pythagorean theorem for an isosceles right triangle. The Apastamba Sulba Sutra (ca. 600 BC) contains a numerical proof of the general Pythagorean theorem, using an area computation. Van der Waerden believed that "it was certainly based on earlier traditions". Boyer (1991) thinks the elements found in the ulba-stram may be of Mesopotamian derivation.[67]... Pythagoras, whose dates are commonly given as 569–475 BC, used algebraic methods to construct Pythagorean triples..."
There's all kinds of examples, maybe more often the case than not, that mathematical principles get named after someone other than the original discoverer. It doesn't even require "forgotten knowledge" or anything like that, just some kind of power relationship at play. In fact, Stigler's Law of Eponomy (named after Stephen Stigler, Distinguished Service Professor at the Department of Statistics of the University of Chicago) states, "No scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer." See also: Matthew Effect and Boyer's Law.
That's actually one of the best, most concise things I've ever seen written on the subject (and I have degrees in philosophy and math and teach statistical hypothesis testing). Thanks so much for posting that.
Well, there's basically nothing preventing people from getting a high school diploma in the U.S.; that's kind of the problem. There are no costs to the student, it's compulsory until age 18 (some exceptions granted for "home schooling" adherents), it's more-or-less disallowed to fail students or hold them back a grade, and standards have become so low that the high school diploma is considered to be of negligible value.
As an example in New York City (where I am now), the public high schools now boast about a 64% graduation rate [1], but something like 80% or more of those graduates cannot pass a 7th-grade algebra test on entrance to the open admission college [2] (at which point about 20% graduate from that 2-year college). In fact, the majority of graduates don't even have basic arithmetic skills (like knowing times tables, negative numbers, adding fractions, multiplying decimals), and large numbers also need a few semesters of remediation in junior-high level reading & writing skills in English.
So I'm assuming that in Denmark (et. al.) colleges can still take the high school diploma as legitimate proof of mastering those basic skills? Because here we can't. The open-admission community colleges are held out (by politicians, etc.) frequently as a recovery and fix-it shop for the products of high schools who don't really have basic skills. And in fact the pressure is building all the time to remove even Algebra as a required proficiency at the college level, because the community college graduation numbers would then double or triple overnight. [3]
From that last article: "'There are students taking these [algebra] courses three, four, five times,' says Barbara Bonham of Appalachian State University. While some ultimately pass, she adds, 'many drop out.'". (Personally I've met students taking the basic algebra course for the sixth or seventh time where I teach). So whenever the "free college" proposal comes up, the first thing that pops into my mind is, what is the cutoff for how many times the state pays for a re-take of basic algebra? I am without question 100% all for free college, but it goes without saying that there must some criteria applied, because no body can afford infinite re-takes of junior-high level classes. Right?
Slashdot Mirror
The evidence is phenomenally consistent that the online self-paced stuff works great for professional people who've mastered college-level skills in reading, writing, and math... but falls on its face for people who don't have that. For example, every attempt at getting the horde of people who need algebra remediation through online course has been a disaster. UDacity tried it at San Jose state and was suspended after one semester. Community colleges in Philadelphia tried it and concluded "The failure rates were so high that it seemed almost unethical to offer the option". So I highly doubt you can replace elementary/secondary schools with this method; at that level, most student need a personal face and hand-holding through the material, especially with technical stuff like using, interpreting, and debugging online resources in the first place.
http://www.angrymath.com/2013/06/online-remedial-courses-considered.html
http://www.angrymath.com/2013/07/san-jose-state-suspends-udacity.html
All of those things are effectively applications of the general physics class, which we do in fact teach and require.
Christ, a one-semester programming course is not a commitment to a particular career. No more than it is for chemistry, physics, or biology. Everyone should have an idea of the basic building blocks of the world around them; cargo cultists are not what we need.
"my archive set is large (3+TB) and sensitive (taxes, bank statements, account numbers, passwords, etc)"
Surely tax, bank, account, and password data does not add up to terabytes.
"Right now, the 15% capital gains tax rate is so high that it discourages middle- and lower-income people from investing..."
That seems incoherent/illogical. If they can "only" pocket 85% of the free money from investing, what, people make the decision to blow it on a new TV or car instead? And if that rate was changed by 5% or something they'd change their behavior? That's nonsense.
Bullshit, and a pox on the prequel apologists. As an adult in the last decade or so I've seen all kinds of movies (et. al.) that fill me with equal enjoyment as the original Star Wars movies when I was a kid/teen. Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies, most of the Marvel superhero movies, etc., truly amazing works of wonder. But Lucas' prequels were appalling, offensive crap. Even among the original movies the standout is Empire which he didn't direct.
Very interesting, thanks for the info.
I think that "confining" was also intended to be "confiding".
"My wife and I are even considering allowing our older child to take the Metro (public transit) to ballet by herself next year when she's in middle school."
That's totally the culture here in NYC... around 3pm when the schools get out the sidewalks, buses, and subways are mobbed with kids traveling from school to wherever on their own. I'm guessing, like, on the order of a million every day. It's so strange to read about such a different culture just a couple states down.
What state/city was that?
Wow, what a fantastic response! Thanks for that.
I must admit, I was unfamiliar with the concept of little corner stores lining all the streets around the corner from where I lived until I moved from a rural area to New York City. I found it to be crazy wonderful and convenient.
For what it's worth, here in New York City (I live in Brooklyn) there are kids all over the place commuting between home & school by themselves all the time. Around 3pm when the schools get out the sidewalks and city buses are literally swarming with the little folks, definitely all ages from elementary through junior high school. They all seem pretty confident, content, and safe about it (if rambunctious). The idea that half the city would have to mobilized to follow around this million-magnitude number kids one-at-a-time would immediately gridlock the entire metropolitan area!
Something less than 52%.
About 48%? Currently about 52% of Americans own stocks (including mutual funds and retirement accounts), and that number has been trending lower each year since 2007.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/162353/stock-ownership-stays-record-low.aspx
Please. We have all of those things in our household, and every time we ever interview a CPA they only thing they can do is (a) remind us to put receipts in a folder, (b) type the info into probably the same software, and (c) boil us with a multi-hundred dollar charge. I let that happen to me once at H&R Block and vowed never again.
My partner has interviewed other CPAs, and when we ask how they can improve our process and they say, "remember to put your receipts all in a folder", we roll our eyes and thank them for their time.
Fascinating, thanks for posting that.
There was a head of IT at one place I worked who, when asked where the weight goes when a person diets, answered that it's due to the nuclear fusion inside a person's cells. So hey, apparently that already happens, np.
False, the effect is not very great. Plus, do you not know what an index fund is (per GP)? The fund management takes care of that for you.
For example, the Vanguard 500 Index fund is indeed up 48% in that time period. If you'd invested $10,000 in the fund on 12/1/2012, then the value in your account would today be $14,843.15, with zero additional work on your part.
http://quotes.morningstar.com/fund/VFINX/f?t=VFINX
A lot of that's true, but I'm not sure how you think public money passes through universities to textbook companies? (In reality, it's students paying textbook companies directly.)
The thing about the Pythagorean Theorem is completely true and well-documented (by maybe one or two hundred years). Pretty sure it's in a sidebar to the college algebra text I teach out of.
Wikipedia: "In India, the Baudhayana Sulba Sutra, the dates of which are given variously as between the 8th century BC and the 2nd century BC, contains a list of Pythagorean triples discovered algebraically, a statement of the Pythagorean theorem, and a geometrical proof of the Pythagorean theorem for an isosceles right triangle. The Apastamba Sulba Sutra (ca. 600 BC) contains a numerical proof of the general Pythagorean theorem, using an area computation. Van der Waerden believed that "it was certainly based on earlier traditions". Boyer (1991) thinks the elements found in the ulba-stram may be of Mesopotamian derivation.[67]... Pythagoras, whose dates are commonly given as 569–475 BC, used algebraic methods to construct Pythagorean triples..."
[67] Carl Benjamin Boyer (1968). "China and India". A history of mathematics. Wiley. p. 229.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagorean_theorem#History
There's all kinds of examples, maybe more often the case than not, that mathematical principles get named after someone other than the original discoverer. It doesn't even require "forgotten knowledge" or anything like that, just some kind of power relationship at play. In fact, Stigler's Law of Eponomy (named after Stephen Stigler, Distinguished Service Professor at the Department of Statistics of the University of Chicago) states, "No scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer." See also: Matthew Effect and Boyer's Law.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stigler%27s_law_of_eponymy
Here's professor Richard Lipton writing on that particular subject:
http://rjlipton.wordpress.com/2011/04/08/why-is-everything-named-after-gauss/ ... but obviously the other stuff mentioned at the conference is total looney-tunes.
That's actually one of the best, most concise things I've ever seen written on the subject (and I have degrees in philosophy and math and teach statistical hypothesis testing). Thanks so much for posting that.
Well, there's basically nothing preventing people from getting a high school diploma in the U.S.; that's kind of the problem. There are no costs to the student, it's compulsory until age 18 (some exceptions granted for "home schooling" adherents), it's more-or-less disallowed to fail students or hold them back a grade, and standards have become so low that the high school diploma is considered to be of negligible value.
As an example in New York City (where I am now), the public high schools now boast about a 64% graduation rate [1], but something like 80% or more of those graduates cannot pass a 7th-grade algebra test on entrance to the open admission college [2] (at which point about 20% graduate from that 2-year college). In fact, the majority of graduates don't even have basic arithmetic skills (like knowing times tables, negative numbers, adding fractions, multiplying decimals), and large numbers also need a few semesters of remediation in junior-high level reading & writing skills in English.
[1] http://nypost.com/2014/12/18/nycs-high-school-graduation-rate-jumps-to-64-percent/
[2] http://www.villagevoice.com/2013-04-03/news/system-failure-the-collapse-of-public-education/
So I'm assuming that in Denmark (et. al.) colleges can still take the high school diploma as legitimate proof of mastering those basic skills? Because here we can't. The open-admission community colleges are held out (by politicians, etc.) frequently as a recovery and fix-it shop for the products of high schools who don't really have basic skills. And in fact the pressure is building all the time to remove even Algebra as a required proficiency at the college level, because the community college graduation numbers would then double or triple overnight. [3]
[3] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/29/opinion/sunday/is-algebra-necessary.html
From that last article: "'There are students taking these [algebra] courses three, four, five times,' says Barbara Bonham of Appalachian State University. While some ultimately pass, she adds, 'many drop out.'". (Personally I've met students taking the basic algebra course for the sixth or seventh time where I teach). So whenever the "free college" proposal comes up, the first thing that pops into my mind is, what is the cutoff for how many times the state pays for a re-take of basic algebra? I am without question 100% all for free college, but it goes without saying that there must some criteria applied, because no body can afford infinite re-takes of junior-high level classes. Right?
Citation? Or just urban myth?
"More proof the US defense industry has nothing to do with defending America"
http://pando.com/2014/12/18/the-war-nerd-more-proof-the-us-defense-industry-has-nothing-to-do-with-defending-america/