How It BECAME The Greatest May 15, 2014 I have the most remarkable readers. (Don’t blush: it’s true!) One of you — from Toledo — won the national high school debate championship back in the day. And then, after graduating — but long before managing the billion dollars he manages today — coached another team to win its national championship. (So why a financial analyst now and not a super lawyer? Who’s to say.) Of interest to me: after decades of preferring mutual funds to individual stocks, he’s broken his own rule to buy this one, on the London exchange. It promises to deliver nicotine in a controlled way — better than current electronic cigarettes — so I have mixed feelings: will it help more people quit smoking real cigarettes than it addicts to nicotine? “Could do,” as the Brits say. Another of you, Jim Burt, wrote this heretofore unpublished essay years ago. “The title gives away the subject matter,” Jim says, “but there’s a twist. The top of the nonfiction bestseller list in 1942 was occupied by Philip Wylie’s Generation of Vipers, in which he excoriated the generation then reaching maturity as lacking in education, motivation, and self-discipline, devoted to self-indulgence, hot cars, and substance abuse. [“Perhaps the most vitriolic attack ever launched on the American way of living — from politicians to professors to businessmen to Mom to sexual mores to religion — Generation of Vipers ranks with the works of De Tocqueville and Emerson in defining the American character and malaise.”] The book sold like hotcakes. The generation he was condemning, of course, was the one known to us today as ‘the Greatest Generation.’ ” The Greatest Generation by Jim Burt I’ve been listening this week to the audiobook version of The Greatest Generation, Tom Brokaw’s misty-eyed retrospective of the Depression kids who fought World War II and built the modern United States. It is often quite moving, both because it tells the stories of real heroes and because it reminds me of my parents, both of whom served in the Army in that war. Arguably, though, it begs the question: Why was this “The Greatest Generation”? I don’t want to take anything away from my parents’ generation, but it’s my conclusion that this was an outstanding group that was made, not born, great. In every generation, as Shakespeare famously put it, “there are those who are born great, those who achieve greatness, and those who have greatness thrust upon them.” No generation in history ever had more greatness more forcefully thrust upon it than this one. What were the ingredients of that greatness? As a group, they were forged in the Great Depression, annealed in poverty, and shaped on the anvil of hard work, ill health, and low expectations. Most, in a generation which after the war became the most educated in history, never expected to be able to go to college. Many were so ill-fed and ill cared for that 40% were rejected as unfit when conscription began in 1940. They were prepared for hardship in war by hardship in peace. But this didn’t make them great. At most, it made them malleable and uncomplaining, and perhaps adaptable. To an extent hard for today’s young people to realize, they were inculturated with a respect for our political and religious institutions and leaders and a reverence for the symbols of those institutions, such as the Flag. As a group, they tended to be more deferential to gray hairs than any generation that has come of age since the 1960s, and were more accustomed to such conventions as answering with “Sir” and “Ma’am” to persons in authority. And they were indoctrinated in a conventional morality which seems pretty archaic today, although even in their heyday it was characterized by a double standard that made its sexual ethics more moral in form than in practice. In some respects, these cultural and moral standards — which is how they were regarded in those days — were pretty awful, as in their support for racial segregation and widespread anti-semitism. But, even at their best, these characteristics did not make them great. At most, they made this generation easier to lead and to motivate. The “Greatest Generation” was molded in its most important aspects by factors entirely separate from chest-thumping patriotism, “old-fashioned morality,” or a hard-scrabble youth. This was a generation that was called to great responsibility in great numbers at an age that leaves us gasping with incredulity today, at teen-aged bomber pilots, nurses, and company commanders. Whether serving with combat troops or on the home front, these young people, in their teens and twenties (a fact that even the most realistic war movies tend to disguise) were called by necessity to perform to the limit of their capabilities. They were given rigorous training and experience in highly technical and demanding skills, achieving levels of expertise formerly, and since, found only in persons of middle age. They knew that lives depended on their doing their utmost, and this challenge was accompanied by another important factor, the knowledge that they served a great and noble cause, a knowledge and experience with enduring effect. These were the factors that made the “Greatest Generation” what it was: Challenge, intensive training and experience, and identification with a noble cause. With such a start at such an age, it should hardly be surprising that they continued to serve with distinction after the immediate stimulus of war was behind them. These factors were thrust upon more members of that generation, more quickly and intensively, at an earlier age, than on any generation before or since. But they are factors that are available to all of us. In business, academe, and the military, it is the “challenge assignments” that forge leaders. The early embrace of training and experience “jump starts” anyone in any profession or trade, allowing one’s genuinely productive years to begin much earlier. There are noble causes, whether through our religious institutions or public service, awaiting us in plenitude, regardless of our age and condition of life. Just as the “Greatest Generation” was made, not born, each of us has the capacity to achieve greatness. The difference is that greatness is less likely to be “thrust upon” us. We have to seize it, to make it. Each of us is called to live to our fullest potential at every moment. The people we admire most are those who have most successfully answered that call. Listen for it.
MYM12 – France 24 – Sam96 . . . Hike! May 14, 2014May 14, 2014 MYM 12 Bill Dunbar: “I’m writing because I’ve still been using Managing your Money on an XP machine. Amazing that in 25 years or however long, I still haven’t found a better general money program. Sadly, since Microsoft has stopped supporting XP, I’m trying to move onto a Windows 7 machine. Apparently the DOS programs are different. Any way to get it to work? If not, I think at one time, there was a way to get most of the contact data to Outlook. Is that still possible if the program won’t go any more?” ☞ MYM works fine with Windows 7 if it’s “32-bit” Windows 7. Just get a C: prompt from the ACCESSORIES menu. make a c:\mym12 directory — and all the rest as if it were XP. If it’s 64-bit and/or if you switch to Windows 8, you’ll need a free download called DOSBox and setting MYM up will be a little trickier, but someone shold be able to make it work for you. As for exporting to Outlook, press Ctrl-C to call up the Card file, then F1 for HELP, then scroll down to the EXPORTING cards section of help at the end. Basically, you’ll want to auto-mark ALL your cards and then export them to a comma-delimited file. Excel will import it fine. How much fun was MYM. Loved every minute of it. FRANCE 24 Somehow there is a terrific channel on my cable package — channel 54 on RCN in New York — called “France 24.” In English. Commercial-free, as best I can tell. And so smart and international and informative — 24/7. Makes our CNN, let alone our nightly news programs, seem awfully lame by comparison. So strange . . . very little French about it, actually. But well worth checking out: it streams on-line for free. MICHAEL SAM 96 I know nothing about football, but the official NFL Michael Sam jersey — wildly overpriced at $99.95 — is selling like mad. Too cool for school.
Never Pay More Than $150 For Glasses May 13, 2014May 12, 2014 I’ve written about Warby Parker before. This four-minute interview with its founders (once the silly banter ends) is just so upbeat. A little company of bright, modest young idealists doing battle with the global monopolist — successfully! — cutting prices for people like me by two-thirds or more . . . even as they empower Third World entrepreneurs with free glasses to sell cheap to people living on less than $4 a day. (That part didn’t make the video clip.) I’m wearing mine now, even as I type. Yay!
Steve N.: Loyalty Can Be Blinding May 12, 2014 I had a decimal place wrong in the “Four(ty Thousand) Dead Americans“ post that went out by email Friday. The estimate is that, pre-Obamacare, not a dozen (as I initially posted) but TEN dozen American lives were lost each day for lack of access to affordable health insurance. Republicans proudly fought to prevent — and then repeal — Obamacare, but to their dismay, Obamacare seems to be working. So — as Friday’s link to the Massachusetts experience shows — at least some of those tens of dozens a day will not die. Having lost the fight to keep us all from having access to affordable health care (at the expense of affluent investors asked to share 3.8% more of their dividends and capital gains, though still not as much as they were paying under Ronald Reagan), now the Republican goals are to keep from extending Medicaid in as many states as they can . . . to keep from giving the working poor a minimum wage raise . . . and to make certain we don’t put the unemployed to work repairing our crumbling infrastructure. Oh! And to get to the bottom of the Benghazi talking points. Because — like the Clintons’ failed $30,000 investment in a Whitewater land deal (thirty thousand dollars!) and Al Gore’s fundraising calls from a government-owned telephone line (calls that cost three cents a minute!) and Barack Obama’s birth certificate (Fox News is still not persuaded!) — that’s what truly matters. As the New Yorker‘s Andy Borowitz headlined it Friday: Poll: Millions of Americans Who Need Jobs Want Congress to Get to Bottom of This Benghazi Thing First. # Not everyone sees it my way. Steve N.: “Loyalty can be blinding. Unfortunately, yours is keeping you from seeing the troubles with the current administration. If not for Fox, the station that you and so many liberals bash, we wouldn’t be finding out some of the stuff that is just now coming out. And finally other news outlets are getting on board. It’s too bad it took so long for them to do actual news reporting. Up to now many of our so called ‘news’ outlets have been cheerleaders for the Democrat party. Well, let’s hope that we get more reporting and less cheerleading.” ☞ Remarkable how differently bright people of good will can see the world. Like the 70% of those who voted to reelect Bush who believed Iraq had a hand in attacking us on 9/11. Simply not true, but don’t tell them. Steve N. offers just one example of “stuff that’s just now coming out thanks to Fox” — an MSNBC clip on the Beghazi talking points and the continued allegation that, in the early days after Benghazi, the administration tried to spin the tragedy away from terrorism. Yet, if you watch that clip, offered to show how awful this administration really is . . . (never mind that the stock market and corporate profits are at record highs; the deficit has been cut two thirds and the housing market stabilized; GM is alive and Bin Laden is dead; 320 million of us no longer have to worry about losing health care coverage because we have. or might develop, a pre-existing condition; we’ve ended two wars and avoided two more even as Syria appears to be 92% done disposing of its chemical weapons) . . . I don’t think you’ll see anyone joining the Fox News bandwagon. In fact, the suggestion is made that — far from spinning things to start a disastrous war, as the prior administration did so successfully (where, asks reader Noah Stern, is Darrell Issa’s outrage over that?) — one goal of the Benghazi talking points may have been to tamp down a possible explosion of conflict in a volatile region. Remember that moment in the second presidential debate where Mitt Romney had his triumphant Benghazi “gotcha” moment over this? And then Candy Crowley (and the transcript) noted that Mitt actually had it wrong? This strikes me as similar. People are trying so hard to find proof, in the Benghazi talking points, that this Kenyan (except he was born in Hawaii), Muslim (except he’s not), Marxist (tagged by some “Republican lite”) who pals around with terrorists (except that, no, actually, he kills them) is doing a rotten job. Even “60 Minutes” got Benghazi badly wrong and had to apologize. And Fox? Fox would be comical if it hadn’t done such damage stoking the flames of science-denying, government-bashing resentment and frustration. I know Steve N. to be well-motivated and at least somewhat open-minded. I remain hopeful that he — and that uncle of yours — will come around yet. They will all be welcome, whether as Democrats, Independents, or moderate Republicans. But this far-right stuff that’s come to control the Republican Party and paralyze Congress? Shutting down the government rather than pay the bills it itself racked up? Filibustering a rise in the minimum wage? Blocking a vote on universal background checks that 90% of the people — and 74% of NRA members! — favor? Refusing a vote on the immigration bill the Senate has passed and the President is eager to sign? I take your time addressing Steve N.’s email not, obviously, because there’s anything unique about it, but for just the opposite reason: so many people think this way, because they watch Fox News. They might want someone from Harvard or Yale performing their brain surgery or defending them in a lawsuit. But they sure wouldn’t want some elitist running the country. It’s all about Joe the Plumber and Cliven Bundy (a hero to Fox until he got “the Negro” part of it). And the Koch brothers are laughing all the way to the bank.
Four(ty Thousand) Dead Americans May 9, 2014May 9, 2014 BOREF This press release suggests that serious people continue to take our effort seriously. Granted, it’s taking forever — WheelTug grandparent Borealis is, if nothing else, the perfect stock for those who plan to live forever. But who knows? Television took more than 20 years to commercialize, too, but it caught on. WheelTug might, too. THE INTERNET How could anything with John Hodgman and Al Franken not be amusing? This video explains “net neutrality” in a way that might resonate with those of us who did not get it in the past. A good weekend “watch.” FOUR(TY THOUSAND) DEAD AMERICANS As the Republicans launch their fifth Congressional investigation into Benghazi and the talking points attendant thereto . . . with Lindsay Graham and the others constantly talking about four dead Americans as though they would do anything to save American lives (short of upping the appropriation for diplomatic security which might have saved those) . . . it should be noted that in fighting so hard to prevent, and then voting 52 times to repeal, access to affordable health care, they were ignoring forty thousand dead Americans — per year. Roughly ten dozen a day, whom a 2009 study estimated were perishing for lack of health insurance coverage. Now comes this study crediting Romneycare — which basically IS Obamacare — with saving about 300 lives a year in Massachusetts alone. Three hundred whom Mitt and the Republican Party now regret having given access to health care. It is bizarre. It is unChristian. And it is simply incorrect to assert that they do want everyone to have access to health care — just in some better way — because when they controlled the White House and both branches of Congress from 2000-2006, they proposed nothing. Except for Mitt, in Massachusetts, whose conservative Heritage Foundation approach they now all decry. Is it possible that when Republicans say something with enormous certitude, in lockstep, dripping with ridicule . . . they could be wrong? In 1993, President Clinton’s first budget got not a single Republican vote in the House or the Senate. Not one. Because — said Republican House whip Dick Armey — “The impact on job creation is going to be devastating.” (More than 11 million jobs were created in each of bill Clinton’s two terms — nearly 23 million in all, more than six times as many as under all three Bush terms combined.) And because — said former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich — “The tax increase will…lead to a recession…and will actually increase the deficit.” (There was no recession and the long rise in our Debt as a share of GDP begun by Ronald Reagan in 1981 was finally reversed. Until, that is, the Republicans regained control.) Said former Republican Senate Finance Committee Chair Bob Packwood: “I will make you this bet. I am willing to risk the mortgage on it…the deficit will be up; unemployment will be up; in my judgment, inflation will be up.” (Wrong, wrong, and wrong.) Said Republican Senate Banking Committee Chair Phil Gramm: “The deficit four years from today will be higher than it is today, not lower.” (Nope.) The only one who got it right — at least partially — was former Republican Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole. “Republicans,” he said, “would take America in a different direction.” (And so they did, once Clinton left office and they regained control. Job creation stagnated even as taxes for the rich were slashed and deficits went back up through the roof.) So do you know what? Their absolute certainty that Obamacare will destroy America (or that something in the drafting of the initial talking points on Benghazi was worth convening five Congressional committees to investigate) — all this may be no more valid than was their unanimous vocal certainty over the 1993 budget. Republicans may want 320 million Americans to have to start worrying about pre-existing conditions again, but most Americans would probably rather not. Republicans may long for the days when health insurance policies included lifetime caps on benefits, but most Americans probably don’t. Republicans may hate that the Koch brothers, and the rest of us fortunate enough to have lots of investment income, have to share an extra 3.8% of it to fund preventive care and to close the prescription drug doughnut hole and to provide subsidies for those who can’t afford full fare — but most Americans — while they respect and applaud the talents and contributions of the wealthy — probably don’t. Especially when they are told that these new higher tax rates on dividends and capital gains are still lower than they were when Ronald Reagan left office. Republicans may be certain Obamacare will fail, just as they were certain Clinton’s budget would doom the economy. But Obamacare is succeeding, just as Clinton’s budget did. And it may wind up saving tens of thousands of American lives a year, even as it restrains the growth in health care costs, and that’s not nothing.
Success – Part 4 May 8, 2014May 7, 2014 Here are links to the NYC Department of Education most recent evaluations for those Success Academy public schools in operation long enough to have been tested: Harlem 1 (96.5% minority, rated: A); Harlem 2 (97.2% minority, rated: A); Harlem 3 (95.3% minority, rated A); Harlem 4 (92.8% minority, rated A); Harlem 5 (95.7% minority, rated A); Bronx 1 (95.7% minority, rated A); Bronx 2 (97.5% minority, rated A). At their core, what these reports represent are at-risk youngsters receiving a foundation of skills and self-confidence that will lead to productive lives, breaking the cycle of poverty and despair that too often begets hopelessness, teen pregnancy, dependency, crime and incarceration. So it’s a big deal, I think, to be encouraged — and poached from wherever its methods can prove helpful to other public schools. As mentioned earlier in the week, those methods are offered for $20.23 in Mission Possible: How the Secrets of the Success Academies Can Work in Any School. A DVD of 21 revealing video clips comes bundled with the book. As I said Monday: just look at the faces!
Success – Part 3 May 7, 2014May 6, 2014 BOREALIS You think you’re ready for this show to get on the road. In Biblical terms, we are now closing in on the halfway mark of my ancestors’ wandering in the desert. Right? Forty years? We’re now at fifteen. And — as back then — there is no assurance we’ll ever get anywhere. Still, our lottery ticket is worthy of note. Witness this squib in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal: Ultra Electronics Holdings PLC . . . announces that it has acquired ICE Corporation Inc (“ICE”) based in Manhattan, Kansas for an initial cash consideration of $8.6m. Ultra has acquired ICE from private investors, which includes the original founder. All of the management team will stay with the business. ICE designs, develops, manufactures and supports aerospace products including, motor control electronics, electrothermal ice protection controllers, pneumatic valve controls and engine control interface units. ICE customers include Parker Hannifin Corporation, Cessna Aircraft Company and Meggitt. The acquisition of ICE will be financed using Ultra’s existing facilities and will be fully earnings accretive in 2015. Additional payments of up to $3m will be made subject to certification of the new WheelTug electric taxi system for which ICE provides essential parts. ICE, which has 50 employees, will continue to operate from its existing facilities as a bolt-in acquisition to Ultra’s Controls business within Ultra’s Aircraft & Vehicle Systems Division. Rakesh Sharma, Chief Executive of Ultra, commented: “I am pleased that we have been able to bring ICE into the Group as a part of Controls. This acquisition further extends Ultra’s capabilities in the aerospace sector and will support planned growth in the US market.” Away BOREF and its partners toil, as inch by inch they — maybe — get someplace. SUCCESS – PART 3 Stephen: “The Success Academy story is wonderful to read, but critics claim cherry-picking of students, high attrition rates of students and teachers.” ☞ They do. That link, for one, claims that Success Academy schools kick out 50% of their students, to be left only with the better ones. And faults them for highlighting the results of just one of their 22 schools. But Success points out that the one school they highlighted was the one school the mayor proposed to close — so it made sense to focus on it. And Success says it absolutely does not kick out students (with rare disciplinary exceptions) — retaining over 90%, versus 80% for traditional public schools. In the subset of “special needs” kids, they claim over 88 percent retention vs less than 80% for the traditional public schools. Another criticism: that the highlighted school did not have “the best 5th grade in the state.” Success says it did, because 96% of its students passed the New York State math test (got a 3 or 4, which were the passing grades). This is the metric the state uses. Its critic used a metric of her own that weights the 3’s and 4’s separately — on which basis some other schools did better. “Overall,” says one Success Academy enthusiast, “our schools had 83% of students pass in math versus 8% for our co-located schools (where the kids would go otherwise) and 58% in English, also versus 8 percent.” Why is that bad? Murdoch Matthew: “Sorry to see you backing the money people in promoting the misnamed Success Charter Schools. With their million-dollar advertising campaign, the excessive salaries, and the hedge-fund profits, seems to me that Success is about taking public money intended for schools and diverting it into private pockets. See this Moyers report, which references this Department of Education report (‘A new report released today reveals that fraudulent charter operators in 15 states are responsible for losing, misusing or wasting over $100 million in taxpayer money.’) There are good charter schools — they are operated to educate, not to produce profit for investors.” ☞ Fraudulent charters should be shut immediately, with their perpetrators indicted. Obviously. And the numerous well-intended but not particularly successful charters deserve no disproportionate share of resources, if kept open at all. But the terrific ones producing amazing results? In the case of the 22 Success Academy schools, they are non-profit and have not been getting more from the city per pupil than the traditional public schools. Some wealthy folks are involved — it’s true — but as donors, giving millions to help set launch the schools and cover their losses as they grow to scale. (New enterprises of any kind require time to reach break even.) These donors have no ownership stake and will never see a dime back, let alone a profit. Kind of like 19th Century steel baron Andrew Carnegie, who built 2,509 public libraries. Good, not bad.
Success – Part 2 May 6, 2014May 6, 2014 Fred Campbell: “Wow, a Republican could have written your column yesterday. I’ve never heard a national Democrat espouse such support for charter schools because they are so vehemently opposed by the teachers’ unions.” ☞ Lots of Democrats support charters — President Bill Clinton, for example, and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. Perhaps you missed President Obama’s 2013 National Charter Schools Proclamation last year. In part: America’s success in the 21st century depends on what we do today to reignite the true engine of our economic growth: a thriving middle class. Achieving that vision means making sure our education system provides ladders of opportunity for our sons and daughters. . . . Charter schools play an important role in meeting that obligation. These learning laboratories give educators the chance to try new models and methods that can encourage excellence in the classroom and prepare more of our children for college and careers. In return for this flexibility, we should expect high standards and accountability, and make tough decisions to close charter schools that are underperforming and not improving. But where charter schools demonstrate success and exceed expectations, we should share what they learn with other public schools and replicate those that produce dramatic results. Many charter schools choose to locate in communities with few high-quality educational options, making them an important partner in widening the circle of opportunity for students who need it most. . . . I commend our Nation’s charter schools, teachers, and administrators, and I call on States and communities to support charter schools and the students they serve. The truth is, I had missed that proclamation, too — and didn’t even know, when I wrote yesterday’s post, that we are smack dab in the middle of this year’s National Charter School Week! As proclaimed by the President again last Friday. John Leeds: “Success?? Not surprised but disappointed you use numbers speciously to support your argument. It makes a HUGE difference which 20% of the parents are not applying. About 90% of the problems of a school are caused by 10% of the student population. And I know that from direct experience. And although I teach in the suburbs, I know teachers that switched into inner-city NYC public schools from the suburbs and they say the same. As for the cost per pupil? The cost per pupil is dependent on two main costs — upkeep of the building and teacher salary. The charters get the building for free and so the cost per pupil is zero. The public schools have to include the building expenses in the cost per pupil. Charter schools in NYC are notorious for hiring young teachers and burning them out before they leave for a different career. There are few if any career teachers who will be higher on the salary scale and the younger teachers don’t have to pace themselves because they tend to leave in 1-3 years. Did you ever watch the Jon Stewart videos — here and here — with Arne Duncan? While you were quoting test stats, it would have been fair and balanced of you to link to those so people understand just what standardized testing means in public education.” ☞ Well, I did watch the Jon Stewart clips. I thought it was a good discussion. I’m no expert, but it seems to me that if we’ve found a way to do a great job for 80% of disadvantaged inner city kids, and at less than we’re spending per pupil city-wide, who cares what the building maintenance costs? It will be returned to the taxpayers 100-fold over the child’s adult lifetime in higher tax revenue and lower safety-net and correctional-system expenditures. And the cycle of poverty will be broken, so the benefits extend more than one lifetime. (It’s also just the right thing to do morally.) As for the 20% of Harlem parents who didn’t enter the Success Academy lottery, note, first, that, if I remember this right, half of them entered some charter-school lottery (i.e., 90% entered one or more). And it’s just possible not all the 10% who failed to enter a lottery were horrible parents with learning-disabled children. Some may have had their kids in parochial school . . . or may have been horrible parents whose kids were nonetheless fully able to learn). And I’d ask you this: if we could get 80% or 90% (or 95%?) of all disadvantaged kids successfully educated for about what we currently spend to get terrible results, would that be bad? We’d still have the huge challenge of the other 5% or 10% — and should do all we can to meet that challenge. But doing a great job for 80% or 90% or 95% of the kids should surely count for something. If we can find a formula that really works, or really works for some kids, we should apply it, at least for those kids. Who cares what it costs?
Success! May 5, 2014May 4, 2014 Not all charter schools deserve support — especially when they cherry pick the best students, leaving the public school system to do the heavy lifting. But those that take all comers — and succeed? It is a joyful thing — just as are the many traditional public schools that do really well. In Harlem, something like 90% of all the parents join charter school lotteries, hoping their kids will get in. Fully 80% join the lottery specifically for the Success Academy charters. So I guess you could say there’s a little self-selection going on — the parents who fail to enter the lotteries may not be the most engaged parents in the neighborhood — but everyone is welcome to apply and 80% do. From there on, selection is random. But the results sure are not. Success Academy has grown since 2006 from a single school to 22 schools enrolling 6,700 scholars — 100% of whom passed the 2013 state science exam. Their schools rank in the top 1% of all New York schools in math, with 82% of scholars passing the 2013 state exam. “Success Academy Bronx 2,” as it’s known, ranked #3 out of 3,528 New York State schools in math, scoring as the top non-selective school in the state (i.e., among schools that take all comers). Fifth graders from “Success Academy Harlem 4” ranked #1 out of 2,254 schools in New York State in math. And one of the Success schools’ debate teams, I’m told, beat the Dalton debate team. Dalton (tuition: $40,000 or so) is one of the finest private schools in New York. Alumni include Gloria Vanderbilt’s son Anderson Cooper and legendary New Yorker editor William Shawn’s son, Wallace. So the metrics are great. But forget that — just look at the faces! Ninety-seconds guaranteed to brighten your day. Charters are controversial because there is the important concern that they not drain resources from the rest of our public schools. (Charters are public schools, too, but with more autonomy.) But Success Academy has been getting only 80% as much per pupil as the city average, so that concern wouldn’t seem to apply. If you can do a great job for thousands of randomly selected kids for just 80% as much as is spent on kids citywide, how can that be bad? (For now, millions in supplemental start-up funds have come from wealthy donors. But once Success Academy gets up to scale, with enough schools and students to spread the fixed administrative costs adequately, the public money it receives should suffice. Until then — hurrah for the generous donors.) And this isn’t like Coca Cola, that guards it’s secret formula. Success Academy is a not-for-profit that says it would love nothing more than to have everyone steal its formula (or whatever parts others may find useful). It’s all here: Mission Possible: How the Secrets of the Success Academies Can Work in Any School. Or a chunk of it, anyway. Consider the comment of an Amazon reviewer who gave the book just two stars out of five (emphasis added): Some of the strategies here are wonderful and easy to implement. For example, getting parents to sign a “contract” that they will participate in their kids’ education in certain ways. Some of the strategies here are excellent and somewhat more difficult to implement. For example, setting high expectations for academic achievement. What precisely is this and how is it measured? Big questions! Or having a commitment to continuing teacher education. What parts of this education are necessary and what part of this education are overly bureaucratic, time-wasting, and one-size-fits-all? Also big questions. And this book does attempt to grapple with these sorts of issues in an intelligent manner. But. This book is distasteful in that it advocates for a specific “brand” of education by disparaging public education in general. It does so with a wide brush and in a tone which I can only call snotty. I’m all for storming the battlements against corruption and complacency. However, while I believe in the core concepts put forward by these educators, I feel that this book is weakened by its brazen promotion of the the sort of charter school that is being sold by The Success Charter Network. This weakens this book’s authority and cheapens some of the educational concepts it endorses. Let’s assume that’s right. (I haven’t read it.) No one likes snotty. Maybe the tone could be improved for a second edition. But is that the part that really matters? Or is it the “excellent strategies” that matter? Wherever you come out on this, you will love the faces and the energy and the bright futures of those itty-bitty Harlem scholars.
Double Feature May 2, 2014 AOL / YAHOO Those who get this column emailed to their AOL or Yahoo accounts each morning may have noticed it recently stopped coming. I think we’ve fixed that. Here are the ones you missed: Two Ends of the Spectrum, Keystone, Hannity v Stewart, Magic, Survived By His Wife, Charles Dickens: Twitter Pioneer. DAKOTA 38 This is a film about the Dakota nation. It resonates on so many levels. Watch the first few minutes. You may find yourself watching the whole thing. FRUCTOSE IS POISON We Americans each eat, on average, 141 pounds of sugar each year. It is not good for us. If you didn’t get a chance the last time I posted it, watch the first few minutes of this. You may find yourself watching the whole thing. Have a great weekend.