Dan Lipka Web Log

Recently Yonkers High School was ranked as the 24th best high school in the County.  A seemingly tremendous achievement for a lower income, urban school.  However, the data doesn’t tell the whole story.  I live in Yonkers, have a child in the school district, and know that these ranking can’t be incorporating the details.  Look at how they calculate their rankings.   There are three sections; the first two have to do with how the students compare vs the state, particularly how economically disadvantaged students compared.  First of all (and similar to many of the other top ranked schools), students have to test into Yonkers High School.  Basically, they are starting with the best of the 20,000 students that live in Yonkers.  But many of these students do have academic challenges, which make the high test scores of this school all the more impressive.  Note: the test scores for Yonkers High School are very good, but not as good as those in similar, more affluent schools, like Rye High School.  But it is the 3rd measure that they look at, which skews things significantly.  They look at how many AP and International Baccalaureate classes are offered and how students do.  Well, Yonkers High School is a International Baccalaureate school and almost every class fits into this category.   Even so, are test scores the only way to judge a school.

Yonkers High School has no sports and extremely limited music, art, or library.  They average class size has over 27 students (Rye is 21).  There are only two guidance counselors for the whole school (1000 students).  They share a psychologist and a social worker with four other schools (meaning all 1,000 students have access to a psychologist only one day a week).   Rye has three times as many of these staff with 25% less students.   There have been significant cuts in teacher’s aides and support staff.  There is no money for any state-of-the-art technologies or building repairs.  And yes, Yonkers High School has done very well in spite of these obstacles, but high school is about more than just test scores.   I wonder how Yonkers High School compares to these other schools from a more holistic point of view.

Throughout the generations, there have been different battles over different civil rights.  Slavery, women’s suffrage, Title IX, the civil rights moments in the 60s, age discrimination, and now the civil rights of same-sex couples.  Although I haven’t done the proper amount of research of all the difference civil rights movements, it seems that each one of these issues was highly controversial at the time, but each passing generation grew more accepting of these rights and eventually regarding them as significantly moral and needed.   Was there ever a civil rights movement that history looked back upon as a mistake?  Surveys have shown that there is significantly more support for same-sex marriages among younger people and wonder if this issues will follow the same trend as other civil rights movements in the past.

Any big NFL fan looks forward to the draft.  It’s a holiday in the middle of the off-season.  In the months leading up the NFL draft, “experts” try to guess what teams are going to draft what players.  They have dozens of versions of how the draft might go based on secret interviews, in-depth studies, and their years of experience.  Every year people read their column and listen to them on draft day.  But the truth is that they are the weathermen of the NFL.  Seldom correct and still we trust them.   The biggest draft experts, Todd McShay and Mel Kiper only let paying customers see their complete Mock Draft, but if you watched them on TV, you’d realize they were wrong at almost every pick.  Sports Illustrated posts their mock draft and they were correct on 7 of the first 32 picks, which is very high for a mock draft (of course the teams with the first two picks announced who they would take before the draft).  A few years ago, every “expert” knew that Reggie Bush would be the first pick, but they couldn’t even get that right.  They also judge if the draft picks are good.  These draft grades end up being wrong very often, but there is no accountability.  You never hear this conversation on TV.

Mel Kiper: Andrew Luck is going to be a star.
McShay: How do you know?  You thought  Dan McGwire was the same as Brett Favre
Mel Kiper: Well that was just one mistake.
McShay: Really?  You thought Andre Ware was “going to be great”,  you thought Manning and Leaf were the same, you thought JaMarcus Russell would end up as an “elite top five quarterbacks in this league”
Mel Kiper:  Well, remember what you said about Russell, you couldn’t “remember being in such awe of a quarterback”, you called Vernon Gholston a premier pass rusher, and were dead wrong hundreds of times.  Why should anyone believe anything you say.

But they don’t say anything because they both know how terrible they are at their jobs.  Their whole job is know this stuff and they are just inept.  And to make things worse they never go back and judge their track record.     I wouldn’t mind if they say that this is really hard and they are just doing their best, but instead they are so arrogant about themselves.

I saw this article on what NFL GMs think of Todd McShay.  Let’s just say he hasn’t earned their respect.

Who will Mitt Romney choose as his running mate?  Here are the online odds for different people.  It is a very diverse group of contenders.  If Romney believes that he will win the Southern states no matter what, than Marco Rubio would be a very good choice.  However, I don’t think Rubio would accept (I also don’t believe he would make a good running mate for Romney).  Rubio has a strong, consistent conservative record and I don’t think he would risk his bright political future by always agreeing with Romney.  It would be an opportunity for Rubio to gain a national presence, but he could do that in other ways.   Rob Portman would an interesting choice.  He is from a swing state (Ohio) and would appeal to middle of the road Republicans (but not to tea-party candidates).

At 20/1, Mitch Daniels would make a good choice.  He is a fiscal conservative and the Governor of Indiana.   He is business friendly and well respected.  However, in the end, Bob McDonnell might make the most sense.  He is the Governor of Virginia (remember Obama won both Virginia and North Carolina last time).  He is pro business, pro-life, and pro-NRA, against same-sex marriage.   Or will Romney go with someone completely new.  Perhaps another financial expert,  or a religious conservative.  Or perhaps is doesn’t matter.  My uncle, who is a New York Republican, will vote for “Anyone but Obama”.

Some people suggested that a losing VP candidate is in position to be the candidate for President (4 years later).  Although this person might be the candidate, history tells us that success is not likely.  Since presidential candidates selected a single person to be there VP running mate, there has been only 1 person who lost as a VP and went on to become President.  Franklin Delano Roosevelt lost the 1920 election as the vice-presidential nominee with James Cox to Warren Harding.  He won in a landslide election 12 years later to become President (source).

Dwyane Wade thinks NBA players should get paid to participate in the Olympics (see ESPN article here).  At first I thought this was a ridiculous concept.   The Olympics is supposed to be about pride and international competition, not about money.  Besides, how much money would they need to get paid to make it an incentive.  Wade makes approximately $25million each year in salary and endorsements.   However, as I thought about it more, the Olympic basketball team brings in millions through jersey sales and TV deals.  Why are Olympic and Corporate Executives more entitled to this money.  Where does that money go?   Similar arguments are made to support salaries or stipends for popular college athletic programs.   The main difference is that the NBA players are already rich.  In the end, I believe that it is fair for the players to receive some compensation, at least for jersey sales (which have their names on it); however, all of that money should be donated back to support athletes in other sports (even in other countries).  That would be fair and moral.

Add a dash of oil, a bit of salt, bake at 325, and Kale tastes pretty good.  Kale is one of the best foods out there, if  not the best.   It is very low in calories and extremely high in   healthy vitamins and minerals.  Furthermore, you can’t have too much, the more you have, the better it is for you.  Here is another great page on Kale and its schmorgasboard of healthiness.   It is significantly better than other super-foods, like broccoli.   Compare different vegetables here and you’ll see that Kale beats broccoli in almost every category, including 3 times the Calcium, and over 10 times the amount of vitamin A and K.   But most of all, it takes pretty good and is a great snack when you just want something to eat, but really aren’t hungry.  Kids like it too

A problem may be relatively insignificant, but if it persists over time, the stress can built.  Recently, I finally decided to do something about a little problem that had been bugging me for years.  It took a total of 10  minutes and makes me a little happier every time it rains.  Windshield wipers don’t last forever, in fact most of us think they just don’t work very well.  The trust is that they just need to be replaced whenever they aren’t at peak condition.  High quality wipers, like the ones I bought here, are only $10 each (and you really only need to replace the driver’s side wiper).  It took about five minutes to figure out how to put them on (once you realize how they work, it takes about 30 seconds to switch the wipers) and voila, it’s all better.   Go fix the “wiper blades” of your life.  Take the time to finally solve that problem, the one that isn’t a high priority, but is always nagging.

[hypothetically] What if the whole world really wanted to make sure every person had clean water, enough food, basic shelter, and basic medicine.  What if we are all willing to sacrifice to achieve this goal in a worldwide coordinated effort.   If we all paid 20% more in taxes, every unemployed person would volunteer, every soldier put put away their weapons and join the effort (there are 20 million soldiers worldwide).  What if super rich people limited themselves to a billion dollars and gave the rest to the cause.    How long to you think it would take to achieve this goal.  If god asked us why we aren’t doing this already, what would our response be?

Greg Smith resigned as Goldman Sachs executive director and head of the firm’s United States equity derivatives business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.  He wrote a scathing Op-Ed in the NY Times, ripping the company for a culture which puts their own profits ahead of these goals of their clients.  Even to the point where they would “sell” clients poor investments because it would be highly profitable for Goldman Sachs.  You can read the full Op-Ed here.   At what point do we realize that the benefits of unregulated Capitalism are only for the wealthy and any benefits to the community, economy, or other individuals are purely coincidental.  If a company could make more long-term profit and hurt the rest of the economy would they do it?  It sure seems like Goldman Sachs would.

Or is Greg Smith just selling an idea that will help him convince his GS clients, who have assets of over $1,000,000,000,000 (that’s Trillion) to invest with him and whatever new company or hedge fund he starts.

When you meet a smart 17 year-old student, you might expect that they are very good with computers.  They were born in the days when Microsoft was well established on most every desktop in the country.  They came of age with MS Office 2007, with Photoshop, Google, and WiFi.  You would expect that they would really understand these systems and products better than any other group.  If that is what you’d think, you’d be wrong.  Sure, there are some kids that are computer-centric, but a vast majority of students do not know the basics of Excel, Outlook, photo editing, organizing a folder system, installing programs, or much else.  Sure, they know email, but they don’t know what BCC: stands for.  Several interns had never opened Excel in their lives.  This is a program that can do their math homework for them.  They can do a google search, but don’t know how to use quotes or exclude words in a search.  They can copy text by selecting something, right-clicking, and clicking on copy, but they have no idea you can just use ctrl+c.   If high school is supposed to prepare students for the real world, you would think this would be part of the curriculum.  Most homework is completed by hand and not typed.    I had hoped my interns would be teaching me about technology and I’d be teaching them how to apply those skills.  Perhaps, instead of mastering technology, they are mastering social media and that is where their expertise is.   Perhaps in college, they will learn how everything fits together and at age 22 have the skills and perspective to make “the leap”.  Or maybe it will go backwards.  Once upon a time, many people understood how cars worked.  Perhaps they thought their kids would have an ever greater knowledge of cars, but instead the next generation knew even less.  Time will tell.  Such is life.

Like many people, I have never understood large public art installations.  Yes, some are magnificent wonders of construction, but many just seem like orange steel girders stuck  together in awkward ways.  For most art, someone may look at it and judge its composition, creativity, realism, subject, or several other factors when trying to understand whether it is a good piece of art (at least in that one person’s opinion).  However, you cannot use these same techniques to judge public art, because it just doesn’t work.  Here are my criteria: 1) How hard it was to physically get the art to the location it is in, 2) How seemingly awkward it balances, and 3) how cool it looks.   Under these criteria, the system makes much more sense.  For example, this piece doesn’t really seem like art, but just imagine how hard it was to get it there and to get it to balance just so, that is amazing.   Now this piece does not score well, it seems you could take it apart and transport it relatively easily,  it is easy to balance, and it really doesn’t look cool at all.  A piece of public art that would rank high on all three criteria can be found here.

There is an article in the New York Times today about how Romney is very close to some of the country’s most influential lobbyist.  These men, who represent special interest help  to advice Romney as well as help fund raise.  I have no problem with the advice part (assuming he is open to listening to those from both sides), but if he is really serious about becoming President, than why accept donations from these people.  He is rich, not super rich, but rich enough that he could use his own money and clear the air of any potential conflicts of interest.  If his only goal was to serve this country the best that he could, this would be his approach.  But he has chosen to take the money.  Obama may be no better, he is raising over a hundred million and who knows the deals he is making to gain that support.   The only solution is that candidates can only use public funds or some kind of match system.  It would be worth it for the government to spend million to ensure that billions aren’t wasted on special interests.