Shift Happens Statistic of the Day 12-2-09

From the December 7, 2009 issue of Time Magazine:

In 1979, GM's U.S. employment peaked at 618,365. Today it's at 75,000 and falling fast. GM's U.S. market share, once about 50%, has fallen to about 20%.

That's about an 88% decline in U.S. jobs at GM in 30 years. Interestingly, it's only a 60% decline in market share, which illustrates the automation/productivity portion of the shift.


Flickr Photo Credit: two GM dealerships out of business, originally uploaded by marina.

Let’s Stop Preparing Kids for College

(Note: I’ve been sitting on this post for about two weeks because it just didn’t quite feel right yet but, with these stories along with this blog post that I ran across yesterday, I figured I should just go ahead and publish it.)

Seriously, let’s stop. Now, since I work at a high school that sends about 92% of our graduates to college, let me try to explain.

There seems to be two main arguments that high schools should be preparing kids for college. First, because a college education provides them greater job opportunities and will result in greatly increased job earnings over their lifetime. Second, that college helps them become well educated, well rounded, thoughtful and involved adults. (Some cynical folks would add two more: it keeps college professors employed and it keeps young folks out of the workforce for several more years.) Let’s look at each of those two primary reasons.

There’s no question that the statistics show that folks with a college education are likely to earn much more than those with just a high school education. According to the U.S. Census bureau, “workers 18 and over with a bachelor’s degree earn an average of $51,206 a year, while those with a high school diploma earn $27,915 .“

But even assuming money is our goal here (and there’s lot of research that supports that money – as long as you have enough to meet basic needs - does not make you happy or feel fulfilled), let’s take a moment and dive a little deeper into that topic. Most likely there are many reasons for the earnings discrepancy. College work can give one the necessary skills and preparation to be able to do certain jobs. And there’s also the very fact of the college degree credential allowing one to get hired (which could very well change). But I think we also need to keep in mind the bias that’s built into those statistics. Students who not only get accepted to college, but are successful at completing college, already have many built-in advantages over those who don’t, advantages that are not dependent on a college education. These include all the socioeconomic advantages (income, parent education level, resources, background knowledge, etc.) and the cognitive advantages (they were successful enough at school to get into and through college). Who’s to say that if you removed college from this equation (perhaps substituting an internship or on-the-job training with on-going professional development) that those students still wouldn’t achieve a higher income?

I also wonder how the percent would break down between college providing you training and college simply providing you the credential. Fifty-fifty? Sixty-forty? Forty-sixty? I’m not sure, but from my conversations with a variety of business folks over the last few years, very few of them felt like the content that students had “covered” in high school or college was really what they were looking for in an employee, or what they felt an employee had to have to be successful in their company (also see Tony Wagner’s work). They all felt they could teach them the specific content they needed to know for their job, but that employees needed other skills to be successful. Now, there are certainly exceptions to this, probably most notably in fields with a need for scientific, engineering, or accounting knowledge as a few examples. But there are certainly other ways for students to get that knowledge that might look very different from the typical college experience, including trade schools, internships/mentorships, and of course burgeoning online options (skill-based or things like MIT Open Courseware).

And let’s look at the financial numbers a little more deeply as well. According to the College Board the average annual tuition at a Private four-year college is $25,143 (up 5.9 percent from last year), and at a Public four-year college it’s $6,585 (up 6.4 percent from last year). (For all colleges it’s up 439% since 1982).

Now, for our hypothetical student that decided to forgo college, let’s invest those four years of tuition (I’m not including room and board here, since our student would still have those expenses outside of college, although they are often higher at college). Given the recent market meltdown, many folks think that once the market bottoms out (sometime in the next 1 – 24 months), we will most likely experience a long period of returns that come close to the market average – so 8-10% a year for perhaps a decade. So, take the $28,978 for four years of public college tuition (four years at the average tuition, factoring in the 6.4% yearly increase) and invest that in a Total Stock Market Index fund and 10 years from now that student will have $71,035 (using 9% return), or over $100,000 if they invest just $100 a month with a 50% match. This number balloons to a rather hefty $269,225 if you use the private college tuition numbers ($109,827 total for four years, based on current average and 5.9% yearly increase). (It would also be interesting to see the average annual salary comparisons between private and public college degree holders and see how that impacts this equation, but I digress.)

And this is not including any additional money they might have invested by entering the work force at least four years earlier, or the fact that they will have at least four years of additional earnings. (And that’s not something to be overlooked, starting to contribute to Social Security or a pension plan at age 18 instead of 22 or later, and investing in 401k’s or IRA’s at 18 instead of 22 or – more likely – much later because they’re paying off student loans.) So, our hypothetical student could be 28 years old with student loan debt, or 28 years old with $269K in the bank plus four additional years of earnings, investments and work experience.

For all of the reasons above, the financial argument – even if money is your sole determining factor – is not so clear cut. But, and this won’t surprise most of you, I don’t really care that much about that argument (and it certainly has some holes in it). But it was fun and I think some of those assumptions we make need to be examined more carefully.

So that takes us to the second argument – that a college education simply makes them a better person. I don’t necessarily disagree with that, but I would suggest that the best way to prepare them for that would be to do that in high school as well, not “prepare them for college.” As Chris Lehmann says:

What happens if school is real life, not preparation for real life?

Let’s make their high school experience meaningful and relevant, so that they rarely feel the need to ask the question, “When are we ever going to use this?” because the answer will be so darn obvious. So often the answer teachers typically give to that question is, “In the next course” – which is a travesty. If we can’t give them a better answer than that, then we shouldn’t be teaching that topic. Let’s follow the words of Seneca that are posted in my school’s cafeteria, “Not for school, but for life, we learn.”

Oh, by the way, I would argue that if we do this – if we stop “preparing them for college” and actually make their education meaningful and relevant right now, a by-product will be they will actually be better prepared for college and the world of work. They won’t be meeting seat-time requirements with no regard for what they actually know and understand, but instead will be placed in relevant situations solving meaningful and important problems that will prepare them for college, the world of work, and to be effective and contributing citizens in a vibrant democracy.

So, like many others I wonder about whether college – in it’s current form – is the best solution for many of our students, and whether perhaps there will be alternative – and perhaps much better – ways to achieve our goals. I also wonder how much longer the credential of a college degree will be as important as it is now – there is a decent chance that may change faster than we think. Am I suggesting that our students shouldn’t be prepared for college? Not at all. But I think we too often confuse the means (college, a good job) with the ends (thoughtful, caring, happy and productive citizens and human beings). And the problem with having those means as your goal is that you too often end up nominally achieving the means, but completely failing to achieve the true ends.

So, should our goal be to prepare our students for college (and work)? Seneca didn’t think so.

Presidential Ads Embedded in Video Games?

This definitely qualifies as "unconfirmed," but it's highly intriguing nonetheless. According to this post on GamePolitics.com (Where politics and video games collide) (via a tweet by Andy Blanco):

We've only gotten one report of this, which seems a bit odd, but an Xbox Live gamer who goes by Dragunov765 has posted photos of what appear to be in-game ads for Barack Obama.

Dragunov (we know his real name, too) says he came across the ads while playing Burnout Paradise earlier this week . . .

Very interesting. As GigaOM asks:

Its veracity aside, the virtual billboard raises an interesting question: Are political ads in video games a good idea? In terms of eyeballs, I’d have to say yes. Roughly one-third of American households own an Xbox 360, Sony PS3 or Nintendo Wii. In terms of effectiveness, Brandweek recently detailed a survey undertaken by its fellow Nielsen Games division in which 11 percent of gamers said they bought a brand after seeing it advertised in a game.

Some folks will ask how effective this is when so many gamers can't even vote yet. While there are many gamers that aren't yet 18, the average age of gamers is 30, and 37-year-olds buy the most games (as of February 2006 according to David Perry in this TED talk, statistics at about the four minute mark).



When the historians write the history of this election, how big of a feature role will technology have? Internet fundraising and recruiting. YouTube (Obama Girl, clinging to guns and religion, Reverend Wright, a more perfect union, Tina Fey, . . .). Email organizing, energizing, pushing the current campaign message, and rapid response. Social networking and community building. Voter registration. To name just a few aspects.

Meanwhile, back here in K-12 Land . . .

Update 10-14-08: Thanks to BenH in the comments, this story is now confirmed.

Shift Happens Updated Statistic of the Day

According to today's Rocky Mountain News, citing the upcoming Statistical Abstract of the United States, 2009, Table 644:

4: Median number of years workers have been with their current employer.

The statistic in the original version was 5 years. Looks like things are still shifting.

By The Numbers: New York Times Visual Op-Ed Columnist

Charles Blow is the New York Times "visual" Op-Ed columnist. His column appears every other Saturday and he often includes visual representations to help him try to make his point. I find it very interesting that the New York Times has an Op-Ed columnist who focuses on statistics and visual representations, not just text, to try to communicate. I think it's another indication of the power of visuals - often, but not always, in conjunction with text - and the changing nature of both communication and literacy in the 21st century. It's also another example of the transformation of "traditional" newspapers and how they deliver content in a technological age.

He's also just started a blog, called By The Numbers, where he intends to discuss "all things statistical - from the environment to entertainment - and their visual expressions." Like many blogs, it appears to be designed to be more immediate and more interactive than a traditional New York Times column, and will definitely focus on the visual as much as the textual.

[Warning: Shameless self-promotion alert.]

Now, I don't know yet if this is going to be a blog that I'll stay subscribed to, or how well he'll make the transition from columnist to blogger. But one thing's for certain, he has excellent taste in videos.

U of SA?

Shift Happens statistic of the day (via Fortune Magazine):

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, the country that sits on 25% of the planet's oil, knows that oil is not his country's future. That's why he's spending $12.5 billion to found a graduate research university, which he'll endow with $10 billion - as big an endowment on day one as MIT has built in 142 years. The point of this project, on a grand scale even by Saudi standards: to attract the best researchers in science and technology.

It will be interesting to see if the lure of money and presumably world-class facilities is enough to encourage world-class researchers and scientists to work in a less-than-open society. And, of course, whether you can create a world-class university and train world-class students without (presumably) complete academic freedom. (My guess: no, on both counts, but perhaps it will help foster some positive changes in that society.) Nonetheless, that's a ton of money to support education. Throw in India attempting to create dozens of MIT's and China taking a hard look at its higher education system, and then compare that to the lack of prominence education is receiving in the U.S.'s current presidential election, and - perhaps - we might be seeing the beginning of the downward slide of U.S. universities' dominance.

Shift Happens Statistic of the Day

From Wired:

After a week of delays, Japan launched a new, experimental Internet satellite on Saturday that shows why Japan is still so much farther ahead than the United States in terms of bandwidth.

The "Kizuna" satellite (the name, selected through a public nomination process, means "ties" or "bonds," in the sense of linking people together) is designed to give extremely high Internet speeds to rural and other areas that have been left off the country's already high-speed grid.

According to the project's Web site, ordinary home users will ultimately be able to get Net download speeds of 155 megabits per second (Mbps), with upload speeds of 6 Mbps. Businesses and other organizations using a larger receiver dish will be able to get connections of 1.2 gigabits per second.

No word on what the cost of home access will be, but still . . . 155 Mbps download from a satellite. A satellite? Think access from everywhere. Think off the grid. I think I have bandwidth envy.

Shift Happens Statistics of the Day 2-11-08

From a report by the Pew Research Center:

• The population of the U.S. will rise to 438 million by 2050, up from 296 million in 2005
• 82% of that increase will be due to immigrants and their U.S. born descendents
• Nearly one in five Americans (19%) will be an immigrant in 2050 (12% now)
• By 2025 the immigrant share of the population will surpass the peak during the last great wave of immigration a century ago
• The Latino population will triple in size and make up 29% of the U.S. population in 2050 (compared to 14% now)
• The non-Hispanic white population will increase more slowly than other groups and therefore will constitute a minority by 2050 (47%)
• The elderly population in the U.S. will more than double in size, the number of working age Americans will grow more slowly, so therefore will shrink as a percentage of the total population. There will be 72 dependents – children and elderly - per 100 adults of working age in 2050, up from 59 today.

Download the complete report (pdf).

Cisco's Big Switch: Shift Happens Fact of the Day

Cisco announced the Nexus 7000 - a switch capable of routing 15 terabits of data per second. According to this article,

the equivalent of moving the entire contents of Wikipedia in a hundredth of a second, or downloading every movie available on Netflix in about 40 seconds.

Or, if you prefer, according to this article,

It could also copy the entire searchable Internet in 7.5 minutes.

Your mileage may vary, but still . . .

Shift Happens Statistic of the Day

From the United Airlines Hemispheres Magazine, October 2007 issue, p. 68:

The most dynamic metropolis in the world’s most populous country numbs me with extremes: It’s a single city with more skyscrapers than the entire U.S. West Coast. In Shanghai, a new building of 30 stories or more has been completed every 12 days for the last six years.

Spiky World Thought for the Day 3-31-07

In that same article from the February issue of Money Magazine:

In 1970 the average American had a 7% chance of experiencing a 50% drop in family income; by 2002 it was a 17% chance.

There's more going on here than offshoring - such as jobs being supplanted by technology, the rise of two-income families and divorce, and the decline of unions.

Whatever the reasons, the results are scary: The child poverty rate is about 20% in any given year, but more than half of American children will fall below the poverty line for at least one year, Hacker notes.

These, remember, are the kids we'll all be counting on to keep the economy humming in a more competitive world.

Okay, I'm sorry to repeat part of the quote, but how is it possible that we allow this in America?

"The child poverty rate is about 20% in any given year, but more than half of American children will fall below the poverty line for at least one year . . . " [emphasis added]

I know the statistics are probably just as bad - or much worse - for children in lots of places around the world, but I don't live in lots of places so I can't comment too much on them. But I do live here, and I know we have the resources to combat this - not only here but around the globe. As Mr. Chase suggests:

My thinking then becomes intertwined. While I agree the conversation about how learning and educating should be changing, more important global applications of these tactics are waiting in the wings. Imagine a similar approach to the one Karl suggests - only it's applied to poverty or Darfur or hunger or joblessness.

How do you motivate? A stake, right? The thing is, everyday folk do have a stake in solving these problems, but they don't have an urgency behind them. Imagine the Gates Foundation opening a challenge to the globe where they placed all of the important data and resources about a given global or national crisis on a page or wiki or whatever and then facilitated an open forum engaging experts and invested amateurs in solving the problem.

Think of the educational implications of such a challenge. A civics class selects a chunk of data and works collaboratively to analyze and contribute to the cause, an English class utilizes the information to write to governments and other non-civilian change catalysts urging their investigation or - better yet - asking what they can do to help.

Am I thinking too big? Have I said too much? I should pull back? Someone tell me they can see the vision.

Mr. Chase, I can see the vision. Pay It Forward meets Web 2.0 meets The World is Flat. Mr. Gates? Mr. Buffett? Edubloggers? Are you listening? Your move.

Until then, I'm thinking the world still looks pretty spiky to these kids . . .

Flat World Thought for the Day 3-31-07

In an article from the February issue of Money Magazine:

A quarter-century ago, blue-collar workers got a nasty shock when they found themselves going head to head with manufacturers in Japan and South Korea. But that's nothing compared with the scale and pace of what's coming.

"Japan and South Korea are 3% of the global labor force," says Sperling. "China and India make up 40%. There is no precedent for this huge group of workers that through information technology can compete with American workers overnight."

Those new hands aren't all going to be set to building cars and toasters. They'll be engaged in what economists call "tradable services," which include any job that doesn't need to be done in person. New technology will expose more and more jobs, says Princeton economist and former Federal Reserve vice chairman Alan Blinder. "I can imagine down the road the technology will be good enough," says Blinder, "that on the stage where I lecture at Princeton there could be a hologram of a professor in India delivering the lecture for a tenth of my pay."

Hmmm . . .

" . . . the scale and pace of what's coming."

"tradable services"

"New technology will expose more and more jobs . . . "

". . . down the road the technology will be good enough . . . "

Interesting, but . . .

"delivering the lecture . . ." ????

Ouch.