Adios to An American Legend

January 18, 2010
 
Another giant has fallen.  Glen Bell, the founder of Taco Bell, passed away yesterday at the age of 86. 
 
After serving in World War II, including fighting in the battles of Guadalcanal and Guam, Glen Bell returned to southern California to operate a series of hot dog stands.  He then graduated to taco stands, eventually launching Taco Bell in 1962 and then selling the franchised chain to Pepsico in 1978 from which it was ultimately spun out as part of Yum Brands.
 
Bell’s great innovation was the development of the hard-shelled pre-fried tortilla shell.  By cooking the shell in advance in its curved shape, stuffing the taco with ingredients could be mass-produced. 
 
Like Al Copeland, Glen Bell was a great humanitarian.  He’s not a great humanitarian because he served in World War II, or that he remained married for 54 years, or that he created Bell Gardens as a model farm for teaching “the importance of agriculture and how to preserve our natural resource.”  No, Glen Bell was a great humanitarian because he developed a company that delivers a tasty and very inexpensive food that millions upon millions of people have enjoyed.  As I’ve said before, humanitarians are people who actually do things to improve the human condition, such as offering tasty tacos, rather than the blowhard politician, activist, or former terrorist who more typically receives such honors.
 
If you don’t believe me that Taco Bell offers something that improves the human condition check out this blog post from last year by a Taco Bell enthusiast commenting on Glen Bell’s “recipes” for success:
 
#36) Control your growth or it will control you.

If there were a Taco Bell everywhere Taco Bell consumers wanted a Taco Bell, there would be Taco Bells everywhere. All retail space would be occupied by Taco Bell because all matter would be made up of Taco Bell, and the only thought would be Taco Bell because the entire universe, all of existence, would only be Taco Bell. So yeah, for the sake of life on Earth, it’s probably best that Taco Bell’s growth be controlled. Not for the sake of me getting some goddamned Taco Bell in Brooklyn, though.

3 Comments | Al Copeland Humanitarian Award, tributes | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by Jay P. Greene

Head Start Basically Has No Effect

January 13, 2010

As I described last week, the Department of Health and Human Services has been sitting on an evaluation of the Head Start government run pre-school program.  Well, today the study was released (and it’s not even a Friday!). (Update: HHS moved the link to the study to here.)

As the leaks suggested, the study found virtually no lasting effects to participation in Head Start.  The study used a gold-standard, random assignment design and had a very large nationally representative sample.  This was a well done study (even if it mysteriously took more than 3 years after data collection was complete to release the results).

For students who were randomly assigned to Head Start or not at the age of 4, the researchers collected 19 measures of cognitive impacts at the end of kindergarten and 22 measures when those students finished 1st grade.  Of those 41 measures only 1 was significant and positive.  The remaining 40 showed no statistically significant difference.  The one significant effect was for receptive vocabulary, which showed no significant advantage for Head Start students after kindergarten but somehow re-emerged at the end of 1st grade.

The study used the more relaxed p< .1 standard for statistical significance, so we could have seen about 4 significant differences by chance alone and only saw 1.  That positive effect had an effect size of .09, which is relatively modest.

For students randomly assigned to Head Start or not at the age of 3, the researchers also collected 41 measures of lasting cognitive effects.  This time they found 2 statistically significant positive effects and 1 statistically significant negative effect.  For the students who began at age 3 they showed a .08 effect size benefit from Head Start in oral comprehension after first grade and a .26 effect size benefit in spanish vocabulary after kindergarten but a .19 effect size decline in math ability at the end of kindergarten.  Again, 38 of the 41 measures of lasting effects showed no difference and the few significant effects (which could be produced by chance) showed mixed results.

I think it is safe to say from this very rigorous evaluation that Head Start had no lasting effect on the academic preparation of students.

The study also measured lasting effects on student behavior and emotion as well as the skills of parents.  Again, the effects were largely null and the few significant differences were in mixed directions.  The few positive effects from these categories were from parent reports and the few negative tended to come from teacher reports.

The long and short of it is that the government has a giant and enormously expensive pre-school program that has made basically no difference for the students who participate in it.  And folks are proposing that we expand government pre-school to include all students.  Those same folks have some bridges they’d like to sell.

(edited for clarity)

7 Comments | methodology | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by Jay P. Greene

Ed Schools and Biz Schools

January 12, 2010

My colleagues, Bob Maranto and Gary Ritter, along with former Teachers College president, Arthur Levine, have a piece in Education Week arguing that education schools could improve their quality as business schools did several decades ago.  I suggest you read the article to judge their case for yourself.

What I wanted to do with this post is to anticipate the inevitable argument that business schools are somehow responsible for the recent economic meltdown or that ed schools are no more responsible for the quality of K-12 education than business schools are for the economic collapse.  I’ve heard this line from a bunch of education officials, so it must be in the talking points.

Here’s why this type of argument is hogwash.  Business schools are not responsible for the economic collapse because (among other reasons), biz schools do not work with business unions to get the government to require attendance at business schools and government certification before one can open (most) businesses.  Some business people have attended business schools but most have not.

Ed schools, on the other hand, work with teacher unions to get the government to require that (most) educators receive training from ed schools and certification from the state before they can teach.  The vast majority of educators, including the vast majority of teachers, principals, and superintendents have been trained and certified by ed schools.

I’m happy to let ed schools off the hook for K-12 performance if they actively lobby for ending their cartel on the production of new educators.

5 Comments | economics, teacher quality, teacher union | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by Jay P. Greene

Why Not Just Nationalize?

January 11, 2010

OK, so let me get this straight.  When banks lose a ton of private money because their employees made a ton of bad investments, the government bails them out with taxpayer dollars.  And when those banks start to make profits again, they start to pay their employees huge bonuses like they did before those (mostly) same employees made their horrible money-losing bets.  The public gets outraged and wants to do something to capture more of the bank profits or otherwise limit banker bonuses.  Just today, the WSJ tells us, the “Obama administration is considering levying a fee on banks to recoup more of the taxpayer funds spent to rescue the financial system.”

So, if the government provides taxpayer money when banks lose money and takes extra money when those banks are profitable, how is that different from the government owning the banks?  Why don’t we just cut out the middleman and make them public entities?  Or here is a better idea — how about if we don’t give taxpayer money to people who make bad investments and let them prosper or fail with their own money?

1 Comment | economics | Tagged: | Permalink
Posted by Jay P. Greene

Government Manipulation of Education Research

January 7, 2010

We all remember how Arne Duncan and the Obama administration manipulated the official evaluation of the DC voucher program by burying the release of positive results on a Friday after Congress failed to reauthorize the program.

If you thought that government manipulation of education research was limited to school choice because of the union’s special hatred of vouchers, you’d be wrong.  The Tricky Dicks in Washington are at it again, this time by manipulating the release of a Head Start evaluation.

According to Dan Lips of the Heritage Foundation in a commentary on the Fox News web site, an evaluation of the long-term effects of Head Start was supposed to be released in March 2009.  Data collection for the evaluation was completed in the spring of 2006. Yet the study remains unreleased.

The delay may have something to do with the fact that the Obama Administration and congressional Democrats are huge supporters of expanding government-subsidized or provided pre-school.  And according to Dan Lips’ sources in the Department of Health and Human Services, which is overseeing the Head Start evaluation, the results of the government study show no lasting benefits to Head Start, which is the largest government pre-school program.  Government officials seem to be burying or at least delaying the release of those results so as not to spoil plans for the expansion of government pre-school programs.

Let this be a lesson.  As the federal government’s role in evaluating education programs grows, so does the potential for political mischief with that research.

(edited for clarity)

7 Comments | politics, vouchers | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by Jay P. Greene

Carrying Coals to Newcastle

January 6, 2010

Stuart Buck and I have a piece on National Review Online this morning about how money to address unemployment is being devoted to education.  The curious thing is that education (and health care) are the only major sectors of the economy that have added jobs over the last two years while every other sector has lost more than 7 million jobs. 

Fixing unemployment by spending an additional $23 billion on teacher salaries is like carrying coals to Newcastle.  I’d much rather that Congress carry Newcastle beer.  Hmmmmm.  Beer.  Then at least we wouldn’t mind so much their blowing our money to address a problem in the only sector where it doesn’t exist.

Leave a Comment » | economics, politics, teacher pay | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by Jay P. Greene

The Argument Clinic

January 5, 2010

Stuart Buck and I have a post over on the Education Next Blog addressing a letter that Sara Mead of the New America Foundation wrote in response to our article on special education vouchers.

Here’s a taste of our response:

Sara Mead’s letter almost feels like the Monty Python sketch about the “argument clinic.” She’s just contradicting us, not providing an actual argument with contrary evidence.

Of course, she could just say that she isn’t.

Leave a Comment » | special ed, vouchers | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Jay P. Greene

Teaching Liberty

January 4, 2010

Following the diaper bomber’s attempt to blow up a plane with explosives in his underwear, there has been a flurry of news articles about what English universities have done or should do to curtail the radicalization of their students.  According to this piece in the WSJ, the British government adopted a program in 2008 to curtail radicalization called “Promoting Good Campus Relations, Fostering Shared Values and Preventing Violent Extremism in Universities and Higher Education Colleges.” 

Reading about this I started to wonder whether the appreciation of liberty, tolerating the words and actions of people with whom one disagrees, is something that can be taught.  Is the love of liberty natural in the sense that people will value liberty without any external encouragement or conditioning?  If not, how do people learn to value liberty?  Can schools play a role in promoting liberty?  If so, what does a liberty curriculum look like?

I’m interested in hearing what everyone thinks.

13 Comments | instructional reform | Tagged: | Permalink
Posted by Jay P. Greene

Worst. Decade. Ever.

December 29, 2009

At least since the 90s, so says Reason TV.  It’s not nearly the erudite conversation we had assessing this decade, but it’s still pretty, darn funny.  Enjoy.

[HT: Patrick Gibbons]

3 Comments | random pop culture | Tagged: | Permalink
Posted by Jay P. Greene

Pass the Clicker — Stories in 60 Seconds

December 25, 2009

Some ads are pure genius.  In 30 or 60 seconds they can tell stories that capture the human experience more beautifully than many 2 hour movies (certainly better than Avatar does in 3 hours).

Check out the ad above for Coke and Wal-Mart.  Yes, it’s sappy.  But so are many movies.  What’s great is the way this ad captures certain relationships with little more than a gesture and a look in a few seconds.  I particularly like meeting his best friend and the on-line date.  Notice how the best-friend puts his arm around the date and she reacts uncomfortably and then relaxes, just like someone would on a first date. 

I also think the protagonist’s declaration of love for the first girl he ever kissed is just brilliant.  Notice how she is clearly there with her boyfriend and they are both shocked by his declaration.  She is then flattered and the boyfriend is diminished.

These are essential parts of the human experience and they are captured in just seconds.  Think about how many takes they probably had to do to get it just right.  Think about the acting skill involved.  This is art.

Leave a Comment » | Pass the Clicker, random pop culture | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by Jay P. Greene

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