Grade Fog

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New and improved.

Props to Tyre for clearly posing the question. “Should students be rewarded for being friendly, prepared, compliant, a good school citizen, well organized, and hard-working? Or should grades represent exclusively a student’s mastery of the material?”

The buzzword is “standards-based grading”.

The better question is whether grades should represent exclusively a student’s mastery of the material or whether more subjective variables such as their attitude, citizenship, and effort should also be taken into consideration.

It’s hard to disagree with the standards-based graders assertion that assessment must rest primarily on mastery of course material. I want master pilots, plumbers, surgeons, and bridge builders. The question though is how far down that road to travel. For example, inevitably some students can demonstrate mastery of course material without attending class at all so why not eliminate compulsory attendance laws?

Related to that, why require athletes to attend practice, or musicians and actors to attend rehearsals if they are gamers who inevitably rise to the occasion once the race begins or curtain goes up? In actuality, the advocates are arguing for “standards-based grading lite”.

Also, everyone of us knows a litany of really smart people who never fulfill their personal or work-life potential because their flawed interpersonal skills and/or anemic work ethic.

Returning to my extracurricular references. Obviously athletes on a swim relay team, musicians in an orchestra, and actors in a drama troupe have to work together to achieve success. Just as it’s preposterous to think about a basketball player showing up at a game and trying to run a complicated offense or an actor showing up on opening night and having the necessary timing down, most students are going to take jobs that require them to be team members.

The standard grade-basers are arguing that as long as the student has the necessary knowledge in her head, she’s good to go. But is she?

Let’s start with the necessary knowledge, but not end there. I’m down with factoring in everything in Tyre’s opening list except “compliance” which is antithetical to independent, critical thinking upon which a meaningful education is built.

School-based teacher teams should identify important dispositions and interpersonal skills and then assess them in and outside of classrooms. Self-assessment should play an integral role. No doubt narrative will prove more useful than traditional letter grades.

Budget Blues

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Washington State—2011—Proposed cuts in education spending—in millions of dollars.

K-12 & Higher Education Spending Reductions
Use of federal education dollars (“Education Jobs”) (208.1)
Higher Education Across-the-Board Reductions (51.1)
Eliminate K-4 Enhancement (effective February 1) (39.4)
Reduce education reform programs (9.2)
Reduce OSPI administration and program funding (3.7)
Total (311.4)

S.O.B.

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2010 state of the blog.

I’ve studied reader statistics, top posts of all time, and taken a critical look at the blog. I’ve also studied successful blogs and identified certain commonalities.

My conclusion is I’ve failed. Yes, readership continues steadily upwards, but at too slow a pace. Participation is limited to some friends and family. I appreciate their comments, but after three years, it’s not nearly enough of a dialogue.

Why? Two reasons I think, my ambivalence towards social networking and my lack of focus. The lack of focus seems especially significant. Simply put, widely read blogs have a much clearer focus. They are “go to” blogs on one topic whether aging, triathlon, or baking. As you know if you’re a regular reader, my listed categories don’t really do justice to just how eclectic my interests tend to be.

Seven of the top ten most read posts of all time are education related. Bummer because professionally I feel like I did at mile 21 of the Seattle Marathon, running completely on fumes. The good news is I (think) I have a sabbatical coming up which will no doubt prove regenerative. On top of the fatigue, my normal healthy skepticism about the state of the national educational discussion has evolved into serious cynicism.

Then again education is what I know the most about. And when I skim the top rated education blogs, I have a sense that even in my depleted state I can make distinctive contributions within that part of the blogosphere.

So I’m going to try to write my way out of my professional funk by focusing much more closely on teaching and learning. I still intend on casting a pretty wide net, focusing on education writ large and not just formal schooling. And I’ll still provide the occasional fitness update.

Not sure yet, but contemplating a title change.

The metamorphis will take place over the remainder of the month. You’ll notice some changes starting with Monday’s post on a 11/27/10 NY Times article by Peg Tyre titled “A’s for Good Behavior“. Have your reading done ahead of time and please join me then.

Hope you stick around and make commenting a 2011 resolution.

This Just In

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We have a winner of the Byrnes Family 2010 Positive Attitude award. The winner scored high on several criterion including:

• Takes initiative to completes chores and does so with good cheer.

• Never holds a grudge.

• Celebrates every member of the family every day.

• Most upbeat, most consistently.

• Always up for a walk or car trip.

• Most beloved by neighbors.

• Greets every visitor with unbridled enthusiasm.

• Most likely to snuggle with others on the couch while watching t.v.

* While he lost points for sometimes rolling in his own feces, he had enough of a cushion to still win going away.

The All Important Middle School Years

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For adults with children at home. If that doesn’t describe you, consider forwarding the link to a parent friend.

I’m not God’s gift to parenting, I’m sharing my story in the hope of provoking conversation and proving helpful in some small way.

As a young parent I had a hunch. My adolescence and gut told me that the quality of my daughters’ close friend decision-making would go a long ways to determining how they’d turn out as young adults. Consequently, we talked about it a lot and both daughters processed our teaching, but in very different ways.

Social scientists are finding out what many parents already know, siblings are often remarkably different one from another. In fact, they’re finding out they’re almost as different as a random sampling of children.

Our daughters’ close friend decision-making stories are illustrative of two things: 1) how different siblings often are, and 2) how true my initial hunch was that the nature of children’s close friend decision-making greatly influences who they become as young adults.

In this regard, the sixth to eighth grade time period seems especially important. Near the end of fifth grade Eighteen announced that she wanted to go to a small, independent, academically oriented middle school. “But all your friends are going to Washington Middle School.” “I’ll make new ones.” There were 32-34 people in her sixth grade class and the girls subdivided into two groups of eight or so. For some reason I can’t quite explain, Eighteen had no interest in working her way into the “cool” group. Instead, she became very good friends with other girls who were perfectly happy being the “geeks at a school for geeks”.

Individually and collectively they were unusually secure in themselves for twelve and thirteen year olds. Consequently, they unwittingly denied the “cool” group their primary leverage, elevated social status. Social status is only a competition when two or more groups willing enter into competition. Eighteen and her friends opted out of the competition altogether. It was a beautiful thing. They did well in school, they did meaningful community service, they excelled in music and athletics, they encouraged each other academically, they avoided the pitfalls of drugs and alcohol, and then they expanded their circle two and three-fold in their large, comprehensive high school. Now they’re doing well in excellent colleges across the country.

The GalPal and I could have been forgiven if we thought “This is cake.”

When Fifteen was twelve, she decided to attend small, independent, academic middle school too. Similar class size, similar subdivision of girls, totally different outcome. Fifteen wanted in the “in” group. The alpha cool student quickly picked up on this and from the get go took advantage of it by being friendly one day or week and nasty the next. The rest of the inner circle followed the alpha cool student’s lead, so socially, sixth and seventh grade was a hellish time. In an effort to try to fit in she compromised her true values and sense of self. Fortunately, she did this before the “in” group had access to drugs and alcohol.

By eighth grade, she gave up trying to be accepted by a group that she began to realize she didn’t really want to be a part of anyways. Socially, she spent most of the year alternating between making friends with seventh graders and hanging out by herself. Throughout this time, her mom and dad were impressing upon her the importance of befriending people who bring out the best in you, who make you a better person than you otherwise would be. She was tired, frustrated, sad, and very receptive to our teaching at that point.

High school has been redemptive. She has wonderful friends who share her values of doing well in school, respecting oneself and others, being physically active, and she’s healthier and happier than ever. She has a bright future.

She returned from a party the other day where she caught up with a middle school friend who attends a different high school. She learned the alpha cool student has fallen off the straight and narrow and no one from that inner circle is friends with her anymore. I feel badly for her and Fifteen probably does too. Her middle school meanness seemed rooted in insecurities that no doubt have gotten the best of her.

Post-party Fifteen reflected that she’s “so glad” she went through social hell when she did because now she has a better feel for who she is and how to choose and make close friends that share her values. Mutual friendships, friends that willingly accept one another’s quirks, friends that continuously welcome other people into their circle, friends that inspire.

That chapter of our family life was anything but cake. It was hard to watch without swooping in, but had we helicoptered in, we very likely would have shortchanged the personal discoveries and growth Fifteen experienced.

I couldn’t be more proud of her and grateful for her great leap forward.

Housing Prices

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The conversation turned to real estate on a recent Saturday run when I shared my opinion that many sellers in our community were slow to grasp the correction as evidenced by their overpriced houses languishing on the market for six months to a few years.

You would have thought I suggested we extend our 10 miler another 16.2 just for the fun of it. The right wing nutters immediately jumped on me for assuming I knew more about free markets and home values than the actual homeowners themselves. And more importantly, who did I think I was, homeowners have the right to price their houses however they want.

Of course they do just like they have the right to be irrational and waste money more generally. Check out this chart:

credit—Jodi Ashline Newsletter

In the end, the average “priced right” and “priced reduced” home sell for the same price, but the “price reduced” home is on the market an extra 162 days. If “price reduced” homeowner has $100k in equity, and that equity was invested for 162 days @ 5%, they passed on earning $2,219. That’s the cost of exercising your constitutional right to overprice your home.

Around here at least, it appears that the larger and more expensive the home the greater the tendency to overprice it. That’s counterintuitive if one assumes, on average, the most well-to-do homeowners are the most business savvy, but I digress. We can also assume a much smaller pool of prospective buyers (I know it only takes one) and therefore the “average days on market” I suspect is far greater than 197, but for consistency sake we’ll stick with that.

Let’s consider a waterfront home that is four times the average at $1,317,392. Ultimately, after 197 days, overpriced sellers have to reduce their price $251,008 ($62,752 x 4). Let’s compensate for the too short “average days on market” by assuming that our waterfront sellers own their home outright. If “expensive price reduced” homeowner has $1,066,384 (the final sale price) in equity and had invested that for the too short 162 days @ 5%, they passed on earning $23,665.

To which the nutters might say, “That’s waterfront sellers right.” Which again, of course is right, just irrational.

Since I’m on math fire, and the nutters are down for the count again, one related thought. One oft repeated housing axiom is that housing corrections don’t matter if you’re buying and selling into the same down market. That’s only true in one of three possible scenarios—buying and selling similar priced homes. It doesn’t hold for buying a more or less expensive home than sold.

For example, consider the case of buying a more expensive home. Imagine you could sell your existing home for $300k or $100k less than its peak 2007 valuation. You buy a home for $1m or $250k less than its peak 2007 valuation. Had you made that move in 2007, it would have cost $1,250,000-$400,000 or $850,000. Today, the equation is $1m-$300,000 or $700,000 for a savings of $150k.

The opposite is also true. As a result of the correction, it’s more expensive to move down. Imagine you could sell your existing home for $600k or $200k less than its peak 2007 valuation. You buy a home for $300k or $100k less than its peak 2007 valuation. Had you made the move in 2007, you would have pocketed $400k, $800k sale price-$400k purchase price. Making that move today you would only pocket $300k, $600k sale price-$300k purchase price.

So assuming one has the resources, it makes more sense to move up in down markets and down in up markets.

School’s out nutters. Do they give out Economics Nobels for this stuff?

Stop Exercising

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If you’re not saving for your seventies, eighties, and nineties.

Olga Kotelko is considered one of the world’s greatest athletes, holding 23 world records, 17 in her current age category, 90 to 95.

From the NYTimes Magazine:

At last fall’s Lahti championship, Kotelko threw a javelin more than 20 feet farther than her nearest age-group rival. At the World Masters Games in Sydney, Kotelko’s time in the 100 meters — 23.95 seconds — was faster than that of some finalists in the 80-to-84-year category, two brackets down. World Masters Athletics, the governing body of masters track, uses “age-graded” tables developed by statisticians to create a kind of standard score, expressed as a percentage, for any athletic feat. The world record for any given event would theoretically be assigned 100 percent. But a number of Kotelko’s marks — in shot put, high jump, 100-meter dash — top 100 percent. Because there are so few competitors over 90, age-graded scores are still guesswork.

Suspected of doping by some of her competitors, OK borrows from Lance’s playbook and repeatedly points out she’s never failed a test. Kidding of course.

Scientists researching the linkages between exercise, fitness, and longevity are busily studying OK and are finding the linkages are even stronger than suspected.

This type of fitness news is always heralded by the exercise community of which I’m a part, but is it really good news? I wonder because of another steady stream of stories about the elderly today—that they’re not saving nearly enough for their post-retirement lives. What if thirty, forty, and fifty-something spenders are also committed exercisers and then have to live through their sixties, seventies, eighties, and nineties on reduced Social Security benefits and their meager savings?

If you’re not saving for your distant future, maybe you should stop exercising.

Sometimes I wonder what a Saturday morning 10 miler with the team costs. Setting aside our time (it’s Saturday morning after all), let’s assume we’re wearing $100 shoes that last for 500 miles. That’s 2% of $100 or $2 in shoe wear and tear. Next, let’s assume we’re wearing a shirt, shorts, and socks that cost $70 new. They last at least 140 runs so another 50 cents. Then I eat and drink a lot more throughout the day than I otherwise would if I was sedentary, so approximately $2.50 for a total of $5. This is where if I had a contract with MasterCard I’d write, “And the raunchy, witty banter, priceless.”

But I’ve never factored in the hidden “Olga Kotelko” cost. Of course there are no guarantees, life is fragile, but the odds are the team and I are extending our lives each Saturday morning. I’m not sure how to quantify that.

That’s okay though because I’m choosing to think positively about my longevity and saving for the distant future. Which is why I’m going to continue training for the 2052 Senior Games.

2010 Seattle Marathon Race Report

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3:21:32. Overcast, wet pavement, high 30’s. Second fastest marathon. Three minutes slower than my fastest and three minutes faster than my third and fourth fastest. Not bad for an oldster.

The question I set out to answer was how many 7:30 miles can I run in a row? I had logged lots of training miles at between 7:35-7:45 and I figured with tapering, perfect weather, smart nutrition and hydration, that was a good number that would also conveniently result in a personal record.

But just before the race I had a talk with my self. “Forget the watch Self. Respect the distance, stay within yourself, and take what the running gods give you on this particular day.”

Since I had my undivided attention, I continued the self coaching. “Let’s break the race into five parts, miles 1-8, 9-16, 17-24, 25, and 26. First eight are a freakin’ warmup. If you as so much hear yourself breathing, back off. Free miles. Enjoy Lake Washington. Settle into a grove. Remember it’s a long day. Use the first hour to shorten the race with as little exertion as possible. Hit mile eight as fresh as a (just changed) baby’s behind.

Executed this to perfection. Hit mile 8 in 59:30. I was cruising comfortably, and for a bonus, I was ripping off one 7:27-7:28 after another. The out and back on the floating bridge allowed me to size up how far behind Jesse Stevick (neighbor and Oly High cross country/track coach) and Jon Riak (former lost boy from Sudan, St. Martin’s alum and apparently all around great guy) were from the leader. He had seriously gapped them. Turned out his lead at mile seven was at least as much as at the finish. The East African looking winner won it with an especially fast opening 10k. Ballsy.

I struggle with multitasking. I wanted to take my two-mile splits, but I was also drinking every two, taking gel every four, and a salt tab every eight. The running, drinking, gel taking was as much as I could handle so I just let the watch run for the first hour.

Then I cleared it and started the 18 miler. “This is such a nice grove, no reason to get excited or play the hero and push the pace, just maintain it for another hour and you’ll be in very good shape. Yeah, let’s shrink this bad boy down to a more humane distance.” This is a really nice section along Lake Wash and around Seward Park. Long story short, ran miles 8-16 in 59:45. Eight more 7:28’s, 29’s. I passed lots of people during this hour. Still felt nearly as fresh as a (just changed) baby’s behind. Great consistency, everything in control, not frantically sighting the mile posts, not even checking the watch too often, not trying to get ahead of myself. The overarching goal was to shrink it down to a 10.2 miler. A Saturday run around Capital Lake with the posse.

Mile 16. Clear the watch, restart. Self, “You know hour three is going to be considerably harder than one and two combined.” I executed part three of the plan really well too for 30-35 minutes or through mile 20.5. Then things kick up pretty seriously, including a ¾ of a mile steep segment that would prove tough on a 10k training run. By mile 21, I had a definitive answer to my question of the day. I could run 20.5 miles @ 7:30/mile pace.

Weather was perfect, didn’t overeat the evening before or morning of, salt tabs kept the cramping at bay, drank a ton of Gatorade, and ran smart, so what went wrong? Simple. I ran too few long runs (two 20 milers) and didn’t have a high enough three month mileage total to run through to the finish. Had I gotten one more massage and switched out my shoes earlier, things might have turned out differently. At mile 21 I began to fight it big time, and the quads were trashed, which made the steep downhills from 25 to 26 especially slow and painful, but it was a classic case of having to go farther than I was physically trained to go.

During the last five miles Fifteen’s question from the car trip up rang in my ears, “Hey Dad, why the marathon this year?” Over the last five miles I wasn’t fighting the “whimp ass” voice DG refers to as much as a surly contingent of whimp ass voices. It didn’t help that I was running through the half marathon walkers. “Just keep running, doesn’t matter how slowly. No walking, no way. Salvage a great day.” I was as proud of my last much slower five miles as the first 21.

Thanks Denny for the kindness and generosity. Thanks especially to the GalPal and Fifteen for great race support especially immediately afterwards. Dano for being the best training fodder a guy could ask for. Thanks DG for the foot tips and inspiration. Katie, Lance, Courter, the Principal, moms, and other family and friends for cheering me on from a distance. I felt it. And my brother for the 3:31 prediction or whatever it was.

Felt even worse than I looked

Brotherly Love

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Thanksgiving is a time to take account of one’s blessings. I am fortunate to have two older brothers. In high school my oldest bro was an excellent junior golfer who I looked up to and followed out onto the golf course at the ripe age of 5 or 6. So I have him to “thank” for my four decade-long journey to find my game. Oldest bro left for college when I was 6 or 7 so I have a few more memories of my other brother who is only three years older than me. Here’s some of what I remember.

He was an original X-game dude decades before the X games. I’m positive he has that crazy adrenaline chromosome that makes people repeatedly do irrational things. Jumped off the 10 meter tower in early elementary school, routinely jumped off our SoCal house into our smallish pool, loves big waves, and prefers skiing in the trees. Any day now I suspect he’ll take his kite board over the Seal or Huntington Beach piers.

Sadly though, despite growing up with long blonde hair, muscles, and dare-devil bad boy persona, he really struggled with the ladies. As a result, whenever he headed out, he’d ask me if I could tag along. Occasionally I’d throw him a bone, but I grew impatient when he proved to be a slow learner. Eventually he compensated by buying homes on the SoCal coast.

As you can plainly see from the “gift” he just sent me, he’s never really forgiven me for not spending more time with him during his formative years.

Derek Jeter

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From Buster Olney’s ESPN blog:

“The Yankees’ belief is that their current three-year, $45 million offer is fair, and that by offering arbitration to Jeter, they essentially would bail him out after a down year. The Yankees feel that in the past, Jeter has fairly negotiated from his standing in the marketplace — when he went to arbitration in 1999, when he negotiated a 10-year, $189 million deal in 2001. And now the Yankees feel these talks should reflect Jeter’s place in the market; they also believe that no other team would be willing to pay him what they have offered. Here’s one big factor working against Jeter in this negotiation: While the Yankees want him and are offering him above what his market value is, they operate in the knowledge that if Jeter doesn’t re-sign — if he actually walks away — then his departure would not be a mortal blow to their pennant hopes in 2011. If Jeter walked away in 2001, that would have been different; he was an exceptional player then. Now he is a good player, but far from irreplaceable.”

I’m concerned for DJ. He’s building the largest, most expensive home on the water in Tampa a few miles from my mom’s pad. How’s he supposed to finish it and furnish it with a best-case scenario pay cut of $3.9m/year ($15m versus $18.9)? Last time I cycled by his crib there was a Porsche Panamera parked out front. Next time I ride by it will probably be a Toyota Highlander.

Sports analysts refer to DJ’s value to the Yankees in terms of his personal brand and argue it contributes to the team’s brand. In essence, approximately half of the proposed contract is a bonus for distinguishing himself from the other knuckleheads in the same locker room. Don’t mistake this for Yankee bashing, it’s pro athlete bashing more generally. It’s a sign of the sorry state of pro sports that Jeter has separated himself from the vast majority of ball players by doing what should be the norm, chasing foul balls into the stands, passing on p.e.d.s, and living within the laws of the land. In short, be a good citizen and we’ll pay you extra.

What intrigues me the most about these negotiations is the relative discipline of the SOS’s, “Sons of Steinbrenner.” A lot of financial analysts that study the wealthy predict that the vast majority of young adults of extremely wealthy parents will blow through their inherited wealth given their sense of entitlement and anemic work ethic. My guess is Steinbrenner would have signed DJ by now for more than is on the table. Props to the sons for their surprising, relative fiscal discipline.

Here’s what DJ should do. Sign the contract and say, “I’m well aware that functional unemployment is 17%. That awareness makes me even more appreciative of this contract which enables me to continue making a very good living playing a child’s game for the best franchise in professional sports. This is not a ceremonial signing. I will continue to work hard day in and day out to bring Yankee fans more joy over the next three seasons.”

“I’ll figure out,” he might add once the microphones and cameras are flipped off, “how to cut some costs on the new spread.”

Yankees daring Jeter to look elsewhere?