Mike Rowe & Discovery's Dirty Jobs Comes to End

Jobs.  Any jobs.  Even "Dirty Jobs"?

Jobs have been the talk of the country for the past four years as the country continues to limp its way to recovery from a financial crisis, crash, and recession that cost Americans 23 million jobs.  And, now works' greatest advocate - Mike Rowe of the Discovery Channel's Dirty Jobs - is facing the end of one of his greatest gigs.  Via his blog Mike Rowe announced the end of the series that had been one of the Discovery Channel's most popular.  And with that, the voice of labor has been dealt a blow.

For almost a decade, Mike Rowe has been singing the praises of "working people," and reminding Americans of the glory in hard work, even if - especially if - it's one of those jobs that people won't normally take.  As host of Dirty Jobs, Mike Rowe and his now iconic voice spent an hour each week educating people about the intricacies of miners and roadkill picker-uppers and steelworkers.  And Mike Rowe didn't comment from the sidelines - he got down and dirty with the people who make the country run.  Acting as an apprentice, Mike would spend a day with the "dirty jobs" workers, doing what they do and seeing the world from their perspective - which could mean from the inside of a septic tank.

However, Mike Rowe wasn't just a TV personality, spotlighting the news and offering a point of view

In the past decade, Mike Rowe has become a significant proponent for what he calls "A P.R. campaign for work."  During his popular TED Talks speech about the the issue of work, Mike Rowe argued that America had "declared war on work."  There was a growing contempt for labor, even as the country saw a rising need for skilled workers.  Fewer people were interested in becoming plumbers and electricians and welders because they have been steered toward bachelor degrees for "better jobs."  This is not good in a country that needs almost $4 trillion in infrastructure work and has seen many manufacturing and college-educated jobs move abroad in recent years.  Something need to be done to return a degree of respect for labor and Career and Technical Education.  Rowe responded by stepping up and doing just that - he's promoting work.  In creating a website -  MikeRoweWorks.com which is committed to developing the profile of work, of labor - Mike is hoping to contribute to putting people back to work.

Through his "work" advocating work, Mike Rowe has played a role in developing conversations for the United States to rethink the way it educates its young people and trains people for the future.  The website continues to grow, and Mike's ideas were even drawn in to the arena they belong - the political world of the 2012 campaign.  Speaking at a rally for Mitt Romney, Mike Rowe did not stump for the candidate or promote ideology or partisanship.  He simply talked about the importance of working people and the importance of putting people back to work.

Skilled Labor is as Important as STEM Classes

Career and Technical Education (CTE) is the key to solving the unemployment problem for millions of workers - if only schools and the government would respond.  Even as Marc Tucker tells us of the brilliance of Singapore's educating of skilled labor and news reports abound with millions of mechanical jobs going unfilled, the country still faces a serious problem in educating its people for a changing world.  Most recently, New York Times Columnist Thomas Friedman has picked up the call noting If You've Got the Skills, She's Got the Job.

One key profession touted by Friedman and others is professional welding, which is in high demand, but faces a serious shortage of workers.  Important to remember is welding is not for the uneducated - for in today's age "Welding is a STEM job."  The problem, of course, is the coming lack of skilled workers to take the jobs.  Schools facing budget cuts and a myopic focus on test scores, emphasizing university degrees for all people, are unable to provide the sort of support the country needs to develop skilled labor.

Friedman argues that the USA needs a new Race-to-the-Top with new stimulus spending to revamp the education system that cannot provide the training workers need.  Whereas, companies used to train their own workers in less skilled jobs fifty years ago, there are few corporations or small businesses that can afford to foot the bill.  Thus, we need a business-government partnership to fund the training for the jobs that are waiting.

New Movers & Shakers in Education Reform

Education reform is a buzzword - as well as a billion dollar industry - and it has been increasing its market share of the headlines over the past decade.  From charter schools to online learning, the education paradigm has shifted, if not quite been turned on its head.  For the vast majority of people in developed countries such as the United States, public education still happens on the Carnegie unit K-16 of the past century.  However, many visionaries - both young and old - are revolutionizing education, and the list of reformers is growing fast.

The most well known names in education reform these days are people like Bill Gates, whose Gates Foundation has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in reforming schools.  Other people like Wendy  Kopp who founded Teach for America and Sal Khan of the online teaching system Khan Academy are becoming more prominent as their influence grows through the changes they make.  Sal Khan, for example, is funded by philanthropists such as the Gates Foundation, and Khan's concept of the "flipped classroom" is taking innovation to the most entrenched system in American culture.

Forbes Magazine has assembled a more extensive list of people who are changing the education paradigm through new "education start-ups."  People like Daphne Koller whose online platform Coursera is offering world class university classes online are breaking down the barriers by granting access to classes at Harvard and MIT for people who could never afford nor be admitted to the elite institutions.  Numerous reformers have developed platforms for increasing access to education.  These are the ones to watch - or for future reformers, the ones to emulate.

As Steve Jobs of Apple told us, "Think Different."

$100K Jobs Available - Skilled Labor

Continuing on with Marc Tucker's points about highly paid skilled labor, the job market continues to hunt for skilled workers even amidst high and stagnant unemployment.  The problem is few people are either trained or willing to do the jobs available.  The auto industry is looking for thousands of highly skilled mechanics and will need hundreds of thousands in coming years.  These are not your old garage jobs that required a few hours of tinkering around in shop class - these jobs pay comfortable middle class wages, with some workers hitting six figures.  Additionally, the transportation industry is facing a shortage of big rig drivers who can also command high salaries.  A generation of retiring workers and a growing industry needs skilled people.  The problem, of course, is training for many prospective workers.  And that's something European and Asian countries do much better than we.

Marc Tucker on Singapore and Career & Technical Education

Singapore is an exotic destination that fascinates the West for all its successes.  Of course, it also shocks people who wonder about the truth of jail sentences for spitting and chewing gum - which is an exaggeration.  The truly admirable part of Singapore is its education system, which has far more effectively than most countries been able to produce a higher standard of living for its skilled labor.  According to Marc Tucker of the National Center on Education and the Economy, Singapore has much to offer to a nation and world changed by automation.

With a combination of determination, persistence and smart policy, the Singaporeans have been investing wisely in their future for half a century.  When other countries in the East saw their future in offering cheap labor to global companies, Singapore was trying to figure out how to raise the cost of their labor--and therefore the standard of living of their people--by providing higher educated and better-trained labor.  They made life difficult for their low-value added producers and made it very attractive for their high value-added producers.  They made very close partners with the world's leading high tech companies, figured out just what kind of skills they needed most and made sure that they could get those skills in Singapore.  They paid very close attention to every segment of their workforce.  They built a very high floor under the entire workforce by providing a world-class academic curriculum to all their students and creating a world-class teaching force to teach that curriculum.  They built a system of polytechnics as good as any in the world to provide very highly skilled senior technical workers for a wide range of industries.  Perhaps most impressive, they created a set of post-secondary vocational schools for the bottom quarter of their students as fine as any I have seen anywhere in the world, with facilities that rival those of many American universities.  They turned vocational education and training from a dumping ground into a sought-after alternative that attracts more and more students every year.  

Tucker notes that Singapore consists of roughly five million people - a similar range for many American states.  Thus, a more parochial approach to education, focusing on a skilled labor approach could be just the right formula for reformers looking to decrease America's rising inequality.

Farewell to Twinkies - It's About Time

Organized labor, entrenched executives, and bankruptcy laws gave the world a gift today.  There will be no more Twinkies made - though they may be consumed for hundreds of years, considering the stockpiles and infinite shelf life of the most "un-food-like" of all snack products on supermarket shelves.  Simply by the announcement of the closing of Hostess factories, the overall health of Americans has instantly improved.  And we should not lament the bankruptcy and going out of business news for a company such as Hostess.

Certainly, some people have concerns about the 18, 500 workers who are now out of a job.  This is not a good time to be out of work.  But the job was making Twinkies, only a little less bad for all involved than a guy selling cigarettes at the convenience store.  I won't go as far as to say it's the equivalent of thousands of crack dealers being taken off the street - but I'm tempted to.  Perhaps in a culinary and nutritional rendition of creative destruction, the former Hostess workers can return to school or learn a new trade or simply not be responsible for producing a truly disgusting and worthless "food product."

The Twinkie has been the butt of jokes for years, and no one could or should or would truly lament the loss of the golden logs of synthetic pastry "stuff."  From the abomination that was deep fried Twinkies to the urban legend that only Twinkies and cockroaches could survive a nuclear blast, stories of Twinkie legend have been fodder for pop culture criticism.  In fact, author Steve Ettliner offered up the treat in a new way when he explored the "ingredients" of a Twinkie in his work Twinkie Deconstructed.

So, in a perhaps hopeful trend as people shy away from the more audacious junk food and consider more healthy options for snacks, the era of Big Twinkie is over.  May it rest in indigestive peace.  And, if you've got some lying around the house, hold onto them for a while ... or a couple centuries.  For boxes are going for big bucks on Ebay.

Support Wikipedia

Everyone uses Wikipedia.

This is not an exaggeration - or not much of one.  These days everyone says "Google it" when they have a question about anything.  But they might as well say "Wiki it" because most likely the "top hit" for information about Sophocles' tragic hero or the Bush Tax Cuts or a chronological list of the Simpsons or the career of Taylor Swift is going to be Wikipedia.

Some people believe Wikipedia is the bane of teachers' existence.  In fact, I've heard students say teachers "hate Wikipedia."  But that's not true.  Teachers love Wikipedia - even if they hypocritically deny doing so to their students.  The reality is that teachers discourage - and rightly so - the citation of "Wikipedia" as a credible source.  It shouldn't be cited in research.  However, it is credible information, and students should logically use it as a starting point or "springboard" for any research they need to do.

Thus, at this time it's important to note that Wikipedia is having its annual fund-raising drive, and the best online source for credible information - or links to credible information - needs your help.  One of Wikipedia's primary strengths is its desire to remain open source and commercial free.  By avoiding a reliance on ads, Wikipedia can offer greater objectivity to its offerings.  This is something Google can't do.

So, if you've been on Wikipedia lately, and you know you have, float a little cash their way.  Consider it your user fee.

Support (financially) Wikipedia.

Technology, Classrooms, & and Students

An Infographic by Open Colleges

Let Texas Secede from the Union

It's a little known fact - though it gained more prominence with the weak and fated presidential campaign of the hapless Governor Rick Perry - that petitions to secede from the union creep up in Texas every now and again - even every year.  It seems to be a regular bit of Texas business for one of their state legislators to introduce a resolution of secession into the Texas legislature.  However, with the re-election of President Barack Obama, the calls for secession were bound to grow louder, and now it's official.

Texas wants to secede from the Union.

Actually, about 30,000 Texans want to do so.  And a smattering of citizens nationwide in as many as twenty other states want to secede as well.  The number of signatures on a petition submitted to the White House website is enough to reach the "respectable" level where the administration usually responds.  It will be interesting to see if they do on this one.  My hope is that they will, and I already know what the response should be.

Go then.

Let Texas secede.  There isn't necessarily a lot of great reasons to force them to stay.  And I'd be sort of amused to watch Texas exercise its sovereignty.  In many ways, Texas has always been a reluctant member of the United States of America.  And Gail Collins offered a fascinating study of how the reach of Texas influences the country - and mostly not for the better - in last year's best seller As Texas Goes: How the Lone Star State Hijacked the American Agenda.  The country is certainly not in favor of more George W. Bush or Rick Perry or Ross Perot.  And there isn't much favorable to say about a state school board committed to censorship and ignorance.

So, let's not too hastily reject their offer.

Maybe we should let Texas secede.

The Amazing Race - To be Continued?

As the most recent episode of The Amazing Race neared its conclusion - and the top of its prime time hour - I was wondering how the show would wrap up with several contestants still out and more than one task to complete. And, then it became apparent the show was going to continue next week.  The "To Be Continued" message was somewhat of a shock because the Race has never ended quite this way.  Normally, the episode will be a longer one with multiple teams out when it "cuts off," or it will be an episode where Phil tells contestants on the mat "You are still racing."  So, this ending was a bit unorthodox.

I am quite disappointed by the travel fiasco of the goat farmer and Abby/Ryan, though it has, I guess created this conundrum which is "To Be Continued."  The key question is how they can catch up being "nine hours behind."  Certainly, the expectation is that Abby/Ryan will go on because the Goat Farmers can't complete the swim and the Lawyer/Rock Star will be eliminated for losing their travel documents.  Trey and Lexi may be out front but I can't imagine too many people rooting for them - they're just so ... vacuous.  And, of course, the Sri Lankan Twins continue to annoy most people.  The twins' nasty language and contempt for each other makes them almost unwatchable.  And I can't wait for them to slip up.  But time is getting tight, and we might be cursed with the Twins in the final.

Nate Silver & the Rise of Math Geeks

"Nate Silver is God."

At least that's the sentiment of people like Jon Stewart and Democrats across the country who have been calmed and reassured by Nate Silver for the past year that Barack Obama had a 70-90% chance of being re-elected, despite all the press and the abysmal first debate in Denver.  Much of the rest of the country is just now waking up to the significance of this man and his particularly astute mathematical models for prediction and probability.  So, who is Nate Silver?  And how does he know what everyone else didn't?

Nate Silver is a writer and statistician who publishes his insights on election probability on a the blog FiveThirtyEight.com for the New York Times.  He rose to prominence among the geeks and nerds - and Democrats who read the Times - during the 2008 election when he accurately predicted all fifty states within percentages of 1%.  The key, according to Silver, is his aggregation of the results of numerous polls without bias or prejudice.  Though Silver is clearly a Democrat, he confidently asserts his predictions are simply about algorithms, and the rest of the country - most notably people like Karl Rove - simply don't understand the difference between probability and prediction.

Nate Silver caught the nation's attention the final weeks before the election as many Republicans began to publicly criticize his predictions that Mitt Romney only - at his best polling - had a 25% chance of winning the election.  In fact, after MSNBC conservative commentator Joe Scarborough publicly chastised Nate Silver for "claiming this is anything but a toss-up," Silver responded by crossing the line of journalistic integrity by publicly betting Scarborough $1000 (to the charity of the winner's choice) that his calculations were correct.  While Scarborough didn't - as far as we know - follow through on the bet, the clear winner in this battle is Nate Silver and statisticians.

Nate Silver, who has heavyweight math degrees from both the University of Chicago and the London School of Economics, entered the career of mathematical probability and statistics by honing his craft with number crunching in the world of major league baseball.  This approach of sabermetrics, known to the masses now from the movie and film Moneyball by Michael Lewis, who publicized the approach used by Billy Beane with the Oakland A's and Bill James with the Boston Red Sox.  The phenomenal success of the Oakland A's again this year, despite a low payroll, has continued to validate the role math can play in the unlikeliest of places.  Of course, Nate Silver is the current rock star of mathematical probabilities, and for those who seek to understand it better, he has published a engaging and surprisingly readable book The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail but Some Don't.    As a testament to Nate Silver's newfound significance, Silver's book sales jumped nearly 800% in the days after the election, as the nation sought to catch up with the "boy who knew."

Mathematics - and geekiness - is definitely basking in some glory right now, as the press shines a spotlight on not only Nate Silver but also the mathematical models that were able to accurately predict the coming threat of Hurricane Sandy.  The role math can play in election prediction or baseball recruiting or even gambling in Vegas - which was glamorized in Ben Mezrich's fascinating "realistic fictional novel" Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions - is great publicity for math and the promotion of STEM emphasis in education these days. Certainly, this is a logical development of the rise of people like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs twenty years ago.  Being smart - really, really smart - can be cool.

50 Wall Streets & the GOP Revival

Fascinating little bit of soul searching going on in the GOP these days in the aftermath of the disillusioning Democratic victory in the 2012 elections.  Many voices are offering excuses and explanations, but the party really needs to "look backward to go forward" according to writer Craig Shirley in today's Wash Post.  I am fascinated by Shirley's comments on the ideas of limited government according to conservatism:

But conservative populism should not stop there. If we rightly fear all concentrations of power, then the first order of business must be to break up the five big banks. The rationale is simple: Since the banks used illicit means via lobbyists and government to acquire such power, then government can be used to undo their ill-gotten authority.

Wall Street is too fearsome and corrupt for anyone’s good. We should find a way to create 50 Wall Streets so that money can stay in the states, and corruption can be kept to a minimum and law enforcement to a maximum. In the era of the Internet — which empowers the individual — can there be any doubt that scrutiny of local Wall Streets would keep bankers and brokers on their toes?

While the GOP has simply come to be known as the party of the wealthy who seek to avoid higher taxes and redistribution, it should divorce itself from mindlessly defending "wealth."  Clearly, there are deep ethical problems with the business world - and blaming the poor for draining the Treasury is simply not enough.  Thus, the GOP needs to honestly accept the role an unregulated financial system played in the problems of the past twenty years.

Craig Shirley's comment on the need to create 50 Wall Streets is truly fascinating to me - and it is the purest idea on the idea of state's rights in face of a growing federal government I have heard.  Living and teaching high school in Colorado, and being a proponent of a return to Career and Technical Education, I have often hoped to see the state become the "Germany of the United States" by developing a reformed education system and manufacturing base in spite of the denials of the rest of the country.  As Shirley notes, the open nature of the Internet economy offers more opportunity for individuality and self-reliance and personal responsibility and growth.

Think Globally but Act Locally has long been a catch-phrase of the Left.  However, the idea of self reliance is every bit as much a conservative idea, as noted by such Crunchy Conservatives as Rod Dreher and Joel Salatin.  From home schooling to organic farming, conservatives might think about supporting true self reliance and individuality by cutting ties with multinational organizations such as Monsanto and Dow Chemical and Archer-Daniel-Midland and General Electric and Bain Capital and Goldman-Sachs.  These large companies might need to be busted up to protect self-reliance just as Republican Teddy Roosevelt did to bring about the end of the Gilded Age.

There is a solid way back for conservatism, and it includes returning to their roots which preceded a blind faith in low taxes and "job creators."

Just a thought.