Bob Jensen's Tidbits on November 26, 2006

Video
The Ups and Downs of Financial Theory: Skirt Lengths and Stock Price Moves (which "causes" which?)
If these shocking socioeconomic theorists are correct, is there an upper bound to prosperity?
Life’s great puzzle: Why must there always be ups and downs?
Put another way, is this the reason the Taliban can never prosper in a market economy?
Socioeconomic.com hypothesizes that social mood and fashion determine level of prosperity rather than the customary assumption that the level of prosperity dictates social mood and fashion. If this is true, perhaps prosperity is merely a matter of looking up. Put another way, fashion designers should be able to earn abnormal returns on the stock market. Does Britney Spears know more than previous finance theorists? Perhaps hemline trends are a better way to improve pro forma reporting, especially shortened pro forma accounting reports.
Watch the controversial video (free clip) at http://www.socionomics.net/films/history/default.aspx
Click on one of the “Watch the video online” choices?

How to interpret the current inverted yield curve (no hemline theory here)
Some new studies suggest that the yield curve inversion might not be quite as ominous as some of us have been assuming. The yield spread is the gap between a long-term interest rate Rt (such as the ten-year Treasury rate) and a short-term rate rt (such as the 3-month Tbill rate). The spread Rt - rt is usually positive, reflecting a preference of lenders for short-term liquidity. But when the spread as recently becomes small or turns negative, that is often a harbinger of slower economic growth or even a recession.
Econbrowser, November 13, 2006 --- http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2006/11/the_yield_curve_2.html

The federal budget deficit is a concrete example. Regardless of whether you supported or opposed the Bush tax cuts, it is clear that the long-run budget is in shambles. With the baby boom generation about to retire, the budget should be in surplus. But instead, we face cumulative 10-year deficits of $3.5 trillion -- and worse after that. You can blame this sorry state of affairs on either excessive tax-cutting or on profligate spending -- take your pick. It's more accurate to blame both, because fiscal discipline has utterly broken down. Restoring that discipline will doubtless mean both spending restraint and new revenues -- more hard decisions that the voters want politicians to make.
Roger C. Altman and Alan S. Blinder, "The Economic Front," The Wall Street Journal, November 21, 2006; Page A16 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB116408470347429317.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep
Also see http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Entitlements.htm

Just saying 'no' prevents teenage pregnancy the way 'Have a nice day' cures chronic depression.
Faye Wattleton

A friend is one who would help you move. A best friend is one who would help you move a body.
Jeff Wayman

To err is human ... to really foul up requires the root password.
David Weingart

Cuyahoga County has 1.05 million registered voters, which tops the number of adults in the county by 200,000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Joan Mazzolini, "41 percent of Cuyahoga voters took part in election," Cleveland's Plain Dealer, November 15, 2006 --- http://www.cleveland.com/election/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/cuyahoga/1163583394246830.xml&coll=2
Jensen Comment
Rumor has it that consultants were called in from Duval County in Texas to advise Cuyahoga on how to register voters residing in cemeteries.

To keep your marriage brimming,
with love in the loving cup,
whenever you're wrong, admit it;
whenever you're right, shut up.
Ogden Nash --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogden_Nash

The most popular labor-saving device today is still a ~~husband~~ spouse with money.
Joey Adams (1911-1999) --- Click Here

High-earning women are supporting their husbands as they quit their jobs in search of more fulfilling careers, a report disclosed yesterday. A growing number of men are becoming disillusioned with desk-bound jobs and are seeking more creative professions such as teaching, says the Training and Development Agency for Schools. Successful career women are fuelling the trend, say researchers, who found that a third of male graduates had a wife or girlfriend who earned as much if not more than them.
Nicole Martin, "High-paid wives let husbands do own thing," Daily Telegraph, November 23, 2006 --- Click Here

Why are CEOs making such a fuss over the accounting for stock options? It has nothing to do with their concern about accounting theory, argues J. Edward Ketz. "If they cared about accounting theory, CEOs would be more supportive of the FASB, the SEC, and the IASB in developing and improving accounting practice. They don't want improvements in accounting, else somebody might actually know what they are up to.
J. Edward Ketz, "The Accounting Cycle Accounting for Stock Options (Part Three): Why CEOs Fight Stock Option Accounting," SmartPros, November 2006 --- http://accounting.smartpros.com/x55207.xml

I'm too dumb for opera and too smart for NASCAR.
Overheard by Phil Cooley at a conference.

Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt.
William Shakespeare in "Measure for Measure" I iv 77-79 (as it appears in a recent email message from Phil Cooley)

Better to let people think you a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.
Mark Twain
Why did he have to phrase it that way?

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forget their use.
Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei

It's possible to have your venison and eat it too.
Bryan James Hathaway, a Superior, Minnesota man accused of having carnal relations with what he called "venison"
Duluth Tribune, November 17, 2006 --- Click Here or read the Smoking Gun's account at http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/1116061deer1.html
Hathaway's attorney pleaded for dismissal since the deer was dead at the time of the infraction. The trial judge pointed out that Minnesota statutes do not draw a line between alive versus dead, at least not as far as animals are concerned.

At death, an animal ceases to be an animal. As Billy Crystal noted in The Princess Bride (1987), "There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead."
Opinion Journal, November 17, 2006

I really do feel that genuine translation of text requires understanding of the text, and understanding requires having lived in the world and dealt with the physical world and is not just a question of manipulating words.
Douglas Hofstadter (1945) --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Hofstadter

New York's highest court on Monday ordered the state to pay an additional $1.93 billion a year to provide "a sound, basic education" to New York City school children. That's billions less than had been sought in a landmark lawsuit launched more than a decade ago.
"N.Y. Is Ordered to Pay $1.93 Billion for City Schools," The New York Times, November 20, 2006 --- Click Here
Jensen Comment
As long as the courts have taken over control of the state spending, continued funding of impotent state legislatures is a waste of money. Perhaps the State Legislatures of New York and elsewhere should retire for good and leave revenue and expense decisions to the courts.

Once upon a time, I berated American troops for entering a mosque wearing boots. But it is clear after this Thanksgiving weekend — when Iraqi Shiite Muslims grabbed Iraqi Sunni Muslims inside a mosque, doused them with gasoline, and burned them alive — that we are way past boots, past the American occupation of Iraq, and past debates on staying the course. Iraq is now in the throes of a far larger war, among Muslims and within the faith. It would be wise for third parties to get out of the way of such a clash.
Oussef Ibrahim, "In Iraq, War Among Muslims," New York Sun, November 27, 2006 --- http://www.nysun.com/article/44115

Tribal chiefs and Coalition forces clashed with Al-Qaeda insurgents in Al-Anbar province killing 50 terrorists, it was announced here Sunday. Al Qaeda terrorists attacked the Abu Soda tribe in Sofia yesterday and in response, Coalition Forces provided support to the Abu Sodas fight against Al Qaeda, a US Army statement said. "The Americans have come to the aide of the Abu Soda tribe. They have understood the dire situation that the Abu Soda are currently battling the Al Qaeda, because the Americans see it as a fight against a common enemy," said Sheikh Ahmed, Sheikh of Abu Resha.
"Tribal chiefs clash with Qaeda in Anbar killing 50 terrorists," Kuwait News Agency, November 26, 2006 --- Click Here

We've been waiting for more solid and realistic new policy in Iraq:
The L.A. Times has got it right at last!
So allow me to propose the unthinkable: Maybe, just maybe, our best option is to restore Saddam Hussein to power. Yes, I know. Hussein is a psychotic mass murderer. Under his rule, Iraqis were shot, tortured and lived in constant fear. Bringing the dictator back would sound cruel if it weren't for the fact that all those things are also happening now, probably on a wider scale . . . Meanwhile, we have admirably directed our efforts into training a professional and nonsectarian Iraqi police force and encouraging reconciliation between Sunnis and Shiites. But we haven't succeeded. We may be strong enough to stop large-scale warfare or genocide, but we're not strong enough to stop pervasive chaos. Hussein, however, has a proven record in that department. It may well be possible to reconstitute the Iraqi army and state bureaucracy we disbanded, and if so, that may be the only force capable of imposing order in Iraq.
Jonathan Chait, "Bring back Saddam Hussein," The Los Angeles Times, November 27, 2006 --- Click Here
Jensen Comment
If General Hussein is sneaked out of prison, the finest Arab horse in all of the Middle East should await his return to power. Perhaps Oliver Stone will have a Los Angeles Times film crew on hand to film the Return of the Baathist Party to power. Our beleaguered outside contractors could then find work reconstructing Saddam statues throughout Iraq. Saddam's enemies will no longer cause trouble because it's really hard to build bombs, fire AK-47s, and go to the bathroom efficiently with both hands chopped off.

Seriously, the Los Angeles Times Has Been Strategically Trying to Discourage the U.S. Military in Iraq
Al Qaeda is winning the media war and this is why!
. . . there were no airstrikes in Ramadi that day, while the L.A. Times stringer claimed there had been an airstrike. When I checked into it, the weight of the evidence indicated that the soldier was right and the L.A. Times was wrong. The military flatly denies that there was an airstrike — a denial that the L.A. Times has failed to report to this day. Several other media reports state that civilians died from small-arms fire and tank fire, and not an airstrike. . . . The [L.A. Times article] is an example of why you simply cannot believe most media reports coming out of Iraq. The LA Time[s] reporter, Solomon Moore, is not in Ramadi. He relies on an Iraqi stringer here who has ties to insurgents. In this article, Moore repeats almost verbatim, insurgent propaganda we have intercepted. The fighting in question occurred in my battle space within Ramadi and I was personally and intimately involved . . . Every target engaged was well within what our restrictive rules of engagement authorize. I am disgusted by the editorial slant of this article, by what passes from journalistic integrity at the LA Times, and by their complicity with our mortal enemies. My Soldiers fight with great precision and skill on a very difficult urban battlefield. The LA Times dishonors them and give aid and comfort to my enemies.
A soldier in Iraq uncovered a propaganda fabrication by Al Qaeda reported as fact by the Los Angeles Times --- Click Here
Jensen Comment
Now the liberal press is buying into unfounded theories that Bush and Cheney intentionally bombed (if there were bombs) the Trade Towers and the Pentagon with no compassion for how many thousands of Americans were killed. Media sources are reporting that Bush got out of the White House because he'd planned to bomb that as well if passengers on United Flight 93 had not intervened. Did he really leave unexploded bombs behind in the closets of his own bedroom? Opposing bombing theories will probably be disputed forever by so-called experts. That Bush and Cheney actually planted them is liberal wishful thinking with dreams of bringing down business enterprise with any concocted theory that works. A smart strategy now would be for Bush to call for the new Democratic leadership to conduct a full investigation just to prove they cannot connect the dots of 9/11 terror back to him.

Here's one example of how The Nation is reporting the 9/11conspiracy theory with great fanfare ---
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/capitalgames?bid=3&pid=66
Counter theories seem to be ignored by The Nation. I don't mind freedom to express theories. But I do mind when alternate theories are filtered out by liberal editors with a single-minded agenda to bring down the entire free market economies of the world. See William Greider, "The Future Is Now," The Nation, June 26, 2006 --- http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060626/greider

All journalists and their media news outlets must be thoroughly investigated. Those found guilty of consistently and knowingly taking bribes from Saudi Arabia, publishing Islamic propaganda as news, publishing outright lies, and/or doctored photos should have criminal charged filed against them for aiding and abetting Islamic terrorism.
Naomi Ragen, Email message on November 26, 2006 --- [nragen@netvision.net.il]

What a shock --- CNN looks inward and blames a biased U.S. and European media for helping jihadists
CNN host Glenn Beck criticizes the rest of the Western media, including by implication his own station CNN, for drastically failing to properly report on Islamic extremism. This documentary, screened on the American (but not so far on the international) version of CNN, has now been posted on You Tube, and it is so important that I strongly recommend everyone to make time to watch it in full --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PWIK8YTZS8

Jensen Comment
The Western media does not speak with one voice --- this is a long-time advantage of freedom of the press. What's frustrating is that leading media sources in Europe, South America, Latin America, and North America are becoming increasingly propaganda tools for jihadists. In some respects this indirectly results from media bashing of the Bush and Cheney administration and the multinational businesses they represent. There is so much hate over the Iraq invasion and business prosperity that hate blinds reporters to the larger picture of orchestrated worldwide terror that will come home to roost. When CNN founder Ted Turner suggests that Iran should perhaps be allowed to have a counterbalancing arsenal of nuclear weapons it gets downright scary how close the world is approaching WMD winter. Clearly Ted Turner and Glen Beck are not on the same page --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book06q3.htm#Turner

George Bush made a strategic error by opening the door for Iran to take over the entire Middle East. Iran's main obstacle, at least in the short term, will be an Israel that may not die quietly and U.S. backing of Israel that will increase under the rejuvenated Democratic Party. All bets are off for the long term when and if jihadists get control of all oil in the Middle East with designs of taking over the entire world. Someday they might be stupid enough to confront China, but they will most likely focus more on North and South America.

The logo adorning the main page and document is an AK-47 rifle. The propaganda appearing on the Web presence of the Venezuelan subsidiary of Hezbollah talks about installing the kingdom of God in Venezuela by imposing a military-theocratic type of government, an explosive mixture similar to what already exists in Iran. It claims: "The brief enjoyment of life on earth is selfish. The other life is better for those who follow Allah." Where have we heard this before? In the leaflets that encourage the suicide missions of children and teenagers in Palestine.
"HEZBOLLAH in Venezuela: Chávez joins the terrorists on his path to martyrdom," Vcrisis, November 26, 2006 --- http://www.vcrisis.com/index.php?content=letters/200609010809
Jensen Comment
If true it makes little sense for Chávez to promote such a threat to his own regime. His hope might be to use this as a training base to launch suicide bombers to harass leaders who cooperate with the U.S. imperialists. But the tribe of the Wayuu where this religious epiphany is initially taking place is not exactly loyal to Venezuela or Chávez and is seeking a nation of its own. What's certain is that Hezbollah, the militant puppet funded by Iran, is taking the fanatical jihad global. America is not yet ripe for conversion to fanatical Islam. But millions of poor and uneducated unemployed in Latin America and South America are ripe for revolutionary fever and Iranian roadside bombs.

What a shock! A leading liberal magazine in the U.K. actually printed a pro-Israeli article
We live in dangerous times when, in parts of the left especially, you can't be a friend to Islam or to Muslims unless you are anti-Israel. That is exactly what al-Qaida wants us to think. Events in Rochdale at the last election represent a microcosm of what we are sleepwalking into globally. The Islamists and the left argued that, because I supported Israel and its right to exist, all my work for my Muslim constituents was a lie. They suggested I was an opportunistic, neocon Zionist, aiming to dupe them. Israel's willingness to compromise for peace has never been enough, because Israel alone cannot gain peace. The Palestinians and others in the region also have to want peace. Israel needs a serious interlocutor so that peace can stand a chance. So my question to the left is this: why not concentrate your attention there, rather than on the one player in the region who has always been serious about peace?
Lorna Fitzsimons, "Why I'm backing Israel," The Guardian, November 24, 2006 --- http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1955724,00.html

American Jews expressed flagrant support for Democratic candidates for Congress, contributing to a turnaround in the House of Representatives. According to a CNN sampling of voters, 87 percent of Jewish voters voted Democrat . . . Democratic Party wins largest percentage of Jewish support since 1994. Elections expert: Jews voted for candidates good for Israel . . .
Yitzhak Benhorin, "87 percent of Jews vote Democrat," YNet News, November 8, 2006 ---
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3325529,00.html

"Borat" is many things: a sidesplitting triumph of slapstick and scatology, a runaway moneymaker and budding franchise, the worst thing to happen to Kazakhstan since the Mongol hordes, and, as columnist David Brooks astutely points out, a supreme display of elite snobbery reveling in the humiliation of the hoaxed hillbilly. But it is one thing more, something Brooks alluded to in passing but that requires at least one elaboration: an unintentionally revealing demonstration of the unfortunate attitude many liberal Jews have toward working-class American Christians, especially evangelicals . . . Yet, amid this gathering darkness (Anti-Semitism in Europe), an alarming number of liberal Jews are seized with the notion that the real threat lurks deep in the hearts of American Protestants, most specifically Southern evangelicals. Some fear that their children are going to be converted; others, that below the surface lies a pogrom waiting to happen; still others, that the evangelicals will take power in Washington and enact their own sharia law.
Charles Krauthammerm, "Just an Anti-Semitic Laugh? Hardly," The Wall Street Journal, November 24, 2006 --- Click Here
Also see "Christians kicked off campus at Brown University" --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2006/tidbits061120.htm#Brown

There are many reasons that actions like Blair's strategic retreat from reason and responsibility have gone uncriticized by the media. It is not simply that Western, and particularly European journalists are overwhelmingly anti-American and virulently anti-Israel. One of the central reasons for the silence of Western intellectuals and media in the face of actions like Blair's is fear of death at the hands of jihadists.
Caroline Glick, JPost, November 20, 2006 --- http://www.jpost.com/

"There is no excuse for calling civilians to the scene of a planned attack," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "Whether or not the home is a legitimate military target, knowingly asking civilians to stand in harm's way is unlawful." Various media have reported that other Palestinian officials and armed groups have voiced support for these tactics. In a visit to Baroud's house on Sunday, Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority reportedly said: "We are so proud of this national stand. It's the first stop toward protecting our homes ... so long as this strategy is in the interest of our people, we support this strategy." A spokesman for the Popular Resistance Committees was also quoted as saying: "We call upon all the fighters to reject evacuating their houses, and we urge our people to rush into threatened houses and make human shields."
Independent Media Review Analysis, November 22, 2006 --- http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=31696
Jensen Comment
Using children as shields will continue to be a popular tactic as long as the Western media cameras are rolling.

There are no limits on our rocket attacks and we will prove that in coming days . . . Indeed, Israeli security sources said Palestinian rockets fired in recent weeks at Sderot have been packed with more explosive material than ever before.
Abu Abaida, spokesman for Hamas, WorldNetDaily, November 22, 2006 ---
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53060

Terror leader says rocket attacks on Israeli towns to intensify . . . "We promise we will keep hitting them because this process (of launching rockets at Jewish communities) is starting to bring results. We are working to improve our rockets to hit further and cause more Jews to evacuate," said the terror leader, speaking to WND from Gaza.
"Hamas 'very satisfied' with fleeing Jews Terror leader says rocket attacks at Israeli towns to intensify," WorldNetDaily, November 21, 2006 --- http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53040

Russia, as the prime subcontractor for Iran's nuclear program, is providing: 1) Six nuclear reactors for Iran. Four are at Bushehr and two are at Akhvaz. 2) A uranium-conversion plant at Bushehr that can be used for uranium enrichment. 3) An exemption in the UN resolution on Iran. In its draft resolution the Russians have exempted “materials, equipment, technology" used at Bushehr 1. This exemption will allow Iran to convert the lightly-enriched fuel in the light-water nuclear reactor into weapon-grade 235. It need only remove fuel rods from Bushehr, then extracting their pellets, and feed this enriched uranium into its centrifuges. The centrifuges could then produce weapon-grade U-235 in less than 2 months.
Edward Jay Epstein, "Question of the Day," November 23, 2006 --- http://www.edwardjayepstein.com/2003question/IransWMD.htm
Jensen Comment
Most analysts conclude Russia is supporting Iran's nuclear quest for money. I instead think its because of money --- Iran continues to supply the funding for terrorists around the world. Russia appears to be giving in to extortion! The deal is giving nuclear technology to Iran in exchange for suspension of terrorism funding to a Muslim population that is almost 50% of the Russian populace. Russia has, thereby, made a deal with the Devil --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PWIK8YTZS8

We were betrayed by jihadists in our nuclear bargains with Iran --- they're war was supposed to only be with the West..
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin's dying words when Moscow was vaporized in a mushroom cloud, Al Jazeera, March 12, 2019
Also see "Russia starts delivery of TOR-M1 missiles to Iran," AFP, November 24, 2006 --- Click Here

If you can't convince them, confuse them.
Harry S. Truman --- From the man who twice dropped nukes to dash all Japanese hope of military conquest ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_S_Truman

We'll wipe Israel off the map.
Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ---A bitter leader with deep hate who's not convincing but succeeds at being confusing --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad

Jensen Comment
Politically correct media networks in the U.S. rarely show videos of rocket-fleeing Jews and injured Jewish children, because Western news reporters are mostly on the Hamas side awaiting to dramatize Jewish retaliations. Israel is scorched by the media when injuring Palestinian civilians with reckless rockets while Hamas intentionally targets Jewish civilians almost unnoticed --- http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/11/15/mideast.rockets/index.html

More and more academics are similarly siding with Palestinians in large part because it's another way for the Academy, like our media, to whip the Bush/Cheney Administration --- using Israel by a whipping boy. See "Dual Loyalty and the Israel Lobby," by Gabriel Schoenfeld, Commentary Magazine, November 2006 ---
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/article.asp?aid=12204035_1

Republicans can no longer be trusted to restore fiscal sanity, control spending, and restrain corruption. Old ones need to be thoroughly flushed down the toilet in shame (except for Jeff Flake) before new ones can evolve. If we have a Democratic Party sweep the Presidential and Congressional races in 2008, we can anticipate a much more friendly liberal media toward Israel since Jews are intensely loyal (over 87% in the 2006 election) to the Democratic Party. American Jews were a leading force bringing the Democratic Party back in power in 2006. They must know something we don't know.

Sadly all sides of the terrorism wars in the Middle East continue to commit civilian atrocities with intent on the part of jihadists and recklessness on the part of Israel. Israel appears to be placing its last shred of hope on the Democratic Party to save Israel from Iran, Syria, and a fully-nuked Pakistan.

Premature Israeli bombing of nuclear sites in Iran will badly damage Democratic Party support for Israel. Let's hope that Israel does not make such a huge blunder. Why interrupt crude and uncertain homemade nuclear bomb construction efforts and, thereby, force oil-rich Iran to immediately buy fully, albeit very expensive, operational Russian, Pakistani or Asian nukes on the black market ? That's a much faster and surer way, perhaps in an insane temper tantrum, to "wipe Israel off the map."

When the Children Cry --- http://www.jessiesweb.com/children.htm
If the sound does not commence after 30 seconds, scroll to the bottom of the page and turn it on.

Imagine --- http://www.jessiesweb.com/imagine.htm
If the sound does not commence after 30 seconds, scroll to the bottom of the page and turn it on.

November 24, 2006 message from my friend Paula
ALIENS ARE COMING TO ABDUCT THE BEST OF THE HUMAN GENE POOL TO SAFETY.
YOU CARRY ON DOING YOUR THING BOB --- I'M JUST EMAILING TO SAY GOODBYE

A Possible Solution to the University of Michigan's Latest Affirmative Action Dilemma

Mary Sue Coleman is president of the University of Michigan, which has already spent millions of taxpayers' dollars defending its racial preferences in courts. She addressed what Tom Bray of the Detroit News called "a howling mob of hundreds of student and faculty protestors" last week. "Diversity matters at Michigan," she declared. "It matters today, and it will matter tomorrow."
John Fund, "Preferences Forever? The University of Michigan's president does her best George Wallace impersonation," The Wall Street Journal, November 20, 2006 --- http://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110009275

Jensen Comment
Rather than spend millions more in taxpayer money fighting the new law (making race-based admission and financial aid preferences illegal) or exposing the University of Michigan to lawsuit risk, President Coleman should engineer the University of Texas System solution to affirmative action in Michigan's higher education system --- that highly effective Ten Percent Rule. Public universities in Texas must give student admission and financial aid priorities to the top ten percent of the graduates of any high school in the State of Texas without regard to race.

An applicant of any race with a low SAT and high grades from an inner-city or poor rural high school may thereby have priority over a high SAT applicant from a wealthy suburban Texas high school or a high SAT applicant from out of state.. Many educators in Texas praise the results in in both encouraging more integration in housing and high schools as well as the tremendous affirmative action success that cannot really be challenged in court.

Some educators criticize that many of the best students in the states are punished due to geographic happenstance. That is unavoidable as long as all universities in the state are not perceived as having the same prestige and opportunity. Actually I see nothing wrong with spreading the highest SAT graduating seniors around to all state universities rather than concentrating that talent at the two largest flagship state universities in Texas.

I'm a vocal supporter of the Ten Percent Rule, although it greatly complicates high school grading where the top ten percent of a high school class must be designated out of perhaps twenty percent of the graduates having straight A grades under current grade inflation practices by teachers and/or easy curriculum choices by devious students. (The Boston Globe reports We're seeing 30, 40 valedictorians per class). Learning is more than grades but grades have become the focal point for opportunities in life. The President of the University of Texas also expressed concerns that the Ten Percent Rule showed signs of eventually taking all admission discretion away from the leading universities in the system. Pros and cons of this Texas affirmative action initiative were highlighted in a CBS Sixty Minutes video. See "Is The "Top 10" Plan Unfair?" at http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/10/15/60minutes/main649704.shtml

I've not seen where this affirmative action alternative has been advocated for Michigan --- the state where affirmative action seems to be the most controversial at the moment. To read about other alternatives tried in other states click here.
I recommend that President Coleman lobby for the Ten Percent Rule in Michigan.

Grade Inflation from High School to Graduate School

The Boston Globe reports seeing 30-40 valedictorians per graduating class

Extra credit for AP courses, parental lobbying and genuine hard work by the most competitive students have combined to shatter any semblance of a Bell curve

An increasing number of Canada's business schools are literally selling MBAs to generate revenue

[some] professors who say their colleagues are so afraid of bad student evaluations that they are placating students with A's and B's.

From Jim Mahar's blog on November 24, 2006 --- http://financeprofessorblog.blogspot.com/

Grade inflation from HS to Grad school

Three related stories that are not strictly speaking finance but that should be of interest to most in academia.

In the first article, which is from the Ottawa Citizen, accelerated and executive MBA programs come under attack for their supposed detrimantal impact on learning in favor of revenue.

MBAs dumbed down for profit:
"An increasing number of Canada's business schools are literally selling MBAs to generate revenue for their ravenous budgets, according to veteran Concordia University finance professor Alan Hochstein.

That apparent trend to make master of business administration degrees easier to achieve at a premium cost is leading to 'sub-standard education for enormous fees,' the self-proclaimed whistleblower said yesterday"
The second article is a widely reported AP article that that centers on High School grade inflation. This high school issue not only makes the admissions process more difficult but it also influences the behavior of the students ("complaining works") and their their grade expectations ("I have always gotten A's and therefore I deserve on here").

A few look-ins from Boston Globe's version:
"Extra credit for AP courses, parental lobbying and genuine hard work by the most competitive students have combined to shatter any semblance of a Bell curve, one in which 'A's are reserved only for the very best. For example, of the 47,317 applications the University of California, Los Angeles, received for this fall's freshman class, nearly 21,000 had GPAs of 4.0 or above."
or consider this:
""We're seeing 30, 40 valedictorians at a high school because they don't want to create these distinctions between students...."
and
"The average high school GPA increased from 2.68 to 2.94 between 1990 and 2000, according to a federal study."
This is not just a High School problem. In part because of an agency cost problem (professors have incentives to grade leniently even if it is to the detriment of students), the same issues are regular discussions topics at all colleges as well. For instance consider this story from the Denver Post.
"A proposal to disclose class rank on student transcripts has ignited a debate among University of Colorado professors with starkly different views on whether grade inflation is a problem....
[some] professors who say their colleagues are so afraid of bad student evaluations that they are placating students with A's and B's.

The few professors who grade honestly end up with dismal scores on student evaluations, which affect their salaries, professor Paul Levitt said. There is also the "endless parade of malcontents" in their offices."

I would love to wrap this up with my own solution, but obviously it is a tough problem to which there are no easy solutions. That said, maybe it is time that I personally look back at my past years' class grades to make sure I am not getting too soft. If we all did that, we'd at least make a dent in the problem.

"Admissions boards face 'grade inflation'," by Justin Pope, Boston Globe, November 18, 2006 --- Click Here

That means he will have to find other ways to stand out.

"It's extremely difficult," he said. "I spent all summer writing my essay. We even hired a private tutor to make sure that essay was the best it can be. But even with that, it's like I'm just kind of leveling the playing field." Last year, he even considered transferring out of his highly competitive public school, to some place where his grades would look better.

Some call the phenomenon that Zalasky's fighting "grade inflation" -- implying the boost is undeserved. Others say students are truly earning their better marks. Regardless, it's a trend that's been building for years and may only be accelerating: Many students are getting very good grades. So many, in fact, it is getting harder and harder for colleges to use grades as a measuring stick for applicants.

Extra credit for AP courses, parental lobbying and genuine hard work by the most competitive students have combined to shatter any semblance of a Bell curve, one in which 'A's are reserved only for the very best. For example, of the 47,317 applications the University of California, Los Angeles, received for this fall's freshman class, nearly 21,000 had GPAs of 4.0 or above.

That's also making it harder for the most selective colleges -- who often call grades the single most important factor in admissions -- to join in a growing movement to lessen the influence of standardized tests.

"We're seeing 30, 40 valedictorians at a high school because they don't want to create these distinctions between students," said Jess Lord, dean of admission and financial aid at Haverford College in Pennsylvania. "If we don't have enough information, there's a chance we'll become more heavily reliant on test scores, and that's a real negative to me."

Standardized tests have endured a heap of bad publicity lately, with the SAT raising anger about its expanded length and recent scoring problems. A number of schools have stopped requiring tests scores, to much fanfare.

Continued in article

"Regents evaluate grade inflation: Class Ranking Debated," by Jennifer Brown, Denver Post, November 2, 2006 --- http://www.denverpost.com/headlines/ci_4588002

A proposal to disclose class rank on student transcripts has ignited a debate among University of Colorado professors with starkly different views on whether grade inflation is a problem.

On one side are faculty who attribute the climbing grade-point averages at CU to the improved qualifications of entering students in the past dozen years.

And on the other are professors who say their colleagues are so afraid of bad student evaluations that they are placating students with A's and B's.

One Boulder English professor said departments should eliminate raises for faculty if the GPAs within the department rise above a designated level.

The few professors who grade honestly end up with dismal scores on student evaluations, which affect their salaries, professor Paul Levitt said. There is also the "endless parade of malcontents" in their offices.

"You have to be a masochist to proceed in that way," said Levitt, one of 10 professors and business leaders who spoke to CU regents about grade inflation Wednesday.

CU president Hank Brown suggested in August that the university take on grade inflation by putting class rank or grade-point-average percentiles on student transcripts.

Changing the transcripts would give potential employers and graduate schools a clearer picture of student achievement, Brown said.

At the Boulder campus, the average GPA rose from 2.87 in 1993 to 2.99 in 2004.

Regents are not likely to vote on the issue for a couple of months.

Regent Tom Lucero wants to go beyond Brown's suggestion and model CU's policy after Princeton University, where administrators instituted a limit on A's two years ago.

"As long as we do something to address this issue, I'll be happy nonetheless," he said.

But many professors believe academic rigor is a faculty issue and regents should stay out of it.

"Top-down initiatives ... will likely breed not higher expectations but a growing sense of cynicism," said a report from the Boulder Faculty Assembly, which opposes Brown's proposals.

Still, the group wrote that even though grade inflation has been "modest," the issue of academic rigor "deserves serious ongoing scrutiny."

"More important than the consideration of grades is the quality of education our students receive," said Boulder communication professor Jerry Hauser.

CU graduates are getting jobs at top firms, landing spots in elite graduate schools and having no trouble passing bar or licensing exams, he said.

But faculty who believe grade inflation is a serious problem said they welcome regent input.

Bob Jensen's threads on grade inflation are at the following two sites:

http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm#GradeInflation

http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#AcademicStandards

They're Ignorant of Their Ignorance
My undergraduate students can’t accurately predict their academic performance or skill levels. Earlier in the semester, a writing assignment on study styles revealed that 14 percent of my undergraduate English composition students considered themselves “overachievers.” Not one of those students was receiving an A in my course by midterm. Fifty percent were receiving a C, another third was receiving B’s and the remainder had earned failing grades by midterm. One student wrote, “overachievers like myself began a long time ago.” She received a 70 percent on her first paper and a low C at midterm.
Shari Wilson, "Ignorant of Their Ignorance," Inside Higher Ed, November 16, 2006 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2006/11/16/wilson
Jensen comment
This does not bode well for self assessment.

Bob Jensen's threads on assessment are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm

Honesty may be the best policy, but it's important to remember that apparently, by elimination, dishonesty is the second-best policy.
George Carlin as quoted by Mark Shapiro at http://irascibleprofessor.com/comments-11-25-06.htm

"The Infinite Mind" program on Cheating

Email message on November 15, 2006 from Richard Reams [rreams@trinity.edu]

I heard the program Monday night on KSTX, and some of you may find it interesting, especially the first 30 minutes or so that focuses on academic cheating. Here’s the link: http://www.lcmedia.com/mind452.htm

RR
---------------------------------------------------

Richard Reams, Ph.D.
Assistant Director
Counseling Services
Trinity University
One Trinity Place
San Antonio, Texas 78212-7200
215 Coates University Center
www.trinity.edu/counseling

**************************

In this hour, we explore Cheating. Four out of five high school students say they've cheated. More than half of medical school students say the same thing. Even The New York Times has cribbed from somebody else's paper. Is everybody doing it? Guests include Dr. Howard Gardner, professor in Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and co-director of a large-scale research study called the GoodWork Project; renowned primate researcher Dr. Frans de Waal, professor of psychology at Emory University; Dr. Helen Fisher, research professor in the department of anthropology at Rutgers University and author of Anatomy of Love: A Natural History of Mating, Marriage, and Why We Stray; and country music group BR5-49, who perform the Hank Williams classic, "Your Cheatin' Heart."

Host Dr. Fred Goodwin begins with an essay in which he explores some of the reasons why attitudes toward cheating seem to be more permissive than ever. He mentions "moral relativism" in elite education; a media culture that end up making celebrities of high-profile cheaters like Jayson Blair and Stephen Glass; and the construction of elaborate laws and rules to codify and enforce moral behavior, which sends the implicit message, "if it's legal, it's ethical."

Cheating among students is rampant. Four out of five high school students admit to having cheated at some point. Why is it so common? And why don't more students speak out? To begin today, we hear from Mary Weed Ervin. She is now a freshman at Duke University, but when she was a senior in high school in Virginia, she caught her classmates cheating and did something about it, despite the consequences.

After catching students in her AP Biology class cheating, she told the teacher. Her classmates treated her as if she were the bad guy. She felt even her friends would not stand up for her, since they continued to hang out with the kids who cheated and others who outright shunned her. She was insulted by some kids and, after one party, she was even worried she might be attacked. As a result, she stopped doing normal senior activities, and she felt very alone. At the end of the year, though, she was awarded "Senior of the Year" by her peers, so she knows a lot of her classmates must have supported what she did, even though they never said so.

Then the Infinite Mind's Devorah Klahr reports on cheating in schools. Remember when cheating meant looking over your friend's shoulder? Well, not anymore. Today, many students use technology to cheat. In addition to buying term papers off the Internet, they use cell phones, text messaging, and digital computers, sometimes in elaborate schemes to outwit teachers. "I’m just using my technology to my advantage pretty much," says one high school cheater. "They gave me all the tools to do it and I’m just using it to help myself. Because my parents expect me to have good grades."

To catch these cheaters, teachers are realizing they, too, have to become more tech savvy. Lou Bloomfield, a professor at The University of Virginia, created "copyfind," a computer program to catch cheaters. And many schools use an even larger search engine called turnitin.com, which scans term papers against a large database, ensuring that writing is original and not plagiarized. At the University of Pennsylvania, Michele Goldfarb directs the office of student conduct. She investigates suspicious looking papers. She remembers a term paper that was especially obvious. "The faculty member thought the paper was unusually sophisticated for the student," Goldfarb says, "… use of words like, 'the pock marked landscape' and 'the steep sided hollows.' Undergraduates do not talk that way, do not write that way.”

Educators seem to agree that teaching integrity is the only way to stop cheating. Nobody's going to win this technology arms race. Elizabeth Kiss is a professor of political science at Duke University and a board member of the Center for Academic Integrity. At the beginning of the semester, she tells her students to look up at the ceiling and think about the trustworthiness of the architect who designed the structure and the builders who built it. "So I get them to think about the ways we depend every day on the honesty of other people. And when people aren't trustworthy, others get hurt."

Next, Dr. Goodwin interviews the distinguished developmental psychologist and neuropsychologist Dr. Howard Gardner. He's a professor in Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and co-director of a large-scale research study called the GoodWork Project. Perhaps best known for his theory of multiple intelligences, he's the author of eighteen books and hundreds of articles. Most recently, he co-authored the book Good Work: When Excellence and Ethics Meet. A new book, Making Good: How Young People Cope with Moral Dilemmas at Work will be out in February, 2004.

For The GoodWork Project, Dr. Gardner has been interviewing people working in different fields -- science, journalism, and theater -- about good work, which he defines as excellent and ethical. Everyone he spoke to knows the difference between what is ethical and what is not, but the disturbing thing is how many people said they cannot afford to do the right or honest thing if they want to get ahead in their careers. He says there is a tension between the people they want to be and the people they think they need to be to succeed.

He says that scientists -- geneticists, in particular -- had the easiest time doing good work, since everyone wanted the same thing from them, and there was plenty of money and support for their work. Many said they felt their only limitation was their own abilities. Journalists, on the other hand, were in a very different situation. They felt pulled in many directions -- to work faster, to cut corners, to be more sensational ("if it bleeds, it leads") -- and, as a result, it was difficult to do good work. As an example, Dr. Gardner discusses the Jayson Blair case at The New York Times. Blair was caught fabricating elements in stories, submitting receipts for trips he never took, and, ultimately, plagiarizing. But, even before these things were discovered, he had numerous corrections in his stories. Dr. Gardner says the problem was that he was not chastised, but promoted. He did not have any kind of deep mentoring -- in which someone conveys the larger purpose of the work, explains why it is important not to cut corners, and provides regular support.

In contemporary society, particularly with the Internet, there are many ways to get around doing your own work. He says being ethical requires a good, old-fashioned conscience -- even though we might be able to get away with cheating, we need to be able to stop ourselves because we knows it's wrong and because we would not want to live in a world where everyone cheated. In such a world, we would not be able to trust anyone or anything.

To contact Dr. Gardner, please write to: Dr. Howard Gardner, Harvard Graduate School of Education, 201 Larsen Hall, 14 Appian Way, Cambridge, MA 02138. Or visit www.pz.harvard.edu/Research/GoodWork.htm

To order Good Work: When Excellence and Ethics Meet, click here.

Believe it or not, cheating - and feeling cheated - is not unique to humans. Even monkeys want to be treated fairly. Dr. Goodwin interviews primate researcher Dr. Frans de Waal, a professor of psychology at Emory University and the author of many books, including The Ape and the Sushi Master and, his latest, My Family Album: Thirty Years of Primate Photography.

Dr. de Waal discusses two different kinds of cheating found in primates. The first, deception, is generally seen only in the great apes, who are our closest relatives and capable of the highest levels of cognition. He says that in one chimp colony, in which lower ranking males were not allowed to court females, he saw one openly inviting a female to mate (which he does by showing her an erection). At that moment, the alpha male rounded the corner, and the lower-ranking male covered his penis with his hands -- hiding the evidence of his wrongdoing. Dr. de Waal has also seen a chimp try to disguise his nervousness in front of a rival. Chimps show nervosity by baring their teeth, and this chimp used his fingers to press his lips together over his teeth. This kind of behavior requires that the animal be aware of how others perceive him or her. Chimps end up distrusting other chimps who often deceive -- they develop methods for detecting cheaters. All this requires high-level thinking.

Dr. de Waal then discusses the other kind of cheating -- being shortchanged. He describes a recent study he and a student, Sarah Brosnan, conducted with capuchin monkeys. They set up a bartering system with the monkeys, in which they would give the monkeys pebbles, and then the monkeys would exchange the pebbles for cucumber pieces. Alone, a monkey would do this over and over again, until the cucumber was gone. They then put two monkeys next to each other, and, in exchange for the pebbles, they gave one of them a cucumber slice and the other a grape, which is much better. The monkey getting the cucumber seemed to have a very strong emotional reaction. He threw the pebbles out of the cage, wouldn't accept the cucumber, and basically refused to participate in the experiment. Dr. de Waal says this illustrates that monkeys have a sense of fairness. In cooperative societies (whether monkeys or humans), individuals need to make sure that they are not doing more work than others for the same reward, or the same work for less reward. He says economists have studied this in humans, since the reactions can seem irrational -- for example, a person who was perfectly happy making $40,000 a year may get very upset and quit her job if she realizes a co-worker doing the same job is making $80,000. He believes his work with the monkeys may give us clues to the evolution of the emotions behind this sort of reaction.

To contact Dr. de Waal, please write to: Dr. Frans de Waal, C. H. Candler Professor of Primate Behavior, Department of Psychology, 325 Psychology Building, Emory University, 532 N. Kilgo Circle, Atlanta, GA 30322. Or visit http://www.emory.edu/LIVING_LINKS/

To order My Family Album: Thirty Years of Primate Photography, click here.

Next, we turn our attention to a different kind of cheating -- adultery. In a special performance just for The Infinite Mind, the country music group BR5-49 performs what may be the ultimate anthem for spurned lovers -- Hank Williams' "Your Cheatin' Heart."

To find out more about BR5-49 or order a CD, please visit http://www.br549.com/.

It's hard to get an accurate picture of how common adultery is -- surveys estimate it occurs in anywhere from 15 to 80% of all marriages. Why do so many people do it? And has technology redefined cheating? Dr. Goodwin speaks with Dr. Helen Fisher, a research professor in the department of anthropology at Rutgers University. She's the author of Anatomy of Love: A Natural History of Mating, Marriage, and Why We Stray. Her new book Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love will be out in early 2004. Dr. Fisher has joined us previously for shows on Romance and Sexual Attraction.

Dr. Fisher says that she has studied societies all over the world, and, in all of them, people cheat. Because it seems to be so universal, she believes there must have been some kind of evolutionary payoff. Looking back to our ancestors, she guesses that since, in Darwinian terms, children are the way we spread our lineage to future generations, a man who cheated might have doubled the number of his genes getting passed on while a woman who cheated might have either received more resources for her babies or increased the genetic variety of her offspring. While none of this was conscious, of course, it would result in the genes for this kind of behavior being passed on. Dr. Fisher says that monogamy is not a common reproductive strategy in animals -- it only occurs in species where both parents are needed to rear the young. But even among birds, in which most species form pair bonds, there is "cheating." DNA testing shows 10% of birds' offspring are not biologically related to the supposed father.

Dr. Fisher then discusses what she believes are three different circuits in the brain -- one for the sexual drive, one for romantic love, and one for attachment. She think these developed to serve different functions. The sex drive evolved so that we would go after anything at all; romantic love evolved to focus our mating energy on one person, and therefore be more efficient; and attachment evolved so that we could tolerate the individual we are with, at least long enough to raise one child. These systems often interact (i.e. at the start of a relationship, we generally feel both sexual attraction and romantic love), but they don't always interact, and that's where adultery comes in. We can feel attachment for one person while we feel romantic love for another. This does not mean, however, that we are destined to cheat. Dr. Fisher says the part of the brain that makes us human is the prefrontal cortex -- where we make decisions.

In response to a caller, Jon, who is involved in a very serious email relationship with a married woman, Dr. Goodwin and Dr. Fisher talk about how technology is allowing people today to be more secretive about their affairs (hence all the services advertising they'll catch your cheating spouse). Another caller, Sheila, says that she thinks that any email relationship (like Jon's) or serious office friendship that takes time and energy away from a spouse is cheating. She asks what the costs are to a marriage, even with this kind of cheating, which is not sexual. Dr. Fisher says the costs are enormous -- instead of building a relationship, you're undermining it. Ultimately, all three people will get hurt. And although a spouse who is cheated on may get over the betrayal, he or she will never forget it. She concludes by saying she thinks forming an attachment to another person is the most ornate and worthwhile single thing that the human animal can do.

To contact Dr. Fisher, please write to: Dr. Helen Fisher, Department of Anthropology, Ruth Adams Building, 131 George Street, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, NJ 08901-1414. Or visit http://anthro.rutgers.edu

To order Anatomy of Love: A Natural History of Mating, Marriage, and Why We Stray, click here.

Finally, commentator John Hockenberry wonders, just what defines cheating these days? He says, "In the landscape of American culture, you can find cheating all over the map. Cheating is that place between triumph and immorality, between out of the box thinking and exploitation of the unsuspecting. The cheat-free similarly inhabit a murky place between naïve stupidity and sainthood."

Bob Jensen's threads on cheating are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Plagiarism.htm

And educators are blaming everybody except for the cheaters doing the cheating

"Malaise," by Peter Berger, The Irascible Professor, November 25, 2006 ---
http://irascibleprofessor.com/comments-11-25-06.htm

Thirty-seven summers ago Jimmy Carter spoke to the nation about our "crisis of spirit." His address became known as his "malaise" speech, even though he never actually used that word. Webster defines malaise as an "indefinite lack of health" or "vague sense of mental or moral ill-being." In order to grapple with problems like the energy crisis and unemployment, President Carter called on us to examine our outlook and our priorities.

Public schools have been staggering through their own crisis for more than a generation. Part of the blame rests directly on culprits we can see at school: bankrupt education theories and assorted follies like self-esteem, whole language, and enfeebled classroom discipline. The roots of the problem also extend to our homes and civic institutions and appear as children from single-parent families, drug use, and crime.

These are all issues we should address, but we're also suffering from an underlying malaise of unsound priorities and entitlement that's less visible but just as destructive to American education. Here are a few symptoms of our ill-being.

There's nothing new about classroom troublemakers. They've been disrupting other people’s education since before chalk was invented, but today we don't call them troublemakers. Instead, we obfuscate and invent syndromes for what they do. We say they're "behaviorally challenged." We turn their conduct into ailments like "oppositional defiance disorder." According to the psychologist who coined this syndrome, when kids with ODD have tantrums and refuse to do what they're told, they aren't "using coercion or manipulation to get what they want." They're just the victims of their own "inflexibility" and "poor frustration tolerance."

ODD isn't alone in the pantheon of euphemistic, exculpatory conditions. Horn-blasting, tailgating, and obscene gestures are no longer just unsafe, obnoxious driving. They’re not even "road rage" anymore. They're evidence of "intermittent explosive disorder." Remember that the next time some driver cuts you off and treats you to a one-fingered salute.

IED also causes "temper outbursts," "throwing or breaking objects and even spousal abuse," although "not everyone who does those things is afflicted." How do you tell the difference? Apparently, IED outbursts are characterized by "threats or aggressive actions and property damage" that are "way out of proportion to the situation," as opposed presumably to threats, aggressive actions, and property damage that aren't way out of proportion to the situation.

According to researchers, a recently administered questionnaire determined that IED afflicts sixteen million Americans. Fortunately for the rest of us who have to endure IED tantrums and assaults, they aren't "bad behavior." They're "biology."

Critics frequently charge that too many high school graduates aren't prepared for college. The new bad news is that too many college graduates aren't prepared for life. Universities are responding with "life after college" programs. These "transition courses" in what officials term "real life" skills teach college students everything from "managing their credit cards" and "paying taxes" to "making a plate of pasta" and "choosing a bottle of Chardonnay."

We're not talking about second-rate institutions. Alfred University's cooking program includes lessons in "boiling water." Across the continent Caltech awards three credits for its kitchen survival course. Sympathetic experts explain that today's college seniors "lack practical skills because they spent their teens more preoccupied than previous generations with racking up the grades, SAT scores, and activities needed to get into top colleges."

That’s ridiculous. My 1960s high school peers and I lived and died by our permanent records. Claiming that college admissions suddenly became competitive is like arguing that today's youth need extra self-esteem because they live under a nuclear threat, a popular rationalization that conveniently ignores the fact that little kids like me spent the 1950s hiding under our desks.

According to the Los Angeles Times, "preparing meals" ranks high among parents' and students' "major concerns." This begs two questions: Why aren't the concerned parents teaching these skills, and is learning how to boil water and pay your bills really what universities are for?

While they may be lost in the kitchen, students are proving themselves adept in other endeavors. Aided by cell phones and the Internet, cheating is on the rise at public schools and colleges. In a Rutgers survey, ninety-seven percent of students polled admitted to cheating in high school. Even allowing for the notorious inaccuracy of student polls, the figure is alarming.

Still more alarming, cheating has its champions among education reformers. One enlightened Northwestern University professor blames schools when students copy answers, purchase term papers, and steal exams. He's outraged that students can't copy each other's work during tests. He endorses plagiarism and objects when a student "receives no credit" for a paper just because it "was written by somebody else." "No wonder", he fumes, that students "feel compelled to lie" and put their own names on work they've "found."

He encourages "honest copying" where students get credit for copying other people's work as long as they put the real author's name on it. The professor maintains that allowing this species of larceny would "reinforce the correct behaviors." Instead of being "punished," the copier should be "rewarded" for "knowing where to seek the information." In short, we need to "recognize cheating for the good that it brings."

He's not the only advocate of cheating out there. The Educational Testing Service's "teaching and learning" vice president puts the blame for cheating on tests squarely on the tests themselves and the schools that give them. She holds that it’s "small wonder" that students "attempt to affect the outcomes" by cheating. She argues that until we allow kids to "assist each other" during tests, we're "inviting a culture of cheating."

Let's review. Psychologists are declaring obnoxious, antisocial behavior a disease. Colleges are teaching adults to boil water. And educators are blaming everybody but the cheaters for cheating.

Sounds like a malaise to me.

Peter Berger

Bob Jensen's threads on cheating are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Plagiarism.htm

From The Wall Street Journal Accounting Weekly Review on November 17, 2006

TITLE: Colleges, Accreditors Seek Better Ways to Measure Learning
REPORTER: Daniel Golden
DATE: Nov 13, 2006 PAGE: B1
LINK: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB116338508743121260.html?mod=djem_jiewr_ac
TOPICS: Accounting

SUMMARY: The article discusses college- or university-wide accreditation by regional accreditation bodies and reaction to the Spellings Commission report. Questions extend the accreditation discussion to AACSB accreditation.

QUESTIONS:
1.) What is accreditation? The article describes university-wide accreditation by regional accrediting bodies. Why is this step necessary?

2.) Does your business school have accreditation by Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB)? How does this accreditation differ from university-wide accreditation?

3.) Why are regional accrediting agencies planning to meet with Secretary Spellings?

4.) Did you consider accreditation in deciding where to go to college or university? Why or why not?

5.) Do you think improvements in assessing student learning are important, as the Spellings Commission argues and accreditors are now touting? Support your answer.

SMALL GROUP ASSIGNMENT: Find out about your college or university's accreditation. When was the last accreditation review? Were there any concerns expressed by the accreditors? How has the university responded to any concerns expressed?

Once these data are gathered, discuss in class in groups:

Has this information been easy or difficult to find? Do you agree with the assessment of concerns about the institution and/or the university's responses?

Reviewed By: Judy Beckman, University of Rhode Island

TITLE: Colleges, Accreditors Seek Better Ways to Measure Learning
REPORTER: Daniel Golden
DATE: Nov 13, 2006 PAGE: B1
LINK: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB116338508743121260.html?mod=djem_jiewr_ac

At the University of the South, a highly regarded liberal-arts college in Sewanee, Tenn., the dozen professors who teach the required freshman Shakespeare course design their classes differently, assigning their favorite plays and writing and grading their own exams.

But starting next fall, one question on the final exam will be the same across all of the classes, and instructors won't grade their own students' answers to that question. Instead, to assure more objective evaluation, the professors will trade exams and grade each other's students.

The English department adopted this change -- despite faculty grumbling about losing some classroom independence -- under pressure from the Southern Association of Schools and Colleges. The association, one of the six regional groups that accredit nearly 3,000 U.S. colleges, told the University of the South that, to have its accreditation renewed, it would have to do a better job of measuring student learning. Without such accreditation, the school's students wouldn't qualify for federal financial aid.

The shift "does cut into the individual faculty member's autonomy, and that's disturbing," says Jennifer Michael, an associate professor. "On the other hand, it's making us think about how do we figure out what students are actually learning. Maybe having them take and pass a course doesn't mean they've learned everything we think they have."

Regional accreditors used to limit their examinations to colleges' financial solvency and educational resources, with the result that well-established schools enjoyed rubber-stamp approval. But now they are increasingly holding colleges, prestigious or not, responsible for undergraduates' grasp of such skills as writing and critical thinking. And prodded by regional accreditors, colleges are adopting various means of assessing learning in addition to classroom grades, from electronic portfolios that collect a student's work from different courses to standardized testing and special projects for graduating seniors.

The accreditors aren't moving fast enough for the Bush administration, though. In the wake of a federally sponsored study published in 2005 that showed declining literacy among college-educated Americans, Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings and a commission she appointed on the future of higher education want colleges to be more accountable for -- and candid about -- student performance, and they have criticized accreditors as barriers to reform.

Congress sets the standards for accreditors, and the Education Department periodically reviews compliance with those standards. Congress identified "success with respect to student achievement" as a requirement for accreditation in 1992, and then in 1998 made it the top priority. That imperative, along with the advent of online education, has spurred accreditors to rethink their longtime emphasis on such criteria as the number of faculty members with doctorates. Since 2000, several regional accreditors have revamped their rules to emphasize student learning.

"Accreditors have moved the ball forward," says Kati Haycock, a member of the Spellings commission and the director of the nonprofit Education Trust in Washington, D.C., which seeks better schooling for disadvantaged students. "Not far enough, not fast enough, but they have moved the ball forward."

An issue paper written for the commission by Robert Dickeson, a former president of the University of Northern Colorado, complained that accreditation "currently settles for meeting minimum standards," and it called for replacing regional accreditors with a new national foundation. "Technology has rendered the quaint jurisdictional approach to accreditation obsolete," Mr. Dickeson wrote.

The commission didn't endorse that recommendation, but its final report last month cited "significant shortcomings" in accreditation and called for "transformation" of the process. In a Sept. 22 speech marking the release of the report, Secretary Spellings said that accreditors are "largely focused on inputs, more on how many books are in a college library than whether students can actually understand them....That must change."

David Ward, a commission member and the president of the American Council on Education, a higher education advocacy group, declined to sign the report, in part because he objected to its criticism of accreditors as overly simplistic.

Russell Edgerton, president emeritus of the American Association for Higher Education, says "there's no question that American colleges are underachieving," but he argues that accreditors are rising to the challenge. "Ten years ago, I would have said that regional accreditors are dead in the water and asleep at the wheel," he says. But "there's been a kind of renaissance within accreditation agencies in the past five to six years. They're helping institutions create a culture of evidence about student learning."

Mr. Edgerton also thinks the federal government's emphasis on new accountability measures is flawed because it bypasses the judgment of traditional arbiters like faculty and accreditors. "The danger is that the standardized testing approach in K-12 would slop over into higher education," he says. "Higher ed is different."

Jerome Walker, associate provost and accreditation liaison officer for the University of Southern California, agrees that the administration's attacks on accreditors are unfair. The Western Association of Schools and Colleges, which accredits USC, "has been extremely sensitive" to student learning, he says.

According to the Western Association's executive director, Ralph Wolff, the group revamped its standards in 2001 to require colleges to identify preparation needed by entering freshmen and the expectations for student progress in critical thinking, quantitative reasoning and other skills. Its accreditation process now takes four years, up from 1½, and it features a detailed, peer-reviewed proposal for improvement and two site visits, including one devoted to "educational effectiveness."

Historically, research universities like USC "used to blow off" accreditation, Mr. Wolff says. "Now this has become a real challenge for them in a good way."

Encouraged by Mr. Wolff, USC last year assigned the same two essay questions -- one about conformity, another based on a quotation from ethicist Robert Bellah -- to freshmen in a beginning writing course and juniors and seniors in an advanced course. A group of faculty then evaluated the essays without knowing the students' names or which course they were taking. The reassuring outcome, according to Richard Fliegel, assistant dean for academic programs, was that juniors and seniors "demonstrated significantly more critical thinking skills" than freshmen, and that advanced students who had taken the first-year course outperformed transfer students who hadn't taken beginning writing at USC.

Because the writing initiative is tailored to USC's curriculum, the results -- while helpful to administrators and accreditors -- wouldn't necessarily help the public compare USC to other schools. That is a big drawback as far as the Bush administration is concerned. "I have two kids in college now," says Vickie Schray, deputy director of the Spellings commission. "It's a huge expense. Yet there's very little information on return of investment or ability to shop around for the greatest value."

She adds, though, that it is a "misconception" to think that the administration wants to have "one standardized test for all institutions" or to extend the testing requirements of the "No Child Left Behind" law for K-12 schools to higher education.

Even so, one standardized test of critical thinking, the Collegiate Learning Assessment, is becoming popular. It adjusts for students' scores on the SAT and ACT college-entrance exams, potentially allowing more meaningful comparisons of the value added by colleges. The number of schools using the assessment has soared from 54 two years ago to 170 this year. Among those using the test this fall: the University of Texas at Austin, Duke University, Arizona State University and Washington and Lee University.

Roger Benjamin, president of the nonprofit Council for Aid to Education, which sponsors the test, says state officials and university administrators have been the principal forces behind its increasing use. "Accreditors are coming to the party, but a bit late," Mr. Benjamin says.

Meanwhile, Secretary Spellings plans to meet with accreditors in late November to discuss how to "accelerate the focus on student achievement," Ms. Schray says. Accreditors say they welcome the opportunity to tout their progress. "We have made a lot of reforms," says the Western Association's Mr. Wolff. "We'd like to bring the secretary up-to-date on the significance of these reforms and the impact they're already having on institutions."

Colleges, Accreditors Seek Better Ways to Measure Learning
Assessment/Learning Issues: Measurement and the No-Significant Differences --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Assess.htm#AssessmentIssues

Bob Jensen's threads on assessment are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm

Bob Jensen's threads on higher education controversies are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm

The NFL's Highest Paid Quarterback Finds His Most Reliable Use for Both Hands
Michael Vick apologized for making an obscene gesture toward Atlanta fans as he walked off the field after the Falcons' fourth straight loss Sunday. Vick used both hands to deliver the gesture and flashed an angry look toward the handful of fans remaining in the Georgia Dome.

Paul Newberry, The Herald Tribune, November 26, 2006 --- Click Here

Next time this store clerk most certainly won't forget to go to confession
The Rev. Joseph Tu Tran, 51, from St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church in Pointe-aux-Chenes, was "highly intoxicated" when he went into Roland’s Mini-Mart in Bourg around 8 p.m. carrying a 12-gauge shotgun and later threatened a store clerk with a .270-caliber rifle,
"Karina Donica, "Houma-area priest charged with assaulting officer, firing weapon," WWLTV New Orleans, November 26, 2006 --- http://www.wwltv.com/local/stories/wwl112606tprampage.293fc161.html

Grants Available from the FASB: YOU MUST ACT SOON
November 21, 2006 from Neal Hannon at the FASB --- Neal Hannon [njhannon@f-a-f.org]

The Financial Accounting Foundation and XBRL US, Inc. are looking for a few SEC notes and disclosures experts for a short-term assignment. The primary need is to build a data model for the XBRL tagging of notes to financial statements. Subject matter experts need to research authoritative literature, research current reporting practice, and assemble the results into a data model that can be coded with XBRL. Focusing on SEC filings, our team has identified over 175 notes and is in the process of assembling accounting subject matter experts. The work is fully funded at corporate rates. It may be possible that some assignments can be completed during the Christmas break. Training in XBRL for subject matter experts is scheduled for Dec 13-15 at the FDIC training center in the Washington, DC area. If you are interested, please forward your resume to njhannon@f-a-f.org

Thanks, Bob and I wish both of you all the best.

Neal

PC World's Digital Duo Videos (Tech Advice) --- http://www.pcworld.com/digitalduo/video/224-0/video.html

"The Single Worst Thing About MS Office 2007," by Jim C, PC World, November 20, 2006 --- http://blogs.pcworld.com/techlog/archives/003172.html

I've said here that I'm a fan of Microsoft Office 2007. After using it even more, for most of my daily work, I still am. But one major downside merits mention: It's kind of an unfinished product.

What I mean by that is that the suite's new interface, which is by far the major reason to consider upgrading, has only been implemented in some of the applications. Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Access have it throughout; Outlook has it for the tools relating to composing e-mails, tasks, and contacts.

But everything else in Office 2007 has the old, traditional, menu-oriented interface--the one which Microsoft says its own research shows users think pales in comparison to the new one. Here, for instance, is a bit of Word 2007's tabbed, visual look:

Jensen Comment
So what's new? Every Microsoft product is an unfinished product!

Since when does lack of interest count when setting curriculum requirements?
The University of Reading, in Britain, announced Monday that it would go ahead with plans to close its physics department, The Guardian reported. The university has cited a lack of fund and declining student interest, but the decision has been widely criticized by scientists throughout Britain, who see it as a sign of potential erosion of the country’s science capacity.
Inside Higher Ed, November 22, 2006

New Gizmos for Spying On Your Spouse or Your Kids or Your Employees
One evening two months after I installed the CarChip, I suggested to my wife that we light some candles, put on some soft music, gather at my computer, and review her driving record. Although the CarChip records only how fast the car is moving, the patterns in my wife's daily routine made it easy for us to figure out where it had been traveling at which points on the graph. When the car starts at 8:50 a.m., drives three miles, and stops at 9:15 a.m., that's a pretty good indication that my wife has just taken our twins to school--and gotten there 15 minutes late. She does this with staggering regularity.
Simpson Garfinkel, "Spying On My Wife: Surveillance gizmos are a part of my life. What do they reveal?"MIT's Technology Review, November 14, 2006 --- http://www.technologyreview.com/InfoTech/17720/

	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	% of 2005 total
Total	25,496	24,582	25,274	26,272	27,974	100.00%
Male	16,166	15,369	15,757	16,415	17,405	62.2
Female	9,286	9,163	9,517	9,856	10,533	37.7
U.S. citizens	15,049	14,341	14,635	14,741	14,912	53.3
-White	12,225	11,486	11,612	11,630	11,848	66.1
-Asian	1,053	1,035	1,008	1,066	1,114	4.0
-Black/Hisp./ Amer. Indian	1,282	1,354	1,346	1,393	1,428	5.1
Non-U.S. citizens	9,213	8,861	9,480	10,154	11,516	41.2

Field	1996	1999	2002	2005
All	42,437	41,092	39,953	43,354
Science and engineering	27,240	25,931	24,582	27,974
Science	20,931	20,601	19,505	21,570
-Agriculture sciences	1,118	1,065	1,009	1,038
-Biological sciences	5,724	5,581	5,690	5,939
-Computer sciences	920	856	807	948
-Earth/ocean sciences	724	723	689	713
-Mathematics	1,122	1,083	919	1,203
-Physical sciences	3,826	3,562	3,185	3,647
—-Astronomy	192	159	141	186
—-Chemistry	2,149	2,132	1,921	2,127
—-Physics	1,485	1,271	1,123	1,334
-Psychology	3,494	3,668	3,197	3,327
-Social sciences	4,003	4,063	4,009	4,138
-Engineering	6,309	5,330	5,077	6,404

Non-science and engineering	15,197	15,161	15,371	15,380
-Education	6,785	6,546	6,491	6,229
-Health	1,324	1,407	1,653	1,777
-Humanities	4,711	5,035	5,029	4,947
-Professional/other	2,377	2,173	2,198	2,427

Field	1996	2005
All Fields	40.0	45.1
Science/engineering	31.7	37.7
-Agricultural sciences	27.2	36.2
-Biological sciences	42.2	48.8
-Computer sciences	15.1	19.8
-Mathematics	20.6	27.1
-Chemistry	28.2	34.0
-Physics	13.0	15.0
-Psychology	66.7	68.0
-Social sciences	36.5	44.7
-Engineering	12.3	18.3
—-Chemical engineering	17.9	24.0
—-Electrical engineering	9.7	13.4
Non-science
-Education	61.7	66.7
-Humanities	49.7	50.2

1. U. of California at Berkeley	802
2. U. of Texas at Austin	716
3. U. of Michigan	711
4. U. of Wisconsin at Madison	664
5. U. of California at Los Angeles	651
6. U. of Minnesota	644
7. Stanford U.	642
8. U. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign	637
9. Pennsylvania State U.	606
10. Ohio State U.	591
11. Massachusetts Inst of Technology	581
12. U. of Florida	574
13. U. of Southern California	554
14. Purdue U.	522
15. Texas A&M U.	511
16. U. of Washington	511
17. Harvard U.	510
18. U. of Maryland	499
19. Michigan State U.	475
20. Columbia U.	472

1975	1980	1985	1990	1995	2000	2005
Count Percent	Count Percent	Count Percent	Count Percent	Count Percent	Count Percent	Count Percent
787 2.4	640 2.1	789 2.5	1036 2.9	1330 3.2	1065 2.6	1168 2.7

Grade inflation from HS to Grad school

MakingMusic 2 (Encyclopedia of Musical Instruments)
http://homepage.mac.com/davidahmed/makingmusic.html

Bob Jensen's threads on music helpers are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#050421Music

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