Topic: education

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Every once in a while I run across this question from people wanting to get a PhD: "I am interested in going on to the PhD level but I have run into a wall. Most of the traditional schools I have looked into want me to quit my job and attend full-time. I can't do this because of my family and house payment."

There's a reason schools want you to be a full time student at the PhD level: it's the only way it will work. Getting a PhD isn't like getting a BS or MS; it's an apprenticeship to become a professor. One of the most important things you will learn is how to do research and how to publish your results. That's more than a full time job. You won't have time for anything else.

Remember, you're asking a professor to make a BIG commitment to you when he or she takes you on as a student. Understandably, they require that you make a commitment back. Speaking from experience, having a PhD student is like taking on another child. I wouldn't do it for anyone not willing to put some skin in the game.

Your major professor will be the most important factor in determining what you get out of your PhD. Pick your professor, not the school. The good thing about the top 40 schools (roughly the top 20% of PhD granting institutions for Computer Science) is that they'll have multiple stars. You'll likely find someone who you want to work with and who wants to work with you there. But a school further down the list who has a professor doing work you're interested in shouldn't be overlooked.

Whereas, undergraduate and, to a large extent, masters-level study are education on a mass production basis, studying for a PhD is a completely individualized experience that is customized to the person and their interests. The resources necessary to create a single PhD graduate can probably support dozens of undergraduates. You simply can't expect the department to commit those kind of resources to someone who is unwilling to commit to the course of study on a full time basis.

No online PhD program will give you what you want or need: the mentoring that comes from a PhD program. Skip them.

It comes down to this: you can't apprentice one place and work somewhere else full time. If you really want a PhD, then find a way to quit your job, sell your house, and go to school. Keep in mind that in school, you'll get paid as a TA or RA. That plus some faith is enough to get most people through. If you do otherwise, you will cheat yourself out of one of the most tremendous learning experiences that any one can have. I've never been sorry I got a PhD. I heartily recommend it to the curious and committed.

Tags: phd computer+science education

Sometimes it’s not so much about real learning as it is just learning your place.

Crazy.

Moderator: Saad Khan, Partner CMEA Ventures

Panelists: Jose Ferreira, CEO Knewton; Jeff Shelstad, CEO Flat World Knowledge (new type of publisher that uses open source concepts for textbooks); Brian Jones, Senior Counsel, Dow Lohnes LLC (former general counsel of US Dept of Education.)

Saad. Presumption is that education needs to be reformed. What are the problems?

Jose. Internet and computing has revolutionized other industries, it is inevitable that it will revolutionize education also. It will solve the distribution problem. Makes distribution of content almost free. The best professor at HBS could only reach so many people. Koby Bryant is paid so much because he can entertain so many.

Brian. There is a political dimension to the K12 system that you don’t always see in post-secondary. Enormous sums of money coming into education from the stimulus bill, to improve student outcomes and teacher effectiveness. There’s a real fertile ground there. That is exciting. Particularly the amount of money the Federal government is investing.

Jeff. Coming out of the print side, the internet has already had a distruptive impact on textbook industry. Students can find alternatives to textbooks. We think textbooks needs to be redefined, built differently. He (Knewton) is taking one tact; we’re taking another. Perhaps we’ll merge eventually.

Jose. At local CVS there are 30 types of toothpaste. Yet, we standardize education for everyone. What we do at Knewton is we personalize it. We serve it to students based on what they need–sentences, paragraphs, pictures, videos, games. Depending on how you learn. And how you retain. Hyper personalized learning will power this flood of content on the internet which I think is coming.

Jeff. Flat World — we are trying to transfer the power of what takes place in the classroom to the teacher, so make the book match your course, rather than vice versa. To the student, we’ll deliver the content in any format they want at a fair price.

Saad. SRI report looked at effectiveness of online education vs. in classroom personal teaching. Online was more effective. Are you seeing that?

Brian. The post-secondary sector has shown us because of diversity of providers, is emphasis on different types of students and different modes of learning. The rise of the for-profit school sector is that it is serving non-traditional students. The for-profit sector has led the way in online delivery of content. We have students that work during the day, so classroom mode doesn’t work for them. K12 is a late comer to that, but we are seeing an emphasis on outcomes and a new openness to these alternatives. We have a competely online charter school in DC. It was controversial. Some people said, aren’t they really home schooled, and aren’t we giving taxpayer money to home schoolers? But what is coming out is that this mode of education is working for these kids. For whatever reason. Engaged parents. Maybe parents have religious reasons for not wanting their kids to participate in traditional schools. But the outcomes are positive. The more we focus on the true deliverable and the outcome of the technology, you’ll see door swing open and resources will follow.

Jeff. I got an online degree from Duke. They were an early pioneer in part off-campus part on-campus. In an online environment, the important of the instructor is actually raised. I had some poor expeiences in the 16 courses I took at Duke, some great experiences. Depended on the instructor. I think students like the flexibility of online, but I”m not sure I believe the report. I still the faculty member is vital in this process.

Jose. A couple interesting things about the report. Most online eduation has been astonishingly bad. U of Phoenix is big in online. My former employer Kaplan is in this too. Online is the future of this company. (And of the Wash Post). Their model is assisted self study online education. Attend a chat room with a mediocre teacher once a week. In 10-15 years that won’t be the model. It will be, you want to learn German? In 8th grade. You’ll go online and get one of the best teachers in the country, a dynamic teacher from Exeter. There will be thousands of courses.

Saad. Megastudy out of Korea, is a public company. They got the best Korean teachers, syndicated their content, delivered it oline, shared revenue with teachers. Hundreds of millions in EBITDA. They turned some teachers into millionaires. Gave them the Kobe Bryant audience you mentioned.

Jose. In 2000 there were 45,000 online German students in the country, now there are something like 2 million. If a parent wants the child to learn Chinese and the school doesn’t offer it, it won’t matter. Any course will be available. That movement will transform education in this country. Any elective.

[I just followed Knewton and Flat Work Knowledge on Twitter.]

Brian. Higher education in this country is very high-brow; they don’t like outsiders, particularly those seeking a profit, coming in to do things differently. There are 4,000 charter schools in the country. That is where you are finding openness to this kind of technology. We are the first charter school authorizer in the country–we hired the Boston Consulting Group. We built a technology infrastructure. We have 99 charter schools in the city. Hospitality high school. Residential school serving low income kids. Our infrastructure lets us compare schools so consumers can see what school would work best for them–plus mission specific criteria, so the hospitality high school gets measured on unique criteria as well. I’m surprised we were the first to build this kind of technology to assess outcomes.

Saad. Assessment is a good thing to look at. There used to be zero transparency in advertising. Feels like there should be a big opportunity to get transparency in student performance, across schools, etc. Are you seeing a lot of assessment technology?

Jeff. Yes, in higher ed, it’s a significant movement. To deliver assignments through a platform, and feed a professors gradebook, is a service the industry moving towards. It’s happening. Some great platforms out there. A big movement for all institutions, faculty and students.

Jose. You can’t built personalization without assessment, very granular, very discreet (self-contained), and no hiding results. I joked with my investors–if our adaptive learning platform works we’ll have data to show it. If it fails, we should go out of business. A typical Kaplan course will raise GMAT by 35 points. We have a 50 points guarantee. We give virtually no money back. We are measuring 100 points on average. We take text book content, like we took text prep. So the reporting shows how good the class was doing on each concept. The teacher might get an email showing that the students as a whole are struggling with certain concepts.

Brian. In the $4.5 billion that DOE is distributing to states in the race to the top, the state has to be able to assess a teacher in part based on their students’ achievement. The kind of technology Jose is talking about is essential in moving things along. Some states make it difficult to evaluate teachers. At the K-12 level there are infrastructure things that need to be addressed. School districts and states are going to have to change or get left behind. We have to realize, though, there is some resistance there.

Saad. What is the most helpful thing the government could do to help you be successful as you push boundaries of education technology?

Jeff. Eliminate tender? (laughed) If you take UMass online, a competitor to U of Phoenix, it has been successful. University of Illinois launched and failed. Why was UMass successful, but Illinois wasn’t? That’s a classic case study. There are incentives and infrastructure issues.

Jose. Govt should put more computers in schools. I never even thought about getting government money, so I raised venture capital. If nation’s best and brightest had been going into education and not finance during the last 10-15 years, we probably would have solved the problems already. There has to be incentive for top minds to go into this field.

Audience question: can a young person today apply themselves without a formal education and get the skills you need to succeed? (Like Bill Gates did?)

Brian. Most of the research is pretty clear that on average, the more education you have, the better off you will be in the marketplace. You cite Bill Gates as an example. You also have Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods–but you don’t necessarily want to use those examples and have kids think they can succeed without education, even though a few do.

Jeff. Big publishers are very scared of the electronic world. They will move very slow in terms of transparency. They want to control everything.

Jose. I talk to the big publishers all the time. Some are changing. Oxford (sic) is thinking of this.

Jeff. Five companies control 85% of the market.

Audience–I have no doubt adaptive learning will create better test scores, but what you learned at Harvard, you didn’t just learn from a professor or a textbook. You learned it from 80 other people in your core. How will that change by technology?

Jose. I believe schools in the future will have fewer teachers, 5,000 electives, but still a blended model. You’ll still have kids in schools, being socialized, learning from other kids. Lets say 5 years down the road we have OUP’s content. Maybe we’ll have 10 million kids that do geography that learned geography. The 10 million and 1th kid comes; our system will query, which kids previously had this problem, and also, what learning style did that kid have? We’ll find out what they did next, and which way they learned it. So then we can produce that same learning experience — anonymously — and use it to power the learn of one kid, on one night, on one concept.

Audience. I’m not questioning the value of the system. But the concept of a PhD is to have a thought that no one really had before. [She seemed to care more about the personal interaction of students than the panelists.]

Brian. We have a program that has 85% of their program online, but one day a week they come to brick & mortar. They can also engage in extra curricular activities.

Audience comment: I’m looking for people that can learn how to provide solutions in very complex situations. I find that very bright young people cannot communicate. They have a ton of information. But they can’t connect the knowledge to reality. The problem with the US educational system, you do not teach students how to learn. I see technology being helpful to create learning paths for individuals, and accomodate applying knowledge. I think you are missing providing them with process that can be tailored to individuals and groups.

Audience question. Every new technology comes with evangelists (I’m one) promising that it will change everything. Why now? Why is this different?

Brian. Now, because there has been a culture shift in education that is undeniable. There is a focus on outcomes. That is different. It began in the 1990s. We built on it since 2001. I’m talking K-12 here. It was led by policy makers, but the technology has enabled it. Since the 60s billions have been spend on education, but test scores are lower. It’s bi-partisan now. Some hold on to the status quo. Look at how teachers unions have responded to Pres. Obama’s plans to assess teachers–they whined at first but are coming around.

Saad. I’ll add that technology lets you go direct to the student. There is the class, where the channel is the school. But social networks and the web let you go directly to the student.

Jeff. I think it’s a great question. The textbook wasn’t supposed to exist in 2001 when I was in the industry in 1996. The difference, jumping on Saad’s point, but I think it’s going to be slow still, but the consumer is more powerful today than it was when I was at Prentice Hall, but it will be slower than we all think.

As a follow up to yesterday’s post, at least one Utah School couldn’t wait until the 8th to let educational propaganda start rolling.

Here’s the video they showed in school assembly (which included 1st graders).

Overall, I thought there were several inappropriate parts (including a part about flushing “deuces”), but perhaps the most dangerous lines were:

“I pledge to be of service to Barack Obama.”

and

“I pledge to be a servant to our president and all mankind.”

Remember these are first graders here: impressionable sponges (and not too discerning). We ought to be indignant.

But those quotes seem to be in line with Obama’s compulsory service plan:

“Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by developing a plan to require 50 hours of community service in middle school and high school and 100 hours of community service in college every year.” (emphasis added)

I would be very surprised if Obama’s September 8th’s in-school address to students didn’t have similar sections, intended to grease the skids on the “Community Service” draft.

Regardless, we should never pledge allegiance to the president –particularly when that president willfully reneges on his presidential oath to uphold and defend the constitution. To me, this projection of blind subservience into the classrooms of our unsuspecting youth is profoundly disturbing.

“When an opponent declares,
‘I will not come over to your side.’
I calmly say, ‘Your child belongs to us already…
What are you? You will pass on.
Your descendants, however,
now stand in the new camp.
In a short time they will know nothing
else but this new community.’”

–Adolf Hitler

Hopefully this video of a retiring NEA veteran telling us what he really thinks will shame some of our local UEA members out of sending their dues to the National Education Association.

If nothing else, the video repudiates any notion that the NEA and its affiliates –the same labor unions that convinced Utahns to kill education vouchers– are really looking out for you and yours.

Some choice quotes:

“… Why are these conservative and right-wing bastards picking on NEA and its affiliates? I will tell you why: it is the price we pay for success. NEA and its affiliates have been singled out because they are the most effective unions in the United States, and they are the nation’s leading advocates for public education and the type of liberal, social, and economic agenda that these groups find unacceptable.”

No argument there! But, it wouldn’t be near so bad if that liberal, social, and economic agenda wasn’t constantly trickling into the classrooms!

Another:

“And that brings me to my final and most important point, which is why, at least in my opinion, NEA and its affiliates are such effective advocates. Despite what some among us would like to believe, it is not because of our creative ideas; it is not because of the merit of our positions; it is not because we care about children; and it is not because we have a vision of a great public school for every child. NEA and its affiliates are effective advocates because we have POWER. And we have power because there are more than 3.2 million people who are willing to pay us more hundreds of millions of dollars in dues each year –because they believe that we are the unions that can most effectively represent them, the unions that can protect their rights and advance their interests as education employees. [Standing applause]

This is not to say that the concern of NEA and its affiliates with closing achievement gaps, reducing dropout rates, improving teacher quality and the like are unimportant or inappropriate. To the contrary, these are the goals that guide the work we do. But they need not and must not be achieved at the expense of due process, employee rights, and collective bargaining. That simply is too high a price to pay!

Wait, so collective bargaining (protecting your pocketbooks at taxpayer expense), and due process (making it difficult to fire bad teachers) are more important than having good teachers –teachers who are actually successful at educating children?

Think about that, seriously. They say protecting teachers is more important than reducing the dropout rate –the very minimal standard of educational achievement. What kind of backwards priority is that? Is it any wonder the US is getting is getting lackluster results?

Continuing:

When all is said and done, NEA and its affiliates must never lose sight of the fact that they are unions; and what what unions do, first and foremost, is represent their members.”

Yeah, tell me about it. If only there was some organization that represented schoolchildren and their parents… Oh wait, there is!

If you didn’t watch the video, please watch it! I’m afraid that much of the smugness just can’t come across in plain text.

Growing up my Dad did everything in his power to ensure I went to college. He’d take me to our local church building to borrow the Satellite and watch BYU Football games on TV. He engrained in us throughout High School to get grades that would prepare us for the best school we could go to. Heck, I think he even bribed each of me and my siblings with a free computer if we went to college. He, a college grad and MBA knew something that we didn’t about college.

You see I never got why he was so passionate about it though. I had 2 passions in grade school - music/arts and computers. Neither really required a degree to finish. I was also an entrepreneur - throughout High School I would get the art students to donate their artwork and I’d create T-shirts out of the artwork. I would then re-sell the T-shirts at a 50% increase on my cost. I would also buy candy in bulk from Sams Club and sell that to all my friends. The entrepreneur thing only added more fuel to the fire when it came to school.

It was for this reason that I really dragged my feet when it came to college. I went through several schools, none of which I really call home (perhaps a semester each), all while working full time as a software developer during the dot-com boom. I was becoming just as successful as a software developer there as I would have ever become going to school. In fact, at that time, I probably would have made less coming out of school than I would have at the rates I was getting paid writing websites and other software. It made no sense to me.

It wasn’t until the dot-com bust happened that I finally decided to give it a try. I was laid off from my job and having trouble finding work, and realized, while I had the same or more experience as those I was competing with in my job search, their degrees were getting them the jobs. I decided to do something about it, and I found a school I could work full time while supporting a family and still do well in school. I ended up graduating Summa Cum Laude at Strayer University, having challenged (pass the Final exam with I think B or above) or proved work experience for about half my classes, and the others received straight A’s.

The funny thing is that it wasn’t until I went to school that I realized why school was so important. While the degree is important and will open doors for you, the power of a good education is in the variety of classes and new areas of education you’re exposed to. I was exposed to the arts and literature, along with economics and accounting. I learned what a balance sheet was and the basic tenets of marketing. Even in my own field I was able to be exposed to Oracle, Cisco, and architecture and design techniques I would have never been exposed to elsewhere. I could now make decisions in my own field, based on a much broader mindset, than I ever could before. It was at that point I realized why school was so important for anyone in big business, or especially an entrepreneur like myself. I’ve used so much of that as I’ve ventured off to do my own thing.

For many of these reasons, I found this Commencement speech by Larry Page, co-founder of Google very inspiring. Here you have a very rich and successful entrepreneur, who could have probably achieved his career without a degree saying such things as “This University, that is responsible for my existence…”, and “[in college] I was taught how to make dreams real…” He almost talks with regret that he never received his PhD. There is something more than just that degree with school. I hope, that if you are debating going to school or not, that you watch this, find the right time to do it, and seriously consider it as something more than just a piece of paper:

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Photo Copyright Stay N’ Alive Productions, LLC

Next week (April 22nd), SiliconSlopes.com will be sponsoring the first of a series of “Myth Buster” events dedicated to helping HR, Recruiting and Real Estate professionals get insight into helping people make the decision to relocate to Utah.

In this episode of our podcast, we talked with Jan Johnson, a marketing professional who had to make the decision herself to relocate to Utah and still calls Utah her home though she works and consults for companies wherever she is needed. She has worked at Business Week as a technology journalist, has had experience with silicon valley startups and is currently providing marketing consulting services for startup companies or startup-divisions within companies to help them train up their salesforce and put
together lead generation programs.

She is also the organizer of this “Myth Buster” series of events sponsored by Silicon Slopes.com, surrounding the challenge of recruiting people to Utah.

The first event, which is free, which will be held next week on April 22nd, noon to 1:30pm at the Waterford School Concert Hall in Sandy, Utah.

From the SiliconSlopes Event Page:

What do you say when a new executive recruit into Utah turns to you and says:

Should I send my kids to Utah public schools? What are my options?

Join the Silicon Slopes sponsored panel discussion and “open-mic” Q&A featuring local private and charter school representatives discussing K-12 educational opportunities in Utah. What are the education concerns of the newcomer and how do independent schools and charter schools provide alternatives? What characteristics do parents value most and consider essential to a quality education? How are independent and charter schools unique and what are their distinguishing benefits?

Speakers Include:

* Josh Coates, Founder & former CEO, Mozy (Berkeley Data Systems)
* Todd Winters, Director of Admissions at Waterford School (private)
* Clark Baron, UCAS Principal (charter)
* Marlies Burns, Director of Charter Schools, Utah State Office of Education
* Karren Hyde, Dir of Admissions, Rowland Hall

NO CHARGE TO ATTEND

RSVP and register online at http://siliconslopes.com/recruiting directions are also available at this link.

Related posts:

1. Smarter Recruiting Using Next-Generation Tech From EnticeLabs
2. Paul Allen: How to Raise Money in Difficult Economic Times

Cecil O. Samuelson began his work as the 12th president of Brigham Young University on May 1, 2003.

President Samuelson is a Salt Lake City native who has served at the University of Utah as professor of medicine, dean of the School of Medicine and vice president of health sciences. Prior to his call as a full-time General Authority of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he was senior vice president of Intermountain Health Care. He holds a bachelor of science degree, a master’s degree in educational psychology and a medical degree from the University of Utah.

Dr. Samuelson fulfilled his residency and held a fellowship in rheumatic and genetic diseases at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina. He has received numerous scholastic honors and is the author or co-author of 48 original publications, eight books or chapters of books and 13 abstracts. He also has served as a director, officer or member of several national medical and hospital organizations.

Elder Samuelson was called in 1994 to serve the Church of Jesus Christ as a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy. At the time of his assignment to BYU, he was a member of the Presidency of the Seventy. He has served the Church of Jesus Christ also as a regional representative, stake president, stake high councilor, branch president and missionary and as an area president in the Utah North Area and the Europe North Area. He and his wife, Sharon Giauque Samuelson, have five children and 11 grandchildren.

Today, Amazon announced the widely anticipated Kindle 2 with a ship date of February 24th. I immediately ordered one. 

I bought my first Kindle in Dec 2007 and absolutely love it. As a frequent business traveller, I just bring my Kindle instead of packing half a dozen books with me. Usually I’ll buy a book or two just as I’m boarding a plane, so I can read for hours. I save a ton of money buying books on the Kindle compared to hard or paper-backed versions. I still have about 2,000 books in my personal library, and I adore books–everything about how they feel, how I can mark them up, write notes in the back pages, etc.–I even love the smell of old books. But even though I love books I always first check to see if the book is available for Kindle, because the advantages of having books on my Kindle outweigh for me the advantages of having a physical book.

Last year I travelled in Europe, and during the trip my Kindle screen got fried. It turned completely black. The device was useless. I learned then how much I don’t like travelling without a Kindle. The first thing I did after returning home was call Amazon to see if I could get a replacement.

In less than a minute I was speaking with an Amazon customer service representative. I explained the problem with the screen and he said he’d send a replacement device immediately. In fact, he overnighted it. And now, here’s the kicker. As soon as I got it and registered it, all of the books I had previously purchased for my Kindle were downloaded through Amazon’s Whispernet. I lost all my notes and comments and bookmarks from all the books I had read on my Kindle, but I soon discovered that that was my own fault. There is a setting that allows Amazon to store all of your Kindle notes, comments, and bookmarks in the cloud, so that if you ever lose your Kindle or if it breaks, all of your personalized content can be re-downloaded.

Needless to say, all my personalizations are now stored in the cloud. So when I get my Kindle 2, and my library is downloaded, all of my personalizations will come with it. I’m sure in some future version, Amazon will make it possible for me to easily share (on my blog or favorite social network) passages from books, as well as my comments about them. I also anticipate that sooner or later Amazon will be able to create some social apps that utilize the aggregate bookmarks and highlights of all the Kindle readers, so they could, for example, publish the most popular quotes from any book–a virtual Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations. 

I really do look forward to future versions of Kindle that turn book reading into a very social experience; but I truly hope that Bezos never turns this device into a multi-purpose computing device that supports games and other applications. I think that would ruin the potential of this device.

I think that reading the right books is the best way to get a great education. To salvage the failing US education system we should do whatever it takes to get millions of kids reading great books once again. I think the best way to do that would be for states to purchase Kindles for every student (I’d say 7th-12th grade) in their education system, and to provide great age appropriate books for these students every year. Perhaps states should also carve out at least 30-60 minutes of reading time every day, in the classroom, for students to use their Kindles. Teachers could then lead stimulating discussions about what the students had read. (You’ll notice that in my political philosophy, I believe that state and local governments, and parents, are responsible for educating children. The US Federal Government has no constitutional authority or role in education–even thought it has been usurping such authority steadily over the past few decades. I just don’t like it at all.)

My home state is Utah. I think Utah pays about $65-70,000 for a K-12 education for each student. The cost of a Kindle with hundreds of the best books ever written in a variety of fields (with a decent percentage of them being in the public domain, and therefore free, or nearly free) would be miniscule compared to this. And yet I think it could make a difference for a lifetime for the students, who could then carry with them every great book and every textbook they had studied from, including their notes and highlights, into the workplace and beyond.

I remember when Duke University required all incoming freshman to own an iPod, so that they could listen to great books and lecture notes, etc. The problem with devices that are multi-purpose, is that the students may use them for everything but education. I bet the majority of Duke students used them for their music more than for anything else.

If the Kindle ever becomes a multi-purpose portable computing device, with downloadable games and other applications, it would in my mind destroy its potential to become the educational device of the future, which encourages and invites millions of students to read the great books–because it would be so easy for students to be distracted by everything else it offered.

I want to thank Jeff Bezos for making the Kindle a brilliant, single-purpose device to enable and encourage more reading, and I hope that he will be able to continue to produce future versions that still center on reading, even if enabling more social sharing around the reading experience. But please don’t be tempted to make this a device for music, games, or fun. We already have plenty of those.

I got this email from Parents for Choice in Education last night.

Transparency in Education Forum, Jan. 14th

On Wednesday January 14th, the Sutherland Institute is hosting a forum called Transparency in Education, featuring John Fund of the Wall Street Journal.  The forum will include a sneak peak at Utah’s new transparency website.

We encourage you to attend the forum, both because of the importance of transparency and because John Fund is a great speaker (He’s spoken at PCE events in the past).

From our perspective, financial transparency in education is crucial to empowering citizens and increasing accountability, especially in an education system with limited choice. Increasing transparency is one of the main reasons we created the website www.UtahEducationFacts.com.

As we mentioned in our latest email bulletin, transparency will be a key issue in the 2009 legislative session.  Last year, the Legislature passed a law requiring government agencies at the state level to post financial data online for public scrutiny.  Senator Niederhauser of Sandy is sponsoring a bill for 2009 that will extend the transparency requirements to local government, including school districts and charter schools.

The event costs $25 per person and is on Wednesday, January 14th from 2 to 4 pm in downtown Salt Lake City.  To reserve a seat, call (801) 355-1272 or visit www.sutherlandinstitute.org.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *
For more info about the event, see this flyer.

To learn more about financial transparency in education, go here.

Please consider becoming a member of Parents for Choice in Education if you haven’t yet. It’s free, and it’s a darn good way to stay abreast of movements in education reform (which I think we need now more than ever).

By the way, I’m putting events like this on a colaborative Utah Liberty Events Calendar. You should subscribe if you’re into that kind of stuff (and let me know if you’d like to contribute).

A few months ago, I wrote that Governor Huntsman’s “monitoring” of gas prices was just political BS, and that purposely encouraging a misunderstanding of basic economics for political gain was a bad idea.

Well, it turns out I was wrong: just the threat of State oversight made Utah gas vendors stop being greedy, and now Utah enjoys some of the cheapest gas in the nation!

(OK, you’re onto me: that was BS too. But Utah really does have some remarkable gas prices right now.)

Anyway, my friend and former neighbor Kerk (who is also an Econonmics professor at BYU) has an excellent post that could serve very well as a follow up to my aforementioned rant:

Current Gas Prices (December 2008)

Look at the above map from GasBuddy.com. The price of gasoline in northern Utah these days is about as low as any place in the US. If you live in Utah you know the press here goes into fits of apoplexy whenever gas prices in Utah are higher than the rest of the country. Last Spring all we heard about was how the greedy gas station owners were profiteering and charging unfair prices to Utah drivers. In 2006, KSL radio host, Doug Wright, tried to organize a one-day boycott of gas stations because Utah gas prices were the 4th most expensive in the nation. Now that prices are down no one is talking about who is being unfair to who. Using the same arguments, one could argue that motorists are now colluding to drive down the price of gas and harming gas station owners. Of course this is silly, but it makes as much sense and is just as logical. Inevitably, in the future some time the price of gas in Utah will rise above the national average and our local press will go nuts again. Remember this picture when that happens.

Brilliant!

I think we’d all be better served with an understanding of basic economics. That way we can let our news media go back to talking about family-pet hit-and-runs, celebrity lookalikes, local American Idol runners up, and the like. That’s right, Doug Wright: we should be boycotting you.

Seriously though. Whenever you hear some news anchor or some politician spouting out things that are blatantly stupid, you should ask yourself: “Are they stupid, or do they just think I’m stupid.” Then ask yourself which is better. Do you want news by dumb people, or news for dumb people?

Interestingly, I heard it reported that because of relatively lower wholesale gasoline prices, station owners are actually making more money right now with low retail prices than they were making with high retail prices. Go figure.

Yes, we are being (relatively) gouged on super cheap fuel.

Outrage, anyone?

I don’t get things right as much as I’d like when it comes to the market but my Latticework Linkfest back in late February was spot on:

In times of recession, when unemployment is high, the unemployed go back to school to add marketable skills and increase future earnings power. The leading companies in for-profit education include Strayer Education (STRA), DeVry (DV), ITT Educational Services (ESI), Career Education Corporation (CECO), Capella Education (CPLA), Corinthian Colleges (COCO), and industry giant Apollo Group (APOL). Apollo operates the ubiquitous University of Phoenix campuses. This investment thesis has worked in past recessionary times, but the unique risk this time around is the possibility that the credit crisis will hamper students’ ability to repay or obtain school loans.

The for-profit education companies mentioned have for the most part been immune to the market’s recent collapse. Some have even made significant money for their investors. The risk that students and prospective students being unable to borrow tuition dollars is still very real but has yet to have a material effect. Unlike a sample basket of leading technology bellwethers like Apple (AAPL), Google (GOOG), Yahoo! (YHOO) eBay (EBAY), Microsoft (MSFT), Amazon.com (AMZN) and Oracle (ORCL) that destroyed wealth, if you invested in a basket of these education stocks, you’d have a juicy profit or at least preserved most of your wealth.

The leading education companies collectively appreciated approximately 31% since my post published February 25 all the way to yesterday’s closing prices. If an investor had put $100,000 in each of the leading companies in that space, that basket would be worth over $921,000 today. The leading technology companies, as great as their brands and products may be, collectively lost almost 26% of market value. The index that is most apropos as a benchmark in this comparison, in my opinion, would have to be the NASDAQ Composite, which lost 26% of its value as well. An investor putting initial capital of $700,000 in either the NASDAQ Composite or the technology basket would have only $518,000 of value remaining. That’s a whopping difference of approximately $403,000 between the education portfolio vs. the technology portfolio or the NASDAQ index.

Have I been able to profit off this insight? Unfortunately no. I went into cash on June 25th for the majority of my portfolios and my private investment partnerships. In a summer of uncertainty and volatility, I thought it would be a prudent measure to preserve wealth - which has turned out to be a service for my investors and myself (unless of course inflation is higher than what the government is officially reporting). The real estate asset bubble appeared to have made other things expensive as home equity propped up prices in the stock market and other financial markets.

What’s next? Given the stellar performance of for-profit schools, I would take some profits off the table. As much as I admire Warren Buffett, I don’t have the capacity for pain to buy and hold like the old master of value investing. On a macro level, the risks to the education sector in particular and the market in general are still profound. The next shoe to drop will be fund redemptions or withdrawals from mutual funds and hedge funds, which I alluded to in Long Term Capital Mismanagement. If this occurs in a heavy way, the overall market will lose some more value and push us deeper into this bear market. The other shoe that could drop would be a failure of the consumer credit market. Credit card companies will reduce credit lines as consumers fail to meet monthly credit card payments. Consumers no longer have rising home equity to feed their spending habits. Rising unemployment also increases the likelihood of household bankruptcies.

What can we learn from this downturn?

From an investing point of view, there are always countercyclical investments available. Higher in the value chain of countercyclicals are the for-profit education companies. They are far more attractive than the conventional defensive stocks such as food manufacturers like Kraft Foods (KFT).

From a business point of view, I can only speak from the technology startup standpoint as that is where I spend much of my time. It is nice to see that people will be going back to school to learn new skills and improve their future earnings. But as much as I believe that talent can come from anywhere, as a startup entrepreneur I can seldom take the risk of hiring people out of these for-profit vocational schools. I’d rather hire someone without a degree but was passionate enough to teach himself how to write code. Or I’m looking for the genius from Stanford or MIT who dreams in code.

We all know that the rigor of most of these vocational schools like Strayer and University of Phoenix just isn’t up to par with our top national universities or even regional ones like University of Utah, Brigham Young University, University of Colorado, University of Arizona, or University of Nevada Las Vegas. Vocational institutions’ lack of selectivity (anyone can sign up for school with Strayer while prestigious institutions like UC Berkeley reject an overwhelming majority of applicants) and their lack of rigor means a bunch of job candidates with bad habits. Of course there are rare outliers and standouts, but does a startup have the time to evaluate and separate the few good from the mostly mediocre?

A startup’s early days are its most productive and critical. Founding teams employ magic to make something out of nothing. Startups cannot afford to take risks on what most likely will be mediocre talent. Let the large soulless organizations like Ingenix (UNH), Convergys (CVG), and IT departments across the Fortune 500 suck up all the graduates from vocational schools like Strayer, Capella, and DeVry. While the for-profit education companies can make for great investments, their graduates would usually make poor investments.

I've mentioned a few times on Twitter that I'm on the board of directors for the Open High School of Utah and some people have asked to know more.

The Open High School of Utah is an online public charter high school based on open source course content. Not "open source" in the software sense, but "open source" in the sense that all the course content is openly licensed. We're taking applications for 9th grade in Fall 2009 right now. Utah students attend for free.

The open courseware model is one that's been working for some time at MIT, but as far as I know this is the first high school committed to a complete, accredited, 9-12 grade education on open source course content. It's not as easy as I assumed when the idea was first put to me. There are some gaps to close.

A key aspect of the model is that with open course content, the content can be modified based on data about what works and what doesn't. With licensed content (and there are several sources for that), you can't modify it because of copyright issues. And you certainly can't redistribute the updates.

This idea of iteratively improving the course through data is one of the research interests of Professor David Wiley, a fellow board member and the founder of the high school. He's a big proponent of open content and writes an open content blog.

This is a fun project. I'm learning a lot and there are very many people who are anxious to find ways to reinvent education. Openness and education go together. We need to get back to that model. Current, entrenched, incumbent business interests (text book publishers, school districts, and others) won't go there. But others can and I'm excited to be part of those explorations.

Tags: utah education open+source ohsu

The Deseret News is reporting that Governor Huntsman has ordered the Utah State Department of Commerce to monitor gas prices.

That’s just politics as usual, but I’m alarmed by how many people here in “conservative” Utah are commenting that they want the government to step in and “do something” rather than just “monitor”. It’s like we’re all living in some fantasy land where socialism works…

Attention people: price controls only ruin your quality of life. Prices that are artificially low cause shortages, and shortages mean hoarding, rationing, and long lines at the pump. Some days you just won’t get any. Do you seriously want that?

We should be thankful that the State is only “monitoring” for now. Ideally it wouldn’t be monitoring at all, because that’s a slippery slope –especially because political motives are involved. Plus, “monitoring” could be easily be done by an activist group or a not-for-profit –and they could do it without spending your tax money. That said, I will be interested to read the DoC report; I just wish it were generated by someone else and on someone else’s dime.

By the way, where were the government monitors a couple months ago when Utah enjoyed the lowest prices in the nation?

Prices fluctuate. If they’re unfair to either party, the market will insure that they become fair. That’s how free markets work. No intervention is necessary; in fact, intervention is almost always counterproductive.

Utah, the nation, and the world need a healthy dose of Econ 101. We shape our governments by our will, and if the voting public is ignorant of basic economics, our stupid will may well lead to our own demise.

I highly recommend Sowell’s Basic Economics: A Citizen’s Guide to the Economy to anyone who wants an excellent treatise on economics, especially as it pertains to government.

It’s been called the Digital Divide, the gap between those people with effective access to digital information technology… and those who don’t.

We’re talking with Kelly Dumont, Curriculum technology teacher specialist at Jordan School District, in the Salt Lake City, Utah area. He’s a self-proclaimed edublogger and podcaster.

What’s happening in education today that will help students prepare for an increasingly hyper-connected world that’s ever flattening and only going to become more c

I’d like to encourage everyone who voted FOR referendum 1 to please go to the Parents For Choice in Education website and register as a supporter. If the voucher concept ever resurfaces to sees the light of day in Utah (and I think it will since we only needed to sway an additional 12% of voters), we’re going to need people on the ground to pass out fliers, place yard signs, and host neighborhood meetings in their homes.

There was just too much misinformation out there. The opposition spent millions of UEA dollars to send daily mailers and buy up something like 6x the TV spots, and those anti-voucher ads were full of lies. The only way you can combat that kind of FUD campaign is to have a groundswell of grassroot support, willing to do what it takes to make sure that every citizen has the facts.

Please sign up now so that next time we can know our supporters and better coordinate our efforts. Help us ensure that parent’s choice in education never gets railroaded by union special interests again.

This is not over.

Here’s a campaign status update from Parents for Choice in Education:

Some polls done by the media show that the school voucher law is behind in statewide opinion surveys. While we always knew this Referendum would be an uphill battle against a wealthy entrenched special interest union with millions in out-of-state cash, we remain confident.

This election will be decided by turnout. Normally, odd-year elections have very low turnout. Conventional wisdom has been that Referendum 1 would lead to higher turnout, but early numbers show that voters have been less than expected.

We have the votes to win, if those voters will show up and cast their ballots. The most important thing you can do is to get to the polls on Tuesday, and take other Referendum 1 supporters with you. We can win this election if you show up and vote!

This really is about turnout, so please take the time to get out and vote. Call your family. Call your friends. Let them know that this is important to you.

I’m going to repost this ad, because I think it may be helpful for some of the undecideds.

If you haven’t done your homework, these people have. Which side do you tend to agree with?

Powerful Union interests have spent millions of dollars on dishonest ads to try block this good legislation. But if you believe in low taxes; limited government; free market principles; and parents’ fundamental right to let their children learn how, where, or what they may; you really need to vote FOR referendum 1.

—–

If you would like to hand out fliers and talk to undecideds near voting stations please call Deb at 727-460-2853 and she can get you some materials.

Here it is in its entirety.

Wall Street Journal
Union Libel

November 5, 2007
REVIEW & OUTLOOK
Utah’s children may not excel in math or English, but their teachers are very good at instructing them in how to run a political campaign. As 2007 achievement test data show another disappointing year for the state’s children, the teachers union is running a multi-million-dollar campaign to insulate itself from competition.

On Tuesday, Utahns will vote on whether to proceed with a statewide voucher program enacted in February. The plan passed both houses of Utah’s legislature after a rough-and-tumble debate, and was signed by Governor Jon Huntsman, Jr. But the teachers union immediately launched a ballot initiative to overturn the law and succeeded in blocking it from taking effect prior to Tuesday’s vote.

A new report from the Utah Foundation shows the state’s public education could certainly use a shake-up. The states most similar demographically to Utah, by measures such as student poverty and parental education, are Iowa, Montana, Nebraska, South Dakota and Wisconsin. Utah finishes last in this group, based on eighth-grade scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Utah youngsters trail the pack across the range of core subjects — last in math, last in reading, last in science.

Still, the unions are banking that fear of the unknown will trump demonstrated incompetence. The opponents have raised a bundle to disseminate their predictions of doom, including more than $3 million from status quo headquarters, the National Education Association. They’re stoking that fear with antivoucher TV ads that aren’t winning high marks for honesty. Salt Lake’s KSL-TV, an NBC affiliate that has editorialized against vouchers, nonetheless felt compelled to label as “false” the central claims in two recent attack ads against vouchers.

One ad featured the “Utah teacher of the year” claiming that vouchers “take resources away from public schools.” In fact, the law provides only up to $3,000 per child toward private school tuition, depending on family income, and the voucher money comes from the state’s general fund, not the education budget. The average voucher will cost $2,000, but the state now spends $7,500 per student. The public schools get to pocket the difference, $5,500, without an obligation to provide any services. So the more parents choose vouchers, the higher per-student spending will rise in the public schools.

Another attack ad claimed that private schools would have “no accountability,” when in fact they are required under the law to report to parents how their children in voucher-supported schools do each year on nationwide achievement tests. Market-based competition will force exactly the kind of accountability that the unions fear in public schools.

Judging from recent polls, the scare campaign is winning. Still, supporters of school choice say that the voucher law could still survive, thanks to expected low turnout among the general population and higher-than-normal turnout among Utah Latinos, who make up roughly 12% of the population. Nonprofit Hispanics for School Choice reports an aggressive get-out-the-vote effort of personal visits and phone calls, and increased attention on Spanish-language radio, and at community events and church services.

Allowing the landmark voucher law to go forward would be a victory for students of all races, with more choices for parents and more opportunities for students. Halloween is over; Utahns should ignore the horror stories from unions trying to protect themselves, no matter the consequences for kids.

I’m going door to door talking to people again today. On the one hand, it’s rewarding to meet so many people that are FOR parents’ choice in education, but it’s easy to see how this has been and continues to be a real uphill battle. It takes a long time to educate people on a new policy, but it takes only a few seconds with some empty bullet points to create doubt.

That’s why the opposition is spending so much money on ridiculously inaccurate FUD campaigns. According to KBYU’s public affairs documentary, the anti-voucher people have at least 3x the budget (thanks to our national teachers’ unions) and they’re using it to buy up between 5 and 7 times more TV and mail ads.  Those ads, in my opinion, are flagrantly misleading.

That’s why it’s crucial that every voter in Utah take the time to get the facts about Referendum 1. Right now the polls are just too close to be complacent about your right to choice in your children’s education.

—–

If you’re interested in taking it to the streets either today or tomorrow, please contact Deb, a grassroots coordinator. Her number is (727) 460-2853. Otherwise, call your friends and family. We need every vote.

Conner notated the following quote, which I thought would be an interesting Sunday post for the LDS folks who follow my blog.

I am opposed to free education as much as I am opposed to taking property from one man and giving it to another who knows not how to take care of it… I do not believe in allowing my charities to go through the hands of robbers who pocket nine-tenths themselves and give one tenth to the poor… Would I encourage free schools by taxation? No!

Author: Brigham Young, Source: Journal of Discourses Vol. 18, p. 357

Now there’s something to chew on. I don’t know about you, but I’m with Brigham. Referendum 1 would take us one step closer to this conservative ideal.

I should clarify that (to me) this is not a religious issue. A conservative catholic or a libertarian Baptist might have said the same thing, and I’d still agree 100%.

It’s easy for normal folks to get lost in an issue with so much rhetoric.

That’s why I was thrilled to get this ad in the mail:

This ad makes it easy for people like my mother-in-law to feel safe in a Parents’ Choice vote, despite claims from voucher opponents that

The real “bureaucrats and liberals” are the subsidy advocates and out-of-state voucher pushers looking for Utah to save their faltering national movement.

and

The issue isn’t about choice, is a liberal subsidized entitlement program that competes for scarce resources.

(Both those quotes come right out of the “against” portions of the 2007 Utah Voter Information Pamphlet, with my emphasis added.)

So, wait a minute… Sean Hannity, Mitt Romney, & Focus on the Family are liberal? What does that make Hillary, Atheists United, and the Rainbow Coalition? Can you ever be so far left that you actually wrap around? Voucher smearers, I think you may have a beam in your eye.

I only wish the pro-vouchers list had included the Utah Taxpayers Association and the late, Nobel prize winning economist Milton Friedman, from whose stellar essays the voucher bill is based. I think a lot of questions on the fiscal and tax impacts of Referendum 1 could have easily been answered by their inclusion.

BTW, I think that perhaps the dumbest statement I heard at Provo High School’s voucher debate was when an anti-voucher lady (whose name I don’t know) declared that she thought it was offensive that the Choice in Education side was citing some economist when these were Utah’s kids we were talking about it.

Some Economist –> Milton Friedman, arguably one of the greatest thinkers of our time.

Utah’s Kids –> Your Kids

In case you’re worried about the tax implications of Utah’s referendum 1, please take a moment to read the Utah Taxpayers Association’s most recent newsletter or watch the “Truth by the Numbers” video they put together.

The Utah Taxpayer’s Association is very pro-voucher.

If you’re still researching Referendum 1, I highly recommend Utah’s choice in education website.

There are also a number of voucher debates being held (and broadcast) all over Utah.

Whichever your persuasion, please put in the time to do the research and become an informed voter.  If you’re just relying on what lands in your mailbox, you’re not getting the full picture.

I’m a big proponent of parents’ choice in education, so I was initially discouraged a few weeks ago when I saw a that a telephone survey showed a majority of Utahns opposed to Referendum 1.

Since then, however, I’ve become convinced that it can pass, partially because many of the people opposed to the legislation simply won’t vote. (Think about it –have you seen more signs FOR or AGAINST referendum 1? Those are voters.)

I was also encouraged to learned that normally standard questions like “Do you plan on voting this year?” and “Did you vote in municipal elections last year?” were not asked in the survey, possibly leading to a numbers bias as far as votes are concerned.

Lastly, I’ve also seen a TON of anti-voucher ads appearing in my mailbox. That’s a condition that would not occur if the opposition felt the cat was in the bag. Rather, they’ve done their research and know it’s dangerously close; and thus the deluge of expensive ads.

The question, therefor, is can we get out the vote? I think we can and will; but if we want to get the voters to the polls, you and I need to go a little outside of our comfort zone and talk to our friends, family, and neighbors. If we want to win (and win we must) we need to beat the ads by getting the word out on a very personal level.

So - I’m putting my mouth were my mouth is: from now until election day (just over a week from now) I will vary (as is my right) from my normal biz and tech format to blog exclusively about why I think Referendum 1 must pass –and what we can do to ensure that it does. I’ll outline its merits, debunk some common misconceptions, and hopefully I’ll win some of you over at the polls.

As a side note, I know that this is a hotly debated issue. It’s in my nature to avoid those, but to me (personally) this is just too important to ignore. I’ll try to keep a level head about it, and I hope you will too.

Please feel free to post your thoughts and comments –just know that I probably won’t be able to respond to them all. If you do comment, try not to be belligerent since I will be moderating every post, but do free to challenge my opinion as long as you’re nice about it. I welcome niceness regardless of its source! :)

And now, without further ado: let the posts begin!

This last week I spent some time checking up on some projects that I have been following over the last number of years. While looking at some projects that I was aware of, I came across one that I had not seen - Scratch. I have to admit that after playing with Scratch for a few days, and showing it to my son, nephew, and niece, I am thoroughly impressed.

Scratch is a project being worked on at MIT, with some affiliation with UCLA, and sponsored by a wide range of backers … and it is an impressive development tool … for kids! Their own website describes it as:

Scratch is a new programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art — and share your creations on the web.

Scratch is designed to help young people (ages 8 and up) develop 21st century learning skills. As they create Scratch projects, young people learn important mathematical and computational ideas, while also gaining a deeper understanding of the process of design.

Coupled with the Scratch language and environment, there is also a “social” site where Scratch users can upload programs and sample code, and download these same programs to then learn from them, modify them, and re-upload them.  I sat down and wrote my SpiroSprite program in maybe 10-15 minutes … and uploaded it to my Scratch account.
The environment and language is influenced by the Logo and Smalltalk languages, and presents a very simple, yet powerful way to learn login, event-driven programming, and create fun software.  From what I understand it is written in Squeak … which seems to be continuing to slowly gain momentum.

For anyone that wants to explore the concepts of programming, with or without their kids, I’d suggest downloading a copy of Scratch and beginning to experiment.  It’s really an impressive project!

As a merchant and a customer, the credit card industry has been a difficult one for me to understand, but as a merchant, a necessary evil, and as a customer, a convenient and safe way to purchase. I recently read a clear explanation of where credit card fees come from by Braintree Financial. Thanks for the write up!

As a merchant and a customer, the credit card industry has been a difficult one for me to understand, but as a merchant, a necessary evil, and as a customer, a convenient and safe way to purchase. I recently read a clear explanation of where credit card fees come from by Braintree Financial. Thanks for the write up!

Graduation was last Friday. The David Eccles School at the U graduated approximately 1,100 students with bachelor’s, Master’s, and Ph.D. degrees. I love graduation. It is a truly joyous event for everyone involved. Everybody is happy, families and graduates are rightly proud of the accomplishment graduation represents, and we had a huge crowd in the [...]

I’ve always loved Dick Eastman’s newsletter and I invited him to dinner last Thursday when I was in Boston. He took me to the Union Oyster House, the oldest continuously operating restaurant in the U.S.

Besides great food and a great evening, I learned from Dick and from a document at the restaurant that Charles Forster from Maine was the first U.S. citizen to manufacture toothpicks. To jumpstart business, he hired Harvard Law Students to eat at the Union Oyster House (the “in” place to eat in Boston) and ask for a toothpick. When the restaurant admitted they didn’t have toothpicks, the Harvard boys were instructed to make a scene about it. After 5 or 6 Harvard boys complaining about the lack of toothpicks, the Union Oyster House placed an order. Apparently, when the oldest restaurant in town carried toothpicks, the rest of the restaurants in Boston followed suite. From Boston, toothpicks spread throughout the country. Nice marketing idea.

I’ve always loved Dick Eastman’s newsletter and I invited him to dinner last Thursday when I was in Boston. He took me to the Union Oyster House, the oldest continuously operating restaurant in the U.S.

Besides great food and a great evening, I learned from Dick and from a document at the restaurant that Charles Forster from Maine was the first U.S. citizen to manufacture toothpicks. To jumpstart business, he hired Harvard Law Students to eat at the Union Oyster House (the “in” place to eat in Boston) and ask for a toothpick. When the restaurant admitted they didn’t have toothpicks, the Harvard boys were instructed to make a scene about it. After 5 or 6 Harvard boys complaining about the lack of toothpicks, the Union Oyster House placed an order. Apparently, when the oldest restaurant in town carried toothpicks, the rest of the restaurants in Boston followed suite. From Boston, toothpicks spread throughout the country. Nice marketing idea.

I fulfilled a life-long dream of boarding the U.S.S. Constitution. I built a scale model of the ship when I was young and I’ve always wanted to visit it. The Navy launches the ship about 8 times per year. They have a raffle for those who get to launch with her. I’m going to enter the raffle until I get to ride that beautiful ship.

Interesting facts given by the tour guide:

1. 500+ crew.
2. 9-11 sailors needed for operating each gun.
3. 44 guns.
4. Originally called the U.S.F. (United States Frigate) because of the number of guns on the ship.
5. All ships today are U.S.S. (United States Ship) because there are so many different sizes and combinations of guns today.
6. Oldest commissioned Naval vessel in the world.
7. Had 33 engagements during its day. Never lost one.
8. Rudder weighs 5,000 pounds.
9. Masts have been replaced 4 times.
10. The ship was originally commissioned to protect young America’s merchant fleet which found itself unprotected by the Royal fleet following the Revolutionary War.

I can’t believe I didn’t have a camera when I was there. It gives me an excuse to go back.

I’d like to hear Seth Godin speak in Utah. If entrepreneurship or marketing or sales interests you, I’d recommend participating in this. $50 means you hear Seth speak, have a book and four books to give as gifts. Not a bad deal. Good idea Seth.

I’d like to hear Seth Godin speak in Utah. If entrepreneurship or marketing or sales interests you, I’d recommend participating in this. $50 means you hear Seth speak, have a book and four books to give as gifts. Not a bad deal. Good idea Seth.

I knew the labor shortage was acute when I started seeing signs out on the street advertising for employees. The University’s parking services as signs in all the parking lots describing “great jobs” for students on campus, retail stores are trying to persuade customers to become workers, and companies are using signs out by the [...]