Fallen Astronauts

Today is the 20th anniversary of the loss of the space shuttle Challenger, which famously exploded 73 seconds after liftoff on a beautifully clear but tragically cold Florida morning. Francis Scobee, Michael Smith, Ellison Onizuka, Judith Resnik, Ronald McNair, school teacher Christa McAuliffe, and Gregory Jarvis (of Hughes Aircraft Co) were killed on live international television.

Also, yesterday marked the 39th anniversary of the Apollo 1 flash fire that took the lives of Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee.

And this coming Wednesday marks the third anniversary of the disintigration of the space shuttle Columbia as it reentered the atmosphere. Rick Husband, William McCool, Michael Anderson, Kalpana Chawla, David Brown, Laurel Clark, and Ilan Ramon were killed.

I would like to post a little bit about the future of NASA in the coming days, but I will leave today as this blog's Day of Rememberance for 17 astronauts who lost their lives in the dangerous endeavor of spaceflight.

Exit Exams

Should a student have to pass an exit exam before being awarded a diploma? Is that a good idea? Would such a high-stakes test be fair?

While the high school exit exam may be difficult for some seniors to pass, a majority of South Valley students who were asked about it Tuesday feel it's a necessary test -- even those who haven't yet passed it.
High school senior Amanda Garcia is one of them. She has taken the exit exam three times. She has passed the English component of the two-part exam, but still needs to pass the math part of the test, she said.

HT to Right on the Left Coast for this article, which is a good read despite the use of the hated "irregardless".

The California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE) has two parts:

English-language arts and mathematics. English-language arts goes through grade 10 standards. The mathematics portion is a little bit of grade six standards and a lot of grade seven standards, and there are 12 Algebra I questions out of 80 total questions that students are scored on in math.

The math part of the exam consists of all multiple-choice questions...
Students have to get 55 percent correct on the math part of the test and 60 percent correct on the English-language arts part of the test to pass each of those portions.

Like Darren at RotLC, I don't understand the argument that a diploma should be awarded to students whose primary qualification is that they kept showing up, year after year. The biggest problem I have with the Virginia SOLs is that they are micromanaged - in every course, the required state-wide homogeny stifles the ability of teachers to adapt and expand into topics of greater teacher expertise... or student interest! Teachers around the Commonwealth complain that they have been reduced to teaching to the test. Obviously, students are taught a lot of things they won't remember or use as adults - I'm willing to admit that an understanding of the Hawley Smoot Tariff is really not that necessary to most people. And that's coming from a guy who is both a history buff and an amateur economist.

An exit exam that focuses on ensuring minimum competency in the basic "three R's" just seems like an idea no reasonable educator could oppose.

Always Off My Guard

"DAAAAAaaaaaaAAAAAaaaaaaad?"

5-year old Wulf, Jr. was yelling at the top of his lungs from the opposite end of the house. His little sister was asleep. He knows better. I quick-timed it to the back bathroom and snapped at him.

"What is your problem? Your sister is sleeping - why are you yelling all through the house?"

The boy looked up innocently from the toilet and said, "Well, you see, I have too much energy..."

How can I do anything but laugh?

Students and Pluto

It's the week before midterms, and I have been worried about the knowledge level of my students. They really put my mind at ease for a while today, as they derailed my review session briefly to discuss the New Horizons probe launched for Pluto.
They knew its speed. They compared it to escape speed and orbital speed. They reminded each other of the difference between a projectile and a satellite. They sidetracked to the Stardust capsule that brought comet dust back to earth, parachuting safely to the Utah salt flats last week.

They knew things about New Horizons I didn't.
1) It is powered by 24 pounds of plutonium dioxide.
2) There were protests over this. [eyes roll]
3) It carries "the first student-built science instrument to be sent to another planet," a dust-counting device designed and built by University of Colorado students.
4) It also carries some of Clyde Tombaugh's ashes.

Okay, that last one chokes me up just a little.

Incidentally, if you are unfamiliar with Celestia ("The free space simulation that lets you explore our universe in three dimensions") and Google Earth, I highly recommend you download them and play with them. Especially science teachers with access to computers in the classroom. My students seem much more familiar with the scale and the names of the bodies in the solar system this year because of Celestia. And it's just fun to play with.

John Stossel vs Public Schools

I don't watch John Stossel. I don't even know what channel he's on - I'm sure ABC is somewhere between 2 and 30 on my TV but I honestly don't know. My friends say I would love the guy - he's libertarian, he does hard research, blah blah blah.

I didn't see his special last week, but he's had quite a lot of mail about it. He has posted an article/column, Myth: Schools don't have enough money

Many such comments came in after the National Education Association (NEA) informed its members about the special and claimed that I have a "documented history of blatant antagonism toward public schools."

Disclosure - I am not in the NEA and I think they're full of crap.

The truth is, public schools are rolling in money. If you divide the U.S. Department of Education's figure for total spending on K-12 education by the department's count of K-12 students, it works out to about $10,000 per student.

I am curious... what do you suppose that figure goes to when special education is taken out? I am sure it is still too high, and special ed is its own separate issue, but I would like to know.

America spends more on schooling than the vast majority of countries that outscore us on the international tests. But the bureaucrats still blame school failure on lack of funds, and demand more money...
A study by two professors at the Hoover Institution a few years ago compared public and Catholic schools in three of New York City's five boroughs. Parochial education outperformed the nation's largest school system "in every instance," they found -- and it did it at less than half the cost per student.

This article doesn't really supply much in the way of an argument. He provides some figures to support what I already knew, but I guess the meat was aired last Friday on 20/20, whatever channel that is. I'll troll EducationWonks and Google for reaction, but I would also welcome the comments of any who watched the special.

Math in the Classroom and Sex in the Parking Lot.

In Chesterfield County Virginia (bordering on Richmond), a high school special education teacher has been charged with taking indecent liberties with a student. She appeared in court today, and the focus of the reporters was on her attire, of all things. She is reported to have worn a "short dress, a tight green dress". A local AM DJ Mac Watson tried to start a conversation about whether such an outfit was inherently inappropriate for a person being charged with any kind of sex crime.

Mac soon found however that the conversation needed to focus on something else. He had so many calls and emails supporting the woman, that he felt the need to take his audience to task. This 39 year old mother and teacher is accused of taking indecent liberties with a minor - a friend of her 16 year old son. The reaction of listeners ranged from, You shouldn't judge her before she goes through the due legal process, to the predictable, Hell, what's the problem? Every 16 year old boy dreams about that, and she's just giving him what he wants! Who is hurt by that?!?

Mac addressed both of these arguments in the short time I was able to listen.

First, the due process argument. He and his producer listed off several other legal cases in which absolutely zero calls have come in from listeners concerned about due process, including a member of Chesterfield County Board of Supervisors who is also a P.E. teacher, who was accused last month of two sex crimes against a minor. The difference? This teacher is a woman, Mac says. The audience and the media have no problem hanging a man out to dry for sex with a minor, but a woman... that's just hot.

Double standard? I hate to jump to conclusions without more study, but it seems like a double standard. So... is it? If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, isn't it a duck? Interestingly, William Saletan has an article on Slate.com on this topic - it is also available on audio, check the link. And he takes on this issue like a good scientist - not with his gut, but with facts. And he says this is no duck:

The new public enemy is the bespectacled babe who teaches our kids math in the classroom and sex in the parking lot... I hate to change the subject from sex back to math, but this frenzy—I'm trying hard not to call it hysteria—reeks of overexcitement. Sex offenses by women aren't increasing. Female offenders are going to jail.

(emphasis mine)
I don't like to make broad generalizations, nor generalizations about broads (what movie is that from?), but anecdotal evidence - my gut - tells me that people do see it differently. There is some double standard. Debra Lafave deserves to serve time, even if her lawyer says she is too pretty for jail. Imagine a man making that argument - I'm too pretty for prison. It wouldn't work - double standard, at least for the general media and general public.

But the numbers don't lie. The legal system isn't allowing a rash of female teacher sex scandals. It just seems that way. William Saletan's article is pretty clear (he credits Slate intern Ben Raphel with the heavy work), and it will have to be the final word on the subject for me, unless someone digs up better research to refute it. That looks like a tall order.

So what about the second argument from the listeners of the radio show today? That it's okay because that boy wanted it? Putting aside for a moment the issue that he doesn't get a say in the legality of the woman's alleged actions, this one is definitely a double standard. I have yet to even see an argument on this. It is simply understood that when a male teacher seduces a minor and claims she (or he!) wanted it, it is statutory rape or worse. When a female teacher seduces a minor and claims the student wanted it, well, that's a little different. Many people nod wisely. Others shake their heads sadly. It is only a small minority who proclaim that this is the same thing on a moral level. An older man and a teenaged girl - that popped up all over the place in my history books. It just isn't seen the same way, and I don't know that I want to make a strong argument on how I feel about it, other than to say that teachers always have to be careful. Everybody has to, but how many people in society are surrounded by 17 year olds all day? Keep the window shades and classroom doors wide open, teachers.

Oh, and whatever you do, don't wear a tight, short green dress to court.

iPod Clothes

If only there was a way for my students to have their iPods in the classroom without it being conspicuous.

Levi Strauss has announced a new range of jeans specifically geared toward iPod users. They come complete with built-in headphones, joystick, and even a docking cradle.

Perfect.

Nanoelectronics

Financial Express is reporting that nanoelectronic techniques have been added to the biannual ITRS. The International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS) is an assessment of the semiconductor technology requirements. The stated objective of the ITRS is to ensure advancements in the performance of integrated circuits. This assessment, called roadmapping, is produced by semiconductor industry associations from Europe, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and the US. It is used by the industry as a planning tool to determine how best to spend R&D money.

The Financial Express article summarizes:

The transition to a post-silicon era is forecast...
The shift away from conventional silicon transistors has become an important part of the industry's thinking, though the use of nanotechnology is not expected to replace current chip-making processes for another decade. The urgency in moving to molecular electronics is propelled in part by recognition that conventional technologies, despite significant advances, will not be able to sustain indefinitely the chip industry dictum, known as Moore's Law, that projects a doubling of computing power roughly every two years.
The semiconductor industry has repeatedly found ways to make conventional transistors ever smaller, making it possible to place more transistors on a single chip for increased computing power and capacity. Currently the smallest of modern transistors are no more than a handful of molecules across; the industry believes it can continue to shrink conventional transistors for only the next decade.
But even those minuscule transistors are bigger than the new class of nanoelectronics, composed of components as small as individual molecules. Researchers are experimenting with a variety of new materials beyond silicon, including organic molecules and carbon nanotubes.

All emphasis added by yours truly. The original article seems to be from NYT.

Stem Cell Fraud

In the wake of the reports that a South Korean research scientist had faked his results has come a deluge of questions about scientific integrity and the value of peer review. The implication has been that peer review should have caught the fraud before publication. What good is science if it sometimes publishes things and then later takes it back?

As BizzyBlog wrote on 12/17,

Why the need for an “independent verification” if the paper was already “peer-reviewed”?

This attitude demonstrates a misunderstanding of peer review and of science itself.

Science is not a club or a church. Science does not issue edicts or statements of truth in the way many seem to imagine. Just because a researcher has published some work does not mean that it comes with a stamp of veracity that all scientists sign on to.

BizzyBlog (and others) have come to terms with this during the course of this scandal, but have now raised a second concern (which I find completely legitimate): the effect of using taxpayer money to support researchers in uncertain scientific fields, such as stem cell research. If public money is spent without full understanding and disclosure, our public trust has been violated.

BizzyBlog's suggestion:

So the next time you hear the term “peer-reviewed,” I would substitute these words: “passed the smell test (maybe, and if the person submitting the work is ethical and conducted his/her work conscientiously and honorably).”
Given the ever-larger dollars, very often tax dollars, that are based on the reliability of scientific work, standards must be raised, even if it costs money up-front (auditors, if you will) to raise them, and even if scientists’ egos are bruised in the process.

Given that federal funds are being used I see the author's point, although in the interest of full disclosure I must say that I am too libertarian to support federal funds for stem cells or most other scientific research anyway. But even with federal expenditures in the field, these audits are not necessary if we all understand how science works, and what "peer review" actually means. BizzyBlog now outlines a December 30 WSJ article by Thomas Stossel, American Cancer Society Professor at Harvard Medical School and co-director of the division of hematology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, who sums it up nicely:

If reporters understood that journals are magazines, not Holy Scripture, we might not be witnessing ever more onerous regulations inhibiting interactions between academic and industry science.

Dr. Walter Witschey, director of the Science Museum of Virginia, has written an article (here) that hopes to explain the process of peer review for those who do not understand it. In layman's terms. I highly recomment it if you have never submitted a paper for publication in a scientific journal.

Happy New Year

It is amazing how little meaning January 1 has to me these days. My entire life, it has been a big deal. I was excited to stay up late as a school child. It was one of the wildest nights of the year in college. I lamented being on watch at midnight back in the navy.

But it means nothing to me as a teacher. My new year starts just after every Labor Day. My version of "resolutions" is something I ponder all summer, and enact every fall. Nothing special is enacted for me on the first of January. I hadn't really realized that until last night.

If 1 January is a big deal to you, then I really hope it went well for you, and heralds a great new year.

European Galielo Satellite Network

The public has become much more familiar with GPS over the past 10 years or so. Many of my students have it in their cars (spoiled!) though they don't know much about how it works. I am hoping to change that in the coming month (except poor AP; they are stuck in thermordynamics), so it is very timely that the European space project Galileo was kicked off this week.

From the Economist (emphasis has been added by me):

On Wednesday December 28th, the Giove-A satellite was launched into space from Kazakhstan, kicking off the biggest-ever European space project. The Galileo In-Orbit Validation Element (the acronym is also Italian for Jove, the king of the Roman gods) is a crucial first step in the roll-out of Galileo, a satellite-based navigation system. Giove-A will test several key technologies for Galileo. If all goes well, the system will be operational in 2008.

European boosters are celebrating a technological leap forward that they say will give them economic and strategic independence from America’s Global Positioning System. GPS, a project of the American military begun in the 1970s, is provided as a free service worldwide, causing some to say that the €3.6 billion ($4.3 billion) Galileo project is unnecessary... Projects like this tend to run over their estimated costs, and once the system is in place, Europe will feel bound to maintain it, whatever the cost...

Galileo is a joint project of the European Union and the European Space Agency, with backing also from China, Ukraine, Israel and India...

Though user fees will not, by themselves, pay for the project, it is hoped that Galileo will create jobs and economic growth (including tax revenues) as industries develop new services based around the satellite system. A study by PricewaterhouseCoopers in 2001 estimated that Galileo could produce a benefit-to-cost ratio of 4.6 to one...

France’s president, Jacques Chirac has said that European companies could be American “vassals” without their own navigation system. For him, a grand project like Galileo accomplishes several treasured goals: creating jobs in France, reducing its reliance on America, and bringing glory to European (including French) technology.

I think it is interesting the political angle that many news reports are taking on this, with regard to the motivation of the project. An example from the Drudge Retort (the name says it all) is fairly typical of news reports I have seen:

If successful, Galileo will end Europe's reliance on the GPS system, which is ultimately controlled by the US military...

Last year, US President George Bush ordered plans for temporarily disabling GPS satellites during national crises to prevent terrorists from using the technology...

Galileo is under civilian control. The European Space Agency says it will guarantee operation at all times, except in case of "the direst emergency". It also says users would be notified of any potential satellite problems within seconds.

To me, this makes it sound like Galileo was dreamt up last year as a way to retaliate against the Americans for turning off GPS. But the fact is that a project like this is not clumped together in a few months, from concept to launch. Galileo has been in the works for years, and for several reasons. During the Clinton administration, there were already questions of why Europeans were considering a duplicate system, but the fact is that Galileo can be used in ways GPS cannot. GPS is accurate to within about 10 meters for civilians, and about 3 meters for the US government. Galileo will give accuracy to about one meter for those with free access to the system, and down to centimetres for paying commercial users. Also, GPS would need to be upgraded before it can be used for some of the applications the private sector has in mind. Boeing and Airbus have been angling for years to see the system handle “free flight” in which each aircraft finds its own route clear of other aircraft, without the middleman of radioing controllers on the ground.
As a 2003 Economist article on Galileo noted;

GPS needs more spending to upgrade it to handle applications in which lives could be put at risk, such as in air traffic control.

That article also notes a suggestion by David Braunschvig of Foreign Affairs magazine:

(He) suggests that the Pentagon hives off the military version and develops a separate commercial system to compete with Galileo. In an emergency, they could act as back-up for each other. At the moment, the commercial services based on free access to GPS have revenues estimated at around $12 billion, with no return to the American government.

And although it will be owned and controlled by the EU (not China, you conspiracy theorists!),

Galileo will be in part a commercial system. A concessionaire will get the right to operate the system for a fixed period in return for plunking down two-thirds of the deployment costs—around €2.2 billion

. (quoted from Economist, 2004)

You would pay for it, wouldn't you? Bring on the satellites! Bring on the market!