Danny Crichton

1. The New York Times reports on the quick decline of vocational education in the United States, due to a greater push by the Obama Administration and others to get students to college. While funding remains over a $1 billion, the total funds have declined (and are a pittance compared to funding for colleges and universities). Such an overwrought plan, though, is likely to be tremendously damaging to students for whom a vocational education is a perfect fit. We must be mindful that the future global workforce is going to need a spectrum of skills, including those provided by a vocational education. There is an elitism about a college degree that I think is unwarranted.
2. Members of the Obama Administration have complained that Jon Huntsman is running for the presidency after the president appointed him as ambassador to China. It seems to me that such anger is misplaced - if Huntsman benefited from the arrangement, it was ultimately the president's decision. There may not have been a tacit agreement between the two regarding Huntsman's candidacy, but we cannot forget that Obama was trying to avoid a race with Huntsman in the first place. Seems as if each side played against the other.
3. Talks on the deficit seem to be breaking down quickly. Republicans have little incentive to solve the deficit, and Obama is weak in support. This is a very dangerous spot for the United States, and mirrors the situation being seen in Minnesota: neither side has an incentive to get the policy right. The tea party conservatives that are pushing hard against a compromise need to be reminded that living in a pluralistic democracy requires just that - compromise. Without that, our democracy will fall apart.
4. Texas Governor Rick Perry is driving to create metrics to hold professors accountable for

Two news stories prompt the question. The first comes from the New York Times analysis of the recent budget cuts in California, which have hit the state's premier higher education system very hard.

Quote:

The state's two-tier system has long been seen as a model of public higher education, with the University of California's 10 campuses as major research hubs and the California State University's network of 23 campuses graduating tens of thousands each year. But the cuts, which are the biggest in the state's history, threaten to erode the system's stellar reputation.

"There's no question that California has had the most emulated public universities in the nation, and for the rest of the world," said Terry W. Hartle, senior vice president of the American Council on Education. "What we are seeing is the abandonment of the state's commitment to make California's education available to all its citizens."

The architecture for the system came from California's Master Plan during the 1960s, a time when Berkeley was among the great universities of the nation (and led by one of the greats of higher education administration - Clark Kerr, known for coining the term multiversity). The destruction of those dreams is shocking when one considers that the system lasted only about a single generation - far shorter than the visionaries behind it intended.

The second story comes from Minnesota, where the state government continues to be shut down over an impasse regarding the state's budget. The Star Tribune's introduction says it all:

Budget talks have produced few clues about how Minnesota's historic government shutdown will end, except for one: Schools likely will pay the price for yet another stalemate in St. Paul.

The state intends to withhold payment to the schools so that the money flows from a

This year, we are approaching the ten year anniversaries of 9/11 and the war in Afghanistan - the longest war in U.S. history. Like many, I find that the war has receded from my day-to-day thinking - I rarely follow the latest news from Afghanistan, except when a story reaches the top headlines like the bombing of the Intercontinental Hotel (given the patriotic events going on around me, this particularly nagged on me).

Realizing this, I decided to step back from the day-to-day and look at the issue of the global war on terror a little more longitudinally. I read the Al Qaeda Reader, a translated compilation of the major pieces of theory written by the leaders of the group, as well as significant speeches and interviews.

I am mostly going to avoid the theocratic theories behind the movement - while they are by far the most interesting and insightful of the collection, I think that few of the writings would surprise. Instead, I want to focus on the policy statements of Osama bin Laden, which I have never seen before.

First, its disappointing that these statements never got publicity at their time of publication outside of the news that bin Laden had spoken. While the statements occasionally go on conspiratorial tangents (usually about Israel and Jews), the bulk of the writings would not be out of place in a major U.S. newspaper like the New York Times or the Washington Post. I understand the patriotic desire to not publish these sorts of writings in major newspapers, but I think the last few years may have been transpired very differently with the added context.

Bin Laden desired to force the United States to go through the collapse that accompanied the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan in the

One of the more interesting academic labor economists who I follow rather religiously is Anthony P. Carnevale at Georgetown, who focuses on the labor market and how it relates to higher education. I have cited one of his previous studies dozens of times to friends, discussing the quality problem facing science PhD programs in the United States.

Carnevale's latest study (InsideHigherEd summary here) looks at the growing wage gap between college and high school graduates and argues that the lack of college graduates is a significant factor. The number of college graduates matched the needs for employers throughout much of history, but that has not been the case recently, and thus, college graduates are receiving a wage premium.

The author does attempt to discuss the issues surrounding the not insignificant number of college graduates who are unemployed, which is estimated in the millions. However, what always gets lost in these discussions is the need to critically assess the quality of the college experience as it currently stands. That debate has been going on all year in response to Academically Adrift, and I won't rehash that books central arguments.

Instead, I want to focus on the issue of statistics and quantification. Counting the total number of college graduates in the economy is simple if not quite logistically easy. So is getting a solid estimate on the number of college graduates, and the mix of majors and degrees those students receive. Basic survey methodology and national educational data systems can develop the answers to these questions.

A far more difficult - yet in my view, far more important - issue is the quality of that education. Are students learning the material they need to in order to be successful in the careers they hope to pursue? Is the quality of a computer

Since its development decades ago by the Defense Department, the Internet has connected computers together in a decentralized, democratic way. Network design was open and transparent, themes built into all of the core protocols that underpin the internet today. The development of the World Wide Web and its later commercial expansion in 1995 connected the world's population like never before, undermining the notion of national sovereignty by creating a borderless environment, accessible by everyone (save for a few select regions and countries).

However, is that level of democracy and openness a permanent feature of the internet, or is it merely a temporary phenomenon before the system devolves in a balkanized network of islands?

We can see the tension today in countries like China, which effectively is already an island of sorts, preventing the importation of undesired content across its borders (it is less clear that there are restrictions the other way - an important point to remember about the internet). The Arab Spring revolutions have shown that authoritarian governments are very much at the mercy of their populations if they have access to modern social networking tools. Furthermore, stories like the one in the NYTimes today that describe efforts by the Obama administration to increase the utility of the internet in undermining these regimes only increases the prominence of the internet's ability to counter dictatorships.

Despite my enthusiasm for the internet (I do work for one of its most successful companies), I agree with the general themes developed by Evgeny Morozov, who believes that there is nothing fundamentally liberating about the internet, and that the technology can easily increase repression rather than weaken it.

We are seeing the slow fragmenting of the internet into separate regions, which will have borders not unlike their physical manifestations on national boundaries. It has

I will attack ABC News again, this time for writing about the Congressional Gym (the link is to the syndicated article). Ever since the release of more Anthony Weiner photos, some of which were taken in the gym, there has been a ballyhoo over this exclusive perk denied to the general public.

The outrage is starting to bite me though. First, many white collar employees at corporations are provided subsidized gymnasium memberships as a benefit of their employment. Considering the background of most members of Congress, this would seem to be a typical benefit.

More importantly though, why on earth should congressmen spend time commuting to a private gym? The reason that companies provide on-site services like exercise rooms is to give their employees more time to do their jobs. Congressmen are already over-scheduled. It seems to me that paying for a gymnasium should be thought of less as a class warfare issue, and more as an investment in ensuring that our representatives are given every opportunity to succeed at their duties. Considering their effect on American society, I think the people are the ones who are getting the bargain.

Rahm Emmanuel, newly installed mayor of Chicago, has released the salary data for all municipal employees "in a bid to follow through on a campaign promise to bring transparency to government." ABC News looked at the data and found that "The data showed that 2,400 city workers are paid $100,000 or more per year." Furthermore, their analysis showed that "the city's inspector general Joseph Ferguson, in charge of fighting corruption in the metropolis, is paid $161,856, but Emmanuel's administrative secretary is paid $162,500."

Release of salary data is supposed to encourage civic activism - citizens can go through the data themselves and point areas of possible corruption or waste. Unfortunately, this kind of release rarely does more than encourage the kind of short-term thinking that is currently plaguing our government.

The issue here is context - sure, it may sound immediately awful that there are several thousand employees making six figures. But what does it mean in a city with 34,219 employees if the proportion making such incomes comes out to roughly 6% of the workforce. There are lawyers, accountants and other highly-trained professionals working for the city government, all of whom are going to command large salaries. A figure like 6% gives us no ability to determine whether there is waste, but rather encourages the kind of potshot analysis offered by ABC News.

More insidiously though, the release of these data encourages politicians to abscond from their duties as public servants. Just posting salary data is not going to solve corruption (in fact, corruption at the municipal level has traditionally been offering your supporters jobs - not ridiculous wages). Politicians are supposed to be leaders. The mayor should have his staff investigate wage data and bring concerns directly

The Republican primaries are coming up, and as a voter from Minnesota, I am excited to see my state delivering not just one but two potential candidates for the presidency. Minnesota is a state that has traditionally served as a base of the progressive right-wing, the kind of independent, pragmatic, get things done kind of politician America so vitally needs (Minnesota's government works extraordinarily well compared to California, although that isn't much of a comparison).

Unfortunately, the two politicians that Minnesota is serving up this year are anything but progressive. Tim Pawlenty, the former governor, was at one point a pretty good leader. He was certainly not centrist, but he was a welcome respite from the antics that plagued wrestler now conspiracy theorist Jesse Ventura. As time went on, Pawlenty moved to the right, no doubt feeling the pressure of the 2008 presidential campaign and looking ahead to 2012. By the time he left, there was very little goodwill toward him.

The other candidate is Michelle Bachmann, and that needs no explanation.

Instead, the candidate that is coming from the center happens to hail from the most conservative state in the union. Jon Huntsman, Jr. is a towering candidate, if only voters would overlook his moderate record. Time wrote a fairly glowing profile of him, but ultimately voters in Iowa and New Hampshire will decide who to run against Obama. And apparently, they don't like what they see.

It is telling that a moderate candidate with across-the-board strength in leadership positions, fluency in Mandarin and a track record of success cannot find succor within the Republican party. So he tried to tackle large issues like health care and the environment. Perhaps this isn't surprising - Republicans made a point of bringing back styrofoam cups to the Capitol to prove how