Speed Gibson

Seeing through STEAM Part 2: The Approach

Last episode I went through what I've seen, heard, and read about the curriculum at the new STEAM magnet school program opening this fall in District 281, the Robbinsdale Area Schools.  I can only evaluate what's been presented, supplemented by some accounts of similar efforts elsewhere across the country.  Maybe it will take firm shape and direction as it develops, a process that may take a few years.  But so far, as I like to say, it's pretty thin soup.

Actually that's not quite fair.  To continue the metaphor, yes, the district's recipe is short on actual Arts and Engineering.  But there are other ingredients in the pot as I think this paragraph from the STEAM brochure makes clear:

The School of Engineering and Arts at Olson Elementary is designed for students who enjoy investigating the world around them, using creativity to solve problems and find solutions to challenges.  Teachers use inquiry-based instruction to deliver excellent standards-based curriculum for a well-rounded education, grounded in discovery and hands-on learning.  A focus on engineering and the arts allows students to understand the design process as it presents itself in all core subject areas, and to learn new ways to communicate their findings.  The combination of an excellent STEM education combined with a rich arts education (STEAM) will help students develop into innovative leaders essential to a global society.  Learn how this program will benefit your child!

Do you sense it, the touchy-feely approach underneath it all?  We don't just complete tasks, we do Service Learning Projects.  We don't engage customers or investors, we embrace Community Partnerships.  We don't apply ourselves, we work Collaboratively!

This isn't the language of engineers.  This isn't even the language of artists.  It is the language of educators.  It's what they know.  It's what they were taught - by other educators and it's a clear handicap for the STEAM task at hand.  I saw this first hand in college, when a visiting engineer from Medtronic taught a junior year electronics course.  It was our first real confrontation with market realities, having to build projects that both worked and could be built for a specified price.  It's when we first had to deal with the absence of 247.389 ohm resistors in the parts catalog.  You found a way to make a standard 270 ohm resistor do the job, the cheaper 10% tolerance ones if possible.  He talked a completely different game than we were used to, and at a much faster pace.  He personified the old saw: "Those who can, do.  Those who can't, teach."

This is not to berate the teachers who will be teaching at Olson this fall.  But the fact remains that they are teachers and think like teachers and, well, teach like teachers.  Spending a few hours in professional development and visiting the Science Museum isn't going to change that.  To be successful, I think the STEAM school needs a more hybrid faculty, both engineers and teachers.  Even so, both must work within the limited mathematical and cognitive skill levels of the early grades.  We understand this concept in the arts.  We hire music majors not education majors to teach band and choir.  STEAM must find a similar solution to succeed.

But to read the District's brochure and press clippings, they seem to think that happy thoughts and psycho-babble like the above will be enough.  It depends on what the goal of STEAM really is.

 

Seeing through STEAM Part 1: The Curriculum

Having attended many of District 281 School Board meetings that developed the STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics) magnet school opening this fall, I thought I understood the concept.  Let's see what happens I thought.  But after attending both infomation night presentations recently, I must say I'm now a bit disappointed.  Let me start with the what first surprised me - the Arts component.

The Robbinsdale Area Schools can rightly point to many decades of emphasis on the arts, in all grades.  Recent budget cuts that reduced this commitment to what many other districts would consider nominal were nonetheless painful for many parents as well as staff.  I naturally inferred that the "A" in STEAM would therefore be an attempt to regain some of that legacy.  Apparently not.

Throughout the presentations it was clear that we are not talking about music, drama, painting, or dance, the classical motifs I suffered through at St. Louis Park Junior HIgh oh so long ago.  No, we are now talking about "media arts" which is to say computer graphics.  Given this is elementary school, given what I saw at the presentations, much of this is not much beyond Microsoft Paint or Apple MacDraw.  Is it possible that the "left behind" schools will actually have the superior art instruction this fall?

Meanwhile, what about the STEM components, like Engineering, the focus of the presentations?  Myself an engineer, I have to say: this ain't it.  They speak of an Engineering methodology, to define, imagine, plan, create, and then refine.  I'm not going to argue what the exact sequence or formulation should be; this is elementary school.  But I think even these students can learn to appreciate one more little detail: cost.  Engineering is much more about the repeatable, the affordable, the practical, not the experimental, the unproven, the theoretical.  Too much of the latter and you wind up with a Chevy Volt.

Science, also part of STEM, does probe new theories and approaches, of course.  But I wonder what will happen when the irrestible force of the Scientific Method confronts the politically unmovable object known as Man-Made Global Warming.  Technology comprises accomplishments, the results of applied science, i.e. engineering, not a teachable discipline per se. 

Finally, we have Mathematics.  Some may snicker, but basically we teach elementary math about as fast as the students can assimilate it.  Some mistakes were clearly made in "the new math" of the 1970's where rote and drill were replaced by large doses of concept and discovery, too early and too quickly.  It was too much for even the parents and was soon scaled back.  I could wish for a little more returning to basic numerical literacy, but what is taught today is largely workable.  I therefore cannot imagine what significant deficiency or missed opportunity STEM or STEAM addresses that the "left behind" schools cannot.

District 281's STEAM is self-described as "the path to creative innovation."  (Is there any other kind?)  That path is no doubt paved with good intentions, but where does it truly lead?  I'll give you my theory in Part 2.

Failure Is An Option

Your roving reporter took the Hiawatha Light Rail south from Target Field to the 46th St. Station this afternoon (2/22).  As you may have heard, the Martin Olav Sabo pedestrian bridge snapped a cable and is currently being repaired.  No trains are being allowed to run underneath it until further notice.  (Teachable moment for media and DFL legislators: notice I didn't pretend to know what the problem is, nor blame any politicians without cause.) 

As with past outages, bus service is carrying LRT passengers between the Franklin Ave and 38th St. Stations.  The Lake St. station in between is also closed, presumably because they can't change tracks up on that raised platform.  So, I duly left the LRT at Franklin, at 2:50.  Normally this train would arrive at 2:57.  I actually got there at 3:25, simply because they are not running enough buses.  The bus I should have been on was full so we had to wait for the next one, 10 minues later.  We arrived at the 38th St. station 11 minutes later, only the southbound LRT there pulled out just as we stepped on the platform, another delay, longer still because the next LRT was 2 minutes late assuming they were even trying to maintain the posted schedules.

There were Metro Transit vehicles and personnel everywhere along the disruption, many more than I would think necessary, many apparently pointless wihout enough bus seats per hour moving around the damaged bridge.  I presume the delays are still longer during rush hour.  It's another illustration why Twin City Lines tore up the streetcar tracks in the 1950's.

Compare this with the State Fair express buses.  It's a marvel to behold, buses pulling in and out in every direction every minute or two.  There's no confusion, and the riders are happy to pay the premium fare.  My theory is that this is run by bus people.  The LRT shuttles I bet are run by train people, who by definition are clueless as to what the public actually needs or wants.

Equal Time: Teaching, Bullying, and Policy

The last caller on Sue Jeffer's show on NewsTalk 1130 AM February 18th identified herself as a Minneapolis teacher.  I like to think we on the right and/or in the Minnesota Organization of Bloggers try to be fair to the teachers while otherwise speaking truth to power about K-12 education.  She was so well spoken however that I decided to quote her, my transcript edited for clarity:

"In our litigious society where the liberals came in and didn’t get their way, everything in my classroom is dictated.  When we stepped away from saying that teachers know what they’re doing and everyone else thought they should get their fingers in the pie, that’s when you got all the policy.

"You guys wonder why Johnny can’t read?  It’s because I’m so busy parenting kids whose parents aren’t parenting them.  You want to stop bullying? Put it back on the parents.  Not only did I not create a deficit in reading in less than 9 months, I also did not create this behavior.  We are forgetting that the onus is on the adults that are parenting – or not, because we’ve let the government take over.

"Now quit blaming the teachers for everything that’s wrong.  Granted, there are some that are well beyond the pale and need to be gone.  But the minute you get a parent in there with the ACLU, and they’re happy to come in and go after us, is the minute you get a policy.  Don’t tell me what’s going on in the schools because it’s coming from outside, not inside.  And I’m really tired of people beating up on teachers."

[Sue]

"We look at these reading tests and we say that:  they can’t read!  I don’t even have the kids for 9 months before I’m putting them through tests.   I have kids that won’t do their homework, whose parents won’t come to conferences.  Don’t tell me I’m the problem behind this kid.  The problem behind that kid is absent in their lives and absent in home.  We need to stop this insanity.  Quit blaming the people who could not create this!"

I can only add that maybe had she and her peers been a little more vocal at the union hall, maybe some of this "policy" could have been avoided.  For just as Human Resource departments publicy decry but otherwise embrace the full employment of government regulation, I am just as convinced the union leadership so obviously disconnected with much of its membership welcomes their "need" to help craft policy at the Legislature.

My Stadium Compromise

I doubt once again that our Republican leadership will have the necessary courage, but if we must suffer yet another stadium swindle, can we not get something valuable in return?  I presume that transit will have indeed wagged the dog to reuse the Metrodome site with its existing LRT station that will serve both the Hiawatha and Central Corridor lines.  The new arena would be built next door, then the Dome demolished to be the new tailgate area and queueing area to wait those 40-60 minutes to be packed like sardines into Light Rail cars.

OK, give Ziggy his billion dollar subsidy.  But then let's pound the stake through the heart of the Southwest LRT and all these other 19th century rail transit proposals.  A billion dollar football stadium will at least produce something of value to a significant number of Minnesotans.  A billion dollars more in LRT produces practically nothing for all of Minnesota, nothing at all for practically all Minnesotans.

We can't afford both.

STEAM: Overloaded

UPDATE (details below): Additional meeting scheduled.

If school bus transportation is in fact outsourced in District 281, I think we should hire the driver that took me from Northport Elementary to Olson Elementary for tonight's Parent Information Night regarding the new "School of Engineering and Arts at Olson Elementary" that opens there this fall.  The position: Event Planner.

For tonight's event was a mess.  School Board members were proud and amazed at the turnout, standing room only.  Crowded into the library of less than 1,000 square feet, almost as many were standing as sitting.  Taking the courtesy bus, we arrived much too late to get a seat.  Given the snow and parking overload, I suspect several potential attendees gave up and drove away.  We couldn't even see the podium or the presentation graphics behind them.  The public address audio cut out at times.  As our driver observed, they should have scheduled this at a middle school, followed up by a few open house dates at Olson itself.  A School Board member said that they would schedule another such event, presumably soon given the March 1, 2012 application deadline.

Sure, this seems obvious now, but even half this turnout would have filled almost every seat, leaving little room for error.  How did they misguess this so badly?  Because there were more than just parents interested in STEAM per se attending.

Some of the extras may have been sightseers, including me, with no children currently enrolled but curious about the program.  Some may have been nearby residents happy to see the long closed facility open again.  Some may have been Olson alumni.  But in addition to these and those truly excited about the STEM or STEAM concepts, I think many were there because they are simply dissatisified with their current schools.  It's not irrational for them to assume that their schools will receive less district attention and/or resources.  It's not selfish for them to seek the district's best offerings for their childen.

Regardless, it's very obvious there will be a lottery for most to get into this new magnet program here in the Robbinsale Area Schools.  There are various quotas and set-asides, particularly in the hope that the STEAM enrollment demographics will approximate that of the district. But in a district with an almost 50 percent minority elementary population, I sadly must report that few of those parents were here tonight.  You at least have to like their odds of getting a golden ticket.

As to the presentation, I fear the district may have placed itself on the wrong side of the "under-promise, over-deliver" maxim.  There is much to do by this fall, staff as yet largely unhired and/or untrained in STEM/STEAM concepts, fairly new concepts to begin with.  The building is still being reworked, another reason not to even hold this at Olson.  The model classrooms were largely empty and unfurnished, just a new-fangled whiteboard here, a few "STEM" toys there.

But the presentation exuded total confidence in the district's ability to delivery flawlessly this fall.  I think they could have toned it down a bit, emphasizing the importance of the teacher-parent partnership, openly admitting some mistakes may happen along the way - like this event.  I think the parents would have been just as impressed, maybe more so.

*** UPDATE (per the Robbinsdale Area Schools):

An additional Family Information Night for the School of Engineering and Arts, the district's new STEAM magnet school, will be on February 23, 2012 at Olson Elementary School, 1751 Kelly Drive, Golden Valley. The presentation will be from 6:00 - 8:00 p.m.

I see no mention of bus service as last time, which got its riders there too late to get a seat or (in our case) even be able to view the presentation.  Attendees should plan on arriving at least 15 minutes early, but also note that this first meeting ended early, around 7:10 pm.

Playing the Numbers

The recent KSTP Survey Usa poll has been quoted many times, specifically that our GOP-led Minnesota Legislature has a mere 17 percent approval rating, 65 percent disapproval.  This of course is played as all the Republicans' fault.  But like the Congressional ratings that are consistently even lower, no matter who holds power, this number is not helpful in understanding the moods.  It is the merely sum of our discordant discontents.

Take for example, a compromise stew of beef and tofu designed to meet the middle ground between carnivore and vegetarian.  Each side would generally criticize the one of the main ingredients, though perhaps enough non-vegetarians would enjoy it to raise the overall score to 17 percent.

And that's about the math with the Legislature.  Virtually no Democrats will approve of anything the Repbulicans do.  Many Republicans are unhappy with their leadership who while not raising taxes, still spent like Democrats.  But enough are happy to rate the 17 percent.  And forget those so-called Independents, who as Powerline's John Hinderaker has noted many times are about as populous as unicorns.  They're really just Democrats who want to impress their friends, as if aloofness equals intelligence.

In other words, everything is perfectly normal, for Minnesota at least.

The Future of Light Rail

I was sitting comfortably tonight when I suddenly blacked out for 137 seconds during which I saw a glimpse of the future circa 2025.  I had just enough time to read this in the Minneapols St. Paul Pioneer Star Tribune Press:

The Minnesota House of Representatives investigation into the fiasco known as the Southwest Corridor Light Rail Line will apparently continue for at least two more weeks.  Yesterday’s Federal grand jury indictments of the project’s senior planner and lead accountant for filing false reports to the Federal Department of Transportation has brought new questions like: is this the end of fixed rail as part of the total transportation solution?  U.S. Transportation Secretary John Russell has suspended funding of new public transit projects, citing this project and many others across the country.

The investigations to date still offer few clues as to what went so wrong in so many ways.  The Hiawatha LRT that launched in 2004 was an unquestioned success, exceeding every projection.  A tough act to follow, the Central Corridor that started up in 2014 has generally met its ridership expectations but its operating costs remain a solid 15 percent over plan.  Still, it was hard to foresee that the third LRT line that finally began running in 2023 after numerous delays would more closely resemble the failed Northstar Commuter Line service that was quietly and finally terminated in 2015 in a negotiated settlement with the Federal government.

One difference, perhaps the critical difference is that the Southwest Corridor was largely “new territory” not served by regular bus service.  Metro Transit estimates that 64% of Central Corridor riders are transplanted bus customers, drawing down route #16, previously the most successful line in the system.  The Southwest line had the daunting challenge of pulling drivers out of their cars, so far with little success.  The trains run largely empty west of the downtown Hopkins station, where riders from the #12 bus route readily embraced downtown service instead of having to transfer in Uptown.  But even so, the ridership just isn’t there.  Off peak service has been cut to running just one car every 20 minutes but the operating losses continue to mount, more than the Hiawatha and Central lines together.

Supporters say that it will take more time for the public to try and accept the new service.  Critics like Senator Rosarita De La Vega (R-32) claim that all three lines are failures, each requiring millions of dollars in annual subsidies from the Legislature.  But many Democrats are also unhappy, like Rep. Vince Mansfield (D-13B).  “What were these morons thinking, going around Uptown like that?  And Excelsior Boulevard would have been a natural even if a little more expensive to build.”  It’s hard to argue that now and in fact planners are already reportedly looking at what rerouting through Uptown would take.  Meanwhile, Route #21 was extended to the West Lake station which together with route #17 provides frequent shuttle service to Uptown.  But it’s not the same and the riders know it.

Another thing many potential riders know is that when you arrive downtown, you’re not done unless you’re going to Target Field, the last stop.  Early attempts to allow some rush hour runs to continue along the shared Hiawatha / Central downtown route proved totally unworkable.  One train even slightly off schedule snarled the next several runs of each route.  Nonetheless, riders don’t understand why they need to transfer.

“We have two problems,” admits Metropolitan Council President Malika Sanders-Boyd, “short term and long term.  Short term we have to focus on making the sections that work run even better.  When riders in west Hopkins then see how well LRT works for those in downtown Hopkins, they’ll get on board.  And then Minnetonka and then Eden Prairie.  Let’s not forget that we need alternatives like this to complete the balanced approach to transportation we all want.  We can’t just pave our way out of traffic congestion and into the needed infrastructure required to grow jobs in Minnesota.”

“Baloney!” huffs Eden Prairie financial planner Vincent Katz who works in the Baker Building downtown.  “Fixing the 494/169 bottleneck alone did wonders for us ten years ago and we’re finally getting the extra lanes on Highway 5 next year.  A hundred trains wouldn’t do as much.”

RINO 103: Meaningfully Speaking

Having defined and refined the RINO concept, the hour has come to sort out the RINO’s, if any, in the Republican fold of Presidential aspirants viz. New Gingrich, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney, and Rick Santorum. Each seems to have carved out a niche or label, like Santorum being the Social Conservative and Ron Paul the Libertarian. We could debate whether Santorum is fiscally conservative given his many earmarks while in Congress, but relatively few are characterizing him as a RINO. Ron Paul certainly is not a RINO! And neither seems at all likely to win the Republican nomination this August.

We wish we could create a blend of the many talents and positions on the dais, like when Billy Batson shouts “SHAZAM!” to summon the wisdom, strength, stamina, power, courage, and speed of Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles, and Mercury to become Captain Marvel. We want the oratory of Gingrich, the stature of Romney, the tenacity of Paul, and the virtue of Santorum, cape and boots optional. But we have to pick one, barring a late entry. At this point, with Santorum and Paul struggling, it’s a two man race.

Newt Gingrich’s supporters claim him to be the true Conservative and heir to Ronald Reagan’s legacy. His detractors say he’s a RINO, having committed many venal sins like sharing a couch with Nancy Pelosi. Mitt Romney’s supporters won’t put him alongside Reagan but claim he’s just as Conservative as Gingrich, in fact more so than Gingrich, oh, and more electable. His detractors say he’s a RINO, exhibit A being his signature Massachusetts health care initiative aka “RomneyCare.” Applying my standard of looking for the unforced errors, let me first look at the latter.

Many are quick to equate RomneyCare and ObamaCare, much too quick given their relative size, scope and certainly Constitutionality. Still, it does embody the personal mandate that Conservatives reject openly via lawsuits and Progressives reject surreptitiously via waivers. The question is: did Romney as Governor have much of a choice? Health care was running a deficit and the Legislature was about as Socialist as they come. He could have sat it out, vetoing the likely pure Socialist bill which no doubt would have included some tax increases, eventually getting overridden. Or he could engage to the point of minimizing the eventual damage. I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt here.

RomneyCare of course didn’t work, but as others have noted, those same Socialist forces made many further changes after he left office. They took pride and ownership of it then, at least until Governor Deval Patrick really messed it up by enrolling illegal aliens. The term RomneyCare wasn’t even invented until after ObamaCare came along, by which time the Massachusetts Democrats were scurrying for some cover.

Let’s consider Mr. Newt now, and his “Climate Change” ad with Nancy Pelosi. “I can’t defend it,” he said recently, characterizing it as the dumbest thing he’s done the past four years. No Republican will argue with that statement, but contrition doesn’t explain this unforced error. Vanity explains it, a personal trait that keeps showing up around his candidacy. It’s the vinegar that has spiced up many otherwise droll debates, but it has soured many other events and appearances, including some brusque, dismissive jabs at his fellow Republicans. Has he forgotten Reagan’s Eleventh Commandment? If there’s a RINO in this race, Newt Gingrich is it, but does it matter?

RINO-hunting per se in the 2012 Presidential race is pointless. The objective, for the good of the nation, must be to defeat Obama. Any of the four current candidates will be an order of magnitude better than another four, now unaccountable years of the worst President in American history. Hopefully our Republic will survive to have another election where we can afford the luxury of selecting and developing a more perfect candidate, but that’s not now. We further cannot ignore the polls that today at least exclude Santorum and Paul. We cannot overlook the repeated incidents of instability and unpredictability of Newt Gingrich, nor the difficulty of getting women to overlook his marital problems. (And they’re not wholly wrong to consider them.)

I therefore will be voting for Mitt Romney at the caucus tomorrow night.

RINO 102: Relatively Speaking

Consider this interesting hypothesis in The American Thinker by Jack Cashill:

Romney is no RINO -- Republican In Name Only.  He was not one even in his wobbly Massachusetts days.  Sitting as I do on the border between Missouri and Kansas, I have become a skilled RINO-hunter.  Here is the first rule of RINO-watching: they flourish only in Republican-dominated jurisdictions.

In Jackson County, Missouri, where I live, there are no RINOs.  Here, as in Massachusetts, there is no reason to declare yourself a Republican unless you actually are one.  Were I to run for office, I would have to run statewide to have any chance of winning anything.  Democrats have all the local power.

Leaving Mr. Romney aside for the moment, what do you think?  Can there be such a thing as a RINO within the city limits of Minneapolis or St. Paul?  Both Mayors and all 20 Council Members save one are Democrats, the exception belonging to the Green Party.  If and when a Republican somehow wins one of these elections, there will be no talk of RINO's.  Nobody called Norm Coleman a RINO when he was Mayor of St. Paul.  Instead, DFL mayor Randy Kelly was in effect labeled a DINO and turned out for endorsing George W. Bush over John Kerry in 2004.

If writer Cashill is right, and the elections of 2010 notwithstanding, much of Minnesota is still solidly blue, we shouldn't really have much of a RINO problem.  You have to take what the defense gives you.  Strong conservative areas like CD6 are rare.  It's an artful balancing act to succeed as a Republican otherwise.  Eric Paulsen seems to have mastered it in CD3.  Gil Gutkneckt went too squishy in CD1 and lost.  It's annoying how Tim Walz can now fake moderation with his hard Left voting record, but that's the reality.  Michele Bachmann can run away with CD6, be competitive in CD2, but would likely get run out of the other six.

Still, we seem to think at times that we are beset with RINO's, particularly in the Legislature prior to the 2010 elections.  And we did indeed have some, like the Override Six that broke ranks to raise taxes.  How do we know they were RINO's?  Because here in high tax Minnesota there is no reason to go out of your way to raise taxes still higher.  It was an unforced error, like the many of RINO Tim Pawlenty.

That I think is the key, the unforced error concept.  Governor Romey's options were few in Massachusetts.  If the Democrats were going to make health care even worse without him, was he wrong to steer it towards somewhat more market friendly shores via the personal mandate as Ann Coulter suggests?  Further, as Coulter notes, he had some Conservative minds with him at the time, like The Heritage Foundation.  So we really can't blame him for taking a course of action that would have been neither necessary nor prudent in, say, Texas.  Or so the theory goes.

But I can't let Mitt Romney off the RINO hook just yet.  Or Newt Gingrich.  Or even Rick Santorum.  I'll sort them and Ron Paul out as I see it going into our Tuesday caucus tomorrow.