Strong US support for increasing unemployment

A USA Today poll reports that 71% of Americans back the president’s plan to raise the minimum wage: 87% of Democrats, 68% of independents and even a 50-47% plurality of Republicans. Only the tea party supporters oppose the move (64-32%)

The only problem with the plan is that — based on more than 100 academic studies — it will raise unemployment, particularly among the least employable workers (e.g., minority teens).

A 2006 NBER study by David Neumark of UCI (go Anteaters!) and William Wascher of the Federal Reserve — later published in Foundations and Trends in Microeconomics — reviewed nearly two decades of research on the impact of increasing minimum wages. Here’s the abstract:

A sizable majority of the studies surveyed in this monograph give a relatively consistent (although not always statistically significant) indication of negative employment effects of minimum wages. In addition, among the papers we view as providing the most credible evidence, almost all point to negative employment effects, both for the United States as well as for many other countries.

Two other important conclusions emerge from our review. First, we see very few - if any - studies that provide convincing evidence of positive employment effects of minimum wages, especially from those studies that focus on the broader groups (rather than a narrow industry) for which the competitive model predicts disemployment effects. Second, the studies that focus on the least-skilled groups provide relatively overwhelming evidence of stronger disemployment effects for these groups.

While individual studies have reached varying conclusions, such comprehensive literature reviews are the way that science reaches a consensus on an unsettled question of causality (whether innovation policy or global warming). The administration wants to be guided by science when it supports its policies, but ignores inconvenient truths.

When our educational system turns out high school graduates that are illiterate or innumerate, they pay the price. When it turns out economic illiterates — leading to bad policies — others pay the price for those policies.

Future scientists and the future of science

One of the hats that I wear outside of my job is as a STEM volunteer and (cringe) activist. Unlike Stem Cells, it’s not a very controversial position, but it does require overcoming huge amounts of inertia.

STEM is the (fairly recent) TLA given for K-12 education in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. The idea is that certain professions (and thus society) will be in trouble if we don’t give our children the basics, keep them interested through adolescence, and expose them to real science and the career opportunities. The NSF, Department of Education and others are making (limited) efforts to correct the problem.

As with last year (and most years since 1989), today I spent the whole day (as I have annually since 1989) as a judge for the county science fair, now known as the Synopsys Challenge after its sponsor. As an IEEE member, I was part of a team of a dozen or so judges that gave out awards on behalf of IEEE and other organizations that outsource their judging to use (due to our superior processes and scale efficiencies).

Among the junior/senior high projects I saw, perhaps the most exciting was an improved efficiency wind turbine blade where the 12th grader applied for a provisional patent earlier this year. (I also suggested a provisional patent for two Cupertino students, although they are probably more than a year away from a prototype that would justify the cost of a full patent application.)

Mostly I looked at computer science or computer engineering projects, including three by 11th grade boys. One Palo Alto student measured the robustness of the SVD algorithm at the heart of the winners of the $1M Netflix challenge. A San Jose student improved on encryption strength using a different randomization technique, and solving the indeterminacy of the decryption problem. A project from Cupertino looked at solving differential equations using Nvidia’s CUDA GPU toolkit. A fourth project introduced me to DNA computing.

Today marked the 50th anniversary of the Santa Clara science fair, which is 5 years younger than the San Diego science fair where I was once a contestant and later a judge. An interest in science fairs is a theme of my K-12 efforts, having run the science fair at my child’s elementary school for 3 years.

I also try to recruit volunteer science fair and robotics judges from among MIT’s 10,000+ alumni in Northern California as the coordinator of the MITCNC K-12 outreach efforts. My next task is to help find Silicon Valley judges for the International Science & Engineering Fair to be held in San Jose May 11-14. (Apparently some of our outreach efforts are a model for a nationwide K-12 outreach effort being launched nationally by the MIT Alumni Association).

The extracurricular stuff is fun, and recognizes the best and the best of the best. But it does little to raise the understanding of science and technology by the average college student, employee or citizen — or to increase the supply of graduates for STEM-related professions.

Last week, I went to the semi-annual regional meeting of SJSU’s Center For STEM Education, to meet local K-12 STEM educators and administrators. What I heard was troubling.

The weakness of STEM education is particularly severe in grades K-5, where one estimate is that California kids get 1 hour/week of science education. There are several root causes. While secondary ed (grades 6-12) has science (“single subject”) specialists, K-5 teachers are generalists — most with a humanities background.

Worse yet, some California principals don’t care about science achievement because it plays a very small part in the standardized performance tests — by one estimate, 5% of the school’s total points. This is an example of the tyranny of measurement — perhaps not so blatant as WorldCom sales commissions, but one that has a far broader and longer-lasting impact on society.

Last Saturday, President Obama announced his intention to fulfill promises to teacher unions to water down No Child Left Behind. But the one change that I would agree with is the idea that school districts could modify the weighting criteria to include subjects such as science.

The actual technical content of improving science education is pretty straightforward. The organizational change to make that happen in more than 15,000 districts across the country is quite daunting.

I’m not sure how to get from here to there, but apparently that’s not enough to discourage me or my fellow STEM activists from pursuing such a Sisyphean task. Perhaps efforts by other alumni organizations — and professional scientific and engineering societies — will help raise the priority and efficacy of K-12 science education.

Will Joel help sell tablets?

Since the past month (if not three years) for Apple watchers has been uninformed speculation about the iSlate/iTablet/jumbo iPhone, I figure on the eve of the (speculated) announcement I should add my own 2¢.

A little over a year ago, sociologist Joel Podolny quit as dean of Yale’s business school to become “Vice President and Dean of Apple University,” as he self-reports on his LinkedIn and Facebook profiles.

At the time, I offered my own speculation on the sketchy information about Joel and his new role, but effectively he’s been in stealth mode ever since. I have a hunch that his role may become more clear after the iTablet is announced.

Apple’s plans seem to be leaking out because of all the content relationships that it is negotiating. Speculation is that it’s a device with a 10" screen that (for reasons that were obvious a year ago) will run the iPhone OS.

Since this is only the first device of many, the more interesting thing is the content/ecosystem strategy. Apple is building a supply of content to compete with Amazon’s Kindle, the Barnes & Noble Nook, and everything else out there.

That’s where I think Joel Podolny comes in. An obvious use for an e-reader is for college textbooks: a $200-400 toy (uh, e-book platform) is not implausible for a college student, and e-books would help textbook publishers kill the scourge of used textbooks (while reducing distribution and inventory costs). Amazon has conducted demonstration projects with e-textbooks to disappointing results.

In fact, CNET reports that McGraw-Hill’s CEO Terry McGraw decided he wants to be on Steve Jobs’ dirt list by pre-announcing the tablets Tuesday on CNBC:

Yes, they'll make their announcement tomorrow on this one. We have worked with Apple for quite a while, and the tablet is going to be based on the iPhone operating system, and so it will be transferable.

So what you are going to be able to do now is, we have a consortium of e-books. And we have 95 percent of all our materials that are in e-book format on that one. So now, with the tablet, you're going to open up the higher-education market, the professional market.

I assume Apple has solved the format problem: Windoze notwithstanding, universities are not going to mandate the use of a proprietary format (like the Kindle AZW) which implies that the textbooks will be distributed in something like ePub or PDF. (As with the iTunes Store and music files, Apple may end up using a proprietary DRM system if not good alternative exists.) This is something that has been holding back e-book sales for a year.

Which brings me back to Joel. Apple has the iTunes Store for entertainment, and iTunes U for video (or audio) course lectures donated by universities. Once it has textbooks, what’s missing?

One possibility is to negotiating the content relationships with textbook suppliers — but that doesn’t sound like a “dean” to me.

The other possibility is a new modality of delivering instruction: not just hypertext books and linear lectures, but a more interactive and engaging experience. (Jobs’ nemesis John Sculley was demonstrating this with the Knowledge Navigator vaporware video more than 20 years ago).

This would mean that the tablet would be more than an e-book reader, just as the iPod was more than a music player and the iPhone was more than a phone. Apple is a systems company that new platforms to enable creation of new markets.

This self-image is illustrated by the tagline at the bottom of every Apple press release:

Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital media revolution with its iPod portable music and video players and iTunes online store, and has entered the mobile phone market with its revolutionary iPhone.

I'm betting that tagline will be different next week, and not just because Apple has a 10" iPod Touch.

A great CSU success story

Until this morning, I didn’t realize that aeronautical engineer Burt Rutan was a graduate of Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, the flagship campus of the California State University system (my employer).

At SJSU, we are proud of our alumni who achieve success in sports, business, and the arts; our greatest claim to technical success is that Intel co-founder Gordon Moore spent 2 years here (where he met his wife) before transferring to Berkeley. The distribution of famous alumni is similar at San Diego State, our sister campus and closest rival. The breakdown of famous Cal Poly alumni are also broadly similar, although they have two astronauts.

So Burt Rutan is a clear outlier. I learned a lot more this morning about Burt Rutan, the man, who is in the news as the technical brains behind Richard Branson’s efforts to create a commercial space travel industry.

Rutan came to fame designing the Voyager, which flew around the world without refueling during nine days in 1986. It’s one of five Rutan-designed planes held by the Smithsonian. Another is VariEze, an earlier kit plane that revolutionized home-built airplanes.

Also in the Smithsonian is his first spacecraft, SpaceShipOne — funded by Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen — which won the Ansari X Prize for flying to 100km twice in two weeks in 2004. As intended, the X Prize award provided a stepping stone for commercial space development — in this case Sir Richard and the SpaceShipTwo unveiled Wednesday. (It was modestly termed the VSS Enterprise, presumably to suggest a fleet of 40-50 Virgin Space Ships to be operated by Virgin Galactic.)

Because of Sir Richard, the FT thought it newsworthy to publish an interview Saturday with the greatest aeronautical engineer of our generation. It alludes to his modest roots in central California, and his efforts designing and testing model planes as a kid.

Such modest beginnings are part and parcel of the California State University system, the largest university system in the USA. We take students who don’t have the grades or the money to go to the more prestigious University of California system, as well as those who can’t leave home to attend college. (My dad commuted from home to SDSU for the first two years before transferring to UC Berkeley; my mom started at SJSU before transferring to Berkeley a few years ahead of Gordon Moore.)

Rutan got his B.S. in aeronautical engineering from Cal Poly in 1965. His senior project won the national student paper competition from the AIAA, the industry professional society.

Apparently the mothership for SpaceShipTwo — called WhiteKnight Two — bears the Cal Poly logo. In a 2005 speech at his alma mater, he encouraged students to get involved in creating the next round of space exploration. He also called for students to demonstrate their passion to make things happen.

As a kid, I barely heard of Cal Poly, perhaps because most of its alumni end up living in the Bay Area or the Central Coast. I only knew of it at all because my older cousin left Gilroy to go to Cal Poly before moving to Alaska to build the first Alaska pipeline.

Today, I know from other parents that today Cal Poly admissions are tougher than several UC campuses. Cal Poly is one of the top US engineering program among teaching schools (i.e. those without a PhD program) — along with the service academies and the vastly under-rated Harvey Mudd (east of LA).

In six years, I plan to encourage my daughter to apply to Cal Poly along with the UC campuses, Harvey Mudd and perhaps the Air Force Academy. (This assumes she continues to be a math whiz who likes to make things — and thus an ideal candidate for engineering school). Let’s hope the campus continues to turn out bright engineers for California’s economy, despite the legislative mismanagement that is giving the CSU system a death by a thousand cuts.

Encouraging young scientists

Bill Gates and other captains of IT have been complaining for years about not enough science and engineering graduates of US universities. Their two-pronged solution has been to try to encourage more students to major in such subjects, and also to import the best and the brightest from the rest of the world.

One way that industry has been trying to encourage science and engineering careers since the early days of the Cold War has been through local science fairs. Here in Silicon Valley, students grade 7-12 (or 6-12) can enter their local school fair, then go on to the California State Fair, and even on to the International fair (once sponsored by nuclear reactor maker Westinghouse but now sponsored by Intel).

The science fair also has great sentimental value for me. My 8th and 9th grade science fair projects were the most meaningful educational experiences of my three years in junior high and perhaps all of K-12. The latter project — my first computer program, writing a parser in Fortran IV on a stack of IBM punch cards — would set the stage for the next 20 years of my career.

In 1989, I started as a volunteer judge for the San Diego fair that gave me that start, and switched to judging for the Silicon Valley fair when I moved up here. That one day commitment is an easy way for engineers to contribute back to the community to develop an interest by K-12 students in science. After mentioning that interest last fall at the MIT Club of Northern California, I became the club’s science fair coordinator, and prepared a web page listing fairs where our members can volunteer.

Five years ago, parents and one teacher launched a science fair at my daughter’s elementary school, in a community with a large population of IT engineers or (like me) former engineers who later went into management or marketing jobs. For the past three years, I’ve been running the judging and leading the committee that runs the overall fair. The last few days have been a blur as we tried to nail down which students and volunteers would be coming to the fair, and have everything ready for the contestants, judges and visitors.

Tonight was the culmination of all those efforts. We had 101 projects by 128 students, 30% bigger than last year and our biggest fair ever. Two years ago we were unable to fit in the school cafeteria and so had to move to the Almaden Community Center; tonight it looks like we may soon outgrow that.

We had 32 volunteer judges who spent 2-3 hours at the fair, talking to students and awarding prizes. Some but not all of them were local parents. In particular, we had 11 volunteer judges (mostly young engineers) from Lockheed Martin in Sunnyvale, and five judges from our local high school robotics team.

The event was bittersweet for me. It is a relief to have it over, as this is my biggest volunteer effort ever. On the other hand, this my last year running the fair as my daughter moves on to middle school (although I have offered to help judge next year). As in several previous jobs, I am working hard to document procedures so that my successor will have an easier job than I did.

Local technical professionals don’t have to start a fair to get involved. In fact, on March 18, the Santa Clara County fair for grades 6-12 is being held in San Jose and like other fairs they chronically need judges. For the MIT club, I’ve made a master list of all major fairs in California.

Those who judged last night and at various regional fairs say they find it a very rewarding experience, nurturing young scientific talent for our future.

Prize winning (age appropriate) science

Although I have a backlog of topics, my blogging this week has been deferred as I led a group of volunteers to put on the science fair at our local elementary school. I was on the committee that created the science fair four years ago, was co-chair last year and (titular) sole chairman this year (although the committee of four spread the work pretty evenly).

As with last year, my main role was coordinating judging. This year we had 27 judges evaluating 71 projects by 97 5-11 year-olds. We didn’t have science fairs when I was in elementary school, but in junior high school I participated in the Greater San Diego science fair and even won the jr. high math category twice — the second time (1972) with what I think was the first-ever winning computer project at the GSDSEF.

I started judging in 1989 at the regional championships for middle school and high school students, and I have judged almost every year since — first in San Diego, now in Silicon Valley. My only concession to burnout is that three years ago I switched over to judging for the local IEEE chapter, in part to try to become more integrated as an IEEE member. I find the professional society judging to be less stressful and also more fun, particularly when I get to be a judge for SWE (no, not dressed like Jack Lemmon), but I’d switch back to category or sweepstakes judging tomorrow if they needed it.

I’ve roped a number of my science-oriented friends into judging, and to a man (or woman or teen) they all seem to enjoy it. Working with motivated kids is fun, and I’m sure many of them also see themselves at that age (I know I do). It’s also a public service: even though the Cold War (that spawned the SD and other fairs*) is over, the perceived need for the US to grow a supply of scientists and engineers remains. Improving K-12 science education is a part of any such plan.

(*Interestingly, while the regional San Diego fair was started in 1955 at the height of the Cold War, the national fair — the Westinghouse now Intel Science Talent Search — was started in 1942 during World War II).

With ties and team projects, we handed out 17 ribbons last night to 11 projects in 3rd, 4th and 5th grades. The best 3rd grade project ran a doorbell using a lemon battery, while the 4th grade project built and calibrated a thermometer. I didn’t see the 5th grade projects, but both were in life sciences — one extracting DNA from strawberries, the other measuring the effects of disinfectants on bacteria.

What was also interesting was that half of our six-girl prize-winning robotics team entered the fair, and all three won prizes. One of those winners was my daughter (and her robotics teammate). While I was proud of their success, it was a little embarrassing because only the judges knew that we assigned judges so that no parent knew how their kid did until the results were announced. (As you might imagine, there was a considerable overlap between volunteer judges and parents of contestants).


However, I think the program is also a testimony to public schools at their best — highly involved and educated parents who want their kids to succeed. As in companies, a culture of inquiry and achievement is important for elementary schools. Unlike many places I have visited in the East and the South, we are fortunate that many successful Californians send their kids to public schools and then pour their energies into making those schools successful.

Photo of prize-winning thermometer construction taken by Oliver Huang.