Happy Anniversary to my Rationally Exuberant self!

So in honor of the anniversary of my blog and because it has started to get cold again, I've resolved to start blogging again, plus it's getting colder so I'll be indoors more. Another theory I have about my blogging hiatus is that my blogging was directly correlated to how much time and coffee I consumed at Murky Coffee. Since it closed, my life just hasn't been the same...sigh.

I initially started this blog thinking it would prepare me for an ambitious role in public policy analysis - or that it would at least hone my chops a bit. But let's be real. I'm a people person. I'm probs going to continue in fundraising and or perhaps consulting. I do like solving problems, giving presentations, and basically just helping people. But that upcoming Masters in Public Policy is not all for naught. I do think it has given me a more realistic perspective on government, tamed my knee-jerk "government bad" grunting, and exposed me to some awesome people. So resolved, you'll see more posts, more candor, and more slice-of-Whitney-life variety on this site from now on.

Waste in the education system

I'm not well versed in the pros and cons of unions but generally believe that in civilized societies such as ours they generally hinder labor mobility and cost us more trouble than they are worth. Specifically, teacher unions gum up the works of attempts to reform the public school system, but I had no idea to what an extent they soaked up money and paralyzed the system. Case in point this AP article about suspended teachers that the district is unable to fire due to their union contracts:

Hundreds of New York City public school teachers accused of offenses ranging from insubordination to sexual misconduct are being paid their full salaries to sit around all day playing Scrabble, surfing the Internet or just staring at the wall, if that's what they want to do.

Because their union contract makes it extremely difficult to fire them, the teachers have been banished by the school system to its "rubber rooms" — off-campus office space where they wait months, even years, for their disciplinary hearings.

This is one of the worst wastes of taxpayer dollars I've heard of in a while!

Hat tip: Freddie

"If I could turn back time"

How about this for a romantic revelry of what coulda been? Sure, I was stoked to get my first job out of college and yeah it was a do or die (move back to TX) situation but this laundry list doesn't sound too shabby and could equip nearly anyone for a badass job after a year...

[From Seth's blog]

How about a post-graduate year doing some combination of the following (not just one, how about all):

* Spend twenty hours a week running a project for a non-profit.
* Teach yourself Java, HTML, Flash, PHP and SQL. Not a little, but mastery.
* Volunteer to coach or assistant coach a kids sports team.
* Start, run and grow an online community.
* Give a speech a week to local organizations.
* Write a regular newsletter or blog about an industry you care about.
* Learn a foreign language fluently.
* Write three detailed business plans for projects in the industry you care about.
* Self-publish a book.
* Run a marathon.

What kids are being taught these days...

I was relatively on board with the graphics and logic behind the "Story of Stuff" video until about minute two when she depicts corporations as these fat balloon people who force governments to shine their shoes. Yeah, I'm not joking. The woman presents this anti-capitalist b.s. as factual and it has been played in over 7,000 classrooms already and has over 5 million youtube hits.



I don't want kids to be overly materialistic, but I don't want them to vilify the capitalist system that enables us to enjoy arguably the greatest standard of living in the world. And unfortunately, I don't know how you can unpack all the liberal bias in a comprehensible way to kids after they see this video. Hopefully most teachers are presenting this as a basis for discussion, but most kids can't think critically about presentation bias until high school and even then they'll take most stuff at face value. This stuff scares me!

Is school choice dead in D.C.?

I've written before about my passion for school choice and in D.C. in particular. It looks like Obama is effectively killing the program - via Reason:

Yet working with congressional Democrats and despite his pledge to put politics and ideology aside in education, the Obama administration has effectively killed the program through a backdoor legislative move. "[Education] Secretary [Arne] Duncan will use only one test in what ideas to support with your precious tax dollars," says the president. "It's not whether it's liberal or conservative, but whether it works."

hat tip: Kara

That's Professor Garrison to you

The Whitney of an alternative universe is currently pursuing her PhD in Political Science on a full-ride to Baylor University with dreams of becoming a caring and energetic professor of political science and (hopefully) intro to economics. I like to think this is still a possibility (just not at Baylor), so this Chronicle of Higher Education article takes some of the wind out of my sails. These characterizations about aspiring PhDs make me feel naive:

# They are excited by some subject and believe they have a deep, sustainable interest in it. (But ask follow-up questions and you find that it is only deep in relation to their undergraduate peers — not in relation to the kind of serious dedication you need in graduate programs.)

# They received high grades and a lot of praise from their professors, and they are not finding similar encouragement outside of an academic environment. They want to return to a context in which they feel validated.

# They are emerging from 16 years of institutional living: a clear, step-by-step process of advancement toward a goal, with measured outcomes, constant reinforcement and support, and clearly defined hierarchies. The world outside school seems so unstructured, ambiguous, difficult to navigate, and frightening.

# With the prospect of an unappealing, entry-level job on the horizon, life in college becomes increasingly idealized. They think graduate school will continue that romantic experience and enable them to stay in college forever as teacher-scholars.

At least it validates my decision to continue working full-time while pursuing a more practical M.P.P. part-time. I can still decide to pursue this pipe dream later on in life.