Thursday, May 14, 2015

@svhsdragons @svusd1 47.7% of Seniors on Path to Complete UC/CSU A-G, well done.

Data courtesy Sonoma Valley Unified School District &
California Department of Education
available online at http://data1.cde.ca.gov/dataquest/
The Freshman Teams data discussed here before, and some newer data on Sonoma Valley High's A-G Completion Rate, were both on the Sonoma Valley Unified Board of Trustees agenda on May 12. The Freshman Teams handout that was discussed is here; there was an additional handout regarding the A-G completion rate, which is here. The main table from the second handout is on the right, and the video of the presentation (~29 minutes) is below.

The findings discussed were relatively straightforward. As of the end of the 1st Semester of 2014-15, 136 Sonoma Valley High School seniors are on track to complete the A-G requirements, with a C- or better. With the 
exception of St. Helena,
 whose per-pupil 
expenditures are
 approximately $17,590 
per students versus the
~$9,389 spent in Sonoma
 Valley, SVUSD 
consistently rates as the
 highest performing
 District in the area amongst those with 100 graduates per year or more.

Further, since creating Freshman Teams, Sonoma Valley Unified has moved the majority of its students into the college-potential category as of the end of freshman year, nearly doubling the number in the top tier.  The change in performance is not attributable to either grade inflation or weighting, although there has been a recent substantial increase in students taking advanced coursework.  Should the general performance of the 2010-2011 freshmen (~90% of 3.5 A-G complete three years later, ~50% of 3.0+ A-G complete three years later) be replicated amongst the 2013-14 freshmen when they are seniors, SVUSD’s A-G rate in 2016-2017 would be expected to demonstrate further growth to the neighborhood of 51.9%.

It's kind of dry to read on a page. Seeing it discussed amongst the Trustees, the Superintendent, Sonoma Valley High's Principal, the Student Trustee, and our County Office of Education Representative is another matter entirely.  The video is about 29 minutes long, but if you're interested in education in general, I recommend it to you. And yes, that's me you see speaking from the podium.


Thursday, April 9, 2015

Freshman Teams, Student Performance, and the Case For SVUSD's Master Plan.

So, it's my birthday today, and those of you that know me will be unsurprised that my gift to myself was speaking at "Career Day" at Adele Harrison Middle School in Sonoma. I always find it rewarding to talk with students about their plans for the future. But this year, and in this instance, I had just that little extra bit of a reason to be positive. Because I've been spending some time reviewing the consistently increasing performances delivered by students just like those I spoke to today when they reach Sonoma Valley High.

---

Data courtesy Sonoma Valley Unified School District.
Framework from Elaine M. Allensworth,
Julia A. Gwynne, Paul Moore, and
Marisa de la Torre, "Middle Grade Indicators of
Readiness in Chicago Public Schools.”
available online at http://tinyurl.com/myq87ag
On the right is a graph tabulated from freshman grade information at Sonoma Valley High since 2006. But first, a bit of background.

Recent research shows that middle school attendance and GPA, when combined, are the single best predictor of high school GPA. Qualitatively, most (public) high schools grade students similarly; however, similar students perform differently depending on school, with some schools improving performance up to .5 of a grade point – and with most of those benefits received by the students between a 1.0 and a 3.0. Those student who manage to reach or exceed a 3.0 in high school increase both their chances of attending college, and graduating from college, the higher their GPA moves.

The study really caught my eye because, beginning in 2011, Sonoma Valley High School created their Freshman Teams, small communities of incoming students with shared schedules. To the extent that the context students enter high school can affect performance, should the Freshman Teams have been functioning positively, an improvement of approximately .5 of a GPA would be expected, with the primary benefits impacting students who would have earned between a 1.0 and a 3.0.

And lo and behold the graph shows exactly what I'd hoped when I started looking at this data. Since the program was instituted in the 2011-2012 school year, Sonoma Valley Unified has moved the majority of its students into the college-potential category as of the end of freshman year, nearly doubling the number in the top tier. Attendance improvements were positively correlated with GPA improvements. Further, as would be expected, the biggest GPA change impacted students between a 1.0 and a 3.0, with essentially a third of the students expected to fall into the range moving into the college potential or college probable tiers.

That wasn't all -- at the same time this was going on, the number of students taking accelerated coursework (math & language) nearly doubled.  Sonoma Valley High gives the students no break on grading for their initiative in choosing a harder schedule – there is no bonus weight assigned to their GPAs for this effort.  So not only are the students earning better grades, but they've been doing it taking harder classes at the same time.  

The students I saw at Adele will now more likely than not be in a position to pursue college when they attend Sonoma Valley High in the years to come. The full handout (with the citations and backup) is here.  And the question this data makes me ask myself is: will we give these students the schools and the facilities that their performance deserves?

Can we execute on our school district's Master Plan?

---

Poll, Sonoma Index-Tribune
screenshot taken February 12, 2015.
The voters of Sonoma have long been the heroes of their own community's schools, not leaving that role to the State of California.  The electors of the Valley, time and again, have fully committed to public stewardship of our educational infrastructure. As parents (and grandparents), our lived experience shows the enormous benefits to health, safety and education that have always accrued from carefully spending the money necessary to develop the structures, fields and facilities worthy of a Valley as successful as Sonoma.

The men and women of our community have always counted on their educators and trustees to manage — cautiously — the development of our school campuses.  We want our District to be neither the family shopping only for the day's needs at 7-11, nor the one gone Costco crazy.  Instead, we hope they'll be like a mom and dad sitting around the kitchen table, carefully deciding on the nutritious groceries they'll buy for the week ahead, before they go to the store.  For like that family, we as a community know we'll face expenses to maintain our District, and we'll have to frugally weigh options, one against the other.

I think this is the moment that we find ourselves at that table. For notwithstanding the emergence of a second dot-com bubble to our south, interest rates remain at historic lows because investment and demand in America remains depressed.  These conditions were not seen for seventy years, and it is quite possible they will not be seen again for another seventy.   As prudent shoppers, now is the time to write our list of the purchases we know we're going to need — the framework for accelerating our students into the balance of the 21st century that lies ahead.

The green eye shade of the accountant, and the graphs of the economist make the dry case for improving our schools — that action now can reap outsized dividends, consequences we will see in the improved living standards and enhanced productivity of our entire community. But it is our concern for justice that should ultimately resolve questions in favor of an investment in our shared future.  It is no accident that I started this section with a rewrite of the first sentence of David Copperfield, Dickens' story of individual perseverance despite an undisciplined heart. Our shared belief is that America is defined by the notion that the condition of your birth does not determine the outcome of your life, a truth voiced by both Paul Ryan and Elizabeth Warren. Whether Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative, our covenant with our future selves is that education will remain the key to unlocking the American Dream.

However, it is our common fear that each element that leads to such success is eroding before our eyes. We find ourselves in a time where educational opportunity in the United States has become inverted. We are one of only two members of the G20 that spends more on richer students than poorer (the other is Turkey). We cannot rely on the State of California to resolve these issues for us. Our Governor is backing away from California's School Facilities Program.  The State is essentially leaving Districts like ours on their own in providing for future school facilities and modernization.

This is where the case for implementing the District's master plans, now,  for all of the campuses, finds real traction. As Winston Churchill said, "we shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us."  The voters of Sonoma have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to shape the future of the Valley for decades to come — and there is no one else ready, willing, and capable of doing so. We can put in place the scaffolding our students, the voters of tomorrow, will need to succeed.  

We have an opportunity to make educational equality more than a dream.  We have a chance to make it a reality.  

---

So despite being another year older, I found in the faces of our students reason for optimism.  But I also found a challenge and a call to action.  Rare indeed are opportunities such as the one available to the voters of Sonoma today. It is my hope, and indeed I believe we can make it our shared goal as a community, for us all to pull together to create the infrastructure to match the performances being delivered by our teachers and students.

And so I say to the students who gave me a resounding cheer today when their principal told them all it was my birthday, that we can see that they are doing their part.  And that I hope that, as voters, that we will now be able to do ours.

Monday, March 23, 2015

Turnout, Serrano, and the Outlier.

Percentage Voter Turnout Above (Below) Expected
Versus Number of Registered Voters
California Primary Election, June 4, 2014
Results available at http://tinyurl.com/l3xbpqw  
Back in June of 2014, I took a look at the provisional results of the California Primary. It was partly due to a comment in a newspaper article arguing the Bay Area leads the State in voter turnout.  Based on the data, I concluded
that the northern counties, and those of the Sierra foothills should really hold the title.

I've wanted to revisit the final results for a while. I did so today. The coefficient of determination was essentially unchanged (R²=.757 versus R²=.758). In doing so, though, I realized there was a way to get at the point Paul Mitchell, the vice-president of Political Data Inc., had made to the newspaper reporter that led to my post in the first place.

Paul had contended that "[p]oor people from Sonoma are far more likely to cast a ballot than someone living in poverty in Echo Park [Los Angeles]." This time, after plotting the results, I then set the y-axis to 100% of turnout as predicted by the trend line, leaving the x-axis at the number of registered voters per county.  Graphing the data this way actually supports Paul's argument – that Sonoma County is the outlier from the trend.  Sonoma County comes in at 137% of expected turnout, the highest in the table.

Voter turnout has been on my mind because of a line from Serrano v. Priest that's come up here before.  In contemporary discussions of education, the "twin themes" of the Serrano I decision tend to be collapsed into one – "[t]he pivotal position of education to success in American society."  But it is the second of the twin themes, where Serrano I finds its support in Brown v. Board of Education, that causes me to return to this data.

I hand the microphone to California's former governor, circa 1954:
"[E]ducation is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments. Compulsory school attendance laws and the great expenditures for education both demonstrate our recognition of the importance of education to our democratic society. It is required in the performance of our most basic public responsibilities, even service in the armed forces. It is the very foundation of good citizenship." [Emphasis added.]
The language is lofty, but not complicated. Democratic society is (of course) based on voting. In performing that public responsibility, education is a lens allowing us to distinguish the differences between competing choices. But Earl Warren (and a unanimous Supreme Court behind him) say it's more – that education is the foundation of good citizenship. Education doesn't just help us when we step into the voting booth, it shows when we choose to go to the polls in the first place.  Education is the self-evident spark, pump primer, and boot loader of democracy.

And so I take that proposition, and come back to the graph once more.  And I ask myself – is it education in Sonoma County that has led to this result?

And if I accept for a moment that the statement is true, I then must turn to the far more difficult question.  For what, then, would I point to about Sonoma County that has made this difference?

And what can the rest of California learn from Sonoma's experience?

Sunday, March 8, 2015

@RobertJShiller and the #EMRATIO.

There's been a tendency, every spring since the start of the Lesser Depression, for the business community to express, hopefully, that "this will be the year things turn." The first post I wrote noting this theme was on March 8, 2013. I thought this morning that, two years later to the day, I'd revisit the question.

Civilian Employment-Population Ratio
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis
I've been keeping an eye (thanks to Brad DeLong) on the Civilian Employment-Population Ratio from the St. Louis Fed for some time. It is generally the best measure of labor market conditions. If the economy rallies strongly, this is the ratio that should change substantially.

In March of 2013, the ratio was at 58.5. As of February 2015, it's at 59.3; the graph is on the right. There's essentially been no movement.

At the same time, though, the Shiller P/E Ratio, as of February 13, 2015, passed its pre-financial crisis high. This past week, the NASDAQ closed above 5,000 for the first time since the dot-com bubble. There is some local evidence of a speculative real estate bubble. Shiller himself recently released a new edition of his "Irrational Exuberance," where in the preface he expresses surprise at the events that have followed “the bursting of the speculative bubbles that led to the 2007-9 world financial crisis”:
"[E]vidence of bubbles has accelerated since the crisis. Valuations in the stock and bond markets have reached high levels in the United States and some other countries, and valuations in the housing market have been increasing rapidly in many countries."
So the data is there to support a narrative of asset price inflation unsupported by fundamentals, rather than the hopeful mantra of Main Street.

It is, of course, the why of this situation that is so puzzling to so many. If the economy presents meager prospects, shouldn't prices adjust to reflect? It is always tempting to fall back on Thomas Sargent and simply say that in an economic equilibrium, people are satisfied with their choices, and to add Herbert Stein's observation that "[i]f something cannot go on forever, it will stop."  But Shiller himself offered a potential explanation on why this phenomenon recurs, and I found that his point resonated, and so I link to his piece in the New York Times from last month:
"When there is unusual uncertainty about the future, and if not enough new business initiatives can be found to increase the supply of good investments, people will compete to bid up existing investable assets. They may go so far in bidding up prices that even though the assets may have horrible prospects, people will still want to hold them because they feel they have to save somewhere."

Saturday, January 31, 2015

Nothing So Dear as #cheapmoney

Over the past few years, I've heard from time to time in conversation the desire to take advantage of "cheap" fixed-rate money, before inflation sets in. 

Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (US)
10-Year Treasury Constant Maturity Rate [DGS10]
retrieved from Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis [FRED]
January 30, 2015, available at http://tinyurl.com/kmtq4sl
On the right is a graph (it's actually a composite of some screenshots) from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.  I've marked when I was born, and when I graduated from high school. At my birth and graduation, the yield on the 10-Year Treasury was nearly identical (~7.5%, ~33 basis points apart). Between those dates, the yield was almost always higher, often much higher; since then, it's almost always been lower, mostly much lower. As of 30 January 2015, the yield is 1.64%.

Everyone carries a memory of economic history in their head. As Owen Zidar points out here, it changes more slowly than the speed of circumstances. Brad Delong has consistently argued for the necessity of all of us to "mark our beliefs to market." He maintains a list of prominent economists and institutions who've argued inflation was the foremost concern facing the U.S. economy since 2007 -- and not for the purpose of congratulating them.

Like the economists Brad lists, our formative memories were constructed during a different time. Inflation expectations became anchored. But there are few atheists in foxholes during combat, and for similar reasons, I suspect that inflationistas in debt are rare during deflation -- for falling prices routinely bankrupt entrepreneurs. There is oftentimes nothing so dear as "cheap" money.

Sunday, November 30, 2014

Why Travel Matters.

Back in November of 2012, I ran across this article in the Economist, arguing that the United States was on pace to become the world's largest producer of oil by 2020, and would be able to produce enough energy to be self sufficient by 2035. I recall thinking how dramatic a change that would be -- and I saved the PDF, meaning to blog about it.

"Alberta Energy Firms Face Harsh New Reality"
Jeffrey Jones, Jeff Lewis, Carrie Tait
The Globe and Mail, November 28, 2014.
I wasn't quite sure what to say, though. But spending a little bit of time in Calgary really focused the issue for me. The Alberta business section of the Globe and Mail is on the right (the oil price was also front page news).  I've linked to the main article here.

The recent oil price slide will probably completely eliminate the Canadian federal budget surplus. That creates serious problems for a government that has fixed expenses (salaries, pensions, debt service) but falling revenues. Most of the world at this point has, or soon looks to have, the same problem as Canada.

A nice way to understand this situation is to read a brief blog post of Paul Krugman's from October 15, entitled "1937." He noted that markets are signaling that "once again the big risk is deflation or at least very sub-par inflation."  He measured deflation in that post by looking at the market for Treasurys, specifically the 10-year, showing the yield had fallen below 2%, potentially a sign of recession, deflation, or both.

When I tucked the Economist article away for future reference in 2012, I never would have thought that a falling nominal oil price could be a bad thing.  Today, though, I'm not so sure.

And I'm not the only one.

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

What Do Bubbles Look Like?

Sentinel Media Services
"Midcentury Modern in Sonoma"
 The San Francisco Chronicle, Nov 19, 2014
screenshot taken Nov. 19, 2014
The San Francisco Chronicle gets my attention today.  On a fairly regular basis, the paper features a particular piece of real estate for sale somewhere around the San Francisco Bay Area.

Today, they're publishing about a property on Austin Avenue, in the Prestwood neighborhood of Sonoma.  The asking price is $2,295,000. The house is a little under 1,900 square feet.

You can see the location here. One nice thing about Zillow is that it will show you the recent sale history of the property.  I took a screenshot of that, and that's on the right, too.  

The Zillow history shows that William Grecian tried to sell this property back in November of 2010 for $445,000; he couldn't find any takers.  He dropped the price to $420,000 in April of 2011, but still didn't find a buyer.  He dropped the price another $12,500 -- and that's when Laura and Richard Tackett made their offer, for $407,500 on July 15, 2011.  

Zillow.com
"826 Austin Ave, Sonoma"
 screenshot taken Nov. 19, 2014
available at http://tinyurl.com/krxbtzh
Laura and Richard held the property for 872 days.  On December 3, 2013, they listed it for sale at $648,000, a 59% price increase.  Laura and Richard figured the change in the real estate market meant that they'd just made an investment with approximately a 20% annual rate of return.  Of course, Richard and Laura were wrong; the property didn't sell for $648,000. 

Instead, it sold 17 days after listing for $730,000. 

More like a 26% annual return.  

The property was purchased by an LLC, which is more or less the general practice in California with real estate projects that are expected to appreciate significantly.  The registered agent for the LLC is Patrick Doyle of Petaluma, who's a general contractor and is the manager of the LLC. The Deed of Trust on the property (which I checked) reveals the equitable owners. The Deed of Trust is a public record and if anyone's particularly excited to find out who put up the money for this deal, feel free to head to the County of Sonoma's Recorder's office -- they're open 8-5 Monday through Friday.  

The LLC listed the property for sale on November 5, 2014.  The LLC held the property for 320 days.  I can't calculate the annual rate of return, because the calculator I use presumes that the values change monthly; here, the ∆ in the price is so substantial that the number of days included can change the implied rate of return.  But it looks like about a 215% presumed annual rate of return.

Comments, "Midcentury Modern in Sonoma"
Sentinel Media Services
The San Francisco Chronicle
screenshot taken Nov. 19, 2014
There are a great many things I could say about this situation. I'm going to hold those observations, and I think I'll revisit this blog post in a couple of years (months?), perhaps updating it with the transaction history of the address.  

At this point, though, I do want to draw attention to the comments about the house on the Chronicle's web site.  

One poster thought the property looked like a good "flip."  

Another wrote that "I can't believe anyone would pay over 2 million for this toy house."

Interesting.