Electing Superman

On Thursday, I enjoyed attending the Candidates Forum for Georgia State School Superintendent. Each of the three contenders--Republican, Democrat, Libertarian--demonstrated impressive credentials and a sincere desire to improve the way Georgia's kids are educated.

The issues are formidable and the proposed remedies complex, just the right grist for an engaging and informative debate.

Declining State lottery revenue is putting the squeeze on funding for two popular programs, the Georgia Pre-K and the HOPE Scholarship. All candidates agreed that Pre-K should take priority for these funds.

Joe Martin, Democrat, explained how a child's ability to read by 3rd grade provides a reliable predictor of his/her chances of graduating from high school and even being incarcerated, proof that early education pays off.

Dr. John Barge, Republican, suggested that we could save money by putting the HOPE scholarship award on a sliding grade scale. The better a student's grades, the larger the scholarship. Martin wants to add a financial means test to make sure that the neediest students receive priority.

Not only is the HOPE Scholarship suffering from funding problems, it also has seen over 60% of its recipients fail to maintain the required minimum "B" grade average after their Freshman year in college. This clearly points to a grade inflation problem in the high schools.

Kira Willis, Libertarian, suggests a remedy for both of these problems with HOPE: change it from a scholarship to a program that reimburses college students at the end of each academic term, provided they maintain a "B" grade average. No pressure on high school teachers to give students the grades they need for the scholarship.Interesting.

Surprisingly, none of the candidates are enthusiastic about school vouchers. Given a general interest amongst Conservatives and Libertarians in providing more choice and wielding the use of market competitive forces, I thought this topic would introduce more controversy.

Barge observed that to introduce genuine competition we would first have to level the playing field for public and private schools. As for now, private schools enjoy much more freedom to choose who they teach, what they teach, how they teach, and how they staff their classrooms.

As for ways that the State can help school districts hire and keep the most qualified teachers in their classrooms, both Barge and Willis oppose the tenuring of teachers. Willis wants to give the schools more flexibility in removing underperforming teachers, saying that "we all know who the good and bad teachers are."

Really?

Martin is in favor of teacher tenure and thinks that it is necessary to create a professional career track for teachers who wish to further develop and practice their talents in Georgia's schools.

Barge and Willis also share the view that the budgetary priorities of the new Commissioner can be covered under the existing level of State funding, if they achieved cost savings from streamlining operations and removing certain unnecessary mandates for school districts.

Martin takes the view that the new Superintendent must lobby State Legislators and the new Governor for more funding. We currently "do not have an education culture in GA," and recent Education cost cutting in GA has been more severe than it has been in other states. He said that the State can find these additional funds by improving they way it collects corporate income taxes and sales taxes.

Each candidate wants to reduce the current reliance on standardized testing. Willis said the State has not fulfilled past promises to eliminate some of the State-mandated tests and also observed that a great deal of costs could be reduced by doing so.

Kira Willis has the most interesting ideas and relies on a mantra of "restoring local control" to the school systems and their teachers. I like how she sees inherent problems with mandated programs and the way they tend to create unintended administrative and financial burdens for the schools that diminish their ability to provide for the classrooms. Willis seems a bit too dogmatic, and her skills as an the executive of a large organization are unproven.

Dr. Barge didn't offer much evidence that his leadership would introduce much innovation, and he seems more interested in running a better austerity program for the State.

I favor Martin, because he has the most experience and ability to collaborate with the widest range of political colleagues. We need his moderate approach to solving these problems.

The debate was very well-organized, thanks in part to the help of Common Cause Georgia. They are a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that advocates for openness, accountability and ethics in government at our state and local levels. Common Cause deserves our support!

Navy Green

They may not be ready to paint sunflowers on the sides of their Hummers, but our troops are nonetheless going green. A front page story in today's New York Times describes the US Department of Defense's aggressive efforts to adopt renewable energy, particular solar energy and biofuels.
Their efforts, based on pragmatism and largely free of political and econcomic mischief, contrast sharply with civilian efforts to wean ouselves from fossil fuels.
Since 2006 senior military commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan have called for a reduced dependence on fossil fuels. As exemplified by the deadly insurgent attacks earlier this week on truck convoys taking fuel to military bases in Afghanistan, these fuels are dangerous and costly to transport. While they buy gas for just over $1 a gallon, getting that gallon to some forward operating bases costs $400.
All branches of the US Military are making serious progress towards tough goals. For example, the Air Force is the largest energy user in the federal government, and it powers many of its bases with some of the largest photovoltaic plants in the world.

In another example, Navy secretary Ray Mabus wants 50 percent of the power for the Navy and Marines to come from renewable energy sources by 2020.
By comparison, the US Congress is laboring to pass a watered-down Federal energy bill that would require electric utility companies to produce 16 percent of their power from renewable energy sources by 2020. It is fiercely-opposed by the utility companies, the US Chamber of Commerce and senators from coal-mining states.
And their money is talking.
The DoD's strategy for the development and deployment of renewable energy stems from a pragmatism that civil America should heed.
Ironically, as military commanders struggled to protect the fuel lines that supplied our troops in Iraq, they were ostensibly in Iraq to secure the Middle Eastern fuel lines which supply our world. Just as our troops are oiled at a large cost in money and lives, we all are paying for our dependence on fossil fuels.

Maybe the Pentagon can teach our politicians something about setting informed energy policies.

Atlanta School Daze

Yesterday I met with administrators at the Atlanta Public Schools Office of High Schools located in the Kirkwood district of Atlanta. My 10th-grade Son had recently received a form letter from the APS district offices explaining that he was being removed from an Accelerated Mathematics class.

The letter opened with "Dear Perspective (sic) Student..." and further repeated the misuse of perspective.

My meeting was a failure, as I unsuccessfully appealed the Administration's decision to pull Sam out of the class. I argued that my Son demonstrated exceptional aptitudes for the subject and should receive instruction commensurate with his abilities. The administrator countered that they have no way of doing so that would not jeopardize his qualifications for High School graduation.

I felt let down by the APS, a feeling which has persisted for many years based on school officials' sloppy handling of their work, disinclination to challenge my son, and comfort with "good enough" performance on their part and the part of my son.

The APS' Office of High Schools is a shared facility with the Crim "Open Campus" High School. On my way to the meeting I pedaled by three young men playing dice on the front steps of an abandoned house a block away from the School. At the corner of Clifton and Memorial, a group of students shared a joint in plain view of the School. As I left the meeting, the same group of students had doubled in size, and the sidewalk was littered with what appeared to be a stack of loose leaf papers.

Such is the story of the Atlanta Public Schools: with a student population beleaguered by drugs and poverty, APS officials are preoccupied with efforts to graduate as many students as possible. Based on my Son's experience this preoccupation comes at the expense of academic excellence, and we would be more likely to find a greater emphasis on academic performance in suburban school districts.

I have two pieces of advice for students and parents of middle and high school students in the APS system:

1. Advocate for yourself and DO NOT expect your counselors to give you useful advice on what classes to take and what programs to join
2. Take EVERY honors and AP class you can. Classes in core subjects such as language arts, science, math and social studies that do not have an honors or AP designation are likely to contain troubled students who will distract the teacher and detract from the academic progress of the class.

Unfortunately in the APS, there are two worlds, and if you care about your education you will want place yourself in the right one.

Georgia's Solar Eclipse

The Georgia Clean Energy Property Tax Credit encourages homeowners and businesses to install a variety of equipment such as solar electricity systems, solar water heaters, wind turbines, geothermal heat pumps, and high-efficiency lighting. This incentive returns to the property owner up to 35% of the total system cost and are especially important for stimulating Georgia's market for renewable energy, since current State energy policies aim to keep the cost of nonrenewable electricity from coal and nuclear plants artificially low. (more on that in a future blog.)

In April, the Clean Energy Property Tax Credit program reached its limit for this year. That means that no more projects will receive these credits until January, 2011.

Relative to other states' clean energy programs, the Georgia Legislature capped this program at a ridiculously-low amount of $2.5M annually. Property owners must file for the credit after they install their systems, and the State then assigns the credits on a first-come, first served basis.

Theoretically if all of the credits were assigned to solar PV projects, that would amount to approximately 1.2MW of new electrical capacity. In some states, that much new solar PV is installed every week.

This, plus the new rate increases recently approved by the Georgia Public Service Commission, benefit the utility companies but not the ratepayers, be they homeowners or business owners. We should demand fairer and more competitive energy policies from our elected officials.

For more info and action, check out the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy.

What's Blooming in that Box?

This week, the Silicon Valley inventors at Bloom Box unveiled their namesake product, touting it as the answer to America's long-term electricity needs. Report on 60 Minutes here. The Bloom Box is a fuel cell which, unlike those currently on the market, doesn't require hydrogen as as a fuel and instead can directly utilize hydrocarbon gases such as natural gas (NG) to produce electricity.

I certainly anticipate its commercial success, despite the many technical and business challenges it still faces.

We need answers to many questions. For instance, how much electricity can the Bloom Box generate per therm of natural gas, compared the performance of NG-fired turbines that most large utility companies currently operate? Also, how do they propose to dramatically increase the scale of their product manufacturing, distribution and support? For most startup companies, this stage in their business development is fraught with risks.

I wish that Bloom Box's boosters would not state the benefits of their product in comparison with solar energy. Solar is not their main nemesis, although they continue to compete with solar businesses for what little public and private development funding that is available.

Of much greater consequence are the multinational energy firms, which stand to either buy them out or undermine them with competing technologies. Petroleum, nuclear and coal companies love to see renewable energy startups bickering amongst themselves. This also poses a threat to most power utilities, which resist those technologies (like solar PV and fuel cells) that enable the distributed generation of electricity.

As for Bloom Box's claims of revolutionizing the world's electricity supply, they still have to provide a convincing answer about how their boxes would be fueled. Our long-term supply of cheap natural gas is a risk. Fact is, no one has a good idea how much is left in the ground.

Relatively speaking, the sun ain't gonna run out on us. I think that solar energy combined with advanced battery technology has at least as good a likelihood of supplying us safe and secure electricity enmasse as this does.

Actually, we need both, and many more good ideas to secure our energy future. For now, we should step up our investments in renewable energies (and power storage) and gradually reduce the subsidies we give to dirty energy technologies.

The future is one of renewable and distributed power generation!

China Is Leading the Race to Make Renewable Energy - NYTimes.com

China Is Leading the Race to Make Renewable Energy - NYTimes.com

As someone who designs and installs solar energy systems, the emergence of China as the leading provider of high-quality, low-cost equipment comes as a mixed blessing. My firm began receiving solicitations from Chinese manufacturers early last year, and the tempo has dramatically increased over the past four months of advertised prices that are one-half the going rates of a year ago, now as low as $1.70 per Watt.

This allows my commercial clients to enjoy an economic payback on their systems in less than five years, which previously stood in the 7-9 year range. Unfortunately, we are also allowing the Chinese to grow their manufacturing jobs and amass the know-how vital to manufacturing these advanced technologies on a global scale.

I cannot understand why our government does not provide more stimulus to these industries of the future, instead of bailing out those industries heading for a dead-end (automotive) or failing to produce products of real value (financial institutions that make reckless investments.)

A New Year of Food

In 2010, many people will try to improve their their health and diet. The best advice is, keep it simple. For instance, author and food expert Michael Pollan has a list of ten food rules.

I reduced them as follows:

1. Don't buy anything your great grandmother wouldn't recognize as food. That includes products with ingredients that cannot be found in an ordinary pantry.
2. Avoid products that are pretending to be something they are not. Good food does not need health claims printed on its packaging. If it says heart healthy, lite, low-fat, or non-fat, put it down.
3. It's best to shop at local farmers markets. If you have to shop at a supermarket, shop its outside aisles and not its middle.

I would also add that, if you eat meat, reduce your consumption of it to a level as Thomas Jefferson once did, as a condiment on your table.

To good heath and a better planet. Bon Appétit!

Image courtesy of the Antiadvertising Agency.