Student Tracking Indicates Limited Learning in College

That was the headline.    The story in the ADN said that in this study they tested college kids and found that they had only increased their knowledge by 7% in two years.

As a retired professor, I have lots of thoughts on this.  It's true, lots of students don't really know how to write or think critically.  Those aren't easy-to-teach skills and university systems are making it harder and harder for faculty to teach them.  But how did they test for that?   There's lots to write about, but let's just look at the test in this post.

From the AP story at Valleynewslive.com (which has more of this AP story than the ADN).

The research found an average-scoring student in fall 2005 scored seven percentage points higher in spring of 2007 on the assessment. In other words, those who entered college in the 50th percentile would rise to the equivalent of the 57th after their sophomore years.

Among the findings outlined in the book and report, which tracked students through four years of college:

-Overall, the picture doesn't brighten much over four years. After four years, 36 percent of students did not demonstrate significant improvement, compared to 45 percent after two.

-Students who studied alone, read and wrote more, attended more selective schools and majored in traditional arts and sciences majors posted greater learning gains.

My first questions was:  how do you test such a thing?  So I looked up the test.

It's written up in a new book called Academically Adrift by Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa, but I don't have the book.  But the test they used is called the College Learning Assessment (CLA), and I found information on it.

From the NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development:

Unlike standardized tests such as the GRE or GMAT, the CLA is not a multiple choice test. Instead, the multi-part test is a holistic assessment based on open-ended prompts. “Performance Task” section prompts students with an imagined “real world” scenario, and provides contextual documents that provide evidence and data. The students are asked to assess and synthesize the data and to construct an argument based on their analysis.

So one would find out not just how much trivia a student has memorized for the test, but whether they understand its relevance in context and can write about it.  Grading this sort of test isn't easy, but with a rubric and training for the graders you can get reasonably reliable scores.  The Performance Task is graded using four factors (see boxes below) and you can see the grading benchmarks for each here.

The Lumina Longitudinal Study: Summary of Procedures and Findings  by Dr. Stephen Klein ("the principal investigator of the Lumina-funded CLA Longitudinal Study (2005-2009)") describes the kinds of test questions:

The Analytic Writing Task consists of two sections. First, students are allotted 45 minutes for the Make-an-Argument task in which they present their perspective on an issue like “Government funding would be better spent on preventing crime than dealing with criminals after the fact.” Next, the Critique-an-Argument task gives students 30 minutes to identify and describe logical flaws in an argument.

Here is one example:

Butter has now been replaced by margarine in Happy Pancake House restaurants throughout the southwestern United States. Only about 2 percent of customers have complained, indicating that 98 people out of 100 are happy with the change. Furthermore, many servers have reported that a number of customers who still ask for butter do not complain when they are given margarine instead. Clearly, either these customers cannot distinguish margarine from butter, or they use the term “butter” to refer to either butter or margarine. Thus, to avoid the expense of purchasing butter, the Happy Pancake House should extend this cost-saving change to its restaurants in the southeast and northeast as well.

How many logical flaws did you find in the argument?  Even if you can't name them, can you describe them?

Wait!  Don't just move on.  Stop and try to find at least one or two flaws in that passage.  After all, critical thinking ability is what this is all about.  If you're having trouble, at least go look at this list of logical fallacies.




I'm of two minds here.  First I think we should be teaching people how to think critically.  After all, this blog is called "What Do I Know?" and the underlying theme - even if it isn't always obvious - is how do people know what they know?  So I'm all for students learning more about rationality, non-rational ways of knowing, logic, etc. 

But not scoring higher on this particular assessment only means that the students didn't increase their ability in the skills this test was testing.  Perhaps the students greatly increased their knowledge of human anatomy or accounting or their ability to read French.  And it would seem the test wouldn't catch that. 

A test like this is only fair if the colleges' goal is teaching the skills this test assesses.

But apparently there are other problems.   Dr. Klein's team had trouble keeping schools and students in the test pool from year to year.

A total of 9,167 Lumina freshmen completed the fall 2005 testing, but only 1,330 of them (14 percent) eventually completed all three phases of testing. Most of the attrition was due to schools rather than individual students dropping out of the study (although some schools may have dropped out because of difficulty recruiting students to participate). Only 26 (52 percent) of the initial 50 schools tested at least 25 students in both Phases 1 and 3; just 20 schools (40 percent) met the minimum sample size requirements in all three phases. These 20 schools tested 4,748 freshmen in the fall of 2005, 2,327 rising juniors in the spring of 2007, and 1,675 seniors in the spring of 2009.

On the average, a school that stayed in the study for all three phases lost about one-third of its students that participated as freshmen. Thus, although this is a substantial loss, it is far less than the overall attrition rate. We found that dropouts were more likely to be Black or Hispanic, non-native English speakers, and students with total SAT scores about 80 points lower than their classmates. However, even when taken together, these student-level characteristics explained only five percent of the variance in students’ decisions to drop out of the study (but perhaps not from the school). We looked for but did not find any school characteristics associated with dropping out of the study.

I'll have to let others with better statistical skills judge whether they were still within the parameters needed for legitimate sample size.  


What Does it Mean?

If the research is saying, "US college students are not learning basic thinking skills" they are probably right.  The next question is whether US colleges are teaching them.  (If they aren't trying to teach them and are teaching something else, then so what?)  My experience, and I'll try to do another post on this, is that there are serious institutional barriers to teaching thinking skills, even for those who want to.  As someone who taught graduate students in relatively small classes, I had the luxury of being able to assign (and comment on in detail) many writing assignments over a semester.  But this is for another post. 

But if the purpose of the test is to raise awareness that these skills  - often bandied about as important - aren't being taught, then that's something else.  And should people think this is important, well, they just happen to have a test to use to measure it. 

I have no reason to be suspicious here, but we should talk about the cost of the test, because  anyone who develops such a test,  has an incentive for people to use it.  From the Council for Aid to Education:

How much does it cost? The cost is $6,500 for a one-year cross-sectional design with an additional $25 charge for each student tested over the 100 each fall and spring. If you are interested in a more specialized design model, please contact CAE staff to discuss pricing.

One hundred schools would be $650,000 per year.  That doesn't mean there is anything wrong with them making money off of this.  After all that's the incentive built into capitalism.  And these tests will be costly to grade because you need real people doing it. But one gets into the murky area between objective assessment and promoting self interest.  I have no idea where the money goes (it's a non-profit and may well go into laudatory activities), but it's a question to keep in mind.  After all, some say that No Child Left Behind was a big money maker for the test makers who lobbied hard to set up the program. 



It's also not clear to me exactly what the relationship is between Dr. Klein and the book authors Richard Arum and Josipa Roska.  The Council for Aid to Education (CAE) website says  

Dr. Stephen Klein, the principal investigator of the Lumina-funded CLA Longitudinal Study (2005-2009)

But an NYU page says:

Richard Arum, professor of sociology and education at New York University with joint appointments at FAS and NYU Steinhardt, and Josipa Roska, assistant professor of sociology at the University of Virginia, embarked on a multi-year, longitudinal study of more than 2300 undergraduate students at 24 universities across the country. Using a newly developed, state-of-the-art measurement tool, the College Learning Assessment (CLA), the research pair measured the extent to which students improved on these higher order skills. The CLA is a tool developed by the Council for Aid to Education, a national nonprofit based in New York.

Are these different studies?

Another CAE page says this.

The Council for Aid to Education (CAE) heralds the publication of Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses, by Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2011). This study was made possible by CAE’s policy to make its Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA) database of over 200,000 student results across hundreds of colleges available to scholars and scholarly organizations. We were pleased to assist the authors in this major Social Science Research Council sponsored project.

But if they were only using existing data, why would they say that "the research pair measured the extent. . ."?  I guess if you know they were just using existing data collected by someone else, and that they used the data to 'measure the extent . . "  but to me it sounds like they conducted the assessment itself.  I don't know which is right.

I don't think there is anything fishy here, just confusing. Maybe a webmaster put up the wrong stuff. 

The NYU Site site says:

Funding for their research was provided by the Ford, Lumina, Carnegie, and Teagle Foundations.

It used to be that studies from non-profits could be trusted.  But we've had a proliferation of "think tanks" set up to produce research that further a political or economic agenda, so we always need to look at where the money was coming from and going to.

Swans, Kings, and Networks - Three Movies

We saw Black Swan in LA and then The King's Speech and The Social Network when we got back. Two very good films and one ugly duckling. 

Black Swan

The people in front of us giggled during the serious parts. And I couldn't fault them. We should have listened to a friend who didn't like it. The ballet was uninspired and while all the ballet stories about controlling parents, rivalries for parts, sleeping with the director, etc. may be true, this film's attempt to put everything into one ballerina with special effects didn't work for me. It all fell into place when someone said they'd heard it was like a horror ballet flick. Of course. It was Friday the 13th in tutus. (Or maybe a ballet movie with a touch of horror movie.)  But horror movies don't do much for me.  I'm truly baffled at the people who think this is a great movie or that Natalie Portman was great in this part. We walked out feeling we'd been conned by the movie marketers. 

If you want to see a good ballet movie - with many of the same cliche subplots - get Mao's Last Dancer. A much better movie. Proof once more that marketing determines the success of a movie.


The King's Speech

On the other hand, people will still be admiring The King's Speech in 30 years. Who would have thought a movie about a speech therapist could be so gripping. It just proves that it's all about how you tell the story. Just a terrific movie.


The Social Network

And I think this one was even better. How did I conclude that? Because the film was so densely packed that I want to see it again. The movie, for me at least, was done well enough that I concluded they were all right. Zuckerman was just so far ahead of everyone - his vision, his understanding of the concept, of the technology, and mostly of the new reality - that even if he stole the basic idea, where he took it no one else could have taken it. And the only person in the movie who was at his level was Sean Parker, the creator of Napster, who got it immediately, and shared what he had learned with Zuckerman. The others weren't wrong either - they weren't treated right, but they were still in a previous century frame of mind.  And they got paid off in the settlement. 

Democracy - Montana Senate Head of DUI Rules, Stopped for ... Guess!

Not a DUI, but close.

From the Missoulian today:

State Sen. Jim Shockley of Victor, who heads the panel hearing bills to crack down on drunken driving, was cited Friday for an open container after an off-duty sheriff's deputy saw him drinking a beer on Interstate 90, Missoula police said.

"He pulled off on the Orange Street exit and city officers were able to locate the vehicle and pulled him over," Missoula Police Detective Sgt. Bob Bouchee said Wednesday.

Shockley - a 2012 Republican candidate for attorney general, the state's chief law enforcement and legal officer - said he was drinking a beer and tomato juice*  concoction when he was stopped.

So, do we celebrate that the person heading this committee to crack down on drunk driving has a personal understanding of the issue?  Or do we cry?  At least the Missoulian did its homework a bit and gave this background:

Montana outlawed open containers in vehicles in 2005 in legislation sponsored by Sen. Gary Perry, R-Belgrade. The Senate approved the bill on second reading on Jan. 29, 2005, by a 46-4 vote, and on third reading two days later on a 45-5 vote. In both instances, Shockley voted "no."

I guess he's still voting 'no.'

"It's just another reason for police to pull you over and check for something illegal in your car," Shockley told the Associated Press at the time. "This is what we consider our freedom and this is our right: If you're not drunk, you shouldn't be pulled over."

What if you are working on getting drunk?

I'm constantly amazed at how important alcohol is to so many people.  I wonder how many people reading this have a drink in their hand or just had one.  I'm not judging, just observing. 


*That's the spirit  says this is real drink:

Beer Bloody Mary:
Mix beer and tomato juice, half and half. Add a dash of Tabasco and a dash of Worcestershire.

Leftover LA Shots - Villa Brasil, Eucalyptus, Levi Store, DC-3, Cactus Flower

Hotel Villa Brasil on West Washington is delightful refuge in the city and there's a Brazilian restuarant with it.  And Leaf Organic is down the block.

Eucalyptus bark.

A used jeans shop on Pico near Gateway.

A gathering of clouds watch the sun set.

DC-3 memorial at Santa Monica airport.

Cactus Flowers

Legislature Starts and I'm in Anchorage

Last year I was in Juneau when the legislature was in session.  It isn't happening this year, but that's no reason not to keep informed.  BASIS lets you find out a lot of what is going on and much of the legislature is available live (and replay) through your cable. And on line.

You can also track the bills submitted. Bills  .    As of today, 165 bills have been submitted - 110 by House members (there are 40 of them) and 55 by Senate members (there are 20 of them). Did they plan that perfect 2:1 ratio? I doubt it.

 

Having trouble keeping up with the jargon?  No problem.  On the publications page, in addition to many other documents, there is a glossary.(pdf)

In the glossary you'd find out that a resolution is:

Expression of the will, wish, or direction of the Legislature. A resolution generally does not have the effect of law (see Uni- form Rule 49).

There were four introduced and passed already in the house.  Five introduced and four passed from the Senate.  (I'm assuming that the four that passed were introduced as identical resolutions in both houses, but we can check on that too, below.)

A concurrent resolution is:

Similar to the simple resolution, but reflects the will, wish, view, or decision of both houses speaking concurrently.

And a joint resolution is:

The most formal type of resolution, adopted by both houses, and signed by the Governor as a ministerial formality. It is accorded many of the formalities of a bill but is not subject to veto.   Mainly used to express the view or wish of the Legislature to the President, Congress, or agencies of the U.S. government or the governments of other states. It is required for proposing or ratifying amendments to the U.S. or Alaska Constitution.

Either BASIS is not up-to-date yet or I can't figure out how to find what I need.  I couldn't find any legislation introduced on the House side.  There is a list of Senate bills and resolutions.  I looked up Senate resolutions passed and got only one - SR1 (Senate Resolution 1). (Jrn refers to the journal which records all actions)

Jrn-Date	Jrn-Page		Action
01/18/11	0011	(S)	READ THE FIRST TIME
01/18/11	0011	(S)	FN1: ZERO(S.RLS)
01/18/11	0011	(S)	TAKEN UP ON FINAL PASSAGE
01/18/11	0012	(S)	PASSED Y20 N-
01/18/11	0015	(S)	MEMBERS: STEVENS (CHAIR), ELLIS,
01/18/11	0015	(S)	HOFFMAN, MCGUIRE, MENARD, MEYER, WAGONER

If you click on any of the Jrn-Page links above you'll find out that SR1

1-18-2011 Senate Journal 0012


The question being: "Shall SENATE RESOLUTION NO. 1

Establishing a Senate Special Committee on World Trade, pass the

Senate?" The roll was taken with the following result:

SR 1
Final Passage

YEAS:  20   NAYS:  0   EXCUSED:  0   ABSENT:  0 

Yeas:  Coghill, Davis, Dyson, Egan, Ellis, French, Giessel, Hoffman,
Huggins, Kookesh, McGuire, Menard, Meyer, Olson, Paskvan,
Stedman, Stevens, Thomas, Wagoner, Wielechowski

and so, SENATE RESOLUTION NO. 1 passed the Senate and was
referred to the Secretary for engrossment and enrollment.

Despite all I've said about this being available online, it's a lot easier if one is there hanging around the committee meetings. I think the easiest, if you aren't there, is to have cable on in the background and check now and then. If there is something interesting, you can go to BASIS and look up the exact wording of the bill or resolution.

Also, there are other blogs that cover bits and pieces.

Shana Crondahl - who I met through her comments here, but never in person - set up Alaska Education Update last session and it's up again this year.  It's a teaser for a more in-depth reports on education issues in the legislature that you have to pay for.   (Nothing wrong with that.)  Right now it seems you can see the pay-site for two weeks for free.

There have been other subscription sites as well, but I need to track them down. 

Below are some legislators' blogs I could find.  It's not clear whether they will keep these up-to-date or not.  And there may well be more than this.  I tried to find which legislators blogged last year and Bob Lynn and Mike Doogan seemed to be the only ones who had independently set up their own blogs.  But the one I found for Doogan didn't seem to be current.  While a legislative blog is more likely to be a PR forum, some legislators - Lynn and Coghill below - actually write like bloggers.  Munoz's is more lists and short bulletins rather than personal observation and discussion. 

Rep. Lynn's Blog (Last post Nov. 2010)

Rep. Munoz Blog  (Last post Jan 2010)

Sen. Coghill Blog (last post July 2010)

"Each Day I Compliment Someone"

I don't make New Years resolutions, but it's interesting to see what other people want to change.  Yesterday, in Amy Dickinson's column I saw one of the best resolutions ever:

Dear Amy: I made this resolution last year and am doing it again this year.
Each day I compliment someone. The lady in front of me in line with a pretty scarf, the family in a restaurant with well-behaved children, the person who holds a door for me, the person who assists me on the phone, etc.
It forces me to look for the good in people and makes someone's day pleasant. — Cecelia Lovas

It's so simple.  So easy to do.  And so powerful.  Imagine, someone is tired, feeling unappreciated, and there you are saying, "Wow, you really helped me.  I truly appreciate the extra effort you made."  And suddenly some sort of chemical reaction happens and the person lights up.  As long as it's genuine.   This is such an painless way to make the world a better place by raising the feel good quotient of someone each day.  And once you get used to looking someone in the eye and giving a sincere thank you for some small favor or service, you can do more than one a day.   I'm sure the drug companies don't want us to know how easily we can replace their happy pills just by being nice to each other.  And no bad side effects either.  And it's free.  And each of us has this power if we only use it. 

It doesn't have to be a New Year's resolution.  You can just put "Compliment someone" on your todo list each day. 

Cecelia Lovas - you have a great idea there.  Thanks!

What's Going to Happen When the Post Office Dies?

When I got back to Anchorage I went to the post office to pick up our held mail.  It was about 4pm.  There were about 14 people in line ahead of me.  There was one clerk, who kept going into the back so there was no one behind the counter for minutes at a time.  The crowd was getting longer. 

I understand that for most government agencies that face private competition (like schools) the private companies can skim the most lucrative and easy to handle business and leave the government with the more expensive and difficult business.  Private schools don't have to take every student, and you know that parents who pay for their kids' education are going to take more interest in their kids' schooling.  Fedex and UPS have taken the high end quick delivery business and left the post office with expensive daily to your door delivery for everyone.  So the post office can't use its express mail profits to help cover home delivery, because the others are taking much of that profit.  And we end up with post offices with nobody behind the counter.  But they really have to take care of customers and can't leave them waiting in line like this.

I thought about just shouting out so the people in the back could hear, "DOES ANYBODY WORK HERE?"  Everyone else looked so accepting of this pitiful service.  But when someone else came to the front (the only clerk was gone again) to talk to the person at the counter, I got out of line and went up to him, and more politely said, "Is there anyone back there who could help out?  There are all these people in line (more had piled in behind me) and NO ONE is out front here.  I just need to pick up mail and so do others."  He said he was a carrier and on his way home, but he'd get the manager.  Shortly thereafter a man came out, looked concerned, and asked for the people picking up mail.  About five of us came over and I got out much faster.

But they shouldn't need customers telling them.  They should have a way of sending someone up front when the line gets too long.  Queueing theory is an old science and all the  retail companies larger than 5 employees use it.  It has formulas for when you need to send more people out to keep customer from waiting more than a predetermined 'acceptable' wait time.

We used to have good post office service in Alaska.  But this was really pitiful.  (OK, I know you Chicago readers wonder what I'm complaining about since they didn't throw out my mail, but we're used to better.)

Oh yeah.  When the post office dies, UPS and Fedex will be able to raise their prices and speciality businesses may be willing to deliver regular envelopes, birthday cards, grandkids' paintings, love letters, etc.   But the price will be like express mail. And people who live far away (Alaskans, are you listening?  Ted is gone) might not get any kind of service.  And Benjamin Franklin will roll over in his grave.

[UPDATE Feb. 3, 2011 - Here's a piece from NPR's Talk of the Nation on the joys of snail mail.]

Digital mail already does much of what the post office did and we will survive.  And the gap between the haves and have nots will grow.  I'm not sure what this will do to US businesses in competition with foreign businesses that still have government postal service.  And we'll be a step closer to virtual and further from natural.

Queueing is also a great word to know if you play scrabble.

Can You Freeze Eggs? An Inadvertant Eggsperiment

I'd loaded up at Costco, came home, parked in the heated garage, and took the purchases out of the car.  Except I forget the egg carton which I'd stuck inside of a cardboard box and thus didn't see.

The next day I had a couple of events which required the car to be out in close to 0˚F (-18˚C) for about five hours.  I brought the eggs into the house and let them thaw on the counter.  Then I took one out and cracked it.  


It was just fine.

But I thought I'd check the internet to see what others said.


The US Government's Food Safety Inspection Service: 

Frozen Eggs
Shell eggs should not be frozen. If an egg accidentally freezes and the shell cracked during freezing, discard the egg. Keep any uncracked eggs frozen until needed; then thaw in the refrigerator. These can be hard cooked successfully but other uses may be limited. That's because freezing causes the yolk to become thick and syrupy so it will not flow like an unfrozen yolk or blend very well with the egg white or other ingredients.

OChef:

 Can fresh eggs be frozen for later use (out of the shell, of course)? The best buys in eggs are in a package of 18. For two people, it’s a long time to keep them in the refrigerator.

 You can, but we’re not sure it’s worth it. Yolks don’t take to freezing very well. They become very gelatinous and you usually mix separated yolks with a bit or salt or sugar before you freeze them to keep them from turning to rubber (and you label them well so you don’t have to guess if you mixed them with salt or with sugar). Raw egg whites do not suffer from freezing (cooked egg whites are very rubbery after freezing).

If you’re going to freeze whole eggs, remove them from the shells, and mix them well before freezing. They can be kept frozen for a year, and should be thawed in the refrigerator the day before you intend to use them. You might try freezing a few eggs and see if the results are acceptable to you.

"out of the shell, of course."  But my eggs had been in the shell.  Well, I should have taken a picture of a frozen shell, so I put one outside overnight.  It was below 0˚ F.   And here's what it looked like when I brought it back in.

It was frozen solid, and it had cracked.  Perhaps the original carton of eggs had been insulated enough, inside the car, inside the egg carton, inside a box.  Probably they hadn't frozen completely solid, enough to crack the egg. 

So I let this one thaw.

And the albumin oozed out a little - on the bottom it stuck to the bowl.  But when I cracked it open, it looked just like the top picture.  The yolk looked perhaps a little more solid, but not as bad as described above.  And when I beat the egg white, it got stiff, but it didn't have peaks, but rather was flat and heavy.  I wonder if there are some interesting new recipe possibilities using the beaten egg white of a formerly frozen egg. 

Where you live affects what you know about the world.  When we first moved to Alaska from California so long ago, I learned the hard way that I couldn't leave a glass bottle of juice in the car in winter, but I could leave ice cream. 

Anchorage Daily News Attempting To Doing Its Job - Demer's Port Story

Some of us still believe that newspapers are supposed to do more than carry grocery ads and the weather.  They're supposed to be one of the watchdogs on private and public sector organizations.  But with the changing news environment and newspapers getting slimmer and slimmer (both the product and size of the news staff) the serious reporting of what is going on is not happening as much.  

The Sunday Anchorage Daily News had a big front page story on the Port of Anchorage  hinted at the kind of things newspapers should be doing.  I say hinted because while it brought up a number of important issues, it didn't go very deep and I didn't see anything saying this was part 1 of a series.  But here are some key things it said:

The completion date for the massive dock replacement project at the Port of Anchorage has been pushed back to 2021 from a target of 2011 set before major construction began.

The price tag, which was $360 million as of 2005, has escalated to $1 billion.

Some engineers are questioning whether the new dock can even be built as designed. Much of the work done in 2010 involved dismantling construction from just a year earlier.

So, the port that was supposed to be completed this year for $360 million is now set for ten more years and the budget has nearly tripled, and it may not be technically feasible.  

But there are still a lot more questions to be asked and answered.  Like who is overseeing Port director Bill Sheffield's performance and salary?  Does it reflect the fact that this project is way behind schedule, way over budget, and the method he chose against the recommendations of the engineers isn't working.  The man will be 83 years old this year.  He's got 18 years on me, but I know I don't have the energy I had 20 years ago.  And I've just spent time in LA with people in their 80s and 90s.  Some are still in reasonably good shape, but not nearly good enough to run a multi-billion dollar project.  Look, I understand that age, by itself, is not a reason to fire someone.  My mom worked - not full time at the end - until she was 85.  If the Port construction was finishing up this year, or wasn't way over budget, or the method chosen wasn't failing, I wouldn't have brought it up. 

When we went on the port tour in  they offer to the public every summer, there were lots of flags raised about how this was actually going to be funded.

My August 2009 Port post includes a 16 minute video from the tour.  That's way too long so I included an index with times and topics.   I think the most relevant part came at the end of the video:

• 10:51- How does the port make its revenue? Who owns the port?
• 11:20- Lease land
• 11:59- Dockage
• 12:34- Wharfage or tonnage
• 12:51- How much do they make and how do they use it?
• 13:30- What's the total cost of expansion? ($750 million) And how funded?

Here is are my highlights from the tape:

Guide:  "Our [the Port Authority's] job is to make sure the streets are clean and the lights are on and the plumbing works and the place can function. . . We just lease them [I believe this is the shipping companies, but I'm not sure] [ the land."

Yeah right. And the Port Authority isn't also wheeling and dealing (that's not necessarily bad) to get the partnerships and money to make this 3/4 billion dollar project work? [That was in 2009, the ADN story has it at an even $1 billion now - a 1/3 increase in 18 months.] I think they do a little more than clean the toilets.

Then, we don't cost you anything, we give you money:

"We get zero property tax dollars download to run the port. None. In fact, we give the Municipality about half a million dollars of revenue every year to help run city hall. We pay our own payroll, we pay our own bills. . . After the bills are paid we have anything from $2.5 to $5 million dollars that we put toward the expansion project ourselves."

Except as he goes on, it's not quite that clear. OK, this is a private/public partnership. He said

"the construction project doesn't belong to the Port of Anchorage, doesn't belong to the Municipality of Anchorage. It belongs to the Department of Transportation, Maritime Administration."

Of the $750 million that will be needed for the port expansion, 50% will come from the Feds, 25% from the state, and the rest will have to come from 'us'. Out of the profits or "any debt financing we choose to do." Probably they will float a revenue bond in 2015 and they'll have 20 years to pay it off.


And the head of the Port is Bill Sheffield, who proved to be a good enough business man to make a good profit selling his Sheffield Hotels to Holland Line, was governor - and almost impeached for construction dealings - and then was appointed head of the Alaska Railroad, which now owns the Airport Depot that was built with Federal and State money (tens of millions of dollars) and is only used four months a year by the cruise lines. And it's named for Sheffield. And now he's the director of the Port of Anchorage at the age of 81 years. While he started out as a Democrat and was elected Governor as a Democrat, most of his fund raising lately has been for Republicans.

This begs to have some external scrutiny that goes well beyond bus rides and hot dogs.

A Northern Economics feasibility study completed in 2006 raises some questions. To be successful, they have to get a mileage-based carrier, steal fuel barge business away from Nikiski (does Anchorage really have to screw over small Alaska towns to succeed?), and they have to keep out unions ("carriers say they will only use the new facility if it were non-union.") Here is the executive summary:

Executive Summary
This report presents the findings of a study to evaluate the feasibility of establishing a consolidation and distribution center at the Port of Anchorage with the intent to serve coastal and riverside communities in rural Alaska. It contains an analysis of the feasibility of the concept, as well as marketing arguments that can be used to present the concept to transportation companies.

The findings of this study include:

The concept could result in cost savings. While the cost of transportation may be slightly higher with this concept, the inventory holding cost savings may offset the increased cost of transportation.

Freight rate savings on cargo shipments could require a mileage-based carrier. At present, the price for sending cargo to western Alaska is the same or very similar whether it originates in Anchorage or Seattle. To generate savings for residents of western Alaska would require a carrier who would charge for cargo shipments based on the distance traveled, rather than the market rate.

Incentives could be required to encourage a mileage-based carrier. In order to attract a mileage- based carrier, incentives could be required to make up for the lost revenues that would result from charging lower prices than the industry norm.

Anchorage has an opportunity to increase its fuel barge business. The Port of Anchorage is the preferred location for fuel sales in Cook Inlet. Estimates vary about the percent of fuel that is sold in Anchorage versus Nikiski, but capturing additional sales from Nikiski could substantially increase the Port’s market share.

Need to work on the key issues: Attracting a mileage-based carrier. One of the key issues that must be addressed is the identification and recruitment of a carrier that is willing to charge mileage- based rates. This would represent a break from the industry norm for the concept to work and it is vital that a carrier be identified who is willing to do this.

Need to work on the key issues: Union vs. non-union. Another key issue is unions. Carriers have expressed a high level of concern about union work rules and have said that they would only use a new facility if it were non-union. While the Port of Anchorage is an open port, this is nonetheless a significant issue that needs to be addressed in order to attract customers for a new facility.

So, Demer's article today is a good step, but there is a lot more issues to examine.  There is a little more online, but not a lot.  There's a two minute slide show narrated by Bill Sheffield that says how important the port is, some letters from Mark Begich and the Assembly, and a the initial dive team inspection report which is almost a whole page long and much of it describes how difficult the work is.  Read it - how the diver sees things in 0 visibility water:

The New Port of Anchorage is located in the Cook Inlet basin. The water visibility in this area is zero. The inspection diver used two methods for inspecting the sheet pile interlocks First he feels the interlock for uniformity to see if the thumb of the sheet pile was out of the joint. Then he would scrape out debris from the pile interlock using a thin knife blade. The next step is to utilize a clear water bag and an underwater light. The water bag is placed over the joint and the light is shown into the bag. Next the diver presses their face plate against the bag. The bag, light, and diver adjust till the diver can see the joint. This method can be difficult because dirty water can remain in the joint or there can be debris left can make is difficult to see the joint. Also you are looking at a small area. For more thorough inspection, the area can be cleaned using a water blaster that provided a 20,000 psig water stream.

We live in a democracy folks.  As they say, freedom isn't free.  We all need to either get informed or let people abuse the system since they know we're more interested in Palin gossip than in how the Port Authority, Board of Game, KABATA, and other agencies operate.  While most Alaskans don't pay any state taxes, they money spent on this comes partly from state revenues, mostly from federal revenues, and they're expecting the Municipality to help them float a bond soon.

Let the ADN know that there should be more of their budget doing this sort of work.  I'm guessing that Lisa Demer would love to have more time and staff to do a lot more on this story.

Pat Dougherty   Senior Vice President, Editor 907-257-4303

Patrick Doyle    President & Publisher            907-257-4210

Harold and Maude - The First Time Is Still Memorable - UPDATED

[If you read the original post, skip down to the updated part below.]

Sometime in 1972 (August, see updated below) we went to the movies. I don't remember what we went to see, but we were unsatisfied when it was over. Back then they still had double features. So we stayed for the second feature, which we knew absolutely nothing about.

At the end we looked at each other and I think I asked, "Are we sick? Why were we laughing so hard?"  And other people in the theater, which wasn't very crowded, weren't responding as we were.  So we invited a friend and went back the next night with him to see if he was as 'sick' as we were in thinking this was so hysterically funny. 

Seeing a great movie without knowing anything about it before you go is one of the great joys of watching movies. The same thing happened when I saw The Graduate. I was in Bangkok and just wanted to get out of the heat and went to see this movie I'd never heard of. A common feature between the two is the great music.

Anyway, the Bear Tooth is showing Harold and Maude Monday at 5:30 and 7:45. It's a great chance to see it on a big screen with other people. I don't know how it will hold up over all these years, but if you haven't seen it and you like surprises, irreverence, love, and Cat Stevens, you should go.

And if you know nothing about this movie - DON'T READ ANYTHING BEFORE YOU GO. JUST GO. If someone tries to tell you about it, close your ears and leave.

Meanwhile Cyrano's is doing a stage version. [There's a spoiler in their announcement so don't read it if you haven't seen it.] Not sure how this would translate. Harold and Maude as a movie was perfect. Not sure anyone could improve on it.

UPDATE: 12:45 pm - I wasn't sure if it was 1971 or 72, but the first Harold and Maude website I looked out said it came out in 1972.  But this morning I looked at others and some say 1971 (and the Bear Tooth is showing this on the 40th Anniversary).  So I went looking for my journal from back then and found this page in the back where I tried to keep track of all the books and movies (have * before them) I read and watched.  It was August 1972.  (5th from the top)

The  Harold and Maude Homepage on its very dense trivia page says:

Release Date of Harold and Maude: 20 December 1971 (USA) -

So, we saw it, in LA, seven months later.  But believe me, no one knew anything about it at the time.  As I said, it was the second bill (and it seems the first movie, the one we went to see, was so unforgettable that I didn't even note it in my journal.)

The H&M Homepage also has this note from someone:

In 1973, I did a report for a U.S.C film class wherein I described how Paramount had mishandled the promotion of "Harold And Maude," one of my favorite films. Imagine my happiness when I was able to be one of the Music Editors of "Foul Play" and finally got to meet this hero of mine on the dubb stage on a daily basis. I presented Higgins a copy of my "Harold and Maude" report and asked if he could sign my "Harold and Maude" hardback book. He said with a smile, "Sure, if you autograph your report." .  .  . Another favorite is Harold saying he enjoys being dead. Maude then cheers, "...They're just backing away from life. Give me an L. Give me an I. Give me a V. Give me an E. L-I-V-E, Live! Otherwise, you'll have nothing to talk about in the locker room." This scene is the one Higgins was given as an test audition at Paramount when he was trying to become the director of "Harold And Maude." [NOTE: He was the writer, Hal Ashby was the director.] Higgins later said that, in trying to impress Paramount, he felt he kind of rushed directing the scene and should have taken longer. I went to Colin Higgins' memorial after his death from aids and was terribly sad over the loss of such a young talented writer/director. I sometimes think that Higgins, being gay, perhaps could relate to the oppression that both Harold and Maude endured. I still remember his face...amazingly handsome. But, of course, Higgins' true beauty was within his soul. His memory lives on in a Colin Higgins Foundation which gives grants to people who have faced or fought bigotry. I often wonder what he might be writing in our times today. wolfwail@allvantage.com

 I tried to email wolfwail, but it came back undeliverable.  But his report on poor promotion may explain why eight months after the release, we saw it as the second feature of the double bill and knew nothing about it until we saw it.   And why it was originally a commercial flop.


The most informative piece (and it clarifies my understanding that this started out as a student project) I've found on the film comes from TCM:

It all began as a thesis film for UCLA film student Colin Higgins who first developed the idea for Harold and Maude as a twenty-minute short. When he showed the script to his landlady, Mildred Lewis, the wife of a Hollywood producer, she suggested they form their own production company and shop it around to studios. Eventually the script found a home at Paramount where Howard Jaffe was first slated to be the producer but later passed the project on to Charles B. Mulvehill. Peter Bart, the vice president of production at Paramount then, had seen Hal Ashby's The Landlord (1970) and was impressed by the way the director had handled the movie's complex racial issues in the context of a satire. On the basis of that, he asked Ashby to direct Higgins' fledging effort as screenwriter and associate producer. "To me, Harold and Maude was a symbol of that era. It would have been unthinkable in the '80s or '90s. In those days...people would walk in, wacked out, with the most mind-bending, innovative and brilliant ideas for movies. Harold and Maude was written by a pool cleaner." (from Easy Riders, Raging Bulls by Peter Biskind). . .

Although Ruth Gordon was always the front runner for the role of Maude, Higgins had initially written the part of Harold for rising actor and aspiring musician John Rubinstein (Zachariah, 1971), the son of conductor Arthur Rubinstein. Character actor (Midnight Cowboy, 1969) and future director (Parents, 1989) Bob Balaban also tested for the part but Ashby favored Bud Cort, a New York stage-trained actor who had recently attracted attention for his unique screen presence in such films as Robert Altman's M*A*S*H (1970) and Brewster McCloud (1970). When Cort finally did a trial rehearsal with Gordon (the screen tests were filmed by Haskell Wexler), it was immediately obvious he was the right choice.

 Wikipedia  has other interesting points on the movie such as:

The film is ranked number 45 on the American Film Institute's list of 100 Funniest Movies of all Time, and was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in 1997 for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." The film was a commercial flop in its original release, but it has since developed a large cult following.

Wikipedia also says Roger Ebert didn't like it:

Critic Roger Ebert, in a review dated January 1, 1972, did not care for the film. He wrote, "And so what we get, finally, is a movie of attitudes. Harold is death, Maude life, and they manage to make the two seem so similar that life’s hardly worth the extra bother. The visual style makes everyone look fresh from the Wax Museum, and all the movie lacks is a lot of day-old gardenias and lilies and roses in the lobby, filling the place with a cloying sweet smell. Nothing more to report today. Harold doesn’t even make pallbearer."

If you've seen the film before and are going to see it again now, the Harold and Maude Homepage trivia page is full of interesting - and not so interesting - tidbits.  Here are some examples:

In all shots of Ruth Gordon (Maude) driving the hearse it is being towed because she never learned how to drive a car. - Director Cameo: Hal Ashby, the bearded man seen briefly in the amusement park arcade. - Cameo: Cat Stevens, the composer and performer of the original music for the movie can be seen in one of the funeral scenes. He is the person behind which Maude hides after she tries to get Harold's attention by hissing.  

 Cat Stevens originally did not release "If you want to sing out, sing out," or "Don't Be Shy" for public just so that more people would go to the theatres to see the film merely for those two songs! He finally released the songs in 1984. - Cat Stevens' CD, "Footsteps In the Dark," is his only album that features the songs "If You Want To Sing Out, Sing Out," and "Don't Be Shy," and is also his only album that made a public reference to Harold and Maude.

The freeze frame of the Jaguar hearse in midair in the final sequence is the result of an accident. The single camera capturing the action did not start filming until well after the car had careened off the cliff, and since only one hearse had been prepared for the film, it was impossible to reshoot the shot.

 The Chasen family mansion is actually the Rose Court Mansion in Hillsborough, California, south of San Francisco. The butler in the film (Henry Dieckoff) was the actual butler of the house -- the original script called for him to drop the lemonade tray after "Sunshine" does her Juliet imitation, but the butler thought it unbutler-like, and so Vivian Pickles had to do it!

 In a comment, Anon says (s)he saw it with Play It Again Sam.  As you can see from my journal, I also Play It Again Sam right before seeing Harold and Maude, but I really don't think the main feature that night Play It Again Sam.  If it were, we might not have stayed to see Harold and Maude.