Cup of Coffee

May 6, 2016: Settling, Kind Of

86 Comments

So we're in the new place and sort of have things put together. My work schedule isn't helping. On the upside, SBG stopped in a handful of days ago and we gor to BS for a bit. It's my dead season, so you should too!

86 thoughts on “May 6, 2016: Settling, Kind Of”

  2. Today is Philosofette's "pinning ceremony" (graduation equivalent) for the teaching license program she has been in for the past 4 years. Despite a degree from a good school, her teaching license program essentially required her to re-take a major's worth of undergraduate courses (such a scam. For example: she was a communications director type for a sizable nonprofit in D.C, but had to take public speaking). Throw in student teaching and her having a job much of that time, and the kids, and the kid-having, and moving, etc. Well, it feels like an awfully big achievement. We are very proud. Of course, Aquinas got sick last night (twice), so we won't all be able to be at the ceremony together... Just too appropriate, given the history, I guess. Still. A big day for us.

    1. Congratulations to Philosofette – it is a big achievement!

      (FWIW, my guess the reason for the large number of courses her program made her take has something to do with how they evaluated her undergraduate area of study and the requirements of your state's Department of Education/Public Instruction for teacher ed programs. I'm an evaluator of second degree & certificate candidates within my institution. Retaking a major's worth of courses for a certificate is actually the better of two routes (instead of completing an entire second degree), as it means the previous area of study was relevant enough that she only needed education-specific coursework to prepare for teaching. I know that explanation doesn't give back the time & effort she invested in her studies, but it's really important that people going into classrooms are adequately prepared for the work they'll do there. If our society was sane, it would pay teachers like doctors; they are a huge influence on the creation of our society's future. Kudos to her for wanting to be a part of that. It's endless, and often thankless, work.)

      1. Oh, I understand the "rationale" behind the classes she had to take. But... She had an English major with other Comm classes taken, and got an English/Communicaton specialization now. A small handful of her required classes made perfect sense. But 100 level speech/comm classes were an absolute waste of time, and plenty of the classes were laughably bad., and prepared nothing. Institute a skills test or some such to gauge preparedness. It cost us both a lot of time and a lot of money.

        1. Professional licensure requirements are often ridiculous, and largely designed to be barriers to entry. The teaching profession is one of the afflicted areas.

          Mrs. S had been a credentialed teacher (with a counseling degree as well) before we moved from San Diego to the Midwest. She taught both elementary and pre-school there. When we returned to Cali, she learned that she would have to take a buttload of courses to re-acquire a valid credential to teach public school. And decided it was not worth it.

          1. I agree.

            Also, the teachers are underpaid assumption needs a closer look. For Minnesota, I really don't think it is true.

            1. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development frequently publishes findings on teachers' salaries and hours of work. Here's an excerpt from their 2012 comparative analysis of teachers in the US relative to their non-teaching US counterparts with similar educational attainment, and to non-US counterparts:

              While in most OECD countries teacher salaries tend be lower, on average, than the salaries earned by other workers with higher education, in the U.S. the difference is large, especially for teachers with minimum qualifications. On average, a primary schoolteacher in the U.S. can expect to earn 67% of the salary of the average tertiary- educated worker in the U.S. (OECD average: 82%). Similarly, a teacher in lower secondary education can expect to earn 69% of the salary of his or her peer with higher education (OECD average: 85%), while an upper secondary teacher can expect to earn 72% (OECD average: 90%). At each of these levels of education, 21 OECD countries have smaller salary differentials between average teacher salaries and the salaries of other workers with higher education.

              More OECD reports on teacher pay and work here and here.

              From a recent StarTrib piece on teacher salaries in St. Paul, which are an significant outlier compared to both Minneapolis and the rest of Minnesota :

              More than half of teachers in the state have an advanced degree, but only 24 percent of them earn more than $75,000. The majority of teachers, regardless of their education, earn from $35,000 to $65,000.

              In St. Paul, nearly two-thirds of the district’s 2,500 teachers included in the Star Tribune analysis have master’s degrees or higher, and of those, nearly 75 percent earn more than $75,000.

              According to the MN Dept. of Education's own data, 54% of teachers in Minnesota have at least a master's degree, and 58.3% have at least ten years of experience.

              1. If we are using level of education attained as a basis to compare salaries, we need to consider the difficulty level to get that education.

                1. I'll compare the quality of education between teacher with a master's degree to an MBA any day.

                2. I get a bit worked up here, as having a terminal degree in fine art is often associated with words like easy and phrases like would you like fries with that. The degree isn't easy, and requires a kind of dedication that won't (likely) be rewarded with monetary gain. Dr. Chop's degree(s) were even more time consuming and rigorous and her monetary reward is far less than it should be. So, I guess what I'm saying is that perception of the rigors of study shouldn't cloud the fact that those engaged with the cultural and educational economies aren't compensated in a way that reflects the dedication they put into their education.

                  1. Co-sign. In addition to the two economies you mention, this is also true for many non-educational helping professions (social work, for example).

                    1. Aye. I'd also suggest that there are a lot of folks out there who may have high-falutin' college degrees who would really suck in front of a classroom.

                      Further, just because shit is hard doesn't mean there is market demand for it.

              2. Also, I should have stated Twin Cities metro, not Minnesota. I have no idea what teacher salaries are like outside of the metro.

                    1. I don't know, but I do know that my brother puts endless hours into teaching 8th grade earth science, and coached a robotics team to the weld championship for less than 35000 a year.

                    2. weld championship

                      I know it isn't what you meant, but seems appropriate anyway.

        2. Retaking an intro Comm course sounds ridiculous. Our practice at my institution is to provide exceptions for transcripted coursework completed in a previous degree, even if that degree was not related to education. (For example, we're not going to make an actuary re-take calculus if they decide they want to teach high school math. That's insane.) Whoever made a decision to force her to retake that kind of course is nuts, and I'm sorry they put her through that. At my institution we would expect a certification candidate to complete the professional sequence of education courses, plus any necessary coursework relevant to their desired license (a specific content area, ESL, Special Ed, etc.)

          1. actuary re-take calculus if they decide they want to teach high school math
            I think you're talking to me but that's not going to happen.

      2. When I got my Masters (having never taken a business course in undergrad), the only thing I really learned was "don't do something that might piss off your customers."

        (OK, I take that back. The project management class was actually interesting learning about The Critical Path and stuff like that. The other whatever number of classes were pointless.)

  3. I watched the rock n roll hall induction last night, and a number of things stood out including the induction of NWA. Everyone else who was inducted played a set of two songs after their speeches, and then they all gathered on stage to play out the show. Not only did NWA not perform, they weren't included in the final set. I found that interesting. Also, most of these geezers have lost their edge, but cheap trick can still bring it.

      1. Yeah he was there. The only moment of any note was when seraphine told some risqué stories from the early days.

  4. My final assignments of my undergrad degree are due on Wednesday. Today is the due date of an enormous group project (~25% of the grade) in one of my classes. It's due in 11.5 hours, and neither of my group members have sent me their portions of the work OR chimed in one what other parts of the paper they're going to do. I'm now working, so I'm running out of time to pivot... and really don't know how I'd manage to finish the other 10 pages of the paper myself at any level of quality at this point, anyway.

    "Dead week" my ass. I cannot wait to be done.

    1. I once had a teammate not show up for the final, which was half our grade. My other teammate and I winged it the best we could and wound up getting A's as the professor realized how much work we put in and the other guy just dropped the class with one day left.

      While, yes, I do believe that being able to coordinate with other people is a valuable component to prepare one's self for the workforce, school is still not the same environment as a job.

      1. One of my teammates happened to be in my one on campus course, so I trust her. The other was silent until Tuesday, when she said she was good to go on her part. But given that's all I've heard from her in two months, I'm still concerned. I mean if worse comes to worst I'll literally stay up all night to turn SOMETHING in so I can get enough points to pass the class which, at this point, is all I care. I just need to finish.

        1. Professors are people too. Dr. Chop has veered away from group work that accounts for large portions of grades because there are always shitheads. She's always generous with the grading of work that was accomplished despite being saddled with a non contributing team member.

          1. Two things I don't do when I teach: group work, and curves. One invites abuse of classmates by non-contributors, and the other (to me, anyway) basically implies one of two things: the rigor of examination is greater than the rigor/quality of instruction, or only some artificial, predefined number of students can achieve a specific level of mastery & its associated grading outcome.

            1. I always graded on a curve. Life is on a curve, and, frankly, I don't think most instructors are good enough at either teaching OR designing evaluations to grade on an absolute scale.

              Writing good exams and other evaluative instruments is really hard. Do you really have clear, precise standards for what students should "know" at the end of a course? Are you prepared to say that there is a substantive difference between a 91 and and 89?

              I tried to write exams with a mix of easy, moderate, hard and really hard questions to let the students distribute themselves according to knowledge/effort+smarts. And always tried to use multiple ways to assess over the term.

              1. One of my profs this semester had a note that he would adjust grades up ONE point (out of a possible 400) to the next letter grade if someone had turned in every single assignment on time, did any and all extra credit, and took the optional final. I chuckled since I assumed it was just a way to deflect the inevitable questions from folks.

  5. I was just catching up on the military language article from a few days back. The epic game of Eschaton in Infinite Jest includes some hilarious acronym-laden sentences.

    For example SelectShow

  6. I'm going to carry over the Twins discussion here from the last few days. The thing that really bothers me right now with the Twins that they think they are this model franchise and this smug "you don't understand real baseball" attitude they have. The Pohlad interview had this is scads. The problem is they aren't a model franchise and have made terrible mistakes the last 4 plus years. Here a couple of decisions they made or didn't make that any Twins fan worth the couch in their mom's basement knew was a mistake:

    Jason Bartlett/Jason Kubel
    Wilson/Capps Trade
    Trading Brady for crappy relievers
    Ptitch to contact
    Extending Suzuki after a 1/2 year of production that was way above his career stats
    Dido for Hughes
    Generally selling low and buying high
    Signing soft-tossing NL starting pitchers
    What's up with the outfield?
    Not addressing the bullpen this offseason
    sticking their nose at sabermetrics when perennially lackluster teams (and good ones too) are embracing them and thriving (Pittsburgh among one)

    You know what Terry Ryan, Jim Pohlad, Dave St. Peter, et al. You built this.

    1. Yeah, I'm so done with all of them. Terry Ryan looked like a genius when he got Nathan/Liriano/Bonser for Pierzynski and kept Santana on the roster all year in 2001, and he hasn't been able to match that since.

      1. In 2001 he was a a pretty good GM. The problem is that the field has gotten better and he hasn't pushed himself to continue developing his own understanding of the game.

    2. Don't forget finally having a managerial opening and then only really considering internal candidates

      1. Let's add squandering all the good will, enthusiasm, and initial revenue windfall of the new ballpark the Pohlads had bleated about for ages. That's a once-in-a-generation opportunity, and the organization straight-up blew it.

        2. This is one of the things that bothers me most. I did enjoy reading about the Twins' scouting process, but one of the lines in that ESPN article made me swear:

          The prototypical small-budget team, Minnesota can't throw money at problems.

          NSFW SelectShow

          They can throw money at problems. They just choose not to. They have a business model that they stick to which -apparently- does not include pursuing big-name free agents. I'm sorry, but just because they're some of the largest contracts in Twins history, doesn't mean the Santana, Hughes or Nolasco deals are causing the rest of the league to rethink their perceptions about Minnesota as a destination.

          And yet, doesn't T.R. tell us every year that if the front office really wants to go after a particular free agent, the Pohlads will listen? I sure wouldn't have minded them going after Jordan Zimmerman or Zack Greinke...

          1. That's what I find most annoying, and it's why I don't think anything will change as long as the Pohlad family owns the team. All of management seems so invested in being"the little team that could"that they won't make the moves necessary to build a champion. Instead, they settle for being"good enough". We don't need real outfielders--putting a couple of infielders there will be good enough. We don't need a better catcher--the one we havewwill be good enough. We don't need a top-notch starting pitcher--the ones we have are good enough. I don't see the Twins ever contending consistently as long as that mindset exists, and I don't see that mindset changing unless there are wholesale changes in management.

    3. Doesn't every team have bad transactions, though? Yes, the FO has had a number of questionable screw-ups, but they also aren't the Phillies or Braves, for example. I'm guessing every team's fans have more-or-less miserable choices to complain about. Winning, of course, makes it easier to tolerate.

      1. Of course a Front Office can have a screw up or two or three. It's the screw-ups compounded by the holier-than-thou attitude the Twins have, especially since many amateurs knew exactly how the above decisions were going to play out. (Also I listed 11 above)

        1. Yes, and how many screw-ups can other team's fans enumerate? I'm not saying this team doesn't have a ton of FO issues, I'm curious how it stacks up with other teams (who also have amateurs that know exactly how their questionable decisions will play out, again re: Phillies).

          Thank God this FO isn't into the huge mega-$$ multi-year extravaganzas that other teams are having to deal with. Oh yeah, forgot that Mauer debacle. #BlameJoe

          1. Of course I complain about not spending on free agency, then I go and read something like this: The Garrett Richards Injury and the Mike Trout Question.

            And that reality prompts the obvious question: is it time to think about trading Mike Trout?

            You never want to be in a position where you're potentially thinking about trading one of the greatest players of all time. The Angels should want Mike Trout to retire having worn only their jersey, and go into the Hall of Fame as a lifelong Angel. When you have a +10 win player, you should want to take advantage of his greatness and put a winner around him.

            But the Angels have tried that, and thanks to some bad decisions that have long-term consequences -- the Albert Pujols contract still has another $140 million left after this season -- it's not entirely clear that the team can actually do that. Their farm system isn't just the worst in baseball; it's the worst that anyone can remember in some time. If the Angels keep Mike Trout, and just keep trying to surround him with decent free agents while trying to build back up the prospect base, there's a pretty good chance they'll be a 75 win team for the remainder of his contract, and then they’ll have to convince him to re-sign another contract with a franchise that spent six years failing to provide him with adequate support.

        1. Yeah Brady=Hardy.

          I was on a roll, didn't want to double check names.

      2. Ugh ... I think his list was representative enough without that reminder.

    5. It's one thing to disagree with the philosophy of the people running a team, I think JoePos or Rany wrote something on the topic a few years ago about the Royals. There certainly are different ways to build a franchise and if the Twins want to be the old school scouting over stats team, then by all means go for it. But you can't be arrogant about doing it the right way when your team has stunk for years and outside of May 2015 have continued to be mediocre at best.

      They've jettisoned four guys from the opening day roster - Buxton, Murphy, Milone, and Fien - after just over a month of games. Sure doesn't seem like a team that believes in their decisions, and with Buxton and Murphy it isn't clear that the replacements will be any better.

      While this front office has improved the talent level of the whole organization, they've had the benefit of a lot of top draft picks to make that happen. So yeah, they get credit for it and certainly could have messed up the #2 pick when drafting Buxton, but I don't know that Ryan's picks have outperformed what an average front office would have done with the same picks.

      What an unfortunate mess.

    6. The thing that gets me is they don't do what they claim to do very well. If you are going to push scouting and development, then why are so many Twins players going on to much better careers at other teams? And this isn't a new problem. First-ballot Red Sox HOFer David Ortiz comes to mind.

      Why is the top hitting prospect forced to play a position at the major league level that he has never played professionally? Why does this team stack up below average, low velocity starting pitching like it's going out of style? Why do relievers that they obviously don't trust stay on the roster as the 1 or 2 relievers that are somewhat reliable get worked into the ground? Why does a player like Danny Santana get the most PAs on the team?

      And most importantly, why is a front office job on this team seemingly a lifetime appointment?

      2. I wonder if the 1961 version of the WGOM would complain about putting Killebrew at left field and third base. Granted, Mincher was also a horrible defender, so I think they made the right decision there. I can't imagine Plouffe would be any worse in right field.

    2. A dip in the big lake will take the edge off the heat wave. I have a feeling that park point is hopping right now.

    4. This is our forecast:

      Today - Rain with a high of 66 °F (18.9 °C) and a 75% chance of precipitation. Winds S at 7 to 14 mph (11.3 to 22.5 kph).

      What's the problem? I usually only get to gloat during the winter.

  9. Did we mention that Mastroianni is back with the big league club?

    He's been OPSing .577 in AAA this season. Is this just a placeholder for Buxton? Why not just bring up Kepler and let him play left for a while. If Buxton and Kepler are worth shelving, surely Rosario and his .531 OPS should merit a little bit of bench time? Is Arcia going to get a legitimate shot?

    1. Did we mention that Mastroianni is back with the big league club?

      I'm thinking Jason Bartlett must have blocked Terry Ryan's number.

    2. I'm guessing the team wants Buxton and Kepler to have a lengthy stretch of success before bringing them up again; is Mastroianni going to be much worse than Santana (coming off last year's .523 OPS) or Rosario, either offensively or defensively? But just being as bad as those two isn't progress or a solution.

      Looking at the current OF on the roster, Arcia deserves a shot. But I feel bad for the pitchers since that means Arcia and Sano in the corners.

      1. Razor (formerly whiffers)

        Is this in reference to Razor Shines? Because if so, I love how we have three people here who love that guy.

        1. Absolutely (and also Razor Ramon, chico), he was everyone's favorite growing up in Indy. I can't even remember what the hell whiffers was supposed to be, probably drunkenly found SBG's old site and wanted something anonymous. Took until last night to notice that username was different from nickname. Go figure.

          1. If it helps, I bet you could drop the "formerly" part of the nick. I know I'll recognize you by the Nintendo remote.

            2. I didn't notice the name change at first because I usually go by avatar as well.

              1. I changed my avatar three times in like three months back in 2006, or whenever we started using avatars. I've had this one for almost 10 years now

                1. If I've ever had a different one, it was so long ago now that I don't remember it.

                  1. Pretty sure I had a different one at some point. But it fits like a comfy old tee-shirt.

                    1. I used to rotate, but I have kept Tracer Bullet for years at this point and can't change I'm so used to it.

  10. The NERC is trying to placate me and my opposition towards its refusal to use "Boaty McBoatface" by instead naming their vessel the "David Attenborough."
    I think that'll work. #placation

    1. Someone working on the software part of the boat said the name was already used as a codename in numerous places.

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