trolls

Today, March 16, 2014: The first day I was trolled on the internet after leaving a comment.

Thoughts:
a) I shouldn't have left a comment, maybe.
b) I am glad I said what I wanted to and conveyed my beliefs. So forget about you, part a).
c) How did I make it to 2014 without being trolled?

Happy belated Pi day!

Hasan's Stalking Network

For indiscrete stalkers that wish to know my day-to-day in Israel:

http://jthegroundup.blogspot.co.il/

I'll also post some reflections on here while I'm in Israel related to conflict, public health, education, economic, psychological, public affairs, (insert your passion/interest area here).

Be'ahavah v'felafel (With love and felafel),

H

Shortened Version of 8/21/12 until 1/10/14

Ok folks.

Time to apologize for being away for so long, and then to also let you know where I've been.

I think the last real update I did was 8/21/12.

I won't try and catch people up to every move. But I'll give some highlights. Enjoy!

Here's what 8/21/12-10/31/13 looked like:

1) 5 jobs in community organizing/education/teaching

2) Physical Ventures:

• Said goodbye to physical therapy
• ...and picked up rock climbing and beach volleyball
• Played with mixed ultimate frisbee club team and got back in shape.
• Started the insanity workout on 12/10/13. For those who are wondering, yes. It's insane. On the flip side, I've never felt more energetic in my life.

3) Directed and facilitated mediation groups within my Jewish community on the subject of Israel

4) Ate a lot of kale, and other sweet vegetable-like substances.

5) Strengthened ties to my immediate and extended family.

6) Did around 4-5 volunteer gigs at community organizations targeting low-income folks in Chapel Hill/Durham

7) Following a rejection from yet another teaching fellowship after getting to the final interview stage, I saw the raw reality that I probably won't get hired to a job I want to do or by an organization I want to work for unless I apply for a higher degree and gain connections to organizations through said higher degree.

8) Decided I wanted to do the following under said higher degree: utilize social justice and peace education-to-action programming, specifically geared toward environmental issues and oral historical exchange, as methods of community development and intercultural cohesion.

9) Dad started and is now running a taxi cab/public service company for old-aged folks in Chestnut Hill/Brookline Massachusetts. He also has procured green cards for 5 of his immediate relatives, each of which I met for the first time in my life.

And then, on 11/01/13, I got accepted for a peace/social justice fellowship in Jerusalem, Israel to begin on January 10th, 2014. So here's what 11/01/13 to 1/06/14 looked like:

1) Lots of graduate school conversations (Georgetown, Brandeis, SIT, Monterey Institute of Int'l Studies, George Washington U, American U, Univ of Denver, and George Mason U)

2) Fundraised for the projects that I am to run on my trip, because I have had to pay to do it (details can be found here: http://funds.gofundme.com/index.php?route=fundmanager)

3) Found a one way flight to Israel. Haven't booked a return yet. This should be fun.

4) Finished 0 applications to grad schools

5) Completely ignored health and ate by the budget.

6) From 12/20 to 12/23, my brother and myself experienced three days of nonstop scotch drinking with my synagogue. I performed a Monty Python montage with my brother, ran a sing-off variety show while "4 drinks deep" (I'm becoming a slightly more expensive date) and also won $65 in a 15-person winner take all poker game. That was pretty sweet.

1/06 to 1/10/14 looked like:

1) Went to DC to visit schools and organizations

2) Didn't actually visit schools because they were closed

3) Organizations ended up being too busy to accommodate a visitor 

4) So I played NBA 2k14 for most of the day (especially the one day that it was 7 degrees with -2 windchill outside)
5) Saw Adam Marshall, Will Bloomhardt, Samah Mahmood, Gill Conly, Alex Pan, and Ellen Morris.

6) Went to NYC for 13 hours as part of my layover, and got Shakshuka at a Mediterranean Grille in the W. Village

7) Left in a jet plan, and was seated next to a man who drank 4 bottles of water in 10 minutes, treated the hostesses like crap, and then promptly passed out afterward. He woke up much happier. I think he might have been high or drunk.

1/10/14 to 1/18/14....

1) Finished all applications to grad school

2) Refer to the link in the post above to stalk my every move :-)

Love you all. Give me a shout if you have any comments/if you have an update to share as well!

Bullies and freedom of speech

Why is it that when a child says something offensive, he or she can be called a bully and punished, but when an adult says something offensive it's defended as freedom of speech?


PS, Merry Christmas!!!

Stories

Last weekend, I shared my 'story' with someone. My life story; the whole thing, birth to present. It took a long time, honestly, more than an hour and a half. I had never before done it all in one go. This person had specifically set up our lunch date to hear my story - no one had ever asked before, and I found myself eager to share it.

I'm not really sure where this eagerness came from. Maybe it's a secret fear that (I hope) we all have, that we'll be forgotten after our moment in time is over. We're all just blinks in the universe's eye. Are we making an impact? Does anyone or anything care? I have answered those questions for myself, but it is still daunting and overwhelming to ponder upon your potential legacy. What will you leave behind? Who will remember? Will your name still be known in three generations?

Telling my story was an emotional drain. Not because I find my story particularly dramatic, but because I was processing my entire life as I was telling it. The most interesting part for me was realizing later who and what I included, and who and what I left out. There are parts of my life that have felt mountain-shattering, that have ripped me apart and made me feel like I would never be able to tell which way was 'up' ever again. There have been times of extremely negative and overwhelmingly positive emotions; there have been times I have given up; there have been moments of triumph and pride; there have been people I have loved, I have betrayed, and others who have done the same to me. Some of these things and people didn't even get a footnote in my story the way I told it. Others, unexpectedly, got full chapters.

Listening to my own story unfold (through my own eyes, I should add) reminded me that maturity is a long road, and I hesitate to say I'll ever be an upstanding human specimen at the rate I am going. I don't say that in a self-depreciating way; I say that because I really believe there are always things one can be doing to better oneself.  Listening to my story reminded me of where I came from and who I have been. It reminded me how I have already grown quite a bit, sometimes by leaps and bounds over short periods of time. I think I'm closer to the person I would like to become than I was five years ago. Hopefully I'll continue in the right direction as my life progresses. I wonder what changes will occur in the way I tell my story as it continues.

A day later, I sat on the bus. It was a long ride to my destination, so I brought my book. I was clearly engrossed (or so I thought), when someone asked to sit next to me. He was probably in his mid- to late-thirties, and although he didn't look disheveled he gave the vibe of someone who was probably on the outskirts of society. Someone who had probably been put there against his own wishes, I would also guess. He started asking me about the weather. I nodded and smiled my appreciation of the sun on my face. He asked about the Seattle Public Library. I said I liked it. He mentioned his Kindle. I smiled. After each of these brief interactions, I put my head back down into my book. He quietly moved away from me to an adjacent seat just a few stops before I got off the bus.

As I exited, I realized how selfish I had been. I am not saying that I should have dropped everything and engaged this man in conversation...but why not? Why didn't I? He was clearly looking for someone to talk to. Maybe he has no one to talk to. Maybe no one has ever asked his story.

I think never telling your story to anyone, because they don't want to listen, is probably as draining as telling your story. Except the former hurts more, because those questions of what your life means in the universe are probably (erroneously) pointing towards one thing: nothing.

If this post comes off as depressing, I apologize. I just found it odd how these two, mirrored events occurred within 36 hours of each other. This post is really meant to say that your story is important, and you should tell it. In pieces, all at one time, whatever you want. Just share it with others. It's what connects us as humans, and it is what reminds us that we're all struggling with the same problems: selfishness, pride, control, fear, love, heartbreak, greed, lust, and the great unknown.

Before the end of the year, I would like to really challenge you all to ask someone their story. Maybe a parent or a friend, maybe a stranger. Maybe they will not know what to say and laugh it off, maybe they will get defensive and ask why, but maybe they will tell you. And we should listen.

Thankful for all of your beautiful souls. Thankful that you've all been a part of my life so far. Stick around, ok?

What to do about Syria

Ask many economics professors to sum up the discipline in a sentence and they will respond with the saying “there’s no such thing as a free lunch.”  This aphorism loosely illustrates the idea of opportunity cost.  To formally define an opportunity cost, let’s suppose that someone has to choose either option A and option B; she cannot choose neither option nor choose both options.  The opportunity cost of choosing option A is the then value of option B, the option that she was forgoing by choosing option A.  

Examples of opportunity cost abound in the real world.  There is an opportunity cost to me writing this article, the value of the research I would otherwise be accomplishing.  (Sadly, this article is nearly costless for me.)  There is an opportunity cost to starting Dustin Pedroia for the Red Sox, the value of starting their backup Xander Bogaerts.  In both of these examples, and every other example I’ve seen, the alternative option is positively valued.  But there is nothing in the definition or intuition of opportunity cost that forces the outside option to be valuable. 

This brings us to the question of what to do about the chemical weapons attack in Syria.  I can think of a million reasons why we should not respond by bombing Syria: we will almost surely kill innocent civilians; we will risk escalating the civil war into a pan-Syrian regional war; we will risk ushering the Islamist rebels into power.  Unfortunately, I can also think of a million of moral, political, and financial reasons why we should respond by bombing Syria. Therein lies the rub.

The question is not whether bombing is a good option; it most clearly is not.  The question is instead whether it is a “good” option relative to the option of ignoring an evil act by an evil government.  Honestly, I have no idea whether it is the better option or not, but I do know that deciding how to proceed is neither an easy nor obvious decision.  

The situation reminds me of a West Wing quote where Toby Ziegler says that, “there’s nothing about this that doesn’t stink.”  One way or another people are going to be killed; one way or another there will be suffering; one way or another the situation will cost the United States money.  But the fact that there is no good solution does not mean there isn’t a best solution.

To Charter or Not to Charter

Before the main post, I have a bit of an editors note.  First, and most importantly, hi!  It's been way too long since I've either seen or talked to many of you; hope you all are doing wonderfully.  Secondly, for a variety of reasons, I'm leaning more toward doing some kind of consulting and/or public policy than staying in academia my whole life.  That means I need to work on writing about economics for non-econ Ph.D.s., so the plan is to start writing some articles in a (hopefully) similar style to what would appear in a magazine or on a blog.  Initially it will be on topics that I'm doing research on and I'll then maybe expand a bit to general economic news.  I thought you all might be interested, so figured I'd post them here!  First up: charter schools.

Any issue that involves race, gender, economic inequality, children, and public funding is bound to bring with it some controversy; the debate over charter schools is no exception.  The idea of a charter school is simple.  Along with funding comes a whole host of procedural requirements that public schools have to abide by, restricting the ability of public schools to adapt to their neighborhood.  While still publically financed, charter schools are granted much more operational autonomy in return for more stringent accountability.  Many charters have taken advantage of the autonomy by structuring their administrative organization and teaching practices in very different ways than public schools.  In particular, much attention has been given to the fact that they, on average, employ younger non-unionized teachers, while public schools work exclusively with unions.  But stripping away some aspects of the controversy, the question stands: does the empirical evidence suggest that charter schools work at improving student achievement.

Initially, this question runs headlong into the problem of selection.  An ideal study wants to compare one student who goes to charter school with an otherwise identical student who goes to a public school.  Then, any difference in their academic achievement is solely due to the differences between the schools the two of them attended.  While it is relatively easy to control for observable differences between a student who attends a charter school and one who attends a public school, the very fact that they chose different schools implies differences between the two that researchers cannot control for.  Studies that naively compare charter school students with public school students might reflect a difference in the type of students who attend the two schools, rather than a difference in the ability of the two schools to educate students.

Because charter schools are publically funded, if more students want to attend the charter school than the school has room for, the school must hold a lottery to determine which students can attend the school; they must choose this way instead of “hand picking” which students can attend, the way a private school like Colby does.  In addition to drama, as documented in Waiting for Superman, these lotteries provide the randomization needed to consistently estimate the effects of attending a charter school.  In particular, it allows researchers to compare two students who not only are observably identical, but also made the same choice to apply to a charter school (or multiple charter schools).

These lottery studies all point to a similar conclusion: students who win a lottery to attend a charter school do better than identical students who lost that lottery.  This is true for just about every observational type of student, regardless of his or her gender, race, prior test scores, or family income. (See, for example, Hoxby et. al., 2009)  In addition, this is true for a variety of ways to measure “do better,” whether it is high school test scores, SAT scores, AP scores, or enrollment at four-year colleges. (See Angrist et. al, 2013) The one caveat to this result is that it holds only for urban charter schools; the results for rural or suburban charter schools are much more mixed.

After reading these studies, the policy implications seem clear: remove, at least in urban areas, some of the many existing barriers that currently make it difficult to found new charters.  But while the research suggests that oversubscribed charter schools work well, the policy implications require more thought than it at first might seem.  First, these studies only estimate the effect of charter schools that hold lotteries.  Assuming that more children apply to the best charter schools, these studies are implicitly looking at the effect of the best charter schools, not of every charter school.  Non-experimental studies, which compare students who are demographically identical, but who differ in their school choice, can estimate the effect of all charter schools.  But they must assume that the selection issue, described in the second paragraph, does not matter.  There is some evidence that this is true in among the schools that are oversubscribed, but I think it is safe to say that this issue is not well understood.  (As an aside, this is a plus for me personally, because it means I can study it.)

The main issue, however, is that even though it is now known that current charter schools are (on average) more successful than public schools, no one has a great sense of why.  This makes it tough to know whether or not the positive effect of charter schools will extend to the next set of charters.  Suppose, for example, that motivated students apply to charter schools and that being around motivated students increase academic outcomes.  In that case, students who attend charter schools will do better academically than identical ones who do not, but increasing charter schools is not necessarily a good policy.  This is both because the next set of charter schools will not as successful and because the presence of charter schools hurt public school students by lowering the motivation of their peers.  On the other hand, if charter schools lead to better results because they often have a longer school year and more flexibility in hiring teachers, increasing the number of charters is advisable. 

In fairness to charter schools, the available evidence suggests that the being surrounded by motivated peers is not the reason why charter students do better than public school students and that getting around restrictions imposed by teachers unions is one of the main advantages of charter schools, but the point still stands.  Without knowing why charter schools work, it is impossible to know what the effect would be of increasing the number of charters.  Knowing why they work is the next step, one that hopefully I’ll be able to help with.