Madison New Gym Actually Over $5 Million?

In response to my post questioning the $2.9 million price tag cited by the Madison school district for its proposed new gym, I get the following comment on my KELO blog from Tim S.:

As a Construction Project Manager/Estimator if I were to put a conceptional estimate number to a 42,500SF Gymnasium for this area of the country the costs would probably be somewhere around $121.39 per SF = $5,159,075.

In the current bidding market we have seen most public projects coming in at an average of 20% less than the anticipated cost estimates, so if that holds true the cost could be reduced to around $4,127,260. Most of the time they can get creative with cost estimates by not including certain things or by creating lots of alternate bid items to achieve their end means. Not being able to see the full breakdown it is possible that the 2.9 million is for just the gym area alone and does not include other supporting areas. Estimates are always just educated guesses and the more information available the better you end number will be.

Just My Two Cents.

Two cents... which by Madison math would actually be four cents?

Ayn Rand's Atheism Worse Than Mine

My favorite Anglican fount of wisdom, Father Tim, reminds me indirectly that I don't have to make any excuses to my conservative neighbors about being an atheist... not as long they keep worshipping Ayn Rand:

The Economist's Good Guru Guide says, "Ayn Rand—the heroine of America's libertarian right—described her philosophy as 'the concept of man as a noble being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute'" [Gary Moore, "Ayn Rand: Goddess of the Great Recession," Christianity Today, 2010.08.27].

Sounds like nefarious secular humanism to me.

Like The Economist, most observers see Rand as a political and economic philosopher. I believe she was first and foremost an anti-Christian philosopher. She didn't understand the faith. But she knew that Moses was a lawgiver, that Christ told us to "render unto Caesar," and that Paul told us to pay taxes and to "honor and respect" government leaders (Rom. 13). So she had to get rid of Christianity in order to get rid of government.

Rand once declared, "I want to be known as the greatest champion of reason and the greatest enemy of religion." Randian evangelist Leonard Peikoff preached that "every argument for God and every attribute ascribed to him rests on a false metaphysical principle" [Moore, 2010].

Enemy of religion?! I've never declared myself that. I don't mind religion all that much, at least not when folks do it right... or when they put on good potato suppers.

Moore's article is chock full of sharp observations that make one thing clear: atheist Ayn Rand poses a greater threat to your Christian faith and moral compass (not to mention the healthy, regulated free market Adam Smith envisioned) than I ever will. Rand does not believe in any moral obligation to your fellow man. I do. So did that carpenter from Nazareth.

Make a Stand for Free Market Ranching: Support Tony Dean Grassland!

Mr. Kurtz brings to my attention commentary on another good bill Thune and the Republicans are holding hostage for the sake of more tax cuts for the wealthiest 1%. Well-traveled George Wuerthner at New West observes that S. 3310, the Tony Dean Cheyenne River Valley Conservation Act, would preserve our swiftly dwindling native prairie. Wuerthner also finds it ironic that a bill bearing Tony Dean's name would (contrary to Kristi Noem's willfull ignorance) protect existing grazing rights:

America has very little of its native prairie in any protected status. Most of the plains have been carved up by till farming, and the rest is grazed by livestock. Tony Dean Cheyenne River Valley Conservation Act would correct this by designating 48,000 acres as wilderness in the Indian Creek, Red Shirt and Chalk Hills areas of the Buffalo Gap National Grassland on the borders of Badlands NP. Walking these vast open breathing spaces reminds me of being on the vastness of tundra in Alaska. It’s a sense of freedom that is more difficult to experience in more forested terrain. As with any designated wilderness, livestock grazing will continue. This is particularly ironic since Tony Dean, who was an outdoor writer in South Dakota, railed against welfare ranchers and their impact on the state for decades. However language could be inserted into the legislation to permit buyouts of grazing privileges so that eventually bison, not cattle, will be grazing these lands [George Wuerthner, "Omnibus Wilderness Bill Likely," New West, 2010.11.29].

Welfare ranchers? Did Tony Dean say that?

Well, he let Sam Hurst say it on his website, and in reference to this very land:

Welfare Ranchers on Public Lands," Tony Dean Outdoors, 2006]

Dean himself called the no-bid grazing leases on public lands "welfare ranching" in this article. Neither Hurst nor Dean was advocating eco-socialism. They argue for ending subsidies and letting the free market rule.

The Tony Dean Cheyenne River Valley Conservation Act would create a unique national grasslands wilderness. It's a good idea. So is ending the market-skewing, deficit-widening subsidy to a handful of ranchers who plea for socialism. Why don't John Thune and Kristi Noem get that?

Sorry, Tea Party: Noem Going Washington

All Kristi Noem ever had to offer the Tea Party was looks. Don't expect her to really change anything in Washington. She's already going Washington:

• Noem has picked an experienced Washington insider as her chief of staff. As Mr. Woodring describes Jordan Stoick, he's "a native South Dakotan who knows his way around DC." Gee, describe Congresswoman Herseth Sandlin with those same words, and the Noem people jeer and boo.
  
• Noem's ability to impress the party bosses with fundraising may keep her from getting much work done for South Dakota on committees. SDSU poli-sci guy Gary Aguiar says its tough for members of Congress to pursue both committee power and leadership power. Herseth Sandlin focused on committee work to fight for South Dakota interests. her main leadership push was in the Blue Dog Coalition, which put her at odds with her party leadership. Now who's that cute freshman on John Boehner's leash?
  
• As she gets swept up in the D.C. power games, I'll bet Noem still won't find the guts to say no to the $141.50 per capita in earmarks that South Dakotans gobble up each year. Has anyone heard Noem name a single South Dakota earmark she'll turn back? Do you think she'll tell Madison Republicans she's shutting down their four-lane dreams for Highway 34 to save our grandchildren from debt? We're waiting, Kristi....

------------
p.s.: Maybe I'm just overdosing on Noem snark to compensate for Congresswoman Herseth Sandlin's bad vote against protecting the budget from more tax cuts for the richest 1%. Stephanie! That's the Blue Doggery that got you beat. Read some Robert Reich!

Spend More on Kids and Teachers, Get Higher Math Scores? Maybe!

In the conversation about our schools not producing enough smart kids, I mentioned Stanford economist Eric Hanushek's contention that per-pupil spending doesn't correlate with educational outcomes. Former Madison Superintendent John Sweet challenges this contention, suggesting we look at spending in Massachusetts and Minnesota, where the percentages of kids rating "advanced" on math tests are highest in the nation. (Dr. Sweet also happens to now supervise the tutelage of smart kids in Minnesota.) But what, retorts neighbor Linda McIntyre, of high cost and low results in DC and the rez?

O.K., let's check some numbers.

The report from Hanushek, Peterson, and Woessmann (in PDF!) offers a nice table giving percentages of kids getting advanced math scores in each state. The Census Bureau offers data on per-pupil education spending in each state. I paste those numbers into Excel and run the CORREL function. The results:

Correlations with percentage of students scoring "advanced" in math
Total	0.37
Salaries and Wages	0.40
Employee Benefits	0.30
Instruction Total	0.39
Instruction Salaries and Wages	0.42
Instruction Employee Benefits	0.33
Support Services Total	0.33
Pupil support	0.17
Staff support	0.25
General administration	0.18
School administration	0.27

A correlation of 1 means an absolute postive relationship (when one number increases, the other one always increases). A correlation of 0 means absolutely no relationship, or complete randomness (the numbers have no more connection than a list of results from rolling dice).

A correlation of 0.37 means there's some positive relationship, but that other factors can wash out that relationship. That fits what we see when we line up the states by per-pupil expenditures:

State	per-pupil expenditures (2008)	% adv. math scores
United States	10,259	6.0
New York	17,173	6.3
New Jersey	16,491	8.7
Alaska	14,630	5.8
Vermont	14,300	8.8
Connecticut	13,848	7.8
Wyoming	13,840	3.5
Rhode Island	13,539	3.3
Massachusetts	13,454	11.4
Maryland	12,966	6.8
Delaware	12,253	5
Pennsylvania	12,035	5.7
Hawaii	11,800	2.5
New Hampshire	11,619	6.5
Maine	11,572	5
Wisconsin	10,680	6.7
Virginia	10,659	7.9
Illinois	10,246	5.4
Ohio	10,173	6.6
Minnesota	10,140	10.8
Michigan	10,069	5.5
Louisiana	9,954	1.7
California	9,863	4.5
West Virginia	9,852	1.4
Georgia	9,788	4.3
North Dakota	9,675	4.8
Kansas	9,667	5.2
Montana	9,666	5.6
Nebraska	9,577	6
Oregon	9,558	7.3
Iowa	9,267	5.7
Missouri	9,216	4.1
South Carolina	9,170	6.7
Alabama	9,103	2.3
Washington	9,099	8.7
Colorado	9,079	6.3
New Mexico	9,068	1.4
Indiana	9,036	5.1
Florida	9,035	4.6
Kentucky	8,686	3.4
Arkansas	8,541	3
South Dakota	8,367	6.5
Texas	8,320	6.2
Nevada	8,285	3.1
North Carolina	7,996	7.1
Mississippi	7,901	1.3
Tennessee	7,739	2.9
Oklahoma	7,685	2.4
Arizona	7,608	4.6
Idaho	6,931	4.5
Utah	5,765	4.7

Among the top ten big spenders, you have six states above average on the advanced math score and four below. Among the bottom ten low spenders (that includes South Dakota!), you have three states above average and seven below. That's far from a perfect correlation, but it does appear that, all other things being equal, if you make more money available to schools, they'll have a better shot at turning out smarter kids.

Now look again at the first chart, which breaks down the correlation by how the money is spent. The strongest correlation in the batch is the 0.42 you see between advanced math scores and teacher pay. The weakest correlations are the 0.17 for pupil support and 0.18 for general administration. Again, none of these correlations are guarantees of results, but if you have money to bet on improving student performance, these numbers suggest the best place to put that money is right into your teachers' pockets.

Of course, the problem is that to understand this argument, we need more kids who get good math scores....

Thune Flack: Herseth Sandlin Doesn't Buy Groceries

I was going to leave this alone, but some Republicans just can't win with class.

The Thune campaign successfully backed sock puppet Kristi Noem against Congresswoman Stephanie Herseth Sandlin. They got someone nice and Palin-y in the chute to run for Senator Tim Johnson's seat in 2014 (assuming the Palin and Teabagger fads can last that long...and gods help us if they do).

But gloating over their Ice Queen coronation isn't enough. The Thune campaign now feels compelled to play Oprah and tell Herseth Sandlin how she ought to live her life after an election defeat:

Andi Fouberg, press secretary for Sen. John Thune, said Thune was very visible in the wake of his razor-thin loss to Sen. Tim Johnson in 2002.

Thune, who then held the congressional seat that Herseth Sandlin does now, lived in Sioux Falls and was seen at the grocery store, at his children’s ballgames and in the community, Fouberg said.

“Senator Thune held a press conference the day after the 2002 election and had conversations with reporters throughout that week and beyond that,” she said. “There wasn’t really a period of silence” [Tom Lawrence, "Ousted Congresswoman Says She Has 'No Regrets,'" Mitchell Daily Republic, 2010.12.01]

Senator Thune, you pay Andi with an i $100,000-plus a year to say things like this? Our tax dollars at work? Try our tax dollars at jerk.

Andi with an i neglects to remind us that the "press conference" the day after the 2002 election was more likely Thune's concession speech, since the 500-some vote margin wasn't called in that race until the morning after the vote. And the Thune-Noem machine wasn't terribly interested in giving Herseth Sandlin any visibility right after they won, since Noem trotted out to give her victory speech hardly 30 seconds after Herseth Sandlin had begun her concession speech.

Andi with an i makes a whole whack of bogus implications with her other references:

• "lived in Sioux Falls"—still pumping the lie that Herseth Sandlin doesn't live in South Dakota. How many times does someone have to say she lives in Brookings for you to accept the plain fact that she lives in Brookings? Even in victory, is the lie so titillating, so addicting, that you can't give it up?
• "seen at the grocery store"—seriously? this matters? What do you want, Hy-Vee receipts? (Actually, speaking of receipts, we shouldn't forget that Herseth Sandlin was spending more money in South Dakota than Noem during the campaign.)
• "children's ballgames"—golly, we're sorry that Zachary isn't old enough for pee-wee football yet. Should Herseth Sandlin submit affidavits from neighbors who saw her around town with Zachary at McDonald's or the Children's Museum or other places?
  

Herseth Sandlin tells the press that she spent the past month at her home in Brookings, on a family Thanksgiving trip, and back at the office in Washington. She's been particularly busy there: in addition to making every vote so far in the lame-duck session, she's had to move her office, hand over office equipment, and let staff go, even though she's still on the job for another month. Whatever calls she's getting for jobs, the Lawrence article makes it sound as if Herseth Sandlin, the good boss, is more focused on helping her staffers make the transition and land on their feet.

Now I know the Thune-bots at Dakota War College are crushed to lose a fun headline-meme. (Heavens forbid bloggers lose easy snark and have to come up with original, useful news about policy.) But if Herseth Sandlin had taken the opposite route and made lots of public appearances post election, the Thune-bots would simply have resorted to some other slimy line, like "Who does she think she is? She loses but keeps trying to hog the spotlight. Why can't she leave the stage gracefully?"

In a political and media environment highly inclined to brush aside losers, outgoing Congresswoman Herseth Sandlin has been doing her job, helping her staff, and reclaiming some well-deserved privacy. And maybe, just maybe, Stephanie has been making up some quality time with a little boy who's a lot more important than providing fodder for those of us in the chattering class.

Enbridge Oil Spill: Safety Measures Only Work If You Pay Attention

I'm reading the latest Plains Justice report on the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline and its threat to the land and water of the Northern Plains. The report includes this alarming timeline of the big Enbridge pipeline spill in the Kalamazoo River in Michigan this summer:

Sunday, July 25, 2010

• 5:58 PM: Pipeline pump automatically shuts down when Enbridge control center in Edmonton, Canada, receives low pressure alarm; the control center attributes the alarm to a “column separation,” meaning that they thought a vapor bubble formed in the pipeline.
• 9:25 PM: First 911 calls from residents near the rupture due to odor
  

Monday, July 26, 2010

• 4:04 AM: Enbridge restarts pipeline
• 4:12 AM: Volume balance alarm (less oil in pipeline downstream than upstream)
• 4:17 AM: Second volume balance alarm
• 4:22 AM: Third volume balance alarm
• 4:36-4:57 AM: Several more volume balance alarms
• 5:03 AM: Enbridge control center turns off Pipeline pumps
• 6:30-8:00 AM: Residents notice strong odor on way to work
• 7:00 AM: Local resident collects oil sample from Talmadge Creek
• 7:10 AM: Enbridge restarts pipeline pumps
• 7:12-7:42 AM: Five additional volume balance alarms
• 7:55 AM: Pipeline pumps shutdown and downstream valve closed
• 9:49 AM: Technician called to check a pump station about three-quarters of a mile from the rupture
• 11:18 AM: A gas utility calls Enbridge to report on oil in Talmadge Creek
• 11:20 AM: Enbridge begins closing valves upstream and downstream of the rupture
• 11:41 AM: Enbridge personnel confirm leak and begin to respond to the spill
• 1:29 PM: Enbridge reports spill to the federal government

The Enbridge bosses in Alberta (that's where the TransCanada offices are, too) got warnings from their system Sunday afternoon. Neighbors smelled oil from the leak. The Enbridge bosses then turned the pipeline back on—twice. Before they had verified the cause of their own alarms, they pumped oil through a broken pipe for another 104 minutes. They didn't close valves in the area of the break until over 17 hours after the initial alarms.

TransCanada assures us they have the plans and equipment in place to address a major spill on the pipeline. TransCanada says they can shut down the pipeline and isolate trouble spots within minutes. As TransCanada pumps 435,000 barrels a day under eastern South Dakota in Keystone I and schemes to build an even bigger Keystone XL to pump 900,000 barrels per day under western South Dakota, I hope they pay attention to their alarms and safety plans better than Enbridge did last July.

Learn more about the Enbridge spill and TransCanada's inadequate pipeline safety plans: read the Plains Justice report!

Thune to Food Safety: Drop Dead

Senator John Thune joined 24 fellow Republicans yesterday to vote against S. 510, the Food Safety Modernization Act. The New York Times maps the Senate votes:

U.S. Senate vote on S. 510, the Food Safety Modernization Act, 2010.11.30.
Source: New York Times.

Senator Thune cast his lot with the Confederates and cowboys who think we eating eggs with salmonella is a personal choice, not a matter for regulation. Senator Tim Johnson cast his lot with the hippies and liberals who want a little ovesight of their granola.

Some of my liberal friends have expressed concerns that federal food safety legislation could put small farmers and organic growers out of business. However, Senator Jon Tester from Montana succeeded in getting his amendment to protect small farms into the bill. Even food über-watchdogs Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser think the Tester Amendment makes S. 510 good enough to support. Update 19:27 CST: South Dakota farmer and Dakota Rural Action member Zita Kwartek tells The Independent Local that the Tester-Hagan Amendment protects our small farmers.

But Senator Thune's nay on food safety shows that he'll put Tea Party cred above sensible public safety rules as we push on toward 2012.

Lake Herman Ice Check: Seven Inches!

For lunch, I stepped out of the office and chopped a hole in the lake.

Punching holes in Lake Herman: another guy compulsion

About twenty feet from shore, the ice on lovely Lake Herman was a whole hand thick, at least seven inches. Ever-reliable Dad reports he saw someone drag a shelter out to ice-fish over the weekend. Cross at your own peril!

And how was your lunch break?

SD, US Not Producing Enough Smart Kids

My well-read wife hands me this report from The Atlantic that includes data on how South Dakota students compare with their U.S. and international counterparts in posting high scores on standardized tests.

The good news: South Dakota has more kids scoring at advanced levels in math and science than the national average. We're 14th overall among the states for advanced math scores.

The bad news: we're getting beat by socialist states like Massachusetts and Minnesota, which are #1 and #2 with 11.4% and 10.8% (respectively) of their kids getting advanced math scores, compared to South Dakota's 6.5%. Our kids are also below average in really good reading, with only 1.9% of our kids getting advanced reading scores, compared to the national average of 3%.

The really bad news: The U.S. is getting creamed by other countries. Thirty countries have a higher percentage of kids getting advanced math scores than ours, including Ireland, Poland, Luxembourg, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, China, Korea, China, and top-dog Taiwan, where 28% of kids score "advanced" in math.

Oh, but this comparison isn't fair. Taiwan and Poland and all those other countries only test the best kids. They don't have all the ethnic diversity that we do to pull down their scores. Or at least those are the excuses we usually hear. But the folks behind these numbers, Stanford economist Eric Hanushek and his fellow researchers, have already controlled for those excuses and found the U.S. is still underperforming.

Hanushek has long rejected the idea that more money produces better education, and his latest data upholds that notion. According to The Atlantic, the U.S. spends more per student than everyone but Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Norway. Whatever we're spending our money on (culinary arts programs? new gyms?), we're not getting the academic outcomes we need to compete with the new workers from other countries.

Among the recommendations for better outcomes: more rigorous teacher training and testing. According to The Atlantic, Massachusetts's gains coincide with imposition of a basic teacher literacy test that weeded out over a third of new teachers in its first year. Massachusetts also requires students to pass an exam to graduate high school. (And please, spare me the hand-wringing over "test anxiety." Life is a test. If you can't handle marking a few bubbles with a Number 2 pencil, how will you handle freeway driving? or parenting?)

The U.S. is a world leader in many ways. Alas, our K-12 education system is not.

--------------------------
Update 17:28 CST: Read more straight from the profs: Eric A. Hanushek, Paul E. Peterson, and Ludger Woessmann, "Teaching Math to the Talented," Education next, Winter 2011. That article includes everyone's favorite Web widget, an interactive map!

Madison New Gym: Bigger than 2007 Proposal, Half the Cost?

Remember that new gym proposal Madison voters turned down back in 2007? Recall the plans for that building:

2007 New Gym Site Plan (click to enlarge)

2007 New Gym Floor Plan (click to enlarge)

The new gym proposed in 2007 was a 42,400-square foot facility. It included a 25,572-square-foot main gym with 2170 spectator seats. It also offered over 4000 square feet of lobby, a concession stand, restrooms, locker rooms, storage, and a nice press box upstairs. Total cost: $5.83 million. Add interest, estimated at the time at 4.5%, and supporters said the project would cost $391,000 in debt service each year for 25 years, a total of $9.78 million.

Now, let's look at the current new gym plan:

2011 New Gym/HS Renovation Site Plan (click to enlarge)

2011 New Gym Floor Plan (click to enlarge)

These new diagrams don't show square footage. The school district says the total project will add 62,000 square feet. Eyeballing the above images, I see the footprint of the 2011 new gym corresponds roughly with the 2007 plan. That suggests that the new athletic facility accounts for over two thirds of the new space.

During last week's tour, MHS principal Sharon Knowlton said the new gym would seat 2500 people. The plan shows four locker rooms, nice curvy lobby, concession stand, public restrooms, clothing store, storage, and fitness center.

The 2011 new gym looks at least as fancy as the 2007 new gym. Yet the school district tells us the gym will cost us $2.9 million, half the cost of the facility proposed in 2007.

I see two logical conclusions:

1. Prices for building gyms have gone down significantly since the 2007 proposal.
2. The new sports facility is taking up a lot more of the proposed $16.9 million than the $2.9 million our school leaders are telling us it will cost.
   

Architects, care to comment?

Nebraska Politicos Speaking up on TransCanada; SD Pols Asleep at Switch

Opposition is rising to the TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline in Nebraska, and it's prettyhard to dismiss these folks as "extreme environmentalists." U.S. Senator Mike Johanns has demanded more information and a different route for the pipeline to protect the sensitive Nebraska Sand Hills and Ogallala Aquifer. Nebraska farmer and State Senator Annette Dubas is leading an interim legislative study of Keystone XL's potential impacts on the state (see the documentation on LR435 here). That committee plans to look into liability, restoration of property, and regulatory oversight.

Nebraska State Senator Tony Fulton apparently shares concerns that Keystone XL could be bad for his state. Even Governor Dave Heineman is worried about Keystone XL's environmental impacts, although he thinks (erroneously) that Nebraska may lack the authority to impose its own environmental regulations over federal rules. (Where there's a will, there's a way, Gov. Heineman!)

This growing opposition comes on the heels of a new report from Plains Justice that finds TransCanada isn't putting enough resources into pipeline emergency response here on the Plains. According to Plains Justice, in all of Nebraska and the Dakotas, TransCanada has in place "one spill response trailer and one boom trailer that together contain 5,000 feet of boom, two skimmers, two portable tanks, and a variety of hand tools and equipment. It has also provided a 14 ft. and 18 ft. boat." Compare that to the Enbridge spill near Kalamazoo, Michigan, last summer. In response to a rupture in a 30-inch oil pipeline, same size as Keystone I and smaller than the 36-inch Keystone XL, Enbridge deployed "over 2,000 personnel, over 150,000 feet (28 miles) of boom, 175 heavy spill response trucks, 43 boats, and 48 oil skimmers." Given those numbers, TransCanada looks woefully underprepared to respond to a pipeline spill here on our prairie.

Nebraska lawmakers are at least willing to ask Big Foreign Oil some hard questions. It's too bad South Dakota lawmakers won't show similar moxie:

• Governor-Elect Dennis Daugaard has defended big tax rebates for the construction of TransCanada's pipelines, rebates that neither Nebraska nor North Dakota offer.
• State Senator and Majority Leader Russell Olson thinks those rebates and those pipelines are wonderful. He has consistently resisted efforts to impose pipeline taxes to establish environmental clean-up funds. Maybe Rep.-Elect Patricia Stricherz can straighten him out.
  
• Neither Senator John Thune (of course not) nor Senator Tim Johnson (Tim! You're our only hope!) signed on to a letter from eleven fellow senators criticizing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for her apparent pro-pipeline bias.
• I can't find any public comment on Keystone XL from Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin or Rep. Elect Kristi Noem.

Is South Dakota so desperate for economic development that we can't ask a foreign oil corporation to take sufficient precautions to prepare for the inevitable accidents on its pipeline? Nebraska evidently doesn't suffer this spinelessness; South Dakota should find its voice and join the calls to put our environmental and economic well-being above TransCanada's drive for maximum profit.