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You left out the part parallel to "I would guess that there is a subculture of school administrators who feel that No Child Left Behind etc. are hurting curricu

by mokus 15y ago

You left out the part parallel to "I would guess that there is a subculture of school administrators who feel that No Child Left Behind etc. are hurting curriculum and unfair to teachers and schools." The standards schools are being measured against (and rewarded or punished for their performance relative to) are far less objective than "made or lost money". You have not applied the same logic to a different profession, because it misses out on the fundamental point of the comment you are parodying - that the standard is, in many cases, judging the schools wrongly. The dilemma is not whether or not to lie about failing. The dilemma is whether or not to lie about a shitty metric that _says_ you are failing when you can see clearly that you are not. I'm not going to make a claim one way or another about what I think of that argument. I'm just pointing out that the argument you are parodying is not the one you appear to think it is.

yummyfajitas 15y ago
The standard trading desks are held to is also often less objective than "made or lost money". It's "made or lost money relative to some arbitrary risk-adjusted benchmark". If the risk guys disagrees with your model about how dangerous your strategy is, they could easily mark down your +400bps alpha to +100bps. And yes, there is a "subculture of traders who feel that the policies enforced by Risk are hurting profits and unfair to traders." Actually it's not so much a subculture as the dominant culture.
- mokus 15y ago
  Fair enough. That wasn't at all clear from your earlier comment, though. In light of this information I'm inclined to agree that there is some similarity. I think there's still a pretty colossal difference, too, though - the risk guys generally work for the same firm, don't they? To reflect back across the metaphor, in the education world the "risk guys" are a single group of people at a national entity most people already don't trust to manage money, and they are unilaterally declaring the standards for _everyone's_ risk.
- ilaksh 15y ago
  The hedge fund managers make a shitton of money so getting fired isn't as likely to leave them homeless. Probably a lot of them 2x, 5x, or even 100x more than teachers. Also, rather than saying well-run firm which would imply an equivalence with school, it would make more sense to say that the internet coming into the firm only works part of the day in some places versus perfectly in others. Also teachers are being measured on the basis of their students' performance, not the stock market. Students aren't like a stock market. Teachers can't pick their students, for one thing. Also, students are people. Hedge funds are sort of a betting game designed to make money from money or gaming strategy rather than actual contribution to society. Teaching is about creating the next generation of minds. Also, this situation is more like one guy at the SEC or something deciding exactly what formulas can be used to change the portfolios for all of the funds in the United States and then firing people if they don't perform. Its ludicrous.

by mokus 15y ago

yummyfajitas 15y ago

The standard trading desks are held to is also often less objective than "made or lost money". It's "made or lost money relative to some arbitrary risk-adjusted benchmark". If the risk guys disagrees with your model about how dangerous your strategy is, they could easily mark down your +400bps alpha to +100bps. And yes, there is a "subculture of traders who feel that the policies enforced by Risk are hurting profits and unfair to traders." Actually it's not so much a subculture as the dominant culture.

mokus 15y ago
Fair enough. That wasn't at all clear from your earlier comment, though. In light of this information I'm inclined to agree that there is some similarity. I think there's still a pretty colossal difference, too, though - the risk guys generally work for the same firm, don't they? To reflect back across the metaphor, in the education world the "risk guys" are a single group of people at a national entity most people already don't trust to manage money, and they are unilaterally declaring the standards for _everyone's_ risk.
ilaksh 15y ago
The hedge fund managers make a shitton of money so getting fired isn't as likely to leave them homeless. Probably a lot of them 2x, 5x, or even 100x more than teachers. Also, rather than saying well-run firm which would imply an equivalence with school, it would make more sense to say that the internet coming into the firm only works part of the day in some places versus perfectly in others. Also teachers are being measured on the basis of their students' performance, not the stock market. Students aren't like a stock market. Teachers can't pick their students, for one thing. Also, students are people. Hedge funds are sort of a betting game designed to make money from money or gaming strategy rather than actual contribution to society. Teaching is about creating the next generation of minds. Also, this situation is more like one guy at the SEC or something deciding exactly what formulas can be used to change the portfolios for all of the funds in the United States and then firing people if they don't perform. Its ludicrous.