This morning, Steve Harvey offers “commencement” speech stories, including one about Richard Moore, then-president of Santa Monica College, who, back in 1992, offered only three words: ‘“Feelings.” Then, “Adventures.” And finally, “Ideas.”’ He sat down.
Many of us in the SOCCCD dream that Chancellor Raghu P. Mathur will some day adopt this practice. Imagine: he walks to the podium. He offers three words: "For." Then, "deh." And finally, "students." He sits down.
Another story is about Theodor Geisel of “Dr. Suess” fame.
He was lured out of La Jolla to receive an honorary degree from Lake Forest (Ill.) College in 1977.
Though he was listed as commencement speaker, he told officials upon arriving that he had no intention of addressing the crowd. It appeared his speech might amount to: "Thank you."
But Geisel surprised everyone by pulling out a 100-word ditty he had composed while sitting onstage.
It was an account of his Uncle Terwilliger ordering a puffed tart in a restaurant and went, in part:
"To eat these things," said my uncle, "you must exercise great care. You may swallow down what's solid
BUT
you must spit out the air!" And as you partake of the world's bill of fare, that's darned good advice to follow. Do a lot of spitting out the hot air.
The final figures won’t be known for months, but Chapman University executives are certain about this: When the fall semester begins, the bucolic campus in Old Towne will have more students than it did last year — a claim all or most of Orange County’s public colleges and universities won’t be able to make….
Legendary Athens band "Pylon," in their heyday, c. 1980. Guitarist Randy Bewley (far left) died of a heart attack about three months ago.
MUSIC FOR A SUNDAY MORNING: The wonderful Iris Dement singing her "Our Town" with the help of Emmylou Harris. You'll love it! (Harris first made a name for herself as a backup singer, supporting Gram Parsons.)
Saw these two at the Greek last night. Terrific as always. Especially Lang.
Here are some old videos that you might like. Or not.
Last night, Garrison Keillor suggested that we check out the video of Lang's "Crying," so here it is. She's pretty terrific all right. Used to pal around with Roy Orbison, who of course did the original version of "Crying."
The "Canadian" connection, you know. Neil was recovering from brain surgery, as I recall, so kd stepped in for this gig. He's all better now. But he still sings like he does. Gotta love 'im.
Her official video of this song was filmed in a beautiful part of Nevada. Check it out. (I was just there last week! Very cool.)
Do you remember the original Cat Stevens version? Great pop song. Stevens wrote some great ones. I do hope that Natalie Merchant has chilled out. (Remember when she pulled "Peace Train" off of her album?)
Check out David Sanborn going nuts on his sax. Over the top, I think. —Still.
Here, our girl is strictly second banana to her former boyfriend and his pals. They're all giving tribute to Jimi Hendrix. Crow used to do backup, before she hit it big.
Remember the version of "Little Wing" on Clapton's "Derek and the Dominoes" album? I thought it was great—but it doesn't quite top the original.
While we're on the subject of "girl singers" (OK, I know) and great songs, if you don't know about the Be Good Tanyas and their tiny bird song, well man, prepare to be dazzled:
Ah, more Canadians. They're from Vancouver, BC--I lived there for a time as a young boy. You'll notice that I occasionally call my couch a "Chesterfield" and that I can be colorless and boring.
This morning, I came across this fun comment about the delusion that we can predict the future--or at least the future of horse races. According to former jockey Sean Clancy,
Horses are just like people; there are smart ones, dumb ones, miserable ones, honest ones, simple ones, cheats, freaks, leaders and laggards. They have good days, bad days and plenty of average days. They can be brilliant one minute, horrible the next. They can remember something that happened a year ago and forget what they learned yesterday. They’ll walk placidly into a metal starting gate that clangs and rings when the doors open, and then be scared of a bucket that wasn’t there yesterday.
And we think we know what’s going to happen this afternoon [at the horse race].
The OC Weekly’s R. Scott Moxley notes that ace reporter Norberto Santana Jr. is leaving the OC Register. Earlier in the day, the Weekly’s Nick Schou had reported that John Gittelsohn is also leaving the Reg—for a job with Bloomberg News.
Santana's departure … means that Orange County's largest daily newspaper has lost two of its best talents. Translation to the public: the ability of our local journalism community to deliver key news stories about corruption just suffered a serious blow.
Busy bee Gary Robbins informs us that the recession has caused a steep drop in UCI’s endowment fund:
Newly-released figures show that UCI’s endowment declined by about $45 million during the one year period ending on March 31. The drop comes as UCI is struggling to figure out how it is going to cut an estimated $55 million to help the state erase a projected $24.3 billion deficit. The campus has frozen faculty hiring and some university staff are expected to be furloughed or laid off.
How does this drop compare with that of other UC campuses? According to Thomas Mitchell, VC of university advancement, other universities are “‘reporting losses of 20 or 30 percent….’” Apparently, UCI is nothing special in this regard.
Noting that Gov. Schwarzenegger is proposing $825 million in cuts from the community college budget, Laurel Rosenhall of the Sacramento Bee reports that the Governor “suggested cuts from support programs for disabled and disadvantaged students, and a reduction in funding for physical education classes.”
Critics say that this approach means laying off 6,000 part-time teachers and turning away a quarter million students. Ouch!
Well, something’s gotta give. Naturally, some object to targeting PE, and this brings up the local vs. state control issue, among others:
Educators say it's a case of legislators micromanaging their curriculum, while legislative analysts say limiting PE is the most practical way to trim during historic budget stress.
Jack Scott, chancellor of the state's community colleges, says course cutbacks should be determined locally. ¶ "Each local community college has a better feel for what its priorities are and what are the things they could more easily do without," he said.
But the legislative analysts who suggested the PE cut say state law makes clear that when times are tight, California must prioritize what the colleges teach. Vocational and academic courses are most important, the law says, and recreational courses are at the bottom of the heap. … [According to the Schwarzenegger/Legislative Analyst's Office proposal, state] funding would be cut from a rate that would total $4,600 if students were taking a full courseload to $2,700 per full-time student. The $2,700 is the amount the state now pays the colleges for non-credit courses, such as fitness for older adults. Students would still get credit for PE courses, even if they're funded at the non-credit rate.
[Paul Steenhausen of the Legislative Analyst's Office] says many community college PE classes are more about fun than credit. ¶ "It's like a community center," Steenhausen said. "Yoga, Pilates, pingpong, badminton, skiing." … Scott said he's already urging the colleges to start that process. He wants them to put top priority on classes that teach remedial academic skills, prepare students for the job market or get them ready to transfer to four-year schools….
…Student veterans have become more visible on many campuses…, and colleges, preparing for an expected increase in veteran enrollment once the new Post-9/11 GI Bill takes effect this August, have taken notice. Many colleges have been stepping up their support for and outreach to veterans, by creating veterans' offices, streamlining their admission and registration processes, expanding their counseling center capacity, establishing mentoring programs, and training faculty and staff.
"I am very pleased. It seems like people have really started to understand that the veteran population is going to be increasing soon, and veterans are a little different than the average college student, the average 18-year-old, coming to school," says John Powers, executive director of Student Veterans of America. The number of SVA chapters has grown by about 15 chapters a month since January, and there are now 177 chapters in 40 different states, Powers says. “Everyone’s very, very motivated. Some of them are social clubs, but some of them are really changing policies,” says Powers.
“There are some universities out there that are fully prepared, they’re on board. Every college is different. You can have great admissions policies, but you may not have a veterans’ resource center on campus. The counseling center may be lacking,” says Powers….
RECENTLY, I added two cat images (see) that I thought were funny. I especially liked the commando-cat image. I thought the other image was iffy, humorwise.
One of our readers (MAH) objected to the commando-cat image. In a note to another reader (BS), she opined (in passing): “the cat with [the] gun is horrible!”
BS responded, noting (in passing) that he liked the “cat with a gun,” judging it to be a “creative” use of a yawning cat.
Later, MAH shared her usual thoughtful reflections about things, but she added:
All right: just to show my grumpiness at the June gloom, I don't even like the cat with mouse and laptop. I never did care for that kind of anthropomorphized imagery of animals. Remember those godawful commercials in the old days that made cats appear (not very well) to speak words? Hated 'em more than I can say. The magnificent creatures are interesting enough in their own right not to need "enhancement" with faked human activities. [I added the dictionary link.]
I briefly responded, arguing (good-naturedly, I hope) that the “commando” image either did not anthropomorphize or that it did, but in an acceptable way. I said that, at least for me, the humor of the image depends in part on the manifest absurdity of placing a cat in these settings—not on the idea that cats are like Rambo (or are like computer geeks). (No doubt MAH will explain to me that she doesn't need me pointing this out.)
I’m not sure, but I think that the commando-cat image is “fun” for me in part because it vaguely ridicules the embarrassing and unsophisticated “Rambo/Hollywood-commando” fantasy or mindset. It does not ridicule cats or suggest that cats are anything like one of these stupid cartoon-commandos. (I’m passing no judgment on real commandos.)
OK, so one point is this: I do not object to portraying cats as people per se, just as I do not object to portraying, say, babies as adults per se. (No doubt, MAH will agree.) I noted that the current E-trade commercials (portraying a baby/toddler as a kind of hip young male stock speculator) are funny and unobjectionable (at least re our attitudes toward babies). (See below.) Their creator is clever and understands the creepiness and absurdity of viewing babies as hip young traders. These commercials are generally striking and entertaining, to me. (On the other hand, they utterly fail to cause me to buy what E-Trade sells. In fact, I had to look up whose commercials these were!)
Along with MAH, I did not like those old Meow Mix talking-cat commercials and the like. (See below for the "meow" commercial, although MAH perhaps had some other commercials in mind.) These kinds of commercials don’t strike me as objectionable. To me, most of them are simply unclever and stupid. Do they imply anything about the nature or quality of cats? I don’t see how. I think they pander to a common capacity to be dazzled and entertained by stupid things. (OK, I am now flashing my “elitist” card.)
MAH is of course correct: some commercials anthropomorphize animals in the sense that they in some sense impute human thoughts and attitudes to nonhuman animals. And some of these commercials are stupid precisely on that score.
My candidate: the “Morris the cat” (9 Lives) commercials. (See below.) There’s something too easy, and somehow just stupid, about the "haughty cat" stereotype. Cats can be finicky, of course, but I don’t think they are ever haughty, and that's what these commercials suggest. Are they sometimes indifferent to our desires and actions? Well, no, for indifference implies awareness, but it seems to me that on those occasions that inspire talk of feline “haughtiness,” cats are not aware of our efforts or wishes. Are they disdainful of us? Well, again, no, for they seem to proceed as though we are not present. There’s nothing really present for them to be contemptuous or disdainful of. It seems obvious (to me) that cats are never contemptuous or disdainful, though they share some of the behavior associated with those attitudes among humans.
No doubt some of you will now reveal your claws.
As any cat person knows, it is possible to “connect” with a cat. With some effort, one can make a cat aware of one’s presence and needs or desires (to some extent). When prompted, cats have no trouble looking into a person's eyes and paying attention to them. Such occasions seem to interrupt the general flow of feline obliviousness to others. I think cats are more oblivious of others than humans are. It's just their way.
I guess I “object” to Morris commercials more or less in the way that I object to silly and crude stereotypes generally. Most of the time, crude stereotypical thinking strikes me as stupid more than wrong. But, obviously, it can be wrong, too.
BTW: it turns out that Morris the Cat is a fairly decent guy. According to Wikipedia,
Morris has appeared in [various] media over the years. He starred in the movie Shamus with Burt Reynolds and Dyan Cannon in 1973. He also appears as a "spokescat" promoting responsible pet ownership, pet health and pet adoptions through animal shelters. To this end, he has "authored" three books: The Morris Approach, The Morris Method and The Morris Prescription.
In 2006, Morris was depicted as adopting a kitten from a Los Angeles animal shelter, L'il Mo, who represents the first in a campaign known as Morris' Million Cat Rescue.
Yes, I know. It would be naive to conclude that the "9 Lives" people are focused on the welfare of pets.
Cal State Fullerton says the recent decision by voters not to approve ballot initiatives that could have raised money for higher education, and other financial problems the campus faces, will likely force Orange County’s largest university to reduce fall 2009 enrollment by 5,000 full and part-time students.
The cuts would involve freshmen and transfer students. … We reported earlier this week that CSUF could be forced to cut about $29 million out of its 2009-10 budget under a funding scenario put forth by the state. But it’s also possible that the campus might have to cut an additional $12 million or so in the current fiscal year, which is about to end.
That would bring real and proposed cuts for Fullerton to about $41.3 million, and will could mean furloughs and pay-cuts for staff, in addition to a larger reduction in enrollment.
Q: Will local colleges and universities be forced to cut enrollment further? … [T]his much is clear: About one-third of all CSU students are the first member of their family to attend college. This fall, some students won’t be able to enroll at a CSU campus, and they will likely find it harder to turn to local community colleges to take the lower division classes they need to complete as part of their education.
Q: Could the community college system help achieve the budget savings it needs to make simply by raising course fees, which are comparatively low? A: Yes. But CCC officials say that there’s been a big enrollment drop every time fees rise. And many of the people currently looking to community colleges for help are laid off workers who are trying to gain new job skills.
Get ready for a change in tone. James A. Leach was officially nominated by President Obama Wednesday to serve as NEH chairman. In an interview with Inside Higher Ed Wednesday, Leach had this to say when asked about the culture warriors of past humanities endowments: "I believe in standing up for culture, rather than warring on culture."
In the interview, Leach said that the humanities are as important as ever and that he hoped to bolster public understanding and support for such work…. … While Leach didn't get too detailed about his plans for the NEH, he did touch on some issues that have come up at the endowment: … Peer review. Critics have suggested over the years that the humanities endowment was sometimes "flagging" grant proposals seen as controversial so that higher-ups at the agency might reverse the decisions of peer review panels. Leach said that he couldn't promise he would never ask questions about any grant, but that his inclinations are to let peer review panels decide on grants….
Digital work. The NEH under Bruce Cole, President George W. Bush's chairman, stressed programs that support the digitization of collections. Leach called those efforts "important and impressive."
…[A]s a politician for many years, Leach said he has a strong interest in (and some concerns about) political rhetoric and the lost meaning of political words.
"One of my concerns relates to the vocabulary of American politics," he said. "It's important for Americans to think through some of the terms thrown about willy-nilly in American society – terms like 'fascism' and 'communism' and 'socialism,' as applied to political leaders." He said that he has been "shocked by the nonchalance" with which some politicians have used the term "succession" of late. … "I think we have a unique president and a unique time and he clearly wants to reach out to all elements of American society. I have a very great respect for the traditions of American conservatism, and a very deep respect for the traditions of American liberalism, and I think the challenges are to bring a sense of togetherness in which society can better understand the differences as well as the similarities in these great traditions"....
UC Irvine administrators drew widespread criticism for allowing—or not damning vehemently enough—the Muslim Student Union's May 5-21 wrath-a-thon "Israel: The Politics of Genocide." But fourth year psychology major Alaa Alomar accuses the same university officials of denying the same free speech rights to MSU as it does to other campus groups….
Jim Leach? This takes me back 20 or so years to the days of the (seemingly forgotten) S&L scandal. I remember Leach as a really good guy, an honest politician. Leach, a highly-independent Republican, has an impressive record, although he is implicated in the deregulation that led to the current financial crisis.
Looks like Prez Obama has tapped Leach as his nominee to head the NEH:
President Obama today said he would nominate former Republican congressman Jim Leach, who represented Iowa for 30 years, as the new chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
During his terms in the House of Representatives Leach founded and served as the co-chair of the Congressional Humanities Caucus and he was also the chairman of the House Committee on Banking and Financial Services. After he left Congress in 2007 Leach taught at Princeton University and was the interim director of the Institute of Politics at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.
The endowment, created in 1965, supports the country's endeavors in scholarship and teaching, principally in the areas of history, literature and philosophy. In the fiscal 2010 budget the president sent to Congress last month, he requested $171. 3 million for the agency, an increase of $16 million over the last appropriation.
Perhaps you’ll recall that Leach founded “Republicans for Obama” during the last presidential race.
OC RESTAURANT CHAINS:
On a lighter note: The Reg reports on the OC restaurants making Consumer Reports’ “best” and “worst” lists. The review focuses on chains.
According to CR (according to the Reg), Mimi’s Café was #1 under the heading “Great meals for less than $20.”
Other top picks: Abuelo’s, Cheddar’s Casual Cafe, Elephant Bar Restaurant and Texas Roadhouse.
Best takeout food went to Famous Dave’s, Carraba’s Italian Grill, Olive Garden and P.F. Chang’s.
Restaurants that suffer “above average” complaints: BJ’s Restaurants, Bubba Gump Shrimp Co., and Johnny Rockets.
Long wait times: “The Cheesecake Factory, Rainforest Cafe, Texas Roadhouse, Houston’s, PF Chang’s, China Bistro and Outback Steakhouse.”
Gosh, I thought CR only reviewed cars and appliances! Just shows what I know.
Kevin O'Grady, [the Anti-Defamation League]'s regional director based in OC, says that there's "cause for great concern" because while anti-Semitic incidents declined nationwide, the number of documented attacks on Jews here rose 30 percent. … The ADL report … included these incidents:
• A student at Newport Beach high school was subjected to "virulent" anti-Semitic bullying; • A South County high school athlete was taunted so much for being Jewish he quit the team; • The director of a Long Beach temple received hate mail; • The service manager at Orange County Country Club advised her staff not to provide decent service for a wedding because the family was Jewish; • A client of a dating service was asked if she was Jewish when she asked for a discount.
UC Irvine has asked the Obama Administration for about $150 million in money, most which is being sought for scientific research, health care and scholarship. Irvine, like schools across the country, is jockeying to get money through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the $787 billion in economic stimulus money approved by Congress and President Obama in February….
Wow, at this rate, we oughta just keep an open link to “College Life.” Science Dude Garry Robbins has posted yet another scintillating educational story there today, explaining that “Orange County’s nine community colleges could collectively be forced to reduce full and part-time enrollment by 31,500 as most of the schools would have to cut almost $30 million to help balance the state budget….”
Robbins notes that, of the four OC community college districts, SOCCCD is the exception:
South Orange is a “basic aid” district, which the state says means that “high property tax value covers the cost of supporting all of the students.” That means that the district doesn’t get lots of money from the general fund. But the other three districts do.
Robbins includes “a preliminary analysis from the state”:
• The Rancho Santiago district must cut its budget by $8.8 million and reduce enrollment by about 10,749. • The North Orange County district must cut about $10.1 million and reduce enrollment by 8,493. • And the Coast district must cut $10.9 million and trim enrollment by 7,062. • Although the South Orange district isn’t project to lose lots of state money, [spokeswoman Paige Marlatt] Door said the system could lose 5,247 students.
You realize these pics are bullshit, right?
Actually, this is a pic of the recent Saddleback/IVC softball game.
(I don't really understand that last point. Why would SOCCCD lose any students at all? As a "basic aid" district, the SOCCCD stands to lose when local property is devalued [as is gradually occurring] and thus less property tax money is collected. But the devaluation won't hit right away, and, besides, SOCCCD has quite a bit squirreled away for a rainy day.)
I dunno about the May meeting, but at the April meeting of the SOCCCD board, much discussion concerned how to deal with the increased demand for classes caused by the economic downturn (and, I suppose, the turning away of students at the three other districts). Unlike the other three OC districts, the SOCCCD is in a position to accommodate growth, but at a cost: money would be diverted from improvement of facilities.
What do you suppose our trustees will do? Is there a high road here? If there were one, would they take it? I think they'd better consult the Lord, cuz this ain't easy.
OK, this is how I get when nobody writes comments.
It turns out UCI is the county’s largest employer. The beancounters at the university were forced to remove their shoes and socks to get the numbers right.
UC Irvine isn’t the only local campus expected to suffer a big hit in helping the state balance its budget. Cal State Fullerton will have to cut $29 million — we think. … The potential impact of state budget cuts on higher education was the subject of a legislative committee meeting on Monday. The Associated Press reports that, “The California State University’s chancellor, Charles Reed, said the cuts proposed for his 23-campus system were the equivalent of cutting its enrollment by 60,000.”
Liberty [University], a fundamentalist Baptist institution in Lynchburg, Va., founded by Rev. Jerry Falwell, set off a political firestorm last month when it revoked official recognition of a campus chapter of the College Democrats. Though administrators said they would not stop the group from meeting on campus, they dropped university sponsorship of the club because it supported candidates who favor abortion rights and other views which they said conflict with Liberty’s values.
As many politicians and outside commentators weigh in, the situation at the evangelical institution has remained at a standstill for weeks. Jerry Falwell, Jr., Liberty chancellor and son of the university’s now-deceased founder, has offered the College Democrats a compromise to which the student group has yet to respond: The university stated that it would renew official recognition of the club if it becomes a chapter of the Virginia Democrats for Life, a political group that opposes abortion….
This post was inspired by Chunk's classic pic of the two young 'uns armed for bear and chifferobes. Here's Rebel Girl's little guy and his best friend a few years back as they went out hunting for dragons. Life is good. Summer's here. Carry on. Watch out for dragons.
I'VE BEEN TRYING to catch up with the May meeting of the SOCCCD Board of Trustees, which occurred on the 26th. I was unable to attend, for I was in Utah, becoming a Mormon.
I'll start with something relatively trivial but fun.
During her report, Marcia Milchiker explained that she had attended something that is “always a tear-jerking event.”
Well, that's not the fun thing. I noticed something on the agenda (5.10): a request by a trustee (or trustees) to attend the June “Learning Summit” in Phoenix, Arizona. It will be held at the Biltmore Resort and Spa (evidently, a part of the Waldorf-Astoria "collection").
Cost per person: $1,900.
Trustee Nancy Padberg pulled the item from the consent calendar, usually a sign that she suspects that “Orlando Boy”—aka John Williams—plans to attend a questionable “junket” somewhere, a phenomenon that, invariably, the transparency of which she seeks to optimize (i.e., she wants the public to know when John is sucking once again on the public teat).
When the item finally came up, Padberg asked for specifics: How many are requesting money for this trip? Just what is this “summit” anyway? Information please!
Chancellor Raghu P. Mathur, who has long enjoyed Williams' support, immediately shut the discussion down, declaring that he had sent an informative email earlier that day at Trustee Lang’s request. (For some reason, Mathur adopted the voice of a frog.)
Oh. Call for the question.
The upshot: the public was prevented from learning just who sought to travel to a fancy schmancy resort in Arizona on the district’s dime. The item passed unanimously.
Here's another "fun" BOT factoid: the new student trustee spells her name "Bi’anca." I am impressed. No, I am inspired. I hereby change the spelling of my name to "Kech'shmoo B'chch." Pronunciation like always.
A week after saying it had to slash spending by $40 million to help balance the state budget, UC Irvine today announced that the figure is actually about $55 million and that the huge research university had frozen all faculty hiring.
…A new report, “Health and Health-Related Behaviors: Minnesota Postsecondary Student Veterans,” provides a glimpse of the health issues an influx of veterans are likely to bring to college when the Post-9/11 GI Bill takes effect in August. While the sample was limited to one state, it serves as an early portrait of a population that is expected to grow rapidly on college campuses in the coming years. … …Edward Ehlinger, director and chief health officer of Boynton Health Service at the University of Minnesota…, who authored the study of more than 8,000 veterans, said he was somewhat surprised to see that veterans’ health issues largely mirrored those of other college students. There were notable exceptions, however….
Of those surveyed, 43.5 percent of female veterans reported being sexually assaulted in their lifetime, nearly 14 percentage points higher than female students overall….
As for PTSD, 14.1 percent of females said they’d been diagnosed with the condition, compared with 5.4 percent of women overall. Male veterans had a lower rate of PTSD – 9.1 percent— but still outpaced the general male student population by 6.3 percentage points. … College-going female veterans also reported higher incidences of domestic violence than their female classmates. Nearly half of those surveyed – 46.4 percent – reported such abuse, compared with 37.8 percent of women overall. … “It’s a population that is going to be showing up on our door,” [Ehlinger] said. “They have every right to an education. The GI Bill is a great thing for society … We have an opportunity to take a whole new set of folks and provide them post-secondary education, which is only going to be a benefit to society.”
Forty-six states and the District of Columbia today will announce an effort to craft a single vision for what children should learn each year from kindergarten through high school graduation, an unprecedented step toward a uniform definition of success in American schools.
The push for common reading and math standards marks a turning point in a movement to judge U.S. children using one yardstick that reflects expectations set for students in countries around the world at a time of global competition…. … Led by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, the states, including Maryland and Virginia, are aiming to define a framework of content and skills that meet an overarching goal. When students get their high school diplomas, the coalition says, they should be ready to tackle college or a job. The benchmarks would be "internationally competitive." … The nearly complete support of governors for the effort–leaders in Texas, Alaska, Missouri and South Carolina are the only ones that have not signed on–is key. Many Republicans oppose nationally mandated standards, saying schools should not be controlled by Washington….
In Alabama, sixth graders must demonstrate the ability to "bust up a chifferobe."
"This is the beginning of a new day for education in our country," U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said. "A lot of hard work is ahead of us. But this is a huge step in a direction that would have been unimaginable just a year or two ago."
Duncan has said that today's patchwork system amounts to "lying to children and their parents, because states have dumbed down their standards."….
• IN CALIFORNIA, STUDENTS WILL HAVE A NEW WAY NOT TO READ!
As society continues to move toward a digital era, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is looking to expand California's education system by being the first state in the nation to offer free digital textbooks for high school students….
…[T]he more one looks into the origins of the current disaster, the clearer it becomes that the key wrong turn — the turn that made crisis inevitable — took place in the early 1980s, during the Reagan years. …
"I think we hit the jackpot," he said
The immediate effect of Garn-St. Germain [the S&L derelgulation bill] … was to turn the thrifts from a problem into a catastrophe. The S.& L. crisis has been written out of the Reagan hagiography, but the fact is that deregulation in effect gave the industry — whose deposits were federally insured — a license to gamble with taxpayers’ money, at best, or simply to loot it, at worst. By the time the government closed the books on the affair, taxpayers had lost $130 billion, back when that was a lot of money.
But there was also a longer-term effect. Reagan-era legislative changes essentially ended New Deal restrictions on mortgage lending — restrictions that, in particular, limited the ability of families to buy homes without putting a significant amount of money down....
"To eat these things,"
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