A mess is a mess, oh yes, oh yes

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1. OCC gone wild

Dang! All you ever hear about is that damned Orange Coast College. Among local colleges, it’s the admired/despised “popular kid” in the classroom. Students flock to that place as though it were a beach party held by that “Girls Gone Wild” jackass. (The above is actually a GGW poster.)


And no wonder! They’ve got yachts and private Canadian islands and wacky, beret-wearing student radicals! What have WE got here at sober old Irvine Valley College? The students are all Republicans. We used to have a laser beam & a clock tower. Plus orange groves. All of that got yanked out.

Naturally, I don't advocate turning IVC into another party school. There's one too many of those already. But I do think that IVC could do a better job marketing itself. But how do you compete with a party? One with its own yachts and islands and gifts from Dr. Laura?

Back to the party school. OCC really does have an island. Some guy who previously gave the college a yacht (yup, another yacht) turned around and gave the college an island to boot, worth a cool million.

Well, it’s seriously uncool to accept a gift like that and then to sell it for cash, but it looks like reality is forcing that option upon the OCC bacchanalians. According to this morning’s LA Times (O.C. college to sell its Canadian island), OCC

has decided to sell its craggy British Columbia island over the protests of students and faculty…. The Orange Coast College Foundation Board of Directors voted 15-1 … on Thursday to proceed with the sale of Rabbit Island, a 36-acre swath in the Gulf Islands, which dot the Strait of Georgia off of Vancouver. [See graphic.]

…The decision comes after a lengthy campus debate in which some faculty members argued that Rabbit Island affords the college a unique research opportunity. Students circulated petitions that said selling the island "for a quick cash boon would be a hasty and unwise use of a generous gift."

…The college, which has an enrollment of about 24,000, held classes on the island each summer for about 25 students, who combed it for plant samples and snapped photos of spectacular tides. They stayed in four cabins equipped with twin beds, sinks and mirrors; the island also has a solar generator, a windmill, several bathrooms and an outhouse carved with the requisite crescent moon.

…Recently hired consultants concluded that the island was too far away and its maintenance too expensive to make a research station feasible….

When I was a little kid, I lived in Vancouver, but all I remember is fog and cold (and fish & chips). I bet those OCC kids tried to party on Rabbit Isle but they found out fast about the weather. I can hear them now: "Who’d o’ thunk that there’d be islands that don’t offer Coronas, sunshine, and wild island babes? "Road trip!"


2. Stupider-than-usual Idiot spotted at South Coast Plaza

OK, I can’t resist this one. Wednesday night, some guy tried to rob a clerk at Macy’s (in South Coast Plaza)—sans weapon. Evidently, the would-be robber demanded money “several times.”

Well, “the clerk refused…”

The robber “ran away.”

(See Unarmed idiot tries to rob Macy's.)

3. Lunging


Apropos of nothing, I direct you to a recent humpback whale sighting off Dana Point. According to the Reg (Rare humpback whale seen off Dana Point),

A humpback whale, one of the most majestic creatures in nature, was sighted four miles off Dana Point Harbor last Saturday by nature lovers.... Melissa Panfili, an instructor on the cruise, estimated the whale at 50 feet in length. [The Ocean] institute says the whale was "engaging in 'lunge feeding,' a process by which the whale circles around a school of fish, blowing bubbles to round them up into a group. The whale then lunges into the school, gulping down hundreds of the small fish at a time."

Lunge feeding? I thought only my little brother did that.

4. A mess is a mess, oh yes, oh yes

Well, the 2nd part of that super-duper Stanford U study on California public education hit the fan yesterday. It focuses on money:

California needs to boost education spending at least 40 percent, or about $25 billion a year, to dramatically raise student achievement levels, according to the second part of an education research project released Thursday…. (See Study calls for more school money without performance guarantee.)

Dan Walters weighs in on the study’s release in this morning’s Sacramento Bee (It's official: Education is a mess):

The studies, about 1,700 pages of often-opaque academic prose, were publicly unveiled this week…. And they fundamentally confirm what those who watch the system already knew: It's a disaster and needs a top-to-bottom overhaul.

The schools spend more than $60 billion a year to educate about 6 million K-12 students of immensely diverse backgrounds, but may be underfinanced. However, the researchers concluded, merely spending more will not significantly improve outcomes, especially for children living in poverty, unless what project Director Susanna Loeb called "systemic and fundamental reform" is also adopted.

What reforms? The researchers focus on what's wrong with the system—such as the convoluted structure of "categorical aids" that distort financing and too much micromanagement from Sacramento—but are vague on what specifically should be done to make the system more responsive and effective.

…Will the research … really change the state's long-standing gridlock on education policy? The papers, as noted earlier, largely confirm what informed observers already knew—that the Capitol has habitually disregarded reality and logic on substantive issues. When it comes to schools, the competing political positions are well-entrenched, as the dynamics of the unveiling underscored.

Schwarzenegger reflected a common Republican position, stressing reform over new financing…. But Democratic legislative leaders and state schools Superintendent Jack O'Connell, echoing the education community's long-held position, insisted that more money must accompany structural change. "Both reform and resources are essential," said Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez, who nonetheless refused to talk about raising taxes.

So now we have a trove of data and critical analysis about our school conundrum that could be a basis for serious policymaking. But overcoming ossified political positions would be immensely difficult, perhaps impossible, mirroring the even larger question of whether this very complex state is governable at all.

See also School study calls for cash, local control