Friends, Publishers, ASG, lend me your texts!

If you hang out with students, you notice that they consistently beef about certain things.

Like textbook prices. A student can spend two or three hundred dollars or more per semester just on books. And prices keep rising.

Students at both campuses of SOCCCD have started textbook lending programs, which should help. But, for many reasons, not all textbooks will be available for lending and I suspect that these programs are not equipped to serve all or even most students. They are little more than gestures.

Meanwhile, as usual, our board of trustees is clueless, though they do seem to recognize the problem. On the positive side, some trustees have consistently pressured student government, which receives serious district money, to focus more on providing genuine benefits for students—scholarships, cheaper textbooks, etc. Good for them.

Student government (at least on many campuses) is a part of the textbook cost problem. At Saddleback and Irvine Valley Colleges, student government gets a cut of textbook sales at the college bookstore. It’s a huge source of revenue for ASG. That cut is added to the bookseller's cut.

So textbooks are expensive in part because student government jacks up prices in order to fund student activities: campus concerts, dances, co-curricular activities (speech tournaments, Model UN, etc.), scholarships, and the flying of pretty blue balloons above bucolic lawns in the bright Southern California sky.

The situation is, well, ironic. And trustees who lean toward libertarianism (Don Wagner and Tom Fuentes [in some of his moods]) have made that irony plain.

(It’s amazing to see these people actually doing their job for a change. Do you suppose that the dominating board majority—the "fiscally conservative" Fuentes, Wagner, Williams, and Lang—recognizes that, on such occasions, they punctuate an endless dark saga of cluelessness, counter-productivity, and contempt with bright points of honest trusteeship? Are they proud or ashamed? Do they even perceive the absurdity?)

Still, much cluelessness prevails on the board. For instance, with monumental obliviousness, trustee John "the dolt" Williams, who has served on the board since 1992, has suggested that instructors get together to write textbooks and provide them to students for free.

I guess they can do that over lunch.

Actually, I’ve written and provided free text materials for my students for years.

But that avenue is more available to some of us than to others, owing to the differing natures of academic areas. Further, for most people, writing textbooks is difficult and time-consuming—so the work must be funded. Further, as a "humanist" (aka left-wing, devil-worshipping, homosexual atheist), I'm accustomed to writing, but this cannot be said of most instructors, many of whom desperately avoid writing (thank God). Then there's this: the notion that a department should settle on a standard text (for a particular course) obviously undercuts instructor autonomy, a freedom that continues to be greatly valued by the professorate (or, um, the instructorate), and for good reason.

For this and various other reasons, to anyone who actually understands colleges and academics, Williams' suggestion is unworkable and absurd. (In seventeen years, Orlando Boy has learned nothing, except how to work the system to his advantage. He is: the world's most uninteresting man.)


Regarding textbooks, instructors can behave badly too. Some (a very few, I think) approach textbook selection as a way to line their pockets. (We've all heard of scandalous instances: instructors who sell a package of materials apparently designed to maximize profit.) More significantly, many instructors, it seems, choose textbooks with little thought to student cost issues. With some exceptions (e.g., IVC's English Dept.), instructors do not organize to achieve some sort of uniformity or economy in textbooks selection. (Again, sometimes, such avenues aren’t available.)

Meanwhile, textbook publishers have generally approached students merely as a market to exploit for all it's worth. Still, in recent years, they have felt the pressure created by student dissatisfaction with high textbook costs, some of it coming from legislators. Some publishers have made available “online” versions of texts—students “own” them for the semester. But that avenue remains expensive, and it has been attended with abuses--e.g., the often-meretricious "bundling" of materials.

And now, we read, publishers too are moving into lending. From this morning’s Inside Higher Ed:

Rent, Read and Return

Students frequently rent DVDs to watch in their dorm rooms, but soon they may start checking out something much heavier and pricier: textbooks.

Saying they offer an alternative to the textbook industry's bloated prices, a growing number of companies are renting new and used titles at reduced prices. Among them are Chegg, BookRenter and the Follett Higher Education Group, which will test drive a rental service at campus bookstores this fall. They join a number of colleges that have already started their own on-campus programs.

With all of them, the concept is essentially to pay to check out textbooks as if they're out of a library – only there are more copies and titles, and they can be used for longer periods of time. Through Chegg, for instance, a student searches for a book and rents it for up to a certain number of days, such as up to a quarter or a semester. Users are promised discounts of 65 to 85 percent off the list price, but if they don't return a book on time, they are charged full price. The same punishment applies to doodling in the margins, since the books are meant for reuse….
…
At least one publisher has noticed Chegg. In an arrangement that will go live in August, McGraw-Hill Companies will provide the site with new books and share an undisclosed portion of the revenue…. Until now, Chegg has been purchasing books on its own and through affiliate programs….
…
Studies have shown that textbook prices are rising faster than the rate of inflation, but not as much as tuition and other higher education costs. Last year's Higher Education Opportunity Act mandated that institutions report annually how much they spend on essentially reducing the costs of textbooks and other instructional fees. It also required textbook publishers to expand the information they provide about pricing and changes from past editions. Most significantly for companies like Follett and Chegg, a bill outlining the U.S. Education Department's budget, crafted in February, mandated that $10 million be reserved for a "new college textbook rental initiative" to "provide competitive grants to colleges to expand opportunities for students to rent college course materials."
…
Charles Schmidt, a spokesman for the National Association of College Stores, said that 2 percent of the group's stores offer some kind of rental service and more are likely to come. He, too, warned that the savings touted by companies may not be as great as they seem. If a student rents a book at a discounted price, the savings would be minimal, he said, considering he or she could have sold a bought-new copy back to the bookstore to make up the difference. Plus, he said, there is some value in keeping a book well past the semester's end: "A book such as [organic] chemistry is the type of book that a student is probably going to want to keep in their education, and possibly in their professional life or graduate student life."….

Things change. When I was a student, I kept all my textbooks, for I saw them as representing what I had learned. I often referred to them in subsequent years. I still consult some of them.

I guess that practice has fallen out of favor. Too bad.

Change isn't automatically good, you know.

Poking a hole in a flat tire

Roy, age 14, in the Sierras, armed with a microphone

Oh my.

According to yesterday’s Guardian (Testing times for Wikipedia after doctor posts secrets of the Rorschach inkblots), a doctor has put the “right answers” to the Rorschach inkblot test on the internet, thereby rendering it “useless”:

The online encyclopedia Wikipedia has become embroiled in a bitter row with psychologists after a Canadian doctor posted answers to controversial tests on the site. ¶ The Rorschach test is designed to give psychologists a window into the unconscious mind, but many now fear their patients will try to outwit them by memorising the "right" answers….

Of course, the test was already useless, so this is no big deal.

Essentially, the doctor poked a hole in a flat tire.

According to the Wikipedia article,

The Rorschach inkblot test is considered controversial by some researchers for several reasons. Some skeptics consider the Rorschach inkblot test pseudoscience, as several studies suggested that conclusions reached by test administrators since the 1950s were akin to cold reading. [I added the link.]

Cold reading. That’s what palm readers do. It’s what John Edward and James Van Praagh do.

Rorschach tests are bullshit.

Here’s inkblot 3.


If you see two humans, then, deep in your unconscious, either you (1) seek to realize your potential or (2) you are a pedophile.

Plus: Have you been thinking about taking a class or doing some maintenance on your mind, body or soul? Now is the time.

For more info, send money to this blog.

God goes to college

There’s an interesting story about college kids and religiosity in today’s Inside Higher Ed: God and Majors.

Many parents worry that college will drive religion out of their kids. Does it?

A new national study that looks at trends between study of certain subjects and religious observance provides some evidence to back up those worries, but also may surprise members of some disciplines and some faiths. And the research also finds that religious students are more likely than others to attend college….

Among the findings:

• [1] The odds of going to college increase for high school students who attend religious services more frequently or who view religion as more important in their lives….

• [2] Being a humanities or a social science major has a statistically significant negative effect on religiosity…. …The impact appears to be strongest in the social sciences.

• [3] Students in education and business show an increase in religiosity over their time at college.

• [4] Majoring in the biological or physical sciences does not affect religious attendance of students, but majoring in the physical sciences does negatively relate to the way students view the importance of religion in their lives.

• [5] Religious attendance is positively associated with staying in majors in the social sciences, biological sciences and business majors. For most vocational majors, the researchers found a negative relationship between religious attendance and staying in the same major….

…The study’s authors were interested in exploring whether a “scientific mindset” discouraged religiosity:

"Our results are … consistent with [that] overall theoretical framework guiding this research. We believe that there are important differences among the college majors in world views and overall philosophies of life....," they write.

"[O]ur results suggest that postmodernism, rather than science, is the bête noir – the strongest antagonist – of religiosity."

Some of these findings (as reported) are a bit perplexing, but I’m sure nobody’s surprised by indications that humanities and social science majors are negatively influenced concerning their religiosity.

I’m not at all surprised that education and business majors tend to move towards (or more deeply into) religion. I bet they go to chiropractors and read horoscopes, too.

They (i.e., people with education degrees) are in charge of K-12 education, you know. Our K-12 education system is a disaster you know.

Just sayin'.

That fourth "finding" is interesting. Of course, if most science majors are irreligious at the outset, we shouldn't be surprised that their college years won't change their church attendance. I would expect most college students (in demanding fields) to increase in sophistication and understanding of their irreligiousness, which is consistent with this "finding."

The fifth "finding" is curious. Does this refer to students who choose a major and stick with it? I would expect religious students to be more likely to do that, owing to their, um, faith-based thinking. It's harder, I would think, to decide what to do with one's life if one proceeds without the comfort and inertial intellectual infrastructure of a theistic world view.

Do you suppose there's good data on this?

Mom and pop, young gun-totin' immigrants

The family photo archiving continues. These pics are from 1952. Here's mom, checking out the scenery in western Canada. I think she learned all her moves and poses from glamour and show-biz magazines. She was daffy for that stuff.

This is mom with her (soon to be) mother-in-law, near Niagara Falls, I think. Eventually, mom and pop moved west, to British Columbia. (I don't think mom was terribly fond of "Oma.")

In those days, Canadians, it seems, were in the habit of bringin' out their rifles and just walking around with 'em. People did lots of hunting, I guess. But what can you bag on a road? Squirrels?

Mom would have been barely eighteen in this pic. A year or so earlier, she had left Germany alone, age 17, on an old Liberty ship (the kind Henry Kaiser made; they tended to break in half).

I think she lied about her age. Pop was a year older. They met on the boat.

Lookin' for varmints, I guess.

My folks have lots of bear stories. Moose and elk stories too. Mostly, they seem to be tall tales. I guess some of 'em could be true.

But I refuse to believe the one about the bear that cursed in French. Ain't buyin' it. Nope.

Great pups, a burning motorcycle, 1978

I've been scanning and archiving old family photos.

Found some pics of a trip I took with Attila and Ildico to the top of Santiago Peak in 1978. Drove my old '66 Bug. That thing could go anywhere.

They sure were great pups.

Here's a shot (click on the photo to enlarge it; look at the center) of my little brother Ray and me. Ray had just bought himself an old motorcycle, and he had just got it to start. Boy was he happy. He road it around for a while. Then he asked me if I wanted to take a spin.

So I did. [Actually, I now think the guy to the left is my other little bro, Ron.]

I had ridden the thing for maybe two minutes when I heard Ray screaming. I couldn't tell what he was saying, though, later, I learned that it was, "You're on fire!"

I soon figured that out for myself. Somehow, the thing had caught fire, and it didn't look good. I laid it down.

Almost immediately, it was engulfed in flames. My mother had heard Ray screaming (imagine that) and managed to call the fire department. Apparently, she was convinced that someone was actually on fire.

The fire department showed up after a while. By then, an oak tree had caught fire. But they got it out. There was nothing left of Ray's motorcycle. I was burned, but not badly. I think I've got a scar on my hand from that day. Maybe.

I do believe that this episode set my mom back some. Poor thing.

There were many such episodes, where my brother Ray was concerned.

As I recall, Ray tried to blame me for the incident. That was typical of him.

Over the subsequent years, I often lent my bro money. I knew I'd never see any of it again.

The last time I saw him was the night I picked him up from county jail. It was maybe 2 or 3 in the morning. He had lost some teeth. He didn't look good.

He wanted to go to a Del Taco, so we went there. He loved that crap.

That night, as I recall, he asked me when I was gonna pay him all the money I owed him.

I just smiled.

Ronny, Ildy, Ray, and Attila, 1978.

It’s so old-fashioned!

...Speaking of bullshit, from a scientific perspective, the direction that America’s space program has taken in recent decades is seriously wrong-headed. During the Bush Administration, things got worse still: for the Bushies, science was an enemy.

Early indications are that Mr. Obama understands the value of science and has made wise decisions—in particular concerning our space program.

Many scientists complain that, Buzz Aldrin to the contrary, if we seek to attain scientific knowledge, we must abandon our prejudice in favor of manned space flight, which is both expensive and unnecessary. Robots can do almost anything astronauts can do, and they can do it much more cheaply.

Initially, in this regard, America’s space program had some stunning, though now appreciated, victories.

Yeah, but didn‘t we get caught with our pants down by the Soviets with their Sputnik? Weren’t we playing nothing but catch-up?!

As Bob Park explained yesterday (What’s New), that’s not really what happened:

Launched on 4 Oct 1957, [the USSR’s] Sputnik carried no instruments. It just beeped…. But a month later, Sputnik 2 carried a Geiger tube and a radio transmitter to relay the Geiger output back to Earth. It also carried a tape recorder to store data when the satellite is over the horizon, but it wasn't working on launch day.

Soviet scientists placed a call directly to Premier Nikita Khrushchev requesting permission to delay the launch for a day, but Khrushchev refused; he wanted to announce another successful launch at a meeting of heads-of-state the next day….
…
On 31 Jan 1958, only four months after Sputnik, the US launched Explorer 1 carrying an experiment designed by James Van Allen, Physics Chair at the University of Iowa. It was just a Geiger tube, a radio transmitter, and a recorder – but the recorder worked.

Data from a full orbit confirmed the existence of charged particle bands around Earth, now known as the Van Allen belts. It was the first major discovery from beyond the ionosphere.

Soviet scientists were crushed; only four months after Sputnik, the US had taken the lead in space science and has never relinquished it.

Manned space flight remains a sideshow. In the end, all that will endure is the science. James Van Allen was the true American space hero. During [my] long talk with Jim a year before his death in 2006, he summed-up manned space flight: "It's so old-fashioned."

"You cannot ignore the facts"

a priori (adj.): Based on a hypothesis or theory rather than on experiment or experience.

—American Heritage Dictionary

“Let’s get empirical.” As a citizen of a college community, I find myself saying that a lot. “Let’s get empirical” means: let’s take a look at what actually happens in the world.

As opposed to what? As opposed to appealing to unverified theories and our sense of the facts.

People, especially teachers, really love their sense of things, their intuitions. They trust ‘em—just like W trusted his "gut."

Screw that. Gotta look at the facts. Unfortunately, one can’t always get the facts. Getting reliable data can be difficult.

But sometimes one can get them. If relevant data (experiments, studies, surveys, etc.) are available, we need to look at all that before making decisions. That’s why I’ve been keen to monitor good studies (no, not instructor and administrator anecdotes) regarding the viability of “online instruction.” OI looks like a classic case of something shiny and new that some will embrace without bothering to ask whether it works.

Let’s give this general fallacy a name: “inappropriate a prioriism.” It is the fallacy of making decisions on the basis of theory or our sense of things—when relevant empirical data are available and have not yet been examined.

Incidentally, so far, there are strong indications that OI does work for at least some kinds of learning. But, really, not enough is known about it to justify a wholehearted embrace. (It is possible that OI works well, not because of anything intrinsic to OI, but because of the circumstance that OI students spend more time studying. My “sense” of things [oops!] is that study time is more important than “mode of instruction.”)

PRESIDENT EMPIRICUS

One thing that has impressed me about President Obama is his apparent tendency to get empirical.

A couple of days ago, Paul Krugman offered a defense of Obama’s efforts with regard to health care reform (Costs and Compassion). At one point, he stated:

I don’t know how many people understand the significance of Mr. Obama’s proposal to give MedPAC, the expert advisory board to Medicare, real power. But it’s a major step toward reducing the useless spending — the proliferation of procedures with no medical benefits — that bloats American health care costs.

And both the Obama administration and Congressional Democrats have also been emphasizing the importance of “comparative effectiveness research” — seeing which medical procedures actually work.

If ever there were an area of human thought and action afflicted by “inappropriate a prioriism” it is health and medicine. Here, the affliction is widespread and system-wide. It’s the perfect place to “get empirical.” That’s what Obama wants to do.

Perhaps another example of Obama’s “appropriate empiricism” concerns reform of K-12 education. In the LA Times this morning (Obama chides California for not using test scores to evaluate teachers), we learn that

President Obama singled out California on Friday for failing to use education data to distinguish poor teachers from good ones, a situation that his administration said must change for the state to receive competitive, federal school dollars.

Obama's comments echo recent criticisms by his Education secretary, Arne Duncan, who warned that states that bar the use of student test scores to evaluate teachers, as California does, are risking those funds. In an announcement Friday at the Education Department in Washington, Obama and Duncan said the "Race to the Top" awards will be allocated to school districts that institute reforms using data-driven analysis, among other things.

"You cannot ignore facts," Obama said. "That is why any state that makes it unlawful to link student progress to teacher evaluations will have to change its ways."

Obama recently announced that considerable federal funds will be made available for instruction in the states, but it is largely tied to recipients' efforts at determining what actually works.

THE IRRATIONAL EGOIST

Now, as it turns out, emphasizing “the facts” in education is an approach that can be abused, a fact illustrated by eight years of George W. Bush and his right-wing “learning outcomes” crowd.

Whether the subject was education or foreign policy, Bush was consistently factually challenged. Not only did he and his people commit the fallacy of inappropriate a prioriism, they dove still deeper into irrationality, routinely proceeding as though the truth is somehow “known” (by the righteous? the God-fearing?) independent of the evidence and the “evidence” is something that one manufactures or exploits to sell this “knowledge.”

I do hope that the era of Presidential anti-rationality is over. Looks like it is.

Prima facie, it should be possible to determine whether a teacher teaches well or not. At the very least, we should be able to identify the very bad teachers. Getting rid of them would be a great help.

EDUCATIONIST ANTI-RATIONALISM

There’s one problem though. The California K-12 educational establishment rivals the Bush Administration for systematic anti-rationality. Remember California's absurd embrace of “whole language” reading instruction? (Empirical evidence did not support the "whole language" approach. It did support the "phonetic" approach that WL eschewed.) Remember the emphasis on “self-esteem”? (There were no studies supporting the idea that encouraging high self-regard prevents problems like teen pregnancy, criminality, and drug use. No matter!)

If we leave the matter of evaluating teachers up to them, we’re in big trouble.

I say we get Penn and Teller. (Nobody's perfect: read this.)

"It breaks the heart"

For those looking for my usual report on the meeting of the SOCCCD board of trustees—well, I didn't attend the meeting. Had better things to do.

Meanwhile, big changes are unfolding state-wide:

THE PROPOSED CA BUDGET:

“State universities and local community colleges alike will take deep cuts under the state budget deal.” –So begins the OC Reg’s take on what the not-yet-approved state budget means for higher ed:

Higher education could lose $3 billion under budget deal

The deal includes $3 billion in reductions to higher education, to be allocated between the UC and CSU systems. This is on top of $813 million already being cut by UC.
…
Local community colleges–which follow a different budget schedule than the state or K-12 districts–have [been] cutting budgets, trimming back programs and digging into reserves in anticipation of this week's state budget deal.

Coast Community College District…has worked to keep cuts away from classrooms.
…
…The district does not anticipate employee furloughs or layoffs for 2009-10, but at the same time, a hiring freeze has been instituted.

No new instructors could spell trouble, as all community colleges in the state are bracing for the deluge of students who have been turned down by UC and CSU systems.
…
Nevertheless, the district will not be offering additional classes to accommodate the influx.

North Orange County Community College District used its reserves, in part, to manage the cuts that came in 2008-09.
…
But the district now faces sacrifices in its curriculum, and the district chancellor’s staff has been meeting weekly into the summer months to continue budget planning.

“We’ve reduced summer school session classes two-to-one,” [spokeswoman Christie] Noring said….

The proposed tuition hike is a point of concern. The district has already started fall registration, but once fees are raised, the district will have to call back students and collect the balance of fees.
…
Equally worrisome are the future of soft dollar “categorical programs,” such as matriculation counseling, equal opportunity, and special needs students. Funding for these directives depend on state budget earmarks.

“The programs that stand to lose the most are [those for] our most needy students.”

Scott Lay, president and CEO of the Community College League of California, said similar stories are playing out across the state.

While layoffs may not been happening, most community college districts will not be renewing the same course load, and therefore part-time instructors will be cut.

“Silent layoffs,” said Lay….

Lay sees one small victory amid the crisis. The state has promised to repay K-12 schools and community colleges $9.5 billion as the economy rebounds. Payments would likely begin in 2013 and community colleges would see about 11 percent of the money.
…
Lay says California’s community colleges are facing a roughly 12.5 percent cut while experiencing a 10 percent rise in enrollment.

“We have record high school graduation rates. We have veterans coming back. We have the redirected students from other university systems. We have the unemployed workforce looking to be retrained,” Lay said. “The demand is significant and real.”

According to the League’s projections earlier this year, a district like Coast would lose 9 percent or 7,062 students in 2009-10 due to state budget cuts.

“The students are pouring onto campuses demanding technical training and education, and it breaks the heart of these administrators to not be able to provide for them.”

Attila and Ildico, receiving a Christmas treat

THE VETS ARE COMING:

As Lay suggests, part of the dilemma facing community colleges (viz., that funding is reduced just as demand for education is sharply increasing) concerns the new GI Bill of Rights, which supports vets who seek to go to college. The law kicks in in two weeks.

In this morning’s Inside Higher Ed (Survey of Services for Veterans), Elizabeth Redden describes a report on preparedness of colleges for the expected influx of vets:

…A new report from a group of five higher education associations, "From Soldier to Student: Easing the Transition of Service Members on Campus," represents, the authors write, the first attempt to assess the current state of programs and services nationally.
…
A total of 723 institutions responded to the survey, out of 2,582, for a 28 percent response rate. … Among the findings, 57 percent of institutions said they currently provide programs and services specifically designed for service members or veterans. The report's conclusion notes a number of areas where colleges are meeting the needs of veterans, and also areas where they're not.

Where colleges are doing well, the report notes, is in recognizing prior military experience….

But colleges have much more work to do in the following areas, the report notes:

• Assisting in the transition to college….
• Offering professional development to faculty and staff, on transition issues and issues specific to students with brain injuries and other disabilities.
• Easing the path to re-enrollment for service members once they return from deployments…
• Helping veterans connect with other veterans….

Attila the Pup (1975)

Pics: (1) as soon as I got my new lens, Annie ran out with it and took pictures of flowers--in the shade. "Sun is the photographer's friend," I intoned. Does she listen to me? She does not. So I just photoshopped the heck out of her dreary pic. I like the way only the leaf and the edge of some petals are in focus. (2) It's hard to explain the love everybody in my family had for these two wonderful dogs, Attila (male) and Ildico (female). I won't even try. They were extraordinarily sweet creatures. Here they are, in their old age, receiving some sort of treat, Xmas 1985. The always-dignified Ildy (at right), a spectacular athlete, was the smaller dog; by midlife she was hobbled by hip dysplasia. Even so, she was quietly dominant (her dominance is less quiet in this photo), and, despite her pain, she had a very long and good life. Atti (or "Billy"), at left, was fabulously loyal and good natured, a great protector. My wonderful pal. (3) Billy, 1975, the super-pup.

P.S.:

TigerAnn insisted on going outside again, so I took a coupla "posie" shots:

Way crazy, eh?

Too conventional? Guess so.

(This bougainvillaea flower is seriously small: maybe a sixth of an inch across. I think I spotted Raquel Welch wavin' at me from its center.)

A budget; hard times ahead

Budget accord reached (LA Times)

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders announced Monday that they had reached a deal to close California's $26.3-billion deficit and begin paying all of the state's bills again, potentially ending months of partisan wrangling and a cash crisis that threatens to push California into insolvency.

Their agreement, which could go before the full Legislature within days, does not include any broad-based tax increases, relying instead on deep cuts in government services, borrowing and accounting maneuvers to wipe out the deficit.
…
It is not clear whether the package will pass when lawmakers vote on it, perhaps Thursday. Concern that it could unravel as interest groups catch wind of its contents and pressure the rank-and-file to vote it down was evident in legislative staffers' reluctance to share some details
…
Education would … lose billions of dollars, although the deal skirts suspension of voter-approved funding formulas. Schools are expected to have to increase the number of students in classes, lay off teachers and scale back their offerings. Education lobbyists won a provision that requires the state to ultimately pay back money it is cutting, but districts are struggling now….

President Roquemore (IVC) has forwarded (to the campus community) a letter from Scott Lay, President/CEO of the Community College League of California.

Lay writes:

…[T]he plan cuts community colleges by $936 million in state general funds. Student fees would increase to $26/unit effective with the fall semester ($17/unit for the two districts on the quarter system).

Even with $70 million in additional student fee revenue and up to $130 million in one-time federal funds, the cuts are the deepest in the history of California's community colleges. With booming enrollment from four converging forces--record high school graduates, redirected four-year students, returning veterans, and the newly unemployed--the budget will significantly constrain access and limit essential student services.
…
Nobody is happy with this budget, and community colleges are no different. However, we did succeed in extracting a commitment in the deal to repay K-12 schools and community colleges $9.5 billion as the economy rebounds. This is an important restoration of quality that will likely begin in 2012-13. We certainly have several difficult years ahead….

See also in this morning’s Inside Higher Ed:

No Vacancy

At American River College, in Sacramento, desperate times are calling for desperate measures. ¶ Like so many community colleges in California, all reeling from …[budget cuts], American River simply does not have enough classroom space to accommodate all of its students. Last month, for example, estimates noted that almost 250,000 students statewide would be kept from community colleges due to dwindling space.
…
The crunch has been especially noticeable in general education courses required for graduation or transfer to a four-year institution, such as introductory English composition and college mathematics. Students nearing graduation who have put off these courses now jockey for position against an influx of first-time students who fear that if they do not take them now they will never get the chance to finish on time and within their budget.

As a result of unprecedented student demand and a dwindling state budget, small classes have become a thing of the past….
…
Students are not the only ones feeling the pinch at American River. Adjunct faculty members, like their students, are scrambling to find classes for themselves.
…
Further south in San Diego, at Miramar College, there is another kind of overcrowding issue. Academic counselors, responsible for helping students survey the uncertain terrain of cut courses, are becoming harder to see.

“We had a number of staff cuts,” said Rick Cassar, academic counselor at Miramar. “Typically, we each saw seven to eight students a day in one-hour sessions. Now, there is such a demand from students that everything is on a walk-in basis. It’s kind of like the DMV. I’m seeing about 30 students a day. Recently, I even saw 54 students in one day, each in short ten-minute appointments. Morale is down in our office, and people are feeling burnt out.”
…
The concern of the moment, however, is the plight of California’s community college students, many of whom may find themselves trapped without the classes they need to graduate or unable to transfer onward to earn a bachelor’s degree….

Pics: this morning, TigerAnn and I tried out my new 60mm lens.

ARCHIVE PROJECT:

The family film archive project continues. Came across these pics recently. This is my late little brother Ray, on a mountain in the Sierra Nevada, 1975:

And here's my little bro Ronny, on the same mountain:


My dad caught this sunset in 1985, likely in the Bay area.

Mono Lake, 1985:

The “stupid party” slowly comes into view

Richard Weaver, one of the founders of modern conservatism, once wrote a book entitled “Ideas have Consequences”; unfortunately, too many Republicans are still refusing to acknowledge that idiocy has consequences, too.

—Lexington (the Economist)

BIG THINGS are happening. As you know, a battle now rages over what the Republican Party will stand for. Now, it's getting ugly.

One aspect of the battle involves the familiar tension between conservatives who call themselves “libertarians” and conservatives who embrace so-called “social” issues (anti-homosexuality, anti-abortion, etc.) and that odd assortment of motives, tendencies, and prejudices represented by the gone-but-not-forgotten Bush Administration (e.g., nation-building, “end-justifies-the-means” pursuit of goals, anti-intellectualism, know-nothingism, etc.).

It goes without saying, I suppose, that most of the Bushies’ tendencies and pursuits were assaults on libertarian ideals. It must have been hard for libertarian “conservatives” to support W when, in truth, he was their enemy.

American “conservatism,” at least since the fifties, has been a pretty complicated beast. “Small government” thinking, which is very old (it is associated with “classical liberalism” and such thinkers as Jefferson, Voltaire, and Smith), has long been important to most self-described American conservatives. In recent decades, so has a horror at the availability of abortions. Arguably, neither of these positions is conservative in the most essential sense of the word, namely, preservation of the traditional.

TigerAnn recommends lots of sleep.

Since the Enlightenment, “conservatism,” at least in this country, has maintained a weak traditionalism. Meanwhile, it has grown distinctly pessimistic about human progress, skeptical of utopian or progressive plans and projects, and generally pleased with the tried and true, whether cherished or not. That’s its non-ideological ideology. So it is hard to make a case for anti-abortionism as “conservative.” Conservatism doesn’t clearly point one way or another about that.

(I have long been struck by the paradox that mainstream “conservatives” in our country are the most vocal and dependable boosters of business and economic development, and yet it is plain, I think, that their world of “commerce come what may!” is the eroder of traditions par excellence. [Please excuse me while I check my Twitter account and monitor an eBay auction for the the new Orgasmatron 2.0.])

Libertarians, unlike today’s “Republican base” (i.e., the Bible-toting Bush/Palin crowd), are not merely uninterested in enforcing a way of life. They have an ideology according to which such enforcement is wicked: government should stick to refereeing among citizens who are, by right, free to pursue their lives as they see fit.

GREENHUT V. RED COUNTY

Well, anyway, these tensions are playing out right now in our beloved Orange County.

The OC Register’s Steven Greenhut is a libertarian: utterly fed up with the GOP, he joined the L party not long ago. Meanwhile, the OC’s conservative establishment churns out its message and amuses its Rush-happy loutery on the OC edition of Red County, a right-wing blog.

Apparently, some of Red County’s bigwigs have recently taken aim at libertarians such as Greenhut, labeling them extreme—something the GOP must rid itself of if it is to recover and flourish. The criticism got pretty nasty—and mighty illogical.

So, on the 14th of this month, Greenhut replied.

Eternal vigilance. That's the ticket.

The OC Reg’s Orange Punch blog
Steven Greenhut
Who are the real extremists?

The good Republican folks at Red County have published a post accusing libertarians of being extremists…. Yet one prominent writer at the blog [David Bahnsen], and someone who has zealously joined in the “libertarians are extremists” [commentary] has long ties to Christian Reconstructionism, a form of fundamentalist Christianity that seeks to impose Old Testament law on society. Would it be fair, then, to suggest that Red County is in league with those views, which I believe are somewhat outside the mainstream?

…I can guarantee that many of the Republican activists I dealt with [in Iowa] were racist, angry nutcases. Given the common Mexican-hating among GOP activists these days, maybe it’s fair to say the conservative mainstream holds racist views. … My point: Every movement is filled with people who have some, er, unusual views. I can do the same thing as [Red County's Chip] Hanlon: mock and mischaracterize the conservative worldview and dredge up crazy things I’ve heard from right-wing kooks over the years….

Chip Hanlon accuses me or people like me of hating America, based on his deliberate misconstruing of the libertarian view of big government. If I accused him of hating Mexicans or gays based on the views of people like him on the Right, then he would rightly be outraged, but it’s somehow OK to make outrageous and unsubstantiated accusations against his opponent.

Based on his logic, I suppose that he wants to stone gay people and adulterers, which is a part of the Christian Reconstructionist list of must-dos. And since blogger and commenter David Bahnsen, son of the famous reconstructionist author Greg Bahnsen, is on Red County and is joining in his anti-libertarian crusade, then this must be the epitome of Red County thinking, right?….

…By the way, how many local Republican causes have been funded by [Tom Fuentes’ pal] Howard Ahmanson, a decent man who has rejected many of that movement’s extreme views, but who has in the past been allied with [the Christian Reconstructionist] ... movement? Yet these folks presume to offer the final word on the proper right-of-center mainstream — and they do so by analyzing and over-analyzing one paragraph in a (intended to be) humorous column. They just can’t tolerate any criticism of their support for big government policies in the area of war and spying….

Wow.

Two days later, evidently missing Greenhut’s main point, the semi-literate Mr. Bahnsen responded:

Red County
David Bahnsen
My Reply to Greenhut's Cheap Broadside (or: “I think I doth protest too much”)

…[Steve Greenhut] is trying to make me “guilty by association” when he knows ... that I do not believe what he attempts to lump me in with (I am not a Christian Reconstructionist, I do not believe such a movement of people even exists any more, and I have spent ten years earnestly defining my own worldview as one distinctly at odds with the very things Steve says). Steve knows this. ... He pulled this ploy about my dead dad and about me because he wanted to poison the well. On the other hand, Chip Hanlon and I did not use “guilt by association” to criticize Steve. We used his own words. Period. He continually bashes the men and women who serve in our military. He has a constant theme and focus on denigrating law enforcement. He has every right in the world to disagree with the war in Iraq. His post-July 4th article went far beyond that.

I have known for years that Steve Greenhut “jumped the shark”, and was now in the world of extremist isolationism. ... [Ron Paul and the libertarians]… are oblivious to the threat America faces…. Fine conservative men … disagreed with the Iraq war. [But Greenhut] has gone over the top, and I suspect that reputation he has built for himself explains much of the collapsing popularity of the OC Register’s once distinguished editorial section.… His irrelevant and morally apathetic worldview is no better off today than it was before he wrote the piece.

…What is unforgivable … is the blatant lying and twisting of facts to try and throw a bomb. If Greenhut’s 16 readers at the OC Register blog want to know if I hold to a worldview that is deeply rooted in the Christian-Catholic faith, the answer is yes. If they want to know if I believe that part of my faith involves a belief in Catholic social thought, and world and life view Christianity, the answer is yes. I have no intention of divorcing my faith from my business, my family, or my politics. … I see the political realm as completely distinct from the ecclesial realm, etc. … Steve’s views are the ones out of line with the historical Christian faith, and certainly out of line with the foundational heritage of our great nation.
 


I am not a Reconstructionist, I do not know anyone who is, and my father never believed the things Steve says he did. He is a firebomb-throwing hack who should not be taken seriously. I do believe in moral progress, and I do believe that throughout history, more and more people are going to be persuaded in many of the things that I believe (you know, radical things like family being a key unit in civilization, the rule of law, the morality of free markets, the freedom to practice your religion, etc.). … My hope and faith is purely in the gradual and voluntary (and inevitable) progress of history….
…

The Tige has her eye on these fools.

… We [at Red County] are fervently seeking to see true fiscal order restored to our party…. We welcome vigorous debate. But sometimes, even though “guilt by association” is a fallacy, one has to be very cautious about who they are lumped in with. ... [R]eal change has never been effected by the brand of Libertarianism Steve now identifies himself with. We Reagan Republicans can boast differently.

Sheesh.

Then, yesterday (7/19), Greenhut offered this:

OC Reg editorial
Steven Greenhut
Steven Greenhut: Watch who you call extremist

…This week, I'm writing about [a]… political divorce [that is] sure to be full of bitterness and custody disputes. It involves the future of the Republican Party and the conservative movement, following the GOP's well-deserved November election drubbing….

…[S]ome party activists … have decided that the real problem isn't just President Barack Obama, but the small-"l" libertarians who still remain within their midst. Local activists … accused me of … no longer being relevant … because of my July 4 column that poked fun at U.S. military adventurism and the possibly illegal policies of U.S. spy agencies. … The [accusatory] article, written by GOP/Red County honcho Chip Hanlon, uses my column as an example of the supposed extremism and America-hating found within the libertarian movement….

Hanlon goes for the easy straw man: "They argue – with the benefit of hindsight – that we should never have gotten involved in World War II, that Abraham Lincoln is one of history's worst war criminals … . […]… When their full belief system is known, however, support of Libertarians like Paul cannot be defended. But folks like Paul are learning, becoming better at hiding their extremist views."

…Like totalitarians, [the GOP establishmentarians] invited us to renounce our "extremism," make a public apology and join their cause to limit government, which is akin to a drunk calling on members of Alcoholics Anonymous to join him at the bar if they really want to fight alcoholism.

The GOP can't claim to fight for smaller government. The Bush administration set spending records, doubled the national debt, vastly expanded Medicare entitlements and waged a costly Iraqi adventure that has caused tragic losses of life….

Since the election, the same GOP that has sung hosannas to the empty vessel of Sarah Palin has gone out of its way to depict supporters of Paul as cultlike camp followers. … We simply like most of the age-old ideas he espouses, as he's one of the few national figures who still espouses them….

…Sure, the [Libertarian Party] is ineffective and a bit odd, … but it's better than being stuck in an unhappy marriage with a mean-spirited, abusive and angry loser of a spouse.

Maybe the Red County reaction is proof of the long-awaited and much-needed end of the old Reagan coalition, which was comprised of small-government types, social conservatives and military hawks. The GOP is still home for social conservatives and military expansionists, but there's nothing left of value for believers in liberty. And I am so sick of all the Reagan idolatry by that side. I like Reagan, but he did, in fact, expand government. His legacy shouldn't be off-limits to criticism.
…
I spent some time on Red County following this dust-up and found one occasional columnist arguing, "[…]We should follow Russia's lead in not allowing further building of mosques or Islamic schools in America until Saudi Arabia reciprocates. … Our response to an Islamic challenge could well result in vastly expanded Christian political dominance in America. […]."

Does re-establishing 1940s-era sedition laws and abridging religious freedom sound mainstream to you? ….
...
Let's just end the fighting. Those who believe in truly limiting government, in domestic and overseas affairs, should realize that we are no longer part of the conservative movement and certainly not welcome in the Republican Party. … I can guarantee that it's far more entertaining watching Republicans lose elections from a distance than from within their crazy, immigrant-bashing, warmongering, torture-endorsing, government-expanding, civil-liberties-trouncing hothouse.

Do you suppose these people will ever kiss and make up? I doubt it.

I do have one suggestion, inspired by John Stuart Mill's infamous remark about British conservatives. First, the GOP should embrace honesty as its core “value.” I think that would be great. And refreshing!

It should designate Sarah Palin as its leader and the moose as its mascot.

It should then simply call itself the “stupid party.”

Meanwhile, libertarians will just be libertarians.

(Check out what the OC Weekly's Gustavo Arellano had to say about all this.)

Russian roulette, American Style

In Friday’s New York Times, Dick Cavett describes his professional encounters with the late Richard Burton, who appeared on Cavett’s talk show in 1980, despite the actor’s fear of audiences, I guess. (See Who’s Afraid of Richard Burton?)

Cavett describes Burton’s first program entrance, which inspired noisy and sustained applause, thus giving the actor needed encouragement.

The “sedate” PBS studio audience, he wrote, “went nuts.”

Then, in parentheses, Cavett adds:

Happily, this was taped before the later craze of piercing, high-pitched cries and shrieks from talk show audiences that have replaced applause as we knew it. Today, when a guest — of whatever high or low consequence — steps out, the air is ripped with screaming. Why? Who started this?

CRIES AND SHRIEKS

It doesn’t much matter who started this. It matters that audiences were and are inclined to go along with this idiotic practice.

Certainly there are those for whom I would stand up and cheer. But were I a member of a TV talk show audience (that ain’t gonna happen), and were a guest of “low consequence" to be introduced, I would not scream nor yelp nor yo.

In some settings (I’m excluding funerals and invocations and such), audiences can be mob-like and thus dangerous. When you stand up to applaud with an audience, you’re joining in a group action—you are going from “I” and entering into “we”—and yet you can’t control the “we.” As a consequence, if your colleagues act like assholes or dopes, you are ipso facto an asshole or a dope.

So standing up with an audience is a kind of Russian roulette. Sometimes, not often, you have reason to feel good about the group act. Other times you feel like an asshole. The only control you have is whether to join with them in the first place.

Let’s face it: in the setting of a talk show (as opposed to, say, a comedy club), screaming and hooting for, say, Gary Coleman or even Robin Williams is plainly undignified and idiotic. It’s like announcing, “Here we are, the stupid and clueless!”

I guess I love politics, but I hate participating in political rallies or demonstrations. I recall joining in an anti-fur demonstration about twenty years ago. I believed in the cause (still do), but when I arrived for the demonstration, I could see that I really wasn’t like most of my colleagues, many of whom were politically simplistic or self-indulgent or immaturely motivated. (There were exceptions, too: activist/protesters who were both smart and committed. I admired them. Still do.)

I rejected the way most of my fellow-protesters saw the issue and viewed the protest, and yet I was a member of the group—I had deliberately joined it. The group was doing and saying something. That meant that I was doing and saying it too. Naturally, I felt uncomfortable. (Sometimes, such discomfort is the price you pay to take the opportunities you have to do what is right. You can’t be a purist about such things.)

APPLAUDING ONESELF

I recall a moment from my teenage years. My German mother and I were watching TV. There was a large and enthusiastic audience attending a ceremony in honor of someone. They clapped and cheered as the honoree got his prize.

The honoree smiled a broad smile. He joined the clapping.

“Look. He’s clapping," announced my mother. "I don’t understand that. It’s stupid,” she said.

And it was. That little moment stayed with me.

THINGS CHANGE

When we join in group actions that are old and familiar, we pretty much know what we’re getting into. But when things change and group or mass behavior is new and not-yet-fully-understood, our joining it is definitely a kind of Russian roulette, a toss of the dice with something at stake.

This is where people mystify me. Why join into the new thing without reservation? Because it's new? If everybody jumped off a cliff, would you do that too? If people started smearing excrement on their heads, would you join along?

Aincha got no dignity, no sense, no brain?!

Years ago, I’d see kids walking along with boom boxes, disturbing the peace. They didn’t care how anybody felt about the booming, rhythmic sounds they were pumping into the atmosphere. Or maybe they did care: they hoped it pissed people off.

Assholes.

In recent years, I’ve occasionally been startled to find someone alone, talking to himself. They’ve got a cell phone—or, worse, one of those contraptions that you just wear on your head all the time. You see 'em, striding down the frozen food aisle at Ralphs, talking a blue streak, sometimes cursing or discussing matters that no sane person would broadcast. They're yacking, but nobody's around, except for me and maybe some old woman buying frozen pees.

And, for a moment, the lady and I are weirded out.

Then we see the guy's headset. Oh that.

As this fool passes, we sense that he's doing something he shouldn't do. He's doing it to us. He's saying, “You don't matter; only I matter.”

Lots of people seem to have grabbed one of those gizmos as soon as they became available, and they're out there, man, causing weirditude, left and right. That’s what I don’t understand. Why just start doing something that's new? Why dive into the deep end with it? Don’t you want to understand it first? Isn’t it obvious that it’s at least possible that it isn’t nice or that it does harm or that it degrades our lives?

Doncha care about such things?

I see people picking up firecrackers and throwing them into crowds, all day long.

That's what I see.

Watch Walt deal with a lout: the Breaking Bad "exploding BMW" episode.
You don't get to see it, but the loutish BMW driver doesn't just steal Walt's parking spot. He's one of those rude cell phone squawkers. That's the clincher.
So Walt destroys his Beemer. Not that I approve.

Williams: “I may not have followed what their intent was”

Yesterday, on the OC Register Total Buzz blog, reporter Jennifer Muir updated us on the John Williams mismanagement story (SOCCCD trustee Williams is also the OC Public Administrator/Guardian):

Memos may support allegations against public administrator

Grand Jury allegations that the county’s Public Administrator/Public Guardian has questionable promoting practices got a boost of credibility from inter-county memos obtained by the Register.

The offenses listed in the memos — all part of a draft county response to the grand jury report — are technical and obscure. But they lend credibility to grand jury allegations that PA/PG John Williams has tried to discredit.
…
While the internal county memos don’t confirm some of the most egregious offenses in the grand jury report, such as pension spiking and mismanaging an estate, it does appear to back up some of the personnel questions the grand jury raised. The memos say Williams ignored human resource guidelines when promoting managers.

“PA/PG’s human resources administration practices are outside standard county practice and go against direction previously provided by (the Human Resources Department),” a memo from the county’s budget office says.
…
The memos were written by county CEO Tom Mauk, Human Resources Director Carl Crown, and the county’s budget office and were sent to Supervisor Pat Bates. They also contain recommendations that supervisors consider splitting up the public administrator and public guardian office and delete three manager positions....

Williams said Thursday that the memos, dated June 4, contain old information. After they were circulated, he met with Mauk and Crown on June 24 and resolved their questions.

“Carl Crown confirmed we did not violate any policy or procedure,” he said. … “As it stands, I may not have followed what their intent was, and it may not have been what they wanted, but we did not violate policy,” he said.

He also responded formally to the memo.

A county spokesman confirmed that Williams met with Mauk and the other county officials. But he would not discuss what happened in that meeting. Instead, he said the county’s response to the first grand jury report will be presented publicly to supervisors July 28. Stay tuned.

We'll "prosper through doors"—and experience the Fall of Peevitude

Big things are happening in the world of community colleges, I guess.

On Tuesday, Chancellor Raghu P. Mathur spammed the district community (SOCCCD) about President Obama’s “significant announcement” concerning community colleges. Attached were emails, including one from California cc hotshot Scott Lay. Lay laid out Obama’s initiative, which is “aimed at increasing the number of degree and certificate attainees in community colleges by 5 million over the next ten years.”

In an attached Washington Post article, White House officials identify the “heart of the program” as

grants, which will require colleges to compete by designing innovative new programs or revamping their existing curricula. The grants are similar to the "Race to the Top" funding that Education Secretary Arne Duncan has proposed for the K-12 school systems. ¶ "We're going to take a careful look at how well these things work, and only the ones that demonstrate results will receive continued funding," said James Kvaal, a special assistant to the president for economic policy.

The Lay Man couldn’t help but note the cacophony against which this chirpy tune is being played:

Nevertheless, the new federal funds won't be arriving at community colleges in time to save the 250,000 students expected to be pushed out or to stall the deep cuts to student service programs for our most vulnerable students.

Yeah, Mr. Buzzkill, things seriously suck.

On Tuesday, the OC Reg was on the case, reporting that

Orange County community colleges applauded President Obama's pledge today of a $12 billion infusion for job training and other programs even as they acknowledged the struggle they face in balancing budgets in a tight economy.

Some familiar names appeared in that piece. Former Saddleback College President—and current NOCCCD chancellor—Ned Doffoney was quoted as saying that “This landmark initiative will show Americans new ways to re-invent and prosper through the doors of our community colleges. We welcome the possibilities.”

Re-inventing (and prospering) through doors? I like Ned, but he really oughta consult the metaphor mechanics over in the English department before taking his slogans on the road.

The Reg notes that OC community colleges seem particularly dedicated to developing “job skills” programs. That’s where our own Chancellor, a staunch Republican, chimed in:

South Orange County Chancellor Raghu P. Mathur, a former chemistry professor, said career tech is central to the mission of community colleges, and the more funds available to those programs across the nation, the better. ¶ “Only then can we remain competitive,” said Mathur, who helps lead several county efforts on technical education.

Yeah. He’s a leader. And a former chemistry professor. And one of the biggest assholes on the planet.

The Reg describes draconian belt-tightening efforts in local districts. But efforts in the SOCCD aren’t as severe:

Mathur said South Orange County expects to weather the 2009-10 cuts with a combination of spending reductions and a cap on the number of class sections, even as it continues to build its reserves.

This summer, deans have been scrambling to make all of this work for the Fall. And the Spring. (The future: watch some instructors take heat for loading too many students into their already over-loaded classes. Watch students grumble and snipe about not getting into classes. In general, welcome the Fall of Peevitude.)

SOCCCD EXCEPTIONALISM:

As you know, the SOCCCD is not in the same fix as most other cc districts, owing to its “basic aid” gravy train. We’re sitting on shitloads of moola, but, if you think about it, that’s doesn’t mean we should accommodate the thousands of students turned away from UCI, the CSUs, and local community colleges. Everybody hates us because of those basic aid bucks, and it’s just a matter of time before they find a way to screw our pooch. (Plus, potentially, basic aid bucks can undergo significant reduction.) We need to prepare for these possibilities.

Suddenly taking on lots of new students might put us in a real spot, fiscally, when things change down the line. We don’t seem to be doing that.

Some (indeed, many) would look upon SOCCCD Pooch Screwery with glee. Heck, watching us crash and burn and squeal might be enough to kick-start positivity (not to mention “re-invention”) throughout the state. Could be.

Let’s hope Mathur and the trustees know what they’re doing. I guess they do.

It’s a good thing reality isn’t an Ancient Greek play. Otherwise, we’d marry our mother, kill our father, quit our job, and get caught in Argentina with some babe. We’d spend eternity as one of those Geiko eyeballs, blinking at money we ain't got.