Still more to ignore

TOM’S APPALLING LEGACY.
.....Some day, Tom Fuentes will leave the board, and we will be able to assess his legacy as a SOCCCD trustee.
.....That legacy will include the lasting marks of his sustained efforts to associate the district and its colleges with his right-wing pals in government.
.....Who would that be?
.....Well, it would be, among others, the ethically-challenged OC DA, Tony Rackauckas, the ethically-challenged OC Treasurer, Chriss Street, and the even more ethically-challenged former OC Sheriff, Mike Carona.
.....Carona. You remember him. He used to show up and pray and salute a lot. Now he’s a convicted felon.
.....Today, the Reg (Ex-sheriff heads back to court for appeal) provides a heads up regarding Carona’s appeal. The hearing will be tomorrow.
.....The Reg explains the basis of the appeal:

The former law enforcement official was found guilty of witness tampering in January 2009 for trying to persuade ex-assistant sheriff Don Haidl to lie during a grand jury probe….
. . .
Carona's lawyers argue that prosecutors broke an ethical rule when they arranged for Haidl to secretly record an August 2007 conversation despite knowing Carona had retained a criminal defense attorney at the time….

That recording, played repeatedly during the jury trial, was the basis for Carona's witness tampering conviction….

.....The upshot is this: Carona does not dispute that he tampered with a witness. Rather, he argues that the manner in which the damning recording was acquired by prosecutors violated ethics rules.
.....There’s a Plan B: “The former sheriff's legal team also contends that Carona was convicted under the wrong statute, and therefore was wrongfully convicted.”
.....If Carona prevails, he will of course announce his complete vindication. But no. Clearly, he did tamper with a witness.
.....On the various tapes played during his trial, Carona said a great many things that contradict his image of staunch right-wing Fuentean rectitude—racist remarks, etc.
.....If he prevails, Carona will pretend that those tapes do not exist, that he never said and did those awful things.
.....If he prevails, no doubt Fuentes will again arrange for the Mikester to be named the Irvine Valley College “Hometown Hero.”

CAPO’S NEW MYSTERY SUPE.
.....The Reg also reports that the

Capistrano Unified's school board has tentatively selected a successor to outgoing Interim Superintendent Bobbi Mahler, but has not released the finalist's name pending a reference check and visit to his school district….

.....The Reg indicates that the individual is “male and a superintendent at another school district.”
.....The board president is quoted as saying, "We're very proud of our choice…. He was notified right after our board meeting [Monday night], and he was very excited and very energetic and looking forward to it.”
.....She also explained that “Three district trustees will visit the finalist's school district, likely this week, and also will contact its [?] school board to do a reference check.”
.....Our insiders tell us that Mathur is not the guy.
.....The Capo board president is none other than Anna Bryson. And who is she? Well, she works for OC Treasurer--and pal o' Fuentes--Chriss Street.

THE DAY EDUCATION DIED.
.....Meanwhile, the OC Weekly’s Matt Coker reports that

UC Rebel Radio presents a mock funeral for education this afternoon at UC Irvine. ¶ Faculty, staff and students wearing black are expected to participate in a 1 p.m. gathering at the flagpole, where speakers will eulogize young people's future before departing for a procession around the campus.

"The desire for the free and equitable cultivation of thought which spurred the creation of the University of California has been smothered, due in part to privatization and the increasing lack of availability of an excellent UC education," states a letter from a group of participating groups.

.....Matt notes that May 4 was chosen for this event because it is the 40th anniversary of the Kent State massacre.

EVEN MORE FOR IVC TO IGNORE.
.....Our own Rebel Girl (Lisa Alvarez) appears in the May issue of Connotation Press: An Online Artifact, along with the likes of Andrei Codrescu—you know, that NPR guy with the cool Romanian accent and dry, Transylvanian wit—and various other writers and artists.

John Williams' ethics

This morning, I visited the SOCCCD website, where I found board policies, including BP1400, the "code of ethics for members of the board of trustees."

Point 3 of the code is the following:

As you know, recently, we came upon copies of timesheets submitted by trustee John Williams for his county job as Public Administrator/Guardian. It appears that, on those timesheets, Williams claimed full work days (presumably in his office in Santa Ana) on days in which, according to SOCCCD records, he was many miles away (in Orlando, Tampa, etc.) at conferences in his role as college district trustee.

Assuming that the fellow cannot be in two different places at once, and assuming that district records of trustee travel are accurate, it would appear that Mr. Williams claimed to work (as a county official) when, in truth, he was not working (in that capacity).

According to my Mac's dictionary, fraud is "wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain." Filing multiple false claims of full work days (for which one is paid) would seem to qualify as fraud.

We at DtB would like to hear from readers. Is there an ethical problem here?

If so, is this a matter for the Academic Senates to pursue? The board? The DA?

Tell us what you think.

For-Profit, for Chrissake! Your tax dollars at work

Public TV Takes on For-Profit Colleges (Inside Higher Ed)

Airing tonight on PBS at 9 p.m. is Frontline's College, Inc., an hour-long look at for-profit higher education, its investors, and the U.S. Department of Education's efforts to regulate it. ... It tells stories of students plunging deep into debt and unable to get jobs, touches on traditional academe's criticisms, and looks at the negotiated rule-making process aimed at reining in abuses of the Title IV federal financial aid system, with a particular focus on career colleges.

But it is likely to garner lots of attention -- from ordinary Americans, think tankers and Congressional staffers -- and to stir up press releases, editorials and conversations that will skew against the for-profit institutions just as the Education Department ratchets up its criticisms of the sector. The storyline is more balanced than many major-media examinations of for-profit colleges, but it's still a less-than-favorable depiction of the sector.

At the "Frontline" link, we’re told that

The biggest player in the for-profit sector is the University of Phoenix—now the largest college in the US with total enrollment approaching half a million students. Its revenues of almost $4 billion last year, up 25 percent from 2008, have made it a darling of Wall Street….

…[T]he cash cow of the for-profit education industry is the federal government. Though they enroll 10 percent of all post-secondary students, for-profit schools receive almost a quarter of federal financial aid. But Department of Education figures for 2009 show that 44 percent of the students who defaulted within three years of graduation were from for-profit schools, leading to serious questions about one of the key pillars of the profit degree college movement: that their degrees help students boost their earning power. This is a subject of increasing concern to the Obama administration, which, last month, remade the federal student loan program, and is now proposing changes that may make it harder for the for-profit colleges to qualify.

See also: Financial Affairs: TV Documentary on For-Profit Colleges Will Hit Some Nerves—at Times, Rightly So (Chronicle of Higher Education)

You'll recall that, at Irvine Valley College, at least one administrator has urged faculty to allow the U of P to come into their classrooms to make their pitch.

See also: Troubles Grow for a University Built on Profits (NYT)