Special board meeting tomorrow

     The district has posted notice of a "special" board meeting tomorrow (Thursday, March 31, at the usual place) to discuss a "proposed settlement" of Westphal v. Wagner (the prayer lawsuit).
     The meeting is at 5:00 p.m. and will include an opportunity for public remarks prior to the trustees' closed session.

Doom, de doom doom

California schools move closer to doomsday (Kathryn Baron; TOP-ed)

     On Tuesday Gov. Jerry Brown called off negotiations with Republican lawmakers that were aimed at putting the tax extension up for a statewide vote in June. This move pretty much crushes any chances of sparing public schools from even deeper cuts for the next school year.
     “Each and every Republican legislator I’ve spoken to believes that voters should not have this right to vote unless I agree to an ever changing list of collateral demands,” Brown said in a statement posted on his website….
. . .
     “Much is at stake, and in the coming weeks I will focus my efforts on speaking directly to Californians and coming up with honest and real solutions to our budget crisis,” said Brown in his statement. His communications staff wouldn’t elaborate on what that means; however, one idea under discussion is gathering signatures to put the tax extension on the November ballot. But that may be too late to help schools that will have already laid off teachers and implemented their “Plan B” austerity measures. It also poses a thorny political dilemma. The current tax increases expire at midnight on June 30. Any vote after that is no longer an extension of the current taxes; it becomes a new tax increase, and that’s a much harder sell to voters.

     In late January, we excerpted from an article by (CCLC’s) Scott Lay in which Lay proclaimed:

     As if Gov. Jerry Brown's proposal to slash $400 million from community colleges' budget was not bad enough, it looks like it could get worse. ¶ "If its an all-cuts budget with no revenues, we estimate it will be $900 million cut from colleges," said Scott Lay, a president and chief executive officer of the Community College League of California.
. . .
     Brown's spending plan, which assumes voters approve a $12 billion extension of existing temporary taxes in a June election, would eliminate funding for 67,856 full-time students across California…. ¶ If the tax revenues are taken off the table, community colleges would need to cut an additional $500 million in each of the next five years, according to the league….

SEE ALSO State budget talks collapse, no June ballot measure (Total Buzz)

     Among the Republican leaders who have brought us to this difficult situation is SOCCCD's own "Dandy" Don Wagner, who, these days, is squawking and peeving and poking at the State Capitol. Like so many Republicans, Don seems to have essentially one message: we hate taxes.

The latest on Orlando Boy: tyin’ up loose ends

Team Fuentes: Dave Lang, John Williams, Tom Fuentes -- aka "the Beelzebublians"

     Former Trustee John Williams isn't gone yet. A few minutes ago, the OC Reg’s Kimberly Edds posted the following:

Quisling Dave

$15k more requested to look into Public Guardian (Total Buzz)

The county’s chief executive wants to spend another $15,000 to wrap up its investigation into allegations of mismanagement by Public Administrator/Public Guardian John S. Williams. The investigation, which remains confidential under attorney-client privilege, has already resulted in demands Williams resign, the splitting of the two departments, and the removal of Assistant Public Administrator/Public Guardian [and OC DA fiance] Peggi Buff.
. . .

Orlando bound!

The law firm of Colantuono & Levin was hired by the county for $40,000 in November to look into a series of accusations against the Public Administrator/Public Guardian. Now the county wants to throw in some more money – $15,000 to be exact – to tie up a few loose ends and fund any necessary follow-up services, according to a staff report. Williams is both the elected public administrator and the appointed public guardian. The county spent weeks trying to negotiate Williams’ early exit from office, but calls for his immediate resignation went unheeded. He remains the county’s elected public administrator, a position the board cannot take from him and one he says he will hold until he retires Jan. 23, 2012….

     Loose ends, eh? Pretty tantalizing, if you ask me.
     The County surely ought to have a clear picture of just what Williams has been up to. If it’ll take another $15k, then it’s money well spent.
     And then surely the public should be able to see the facts for themselves. All of 'em.

To hell in a handbasket

Can run; can't hide

More Professors Face Records Requests for E-Mails (Inside Higher Ed)

     A think tank in Michigan has filed state open records requests seeking e-mail messages to and from labor studies scholars at three universities, related to the skirmishing over public employee unions in Wisconsin, according to the blog Talking Points Memo. In the wake of the controversial filing of similar request for the e-mail records of a leading scholar at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, the Mackinac Center For Public Policy submitted requests under the state Freedom of Information Act to policy centers at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, Wayne State University, and Michigan State University. The requests seek e-mails since early January that include the words "Scott Walker" (Wisconsin's governor), "Wisconsin," "Madison" and "Maddow" (for the MSNBC commentator Rachel).

Good grief.

Florida Bill to End Tenure at Community Colleges Advances (Inside Higher Ed)

     Just days after being introduced, a bill that would bar community and state colleges in Florida from awarding tenure to faculty members was approved, 8 to 4, by a House of Representatives subcommittee on Tuesday. Faculty groups and several college presidents have come out against the bill, but a representative of the Associated Industries of Florida, a business lobby, endorsed the legislation. The Orlando Sentinel reported that Representative Erik Fresen, a Republican who chairs the K-20 Competitiveness Subcommittee, said that tenure makes it difficult for colleges to adjust to meet student demand in certain fields. "Oftentimes, the colleges cannot respond in time because of these 'handcuff' situations," he said.

Good news; bad news

Defenders of the Humanities Look for New Ways to Explain Their Value (Chronicle of Higher Education)

     A crowd of nearly 200 people gathered here [in Washington] on Monday to listen to a series of academic luminaries speak passionately about the importance of the humanities.
     Though billed as a "Symposium on the Future of the Humanities," the talks were less about new directions than about the value of traditional humanities in an era of gutted budgets, and against the insistence, even by many in academe, on measurable "outcomes" in higher education.
     "We have come to rely on the explanatory power of quantification in a way that far exceeds its usefulness," said S. Georgia Nugent, president of Kenyon College. "The nation has succumbed to the myth that everything can be measured, and that, moreover, the measurements that count are those of the market economy."....

New York Times