It's cold outside!

Remembering a Student

The contingent from the little college in the orange groves numbered five. We joined a group already gathering in the chapel room off Alicia Parkway in Laguna Hills on Saturday afternoon. The world beyond was bustling, for it was, after all, the weekend before Christmas, two days before Hanukkah. We stepped away from that bustle for a couple hours to remember a student, dead at 26, a young man who had faced formidable odds and made such progress, a genuinely warm and cheerful soul, someone Beth Sanchez would call one of our "special friends." He'd been a student at the college for several years and was well known and loved. That afternoon we learned more about him - his family history, his particular challenges, his triumphs. We hugged his weeping mother, shook the strong proud hand of his stepfather. We heard from those like us who helped him live and learn. We were reminded of all that our students carry that we might not always see and what a privilege it is to be a part of their lives. Good things to remember as this year comes to a close.

Beth spoke with a full heart.

Tony loved the Backstreet Boys.

Help Wanted

And finally—a disheartening beginning for the new IVC?

Wed, Dec 18, 2019 1:50 pm

     The Faculty Association and IVC Academic Senate Presidents, in collaboration with one another and in sounding the IVC faculty at large, are pleased to announce the two faculty members serving on the IVC President Search Committee: [PS, a counselor] (F[aculty]A[ssociation]) [union] and [CK, a member of the Business faculty] (A[cademic]S[enate]).
. . .
     Bringing their knowledge, experience, diversity, and integrity to evaluating and advancing outstanding Presidential candidates, [P] and [C] will serve our faculty and college most admirably.

Respectfully Yours, 

Kurt Meyer,
Faculty Association President 

June McLaughlin,
IVC Academic Senate President

Wed, Dec 18, 2019 3:04 pm

     One thing is clear: after over twenty years of administrative oppression of academics, we now need to hire an actual academic as president.
     And so what do we do? For faculty to serve on the search committee, we select individuals from the least academic areas on campus.
     Just F-ing great.
     Very, very disappointed. 

—Roy Bauer

13th Annual Cookiemas

Cookiemas - what began as a way for faculty and staff to lighten the end of the year burdens 13 years ago in the dank and mold-ridden A-200 building has continued to be celebrated in the light and airy lounge of the LA building across the A-quad. An ecumenical and slightly pagan affair which also shows off the baking talents of many, Cookiemas brought together many yesterday to sip cider, share stories and eat cookies. Once again, our presiding spirit, Mother Fretz, offered trays of her own home baked treat as she has done form the very first Cookiemas.

Photos by Rebel Girl and Beatrice Tseng (The best photos are by Beatrice!).

See you next year.
*

‘It Just Isn’t Working’: PISA Test Scores Cast Doubt on U.S. Education Efforts 
New York Times
An international exam shows that American 15-year-olds are stagnant in reading and math even though the country has spent billions to close gaps with the rest of the world.

Published Dec. 3, 2019Updated Dec. 5, 2019

     The performance of American teenagers in reading and math has been stagnant since 2000, according to the latest results of a rigorous international exam, despite a decades-long effort to raise standards and help students compete with peers across the globe.
     And the achievement gap in reading between high and low performers is widening. Although the top quarter of American students have improved their performance on the exam since 2012, the bottom 10th percentile lost ground, according to an analysis by the National Center for Education Statistics, a federal agency.
     The disappointing results from the exam, the Program for International Student Assessment, were announced on Tuesday and follow those from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, an American test that recently showed that two-thirds of children were not proficient readers.
     Over all, American 15-year-olds who took the PISA test scored slightly above students from peer nations in reading but below the middle of the pack in math.
. .
     About a fifth of American 15-year-olds scored so low on the PISA test that it appeared they had not mastered reading skills expected of a 10-year-old, according to Andreas Schleicher, director of education and skills at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which administers the exam.
     Those students, he said, face “pretty grim prospects” on the job market.
Daniel Koretz, an expert on testing and a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, said recent test results showed that “it’s really time to rethink the entire drift of policy reform because it just isn’t working.”
     Because the United States lacks a centralized system for teacher training or distributing quality instructional materials to schools, Professor Koretz said, states and districts did not always effectively carry out the Common Core or other initiatives.
. . .
     The most recent PISA test was given in 2018 to 600,000 15-year-olds in 79 education systems around the world, and included both public and private school students. In the United States, a demographically representative sample of 4,800 students from 215 schools took the test, which is given every three years.
     Although math and science were also tested, about half of the questions were devoted to reading, the focus of the 2018 exam. Students were asked to determine when written evidence supported a particular claim and to distinguish between fact and opinion, among other tasks.
     The top performers in reading were four provinces of China — Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang. Also outperforming the United States were Singapore, Macau, Hong Kong, Estonia, Canada, Finland and Ireland. The United Kingdom, Japan and Australia performed similarly to the United States….

Red Emma Rocks On

In good company at the New York Historical Museum. Photo by Louis Tonkovich. 

Red has been spotted around town lately, with and without his post-brain surgery beret.  Some may have seen him at UCI, others at IVC where this week he joined the denizens of the LA building in celebrating the imminent arrival of somebody's twins.  Lots to celebrate lately. It's all good as the kids say. Huzzah! Rock on.

When we last took note of Red on the blog, it was to note UCI's capitulation to his demand for paid leave and benefits. (Thanks for all the signatures, cards, letters, etc. Solidarity forever, baby.)  Now, a couple months later, here's the latest, courtesy of his union, CFT/AFT:

How one career lecturer’s medical crisis is helping others win paid sick leave

"The victory for Andrew,” she [Mia McIver] says, “immediately had wider effects and teaching faculty on other campuses in similar situations were able to secure paid medical leave. Much of the credit for the momentum goes to Andrew himself, who spent decades building relationships as a teacher and organizer. This shows that, when we put those relationships at the core of our union work, they can transform into positive changes.”

Telling, Not Being the Joke

Q: Tell me, how long have you been working here?
A: Ever since they threatened to fire me.
That old cornball joke still makes me laugh, 50 years after I read it in a kids magazine. I understood it then as honest if everyday acknowledgement by the presumably once-lazy worker of his or her required acquiescence to power, and of isolation. But its splendid trick syntax and on-the-nose calling out of the coercive relationship of management to labor suggested more, even to a 10-year-old: cognizance of at least the potential inherent power of the worker — all workers? — to apprehend, to subvert, to jest, however fatalistically, cynically or — my own favorite — insubordinately.

Rock on.