Lost and in search of information

TODAY, of course, was the first day of classes here at lovely Irvine Valley College. There were lots of fresh faces, lots of bewildered looks.

Imagine visiting the college for the first time.

Now, IVC is among those places that has no entrance. It has, rather, entry points—like, say, a Sears, which can be entered at several points, all of them lousy.

But let us suppose that some evildoer has placed a gun to our head and has insisted that we identify "IVC's entrance." In that case, without doubt, IVC's entrance is that nameless road (it has a name, but no one knows it) that sort of happens along Irvine Center Drive.

Now, if one takes that road and heads straight (nothing will direct one to do otherwise), one will soon encounter the grand and inviting Student Services Center. But it will be distant, across a vast expanse of lawn, halfway across campus.



"Surely," thinks the first-time visitor, "an information desk is closer than that!"

Inevitably, therefore, the visitor parks and then wanders into the A100 building, which is nearby and which, unlike other buildings at IVC, sports a flagpole.

"This must be the place," they'll say. "Surely, we'll get our questions answered here!"

AND THUS IT WAS THAT, until recently, a visitor who entered A100 would immediately encounter a clearly marked information desk, smack dab in the middle of the building.

* * * * *

Today, after our classes, Rebel Girl and I wandered into the A100 building as we headed to the parking lot. Once inside, we beheld the rumored empty space created by the recent removal of the Info Desk. The rumor was true.


We stared at the space. The Reb pointed at the place on the wall where the word "information" once greeted visitors:

I became peevish.

"I guess we don't have information anymore here at IVC," I said, loudly enough for others to hear.

Just then, three young people wandered into the building from the direction of the flagpole. They were lost. They had questions.

I looked at the Reb. Then I walked up to these kids.

"Looking for directions? Information perhaps?" I asked.

"Yes," they said. They looked at the shitty spot that once said "information." They looked around the room.


Someone attempted to give them directions to the alleged "info" booth in the Student Services Center, way across the lawn, past the coffee zone.

"Where?"

For some reason, these kids remained bewildered. They wandered in the opposite direction of the Student Services Building. We watched their progress.

I looked at Reb.

"Lunch?"

MEANWHILE...

Tomorrow, young Adam and I will race Fords, virtually.

Sarah will insist on hide an' seek.

Up in Pacifica, Fannie's doing well, now that she's home with Tiger-Ann. Recently, she won some kinda prize for this great photo she took at a dance she attended a few months ago:

Spin

See New Community College Opens Today. They’re talking about ATEP. That's some serious spin.

New Rankings Controversy — Over Community Colleges. This one quotes George Boggs, president of the American Association of Community Colleges, who was a keynote speaker at last week’s Chancellor’s Opening Session.

Sunny Girl greets her dad

Been away for three weeks. Got in last night. The Sunny Girl was there to greet me.

She's even smaller than she looks. Maybe five pounds.

It's been hot around here, I guess.

Pin Pal

July 18, 2007

Rebel Girl
XXXXXX
Silverado Canyon, CA 92676


Dear Rebel Girl,

Congratulations on your 15 years of service for the students of the South Orange County Community College District! In recognition of your continuous dedication and contribution to the District, you will be awarded a service pin as a symbol of appreciation.

You are cordially invited to formally receive your service pin, along with other deserving Irvine Valley College and Saddleback College faculty, on Tuesday August 14, 2007, at 8:45 am during the Chancellor's Opening Session in the McKinney Theatre at Saddleback College. This will be preceded by a continental breakfast which will be served at 8:00 a.m. in the McKinney Theatre patio.

Please R.S.V.P. by 4:00 p.m. on August 9, 2007 to XXXX in District Human Resources via email at XXXX or by phone at XXXXX. We look forward to recognizing your years of service in the District.

Sincerely,

Raghu P. Mathur, Ed.D.
Chancellor

REBEL GIRL is sorry to say that she missed the big event which would have featured her unlikely "pinning" by the Chancellor, the same person who, as college president, once delayed signing her evaluation for three months while demanding proof that he had ever commended her for anything - he had! During those three months, her then-dean tried to find something, anything to condemn her for (Messy desk? Surly attitude? Improper use of paper clips?) – he didn't, though he did suggest that she should remove certain images and texts from her office door – she did not.

It's worth remembering that this same dean delayed signing her maternity leave papers until she presented proof of pregnancy via a doctor's note (Rebel Girl was 41 years old and seven months pregnant at the time). Ahhh, those were the days. She remembers phoning the doctor over at UCI and trying to explain that one.

The pin arrived in yesterday's mail. The stone is sapphire, designating 15 years of service.

For the record, 5 years gets you an amethyst, 10 a ruby, 20 an emerald and 25 a diamond.

A few years back the same dean (after his hasty "retreat to the classroom") received just such a pin designating so many years of service – an event that was noticed by many since his "years" of service seem to have been desperately cobbled together by someone who couldn't count.

Tom’s pal under wider investigation

What is it with Tom "Balboa Bay Club" Fuentes? How come so many of the people he associates with are so dang corrupt?

From this morning’s OC Register: D.A. joins list of Street investigators

Orange County Treasurer-Tax Collector Chriss Street, already under fire for a nearly $1 million office remodeling, is also being investigated by the District Attorney's Office about a possible deal with a private architectural company.

…It is the latest in a growing list of official investigations into Street's past and present employment. Last week, The Orange County Register reported that the U.S. Justice Department's Santa Ana office was investigating Street's previous work as a bankruptcy trustee for Fruehauf Trucking Corp.

Other federal probes into Street's Fruehauf work include several by the Department of Labor and one by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., according to filings in U.S. Bankruptcy Court.

Since the Register reported last week on Street's extensive office renovation, supervisors and investors in the county's $7 billion portfolio, which Street manages, have questioned the costs. The remodeling includes a $500,000 contract for office furniture with a Riverside company.

…Street, who has been in office just eight months, said investigators questioned him about an architectural contract for work on the building that houses his office, the Hall of Finance and Records. Street said only that his office sought guidance from the county's Resources and Development Management Department and that it complied with the county procurement processes.

"I talked to them about architecture on the outside of the building," Street said. "To date there's been no contract issued and no funds expended."

…Daniel Harrow, Fruehauf's current trustee, called Street's tenure at The End of the Road Trust, as the host of companies under Fruehauf was renamed, "a story of mismanagement, conflicts of interest, and greed."

During that time Street and his wife, Victoria, drew a salary of more than $2 million plus $477,527 in expenses for vacations, clothes and payments to a plastic surgeon, Harrow said.

Among many charges, Harrow said Street located the trust's offices in Corona del Mar, overlooking the yachts of Balboa Island. This was "an extravagant choice for the operation of a liquidating trust of a bankrupt estate," his legal complaint says.

The Virgin from the Chocolate Lagoon

From yesterday’s OC Register: Chocolate Virgin Mary still standing:

...“Hey let me just tell you she's the biggest celebrity,” said Bodega [Chocolates] owner Martucci Angiano, pointing to an encased chocolate figurine in what she said is the shape of a … Virgin Mary.

Angiano and the two women who discovered the seemingly holy candy under a drippy vat of dark chocolate in a kitchen about a year ago explained today how their lives have changed—and how the chocolate hasn't.

The detailed markings that brought out hundreds upon hundreds of faithful—some from as far away as Ontario, Canada—are still in tact [sic]. No mold. No melting.

Nothing is different, said Cruz Jacinto and María Luisa Morales, the two chocolate packagers who made the discovery on Aug. 14 of last year.

“Chocolate has a determined lifespan and just look at her,” Cruz said, pointing at the figurine she's dubbed a miracle. “It's love and sweetness, like the chocolate.”

Jacinto, a 27-year-old Costa Mesa resident who has worked at the store for about four years, carries a photo of the chocolate idol on her cellular phone.
Click and there she is.

…“I feel changed and more strong,” said Jacinto, who had questioned the existence of God to others days before the discovery….

Wow. The chocolate dripula hasn’t changed? Not in a year? What can possibly explain that?

But wait! There’s an old Almond Joy sitting on my sister’s refrigerator. Almond Joys are made of chocolate, aren’t they? This one looks pretty old. Years old. It's got dust on it.

Something, I know not what, makes me wanna open it.

Good Lord!—despite chocolate’s determined life span, this old Almond Joy has retained its original shape!

I went ahead and ate it.

American teachers: selected from the “bottom third”?

From this morning’s New York Times: Imported From Britain: Ideas to Improve Schools:

During a decade in power in Britain, the government of Prime Minister Tony Blair made efforts to improve English schools, with some apparent successes. …[S]ome educators believe there is much to learn from England’s experience.

A few are turning to Sir Michael Barber, a senior adviser to Mr. Blair from 1997 through 2005….

...[Barber states:] “What have all the great school systems of the world got in common?” he said, ticking off four systems that he said deserved to be called great, in Finland, Singapore, South Korea and Alberta, Canada. “Four systems, three continents — what do they have in common?

“They all select their teachers from the top third of their college graduates, whereas the U.S. selects its teachers from the bottom third of graduates. This is one of the big challenges for the U.S. education system: What are you going to do over the next 15 to 20 years to recruit ever better people into teaching?” [My emphasis.]

South Korea pays its teachers much more than England and America, and has accepted larger class sizes as a trade-off, he said.

Finland, by contrast, draws top-tier college graduates to the profession not with huge paychecks, but by fostering exceptionally high public respect for teachers, he said.

Under Mr. Blair, Sir Michael said, Britain attracted more talented young teaching candidates by offering stipends of £7,000, or about $14,000, for college graduates undergoing a year of teacher training. … “We completely recast our teacher recruitment and training system,” Sir Michael said.

…In the early 1980s, government reports deploring educational mediocrity rattled both nations, inspiring movements to improve standards and accountability on both sides of the Atlantic. And during the last decade, both nations began federally driven school improvement efforts, he said.

“But it’s a lot harder to do education reform in the United States than in the U.K.,” Sir Michael said.

That, in part, is because of sheer size, he said. England’s elementary and secondary educational system, which has about seven million students and 24,000 schools, he said, is more akin to California’s, which has about 6.3 million students and 9,500 schools, than to the United States’, which has about 50 million students and 90,000 schools.

But more important, he said, Britain’s political system endows its prime ministers with greater powers to impose new practices than any corresponding American official enjoys, since basic education policies in the United States are set in the 50 states and in the nation’s 15,000 local school districts, he said. Even though President Bush’s No Child Left Behind Law has considerably increased federal influence over what happens in American schools, Washington still plays a subsidiary role to states and municipalities, he said.

…[F]or the state [of Ohio] to put its recommendations in place in a coherent way, he said, would require an unlikely alignment of galaxies: The Ohio State Board of Education, the state’s new Democratic governor and its Republican-dominated Legislature would all have to cooperate closely.

“And that’s not to mention Ohio’s 613 school districts,” he added. “So it’s a real challenge to align all these actors behind that reform.”

In Mr. Blair’s Britain, it was possible to impose a new policy quickly. … No American state has addressed its failing schools with a vigor that is even remotely similar, even though under No Child Left Behind, about 1,800 of the nation’s schools have been identified as in need of overhaul. So far, none of the 50 states have even outlined a forceful set of policies for such schools.

…Sir Michael said that he considers No Child Left Behind to be an outstanding law, perhaps one of the most important pieces of education legislation in American history, he said. But the law is not without its flaws, he said, which include its methodology for identifying underperforming schools on the basis of student test scores alone.

“It depends much too often on quite crude tests and one year’s data,” he said….