Wise and necessary!

Education Department Takes Aim at For-Profits With Student-Debt Rule (Chronicle of Higher Education)

     After a five-week delay, the Education Department will release a rule Friday that would penalize for-profit colleges that saddle students with unmanageable amounts of debt.
     The proposed "gainful employment" rule, which has been anticipated by for-profit colleges and short-sellers alike, would cut off federal aid to programs whose students have the highest debt burdens and lowest loan-repayment rates, while limiting enrollment growth at hundreds of other programs. For-profit lobbyists are calling the rule "unwise and unnecessary."
     In a conference call with reporters, the Education Department said it was seeking to protect students and taxpayers from the high costs of student-loan defaults.
     "While career colleges play a vital role in training our work force to be globally competitive, some of them are saddling students with debt they cannot afford in exchange for degrees and certificates they cannot use," said Secretary of Education Arne Duncan in a written statement.
. . .
     The share of borrowers defaulting on their student loans in the first two years of repayment has climbed steadily in recent years, reaching a 10-year high of 7.2 percent this year, according to the Education Department.
     For-profit colleges, which educate less than 10 percent of students but receive close to a quarter of federal-student-loan dollars, account for a disproportionate share of those defaults. Two years into repayment, roughly 12 percent of borrowers who attended for-profit colleges have defaulted on their federal loans, compared with 6 percent of those who attended public colleges and 4 percent who attended private colleges.
     When the government is unable to collect on defaulted loans, taxpayers are on the hook for the losses. Borrowers, meanwhile, face damaged credit histories, are ineligible for additional federal aid, and may have their wages and tax refunds seized by the government.... (Continued)

"Amicus" support for our "prayer" lawsuit against the SOCCCD

     Recently, three groups have filed amicus (friend of the court) letters in support of our “prayer” lawsuit against the South Orange County Community College District (aka Westphal v. Wagner).
     One of the organizations is the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). Here’s an excerpt from their letter:

     Another letter/brief was jointly filed by the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges and the Faculty Association of California Community Colleges.
     Here are some excerpts:

(Click on graphic to enlarge it)

(Click on graphic to enlarge it)

Pictured: Karla Westphal, speaking before the SOCCCD board of trustees

Competitive admissions in nursing programs

Vying for Limited Slots (Inside Higher Ed)

     Community colleges pride themselves on open admissions policies. But an increasing number are moving to competitive admissions in nursing programs.
     Officials at Southern State Community College, in Ohio, recently announced that the college would abandon the first-come-first-served approach of its associate degree nursing program next spring and adopt competitive admissions standards. Currently, all students who meet the program’s minimum requirements — mainly earning at least a 2.5 cumulative grade point average in college and completing a series of prerequisite math and science courses — are placed on a waiting list and admitted according to number. The 4.0 GPA student has no advantage over the 2.5 GPA student. Next spring, all qualified students will be ranked using an institution-developed equation, taking into equal consideration their overall GPA, grades in the required courses and entrance exam scores. Those with a higher rank will be given precedence in filling the program’s 100 slots.
. . .
     Like many nursing programs around the country, the one at Southern State has more qualified students than it can currently accommodate. [Julianne Krebs, director of nursing at Southern State] noted that its last waiting list had about 120 students. Given this, it is likely that Southern State's program, also like others with competitive entry, will turn away many qualified students.
     Elaine Tagliareni, chief program officer of the National League for Nursing and former community college nursing professor, noted that Southern State’s change is indicative of a larger trend of community college nursing programs adopting competitive admissions. She noted that the tremendous shortage of nurses in the field has pressured many community college programs to try to improve their passage rates by adopting these criteria….
. . .
     Two years ago…, the California Legislature passed a law setting competitive-admissions standards for all community college nursing programs in the state. Before the change, all qualified students were chosen for programs by a lottery system. The change has made a noticeable difference in California.
     “Community colleges with as high as 50-70 percent drop-out rates moved to accepting the students with the highest grades in prerequisites, or at least a minimal grade of B,” [ Patricia Benner, professor emerita at the University of California at San Francisco School of Nursing] explained. “This lowered the failure rates, repeat course rates, and the drop-out rates. … It is expensive to take students who are likely to fail and/or drop out. Saddleback Community College nursing program in Southern California near [Los Angeles] is my prime example of this policy. They have a high completion rate, and they also have 100 percent pass rates for the nursing licensing exams.”….

Unlike Don Wagner, Melissa Fox is agin the government imposing values

     Don Wagner’s Democratic opponent in the race for the 70th Assembly District seat, Melissa Fox, writes about abortion in today’s Orange Juice Blog. Her piece is called The Most Personal Decision. (See also here.)
     Fox explains that the abortion issue is very personal for her because her unmarried, eighteen-year-old mother faced the difficult choice of whether to seek an abortion 43 years ago.
     She goes on to state her position and her disagreement with Don Wagner:

     Whether or not to have an abortion – or whether to give a child up for adoption – is a deeply personal and often painful decision for a woman or couple to make, and it is a decision they have to make based on their own faith and values, not someone else’s – and certainly not the government’s.
     My opponent for the 70th Assembly District believes otherwise.
     He believes that he has the right to impose his own faith and beliefs on every woman and family in California. He has vowed to use his position in the legislature “to defend life from conception to natural death” – bringing back the days when thousands of women each year in California were forced to make the horrific choice between having unwanted children or illegal, dangerous abortions. And he has already received thousands of dollars in contributions from groups outside our district that are determined to use the government to impose their particular faith on everyone else.

     Responses to Fox’s piece run the gamut. At least one response is thoughtful.
     Don usually describes himself as a libertarian. Evidently, he makes an exception in the case of pregnancies to the familiar libertarian rejection of government "interference." Perhaps he is inclined to insist that a fetus is a person and the government should therefore be protecting fetuses from, well, being killed by anyone.
     Does anyone know how Don explains the prima facie conflict between his libertarianism and his hostility to abortion rights?
     Wagner doesn’t discuss abortion on his campaign website, but I don’t doubt that he holds the position that Fox attributes to him. I'll try to locate an explanation of his views on abortion. [CORRECTION: at the end of his comment regarding the "protection" of families, Wagner writes: "I believe that life is precious and will fight to defend life from conception to natural death."]

Armando Ruiz' appalling legacy

     One of the minor characters in the epic “SOCCCD and the Neanderthals” saga is Armando "Beyondo" Ruiz, who, while counseling at Saddleback College, managed to get elected on the Coast Community College District board of trustees. That started back in the 80s, I believe.
     Ruiz is coarse, stupid, spectacularly incorrect (around women), and dishonest. Naturally, therefore, about a dozen years ago, in his desperation to gain allies, then-IVC President Raghu Mathur cut a deal with Ruiz; he had "Boots" transferred from Saddleback College to Irvine Valley College for the purpose of grooming him for an administrative career, despite Boot Boy's manifest shititude.
     Not a problem.
     Soon, Ruiz was indeed an IVC administrator, eventually achieving his Mathur-contrived apex as the Vice President of Student Services. Besides Mathur, he was the least popular person at the college.
     That Ruiz was a creep wasn’t a problem for Mathur--after all, Mathur’s creepitude at least matches Ruiz’. That he kept f*cking up was slightly more bothersome. But the worst thing about Ruiz was his manifest disgruntlement, in 2002, when he wasn’t chosen to replace Mathur, who, natch, was awarded the district Chancellorship right after having sued the district. (He sued the district for not having protected him from my suing him in response to his suing me for reporting the truth about him—namely, that he had once violated a federal law protecting students' privacy rights.)
     So, after that, Ruiz bailed, i.e., he retired.
     That’s when he performed the sleazy maneuver upon which his wider infamy rests. Exploiting a loophole in the law, he resigned his trusteeship just days before getting reelected; he thus contrived to enjoy an enormous pension. (As Frank Mickadeit once explained: “He was taking advantage of a loophole that allows a person who exits two state jobs on the same day to count the highest-paying of the two as the salary for both jobs for the purpose of calculating his pension. …So, Ruiz "retired" ... as a part-time trustee of the Coast district and as a full-time counselor at Irvine Valley College. Even though the trustee gig pays just a $9,800 annual stipend, he was able to calculate his state pension as if he had been paid $106K a year for that "job'" plus the $106K a year he got for his real job at Irvine.")
     It was a spectacular flimflam, proving once again that stupidity and craftiness easily fit inside the Neanderthal’s ample cranium.
     A local journalist took up the cause of getting rid of the odious Ruiz. Eventually, Ruiz lost reelection in 2008.
     But he can be proud. Evidently, he has set an example for other Coast trustees! Check it out:

Community college trustee finds pension loophole (OC Reg)

     Coast Community College Trustee Walter Howald has been boosting his future take from the state’s beleaguered public pension fund in a way that most elected officials can’t.
     In the mid-1990s the legislature passed a law saying service as an elected official doesn’t count as service credit in the public employee retirement system.
     CalPERS calculates pensions using two main factors, salary and years of service. Howald previously held administrative positions at Kern County Colleges and College of the Desert; he left the latter in 2008.
     Normally that would mean he would stop accruing service credits in PERS, but because he began serving on the board in 1985, before the passage of the law, he was grandfathered in.
     The Watchdog got wind of this late last month and filed a public records request with the district. The records … verify that Howald has remained enrolled in PERS in his capacity as an elected official.
     But as Howald cheerfully pointed out when The Watchdog chatted with him, this is all legal.
     Still, the loophole and our public records request has spurred the president of the board, Jerry Patterson, to action. He will be proposing a policy at this week’s meeting to eliminate the loophole. His regulation would mandate that a trustee whose salary generates service credit under PERS would be ineligible to be paid by the district.
    That, Patterson says, would solve the problem: A person who receives no salary is not eligible for service credit under PERS.
     This is not the first time the district has confronted retirement payout issues. Former trustee Armando Ruiz retired just days before his 2004 re-election, setting himself up to collect both salary and a pension pay-out. Ruiz lost the 2008 election; criticism of his double-dipping contributed to that ousting….

See also: The sad Armando Ruiz saga (Frank Mickadeit, OC Reg)

Who does Street think he is? John Freaking Williams?

     OC Public Guardian John Williams and OC Treasurer Chriss Street share the same shyster lawyer, namely, Phil Greer.
     Williams, an SOCCCD trustee, is infamous for his hinky expenses, especially for travel to far-away places (Orlando is a fave) and stays at fine hotels—all paid for by the taxpayer.
     Gosh. As it turns out, Street and Williams are twins in that regard as well:

Chriss Street’s travel bill: $60,000 (OC Reg)

     As trustee of a bankrupt company, Chriss Street got in trouble for using his client’s money for his own self interests, including expensive dinners and resort hotels.
     As Orange County’s treasurer-tax collector, Street and his top managers have spent more than $60,000 during the last two years attending conferences in such far-flung places as New York, Las Vegas and Washington D.C. — with stays at the Waldorf Astoria and Venetian hotels.. . .
     Street defended his travel, saying that the things he and his staff learned helped them invest $6.5 billion for the county and more than 20 local school districts. Under his guidance, the county treasury was highly praised by outside groups for its safety, Street said, with its money market fund earning 0.54 percent in the last year.
     “Many of our skills and innovations we’ve learned by going to conferences,” Street said.
     However, Street was stripped of his investment duties by county supervisors in March. The action followed a U.S. bankruptcy court ruling that he wasted millions of his client’s money in his former job as a bankruptcy trustee.
     Barred from investing, Street and his staff continue to travel and spend, with about six months left on his term as treasurer-tax collector.
     Expense documents reviewed by the Orange County Register show that Street and his human resources chief went to San Francisco for a “business process management” class in June at a cost of $11,462. Street’s executive aide Anna Bryson is scheduled to go to South Carolina for a treasurer’s conference later this month.

     Bryson is a trustee for the notorious CAPO school district. You know the one. She used to show up with Street at SOCCCD board meetings, evidently at the request of trustee (and former OC GOP chief) Tom Fuentes.
     You know what he’s about. Remember the "poll guard" incident? He's a total creep.
     The Reg gives examples of Street’s curious expenses:

• Spent $241 in December to attend the funeral of lobbyist Don Peterson in Sacramento. Travel documents stated the trip was to attend the California Association of County Treasurers and Tax Collectors legislative meeting — which was held a day before Street went to Sacramento. In an interview, Street confirmed he went to the funeral, but said he also met that day with state education officials.
• Spent $560 to stay one night at the Waldorf Astoria in February 2008, because other hotels near the conference were booked. “You look for the best price you can, but New York is New York,” Street said.
• Charged the county $250 for a meal in February 2009 at Zeffirino, a high-end Italian restaurant at the Venetian resort in Las Vegas. Street said the tab was for three people and did not include alcohol. “We went there for dinner and that’s what they charged,” he said.
• Routinely made last minute flight arrangements and changes that boosted the cost of travel. In April 2008, Street and Bryson made so many changes that it pushed the cost of airfare for a San Francisco trip from $1,620 to $2,300. One of the reasons for the changes was so that Street and his wife could appear in the South Coast Medical Center Fashion Show, according to an email from Bryson to a staff secretary. ”I try to fly and book in advance, but oftentimes there were conflicts,” Street said. “You want to try and live my life?”
• Traveled six times to New York, mostly to meet with an investment advisor called Lombard Street. He and staff also went seven times to Washington, D.C., mostly to meet with a group called the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which advocates limited government.

     My, my, my. Who does Street think he is? John F*cking Williams?
     Street reminds me of former SOCCCD Chancellor—and pal of Fuentes—Raghu Mathur, who is notorious for spending over $1000 for an office chair and goofy New Age posters and books. He even charged the district for his expensive and absurd commencement Raghulia.
     One time, Mathur tried to pull a fast one: he snuck a raise for himself onto the board agenda and buried it under the heading “academic personnel actions.”
     They caught 'im. But Fuentes protected him.
     Greer is Mathur’s lawyer too.
     It's Orange County, man.

*For the latest on CAPO Unified, see Vern Nelson’s Capo Unified Throwdown: Alpay & Pritchard take on extremists Maddox & Winsten

ALSO IN THE NEWS:

The Real Scandal at Illinois? (Inside Higher Ed)

     If you want to study Buddhist or Methodist or Jewish thought at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, there are relevant courses in religious studies -- courses where the instructors have been selected by a department of scholars, through standard academic procedures.
     But if you want to study Roman Catholicism, your instructors have been through different vetting – they will have been nominated by (and their salaries paid by) the St. John's Catholic Newman Center, a church organization independent of the university, set up to serve Catholic students at the university.
     This arrangement has existed for decades, and been opposed by faculty members – also for decades. Not only is it highly unusual for a college to give an outside group the right to screen and nominate candidates to teach, but the situation raises church-state issues at a public institution, presents issues of fairness when it is permitted for only one religious group at a secular college, and may undercut the values of the field of religious studies, faculty critics say….

Outsourced Ed: Colleges Hire Companies to Build Their Online Courses (Chronicle of Higher Ed)

     Michael Tricoli was a middle manager looking for a leg up in his career, so he got an online M.B.A. from Northeastern University.
     Well, not only from Northeastern. Much of his college experience was outsourced to a private company.
     The company, Embanet, put up millions to start the online business program. Its developers helped build the courses. Its staff talked Mr. Tricoli through the application. It even pays—and, in rare cases, refers for possible hiring—the assistants who help teach students….

My mother's home in Bärwalde, Germany (now in Poland), just prior to the Russian invasion (1945). Owing to its size and ideal location, the home had been taken over as a headquarters by the Wehrmacht (army). You can see a sign on the fence. It appears to be a Star of David, but it's hard to say if that's what it is. (Click on the image to enlarge it.) Mom says that there were indeed official military signs placed on the fence.

Old photos: 20s through 40s

     I continued scanning old photos—and documents—today. I came across papers left by my grandfather (Opa) in an old briefcase, including official yearly "registration" forms that recorded days worked and taxes paid (something like that). Opa seemed to keep all of them. The earliest one I could find was the one above from 1924. He would have been seventeen years old.

     This photo seems to date from the late 20s. That's my Grandmother (Luise) playing the guitar at right. Oma and Opa married in 1930. They lived in Böblingen (the name is a reference to Babylon), which is near Stuttgart.

     I haven't figured out what this one's about. These small town Germans seemed to know how to have a good time.
     My guess is that the photo dates from the late 20s or early 30s. My dad thinks that two of the women look familiar—perhaps they are Opa's sisters or cousins. Most of the people who could have answered the question are gone now.

     My mother lived in the furthest eastern part of Germany—an area that was swallowed up by Poland after the war (Pommern). Here, she is visiting her father's grave in about 1943 or 1944 (she would have been 10 or 11).

     When the Russians advanced a year or two later, soldiers insisted that civilians, especially women, flee to the west. My mother and her stepmother managed to get on a flat car of a train. Most of the trains were bombed or strafed. Mom was among the lucky ones who survived.

     In this photo, my father appears to be about 13 or 14, and so the year would have been about 1945 or 1946.

      My dad and his pals did lots of camping. They lived not far from the Black Forest.

     Arko, the Wonder Dog. My father was given the puppy Arko as a gift from a neighbor. When he saw the pup, Opa was not pleased. Nevertheless, he insisted on joining the local Schutzhund Club (a working dog club that typically involves German Shepherds) and taking Arko to it. Arko was soon the "star" athlete among the dogs. He did everything well.
     By all accounts, he was a great friend too.

Mom hasn't been back to her home town since 1945.

(It's in Poland now.)

Mom ended up near Hamburg. Eventually, she left for Canada in 1951 (she was 17). She met my dad on the boat, an old Liberty Ship that nearly broke in half during the Atlantic crossing. (All passengers were rescued by yet another old Liberty Ship.)