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)

Capo recall on track

Capistrano district activists collect 32,000 recall signatures (OC Reg)

A group of Capistrano Unified activists attempting to recall two district trustees from office this November has collected more than 32,000 petition signatures per trustee from community members, about 50 percent more than the minimum number required to put the issue on the ballot, organizers said…. (Continued)

CUSD Recall Group Gathers over 32,000 Signatures (OC Progressive)

That’s right, Parents for Local Control sent out a press release that they’ve gone above and beyond the 2,000 signatures needed to recall Winsten and Maddox from the Capistrano Unified School District and done it in more than half the time required from the OC Registrar’s office, with no paid signature gatherers…. (Continued)

Yesterday's protests, Santa Ana

The Reb and Limber Lou at yesterday's protests in Santa Ana

Hundreds in Santa Ana protest Arizona law (OC Reg)

Red and the Reb (and even Limber Lou) are there!

(Last photo: OC Reg)

Middlesex to phase out philosophy (Times Higher Education)

John Williams, a man of many discrepancies (like an electron, he manages to be in two places at once!)

Once again, Pen Pal has sent me some government records that, like so many we've already seen, paint a curious and disturbing picture of Mr. John Williams, SOCCCD trustee, County Administrator/Guardian, and alleged "fiscal conservative."

This time, they're time sheets.

Here's one of them:

This time sheet was submitted by Williams on November 22 of 2005. As you can see, he claimed to have put in 8 hours of work per day (as OC Public Administrator/Guardian) from November 14 to November 18, 2005. (Click on the graphics to enlarge them.)

Here's the problem. Not long ago, Pen Pal requested records from the South Orange County Community College District regarding Williams' travel and expenses as an SOCCCD trustee. Here's a detail of some of what he received:

According to the district's records, Williams was at a conference in San Francisco from the 17th until the 19th of November, 2005. (Doubtless, the district paid for his air travel and lodging.) But if he was in San Francisco on the 17th and 18th, how could he have put in 8 hours at his office in Santa Ana on both the 17th and 18th?

Gee Willikers! I wonder if, in turning in that time sheet, John was claiming to have done work that in fact he did not do?

As you know, this is not the first time we've noticed discrepancies in records of Mr. Williams' work and travel. (See At a hotel in Tampa, Florida?)

Here's another time sheet that Pen Pal recently acquired:

As you can see, Mr. Williams claimed to be working for 8 hours (presumably at his Santa Ana office) on December 5 and 6 of 2005. And yet the above SOCCCD document has Mr. Williams at a conference in San Diego from the 4th until the 6th of that month. Was it really possible for Williams to attend a conference in San Diego while working full days in Santa Ana?

Here is yet another time sheet that Pen Pal recently received:

On this document, Williams claimed to be working (for 8 hours) on the 3rd and 4th of April, 2006. But the above SOCCCD document indicates that Williams was at a conference in Orlando, Florida (he has family there), from the 1st until the 4th.

Pen Pal received this time sheet as well:

Here, Williams claimed to put in a full day of work on both the 29th and 30th of January, 2007. But, again, the district document (above) indicates that Williams was at a conference in Orlando, Florida, from January 27 to 30 in 2007. How could he be at his County office on the 29th and 30th if he were in Florida on those days? 

Another time sheet:

Williams claimed to put in full work days on April 12 (not shown), 13, 16, and 17, 2007. According to SOCCCD records, however, Williams was in Tampa, Florida, at a conference from April 12 to 17, 2007. (Pen Pal has the time sheet for 4/12 as well.) (We covered some of this on a prior post.)

Pen Pal writes that, "From 11/15/07 through 11/21/09, when [Williams] did not have to fill out a timesheet, I am seing approximately 58 additional days where he was out of town on SOCCCD business." He notes that, for a two year period, that's an awful lot of time taken from his county job.

I wonder if the County paid him for any of those days? Perhaps we'll never know.

SEE ALSO:

• Is Mr. Williams accountable? Apparently not
• OC Public Administrator/Guardian claims to be at work despite being at a hotel in Tampa, Florida

Big thanks to Pen Pal, who, for the time being, prefers to remain anonymous. He acquired the time sheets via a formal request to Mr. Howard Sutter, Manager, CEO Community/Media Relations, County of Orange. He acquired the SOCCCD "travel" documents via a request to Tracy Daly, the district’s Director of Public Affairs and Intergovernmental Relations.

I have read Mr. Pal's correspondences with these officials, and it appears that they have been very professional and cooperative. We thank you both!

Report Hits For-Profit Colleges for Aggressive Recruiting at Homeless Shelters (Chronicle of Higher Education)
U of Phoenix, natch

A Tardy Report on Democracy from the 2010 LA Times Festival of Books (Red Emma)

By Red Emma

The purposeful failure of the anti-immigrant law and order folks to consider the conditions which create—no, demand—the predictable migration of Mexican and Central American workers to El Norte (NAFTA, for example) suggests a clear choice about how far to think. Anybody who allows themselves to consider cause and effect will of course find it logical and reasonable to choose not to draw a line at Tijuana or in the desert sand, to let their minds break through somebody’s wall or fence. But that would mean looking (and learning) beyond the border, itself a contrivance of wealth and privilege, history and empire and violence, a demarcation, finally, of the lack of imagination.

No duh, right? Oh, and sorry for the Big Speech.

Meanwhile, the very best—and worst—moment of the two days I sat at my own modest booth last weekend at the 15th annual Festival of Books at UCLA offered an amusing illustration of this variety of choosing, and choosing where and when to think. Or not. It arrived when I saw the Scientologist from the “Galaxy Books – Fiction by L. Ron Hubbard” booth next door offer a tract to Father Gregory Boyle, walking by on his way to be interviewed about his memoir, Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion, recounting his work at Dolores Mission and as founder of Homeboy Industries. Talk about not knowing, or caring about your audience!

Dressed like a cowboy ("Hopalong" L. Ron, I dubbed him) the cultist offered the radical priest a copy of his silly magazine proselytizing for a Ponzi scheme-religion founded by an insane sci-fi hack writer. You could not make this up, and yet it must happen all the time. It spoke to me of the boundaries and assumptions which define discourse in our fitful democracy, and the need to understand what we are willing to consider, to imagine.  And what we should perhaps not, and how best to respond.

Helpfully instructive and yet wildly funny this moment was, for at least two reasons, but who’s counting?  First, the cluelessness of the cultist as regards the famous figure himself, author of a stunning autobiography telling the story of his ministering to former gangbangers and founding a business to employ them. Why would he want to join Scientology? Second, funny because it’s possible that only Reporter Red saw this perfect scene at all, through a throng of attendees there to learn, listen, read and think, a singular celebration of the life of the mind and of civic engagement struggling itself with the rip-off artists and parasites, all of whom can also rent a booth at this ad hoc Marketplace of Ideas. 

You’ll have to trust me that, indeed, the moment actually occurred in the alphabet soup tureen of democracy and literacy, reaction and hucksterism that is the Festival, where are sold “book products” and stupid genre fiction, self-help and, yes, that one book somebody has written and self-published, ridiculous or heroic. 

Under "heroic," file of course Father Boyle and one Frank Dorrell, whose publication and distribution of Joel Andreas’s comic book narrative Addicted to War finds Mr. Dorrell and his volunteer crew at their very own booth every year. The poor guy must cringe when he sees Red Emma coming, each late Sunday afternoon, to shake his hand and offer thanks and admiration. Dorrell has sold, given away or otherwise gotten out into the world something like half a million copies of this amazing comic book critique of US imperialism. 

Under "ridiculous" or maybe just "clueless," consider the religionists. The Holy Koran was available, it seemed, at every corner. For free! Imagine. Amusingly, its promoters stood hollering their “truth” at one location not fifty feet from the nutty Ayn Rand “Objectivist” crowd and an Asian mother-goddess cult filming visitors to its booth posing with people dressed in furry animal creature costumes. (Science fiction is religion. Religion is science fiction. I cheered myself later by purchasing a big bumper sticker from the atheist booth: “No Gods, No Masters.” But that’s just Red.)

I hoped, wickedly, that the Islamists or goddess-worshippers or other believers might get into it with the Scientologists or Jews for Jesus or the Buddhists, all of them also at the Fest. Alas, they are all respectful of each other because, well, no crook wants to mess with a good deal, a con game with thousands of potential marks, rubes and innocents. The Space Monkeys next door actually persuaded grown adult American parents to surrender their names and email addresses (!) after posing the saps’ defenseless children for photos—not with a big stuffed animal but with, yes, a Scientologist pirate, Captain Thetan maybe. Aaargh!

But there was, thankfully, redemption, though you had to look for it. Against and beyond the spectacle of the religionists, cultists and parasites, highlights for Red included meeting the founder of PM Press, a legendary fellow named Ramsey Kanann who thirty years ago started the alternative publishing house AK Press.  

At his booth I purchased my very own Chumbawamba t-shirt

—and a newly re-released copy of my friend Monona Wali’s award-winning film “Maria’s Story” on DVD. 

I also got to shake hands with cartoonist Lalo Alcaraz at the KPFK booth, where he was giving away free copies of his U.S. Census 2010 comic book, available in English and Spanish, and check in with the good folks at Heyday Books and The Nation magazine and chat with artist J. Michael Walker, author of the magnificent and beautiful All the Saints of the City of Los Angeles.

So many good people, doing such good, true and honest work. Even as so many of our fellow citizens are, it seems, not able or allowed to see the beauty and power of art to inspire resistance and community because somebody is trying to convince them that pretend is real. But finding the genuine would mean knowing where to look for it.  Perhaps next year Red will write up a helpful critical guide to the Festival? Do Festival attendees even know who the Galaxy Fiction people really are? Do they know the appropriate response to offer proselytizers? Clearly, the religionists and cultists imagine they know us. Because they don’t know us, we are their potential victims. We should fight back.

We should identify ourselves. 

The Reg can't win

Today, Orange Juice’s Larry Gilbert—some kinda Tea Partier, I think—reported on yesterday's Veterans Memorial dedication at Saddleback College:

Veterans Memorial Dedication Saddleback College

That OJ crew is nothing if not querulous. Gilbert made a point of carping about the OC Register’s coverage of the event:

I think the Register reporter needs to walk with me at the next event they cover. For some reason I actually counted the chairs and those standing in the rear and sides of this quad. There were 1,000 attendees, not 500 as reported in today’s Register, but that should not take away from the success of this event.

Check out the peevish comments at the end of Gilbert's post.

Bye

Some Students Want Out of Arizona (Chronicle of Higher Education)

The University of Arizona's president said Thursday that the institution is losing some top students because of the state's new immigration law, a law many view as encouraging ethnic profiling and other forms of discrimination against Latinos. President Robert E. Shelton released a letter in which he said: "We have already begun to feel an impact from SB1070. The families of a number of out-of-state students (to date all of them honors students) have told us that they are changing their plans and will be sending their children to universities in other states. This should sadden anyone who cares about attracting the best and brightest students to Arizona." A spokesman for Arizona State University said that institution has received "several phone calls of applicants saying they won't come now."