The SOUTH ORANGE COUNTY COMMUNITY COLLEGE DISTRICT —
"[The] blog he developed was something that made the district better." - Tim Jemal, SOCCCD BoT President, 7/24/23
Two Capistrano Unified trustees, including the school board president, were found in the superintendent's office looking through papers on a day when all district offices were closed, a district official confirmed Thursday.
The Reg has the juicy details. The trustees in question are “Board President Ellen Addonizio and trustee Sue Palazzo.” They were “found” last Friday (the 25th), in Superintendent A. Woodrow Carter's office.
According to the Reg,
Addonizio and Palazzo are part of the five-trustee bloc on the Capistrano Unified school board whose campaigns were endorsed by – and largely funded by – the CUSD Recall Committee parents group. Addonizio was elected in 2006; Palazzo was elected in June's recall election that ousted longtime trustees Sheila Benecke and Marlene Draper. ¶ The five so-called "reform" trustees on the seven-member school board have been outspoken critics of the district's administration, calling for increased scrutiny over district affairs and aggressive investigations to get to the bottom of a number of controversies that have dogged the district in recent years.
Now, who do you suppose got these people elected?
Well, that would be Education Alliance, on whose board SOCCCD board president Don Wagner sits.
Naturally, this incident has not gone down well:
“I’ve been in this business for over 50 years, and I’ve never, ever in my entire career seen this behavior by a trustee,” said trustee Duane Stiff, who found out about the incident Monday. “It’s horribly unprofessional. They knew he was out of town and the building was closed. If they needed to talk to the superintendent, they have his cell number.”
Stiff needs to get out more. Some of our trustees in the SOCCCD are at least as unprofessional as these two women. Remember Dot Fortune glowering and fuming at the state investigator through a window? Remember the board's "persistent and defiant" misconduct re secrecy? Remember the time Frogue mooned Milchiker?
PERKS FOR JERKS. At Monday’s meeting of the SOCCCD Board of Trustees, Trustee Nancy Padberg requested a report on trustee travel expenses (2007-08). For years now, she has been trying to cast a spotlight on some questionable expenses, such as trustees—and the Chancellor—attending conferences in Orlando when the same enlightenment is dispensed at conferences nearby.
Republican John Williams seems to be her chief target. As I recall, at one point, Williams defended these junkets by appealing to the trustee code of ethics, according to which trustees ought to attend conferences—you know, to keep informed about "student learning objectives" and new and improved "hypervacuous educationist palaverities." [OK. I'm officially claiming "palaverities."]
His reasoning seemed to be thus:
1. Trustees have a duty to attend conferences. 2. By junketing to Orlando, John attends a conference. 3. Thus, by junketing to Orlando, John (merely) does his duty as a trustee.
This reasoning is valid only if the first premise means or implies something like: "trustees have a duty to attend conferences irrespective of considerations of waste or usefulness." Naturally, if that is what premise 1 is saying, then premise 1 is false and his reasoning is unsound. (Arguably, Williams was arguing for a stronger point: that he would be failing in his duty (aka doing wrong) by not sunning his ass in Orlando. The reasoning to that conclusion, of course, would be more fallacious still.)
John, who is also the County of Orange Public Administrator/Guardian, is not the brightest bulb on the tree. ("Stop living in an Ivory Castle!" he once roared.) It's a good thing his county job only concerns corpses, cuz he can't do much harm to them, I suppose.
In today’s “OC Watchdog” (Jet Set Club: Your Congressmembers hit the road), we learn that our local Congresspeople, too, can be big travel spenders. In their case, however, the dubious travel is often international.
The writer consulted a “nifty function” on the Center for Responsive Politics website and determined that Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher and his staff “have racked up more than $33,684 in trips since 2005.” They’ve been to “Albania, Bangkok, China…my favorite is watching a satellite launch in Miami.”
Florida again. Cheesy politicians seem drawn to Florida. I don't get it.
Next comes Republican Ed Royce, who represents Fullerton: $18,501. He likes it down in Cuba, South Africa, and Holland.
POSH POL GABFEST. As you know, John McCain and Barack Obama will appear at the Saddleback mega-church on Saturday, August 16 (part of its “Civil Forum on Leadership and Compassion”). The event will be televised live.
According to the Reg (McCain, Obama event ticket info available Aug. 1), tickets will be available on the 1st of August. Check it out. And check out the digs. I always tell students, "The really big money is in religion."
Maybe the all-time best movie scene about career advice:
REMEDIATION DOESN’T WORK? A new and seemingly-impressive study on the efficacy of remedial education (e.g., in Math, Reading) has cast assumptions of efficacy into doubt. According to Inside Higher Ed (Questioning the Value of Remedial Education), a pair of scholars—Juan Carlos Calcagno of the Community College Research Center, at Teachers College of Columbia University, and Bridget Long of the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University—have analyzed 100,000 community college students in Florida and they’ve found only “some positive impact.”
In looking at the impact of remedial education, the study found that — among those on the edge of needing remediation — being assigned to remedial math and reading courses has the effect on average of increasing the number of credits completed and the odds that students will return for a second year. But while those are important factors, the report finds no evidence that remedial education increases the completion of college-level credits or of degree completion.
In light of the cost of remediation, the authors think we should reconsider it.
THE MEREST OF RUMORS. I hear that Raghu Mathur is doing everything in his power to be invited onto "Dancing with the Stars." Just a rumor. Reminds me of another illiterate hoofer wannabe:
SPIES AMONG US? According to this morning’s Inside Higher Ed (Big Argus Is Watching You), “The National Association of Scholars announced on Tuesday the launch of the Argus Project…to recruit volunteers to monitor college campuses nationwide. The volunteers, a mix of faculty members and private citizens, ‘have begun to look into whether that college conducts politicized teaching, requires ideological adherence, or sustains slights to conservative students,’ said the association’s announcement.”
Actually, I've been spied upon already. A certain well-known operative of the local "Republican Mafia" (The Schroeder-Fuentes crew) took my summer philosophy course a couple of summers ago just so he could see my indoctrination methods in the flesh. Unfortunately for him, I do not indoctrinate, I teach, and so he disappeared after a few weeks.
NAKED PERSON ROCKED AT IVC. Meanwhile, over at our pal Marla Jo Fisher’s “College Life” blog, we read about how things went in a live drawing class at Irvine Valley College during yesterday's earthquake: You don’t want to be doing this during an earthquake. Evidently, the model will be getting a seatbelt soon.
• Meanwhile, over at the OC Reg, R. Scott Moxley informs us that, a little more than an hour after this morning’s earthquake, Buena Park’s “Reverend Wiley Drake named the seismic event, ‘the California Queer Quake,’ and announced via email to his nationwide followers that ‘another queer quake [is] trying to get California's attention.’”
(Above: there was an earthquake. Naturally, everyone phoned someone. And they kept doing it.)
WE’RE STUPID PEOPLE. If you’ve been following the science news, then you know that there’s been a mysterious lull in seismic activity around here lately. It's portentous.
The Reg’s Science Dude now reports that “Scientists have found a way to detect changes in rocks that precede small earthquakes on the San Andreas fault, a possible step toward creating an early warning system for Southern California.”
That’s great. But the Science Dude goes on to say, “The southern branch is of particular concern because it could cause massive death and destruction in Orange County, about 60 miles away.”
Yeah, massive death. We knew that. But we don’t like to talk about it much, do we? The Reg buries its seismic stories in blogs like “Science Dude.” Nobody but me reads "Science Dude." And I forget everything I read there. I'm going to the beach.
UPDATE (11:45 a.m.): about five minutes ago, we felt a pretty strong earthquake. Lasted at least five seconds.
CELL PHONES ARE STUPID, BUT THEY’RE NOT KILLERS. In this morning’s New York Times, John Tierney lists 10 Things to Scratch From Your Worry List, including “killer hot dogs,” “killer sharks,” and “carcinogenic cellphones.” Turns out, the “nitrite” weenie worry was a bust, as was the grilling-killing freakout. According to new research, weenies aren’t even a big threat re saturated fat. (But I bet tofu dogs are much better for you.)
Guess how many people died from shark attacks in the world last year? One.
Do you watch Mythbusters? Then you know that, as far as fuel economy goes, you’re better off using you’re A/C rather than driving with your windows open. According to Tierney, “After doing tests at 65 miles per hour, the mileage experts at edmunds.com report that the aerodynamic drag from opening the windows cancels out any fuel savings from turning off the air-conditioner.”
Thanks to the reliably unreliable Larry King, who seems to select guest experts with a randomizer, lots of people are afraid of their own cell phones, but, in truth, nobody can identify a way that those stupid things could hurt you, and “epidemiological studies have failed to find consistent links between cancer and cell phones”—i.e., there is no reason to suppose that there is a correlation between cell phone use and cancer.
I’m pretty sure that the Reb and I are the only Orange Counties who do not own one of these gadgets. We hate ‘em. At least I do. That’s got nothing to do with cancer, though.
WAIT. CELL PHONES ARE KILLERS. This morning’s Inside Higher Ed reports a curious element in the U of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s new student orientation program: they are “adding warnings for new students about the dangers of “ped-texting” — sending cell phone text messages while walking.” Apparently, some of these kids just walk out into the street like zombies.
Of course, we all know what happens when you talk on your cell phone while driving. People are bad enough drivers as it is. Teenagers should not be allowed to talk and drive. Well, they should not be allowed to drive. Or talk.
SHOT IN ASS. DON'T KNOW WHY. According to the OC Reg (Man found shot in the butt in Stanton), well, a man was found shot in the butt in the city of Stanton.
Authorities don’t know how this happened to the guy. They’ve interviewed him, and “He’s doing his best to cooperate,” or so says a cop. But he’s so goofed up, he’s no help.
I bet the guy has a cell phone. They should check it for nitrate residue.
COMPLETELY OUT OF CONTROL. Yesterday, the Reg reported that two Tesoro High School seniors would be appearing in court (See). Recently, these kids were charged with “altering public records, computer access and fraud, burglary, identity theft and conspiracy in what prosecutors described as an elaborate plot to better their odds of getting into college.”
They’ve retained a celebrity lawyer—Larry King regular, Mark Geragos.
Looks like these kids were way out of control. One of them “altered his Advanced Placement exam scores, stole an English test he was caught cheating on, and pilfered master copies of tests, some of which were e-mailed to dozens of Advanced Placement students.”
No word on whether these kids have cell phones.
Why I hate cell phones
I recall one night maybe a year ago in a parking lot. Seemed like nobody was around. Maybe there was one guy about forty yards away, where it was dark. But somebody was madly talking to somebody. It was creepy. How could this be?
It be all right. It was this solitary guy, walking across the parking lot, unapologetically yammering at full volume on his goddam cell phone. I hated that guy. I hated how he weirded me out and he never even knew or cared.
You’ll be talking to somebody and then, wham, something starts buzzing on the table; or maybe some goofy calliope music plays; or maybe there’s the sound of nuts cracking coming from somebody’s pants.
Your companion suddenly looks at a spot on the wall and then reaches for their goddam cell phone. They look away from you. You’re gone. You’ve been forgotten. You shuffle away like Puff the freakin’ Magic Dragon—only to run into somebody else walkin’ and yackin’ on the phone. You step out of their way. You’ve always gotta step out of their way, ‘cause, when they’re talking, they’re morons, and they think they own the fuckin’ universe.
Hate ‘em. Cell phones I mean.
Why do people—especially kids, but adults too—always embrace popular new gadgets? It’s the kind of thing little kids should do, not adults. New modes of life—IMing, going through your day listening to music and utterly ignoring everything and everybody around you, suddenly startin’ up a phone conversation while you're in the bathroom—you’ve gotta take a beat, man. Don’t just jump in there! How do you know this isn’t just ridiculous? I mean, it’s new, so how would you know?
It’s this endless enthusiasm for jumping right in there and feeling really good about being part of the mindless horde who doesn’t think about anything but just does stuff—that’s what pisses me off. If that’s the way people are, there’s no hope. None at all.
I swear, soon somebody will find a way for two people to drink the same Coke—serially, I mean—probably with weird-assed straws shaped like Ronald McDonald and comin' out of your neck—or maybe they'll figure out a way to surgically exchange ears, and everybody will be all over it with their "new" ears and punctured necks. They’ll smile and laugh (through their neck hole) and think you’re obviously an asshole if you’re not into it too.
See, this has to do with how conservatism does not exist in this country. If you’re conservative, you’ve got this idea that things barely work as it is. And that means, mostly, you don’t wanna just shuffle the deck just for the sake of shuffling. Things could get worse. We could lose what we've got.
But, in this country, everybody’s into shuffling. Everybody's moving around and doing new things. And it’s all about commerce and somebody with something new to sell. The money people: they’ll change everything around without a thought, except the thought of how to make money and more money. And everybody goes along with it, ‘cause they’re morons, and they don’t think about how the most valuable things might just be imbedded in away of life. So you don't want to mess with it too much. You gotta be careful. Take it slow, if you can.
Note: Tracy's "board meeting highlights" are available here.
Tonight’s meeting of the SOCCCD board of trustees was supposed to start at 6:30, but it didn’t start until nearly an hour and a half later.
The first order of business was to read out decisions made by the board in closed session:
On a 5-1 vote, with trustee Bill Jay dissenting (Marcia Milchiker was absent), it was decided that David Bugay would be offered employment as Vice Chancellor of Human Resources (replacing Bob King).
On a 6-0 vote, it was decided that Robert Bramucci would be offered the job as Vice Chancellor of Technology and Learning Services (replacing Andreea Serban).
On a 5-1 vote, with Trustee Nancy Padberg dissenting, it was decided that Tracy Daly would be appointed Associate Provost of ATEP for one semester (she’ll be replacing IVC President Glenn Roquemore, I believe. He filled in after Bob Kopecky stepped down).
There was a resolution of some sort about the glory and wonder of ATEP. They even let Bob Kopecky get in the picture (Don Wagner seemed to be behind that), though he wasn't named in the Resolution. That's Mathur for you.
Chancellor Raghu Mathur introduced us to Saddleback College’s new President (starting in a few days), Todd Burnett. Burnett said he was very impressed by the trustees. Maybe Fuentes showed him his scar, dunno.
Next, Mathur trotted out David Bugay. Next came Bramucci, who we’ve seen before (at a Chancellor’s “opening session” not long ago).
Tracy Daly came up too, but she seemed to keep her distance from Mathur. She was all smiles, though.
Nancy Padberg’s invocation was interesting. She referred to how we have different varieties of “spirituality.” In the end, she led us through a moment of silence. I kid you not.
Board reports were unremarkable, aside from Trustee Fuentes’ announcement that he has filed (or will file) for reelection in November. (At one point tonight, someone whispered in my ear, “We give him a reason to live.”) As you know, recently, the fellow underwent liver transplant surgery.
Later, we learned that Fuentes has been reappointed to the US Election Assistance Commission. That’s just great. I think I’m giving up on voting, unless I get a receipt.
Wagner once again praised the people he worked with on the Irvine Valley College Accreditation “task force,” a group that by all accounts has done excellent work in the last seven months.
Several on the dais referred to meeting spankin’ new OC Sheriff Sandra Hutchins. Mathur even noted that the good sheriff would be visiting tomorrow, meeting with our two police chiefs. “I’ll be there,” said Mathur—a remark that couldn’t be more unnecessary.
Naturally, all this talk about Hutchins was a tad ironic, for, thanks to Tom Fuentes, this district has (or had) many ties to now disgraced former Sheriff Mike Carona, who awaits trial on corruption and excessive sexual braggadocio.
During his report, Mathur noted that the district has broken the 25,000 barrier for FTES (essentially, hours of teaching of students).
Trustee Nancy Padberg asked for a report on trustee travel and related expenses for 2007-8. You know what that’s about. She smirked. Trustee John Williams flinched.
Tonight’s “discussion item” was a real barn burner: the state of maintenance at the two colleges. This amounted to reports from the two maintenance chiefs, both of whom carped about the unfortunate consequences of the “low bid” policy for projects. We pay and pay to correct shabby work, they said. Apparently, the State Chancellor’s Office realizes that the "low bid" policy isn’t working.
Eventually, the board got to item 7.4, a report on employees earning over $90k. That was Fuentes’ baby. He said the predictable things about the “generous support” of “the taxpayer.” (I had a brief look at the list. Do you know that there are faculty who make over $200K [including benefits, which are about $30K] per year?! I noticed that counseling was well-represented in that top bracket. How is it possible? Naturally, most 90+ salaries were far smaller.)
Earlier, Bill Jay made an excellent suggestion: that we should be comparing the salaries of our employees with the salaries of equivalent employees in contiguous community college districts. He’s right. For once, Bill bested Tom.
During group reports, IVC Prez Glenn Roquemore thanked the various participants of the IVC Accred Focus Group. Of the report they have drafted, he said, “I think it hits the mark.” Glenn also reported that ATEP enrollments have been very high (about 600 this summer). He indicated that Chapman U, CSU Fullerton, and even UCI are “excited” about working with us at ATEP. (I got confirmation tonight that “Camelot” is out of the picture. One source told me that other groups [with big money, I assume], though, “have been standing in line” to get involved.)
IVC’s Academic Senate Prez, Wendy G, once again thanked trustee Don Wagner, VC Gary Poertner, IVC Prez Glenn Roquemore, and others for their fine work on the Accred Focus Group. (Did I mention that Gary was wearing a stunning pair of white shoes?)
Saddleback’s Academic Senate Prez, Bob C, noted the hard work that is being done now on SLOs at the college. He referred, too, to other belated efforts to get his college on track with regard to Accreditation. He thanked in particular board Prez Wagner and Trustee Dave Lang for their assistance. Turns out about $31K will be expended to support faculty in efforts to take care of SLOs (a key recommendation from the Accreds) and to complete the work in writing a decent report to ACCJC/WASC by the Oct. 15 deadline.
Bob said that he was “sorry” that things fell behind. “Things got screwed up,” he said. "Not sure what happened."
Yep, things got screwed up, and lots of people dropped the ball, but Bob has done more than anyone to try to turn things around. So far, so good.
The smoke from the Yosemite fire fills Squaw Valley late at night then the daily winds blow it somewhere else and by late afternoon the sky is clear again. The fire is burning parts of Yosemite that have no recorded fire history.
This morning Rebel Girl baked two loaves of bread, as she has done daily for the last week—she likes a challenge; she likes the magic of yeast; she likes to feed people; she likes knowing that no matter what tragedies fall in a day, her bread will rise and people will eat it. Today she ate one of the loaves with the fine poet who wrote the poem below.
(This one is for Vicki Forman. All love.)
Perseid Shower
Meteors break through late summer night,
white blossoms scattering, furiously. They don’t make a noise,
at least none that we can hear.
They disappear in all directions signifying desire
and its difficulty. There. The half-moon floats
thin, translucent as an insect’s wing. We say the moon is
half-full, even as it wanes.
So much longing. . . to witness the unfolding
across distance. How we must look to anyone watching.
Here, the star cage: Still life with black clock.
- Gary Short from 10 Moons and 13 Horses
(On Tuesday August 12, the Perseid meteor shower will occur. Rebel Girl and family will look up that night, wherever they are. They hope you will too.)
My oh my. Just spotted this in the OC Reg: Capistrano trustees found looking through superintendent's desk:
According to the Reg, 
