Common Core: "contrived by an insular group of educational testing executives"

"I've already been told by legislators and administrators, Ethan, it's just the way things work; but why? I'm going to answer that question, it's bureaucratic convenience. It works with nuclear reactors, it works with business models, why can't it work with students?"

The Kills - The Last Goodbye

Women's Studies courses at IVC: a deeper look

     It appears that there is continued interest among colleagues and readers in the courses and instruction offered by IVC's Women's Studies Program, which, as you know, is housed in, of all places, the School of Guidance and Counseling.
     Recently, members of that school took great umbrage when a member of the School of Humanities & Languages—a new hire with strong credentials in the area of Women's Studies, acting on behalf of her department and School—approached them with a proposal to develop an inter-disciplinary program to be housed in H&L. (See Dissent's weekly "Hallway Blather"; Counselors' death grip on Women's Studies. See also Women's Studies at other colleges.)
     Those who seek a more detailed look into these courses can consult the following links (available at IVC's Schedule of Courses for Fall 2013 and Spring 2014):

A text for WS 10 (Spring 2014)

Women’s Studies Courses, Fall 2013

• WS 10 – Introduction to Women’s Studies

Topics Covered,
Learning Objectives,
Methods of Evaluation

• WS 120 – Women and Work

Topics Covered,
Learning Objectives,
Methods of Evaluation

Women’s Studies Courses, Spring 2014

• WS 10 – Introduction to Women’s Studies

Topics Covered,
Learning Objectives,
Methods of Evaluation

• WS 20 – Women in Contemporary Society

Topics Covered,
Learning Objectives,
Methods of Evaluation

     I have read through these course outlines, and they are illuminating.
     As I read, I noted that one of the six “topics covered” in “Introduction to Women’s Studies” is “Relgion [sic] vs. Spirituality, and the Importance of the Distinction for Women.”
     That surprised me a bit. But what do I know.
     Also, I was surprised to find that the course's second learning objective (out of 8) is: “[Upon completion of this course, the student will be able to] Define feminism and list its three main goals.”
     I do wonder if students will be let in on the fact that, as in the case of most other isms, the meaning of “feminism” and the nature of its goals are matters of controversy.

Young Teddy,  cat, resting with his dad this afternoon

Today’s Board Forum: big fuzzy balls

Board Prez Nancy P

     EVERYONE GETS A PRIZE. When I got to Bonzo’s Bigtop, aka the Ronnie Reagan Meeting Room, just after 3:00, Saddelback’s Prez Todd Burnett was yammering about something and handing out certificates to the trustees. Don’t know what that was about. Those people are always handing each other prizes. They’re shameless.
     All of the trustees ‘cept Bill Jay were present. I’ve seldom seen so much boardulosity outside a board meeting.
     Earlier, from 12:30 to 2:00, the same crew (with Roquemore instead of Burnett) held a forum at IVC. Here and there, trustees alluded to that. Sounds like getting the IVC crowd to say something, anything, was like pulling teeth. Teeth got extracted lots easier under Bonzo’s Bigtop.
     Natch, the board did a prayer, which turned out to be a moment of silence for veterans and typhoon victims. That was followed by the Pledge. At that point, there were maybe 40 in the audience, though the number later swelled to 60 or so.
     Board Prez Nancy P welcomed everyone in her usual minimally friendly manner. When it comes to spending friendliness, the woman is thrifty. She enjoys these forums, she said. She then turned the whole shebang over to the Chancellor, Gary P.

     MORE ON MUTUAL RESPECT. Gary yammered, somewhat sheepishly, about “mutual respect and collaboration,” though he seemed aware that many of us have heard all that we ever want to hear and more about that tired topic, especially from him. When he “took over,” he said (a reference to his ascendency to the Chancellorship, post-Mathur), “mutual respect and cooperation”—or, rather, the lack thereof—was district problem #1, and so they got to work immediately.
     As Gary spoke, Tere or somebody started distributing a hideous pamphlet about “Barriers.”
     Surely others in the room were thinking what I was thinking: that, sure, during the Mathur years, the district/colleges tanked, mutual-respectwise. But then the district moved onto another species of tankage: we lurched, hideously, into a permanent death-spiral of mindless committeeization, yielding idiotic lists of “barriers,” “recommendations,” and whatnot. Inanity and self-delusion most foul.
     Have you seen the “five barriers to mutual respect, cooperation and collaboration” that these committees came up with? Here they are:

B1: unhealthy competition within and between IVC, Saddleback, and District Services.
B2: lack of utilizing [blecch] data and metrics for decision making [sic]
B3: circumvention and lack of established policies, procedures, and protocols [commas, anyone?]
B4: lack of district-wide perspective and mutual understanding and acceptance of the roles of each college and district services
B5: lack of district policy encouraging civility, respect, and collegial behavior

     No, I’m not making this up. These are the alleged “barriers” to mutual respect, etc. Only administrators—with their ed degrees and enthusiasm for sheer uselessness—could come up with verbiage that inelegant and muddle-headed.
     Attached to the five barriers are 34 “task force recommendations,” which are almost as useless.

     KNOBS. As Wittgenstein wrote, “he turned a knob which looked as if it could be used to turn on some part of the machine; but it was a mere ornament, not connected with the mechanism at all.” Yeah, the shiny knob called “five barriers.” The august knobs called committees. Watch 'em turn. Make sure the world watches; watch the world feel relief. Jump off cliff. Repeat.
     Burnett chirped that, now that we’ve produced all this, “our district is operating much, much better.” “Everyone agrees,” he said, that “results are being felt.”
     He read the five “barriers.” The barriers, we were told, produced five task forces. They in turn produced recommendations to alleviate the barriers. Now, it seems, we need to create committees to consider whether these recommendations will work. So we’ll next develop a survey to get feedback on the barriers. After that, we’ll consider how we’re going to implement, um, whatever. (Then we’ll go to a cliff somewhere and dutifully jump.)
     Then, said Burnett, “we’ll get back to the college community.”
     He smiled.

     COLLABORATIN'. Burnett, feelin’ pretty dang good, passed off to Poertner, who commenced yammering about “collaboration.” One can get lots more accomplished, he said, if one collaborates. With others.
     One example is the VETS program (I think that was it). Next was a Dept. of Labor grant. Blah, blah, blah.
     Collaboration, man.
     We scored $2.7 million thanks to all that collaboratin’. These examples of collaboration, said Gary, “can be repeated all over the district.”

     DISTRICT-WIDE PLANNINK. Gary moved to another topic: district-wide planning. Have you seen the products of said plannage? (See SOCCCD Goals and Values.) It's enough to puke a dog off of a gut wagon.
     Where’s that cliff?
     We were one of the first multi-campus districts, said Gary, to get tagged by the Accreds for a lack of d-w planning. So, said Gary, we acted quickly. We identified four goals. Then came the objectives.
     Gary went through the four goals. My eyelids grew heavy. Time seemed to stand still. Nevertheless, I had the presence of mind to give Dave Lang the stinkeye.
     Gary noted that we’re feeling pressure to get students through the system tout de suite and to amp up technical instruction. It isn’t natural for us to do things quickly, said Gary. We’re more glacial, said Gary (maybe he used another word).
     Then Gary launched into something about “business process analysis,” which seemed to be about increasing efficiency, overcoming duplication, culling administrators (well, no), etc.
     Nancy then noted that there were a fair amount of students in the room. She espied them as though she were birding dodos. I think she speculated that they wandered in by mistake.
Awkward.
     The trustees then took turns saying something—anything, evidently.
     Lang started by saying, uselessly, that he looked forward to questions from the audience. This is the best place to ask questions, he said, since board meeting follow a “rigid agenda.”
     Jim Wright was next. He thanked everyone for coming. His voice started trailing off like it always does, like he was an aural version of the Incredible Shrinking Man. By the time he was finished, I think his mouth no longer produced any sounds whatsoever; crickets everywhere gradually commenced their chirpy song.
     Prendergast made some kind of joke, but I didn’t hear it.
     Jemal declared that he wanted to hear from “you” (the audience), that his desire was genuine. He challenged the audience to come up with a question, “having just come from our sister college”—where, evidently, the audience simply gaped, silently, like fish. It seemed to horrify him to recall that moment. He sought to avoid more such horror at any cost.
     Milchiker yammered chirpily like she does. Everywhere she goes, she said, “I hear wonderful things about the college.” There’s lots of “respect and love out in the community for Saddleback College.” We need to keep hiring the “best and the brightest.” Leave ‘em alone; they know what to do.
That seemed to be the message.

QUESTIONS?

     Bob Cosgrove got up to say that he agreed that “cooperation and mutual respect” are better, I guess. “It is a lot duller though.” Laughter.
     He mentioned the nasty business up in San Francisco where the ACCJC (Accreds) are about to pull Frisco’s ticket. There are three lawsuits pending against the ACCJC, he said. Evidently, some (ACCJC) Commissioners are asking for “letters of recommendation.” Bob urged our board not to provide any: “don’t get into this fray.”
     The inevitable Lee Haggerty had a question. It was about parking. I guess these Saddlebackians have it bad, parkingwise. There seemed to be more interest in parking issues than in anything else. Burnett offered soothing yammerings about the future of parking. In the long run, he said, we’ll have to turn to a parking structure.
     Said Padberg: what about a tram?
     “Doesn’t work,” said someone, grumpily. Others agreed. There was snortage.
     Somebody named Babs Cox asked another question about parking. Whatever.
     Dave Anderson, the Emeritus guy, told some goofy yarn about his two daughters and how the bright one decided to go to Saddleback (not IVC?), where she got a great education. Meanwhile, the dullard of the two went to some pricey private college and just did OK. Laughter. (Well, titterage.)
     Nancy asked if there were “any other hands?” She was referring to people with questions, I suppose. I think she was hopin’ to book.
     A student journalist (with the Lariat) asked about the fate of the old Math and Science building as the new Science Building is constructed.
     Haggerty asked about the district’s fiscal solvency. Boy are we ever solvent, said Nancy.
     Deb Fitzsimons explained that we’re “blessed” owing to “basic aid” (local property taxes), which allows us to spend like drunken sailors--on buildings and whatnot. She noted our unusually large reserve (7.5%, not the required measly 3-5%).
     Oddly, Cosgrove asked if anything interesting came up during the IVC leg of the forum.
     Prendergast had something: he seemed to suggest that the board had to “prime” the moribund IVC audience to get them to say anything. They were like carps, evidently.

     Tim Jemal said something about hearing from a guy (connected to the SC Foundation?) who opined that he’d never heard of IVC until the dang place was mentioned by SC. What up with that? Why is IVC so “under the radar”? There were other references to IVC’s oblivion.
     Prendergast mentioned that recent OC Reg article about Coast CC and those wacky four-year online degrees they’re gearin’ up for. What a stupid idea.
     Milchiker said something about how the college gets the same amount of money per student despite the higher price tag for some kinds of instruction, such as CTE. Nancy got all peevish: why doncha explain what CTE is, she said. So Marcia did. ("Career Technical Education," I think. Used to be called "Voc Ed.") Then she launched into yet another account of her adventures as an instructor at Santa Ana College back in the days of yore. I scanned Nancy’s face for eye-rollage, but she did a fine job keepin’ her peepers in place.

     Kathy Werle stood up to say something. I kept thinking: you must be so happy!
     That’s about when a series of big, fuzzy softballs were launched toward the board by that goofy SC crowd. Somebody got up to yammer about how she “loves the new progress.” (My notes just say: “rosy horseshit.")
     Brandye D got up, all chirpy, to ask the trustees to list their committee assignments.
     Good Lord! Another big fuzzy softball! Why?!
     They really loved listing their labors. One at a time.
     I was dying.
     Then somebody got up to ask: hey, maybe you should explain just what it is that trustees do!
     Really. I couldn't frickin' believe it.
     And so they took turns up at bat. Good grief.
     Then Martin W, the real estate guy, got up to say something like this: hey, doesn’t Saddleback teach way more CTE than IVC? And isn’t CTE instruction really expensive? So is this (injustice!) taken into account by DRAC or by district budgeting?
     There were movements in the audience: hey yeah! What about that!
     I considered walking over to punch Martin in the face. (Not really. I guess we talk lots of trash, too, up at IVC.)
     Poertner sensed that he needed to soothe the savage breast, so he warbled about how there are “many factors” that enter into budgeting and whatnot, and, besides, given the new pressures, IVC is really “stepping up” its CTE instruction.
     Then Deb Fitz launched into something about DRAC. I dunno what.
     Then a student, referring to the board as “you guys,” asked if it’s really true that they’re gonna get rid of the [golf?] driving range?
     Nancy barked: there’s no truth to that.
     Then somebody asked about ATEP. By then, it was getting pretty close to 4:30, and I got the heck outta there.

Forum tomorrow

     As usual, the "forum" is scheduled when most of us teach, me included.
     I'll try to make it for the 3:00 p.m. gig at Saddleback (@Bonzo's Bigtop).

Pilot program: 4-year degree at community college (OC Reg)
     Coastline Community College is exploring a concurrent-enrollment partnership with three universities outside California.

The Alex Odeh case briefly reemerges (the SOCCCD's sometimes lurid past)

Odeh: murdered in Santa Ana

     YOU'LL RECALL (or not!) that former SOCCCD trustee, Holocaust denier, and faculty union favorite, Steven Frogue, road several bandy hobbyhorses, among them conspiracy theories concerning the murder of Alex Odeh in Santa Ana in 1985. When he wasn't yammering idiotically about the ADL, the JFK assassination, and allegedly fixed IVC Academic Senate elections,‡ he was thinking aloud, in his inimitable manner, about poor old Alex Odeh, blown to bits, right here in Santa Ana. "Sort of interesting," he'd say.
     Well, every few years, the Odeh case, which has never been solved, pops back up, usually because of politics.
     Today, our old pal Matt Coker (NavelGazing) reports that

     Reps. Loretta Sanchez … and John Conyers, Jr. … co-authored a letter to the chairman of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee requesting a hearing on the assassination of Alex Odeh, the Palestinian-American civil rights leader who perished in a 1985 bomb blast in Santa Ana.

     Evidently, Sanchez and her crew, including various civil rights groups, believe that there has been a “delay of justice” in this cold case. Further,

     Sanchez, whose district includes the site at 1905 E. 17th St., Santa Ana, where Odeh was killed shortly after a blast triggered when he opened the door of his office on Oct. 11, 1985, last June sent an inquiry to Attorney General Eric Holder seeking an update on the case.

     You’ll recall that, during those zany Frogue years (c. 1994-2000*†), some of the Liberty Lobby neo-Nazis that attended SOCCCD board meeting in support of the Froguester accused Jewish Defense League (JDL) leadership of the Odeh killing.
     That very leadership, based in Los Angeles, also attended those wild meetings, and their clashes with the goose-stepping crowd were memorable to say the least.
     That’s right. The likes of Irv Rubin and Barry Krugel came on down to address the board and piss off the Nazis. I'd like to say that, after that, OC was never the same. But, of course, it was. Is.
     Things didn't turn out well for some of those JDL fellas. In 2001, Barry’s twin, Earl, was “imprisoned for plotting to bomb a Culver City mosque and the field office of Arab American Rep. Darrell E. Issa.” (See LA Times.)
     In 2005, Krugel was murdered with a chunk of concrete at a federal prison.
     Rubin, who was arrested for the same crime, committed suicide while in custody in 2002. (See LA Times.)
     Yikes!

* * *

     In his 2002 remembrance of Rubin, Matt wrote:

     …[Rubin] blew into a June 1998 meeting of the South Orange County Community College District Board of Trustees, which had been subjected to international ridicule after trustee Steven Frogue tried to get taxpayer funding for a John F. Kennedy assassination seminar that would feature two speakers who had been branded anti-Semites. One of those speakers, Michael Collins Piper, who'd written a book that alleged Israeli intelligence agents killed Kennedy, had flown in from the East Coast to attend the same board meeting.
     A partial account from that evening reveals the Irv Rubin we'd all come to love—or loathe, depending on your world view. 

     9:38:10 p.m. Someone leaves the standing-room-only meeting, and Rubin is allowed in by the doorman cop. Rubin and Piper exchange death stares. 9:38:17 p.m. "Shouldn't you get your money back for that haircut?" Piper crony Jim Scott asks Rubin. 9:40 p.m. Barry Krugel, Rubin's colleague, is finally admitted. Barry is the brother of Earl Krugel, who is also being held in the alleged bomb plot. 9:47 p.m. After much back and forth, Scott calls Rubin "subhuman" and "a lower life form." 9:59 p.m. Rubin wants to "shed the spotlight" on Joe Fields, who had to leave the meeting early for another engagement. "He's a self-admitted Hitler-lover," Rubin says of Fields. "He is also a convicted child molester who tries to pick up young girls and put them in his dirty little movies. And yet we have nothing but silence from Mr. Frogue. Mr. Frogue, your silence speaks a great deal. Maybe you ought to look yourself in the mirror and wonder who you're associated with." 10:07 p.m. As pro- and anti-Frogueans shout at one another, Rubin stares down Scott. "Don't look at my face," Rubin demands.
     "I wouldn't look at you, you piece of garbage," Scott answers back.
     10:16 p.m. Piper takes the microphone. "I feel like I'm in a really bad John Waters movie," he says.
     "Really? More makeup," Rubin suggests. "Your makeup job is really bad."
     "You need some sun, my boy," Piper tells Rubin, who replies, "Puh-leeze." Piper asks his challengers to debate him about his book.
     "Who would give you any credibility?" Rubin asks. "Who would give a nut case like you a forum?"
     10:17 p.m. Amid another shouting attack, Piper says of Rubin, "If ever there was an argument in favor of anti-Semitism, it's this spokesman, this self-appointed spokesman for the Jewish community right here." Speaking directly to Rubin, Piper adds, "You're a most unpleasant man."
     "And you're a creep," Rubin shoots back. 

Mostly, we'll miss the love.

     I recall talking with a certain college police chief at a board meeting, circa 2003. "I always sort of admired old Irv," he admitted.
     Lots of people did. Sorta.

     ‡“Trustee calls IVC senate 'intellectual spur posse',” IVC Voice, March 23, 1995
     *Frogue was elected in 1992 but did not begin to attract attention, all of it negative, until 1994.
     †The last time we heard from or about Frogue was in Oct., 2009. We wish him well. I guess.

SEE ALSO:

• The Alex Odeh case, Frogue, and the ADL - October 11, 2007
• RED AND IRV - March 10, 2002
• HANGIN' WITH BIGWIG REPUBLICANS WHILE NAZIS HIDE IN BUSHES - September 28, 1998
• A MOTLEY CREW OF NAZIS VS. JDL THUGS: OH, WHAT A NIGHT! - June 21, 1998
• FROGUE'S "SCHOLAR" HINTS AT VIOLENCE - March 27, 1998
• NIGHT OF THE NAZI January 20, 1998
• IS TRUSTEE STEVEN FROGUE A HOLOCAUST DENIER? - March 23, 1995

In Alex Odeh's 1985 slaying, still seeking answers (LA Times)