For the North County Times | January 29, 2010
San Diego's 78thDistrict Assemblyman Marty Block claims more students would complete bachelor's degrees if two-year colleges became four-year colleges.
He's drafting legislation to allow California's community colleges to offer baccalaureate degrees. In a recent interview, Block said he'd like to see money shifted out of the California State University system to community colleges to produce a "bigger bang for the taxpayer's buck" in higher education.
The problem Block wants to solve is that four-year degrees are becoming less accessible because of budget cuts forcing California's public universities to turn away thousands of students and raise fees on the students lucky enough to get in. A retired San Diego State University professor, Block sees a simple solution. Community colleges are more affordable, conveniently located and have an open-door admissions policy.
Seventeen states are already offering bachelor's degrees in their community colleges. But would it work here?
California community college full-time faculty salaries are, on average, higher than those in the California State University system. Three out of four community college instructors are lower-paid part-timers who teach classes at several colleges within driving range.
In 2008, the average salary of full-time faculty in California's community colleges was $85,000. MiraCosta College faculty, with an average salary of $116,000, were paid more than any other community college instructors in the state, while the average pay at Palomar College was $92,000. By contrast, the average salary of CSU tenure-track faculty was $78,000. Less than half of CSU instructors are part-timers.
In Washington State, where community colleges have begun offering bachelor's degrees, community college instructors earned an average salary of $51,000 in 2006, while their counterparts at four-year public colleges earned an average of $82,000. There's logic behind the argument that it would cost less to have students remain at a Washington community college for four years.
It will be interesting to see how Assemblyman Block can make the case that taxpayers will get a bigger bang for the buck if the higher-priced work force of California's community colleges is expanded. Unless, of course, the lower-paid part-timers are hired to teach upper division classes in the major, which would raise questions about the quality of the program.
Full disclosure: My 30-year career as a university administrator included eight years in Indiana, where the only community college at the time was improbably named Vincennes University. Both two and four-year degree programs were offered at the state's 14 public university campuses.
Not surprisingly, the state had one of the lowest college participation rates in the nation and one of the highest costs per student in public funding for higher education.
RICHARD J. RIEHL writes from Carlsbad. Contact him at RiehlWorld2@yahoo.com
About Me
- The Riehl World
- I'm a retired university administrator with a second career as a free-lance op-ed columnist for San Diego's North County Times daily newspaper, circulation 94,000. I'm also an in-the-closet folksong picker of guitar, banjo, mandolin and ukulele.
Friday, January 29, 2010
Monday, January 18, 2010
Courage, tolerance and kids
North County Times | Friday, January 15, 2010
Richard J. Riehl writes from Carlsbad, CA.
The same folks who claimed California schools would teach kids to turn gay if Proposition 8 failed at the polls wanted to stop a time-delayed Webcast of the federal court challenge to the new law. It seems some opponents of gay marriage would rather remain in the closet than be outed on YouTube.
The battle over gay marriage continues to rage in this newspaper's opinion pages. In letters to the editor you can find disagreements over Biblical quotations, gay penguins and the proper connections of nuts, bolts and screws.
Some misguided pundits see a conspiracy of secular humanists, liberals and gays advancing a hidden "agenda" to corrupt the young.
As adults wrangle over who should be allowed to hook up with whom, what's been going on in our schools?
Conservative syndicated columnist George Will opines that gay marriage won't be an issue in this country's future because today's school children find being gay about as interesting as being left-handed. But even though children are more open-minded than their parents about such things, left-handers do not face the same threat of being bullied by their peers that gay students do.
According to a 2004 report by the California Safe Schools Coalition and 4H Center for Youth Development at UC Davis, more than 200,000 California students are harassed each year based on either perceived or actual sexual orientation.
Compared with those who are not harassed, gay students who are bullied are three times more likely to bring a weapon to school and twice as likely to seriously consider committing suicide.
Ninety-one percent of students reported they had overheard other students making negative comments about sexual orientation. Forty-four percent overheard teachers making similar comments.
Last year the Alameda school board planned to institute a program called Lesson 9 to address the problem of anti-gay school bullying. But, bowing to pressure brought by parents with religious views that do not condone homosexuality, the school district voted to change the program to general lessons against bias.
Here in North County, students themselves are leading the fight against anti-gay bullying. California's Gay-Straight Alliance Network lists affiliated clubs at seven North County high schools: Carlsbad, La Costa Canyon, Poway, Rancho Buena Vista, San Dieguito Academy, Torrey Pines and Vista. Founded in 1998, the GSA Network is a youth leadership organization that connects school-based GSA clubs that fight discrimination, harassment and violence in schools.
Maybe the adults who fear the Webcast of federal court testimony on the constitutionality of Prop. 8 could learn something about courage and tolerance from the kids they say they want to protect from going gay.
Richard J. Riehl writes from Carlsbad, CA.
Confessions of an Ex-Boss: What I Learned from my Staff
This article first appeared in the Summer 2010 edition of College and University, the journal of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers
My name is Richard, and I’m a recovering university administrator.
I’ve been administration-free for six years, but
I continue to have flashbacks to a career that led to this
battle with PASD: Post-Administrative Stress Disorder.
Sharing with you what I learned from my staff during my
30-year career will allow me to confront the ghosts of decisions
past — ghosts that haunt me for the mistakes I made
sitting behind a big desk in a large office, out of earshot of
the buzz arising from the tiny desks in Cubicle Land.
In my past life I worked at three different universities,
all mid-size public institutions. I was responsible, at
various times, for supervising staffs that recruited and admitted
students, evaluated their transfer credit, awarded
them financial aid, registered them, checked them out for
graduation, and organized their commencement ceremonies.
My preparation for this career consisted of a couple
of liberal arts degrees and five years of high school teaching
and coaching.
Western Washington University enrolled 9,000 students
when I was appointed director of admissions. I
was 29 years old, with three whole years as an admissions
counselor under my belt. I had never supervised anyone
over the age of eighteen. I suddenly found myself responsible
for a staff of eight women, all older, wiser, and more
experienced than I, and a male associate director ten years
my senior who had been the other finalist for the job I had
just landed. I remember well the day my new boss, an oldschool
kind of guy, summoned me to his office to tell me I
had the job. I was no longer to be “Dick Riehl, everybody’s
buddy,” he explained; rather, I was “Richard Riehl, Director
of University Admissions.” I understood him to mean
that my new responsibilities would force me to make enemies
because of the difficult decisions I’d have to make.
In hindsight, I think he also meant I had to grow up.
Upon returning to my new, more spacious office, my
first two thoughts were, “Now what do I do?” followed by
the solemn vow, “Never let ’em see you sweat.” I was lucky
to have on my staff a competent, experienced, and wellrespected
office manager who already ran the office. She
told me what to do and how and when to do it, all while
allowing me to think that I was the one in charge. That
represented the beginning of my education by those who
called me “boss.”
I was especially fortunate to have two talented associate
directors, including the one who had competed against
me for the director’s job but who was extraordinarily gracious
in defeat, invariably loyal, and possessed a great sense
of humor. I learned that he also had never met a rule or a
policy that shouldn’t or couldn’t be bent or broken. My
other associate was likewise a respected professional with
a wonderful sense of humor. But unlike the other, he believed that rules were rules and rarely — if ever — should they be bent or broken. The three of us had some spirited conversations during the years we worked together.
What I learned was that both of them could make persuasive arguments. I found myself searching for decisions that, like the porridge of the three bears, were neither too hot nor too cold, but just right for the circumstances.
What I didn’t learn early enough in my career was that sometimes, in the interest of avoiding conflict, I was not as open and honest as I should have been in my decision making. I wanted to be loved by all. I learned, however, that in the long run, avoiding uncomfortable confrontations often led to more trouble for both my staff and me.
After sixteen years of figuring out how to be a good director of admissions at Western, I headed to the Midwest, where “Assistant Vice President” was added to my job title at Indiana State University. I inherited an easy-going boss whose feathers never seemed to get ruffled. Whenever he was warned that morale was low, he’d just smile and say, “Yes, morale always seems to be bad and getting worse, doesn’t it?” He accepted the grumbling of faculty and staff as part of the territory for administrators.
Experience taught me that some unhappy staff members are happiest when those around them are unhappy and can be persuaded that the boss is the source of all their unhappiness. Happy staff members, on the other hand, tend to take responsibility for — and create — their own happiness.
Except for news shows, I don’t watch much TV. But I’m addicted to “The Office,” with Steve Carell as Michael Scott, the boss at a branch office of Dunder-Mifflin Office Paper. In a recent episode, Michael cheerfully declared, “An office is a place where dreams come true.” He was blithely unaware that his overblown ego and self-pity made him the office’s chief dream-crusher. In one of his lower moments, Michael reflected that he had become a boss because the word had once meant something good, like, “Wow, that’s a boss sweater you’re wearing today!” It was sad for him to learn that the word had come to mean “the jerk in charge.”
I must admit that I recognize a little of Michael Scott in myself. Bosses love to be loved, and sometimes they do the stupidest things to try to gain that love from their staff. If the worker bees are unhappy, it becomes time for a party or a Wear-Your-Pajamas-to-Work Day. Some people love office parties and silly games; others find them annoying. Some believe it’s important for everyone to feel he is part of one big, happy family; others prefer to be left alone to do their work.
Now that I am entering my “golden years,” I understand that big, happy families that get along without occasional falling outs engendered by too much togetherness and too few compatible personalities are mostly the creation of fiction writers. Expecting a collection of individuals hired for their technical expertise to perform a variety of different jobs and working together in a confined space to love one another unconditionally is a fantasy. No amount of partying and game playing can make it reality.
Team building, however, is a different matter. I wish I had been more honest in explaining to each staff member what unique qualities she brought to the team. For example, some people flourish in groups; others are hermits. Some can’t see the forest for the trees; some can’t see the trees for the forest. Some are confrontationally honest; others are fragile flowers whose self-esteem needs constant tending. Some are well-organized; others are scatterbrained creative geniuses. It is the boss’s job to help each staff member understand how her unique qualities can enhance the team. That can be a challenge when so many egos are involved.
It was as a high school basketball coach that I learned the meaning of “role players.” One team member spent more time on the bench than on the court because he was somewhat athletically challenged. But Dennis could do one thing better than anybody else on the team: He could keep our opponents guessing. Because Dennis was slightly cross-eyed, it was impossible for the defense to know where he might pass the ball next. So whenever our team was challenged by a full court press, I sent Denny into the game to save us. On those occasions, our bench warmer became our star player. Unfortunately, I didn’t always apply as an administrator what I had learned as a coach about role players.
In my later days as a boss, I began to realize the power staff members have to make their boss a success or a failure. A boss can make his staff better by telling them the truth rather than what he thinks they want to hear. As a rookie boss, I had the advantage of having a staff who knew more than I did; who knew that they knew; and who took pity on me. They prevented me from making serious blunders by telling me when they thought I was wrong.
In my second administrative position, I was the oldest and most experienced in the office. My staff tried hard to find out what I wanted them to say so they could show me how smart they were. It felt good to be so highly respected, but it didn’t feel so good when things went wrong and I realized nobody had been brave enough to tell me what I didn’t want to hear.
Shortly after my arrival at Indiana State, my new, young staff told me that recruitment information nights were held at motels throughout the state. When I learned how expensive it was to rent conference rooms, I suggested that we could save money and promote community spirit by holding the events in public libraries. I did so with such enthusiasm that nobody warned me about the drawbacks. I didn’t know it would be so hard for families to find their local public libraries. I didn’t know that some libraries closed their doors as early as 8 pm, which meant that our guests sometimes had to leave before we could answer all their questions. Despite the poor turnouts and inconveniences, we marched on until one evening, when our dean of housing, five academic advisors, and two admissions counselors accompanied me to an information night event where we were greeted only by a lone prospective student, his parents, and his little sister. Our next recruitment event was held at a Holiday Inn.
Another lesson I learned from my staff is that a boss can make erroneous assumptions based on one unhappy staff member, subjecting the rest to desperate attempts to make that one person happy. I should have learned better from an experience I had had as a high school English teacher: A student teacher I was supervising was quite bright and articulate and had the attention of all but one of her students. Unfortunately, he was the brightest and most arrogant student in the class. His sarcastic wit made her feel like a failure. I saw 29 attentive students who liked her; she saw the one who didn’t and thought the rest hated her. As a boss, I sometimes found myself spending more time worrying about one disgruntled staff member than about the productivity of the rest of the staff.
One of my favorite authors is Malcolm Gladwell, an economist and staff writer for the New Yorker. In his latest bestseller, Outliers: The Story of Success, Gladwell researched the cause of airplane crashes and discovered that many of them were caused not by catastrophic technical failures, violent weather, or incompetent pilots; rather, they were caused by “mitigated speech” in the cockpit — that is, speech used by a lower-level co-pilot who doesn’t want to appear to be questioning the pilot’s judgment. Rather than warning “This is an emergency. We have to land now,” the first officer might observe, “Captain, we seem to be running out of fuel.” It made me wonder how many times my own “co-pilots” told this “pilot” what I wanted to hear rather than what I needed to hear in order to avoid crashing and burning.
You can improve your boss’s performance as a supervisor and make your own office life happier if, when evaluation time comes around, you tell your boss what you consider to be your own special talents and how they can contribute to the office’s success. Ask if your boss agrees with your self-assessment. There is no need to confess your shortcomings! Ask, instead, how you can leverage your skills to improve your own job performance. This is also your opportunity to tell your boss what he can do to help bring out the best in you.
I wish I had given my superiors more honest feedback about their job performance. Had my staff done that for me, their work lives might have been happier, and these confessions of an ex-boss might have been unnecessary. Indeed, the ghosts of decisions past might not be haunting me today.
About the Author
Richard J. Riehl is a freelance op-ed columnist for San Diego’s North County Times. Throughout his 33-year career in higher education administration he was an active member of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, including service on the College and University Journal's Editorial Board.
My name is Richard, and I’m a recovering university administrator.
I’ve been administration-free for six years, but
I continue to have flashbacks to a career that led to this
battle with PASD: Post-Administrative Stress Disorder.
Sharing with you what I learned from my staff during my
30-year career will allow me to confront the ghosts of decisions
past — ghosts that haunt me for the mistakes I made
sitting behind a big desk in a large office, out of earshot of
the buzz arising from the tiny desks in Cubicle Land.
In my past life I worked at three different universities,
all mid-size public institutions. I was responsible, at
various times, for supervising staffs that recruited and admitted
students, evaluated their transfer credit, awarded
them financial aid, registered them, checked them out for
graduation, and organized their commencement ceremonies.
My preparation for this career consisted of a couple
of liberal arts degrees and five years of high school teaching
and coaching.
Western Washington University enrolled 9,000 students
when I was appointed director of admissions. I
was 29 years old, with three whole years as an admissions
counselor under my belt. I had never supervised anyone
over the age of eighteen. I suddenly found myself responsible
for a staff of eight women, all older, wiser, and more
experienced than I, and a male associate director ten years
my senior who had been the other finalist for the job I had
just landed. I remember well the day my new boss, an oldschool
kind of guy, summoned me to his office to tell me I
had the job. I was no longer to be “Dick Riehl, everybody’s
buddy,” he explained; rather, I was “Richard Riehl, Director
of University Admissions.” I understood him to mean
that my new responsibilities would force me to make enemies
because of the difficult decisions I’d have to make.
In hindsight, I think he also meant I had to grow up.
Upon returning to my new, more spacious office, my
first two thoughts were, “Now what do I do?” followed by
the solemn vow, “Never let ’em see you sweat.” I was lucky
to have on my staff a competent, experienced, and wellrespected
office manager who already ran the office. She
told me what to do and how and when to do it, all while
allowing me to think that I was the one in charge. That
represented the beginning of my education by those who
called me “boss.”
I was especially fortunate to have two talented associate
directors, including the one who had competed against
me for the director’s job but who was extraordinarily gracious
in defeat, invariably loyal, and possessed a great sense
of humor. I learned that he also had never met a rule or a
policy that shouldn’t or couldn’t be bent or broken. My
other associate was likewise a respected professional with
a wonderful sense of humor. But unlike the other, he believed that rules were rules and rarely — if ever — should they be bent or broken. The three of us had some spirited conversations during the years we worked together.
What I learned was that both of them could make persuasive arguments. I found myself searching for decisions that, like the porridge of the three bears, were neither too hot nor too cold, but just right for the circumstances.
What I didn’t learn early enough in my career was that sometimes, in the interest of avoiding conflict, I was not as open and honest as I should have been in my decision making. I wanted to be loved by all. I learned, however, that in the long run, avoiding uncomfortable confrontations often led to more trouble for both my staff and me.
After sixteen years of figuring out how to be a good director of admissions at Western, I headed to the Midwest, where “Assistant Vice President” was added to my job title at Indiana State University. I inherited an easy-going boss whose feathers never seemed to get ruffled. Whenever he was warned that morale was low, he’d just smile and say, “Yes, morale always seems to be bad and getting worse, doesn’t it?” He accepted the grumbling of faculty and staff as part of the territory for administrators.
Experience taught me that some unhappy staff members are happiest when those around them are unhappy and can be persuaded that the boss is the source of all their unhappiness. Happy staff members, on the other hand, tend to take responsibility for — and create — their own happiness.
Except for news shows, I don’t watch much TV. But I’m addicted to “The Office,” with Steve Carell as Michael Scott, the boss at a branch office of Dunder-Mifflin Office Paper. In a recent episode, Michael cheerfully declared, “An office is a place where dreams come true.” He was blithely unaware that his overblown ego and self-pity made him the office’s chief dream-crusher. In one of his lower moments, Michael reflected that he had become a boss because the word had once meant something good, like, “Wow, that’s a boss sweater you’re wearing today!” It was sad for him to learn that the word had come to mean “the jerk in charge.”
I must admit that I recognize a little of Michael Scott in myself. Bosses love to be loved, and sometimes they do the stupidest things to try to gain that love from their staff. If the worker bees are unhappy, it becomes time for a party or a Wear-Your-Pajamas-to-Work Day. Some people love office parties and silly games; others find them annoying. Some believe it’s important for everyone to feel he is part of one big, happy family; others prefer to be left alone to do their work.
Now that I am entering my “golden years,” I understand that big, happy families that get along without occasional falling outs engendered by too much togetherness and too few compatible personalities are mostly the creation of fiction writers. Expecting a collection of individuals hired for their technical expertise to perform a variety of different jobs and working together in a confined space to love one another unconditionally is a fantasy. No amount of partying and game playing can make it reality.
Team building, however, is a different matter. I wish I had been more honest in explaining to each staff member what unique qualities she brought to the team. For example, some people flourish in groups; others are hermits. Some can’t see the forest for the trees; some can’t see the trees for the forest. Some are confrontationally honest; others are fragile flowers whose self-esteem needs constant tending. Some are well-organized; others are scatterbrained creative geniuses. It is the boss’s job to help each staff member understand how her unique qualities can enhance the team. That can be a challenge when so many egos are involved.
It was as a high school basketball coach that I learned the meaning of “role players.” One team member spent more time on the bench than on the court because he was somewhat athletically challenged. But Dennis could do one thing better than anybody else on the team: He could keep our opponents guessing. Because Dennis was slightly cross-eyed, it was impossible for the defense to know where he might pass the ball next. So whenever our team was challenged by a full court press, I sent Denny into the game to save us. On those occasions, our bench warmer became our star player. Unfortunately, I didn’t always apply as an administrator what I had learned as a coach about role players.
In my later days as a boss, I began to realize the power staff members have to make their boss a success or a failure. A boss can make his staff better by telling them the truth rather than what he thinks they want to hear. As a rookie boss, I had the advantage of having a staff who knew more than I did; who knew that they knew; and who took pity on me. They prevented me from making serious blunders by telling me when they thought I was wrong.
In my second administrative position, I was the oldest and most experienced in the office. My staff tried hard to find out what I wanted them to say so they could show me how smart they were. It felt good to be so highly respected, but it didn’t feel so good when things went wrong and I realized nobody had been brave enough to tell me what I didn’t want to hear.
Shortly after my arrival at Indiana State, my new, young staff told me that recruitment information nights were held at motels throughout the state. When I learned how expensive it was to rent conference rooms, I suggested that we could save money and promote community spirit by holding the events in public libraries. I did so with such enthusiasm that nobody warned me about the drawbacks. I didn’t know it would be so hard for families to find their local public libraries. I didn’t know that some libraries closed their doors as early as 8 pm, which meant that our guests sometimes had to leave before we could answer all their questions. Despite the poor turnouts and inconveniences, we marched on until one evening, when our dean of housing, five academic advisors, and two admissions counselors accompanied me to an information night event where we were greeted only by a lone prospective student, his parents, and his little sister. Our next recruitment event was held at a Holiday Inn.
Another lesson I learned from my staff is that a boss can make erroneous assumptions based on one unhappy staff member, subjecting the rest to desperate attempts to make that one person happy. I should have learned better from an experience I had had as a high school English teacher: A student teacher I was supervising was quite bright and articulate and had the attention of all but one of her students. Unfortunately, he was the brightest and most arrogant student in the class. His sarcastic wit made her feel like a failure. I saw 29 attentive students who liked her; she saw the one who didn’t and thought the rest hated her. As a boss, I sometimes found myself spending more time worrying about one disgruntled staff member than about the productivity of the rest of the staff.
One of my favorite authors is Malcolm Gladwell, an economist and staff writer for the New Yorker. In his latest bestseller, Outliers: The Story of Success, Gladwell researched the cause of airplane crashes and discovered that many of them were caused not by catastrophic technical failures, violent weather, or incompetent pilots; rather, they were caused by “mitigated speech” in the cockpit — that is, speech used by a lower-level co-pilot who doesn’t want to appear to be questioning the pilot’s judgment. Rather than warning “This is an emergency. We have to land now,” the first officer might observe, “Captain, we seem to be running out of fuel.” It made me wonder how many times my own “co-pilots” told this “pilot” what I wanted to hear rather than what I needed to hear in order to avoid crashing and burning.
You can improve your boss’s performance as a supervisor and make your own office life happier if, when evaluation time comes around, you tell your boss what you consider to be your own special talents and how they can contribute to the office’s success. Ask if your boss agrees with your self-assessment. There is no need to confess your shortcomings! Ask, instead, how you can leverage your skills to improve your own job performance. This is also your opportunity to tell your boss what he can do to help bring out the best in you.
I wish I had given my superiors more honest feedback about their job performance. Had my staff done that for me, their work lives might have been happier, and these confessions of an ex-boss might have been unnecessary. Indeed, the ghosts of decisions past might not be haunting me today.
About the Author
Richard J. Riehl is a freelance op-ed columnist for San Diego’s North County Times. Throughout his 33-year career in higher education administration he was an active member of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, including service on the College and University Journal's Editorial Board.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Obama and McCain on Education
Each of the last three residents of the White House vowed to be known as the "education president." Today, after twenty years of broken promises, we seem to be left with little more than a debate over whether public schools are worth saving. Given the economy's flirtation with disaster, it's unlikely either presidential candidate will win votes with the slogan, "It's the education system, stupid."
The candidates agree that education in America is in dire need of improvement. They also agree on the basics for reform: early childhood education is vital, parents play a central role, the No Child Left Behind Act hasn't lived up to its promises, more accountability for results is needed, and more must be done to attract and retain good teachers.
John McCain thinks all of those goals can be met by re-allocating current federal funds and encouraging states to pick up more of the costs of reforming education. Obama says his comprehensive plan will cost $18 billion in federal funds when it is completely phased in. To pay for it, according to his campaign web site, he would delay a NASA project for five years, auction surplus federal property, close tax loopholes for executives, and use some of the savings associated with winding down the war in Iraq, among other sources.
Here's how the candidates compare on the major issues:
No Child Left Behind and School Reform
According to John McCain NCLB has been primarily a wake-up call that public schools are failing. According to his campaign website, "While NCLB has been invaluable in providing a clear picture of which schools and students are struggling, it is only the beginning of education reform." McCain believes the program is adequately funded as it is and that "all federal financial support" should provide parents "the ability to move their children, and the dollars associated with them, from failing schools" to "schools of demonstrated excellence, including their own homes." Assessment shouldn't be on "group averages" but on encouraging every child to reach their potential.
Obama believes NCLB had the right goal, but has failed to make a difference because the program has been underfunded, poorly designed and inadequately implemented by the Department of Education. His catch phrase is "No Child Left Behind left the money behind." He says the law can be fixed by improving the assessments to track student progress "in a timely, individualized manner." He says, "Teachers should not be forced to spend the academic year preparing students to fill in bubbles on standardized tests." He also vows to improve NCLB's accountability system by supporting schools that need improvement, rather than punishing them. Obama supports charter schools to give parents choices and to encourage innovation in public schools. Unlike McCain, Obama doesn't believe parents should be able to use vouchers for public school money to be used for private schools.
Early Childhood Education
McCain recognizes that early childhood education can make the difference in whether a student succeeds in school. In an interview with the online magazine, education.com, McCain's domestic policy advisor, Doug Holtz-Eakin, explained, "Research has shown that the best return on investment of our education dollar is in early childhood development." According to McCain, these don't have to be new federal dollars. His plan claims there's no shortage of federal programs for early child care and preschool, pointing to the $25 billion a year spent on them by state and federal governments. McCain calls for leveraging and coordinating these programs. He points to estimates that 70-85 percent of children from low-income families already have access to early care and/or preschool. Whoever still needs access, he says, can be covered simply by streamlining programs that are already there and reallocating funds accordingly.
McCain would create a program for Centers for Excellence in Head Start that would provide grants of at least $200,000 per year to exemplary pre-K and early learning programs nominated by state governors. The grants would be funded through the Department of Health and Human Services, depending on availability of funding.
Obama's early learning plan, titled "Zero to Five," will provide early care and education for infants to prepare children for kindergarten. He'll create Early Learning Challenge Grants to promote state "zero to five" efforts and help states move toward voluntary, universal pre-school. He will quadruple Early Head Start, increase Head Start funding and improve the quality of both. His plan would also provide affordable and high-quality child care to ease the burden on working families.
Attracting and retaining better teachers
McCain strongly supports merit pay for teachers. Salary incentives would be provided for those who teach in the most challenging educational settings and to those whose students show demonstrated improvement. Merit pay decisions would be made by principals.
McCain also believes in de-regulating teacher credentialing. "You could be a Nobel Laureate and not qualify to teach in most public schools today," he said in his speech to the NAACP, scoffing that, "They don't have the proper credits in educational 'theory' or 'methodology.' McCain will devote five percent of Title II funding to states to recruit teachers who graduate in the top 25 percent of their class.
Obama points out that 30 percent of new teachers leave the profession within five years. His plan for ensuring effective teachers and school leaders, which includes a career ladder, is his version of merit pay. Teachers would be rewarded for mentoring first year teachers, curriculum development, professional development and exceptional classroom teaching.
Parental involvement
McCain wants to empower parents to move their children from failing schools. He would ensure that pre-school programs teach parents to prepare their children for school readiness. He would encourage parents to read to their children.
Obama would provide a parent report card to support individual learning plans for achieving grade level mastery and readiness for high school graduation and post-high school education. In support of these plans schools will be encouraged to develop school-family contracts that outline expectations for attendance, behavior and homework. It will include information about tutoring services and public school choice options for parents. States would be required to provide their plans for individual learning plans to the Department of Education together with their annual accountability plans.
More accountability
McCain calls for meaningful and measurable standards for all pre-school programs, including Headstart. He would continue the kind of testing being used for NCLB.
Obama wants to broaden the way student learning is assessed, to test "inquiry and higher order thinking skills including inference, logic, data analysis and interpretation, forming questions, and communication," rather than just facts. Obama would require annual reports to the public and Congress at least once a year of the results of performance-based federal education programs, using student achievement, college and high school graduation rates and school report cards, to evaluate discretionary federal education spending programs.
What it all means
John McCain devotes about 3,000 words on his web site to his plan for reforming education. Obama's plan takes up nearly 9,000 words. That's because Obama goes into great detail about how to improve schools. McCain's message is much simpler. Public schools should be just one option of many, including home schooling. Competition in a free market will result in better results. That argument doesn't sound quite so convincing as our free market economy verges on collapse.
The candidates agree that education in America is in dire need of improvement. They also agree on the basics for reform: early childhood education is vital, parents play a central role, the No Child Left Behind Act hasn't lived up to its promises, more accountability for results is needed, and more must be done to attract and retain good teachers.
John McCain thinks all of those goals can be met by re-allocating current federal funds and encouraging states to pick up more of the costs of reforming education. Obama says his comprehensive plan will cost $18 billion in federal funds when it is completely phased in. To pay for it, according to his campaign web site, he would delay a NASA project for five years, auction surplus federal property, close tax loopholes for executives, and use some of the savings associated with winding down the war in Iraq, among other sources.
Here's how the candidates compare on the major issues:
No Child Left Behind and School Reform
According to John McCain NCLB has been primarily a wake-up call that public schools are failing. According to his campaign website, "While NCLB has been invaluable in providing a clear picture of which schools and students are struggling, it is only the beginning of education reform." McCain believes the program is adequately funded as it is and that "all federal financial support" should provide parents "the ability to move their children, and the dollars associated with them, from failing schools" to "schools of demonstrated excellence, including their own homes." Assessment shouldn't be on "group averages" but on encouraging every child to reach their potential.
Obama believes NCLB had the right goal, but has failed to make a difference because the program has been underfunded, poorly designed and inadequately implemented by the Department of Education. His catch phrase is "No Child Left Behind left the money behind." He says the law can be fixed by improving the assessments to track student progress "in a timely, individualized manner." He says, "Teachers should not be forced to spend the academic year preparing students to fill in bubbles on standardized tests." He also vows to improve NCLB's accountability system by supporting schools that need improvement, rather than punishing them. Obama supports charter schools to give parents choices and to encourage innovation in public schools. Unlike McCain, Obama doesn't believe parents should be able to use vouchers for public school money to be used for private schools.
Early Childhood Education
McCain recognizes that early childhood education can make the difference in whether a student succeeds in school. In an interview with the online magazine, education.com, McCain's domestic policy advisor, Doug Holtz-Eakin, explained, "Research has shown that the best return on investment of our education dollar is in early childhood development." According to McCain, these don't have to be new federal dollars. His plan claims there's no shortage of federal programs for early child care and preschool, pointing to the $25 billion a year spent on them by state and federal governments. McCain calls for leveraging and coordinating these programs. He points to estimates that 70-85 percent of children from low-income families already have access to early care and/or preschool. Whoever still needs access, he says, can be covered simply by streamlining programs that are already there and reallocating funds accordingly.
McCain would create a program for Centers for Excellence in Head Start that would provide grants of at least $200,000 per year to exemplary pre-K and early learning programs nominated by state governors. The grants would be funded through the Department of Health and Human Services, depending on availability of funding.
Obama's early learning plan, titled "Zero to Five," will provide early care and education for infants to prepare children for kindergarten. He'll create Early Learning Challenge Grants to promote state "zero to five" efforts and help states move toward voluntary, universal pre-school. He will quadruple Early Head Start, increase Head Start funding and improve the quality of both. His plan would also provide affordable and high-quality child care to ease the burden on working families.
Attracting and retaining better teachers
McCain strongly supports merit pay for teachers. Salary incentives would be provided for those who teach in the most challenging educational settings and to those whose students show demonstrated improvement. Merit pay decisions would be made by principals.
McCain also believes in de-regulating teacher credentialing. "You could be a Nobel Laureate and not qualify to teach in most public schools today," he said in his speech to the NAACP, scoffing that, "They don't have the proper credits in educational 'theory' or 'methodology.' McCain will devote five percent of Title II funding to states to recruit teachers who graduate in the top 25 percent of their class.
Obama points out that 30 percent of new teachers leave the profession within five years. His plan for ensuring effective teachers and school leaders, which includes a career ladder, is his version of merit pay. Teachers would be rewarded for mentoring first year teachers, curriculum development, professional development and exceptional classroom teaching.
Parental involvement
McCain wants to empower parents to move their children from failing schools. He would ensure that pre-school programs teach parents to prepare their children for school readiness. He would encourage parents to read to their children.
Obama would provide a parent report card to support individual learning plans for achieving grade level mastery and readiness for high school graduation and post-high school education. In support of these plans schools will be encouraged to develop school-family contracts that outline expectations for attendance, behavior and homework. It will include information about tutoring services and public school choice options for parents. States would be required to provide their plans for individual learning plans to the Department of Education together with their annual accountability plans.
More accountability
McCain calls for meaningful and measurable standards for all pre-school programs, including Headstart. He would continue the kind of testing being used for NCLB.
Obama wants to broaden the way student learning is assessed, to test "inquiry and higher order thinking skills including inference, logic, data analysis and interpretation, forming questions, and communication," rather than just facts. Obama would require annual reports to the public and Congress at least once a year of the results of performance-based federal education programs, using student achievement, college and high school graduation rates and school report cards, to evaluate discretionary federal education spending programs.
What it all means
John McCain devotes about 3,000 words on his web site to his plan for reforming education. Obama's plan takes up nearly 9,000 words. That's because Obama goes into great detail about how to improve schools. McCain's message is much simpler. Public schools should be just one option of many, including home schooling. Competition in a free market will result in better results. That argument doesn't sound quite so convincing as our free market economy verges on collapse.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
The San Diego Dylan concert was a big disappointment, which shouldn't have been a great surprise in retrospect. His voice is pretty much gone to a staccato growl, interrupted by LOUD electric guitars and a drummer that bashes your brains in. He didn't touch a guitar--just stood there wacking away at a keyboard. When he played his harmonica the crowd roared its approval--the only thing recognizable from the sixties. Of the entire set we recognized about two songs. The rest were blues riffs with unrecognizable words. I do think I heard the phrase, "and there were seven left for dead in South Dakota" in one song. That was about it. I think he sang "The Times They are a Changin'", but I can't be sure with all the racket of the instruments.
Not exactly the kind of poetry I recall from the early Dylan. Worst of all, there were no chairs, everybody stood on the grass for the entire two hours. We thought we had reserved seats and that the concert had been sold out. Fortunately, we found a section corded off for the infirm. Dave asked if he could have his aging parents sequestered there with folding chairs, so we got to ride out the two hours staring at the butts of the fans standing in front of us.
Not exactly the kind of poetry I recall from the early Dylan. Worst of all, there were no chairs, everybody stood on the grass for the entire two hours. We thought we had reserved seats and that the concert had been sold out. Fortunately, we found a section corded off for the infirm. Dave asked if he could have his aging parents sequestered there with folding chairs, so we got to ride out the two hours staring at the butts of the fans standing in front of us.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Pageant
We got back from the Southern California National American Miss Pageant last night at midnight, after crowning the queens of the Princess division (4 through 6), the Junior Pre-Teen (7 through 9), the Pre-Teen (10 through 12), the Junior Teen (13 through 15) and the Teen (16 through 19). It was an adventure we will definitely avoid for the rest of our lives.
It was organized by a group of self-described "values oriented" folks, who were proud to say the competition was all about inner beauty, which meant no swimsuit event and a pledge (which we immediately broke the first evening in our room) that we wouldn't touch alcohol or drugs for the entire weekend. We kept half of that pledge and got smashed on cabaret and chardonnay in the privacy of our room. Karen dropped all pretense of compliance and announced to our fellow judges that she badly needed a drink, before retreating to our room with me each evening. Our judging colleagues looked envious. We didn't get to serve on the same judging panel, so we didn't see much of each other.
Yes, the girls came in all sizes and shapes, but the winner of each division was invariably gorgeous.
There were about 400 "lovely young ladies" competing, each of whom had to pony up $400 for the privilege. The top prize for each division was $1,000. A pretty risky investment with a pretty small return, wouldn't you say? Especially since they probably spend at least another several hundred dollars on their formal wear competition, the hotel room at $119 a night, parking at $9 a day.
I felt like I needed a shower after each final pageant when the winner was chosen. It worked like this. We gave a score of 1 to 7 for each of the three events judged--the personal intro on stage with a mic, a 40-second interview with each judge, and a formal-wear-with-escort competition. A computer averaged the scores, then puked forth the five finalists, from which we chose our individual picks for the queen and her court, while the whole group--numbering from 70 to 103 for each division--paraded before us on stage with high hopes.
We already knew who the five finalist were, but the girls didn't know we knew, so they kept smiling pleadingly at us. We didn't know how our individual scores for the five would add up, but to see the faces of the 15 "semi-finalists" (based on their computer generated scores) and to know that ten of them weren't even in the running anymore made us bilious and sad.
Immediately after the queen was crowned we were told to go up on stage to have our picture taken with the new queen. Which meant we had to wade through the vale of tears backstage, trying not to make eye contact with the losers.
Who were our fellow judges? A motley collection, to say the least, but we got the feeling they were all churchgoers except for us. One's bio said he was a film actor who served on the creative team at Saddleback Church, the famous Evangelical corporation run by Rick Warren, where McCain and Obama made an appearance Saturday night. So I googled up this judge to see what other achievements he had. What caught my eye was his acting experience two years ago in a film called "Hotel Erotica Cabo," described as a place where folks could drown their sorrows in waves of sex and fun. He didn't list that unique experience among the film credits in his bio. I wonder if pageant parents would feel blessed (all weekend we heard we were blessed) to have a porn star ogling their toddler.
Karen's top funny/sad experience was the little princess (5 years old), who was standing center stage with a frown on her face and her hand plunged into her crotch. She later learned the little girl had to go to the bathroom so bad that when she walked off the stage she raced for relief and failed, wetting her pants along the way. One of the pageant organizers assured Karen it wasn't too embarrassing for her because the child appeared to be "challenged." Needless to say, this "lovely young lady" wasn't among the finalists. Beautiful on the inside, but not exactly American Miss material.
My saddest moment came when I interviewed a cute little 8 year-old, asking her the one question we were limited to in our 40-second interview. We could choose our own question. I asked her "Would you want to be famous? Why or why not?" She just stared at me for the longest time, so I tried again, re-phrasing the question to give her some help. She just looked up at me, on the verge of tears, and asked, "Do you speak Spanish?"
Just before we left the hotel last night Karen made a rest stop and heard sobbing coming from one of the stalls in the restroom
An interesting adventure, but one we don't want to repeat.
It was organized by a group of self-described "values oriented" folks, who were proud to say the competition was all about inner beauty, which meant no swimsuit event and a pledge (which we immediately broke the first evening in our room) that we wouldn't touch alcohol or drugs for the entire weekend. We kept half of that pledge and got smashed on cabaret and chardonnay in the privacy of our room. Karen dropped all pretense of compliance and announced to our fellow judges that she badly needed a drink, before retreating to our room with me each evening. Our judging colleagues looked envious. We didn't get to serve on the same judging panel, so we didn't see much of each other.
Yes, the girls came in all sizes and shapes, but the winner of each division was invariably gorgeous.
There were about 400 "lovely young ladies" competing, each of whom had to pony up $400 for the privilege. The top prize for each division was $1,000. A pretty risky investment with a pretty small return, wouldn't you say? Especially since they probably spend at least another several hundred dollars on their formal wear competition, the hotel room at $119 a night, parking at $9 a day.
I felt like I needed a shower after each final pageant when the winner was chosen. It worked like this. We gave a score of 1 to 7 for each of the three events judged--the personal intro on stage with a mic, a 40-second interview with each judge, and a formal-wear-with-escort competition. A computer averaged the scores, then puked forth the five finalists, from which we chose our individual picks for the queen and her court, while the whole group--numbering from 70 to 103 for each division--paraded before us on stage with high hopes.
We already knew who the five finalist were, but the girls didn't know we knew, so they kept smiling pleadingly at us. We didn't know how our individual scores for the five would add up, but to see the faces of the 15 "semi-finalists" (based on their computer generated scores) and to know that ten of them weren't even in the running anymore made us bilious and sad.
Immediately after the queen was crowned we were told to go up on stage to have our picture taken with the new queen. Which meant we had to wade through the vale of tears backstage, trying not to make eye contact with the losers.
Who were our fellow judges? A motley collection, to say the least, but we got the feeling they were all churchgoers except for us. One's bio said he was a film actor who served on the creative team at Saddleback Church, the famous Evangelical corporation run by Rick Warren, where McCain and Obama made an appearance Saturday night. So I googled up this judge to see what other achievements he had. What caught my eye was his acting experience two years ago in a film called "Hotel Erotica Cabo," described as a place where folks could drown their sorrows in waves of sex and fun. He didn't list that unique experience among the film credits in his bio. I wonder if pageant parents would feel blessed (all weekend we heard we were blessed) to have a porn star ogling their toddler.
Karen's top funny/sad experience was the little princess (5 years old), who was standing center stage with a frown on her face and her hand plunged into her crotch. She later learned the little girl had to go to the bathroom so bad that when she walked off the stage she raced for relief and failed, wetting her pants along the way. One of the pageant organizers assured Karen it wasn't too embarrassing for her because the child appeared to be "challenged." Needless to say, this "lovely young lady" wasn't among the finalists. Beautiful on the inside, but not exactly American Miss material.
My saddest moment came when I interviewed a cute little 8 year-old, asking her the one question we were limited to in our 40-second interview. We could choose our own question. I asked her "Would you want to be famous? Why or why not?" She just stared at me for the longest time, so I tried again, re-phrasing the question to give her some help. She just looked up at me, on the verge of tears, and asked, "Do you speak Spanish?"
Just before we left the hotel last night Karen made a rest stop and heard sobbing coming from one of the stalls in the restroom
An interesting adventure, but one we don't want to repeat.
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