Category Archives: Education

Paragraph And Policy To Ponder

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“There were . . . significant gaps in the rate of students meeting University of California and California State University admissions requirements, which say students must complete certain courses with a C or better. During the 2018-19 school year, about 59% of students met the requirements. For the class of 2022, about 46% of students are on track to meet the requirements — with a gap of 17 percentage points or more between Black and Latino students and white and Asian students.”

One proposal for closing this gap, rethinking deeply entrenched grading practices. 

Wednesday Required Reading and Listening

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  1. The public library is open and freely available to all. Imagine a world in which the Billionaire Boys’ Club invested in public libraries instead of space travel.
  2. Does Ethiopia have a future? Things are looking more and more dire by the day.
  3. Being kind to yourself. 
  4. A 100 year-old priest was nudged from his parish. He has no plans to retire.
  5. ‘Dormzilla’ at University California, Santa Barbara. A good problem to have. 

I Am Slow On The Uptake

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Which won’t come as any surprise to readers that know me.

Last week, I had an epiphany halfway through an online presentation about the state of the University I teach at. Despite two recent rounds of faculty cuts coupled with several other belt tightening moves, we continue to experience a significant budget deficit. 

Finally, it’s now painfully obvious that substantial budget deficits are not anomalies, they are the newish normal. I use ‘newish’ instead of ‘new’ because we’ve contended with bruising budget deficits for nearly all of the last 7-8 years. 

The epiphany most simply stated is this, annual budget deficits are now a feature of our University’s life. 

And this distressing fact isn’t easily explained by a single cause like administrative incompetence. My fear is that the economics of tuition-dependent private liberal arts education are no match for our smart, caring, and hardworking President-Provost team.

I can’t blame the University’s administration for thinking positively and talking about a near future with balanced budgets. But fool me once, shame on you. Fool me seven or eight times, shame on me.

 

Wednesday Assigned Reading

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  1. Is this what happens when everyone moves to the same place?
  2. Before you move there, you should know TX schools dare not take a position on the Holocaust. Thanks KN.
  3. Against alcohol.

Wednesday Required Reading

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  1. Social-emotional learning for school principals.
  2. Depression is complicated.
  3. Newberg school board adopts policy banning Pride, Black Lives Matter symbols in classrooms. There are no moderates in Oregon, just lefties and righties.
  4. How much would your favorite classical composers have earned on Spotify?
  5. The digital death of collecting.
  6. Burned out? Maybe you should care less about your job. 

Sentence To Ponder

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“Immigrants have been awarded 38%, or 40 of 104, of the Nobel Prizes won by Americans in chemistry, medicine and physics since 2000.” 

And 35% since 1901.

Ever considered that instead of endangering us, maybe immigrants are improving and extending our lives? Share this factoid the next time a janky politician broadcasts their racist/nationalist fearmongering.

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Whose Laughing Now?

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When I was conceived, God went through his check list. When he got to “ears?” I thought he said “beers” and asked for “two large ones”.

Consequently, as a child, after moms took me to the barber, people would say I “looked like a taxi cab going down the street with its doors open.” 

Fast forward to the global ‘pan. Look who can hang their mask on their ear when walking between classes. Meanwhile, all the sad sacks who made fun of me sticking theirs in their sorry pockets.

Whose laughing now suckers?!