As James Madison, Federalist No. 48, Feb. 1, 1788, wrote “[t]he accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.” See 2010 Presentation to Members of General Assembly of Virginia on investigation of judicial branch rule making power

This event is neither open to the media or to public scrutiny, but more importantly permit the promulgation of court rules that have violated the substantive rights of citizens, i.e., denial of the right to civil jury trials by abuse of dismissal under FRCP Rule 12, the discriminatory treatment of pro se litigants, the giving to the judicial branch absolute immunity from accountability for criminal acts or tort.

Evidence confirms that by the abuse and misuse of the Judiciary Act of 1925, the U.S. Judicial Conference Act, and the Rules Enabling Act, the Judicial Branch has conspired with government attorneys to undercut and disregard the limitations and prohibitions on government employees violation of the rights of citizens under the U.S. Constitution.  The extensive record confirms that there is an ongoing conspiracy by government attorneys and judges to deny nonresident U.S. citizens protection.http://www.liamsdad.org/others…. Thus, the evidence of cronyism between Beltway Lobbyist/Attorney, government attorneys and judges has revealed the usurpations of power by judges to obstruct justice in violation 18 U.S.C. § 4, § 241, § 242, and § 1204.(Jan 9, 2010 NOVA Presentation).Presentation to members of General Assembly of Virginia

Well, the plan came to fruition and the big sponsors, along with Chris Cristie, who you would expect to pass the begging bowl to corporations is Mayor of Newark, NJ, Corey Booker.  Booker, like Rubio has become the darling of the reactionaries for they can sue them for their ethnicity and ability to PT Barnum their consituencies.  In the post-racial society Booker knows the cost of skin color and corporate ties has gone up.

What does Booker really stand for and who does he really represent?

According to Thom Hartmann’s show of May 22, 2012, Booker has taken millions from privater equity firms including the Romney’s Bain Capital that he blasted Obama for going after and the company that made Romney all his vulture cash.  He is a paid courtesan with a sharp tongue, a penchant for taking favors and giving them.  He is corruption personified.

At the February 10, 2012 ribbon cutting for the teachers village, basically a corporate mall the Youtube heading noted that:

“Mayor Cory Booker joins Governor Chris Christie, CEO of Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., Lloyd Blankfein, RBH Group Managing Member Ron Beit, Chairman and, Berggruen Holdings President Nicolas Berggruen; CEO of BCDC Lyneir Richardson, Deputy Mayor for Economic Development Adam Zipkin; Sr. Vice President of Prudential Sharon Taylor; and Newark-born and nationally renowned architect Richard Meier at a groundbreaking for Teachers Village, a mixed-use development in downtown Newark.  Other attending guests included former Governor James Florio, Essex County Executive Joseph N. DiVincenzo, Assemblyman Albert Coutinho and Assemblywoman L. Grace Spencer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzbcNc08bWU).

The whole gaggle of the one percent who, if they can get their arms around the man, embrace Christie and his surrogate Booker with open arms and padded wallets.  Just take a look at Booker bending over forwards to thank his Wall Street friends, many of them candidates for the perp walk, for the ‘teacher village.

Praised as an up and coming political heavyweight, Mayor Corey Booker is a very dangerous stew of both corporate loyalty to the corporate state that is emerging while mouthing his love of ‘common folk’ and of course his ‘race’.

Facts show that Booker is a conniving liar who is looking for a slot in the new oligarchy that is now firmly entrenched in America.  You can put him up with the likes of Geoffrey Canada, the corporate begger who claims miracles for kids in Harlem.  Or, better yet, historically it would be best to compare him with Booker T. Washington.

Clearly Booker’s recent back stabbing of Obama and his express love for equity firms and Wall Street should not come as a surprise.  Booker is both undermining Obama in the interest of corporate America who needs him both as a perfidious propagandist, but they also need him to help forge the new corporate democratic party that will emerge if and when Romney wins.  Sure, it is corporate now, but just wait.  Dividing up the ortz will be its new mission if and when Obama is thrown in the dumpster and collaboration will be even more insidious.

Obama was good for the road of neo-liberalism.  He did what he was told by his Goldman Sachs silk back thugs and when it came to regualtions, he did what the capitalist regulators told him to do — deregulate or reregulate in the interest of capital.

Corey Booker is different. Young, black, mendacious and energetic Booker is trying to cast himself as a ‘new corporate democrat’, one that understands that neo-liberalism is no longer the captitalist game.  Now, with the state merging with corporations, the new game is Mussolini type fascism or at least its precursor, totalitarianism.  Booker is down for this.

Booker is a very dangerous, charismatic bit player in a much larger corproate game for education and urban development.  The fact he has charmed the corporate press is no surprise: his rhetorical skills are good enough to undercut working people and those people of color.  Corporations need clever mouthpieces like this.

The New Teacher’s or Charter Corporate Village

The $150 million, eight-building project I wrote about in 2010 was largely publically financed, with support from federal, state and city governments.   This means, we paid for the costs while the profits of course get privatized by the developers, banks and other sundry thieves and politicians.  It’s Booker and Christie’s continuing cooperation, across party lines, on a school reform agenda focused on the expansion of the charter school sector that should be of interest, for Booker is really a republican or better said, a corporatist where parties are just convenient propaganda plates.

Meanwhile, while the slimy Booker undermines Obama, pledges the Oath of Omerta to the corproate class, New Jersey civil rights organizations and teachers’ unions have criticized the state’s charter schools for serving a lower proportion of special-needs and English-language learner students than traditional public schools.  Not surprising: I wrote about this in my book on charters in 2009.   the group also argued that the new urban gentrification and corproate village risk turning neighborhood schools turning into warehouses for the least-advantaged children.  But that is all part of the Booker-Christie Plan.  Turn education into vast swaths of desert and then point to them and argue for the neecd for charter schools.

Placing school reform in the broader context of urban revitalization supported by education advocates from across the ideological spectrum is what Booker and Christie want and this is their first foray which could be seen replicating itself all over the nation.  by tying land zoning to schools, further class divisions can be concretized into urban planning and thus cordon off the city to Booker and Christie’s constituents — the corporations.  We saw this in Chicago under Duncan and we see it all over now as schools close and zoning is re-zoned.

The project’s lead developer, RBH Group president Ron Beit, recently said clustering housing for teachers from charter, public and private schools would encourage “socializing and the exchange of ideas.… It’s like an artists’ enclave or a technology cluster for businesses, but here it’s for teachers.”

Sure, one big corporate discussion cumbaya of how corproations can help kids, provide them jobs, give them health insurance, a decent wage, releave them from debt and all the rest of the good things corproations do for American citizens, like pay them a non-living wage, tear up the social contract with labor and capital, fail tto provide health care and of course — pledge allegiance to the inequality embraced within the capitalist system(http://www.thenation.com/blog/166199/cory-booker-and-chris-christie-teachers-should-live-downtown-newark).

Teacher Village rents have been said to have been calculated to fit teachers’ budgets, according to the Nation blog; the cost at about $700 for a studio apartment, $1,100 for a one-bedroom, and $1,400 for a two-bedroom.  Sorry, but this is hardly within the budget of a school teacher.  More than half of New Jersey teachers make between $40,000 and $60,000 which after the cost of rent, food and transporatation and utilities, leave them table scraps.

Then there is Christie’s plan to undermine teacher salaries:

“More than two decades after Christie’s mentor, Gov. Tom Kean, pushed through mandatory raises for teachers, the issue of teacher pay and benefits took the center stage in Trenton.

In his call for “shared sacrifice” during the state budget crisis of 2010, Christie says public school teachers can afford to take a one-year wage freeze and pay at least 1.5 percent of their salary toward the cost of their health benefits — which, he says, can cost up to $22,000 a year for family coverage. He says most teachers, “when you put salaries and benefits together, are making a significant amount of money,” and he notes that pay freezes are common in the private sector” (http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/05/nj_teachers_pay_freeze_salarie.html).

But what about the Teacher’s Village and the affordable rent? Booker and Christie love teachers and kids for without them they would have nobody to corral for investment purposes and then why would the rich need them as hand tools?  The things we do for love, of money that is.

Newark not the first to develop corporate housing for teachers

Newark is not the first city to experiment with workforce housing for teachers.  the ‘company store’ has been around for a long time and the fact it is now applied to teachers shos the Walmartization of education.

Baltimore’s Miller Court, another corporate village, includes forty teacher apartments, 70 percent of which are rented by Teach for America recruits. In Los Angeles, the Glassell Park complex combines a district pre-school with affordable housing for teachers and other community members.  Affordable meaning what? (ibid).

The other corporate model that is being proposed  is designed as an attempt to increase parents’ involvement with their children’s education by co-locating schools with housing reserved for low-income families with the schools.

Using a mix of public and philanthropic dollars, the Brooklyn Kindergarten Society runs four full-service children’s centers within public housing projects in the neighborhoods of Crown Heights, Bed-Stuy and Brownsville.  The philanthropists are of course corporate or corporate tied.  They use the Robin Hood Fund to spill cash onto the corporate funded school for they are hedge fund operators (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/03/business/03hedge.html?pagewanted=all).

This provides the analogy with Geoffrey Canada and his Harlem Education project and charter school.  He is all corporate suited as well and is vaulted on the shoulders of the ruling class who give philantropy as both a psycholical means of cleansing their filth, but they also use it as a way to make money.

The Robin Hood Foundation donation and other similar tax scams are not entirely altruistic. The benefits for the one percent who ‘give’ include tax deductions, the chance to hobnob with rich competitors, colleagues and even stars, and a shot at becoming part of the fabric of New York society by supportint such laudable institutions as schools.  Alongside the Who’s Who of hedge funds at the Robin Hood ball were media moguls, corporate titans and Gwyneth Paltrow (ibid).

The centers include pre-schools and family support services, and the Society partners with city social service agencies (and corporations for funding) to identify which children living in public housing are most in-need of early academic enrichment.  All of this reeks of seperate but equal and the resegregation of American society.  The New Corporate Deal where inequality is adapted to by provisions of charity by the one percent or the philanthro-pirates who redistributed income upwards for the last four decades.

Profit before people means the whole thing stinks of shennanigans

One thing for sure that will serve to eventually break the fable and seperate it from the lies Christie, Booker and their paymasters are peddling is the fact that  this type of project lacks the potential profit-making upsides of market-rate housing for middle-class teachers.  Oh well, they at least get to sleep under the corporate tent with their students.  Meanwhile Booker and Christie continue to team up to assure teachers are reduced to independant contractors and 1099 forms where they lsoe their status as employees and work under contract at will.  It has not happened yet, but look for it in the future.

Here is the article written in 2010 on Teacher’s Villages for those interested.

For more on Corey Booker google: Bill Gates, the Newark Charter School Fund and venture capitalists.  You’ll see him: he’s the guy with the thousand dollar suit and with his hand perpetually out, either to beg donations or to meet the elite who see him as a good floor manager for the casino economy.

Charter School Teacher Villages being constructed in New Jersey

Larry Miller’s Blog: Educate All Students!

May 21, 2012

Milwaukee’s Education Privatization Explained: What’s the Difference Between Public Schools, Voucher Schools and Charter Schools?

What’s the Difference? Voucher schools, Charter schools, Milwaukee Public Schools

Published in May 2012 by the non-partisan Democracy and Education Research Group. Email: democracy.education.milwaukee@gmail.com

Overview

In recent decades, there has been an expansion of the types of schools in Milwaukee receiving public tax dollars. In some areas, differences may seem slight. In other areas, there are significant differences. This is especially true in terms of students’ rights, public accountability, and democratic oversight.

There are three main types of schools in Milwaukee that receive public tax dollars:

• Private voucher schools, charging tuition but also open to students who receive publicly funded vouchers.
• Charter schools approved by the City of Milwaukee and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
• Schools overseen by the Milwaukee Public Schools district.

The voucher schools, by definition, are private schools and do not have to follow the same rules as public schools. Most provide religious-based education and may charge tuition to private-paying stu­dents and, in some cases, to high school students receiving vouchers.

The charter schools approved by the City of Milwaukee and UWM are considered public schools, but do not have to follow the same state rules, regulations and public oversight as traditional public schools. They are beholden to a “contract” (or charter), granted significant autonomy, and operate as independent entities. The schools are expected to provide greater academic results and innovation, although this has not necessarily happened in practice. Like all charter schools, they are non-religious and may not charge tuition. They are governed by privately appointed boards of directors.

The MPS district primarily oversees traditional public schools, including both neighborhood schools and a range of specialty schools and citywide schools, from language immersion to Montessori. The Milwaukee School Board also oversees charter schools that are part of the MPS but that have a specific “contract” or charter, often to provide a particular curricular focus. Finally, MPS oversees alternative and partnership schools. All MPS schools are non-religious and may not charge tuition. They are gov­erned by the democratically elected Milwaukee School Board. Most MPS schools also have school-based councils of parents, teachers and community members.

Details

Voucher schools

The biggest difference between voucher schools and charter and traditional schools is that, by defini­tion, voucher schools are private schools and can provide religious-based instruction. There are approxi­mately 22,300 students in Milwaukee receiving vouch­ers in the 2011-12 school year, mostly at religious schools. In 2011, for the first time Milwaukee students could attend a voucher school located outside the city.

While the voucher program initially began as an ex­periment promoting “choice” for poor people, a family of four with an income of $67,050 may now receive vouchers. The median family income in Milwaukee is $35,921.

Because they are private schools, voucher schools have limited public accountability and operate un­der different rules than public schools. For instance, voucher schools do not have to follow the state’s open meetings and records law. They do not have to provide information on staff qualifications, student suspen­sions and expulsions, graduation rates, and so forth to the public. Their meetings are not open to the public.

Voucher schools must accept students who require special education services, but they are not required to meet the students’ needs beyond what can be provided with minor adjustments. As a result, many students requiring special services leave voucher schools and attend a Milwaukee public schools. (Less than 2 per- cent of students in voucher schools are identified as receiving special education services, compared to about almost 20 percent in the Milwaukee Public Schools.)

As private schools, voucher schools do not have to honor constitutional rights of due process when students are suspended or expelled. Nor do private voucher schools have to follow Wisconsin law that

prohibits discrimination against students in a range of areas including, sex, pregnancy, marital or parental status, or sexual orientation. Voucher schools, howev­er, must follow federal laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, color or national origin.

Charter schools overseen by the City of Milwaukee and UWM

There are seven schools chartered by the City of Milwaukee and 11 schools chartered by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The schools enrolled a total of approximately 6,500 students in 2011-12.

Information on the UWM charter schools can be found on the webpage of the Office of Charter Schools at UWM (http://www4.uwm.edu/soe/centers/char­ter_schools/). Links on the website provide data such as the name of a particular charter school, its address, when it was chartered, and its email and school web-site. Detailed data on special education students, racial makeup, curricular offerings and so forth is not easily accessible via the website. A 62-page annual report from 2009-10 is available through the website. The report does not indicate who appoints the staff and leadership overseeing the Office of Charter Schools, nor when and if the office holds meetings open to the public.

The only data available on the City of Milwaukee website specifically regarding charter schools is a phone number where one can get an application to become a charter school (http://city.milwaukee.gov/ CharterSchoolApplication.htm). The charter schools are overseen by a “Charter School Review Commit­tee” appointed by city officials. Meetings and deci­sions by the committee are not available on the City of Milwaukee website, nor is it clear where one can attain such information.

Limited data on individual charter schools, both for UWM and the City of Milwaukee, is available through the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, but not for the schools as a group.

Milwaukee Public Schools

There are 175 schools within MPS in 2011-12, with 80,098 students. Schools include traditional schools, charter schools, and partnership schools. Charter schools include both district-run charters (instrumen­tality) and independent charters (non-instrumentality).

Information on schools, programs, enrollment and demographics can be found at the MPS website (http:// mpsportal.milwaukee.k12.wi.us). MPS is governed

by a nine-member School Board, which each member elected to a four-year term in public elections. The board holds monthly public meetings, in addition to committee meetings, open to the public.

The Milwaukee Public Schools is the city’s largest educational institution, and the only one with the com­mitment, capacity, and legal obligation to serve the needs of all the city’s children.

Overall, almost 20 percent of MPS students require special education services, and 10 percent are English Language Learners. The district offers Spanish/Eng­lish bilingual programs at 24 schools, and Southeast Asian/English Bilingual Programs at two schools. English-as-a-Second Language programs are available at the bilingual schools and an additional 14 schools.

MPS issues an annual Report Card for the district as a whole, and for individual schools. The reports cards are available publicly via the MPS website. Con­tact information for the Milwaukee Board of School Directors, agendas, meeting calendars and audio records of board proceedings are available at the MPS board governance website.

Thursday May 24, 2012 at 11:15 AM there will be a General Assembly for the League of Student Workers at Santa Monica College.  I’ve been told the meeting is going to be pretty informal; the group is meeting to create a contact point for the Student Workers, introduce the committee members and present the annual report.  Student-workers are going to vote on whether or not they want to submit the report to the administration after appropriate changes have been made based onStudent Worker input. They may also vote on whether or not they want to make the committee a permanent representative body for Student Workers — but any details on structure ad mission will be determined at a later date.

Santa Monica College sets the pace for student organizing and fights against privatization and a State Wide Student Union

There is little doubt that Santa Monica College, one of the 112 community colleges in the state of California suffering under the weight of years of neglect and intentional slash and burn economic policies, is gearing up on multiple fronts to let the one percent know that a future of corporate low-paid work, lack of social security, table ortz for benefits, austerity in the form of higher costs for education, health care, social services and the inability to make a decent life or wage for oneself and their children is not acceptable.  Nor will it be tolerated.

In the culture of disposability, where people matter only as commodified low-wage workers or consumers, students are now viewed as a fugitive outlaw culture within the modern historical context of a failing and criminal economic and social order called monopoly capitalism.  Combine unfettered ‘self interests’ (usually manufactured by the Sorcerers of oppression and never critically examined by the occupied mind) and then couple this with failing descendant capitalism and one has the ingredients for an organized crime capitalist system accompanied by a predatory culture.

Working with students to assure they understand the class interest of both the ruling class and the class the working class that labors for them comes about when workers achieve a sense of class consciousness.  When student/ citizens become self conscious about power, the way it is configured and by whom, how it is used to repress and exploit the majority of working people and low-income people of color, that we can begin to develop the democratic thinking necessary for living a full and potential life within a system of hope and equal opportunity — not crippling depression and mendacity.

About The League of Student Workers

The League of Student Workers is committed to creating effective and transparent systems of communication between Student Workers and the SMC administration.

Mission

As members of LSW our goals are as follows:
- To maintain a productive coalition of student workers
- Promote positive communication between Student Workers, the SMC community, the SMC constituents, and our governing bodies
- Facilitate positive Student Worker action
- Advocate for fair wages and benefits (including non-monetary) for Student Workers
- Work to ensure better student involvement in all matters related to Student Workers at SMC
- Demand further transparency in all aspects of Student Worker policies and policy making

Description

We, the members of League of Student Workers (LSW), are founded on the basis of promoting student worker unity and improving student worker conditions and relations for all present and future Students Workers.

Founded February 12^th, 2012, the League for Student Workers can be found at:(http://www.facebook.com/LeagueOfStudentWorkers/info).

The report:

Summary

The following report outlines many of the financial and educational challenges facing working college students today. The purpose of this document is to initiate a collection of policy adjustments which will benefit both Santa Monica College and Student Workers. All of the changes suggested in this document, developed through research and Student Worker input, are meant to enhance and complement the current Student Worker program and not to replace it. The report analyzes three main areas of improvement and offers suggestions for their implementation:

1. The establishment of a variable pay scale system for Student Workers

2. The creation of an incentives package for Student Workers

3. The development and implementation of a comprehensive internal Internship Program

At the end of this document is a Proclamation of Unity, signed and approved by the Student Workers of Santa Monica College during the League of Student Workers First General assembly held May 24, 2012 at Santa Monica College. Follow-up and questions regarding any part of this report should be directed to the Associated Students League of Students Workers Ad hoc Committee whose member are:

Jessica Chuan – jessicastudentgovernment@gmail.com

Martha Clayton – clayton_martha_a@student.smc.edu

Jasmine Delgado – jasmine.smc.vp@gmail.com

Currently, Santa Monica College Student Worker Employment policies require that students must be enrolled full time (12 units) to work in the Fall and Spring semesters with a modified version of this for the Winter semester. Furthermore, students are only allowed work up to 20 hours a week and cannot receive more than 8.00/hr no matter their position or skill. Research indicates that all other community colleges in the immediate vicinity have much more lenient and generous student employment policies. For example, Pasadena Community College offers students a pay rate commensurate to experience and skill set. Their student’s pay rate starts at $8.00-$11.00 and can be increased to $23.00/hour; they can work up to 20 hours/week, and stipends are available upon the request of their supervisor. All nine of the community colleges within the Los Angeles Community College District, the largest in the country, share guidelines/policies and start their student employees at .25 above minimum wage with increases to that rate in increments of 15%, 20%, and 40%, and they are allowed to work up to 25 hours per week as long as they remain in good standing academically.

These higher standards are also reflected nationally. Quinsigamond Community College in Massachusetts pays students between $8.50 and $10.00/hour. Mercy College in New York pays students $7.15 (NY State min. wage) to $10.00. Raritan Valley Community College starts at minimum wage, which is currently $7.25/hour in New Jersey, but different jobs will pay different amounts based on department budgets and the difficulty of the job. Dyersberg State Community College allows that a pay rate increase be offered if a supervisor can justify, in writing to the Financial Aid Office, why a higher rate should be paid. Mesa Community College, which competes with LACCD for largest CC system in the US, starts student pay at $7.50/hour but supervisors can increase that rate, based on experience and commitment, up to $29.54/hour. Recent research indicates startling trends that students are having to work more and more during their college years. For example, since 2001 the number of working students has increased nationally from 49% to 57% with 830,000 students working full time (Learning and Earning: Working in College). Even with the current increase rate of inflation, tuition, and interest from loans, the standard pay rate of $8.00/hour has failed to meet ever rising living expenses, only to have risen an average of 50 cents in the past decade.

Given the situation of an SMC student paid at the current $8.00 pay rate, and assuming that he or she works the maximum of 20 possible allotted hours per week, he or she would only have on average 1/5th of the cost of an “affordable” apartment in California (considered affordable if rent and utilities cost under 30 % of income). The average 2 bedroom apartment in California requires 130 hours/week at minimum wage. There are only 168 hours in a week. The National Center for Education Statistics has reported that 80% of part-time and almost half (40%) of full time 4 year university students are working. The particular effects of work-over-study depend on the location, hours spent, and type of job the student is in. However, the one apparent correlation underlying the impacts of working more than 20 hours a week is a negative one. Economists Orzag, Orzag and Whitmore point out that drop-out rates for students reflect a devastating trend with “always-working students” being 45% more likely to quit school and/or enlist in the army. On top of this, the statistics increase in prevalence when the data is categorized by ethnicity, with African-Americans being affected the most. Furthermore, when they, surveyed students regarding what they perceived as the greatest impediment to their academic success, 20.8% reported part-time employment as being a reason and 11.5% reported full-time employment. Additionally, 40% of student who work reported that work limits their class schedule, 36% reported that it limited the number of classes they could take, and 26% reported that work limited their ability to access campus services, specifically the library.

Other studies clearly demarcate how the external pressures of work hinders GPA. For example, Philip Gleason discovered that “a student who begins a 30/hour per week can expect to see his/her GPA drop by at least .05”. This may seem minor or inconsequential if viewing higher education through yesterday’s lens but in today’s competitive atmosphere this .05 could easily mean the difference between acceptance and rejection, especially with the rising epidemic of grade inflation, impacted classes, and increasing competition. This is true even for state and public schools, traditionally seen as more flexible in admission rates. With the current economic trends manipulating the jobs market, the rise of tuition rates, and the increasingly prevalent dependency on student loans, students are desperate for well-compensated jobs while they face the difficulties of finding a flexible satisfactory job to support themselves through school. Long gone are the days when a summer-and-vacations job could make any difference to the financial obligations of higher education.

Ideally, for Santa Monica College to alleviate this incredible burden for students and increase Student Worker retention, it would be advantageous to implement the ever prominent variable pay scale, which would reflect the merit and skill of the student worker. Los Angeles Community College District uses the following model created in 2007. It does not reflect current California Minimum Wage requirements.

(Image 2):IMAGE 2: Taken from LACCD Human Resources Manual – HR R-320 Student Employees

Available: http://www.laccd.edu/hr/Documents/HRGuide_R-320_StudentEmployees.pdf

However, it is obvious that the current economic crisis leaves Santa Monica College in an unfavorable position to address the issue of Student Worker pay rates monetarily. With this in mind, we have determined that on top of the effort to raise wages, it would be extremely beneficial to both the employer and employee alike to develop an incentives package; for this would:

1.    Help alleviate drop-out rates due to financial stress for students and support them to perform better both academically and professionally.

2.    Create an employment environment which fosters retention and ultimately saves SMC money by lessening the recurring process and cumbersome costs associated with repetitive hiring and training of Student Workers.

3.    Reward students for their commitment to SMC, just as campus organizations such as the AAPIA, Black Collegians, Disabilities Department, Associated Students, and countless other clubs do annually.

4.    Presents SMC as an academic institution and employer who recognizes the current employment market as especially fragile for students and creates innovative alternatives to address such issues.

The incentives we have developed have been designed to cost SMC as little as possible and include several thrifty solutions. These solutions will promote professionalism and offer students a safe environment for acquiring necessary real-life work skills that can be utilized in all future employment opportunities while simultaneously raising SMC’s profile as a community college that takes a holistic approach to student success. The value of presenting SMC as an institution which recognizes the obstacles students are facing and then creates innovative, outside-the-box solutions cannot be overlooked. The following selection of incentives were created based on research, meetings, informal surveys, and student employee interviews.

Campus Discounts (food court, book store, parking decals, printing privileges)

As student pay has risen very little in the past decade, all other costs associates with higher education have risen exponentially at above inflation rates, and students immediately recognize the benefits of utilizing student discounts. A 5% discount at all on-campus vendors could allow for some significant savings for students while encouraging the on-campus economy. Students make their money on campus and in return spend their money on campus. Additional printing privileges, similar to the Associate Students Cayton Center printing policy should also be included.

Vendor contracts that highlight student employees

Requiring campus vendors , such as those in the cafeteria, to offer SMC students first-right-of-refusal for all positions would demonstrate SMC’s commitment to student well-being and success. Additionally, this would again improve the on-campus economic cycle of students working/spending/studying on campus.

Transcript Notation

As the competition for acceptance to four-year universities becomes more and more fierce, transcript notations stating a student’s work history dates and position could potentially increase a student’s likelihood of being accepted. Transcript notation can highlight a student’s commitment and professionalism; a benefit that students keen on transferring tend to value, as demonstrated by the number of participants recognized by SMC Honor Society, Phi Theta Kappa, Alpha Gamma Sigma, the Scholars Program, and Dean’s List each year. This would also offer SMC the opportunity to recognize student employees for the contribution that they make to the successful operation of SMC.

Transcript Services

Again, in an effort to help students financially and reward them for their commitment to SMC, allowing Student Workers a limited number of complementary transcripts will engender mutual respect, and for some, make their ability to apply broadly for transfer more attainable.

Professional Development Opportunities

For many students, SMC is their first employer. With this in mind it is an invaluable opportunity to be included in Flex Day professional workshops with the faculty, especially for students working as Tutors, Supplemental Instruction Leaders, and in the Disabled Students Center. Offering Student Employees the opportunity to understand departmental goals, methodologies, and professional expectations can only improve performance. Additionally, this has the potential to create important mentor relationships between faculty and Student Employees.

Direct Deposit

With student pay being low, waiting for paychecks can often lead to greater stress and sometimes short-term financial crises. Direct deposit would alleviate this completely and save SMC money by eliminating the need for check processing and postage.

All of these incentives benefit both SMC and the Student Worker. Inclusion of these incentives would be of minimal cost to SMC with the rewards for implementing such a system far outweighing the initial staff hours required. At a time when the state budget crisis is effecting community colleges drastically, this incentives package can also serve as an excellent morale builder and public relations opportunity for SMC. Furthermore, this inventive solution for increasing the benefits of being a Student Worker can be applied as a broader, culture changing mechanism

Very often today we hear that the community college is changing. Students are no longer transient passers-by that enter and leave in two years or less. Due to rising costs, low wages and budget cuts on the state and local level, community college students are often extending their stay, sometimes for as long as 4 or 5 years. Additionally, the community college system itself is constantly under attack from slash-and-burn political budget agendas which pride themselves on presenting the community college system as a haven for slackers, but with the numbers of full-time learner/full-time worker increasing daily we know this isn’t true.

Yet through all this negativity, the community college culture appears to reinforce this detrimental image by offering students career services that push them out to external companies, encouraging them to commute rather then provide students professional work here, on campus. This exasperates a disconnect between the college and the students, leading many students to believe that the institution is in fact not truly interested in their success, but is “just pushing them through.” So how do we thwart these negative misconceptions about community college while simultaneously providing students applicable skills for their next professional and/or academic endeavor? We change this counter-productive relationship into an adaptive one by creating a comprehensive, cutting-edge, internal internship program that offers students the opportunity to develop professionally. This would thus allow faculty, administration, and classified employees the advantage of focusing on larger projects as the smaller, or more routine tasks of their departments are delegated to eager students, desperate for the opportunity to acquire professional experience relevant to their major or field of interest.

This outline demonstrates the general broad strokes and concepts of the proposed program. With a little research, departmental coordination, and development of the policies and the incentive package suggested, we can actualize merit and efficiency into reality. Again, the thrifty approaches proposed were formulated with budget constraints in mind and would probably require more intention and commitment from staff than it would require direct monetary output.

Progression and Integration of Internship Program into Student Worker System

Step 1: Internship (1-2 semesters)

·         unpaid

·         requires 6 units to participate

·         3.0 GPA

·         receives incentive package

·         learns professional skills associated with departmental needs

·         student develops mentor relationships

·         student gains resume content

·         SMC gains trained interns who contribute directly to success of institution

·         Intern contributions allow faculty, staff, and classified employees more opportunity to focus on larger issue projects

·         students feel greater connection to SMC due to direct contribution

·         SMC grows cutting-edge reputation by addressing student success in a multifaceted manner

·         Interns have priority employment and selected interns are chosen for professional jobs

Step 2: Promotion to Student Workers Position (semester 2+)

·         minimum wage

·         requires 6 (FWS) to 12 (Student Worker) units to participate

·         3.0 GPA

·         receives incentive package

·         fully trained from previous semester’s experience

·         able to train incoming interns

·         student deepens mentor relationships

·         students gain additional resume content

·         SMC gains trained employees who contribute directly to success of institution

·         Student Workers contributions allow faculty, staff, and classified employees more opportunity to focus on larger issue projects

·         encourages collaboration with trained Student Workers

·         students feel greater connection to SMC due to direct contribution

·         SMC leverages successes first generation of intern-to-Student Worker to promote program on-campus and in the community

Step 3: SMC implements variable pay scale for Student Workers

·         pay based on position and experience

·         requires 12 units to participate

·         receives incentive package

·         fully applies professional skills associated with departmental needs

·         student creates mentor relationships with incoming interns and Level 1 Student Workers

·         students increase resume content to reflect 1.5 to 2 year professional commitment

·         SMC gains trained professionals who contribute directly to success of institution

·         Student Workers contributions allow faculty, staff, and classified employees more opportunity to focus on larger issue projects

·         encourages collaboration with trained Student Workers

·         students feel greater connection to SMC due to direct contribution

·         SMC leverages successes first generation of intern-to-Student Worker to promote program on-campus and in the community

The ultimate goal of the incentives package for current Student Workers, the development of the Internship Program, and the imperative shift to a variable pay scale is to create a new paradigm for the community college system which takes the fostering of professional, academic and personal growth of students to a new and exciting level. This is an opportunity for SMC to further enhance its already well-respected presence in the field of higher education by demonstrating that it recognizes the important contribution that students make to the college’s continued success while cultivating an expansive support network for administrators, faculty, and classified staff. Furthermore, by implementing these programs SMC can offer students a value-added educational experience. This is especially important for students who decide not to progress beyond an Associates degree as it offers them favorable circumstances from which they can gain crucial experience that will help carry them into the professional market.

Proclamation of Unity

We, the Student Workers of Santa Monica College, call on the institution to recognize the invaluable contribution that we make to SMC. We ask that you, the administrators of Santa Monica College, implement these changes to the current Student Worker policies in an effort to create a more fair and beneficial work environment.

We, the members of League of Student Workers (LSW), are founded on the basis of promoting student worker unity and improving student worker conditions and relations for all present and future Students Workers.

As members of LSW our goals are as follows:

·         To maintain a coalition of student workers

·         Promote positive communication between Student Workers, the SMC community, the SMC constituents, and our governing bodies

·         Facilitate positive Student Worker action

·         Advocate for fair wages and benefits for Student Workers

·         Work to ensure better student involvement in all matters related to Student Workers at SMC

·         Demand further transparency in all aspects of Student Worker policies and policy making

In his “Sanctimonious Scolding Isn’t a Great Strategy for Promoting School Choice” posting, Hess makes an important statement at the end:

“Rather than obey the moral instruction of do-gooders, middle-class and suburban families tend to put themselves and their kids first (and, for the record, I don’t see the problem with that; hell, it’s kind of the logic of school choice, after all). If accepting school choice means that suburban communities are going to be pressed to open their schools up in ways that may adversely impact their kids and home values, those families may well stop being disinterested observers of the school choice debates and instead become active opponents.”

Hess doesn’t see a problem with families putting themselves and their children first, including protecting their home values.

And here is the (stone-cold) heart of the competition/choice ideology that is favored, not surprisingly, by the elite winner-culture driving all aspects of U.S. society.

The Corrosive Irony of Self-Interest

Free market advocates perpetuate compelling narratives about the cleansing power of choice, competition, and rugged individualism. These narratives have become, in fact, the unchallenged norm associated with the American Dream.

Choice, competition, and rugged individualism pervade every aspect of education and education reform: relentless testing to label, rank, and sort children; calls to label, rank, and sort teachers to fire “bad” teachers; class rankings (valedictorians, salutatorians), school rankings, international rankings.

It may well be true that these commitments stem from basic human nature, but it is also worth considering that competition and rugged individualism are components of the evolutionary theory U.S. society tends to reject. It is also worth considering that competition and rugged individualism were relatively credible paradigms in human eras of scarcity.

When resources are sparse, self-interest is simply self-preservation. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs explains how and why humans become selfish in extreme moments of scarcity.

But the U.S. and even the world are currently in a position to be in a condition of prosperity—except that because of competition, choice, and rugged individualism, the privileged in the U.S. have created an inequity of resources, pooling and hoarding those resources among the elite. That hoarding creates an appearance of scarcity in order to perpetuate the exact attitude expressed by Hess: It’s OK to get yours for you and your family because otherwise you will be at the bottom of the pile.

This perverse paradigm fabricated by the privileged is made even more warped by a simple lesson from ecology (an ideology and movement also rejected by the U.S. obsession with consumer culture): To recognize the individual as a part of her/his environment—and thus treasuring that environment as a community—is being selfish; ignoring or wasting the ecology surrounding the individual is, in fact, self-defeating.

Arguments, then, for increased choice and competition are not commitments to democracy, human agency, human dignity, or equity. Arguments for choice and competition are arguments of the privileged to preserve their privilege, arguments built on the illusion of scarcity and fear perpetuated by those privileged.

In our schools, there is no scarcity of learning, and our students need not compete among themselves. In fact, we know that collaboration is more effective for learning than competing.

In our schools, teachers cannot teach while also seeking to get theirs at the expense of other teachers (and their students).

The single greatest failure occurring now in education reform is that our current president has allowed the education agenda to be built on Race to the Top. Like Hess, Secretary Arne Duncan personifies the elitist mantras built on the Social Darwinism that consumes us.

Collaboration and community are central to democracy. Choice and competition are central to capitalism and consumerism.

Democracy is a hand held out to lift the least of us to our sides.

Consumerism is a boot in the face to stand alone at the top of the pile.

If we persist along the current “no excuses” reform path, we must admit we are using our schools to pass out boots and to render democracy mere rubble.

It became apparent at the May 12, 2012 SF meeting of students, faculty, citizens, and workers from the 112 Community Colleges in California in attendance that the need for a state-wide Student Union was a necessity now that the material conditions of capitalism have gone beyond neo-liberalism to actual the merger of corporate and state.  This now translates into the one percent mantra of ‘austerity’ and is embraced by all branches of the corporate political elite, democrat or republican.   As students know, this has meant and will continue to mean a full spectrum privatization assault on public education at all levels, even if it requires brute force which it more than often does.

 According to the Santa Monica Patch:

“Harrison Wills said an independent union representing the more than 2 million community college students across the state, would be set up like collective bargaining organizations for laborers, and would give students the opportunity to make demands of administrators and college contractors, such as text book publishers and food vendors. He also envisions localized chapters making endorsements during elections for college district’s governing boards” (http://santamonica.patch.com/articles/santa-monica-college-students-prepare-to-unionize).

What Wills is really saying is that student workers should be making decisions at Santa Monica College and other community college campuses.  Asit is now, administrators or college oligarchs make the deccisions that put corporate profits before student workers and the highly paid, publicly funded coordinating class that cobbles the whole privatization and corporatization plan together for the one percent. 

Students and their supporters are well aware that to make these decisions will require challenging and changing the governing structure and power structure of these community colleges that favor the corporatization and financialization of college life.

Mikhail Pronilover, a Santa Monica College student who led spirited demonstrations against the two-tiered funding plan, said last weekend at the May 12^th meeting during a gathering of community college students in Northern California:

“Our student governments are mostly administrating us instead of fighting for us in our districts” (ibid).

This is a good point and one many other students at the May 12^th meeting, including but not limited to Alfonso Pizzaro who gave a workshop on privatization battles in his home country, Chile and how students are mobilizing Student Unions throughout the country, claimed as well.

CA Student Union Website now up!

The good news is that the new CA Student Union website is now up and is not only committed to organizing students state-wide, but is international in focus, analysis and sophistication featuring interviews, articles and news about the privatization, the corporatization and financialization of higher education throughout the globe.  The CA Student Union website also reports on the resistance, organization and mobilization by many students around the globe to the financialization of education in an effort to develop solidarity amongst themselves and their constituencies.  In this way they can struggle for an education as a human right and prevent the private neo-enclosure movement from fencing off more of the public commons. 

This is also an exciting opportunity for those educators and public workers who are fighting for public education at the K-12 level to join the millions of students enrolled in higher education in their fight against privatization, corporatization and financialization of education; the whole effort to enclose what is left of the public commons is a “package deal”.

The following is just a sample from the website:

“About

Over the years, we students have struggled on our individual campuses in the fight against the deterioration of our education and our futures. It is time for us to start organizing collectively and begin the formation of a Student Union.  From Chile, to Quebec, to Brazil, Student Unions have proven time and time again that students en masse have the power to win against those who govern undemocratically.

Students are a a heterogeneous population. Our identities, concerns, and beliefs vary by campus. But as students, we have common interests and overarching issues that would be best addressed as a collective whole. We are proposing that students from campuses across California come together to collectively and democratically discuss, decide on, and develop the movement toward student unionization and begin forming models of alternative democracy on our campuses.

Our struggles are one. Our victories are one” (http://castudentunion.wordpress.com/about/).

What follows is a proposal for a California Student Union written by student Ernesto Moreno which can be found at the website for the California Student Union above.  This proposal was discussed at the May 12, 2012 meeting by Santa Monica students and others in attendance.  You can find out more about the proposal and its current state at the website.

The fact that an internationally sophisticated working-student class is emerging and beginning to organize in new, dramatic and internationally sophisticated ways in the state of California is the most heartening development that has crossed my desk in a long time. 

Please visit the website and support students in any way you can.

PROPOSAL FOR STUDENT UNION

By Ernesto Moreno

[SMC student and member of SOC]

Membership Qualifications:

- You must be a student of a school.
- You must have paid your membership fee (not to exceed $10) at the beginning of your first term at your institution.
- You must agree to respect the decisions of the Union (which would be made in a democratic fashion—more on that later).
- The fee will come with a membership card which will be used during voting.

Principles:

- The Student Union must remain a democratic space (perhaps run in a General Assembly style).
- It must be free of all sponsorship (independence from the institution—including established student governments and school boards— corporations, religious institutions, political parties or any other outside influence).
- Openness is extremely important. There can be NO back door dealings. Any decisions made at Secret Meetings will not be honored by the Union.
- It should remain community conscious (take up issues affecting the community, this is where many students live and even if not, it is where many of them study).
- The Union itself should not be affiliated with any political parties. Students can independently be part of whatever party they so please Left, Right or Center, but the Union should strive to represent as many students as possible.
- A lack of hierarchy will probably be best to avoid the hindrances that plagues bureaucratic systems like many current Student Governments have.

Organization:

- This will be different at each school system (K-12, UC,CalStates, CCs, etc) so this part mostly applies for CCs, but can maybe be used elsewhere—if not in entirely, partially.
- The campus can unite around Majors as at CCs there are no Departments.
- So each Major will form a Union (History Union, Accounting Union, etc.) and that Union will solve issues that deal with that particular Major’s students via General Assemblies in which there will be no hierarchy.
- Issues that plague the entire campus will be looked at by the Campus Union which will be made up by Delegates sent by the various Major Unions. (Delegates will have no power other than presenting the proposals, issues, etcetera of the their respective Major Unions.)
- At the state level, the Student Union Congress should be made up of Delegates chosen at the Campus Union.
- Congresses/General Assemblies should be called into session every one or two months and also whenever they are needed.
- Voting at the General Assemblies (the only place in which decisions can be made) will be done by card carrying Students.
- Students can only vote at one campus that they are members at. This is to avoid one student voting multiple times. (For example is Student A is attending both Z Community College and J State University, then said Student A can only vote at ZCC or JSU.)
- For purposes of this proposal, Undecided will be counted as an official Major.

If you are not familiar with the proposal coming out of the state government regarding privatizing and fianancializing community colleges in California please go to the website http://nosstf.blogspot.com and familiarize yourself with the issue.  One of the best fact sheets and analysis of the Orwellian named “Students Success Task Force” has been done by No SSTF at: http://nosstf.blogspot.com. 

In a never ending cascade of brutality, the forces of privatization and financialization are working harder than ever in concert with their lap-dog politicians to privatize education in the interest of Wall Street — this time the target is the 112 community colleges in the state of California that serve 2.6 million students. 

There is a video that you can see at the website http://nosstf.blogspot.com

Below are a few important bullet points quoted from No SSTF:

“Fact Sheet – Recommendations for Student Failure

The California Community Colleges Student Task Force recommendations are meant to radically defund the community college system, which has already had a $1.75 billion in cuts during the past three years. This has resulted in programs eliminated, tens of thousands of students turned away, and overcrowded classes. The Task Force recommendations would cut education further.

Partially funded by the Lumina Foundation, with ideas from the right-wing American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the Task Force recommendations do not effectively address student success, but instead aim to shrink government-sponsored education. The recommendations would force tens of thousands of California taxpayers to pay out-of-state tuition (which the report calls “full-fare” tuition).

Here are the main problems with the Task Force recommendations

The Students Success Task Force doesn’t address the accepted measures of successful learning such as Student Learning Outcomes, which are used by the accrediting bodies that evaluate the quality of public and private learning institutions. The Task Force does not consider the number of students who transfer to private and out of state colleges and universities, the successes of students who maintain work and family life while attending college, or the number of students who complete a single course to upgrade skills for employment. By including these measures, it would be clear that community colleges are doing well.

Removes funding for retraining unemployed or degreed workers. California residents with degrees returning to college to retrain or upgrade skills could be required to pay out of state tuition if they’ve used a certain allocation of community college units. However, new California residents who went to college in other states before moving to California would still be eligible for in-state fees.

Drastically reduces local control of community colleges, creating a larger bureaucracy at the state level. Community colleges throughout the state serve vastly different student populations with different issues; urban and rural, middle- and low-income students. Priorities for admission and for class offerings at local colleges would be set at the state level, not at the local level based on local needs. A one-size-fits-all approach does not serve local communities nor is it accountable to local communities.

Turns needs-based fee waivers into performance-based waivers, affecting the poorest and most disadvantaged students, including immigrants and native born.

Locks first year community college students into a major and prevents them from exploring other options. California residents would be required to pay out of state tuition for courses not listed in their education plan. This idea would be devastating because community college is often where students discover in what areas they excel through exploratory coursework.

Focuses on increasing the number of full time students at the expense of students who choose to be part-timers. A majority of community college students attend part-time while working, and many have families to support. Becoming a full-time student will require additional financial aid and student loans, leaving most students with significant student loan debt when they complete their studies.

Rations education by focusing primarily on 18-24 year old students, and would place significant limits to basic skills preparation. After students reach that limit, they would be required to pay out of state tuition for further coursework in basic skills. The average student at City College of San Francisco is 27 years old. Many current students would no longer have access to community college classes.

Discouraging colleges from serving the neediest and educationally disadvantaged by switching to performance-based funding mechanisms for basic skills students.

California residents and taxpayers taking single courses to upgrade technical skills, or students enrolled for purposes of lifelong learning, would pay out of state tuition.

Takes away the ability for local districts to do placement tests. The recommendations would have a single centralized test created by a private company (contracted by the California State Chancellor’s Office) with one statewide cut score to determine eligibility to take college-level courses. This doesn’t take into account local circumstances. Today’s tests are state-approved local placement tests, which takes into account demographic factors.

This would be the first step towards an admissions process ending California’s 50-year-old open-access policy for community colleges” (ibid).

For more information Contact: Gohar Momjian, Office of Marketing and Public Information Telephone: (415) 239-3680, fax (415) 452-5150, e-mail gmomjian@ccsf.edu

As I wrote at www.dailycensored.com back in early May:

“Community colleges across California are facing the wrath of privatization efforts by reactionary forces, most notably for-profit colleges and their surrogates, the corporate media and coin-operated politicians.  Both democrats and republicans have been and are continuing to use shock doctrine crisis management to privatize the community college campuses. 

But the forces of privatization will not stop with one defeat.  Both corporate liberals and conservative reactionaries have decided the best way to deal with austerity crisis and budget cuts are to capitulate to the forces of capital, not to mount an offensive to their plans to devastate the public commons.  They have drafted and engineered another “access hierarchy” which, if ever successful, promises to form a class-based tollbooth for students who wish to attend community colleges.  What this means is a two-tiered class system of fees for a two-tiered class society owned by the one-percent.  Those students who can pay more at the ‘tollbooth’ will do so and those who cannot will be denied access to classes.

Plans to privatize the community college system have been going on for some time and readers can go back to an article at Dailycensored.com, http://dailycensored.com/2010/08/26/california-community-colleges-decide-not-to-fornicate-with-for-profit-predatory-kaplan-university/, written in August of 2010 that chronicles how current Chancellor of the California Community College system, Jack Scott attempted to contract out community college classes to predatory, subprime, Kaplan University back in 2010.  The despicable failure of the liberal Chancellor and union leadership at the 112 community colleges to fight for students has now created the material conditions for the private control of the educational means of production.

On August 27, 2010 an article on the whole sordid mess was penned and can be found at: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:E_8ymfrc2-8J:dailycensored.com/2010/08/27/race-to-the-top-coming-to-a-community-college-near-you-2/+daily+censored+2010+race+top+coming+community+college+near+you&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us).

The issue the article confronted at the time is the claim by the authors of an article in Insidehighered.com arguing that we have failed to connect colleges with careers ((http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2010/08/26/carnevale). 

This is nothing new; it has been with us throughout history and is called ‘instrumentality’ in learning or “instrumental rationality”. 

According to philosopher and social critic Henry Giroux:

“Instrumental rationality is the belief that systems and practices should be organized according to principles of standardization, efficiency, practicality, and measureable utility (over and above philosophical, humanistic, or ethical considerations).  Such criteria have been used to legitinmate empiricist and market driven forms of education that serve the intersetts of a closed and authoritarian social order rather than an open and democratic society” (girxou, H. (2012) Disposable Youth, racialized memories and the culture of cruelty, routledge: NY. Pp. 57.).

John Dewey, the great 20^th century philosopher and social critic confronted this instrumental rationlaity back in the early part of the 20th century, arguing against the instrumetntality of learning by stating: “We train animals, we educate human beings.”  W.E.B. Du Bois, one of the most prominent black thinkers of the 20^th century, abhorred the idea as well stating in even more graphic terms:  “The role of education is not to make carpenters out of men, but men out of carpenters.”

All of this is lost on the neo-instrumetnalists that wish to boil education down to a sickening standardization process devoted to securing low-paid work.  They see education as little more than a boot camp for obedience training by the new non-union adjunct ‘constables of obedience’ and the community college, as a factory for creating workers as commodities for the new global corporate Banana Republic.

Santa Monica College: Advance the Dream or Advance the Scheme?

Santa Monica College was chosen as a Petri dish by the corporate coordinating class of coin operated politicians to launch the two-tiered system in light of the failure of AB515 to pass.  That bill was introduced by a democrat, Carol Brownley as a strategy to compete with for-profit colleges.  Santa Monica college has a student body of 20,000, of which only four percent come from Santa Monica, and is highly diverse.  Built in 1939 the campus is huge and if it had dormitories, it would qualify for a state college or university – it is that big. 

Looking for a community college where they could experiment with students in an attempt to compete with for-profit colleges through internal privatization, the Board of Trustees attempted to shove through their own version of AB515 for SMC.  SMC also has 40% of their student body eligible for waivers from fees as opposed to most California Community colleges that ses approximately 60% of their campus student body eligible for fee waivers.  This makes the experiment even more savory for the privatizers for if the idea would work at SMC, they could then take the pilot on the road to the other 112 community colleges where they would then open more corporate branches of the new two-tiered class sale.

Meanwhile, the attempt to continue to fully privatize the college has not abated.  The Board of Trustees, determined to force a hierarchy for classes on SMC, are now trying to secure the idea using sophist rhetoric.  They call the new, privatized two-tiered program, Advance the Dream when it would be more logical to entitle it:  Advance the Scheme.  We can only hope Orwell is listening.  However, it is necessary to adopt language that exposes the official narrative and advances a more nuanced and true narrative of what is transpiring.

The May 12^th meeting was successful in SF to begin to strategize to stop the privatization of community colleges

The good news is that concerned citizens, teachers, students and others committed to standing up against the for-profit colleges and the privatization of community colleges had an excellent meeting in San Francisco on May 12th.  Present were students, teachers, labor leaders, researchers, public interest lawyers and citizens interested in protecting the public commons from the locusts of privatization.

Santa Monica college students attended the conference in San Francisco in substantial numbers.  They will be working with other students and those concerned about public education to form a Student Union for the entire state of California.  This is similar to what has happened in Chile and Quebec, as was explained by Chilean born, Alphonso Pizzzaro, currently a student at Berkeley who gave an excellent workshop on the student struggles in Chile and how they represent the same struggles against the corporatization, privatization and financialization everywhere.

 See the Youtube:

CA STATEWIDE STUDENT UNION ORGANIZING CONFERENCE

The Santa Monica College Student Organizing Committee calls for a meeting on Saturday, May 19, 2012 9:00am until 6:00pm in PDT

“Rich people are likelier to steal candy from children” (Harpers, May, 2012, Findings, pp.80).

I thought about it for awhile and it made sense.  In fact, childhood itself has been stolen.  The rich who run corporate America and indeed the corporate global economy have been stealing from children for a very long time and it isn’t just candy; they’ve foreclosed on their future stealing generations of youth lives throughout the world.  Educational and cultural theorist, Henry Giroux has been writing about “disposable youth” for some years now.  According to Giroux, disposability is:

“a set of ideas and practices characterized by a ruthless indifference to human suffering whereby the most brutalizing forces of capitalism are unleashed on individuals and communities who are increasingly denied the protections of the social state.  Under such conditions certain groups such as immigrants, poor minority youth, and those individuals considered bad consumers are viewed as excess, waste, and expendable” (Giroux, Henry, (2012) Disposable youth, Racialized Memories and the Culture of Cruelty, Routledge pp. 56).

Feds crackdown on student loan defaulters

A culture of cruelty indeed, for I also found it a cruel  irony that on the same weekend  the New York Times published the editorial “Control Reckless For-Profit Colleges” (http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/05/12/easing-the-pain-of-student-loans/control-reckless-for-profit-colleges) and the article “A Generation Hobbled by the Soaring Cost of College” (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/business/student-loans-weighing-down-a-generation-with-heavy-debt.html), the Sun Sentinel published the article “Feds crack down on South Florida student loan defaulters”  which reported  how the federal government is suing Florida students who have defaulted on their student loans to recoup government money. (http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2012-05-12/news/fl-student-loan-lawsuits-20120510_1_student-loan-default-rate-federal-stafford-loans).
According to the Sun Sentinel article, 10.5% of all Florida student loan debtors were required to start repaying their loans in 2009 but due to no jobs, lack of opportunities, poverty, disability, the state of being broke in America they went into default.  This, while the default rate for for-profit college and university students soared to heights of 40%.

Department of Education Rules Allow for-profit institutions of higher predation to have student loan default rates as high as 40% and still receive federal funds

The Wall Street Journal noted that Department of Education (DOE) rules permit all colleges, public, non-profit, and private to have student loan default rates as high as 40% in any one year and 30% over three years before eligibility to participate in federal student loan programs is negatively affected. These so-called ‘rules’ are little more than licenses for the for-profits to steal.   It is obvious that the ‘rules’ accommodate predatory for-profit colleges, since non-profit colleges on average have default rates under 10%. 
(http://online.wsj.com/articleSB10001424052748704709304576124280473684142.html).   It’s apparent that the DOE rules were written and hammered out either by or for the for-profit disaster colleges and universities, their lobbyists, lap-dancing politicians and right wing think tanks that rationalize the whole rape of America under the guise of education.

Even the corporate press, the same press that take ads from the for-profit colleges, had to acknowledge that for-profit colleges target and recruit poor, veteran and minority students knowing many of these students will default on their loans.  As the Washington Post Company (owner of Kaplan University)  admitted in a court filing ” Plaintiff alleges that KHE’s supposedly “secret business model” depended upon the recruitment of “low-income and minority” students who were dependent upon federal loans and grants. But that was not a secret.
(http://dailycensored.com/2012/01/14/in-court-filing-washington-post-admits-telemarketing-boiler-room-tactics-at-kaplan-u/). 

We send you into debt purgatory because we love you

But it’s much worse than this.  Kaplan University in the form of its major stockholder, Donald Graham, actually is on record arguing that sub-prime Kaplan and other such disaster colleges do minority and low-income students a favor!  This is the same argument used by Pay-Day Loan hucksters where the public is told that without the existence of these corporate parasites, low-income citizens would not be able to get loans. 

The Orwellian argument, like most, relies on the material conditions of human despair and a beleaguered mind devoid of facts for the for-profit colleges and universities are simply parasites looking for a host.  They offer little more than despair as curriculum and debt as a consequence of a sub-prime diploma.  Never do these higher educational outfits mention the fact that there are no jobs and that there may never be, for under capitalism a permanent surplus population has emerged worldwide that may never see work in their lifetimes and if they do, it will be precarious, unsteady low-wage work.

The absurdity of the federal government allowing for-profit colleges to have default rates up to 40% and then to keep all the money they obtain from federal loan programs without penalty or consequence can only be understood in the seedy context of cash, corruption and lobbying.   While the lax rules allow the one percent enough wiggle room to commit criminal acts that are not legally called criminal acts, the corporate government that colludes with them sues the same veterans and low-income students that were commodified and exploited by the sub-prime colleges in the first place. 

There you have it: the corporate government enables capital extraction by the for-profit industry at rates beyond comprehension and eventually shouldered by taxpayers as a result of student defaulted loans while the same corporate government goes after working class, poor and minority students in default with a vengeance. What a racket.

Collecting defaulted student loans

How does the government attempt to recruit the defaulted loans?  The answer is by using questionable corporations who they farm out the job of collection to for a percentage of the take.  Sound like the Mafia collecting on a protection racket?  It should, for on the fortieth anniversary of Francis Ford Coppola’s classic film, ‘The Godfather’, shy-locking has now become a legal part of daily life, not just in the form of pay-day loans, cash checking joints, car title companies, rent-to-own and the rest of the sub predatory economy which is now the main street economy, but in the educational economic sector where some of the most ruthless racketeers are busy extracting billions in capital from the American economy and leaving students like carcasses, on the road with their pockets turned inside out like tramps. 

In fact the entire Mafia is now institutionalized.  Prohibition and the illegal drug trade along with loan sharking and gambling made the Mafia a rich force in America. initially outside of the law.  The profits and revenues from peddling booze and drugs allowed this same Mafia to invest in ‘legitimate businesses’ and ‘investments’ and develop the entire Southwest region of the US with the help of the Savings and Loan industry and some of the most corrupt politicians in the nation. 

When the student loans are not paid the ‘boyz’ are called in and one of the goon squad collection agencies that might be of interest to readers is Allied Interstate, Inc. (http://dailycensored.com/2012/05/02/allied-interstate-inc-student-loan-collection-is-big-business/). 

The Federal Trade Commission’s website discusses a rather substantial fine that was levied against the debt collection company for engaging in egregious and unlawful practices against consumers. (http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2010/10/alliedinterstate/shtm).  Further research, based on numerous consumer complaint websites, leads one to plausibly infer that this company continues to practice many of the behaviors that caused them to be fined in 2010 with impunity.  Alas, fines are simply the cost of doing illegal business in America as the “mordida” is in most parts of Latin America.  Once again, a questionable shylock collection outfit is getting paid by the government with your tax monies to, in this case, grab young people by the ankles and dangle them upside down to collect money from broke and broken disposable students.

The ‘rules’ allowing up to 40% default rates for for-profit colleges is proof positive that the federal government is little more than a corporate kleptocracy devoted to serving the one percent while punishing and prosecuting the ninety nine percent who subsidize the life styles of the rich and famous.    It is also evidence that supports the findings that the rich are more likely to steal candy from children.  The tragedy is that they have not just stolen the candy, the bastards have stolen the whole piñata.

There seems to be little doubt that in the new Carceral State punishment, fear, economic uncertainty and policies linked to ideologies of human disposability have replaced empathy and compassion for our nation’s youth.  Where once American youth were looked at as an investment in the future, they are now visualized as a future for investment and since many will never work, have no money to consume, are not a good debt risk and are considered a problem for the world’s one percent, they will undoubtedly suffer the ravages not unfamiliar to hunted prey; that is unless they fight for a more just and democratic economic and political future.

And I am excited about the coming semesters because, as I have felt every year of my teaching life, I know I failed in some ways this past academic year and I am confident I will be better in my next opportunities to teach.

As a teacher, I am far from finished—and I never will be.

On this Mother’s Day*, I want to make a statement to the many and powerful leaders in education reform, all of whom have either no experience or expertise, or very little, as teachers:

I don’t need standards to teach, I need students.

If You Have Never Taught, You Simply Don’t Understand

Governors, policy wonks, and think tanks, I don’t need the Common Core State Standards (CCSS).

Secretary Duncan, I have no interest in racing to the top, when that means the top of the pile of my fellow teachers trampled by the policies you have created and promoted.

Bill Gates, I don’t want a dime of your billions; in fact, I am not even interested in what you do (I have always used Apple products) as long as you drop education as your hobby.

Michelle Rhee, I have no interest in my students having mouths forcibly shut by me. I am here to hear their open minds and mouths.

Pearson, Macmillan/McGraw-Hill, and every company seeking to sell me anything to support my implementing CCSS or preparing my students for NAEP, state high-stakes tests, or the SAT, I am not interested in buying anything. No software, no hardware, no textbooks, no worksheets. Nothing.

Professional organizations and unions, I need you to stop racing for a place at the table with the reformers and corporations noted above, and instead, seek ways to support my autonomy and agency as a professional so that the autonomy and agency of the children in our schools can become the primary focus of universal public education for free people.

And, finally, to anyone who thinks you know what I should teach and how, please seek a place at the front of a classroom filled with other people’s children, teach for a few years, and then let’s get together and talk. I am eager to be collegial in the pursuit of community as a key part of teaching and learning.

Then What?

Becoming and being a teacher is a constant state of becoming. A teacher must be always a student and scholar of her/his field(s), her/his pedagogy, and her/his students.

What the people and groups identified above seem not to understand is that for my eighteen years of teaching high school English, I probably taught about 2000 students; thus, I taught about 2000 different classes. And not a single measurable outcome of any of those students predicts much of anything about my effectiveness or if I’ll succeed with any future student. Some of the students who appear successful did so in spite of my failures. Some of the students who appear to have failed were provided my very best as a teacher. Almost all of the good and bad I have created as a teacher are not measurable or apparent in manageable ways.

I wasn’t concerned about meeting anyone’s standards or preparing any student for a test or making sure any student was prepared for the next grade, college, or the workforce.

And I never will be.

Instead of standards, testing, competition, labeling, ranking, and sorting (all the cancerous elements of traditional schooling and the current accountability era), as a teacher, I need to offer my students authentic learning opportunities in which they produce artifacts of their understanding and expertise. My students need from me my authoritative feedback to those authentic artifacts.

I have no interest in competing with my fellow teachers for whose students score highest on tests so I can earn more money than my colleagues. I don’t, either, want to join forces with my in-school colleagues to outperform other schools in order to compete for their customers. I couldn’t care less how my state’s schools compare with other states or how U.S. schools compare on international tests.

Absolutely none of that matters.

While not unique to Howard Gardner, we have a very clear idea of what it is teachers should do in the pursuit of learning. Gardner’s The Disciplined Mind examines a conception of education not distracted by accountability.

Teaching and learning must be primarily collaborative, a community of learners.

The goals of learning must be the broad and clear—although always evolving—defining qualities of the fields of knowledge we honor in academia.

Every history course, for example, would pursue, What does it mean to be a historian? Every science class, What does it mean to be a scientist? Every writing class, What does it mean to be a writer?

Teaching and learning are the collaborative pursuit of questions. Anything else is indoctrination, dehumanizing, and antithetical to democratic ideals and human agency.

Humans never will—and never should—learn the same box of knowledge. Humans never will—and never should—learn in linear, sequential ways.

And there is no need for any of that anyway as long as we seek to be a community instead of barbaric individuals committed to the conquest of goods at the expense of others.

There, I think, is the harsh and ugly fact. Those privileged elites—again the people and groups noted above—have acquired their status on the backs of others, corrosive evidence for them that they somehow deserve that and that it all is the way things should be. It is theirs then to perpetuate dehumanizing ways of being—labeling, sorting, ranking against the rules that gave them their power.

I choose otherwise.

I don’t need standards to teach, I need students.

* My becoming a teacher can be traced directly to the wonderful and rich influence of my mother, and that influence is inextricable from the powerful and enduring influence of my father.