Reading the Cabinet Highlights for May 2007

INCENTIVE PROGRAM FOR THE 2007 TO 2008 ACADEMIC YEAR
No, it's not the rumored linking of FTES growth to faculty salaries, but, rather, a $100K Cabinet-funded program to be administered by the college presidents for increasing enrollment and/or retention. In order to get that money, the colleges have to work up a plan for allocation--how do we do that, especially now that faculty are going, going GONE for the summer?--and "[t]he chancellor will develop criteria for release of the funds." That part happens first, I guess.

COMPRESSED CALENDAR
"Based on the results of the voting done by the constituent groups"--we remember that election fondly, the bunting hanging outside the various offices, the lines of grinning voters going over our literature as we waited to be marked off by the volunteers sitting at the long tables--"the Chancellor's Cabinet decided not to implement a compressed calendar at this time." Good to know how that decision was finally made, because we kept thinking the academic calendar was an item to be negotiated with the United Faculty.

STATE-MANDATED ACCOUNTABILITY REPORTING
Mojdeh Mehdizadeh, apparently as a function of her position as Vice Chancellor, Technology Systems Planning and Support, reports tonight to the district's governing board on the district's findings under the Accountability Reporting for Community Colleges framework, designed "to assess the effectiveness of the community college system as a whole and each individual college's progress and achievements." There are four general areas identified as "indicators": credential/degree/certificate; vocational programs; basic skills/ESL; and post-secondary participation.

If anyone goes to the Board meeting and wants to report on it here, please do so.

TELL ME WHO ARE YOU (I REALLY WANT TO KNOW)?
Hey, five out of eight members of the Chancellor's Cabinet are "interim." One way to stay nimble.

High times at the end-of-the-year happy hour gathering

(the) Restoration Project hosted its second annual end-of-academic (aka ack) year gathering at the Pleasant Hill Left Bank May 17.
This year only DVC folks attended (last year some of our LMC brothers and sisters joined us), but we heard from and hope to hook up with CCC & LMC folks soon.



Later that night, Toby (Tobias) Cat, missing for four days, returned home through the family door. He is currently resting.

Incentives? Productivity?

Report: North Korea fired premier for suggesting incentive-based wage scheme
The Associated Press
Sunday, May 13, 2007

North Korea dismissed its premier last month
because he suggested implementing an incentive-based wage system for workers in the communist regime, a proposal that was deemed too similar to U.S.-style capitalism, a news report said Sunday.

The North's Korean Central News Agency said in April that former premier Pak Pong Ju was replaced by transport minister Kim Yong Il, without giving any reasons for the change...

A report carried Sunday by a Japanese daily said Pak was dismissed over a proposal he made at a Cabinet meeting in January that an incentive-based wage system be introduced to boost worker morale.

The plan involved paying workers by the hour instead of a set monthly salary, the Mainichi Shimbun said...

National teachers' strike in Mexico

reported today by the Mexico Solidarity Network:

TEACHERS ANNOUNCE INDEFINITE STRIKE

After massive May Day marches around the country denounced the recent
ISSSTE reform, the National Coordinator of Education Workers (CNTE)
announced an indefinite strike to begin May 7. CNTE members, as well as
many dissident members of the official SNTE, were present in large
numbers around Mexico on May Day protesting ISSSTE reforms that privatized
the pension and health care benefits of tens of thousands of government
employees. Elba Esther Gordillo, head of the SNTE, is largely
responsible for the passage of ISSSTE reforms. She hopes to benefit from the
reform through formation of private firms under her control that will
manage retirement accounts. On May 2, hundreds of teachers blocked
international bridges in Ciudad Juarez and other border cities, and blocked
major highways around urban centers throughout the country.

University workers from STUNAM are expected to join the strike.
Support from the National Workers Union (UNT), a dissident union central
similar to a smaller version of the AFL-CIO, is reportedly set to support
the strike, though the UNT did not support the May 2 actions. May Day
demonstrators were particularly vocal in their rejection of ISSSTE
reforms, which may lead some hesitant unions to assume a more militant
position. The ISSSTE reforms are considered the first step in President
Calderon's plans to privatize all health services and pension benefits.

Meanwhile, the federal judiciary appointed a special judge to deal with
more than 100,000 amparos (the rough equivalent of a request for
temporary restraining order) presented by employees who would be affected by
the ISSSTE reforms. Normally a judge issues between 800 and 900
decisions per year, and it is unclear how the newly appointed official will
deal with 100,000 cases.

No publicity is bad publicity

So far the grades-for-pay scandal at DVC has been covered by AT LEAST the following media outlets: the New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, KTVU (Oakland), KGO-AM (San Francisco), the Contra Costa Times (front page!) and now the Chronicle of Higher Education. I like the added comment about DVC cheating: who knew it was "rampant"?

May 3, 2007

Diablo Valley College Students Paid to Have Grades Changed, Paper Says

As many as 84 students at California’s Diablo Valley College may have paid $600 per grade to have F’s changed to A’s by student employees of the two-year college, according to the Contra Costa Times.

The newspaper says that a 15-month investigation of grade changes at the college is winding down, and that the campus police are preparing to turn over evidence of falsified grades to local prosecutors. The college had authorized more than 100 people across its three campuses to change grades in its computer system, and officials believe a group of student employees took advantage of lax procedures to run the grade-changing business, sometimes altering transcripts by using the computers of regular employees who had stepped away from their desks.

Many of the students who paid to have grades changed have since transferred to four-year institutions, the paper said. It added that the college had known about the problem for more than a year but had refused to release details. —Lawrence Biemiller

Posted on Thursday May 3, 2007

Comments

What the students did was reprehensible, but
cheating at DVC is rampant. Students have copies of exams, they freely use the internet for material for papers. “Getting” an education is a lot more important these days than actually being educated.