I went to the Sallie Mae office in D.C. to deliver my petition in person. TV cameras were there, and I handed every signature to an exec who wouldn’t even look me in the eye.--Stef Gray
Online Campaign Prompts Sallie Mae to Change Fee Policy for Loan Suspensions
By TAMAR LEWIN
New York Times
February 2, 2012
Score two for online consumer advocates — or, as they might be called, Occupy Online.
On Thursday, three months after Bank of America backed down from imposing a $5 monthly debit card fee in response to an online Change.org petition that collected 300,000 signers, Sallie Mae, the nation’s largest private student-loan provider, changed its fee policy in response to an online petition.
For years, Sallie Mae had required unemployed people who could not afford their monthly payments to pay a $50-per-loan fee every three months to suspend their payments temporarily, even as interest charges mounted.
Sallie Mae called this forbearance fee a “good faith deposit” — but it was neither credited to the borrower’s account nor refunded.
Stef Gray, 23, a New Yorker who owes $600 a month on four loans, saw it as a predatory effort to squeeze blood from a generation of turnips — graduates already buried under a mountain of student debt. In November, she started a petition, “Tell Sallie Mae: Stop the Unemployment Penalty” with Change.org., a group based in San Francisco. “Sallie Mae is preying on people like me and cashing in on the fact that we need more time to find work before we can repay our student loans,” it said.
Ms. Gray, who has paid $300 to Sallie Mae in forbearance fees, had another $150 due for January. (Although she has four loans, she said, the top Sallie Mae fee is $150.) She did not pay the fee, and this week her loans became delinquent.
On Thursday morning, wearing a cap and gown and accompanied by Molly Katchpole, 22, the nanny who started the Bank of America petition, Ms. Gray visited the Washington offices of Sallie Mae to hold a news conference and deliver the petition, which had attracted 77,000 signatures.
Thursday afternoon, Sallie Mae blinked.
“We have been giving careful consideration to our policy for some time, and we are changing it to apply the good-faith payment to the customers’ balance after they resume a track record of on-time payments,” it said in a statement.
Patricia Christel, a Sallie Mae spokeswoman, said that about 4 percent of its private student loans are in forbearance. The new policy will be retroactive to forbearances started Jan. 1.
Ms. Gray was pleased, if cautious.
“It’s a partial victory,” she said. “They’re still charging a forbearance fee, which they don’t for federal loans. I’m glad they’re not pocketing the fee, but they’re still charging it. And I still can’t pay it.”
By comparison with Sallie Mae, she said, her credit-card companies seem pleasantly responsive.
“With Sallie Mae harassing me with collection calls while they’re tacking on $1,100 in interest every three months, and refusing to work with me, it’s ridiculous to say, but it’s made me hold up credit card companies as kind to consumers,” she said.
Ms. Gray, who held a job in school, said her $40,000 in loans have ballooned to more than $65,000. In a better economy, she said, her master’s degree in geography and expertise in geographic information systems would make her a good candidate for a job working with census or health statistics. But so far, she said, nothing has been forthcoming.
Back when she was borrowing, said Ms. Gray, whose parents died when she was young, no one explained the difference between federal and private loans.
“I was under the impression that Sallie Mae was a governmental agency, a nonprofit, with the same terms as federal loans,” she said.
But with federal loans, there is no forbearance fee, and sometimes there is even an opportunity to put off not just loan payments but interest accrual. Even better, with federal loans, she might have been eligible for income-based repayment, in which borrowers make up to 25 years of payments based on their income — payments of zero for those who are unemployed or earn very little — and have any remaining federal debt discharged.
“Private student loans have been so grossly under-regulated that this is just one of many issues that need to be addressed on a broader level,” said Lauren Asher, a founder of the Project on Student Debt. “Private loan borrowers are at the mercy of their lenders if they hit hard times.”...
Tell Sallie Mae: Stop the Unemployment Penalty
by Stef Gray
I’m Stef Gray. In December, I started a Change.org petition asking Sallie Mae to stop charging unemployment penalties -- extra fees to jobless people who pause their student loan repayment. (They’ve been charging me $150 every three months, while I’m struggling to buy groceries!)
Sallie Mae didn’t respond -- even after 77,000 people signed the petition.
So yesterday morning, I went to the Sallie Mae office in D.C. to deliver my petition in person. TV cameras were there, and I handed every signature to an exec who wouldn’t even look me in the eye.
Less than 3 hours later, Sallie Mae announced to the press they were changing their policy, and would start applying these fees towards borrowers’ loans instead of just pocketing the cash for extra profits.
I’m psyched that bringing the fight to Sallie Mae forced them to start paying attention, but this policy change isn’t nearly enough. Sallie Mae is still asking me (and unemployed and underemployed grads like me) to fork over money we just don’t have.
Friday, February 03, 2012
CETUSA Banned in Effort to Protect Foreign Students From Exploitation
Company Banned in Effort to Protect Foreign Students From Exploitation
By JULIA PRESTON
New York Times
February 1, 2012
Signaling a sharp change of course in the country’s largest international cultural exchange program, the State Department has banned a leading sponsor company from bringing foreign students to the United States for summer jobs and will add new restrictions to protect students from labor abuse, officials said Wednesday.
The removal of the sponsor, the Council for Educational Travel, USA, was intended to send a powerful message to dozens of private companies participating in the State Department’s summer work program that they will have to monitor foreign students far more closely and ensure that participants are not exploited as cheap workers by employers.
The council, which is known as Cetusa, has been one of the biggest sponsors in the summer program and was responsible for placing about 400 foreign students last summer in a Pennsylvania plant packing Hershey’s chocolates. In August, hundreds of those program participants staged a boisterous walkout from the plant to protest low pay and dangerous job conditions.
The students’ demonstrations set off an investigation of Cetusa by the State Department and accelerated a review of the entire summer program, ordered by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2010. Critics on many sides said the program had become a vast source of temporary foreign workers at a time of high joblessness for Americans and had lost some of its purpose as a source of positive cultural exposure to the United States for foreign university students.
Rick Ruth, acting deputy assistant secretary of state, said the department would issue new regulations in coming months to expand the list of occupations prohibited for foreign summer workers. The list will include most jobs in construction and roofing, he said, and others shown statistically to be the most hazardous.
“We want to make sure that sponsors are not putting the labor aspect in the primary position, when it should be the cultural aspect,” Mr. Ruth said in an interview Wednesday.
The department will tighten rules requiring sponsors to protect the health and safety of students and to prevent too many of them from working in the same place — a situation that could rob them of opportunities to interact with Americans. State Department officials said they were also considering a ban on most factory and industrial jobs for the students.
Over the past decade, about one million foreign university students came to the United States through the popular Summer Work Travel program.
Mr. Ruth said the department had decided to ban Cetusa, a measure that took effect on Monday, after the five-month investigation revealed a “scope and severity and pattern of noncompliance.” The lapses he cited echoed the complaints of the foreign students at the plant in Palmyra, Pa., who found themselves forced to work grueling night shifts lifting heavy boxes of Hershey’s candies for take-home pay so low they sometimes went hungry.
State Department officials found “an almost complete lack of cultural activities” for the students sent by Cetusa to the plant, and a “laxness” about their health and safety. The strains of the packing jobs and injuries that resulted were overlooked by the company, officials said.
Students’ complaints were routinely ignored and in some cases were met with “unacceptable threats and intimidation” that their visas could be canceled, officials said. The investigation also raised questions about whether the students had been overcharged by Cetusa for housing, the officials said.
Rick Anaya, the president of Cetusa, which is based in California, did not respond to requests for comment by telephone and e-mail.
Although a nonprofit, Cetusa, which sponsored more than 5,000 students last year, stands to lose at least $5 million in annual fees for the summer program. The company also created businesses providing health insurance to the students. State Department officials are reviewing Cetusa’s participation in three other academic exchanges. Under formal rules, the company could reapply after two years, but a return in that time appeared unlikely.
Several foreign students who worked at the packing plant, now back in their home countries, said they were excited to learn of the impact of their outcry...
By JULIA PRESTON
New York Times
February 1, 2012
Signaling a sharp change of course in the country’s largest international cultural exchange program, the State Department has banned a leading sponsor company from bringing foreign students to the United States for summer jobs and will add new restrictions to protect students from labor abuse, officials said Wednesday.
The removal of the sponsor, the Council for Educational Travel, USA, was intended to send a powerful message to dozens of private companies participating in the State Department’s summer work program that they will have to monitor foreign students far more closely and ensure that participants are not exploited as cheap workers by employers.
The council, which is known as Cetusa, has been one of the biggest sponsors in the summer program and was responsible for placing about 400 foreign students last summer in a Pennsylvania plant packing Hershey’s chocolates. In August, hundreds of those program participants staged a boisterous walkout from the plant to protest low pay and dangerous job conditions.
The students’ demonstrations set off an investigation of Cetusa by the State Department and accelerated a review of the entire summer program, ordered by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2010. Critics on many sides said the program had become a vast source of temporary foreign workers at a time of high joblessness for Americans and had lost some of its purpose as a source of positive cultural exposure to the United States for foreign university students.
Rick Ruth, acting deputy assistant secretary of state, said the department would issue new regulations in coming months to expand the list of occupations prohibited for foreign summer workers. The list will include most jobs in construction and roofing, he said, and others shown statistically to be the most hazardous.
“We want to make sure that sponsors are not putting the labor aspect in the primary position, when it should be the cultural aspect,” Mr. Ruth said in an interview Wednesday.
The department will tighten rules requiring sponsors to protect the health and safety of students and to prevent too many of them from working in the same place — a situation that could rob them of opportunities to interact with Americans. State Department officials said they were also considering a ban on most factory and industrial jobs for the students.
Over the past decade, about one million foreign university students came to the United States through the popular Summer Work Travel program.
Mr. Ruth said the department had decided to ban Cetusa, a measure that took effect on Monday, after the five-month investigation revealed a “scope and severity and pattern of noncompliance.” The lapses he cited echoed the complaints of the foreign students at the plant in Palmyra, Pa., who found themselves forced to work grueling night shifts lifting heavy boxes of Hershey’s candies for take-home pay so low they sometimes went hungry.
State Department officials found “an almost complete lack of cultural activities” for the students sent by Cetusa to the plant, and a “laxness” about their health and safety. The strains of the packing jobs and injuries that resulted were overlooked by the company, officials said.
Students’ complaints were routinely ignored and in some cases were met with “unacceptable threats and intimidation” that their visas could be canceled, officials said. The investigation also raised questions about whether the students had been overcharged by Cetusa for housing, the officials said.
Rick Anaya, the president of Cetusa, which is based in California, did not respond to requests for comment by telephone and e-mail.
Although a nonprofit, Cetusa, which sponsored more than 5,000 students last year, stands to lose at least $5 million in annual fees for the summer program. The company also created businesses providing health insurance to the students. State Department officials are reviewing Cetusa’s participation in three other academic exchanges. Under formal rules, the company could reapply after two years, but a return in that time appeared unlikely.
Several foreign students who worked at the packing plant, now back in their home countries, said they were excited to learn of the impact of their outcry...
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Sweetwater Board members to vote on each other's legal fees
Superintendent Ed Brand declined to discuss the legal mechanism that allows the board to consider legal fees for its own members. He said the district is moving forward on the legal advice of Attorney Dan Shinoff, who did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Board members to vote on each other's legal fees
Some say the Sweetwater schools situation presents a conflict
Ashly McGlone
UT
Jan. 27, 2012
The Sweetwater school board will decide Monday whether taxpayers should foot the bill for up to $900,000 in legal fees — for three of its five members.
In each case, the board member who has incurred legal fees in the District Attorney’s Office probe of contracting practices plans to leave the room. The four remaining board members will consider the request for legal fees.
Under state law, that may not be enough to avoid a conflict of interest.
Government Code Section 1090 states that the board members “shall not be financially interested in any contract made by them in their official capacity, or by any body or board of which they are members.”
“If three members of board are going to benefit, the board benefits and therefore the board can’t vote,” said Robert Fellmeth, founder and director of the University of San Diego’s Center for Public Interest Law. “This is the quid pro quo setting that 1090, to me, does address. I think there is a personal conflict.”
The DA’s office alleges that board members Pearl Quinones and Arlie Ricasa received meals, theater tickets and other gifts from contractors, failed to report them under penalty of perjury, and voted to steer millions of dollars of bond money to the contractors. They have pleaded not guilty to four felony charges each are up for approval of for $400,000 in legal fees each.
Board member Bertha Lopez has not been charged, although her home was raided and she has been questioned. She could receive $100,000 in legal fees.
Former board member Greg Sandoval, who would not have a conflict in Monday’s decision because he is off the board, could also receive $400,000. He has pleaded not guilty to eight felonies.
Superintendent Ed Brand declined to discuss the legal mechanism that allows the board to consider legal fees for its own members. He said the district is moving forward on the legal advice of Attorney Dan Shinoff, who did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Michael Colantuono, the city attorney for Calabasas who was named 2010 Public Lawyer of the Year by the California State Bar, said the proposed legal fees are problematic.
“A public agency cannot make a contract in which a board member has an interest,” he said. “There is not a fix to Government Code 1090 other than to ask legislation to amend it.”
Some attorneys, however, say the vote could be justified.
“The key word is contract. In this scenario there is absolutely no contract between the board and their respective counsel,” said attorney Jim Pokorny, representing Lopez.
Pokorny said, if approved, attorneys would submit invoices to the district for payment, which does not require a contract.
Concerns about board members voting on each other’s behalf — to secure each other’s votes — are baseless, Pokorny said.
“To believe that would mean to believe that there was a conspiracy among all of them to protect each other and I don’t believe that,” he said. “There is a presumption of innocence here.”
Similar votes awarding legal fees to sitting members of a governing board have proceeded in the region in recent years.
In 2000, San Diego spent $30,000 to hire attorneys for then-Councilwoman Valerie Stallings when federal authorities were investigating stock trades she made involving a software company controlled by Padres owner John Moores. Stallings recused herself from the vote to cover her legal fees. She pleaded guilty to two misdemeanors in January 2001 for taking gifts from Moores while voting on his team’s ballpark project.
Taxpayers also paid for the criminal defense of Chula Vista City Councilman Steve Castaneda in 2008, although only after the case ended in his favor.
The council voted 3-0 to pay $194,314.90 in legal fees Castaneda incurred while fighting allegations that he lied to a grand jury. He recused himself from the vote.
Castaneda — represented in the case by Marc Carlos, now representing Quinones — was acquitted of six counts of perjury and the jury deadlocked on two other charges, triggering a mistrial. The issue was not pursued further in the courts, and Castaneda remained on the council.
Carlos declined to comment on his current client’s appeal for legal fees before the board’s vote.
Ricardo Gonzalez, attorney for Sandoval, said those who take issue with officials seeking legal fees should put themselves in the board members’ shoes.
“If they find themselves in the position that these trustees find themselves as a consequence of serving, for doing community work for very little compensation, if you look at the allegations and realize this is a sensationalized case and doesn’t turn out to be the type of corruption that is mentioned, if that person were in the position that my client feels he is in, they would want the district to help them out with defending themselves for things that have occurred in their service,” Gonzalez said. “It would be a tremendous hardship to bear economically on something that is yet to be proven.”
Ricasa has set up a legal-defense fund, into which she can raise money if her fee request is rejected by the district. Her attorney, Allen Bloom, said donations from district contractors and vendors will not be accepted.
“If the school board doesn’t pay for the funds, she is going to be forced to gut her kids’ college trust fund and her retirement in order to pay for legal services,” Bloom said. “I am making a huge commitment to her with regards to services but it still takes a huge amount of time to fight charges and the fact that we expect them to be shown not to be true, all the more commitment that we have to them.”
The board should vote to pay Ricasa’s fees, “to help Arlie fight these unfair charges,” he said.
Board members to vote on each other's legal fees
Some say the Sweetwater schools situation presents a conflict
Ashly McGlone
UT
Jan. 27, 2012
The Sweetwater school board will decide Monday whether taxpayers should foot the bill for up to $900,000 in legal fees — for three of its five members.
In each case, the board member who has incurred legal fees in the District Attorney’s Office probe of contracting practices plans to leave the room. The four remaining board members will consider the request for legal fees.
Under state law, that may not be enough to avoid a conflict of interest.
Government Code Section 1090 states that the board members “shall not be financially interested in any contract made by them in their official capacity, or by any body or board of which they are members.”
“If three members of board are going to benefit, the board benefits and therefore the board can’t vote,” said Robert Fellmeth, founder and director of the University of San Diego’s Center for Public Interest Law. “This is the quid pro quo setting that 1090, to me, does address. I think there is a personal conflict.”
The DA’s office alleges that board members Pearl Quinones and Arlie Ricasa received meals, theater tickets and other gifts from contractors, failed to report them under penalty of perjury, and voted to steer millions of dollars of bond money to the contractors. They have pleaded not guilty to four felony charges each are up for approval of for $400,000 in legal fees each.
Board member Bertha Lopez has not been charged, although her home was raided and she has been questioned. She could receive $100,000 in legal fees.
Former board member Greg Sandoval, who would not have a conflict in Monday’s decision because he is off the board, could also receive $400,000. He has pleaded not guilty to eight felonies.
Superintendent Ed Brand declined to discuss the legal mechanism that allows the board to consider legal fees for its own members. He said the district is moving forward on the legal advice of Attorney Dan Shinoff, who did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Michael Colantuono, the city attorney for Calabasas who was named 2010 Public Lawyer of the Year by the California State Bar, said the proposed legal fees are problematic.
“A public agency cannot make a contract in which a board member has an interest,” he said. “There is not a fix to Government Code 1090 other than to ask legislation to amend it.”
Some attorneys, however, say the vote could be justified.
“The key word is contract. In this scenario there is absolutely no contract between the board and their respective counsel,” said attorney Jim Pokorny, representing Lopez.
Pokorny said, if approved, attorneys would submit invoices to the district for payment, which does not require a contract.
Concerns about board members voting on each other’s behalf — to secure each other’s votes — are baseless, Pokorny said.
“To believe that would mean to believe that there was a conspiracy among all of them to protect each other and I don’t believe that,” he said. “There is a presumption of innocence here.”
Similar votes awarding legal fees to sitting members of a governing board have proceeded in the region in recent years.
In 2000, San Diego spent $30,000 to hire attorneys for then-Councilwoman Valerie Stallings when federal authorities were investigating stock trades she made involving a software company controlled by Padres owner John Moores. Stallings recused herself from the vote to cover her legal fees. She pleaded guilty to two misdemeanors in January 2001 for taking gifts from Moores while voting on his team’s ballpark project.
Taxpayers also paid for the criminal defense of Chula Vista City Councilman Steve Castaneda in 2008, although only after the case ended in his favor.
The council voted 3-0 to pay $194,314.90 in legal fees Castaneda incurred while fighting allegations that he lied to a grand jury. He recused himself from the vote.
Castaneda — represented in the case by Marc Carlos, now representing Quinones — was acquitted of six counts of perjury and the jury deadlocked on two other charges, triggering a mistrial. The issue was not pursued further in the courts, and Castaneda remained on the council.
Carlos declined to comment on his current client’s appeal for legal fees before the board’s vote.
Ricardo Gonzalez, attorney for Sandoval, said those who take issue with officials seeking legal fees should put themselves in the board members’ shoes.
“If they find themselves in the position that these trustees find themselves as a consequence of serving, for doing community work for very little compensation, if you look at the allegations and realize this is a sensationalized case and doesn’t turn out to be the type of corruption that is mentioned, if that person were in the position that my client feels he is in, they would want the district to help them out with defending themselves for things that have occurred in their service,” Gonzalez said. “It would be a tremendous hardship to bear economically on something that is yet to be proven.”
Ricasa has set up a legal-defense fund, into which she can raise money if her fee request is rejected by the district. Her attorney, Allen Bloom, said donations from district contractors and vendors will not be accepted.
“If the school board doesn’t pay for the funds, she is going to be forced to gut her kids’ college trust fund and her retirement in order to pay for legal services,” Bloom said. “I am making a huge commitment to her with regards to services but it still takes a huge amount of time to fight charges and the fact that we expect them to be shown not to be true, all the more commitment that we have to them.”
The board should vote to pay Ricasa’s fees, “to help Arlie fight these unfair charges,” he said.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
A whole lot of lawsuits in Jurupa Unified School District in Riverside
January 25, 2012
Subject: Ermine Nelson: PERB Case No. LA-CE-5517-E
I attended yesterday’s PERB hearing for Ms. Ermine Nelson [PERB Case No. LA-CE-5517-E].
The hearing went very well from my perspective. What was alarming, however, is what was testified to about the absolute inaction and ignorance of the leadership of the employee unions’ representatives within the Jurupa Unified School District. Based on the fact that I contacted union leadership for the NEAJ and CSEA before then, I can only assume that the disregard of what the District is doing is intentional or you are being union-busted by the District and don’t even know it.
Under Government Code §§ 3540-3543 and related provisions of law, the District had an absolute duty to send any grievances, however old or new, merit or no merit, directly to the Union upon receipt (where the grievance originated from a member or presumed employee). In this particular case and many others I have tried to tell you about, NEAJ was never aware of grievances (as many as 28 in one case alone in July 2010).
Under oath and cross-examination, Tamara Elzig testified to the two following key facts. Her testimony is memorialized and recorded:
1. It is the District’s position that union and employee rights go on leave at the same time the employee goes on medical leave (regardless of whether breaches of the CBA occurred even while on leave – Which would include: breaches of union privacy, keeping information from the union, interfereing with lawful association of union members, and interfering with attorney work-product under CCP 2018, and union busting);
2. It is the District’s position that it does not have to forward grievances to the Unions when it feels that there is no merit to the grievance.
I very quickly, in an objection-response exchange, mentioned to Judge Cu that we have not filed a charge against the District’s unions. I am aware of 150+ grievances that have been filed by my clients alone (both classified and certificated). I am going to very nicely ask you folks to once again review your policies, practices, and procedures to make sure that your members’ rights aren’t being trampled right under your noses. As you know, the Code does confer the right to an individual employee to bring a Superior Court action. We have already mentioned the violation of many of these rights in Archambault v. JUSD, et.al. (a First Amendment, Due Process, anti-discrimination, ant-racism, and Equal Application declaratory relief case).
If you all really believe that DFEH, EEOC, USDOE, CTA, NEA, CDOE will take to the position that a disabled employee, on approved medical leave, cannot file any grievances whatsoever, this will be a REALLY BIG PROBLEM not only for the District, but for you. If the lack of attention to grievance processes meant that employees did not know they could even file grievances, there is a bigger problem. Unfortunately, there is plenty of sworn testimony on this issue already.
It makes one wonder about how many other employee problems were kept from you and the CSEA. Worse yet, how many breaches of confidentiality of membership, representative organizations, and counsel have occurred? It is a federal and state crime to monitor union membership communications without adequate notice and without sufficient probable cause. I am reserving all rights my clients have under Section 1983 and to take further action.
The District has already lost a motion under CCP 425.16, rendered damaging sworn testimony on lack of Due Process in the Braden arbitration conducted before Hon. Arturo Morales, and Superintendent Elzig’s performance yesterday was an outright admission of an intention to directly interfere with Union Rights. We already know from the Norman and Gonzalez cases that the District monitors all communications over its electronic wire systems and mail systems (as defined under Federal Law) and is aware of and checks the content of union and legal counsel writings and communications. Employees and union membership are not adequately warned of the tapping.
With regard to Mr. Vigrass, why don’t you have a private e-mail address for Union business? The District has already proven that it knows what you discuss. You have no less than two or three members under fire for what was allegedly found on their classroom computers (including Union business). Some of the horrifically perturbing information was placed on my client’s computer, in the Norman case, after he was already on administrative leave (a literal, figurative, and unconstitutionally sound reality).
Yesterday, your District proved, beyond a doubt, that it doesn’t see your union activities as confidential. Superintendent Elzig and her counsel vigorously argued for a claim to know what you are up to, when you meet with your members, and how many times. This is constitutionally unacceptable and, in my privileged opinion, violates many state and federal laws.
The ALJ also could not rule on whether your discussions with accused union members was/is confidential. I am supposed to brief that issue. I’ve never been to a PERB hearing and didn’t even know what PERB was before this proceeding.
Fortunately for the Union, in this limited case, you were not at the scene of ‘crime’ as it were. The unions had already chosen to ignore Nelson’s case and the District made CBA union representatives look ignorant and ineffective. As you can see from the attached briefing done in CSEA cases and testimony, this isn’t new.
I do know what the law is and basically had to argue it for the unions. It is the District’s position, through counsel and Elzig, that your communications with members are fair game. Worse yet, you have an indemnity provision in your CBA that gives the unions the privilege of paying the District’s bill (at their discretion), win, lose or draw. This is a constitutional and due process disaster of unprecedented proportion. I have many friends who are public employees, in official and elected capacities, and none would approve of this – regardless of politics.
I will look back in my files to find the e-mail from the CSEA’s Janet Jones telling me to mind my own business. More than one of my certificated clients has/have heard similar threats from others aside from Messrs. Sibby and Vigrass. I believe that you have all the right intentions, but your rights, as well as those of your members, have been trampled to death. Identifying what’s left of those rights will not be cheap, easy, or likely to come through my one-man office. I just got out of the hospital myself, am still being diagnosed and evaluated, and am overwhelmed by what is going on within this District. I am desperately hanging on to my ability to achieve victories for your members, but also don’t have the resources to keep it up if the Unions don’t get involved more visibly and effectively.
The amount of real exposure created for the Unions is beginning to be massive to say the least. I am on your side, but I don’t have the resources or manpower to argue matters directly affecting your leadership. Messrs. Sibby and Vigrass have been upfront with me, pursued what information they could verify, and don’t appear to be neutral on the rights of their members. Even with their efforts, the District has now crossed battlefield lines that will end up with innumerable casualties of failures in applying the Principles of the Constitution.
Should you choose to share this e-mail with Ms. Elzig and Mr. Duchon, if they have not already seen it, please let them know that these are simply my opinions and the hearing transcript speaks for itself. The unions got worked over bad and were made to look very stupid and ignorant – and it wasn’t by me.
Perhaps we should discuss this in a more confidential forum. My clients are very concerned and so am I. If you want to meet with my clients as a group and get your colleagues to join us from the CSEA, it would be appreciated.
Richard D. Ackerman
Law Offices of R.D. Ackerman
www.AttorneyAckerman.com
Temecula Office:
Madison Executive Suites
27247 Madison Ave., Suite 116
Temecula, CA 92590
(951) 296-2442
Downtown Riverside:
Riverside County Bar Ass’n Bldg.
4129 Main Street, Suite B5
Riverside, CA 92501
(951) 267-7000
Subject: Ermine Nelson: PERB Case No. LA-CE-5517-E
I attended yesterday’s PERB hearing for Ms. Ermine Nelson [PERB Case No. LA-CE-5517-E].
The hearing went very well from my perspective. What was alarming, however, is what was testified to about the absolute inaction and ignorance of the leadership of the employee unions’ representatives within the Jurupa Unified School District. Based on the fact that I contacted union leadership for the NEAJ and CSEA before then, I can only assume that the disregard of what the District is doing is intentional or you are being union-busted by the District and don’t even know it.
Under Government Code §§ 3540-3543 and related provisions of law, the District had an absolute duty to send any grievances, however old or new, merit or no merit, directly to the Union upon receipt (where the grievance originated from a member or presumed employee). In this particular case and many others I have tried to tell you about, NEAJ was never aware of grievances (as many as 28 in one case alone in July 2010).
Under oath and cross-examination, Tamara Elzig testified to the two following key facts. Her testimony is memorialized and recorded:
1. It is the District’s position that union and employee rights go on leave at the same time the employee goes on medical leave (regardless of whether breaches of the CBA occurred even while on leave – Which would include: breaches of union privacy, keeping information from the union, interfereing with lawful association of union members, and interfering with attorney work-product under CCP 2018, and union busting);
2. It is the District’s position that it does not have to forward grievances to the Unions when it feels that there is no merit to the grievance.
I very quickly, in an objection-response exchange, mentioned to Judge Cu that we have not filed a charge against the District’s unions. I am aware of 150+ grievances that have been filed by my clients alone (both classified and certificated). I am going to very nicely ask you folks to once again review your policies, practices, and procedures to make sure that your members’ rights aren’t being trampled right under your noses. As you know, the Code does confer the right to an individual employee to bring a Superior Court action. We have already mentioned the violation of many of these rights in Archambault v. JUSD, et.al. (a First Amendment, Due Process, anti-discrimination, ant-racism, and Equal Application declaratory relief case).
If you all really believe that DFEH, EEOC, USDOE, CTA, NEA, CDOE will take to the position that a disabled employee, on approved medical leave, cannot file any grievances whatsoever, this will be a REALLY BIG PROBLEM not only for the District, but for you. If the lack of attention to grievance processes meant that employees did not know they could even file grievances, there is a bigger problem. Unfortunately, there is plenty of sworn testimony on this issue already.
It makes one wonder about how many other employee problems were kept from you and the CSEA. Worse yet, how many breaches of confidentiality of membership, representative organizations, and counsel have occurred? It is a federal and state crime to monitor union membership communications without adequate notice and without sufficient probable cause. I am reserving all rights my clients have under Section 1983 and to take further action.
The District has already lost a motion under CCP 425.16, rendered damaging sworn testimony on lack of Due Process in the Braden arbitration conducted before Hon. Arturo Morales, and Superintendent Elzig’s performance yesterday was an outright admission of an intention to directly interfere with Union Rights. We already know from the Norman and Gonzalez cases that the District monitors all communications over its electronic wire systems and mail systems (as defined under Federal Law) and is aware of and checks the content of union and legal counsel writings and communications. Employees and union membership are not adequately warned of the tapping.
With regard to Mr. Vigrass, why don’t you have a private e-mail address for Union business? The District has already proven that it knows what you discuss. You have no less than two or three members under fire for what was allegedly found on their classroom computers (including Union business). Some of the horrifically perturbing information was placed on my client’s computer, in the Norman case, after he was already on administrative leave (a literal, figurative, and unconstitutionally sound reality).
Yesterday, your District proved, beyond a doubt, that it doesn’t see your union activities as confidential. Superintendent Elzig and her counsel vigorously argued for a claim to know what you are up to, when you meet with your members, and how many times. This is constitutionally unacceptable and, in my privileged opinion, violates many state and federal laws.
The ALJ also could not rule on whether your discussions with accused union members was/is confidential. I am supposed to brief that issue. I’ve never been to a PERB hearing and didn’t even know what PERB was before this proceeding.
Fortunately for the Union, in this limited case, you were not at the scene of ‘crime’ as it were. The unions had already chosen to ignore Nelson’s case and the District made CBA union representatives look ignorant and ineffective. As you can see from the attached briefing done in CSEA cases and testimony, this isn’t new.
I do know what the law is and basically had to argue it for the unions. It is the District’s position, through counsel and Elzig, that your communications with members are fair game. Worse yet, you have an indemnity provision in your CBA that gives the unions the privilege of paying the District’s bill (at their discretion), win, lose or draw. This is a constitutional and due process disaster of unprecedented proportion. I have many friends who are public employees, in official and elected capacities, and none would approve of this – regardless of politics.
I will look back in my files to find the e-mail from the CSEA’s Janet Jones telling me to mind my own business. More than one of my certificated clients has/have heard similar threats from others aside from Messrs. Sibby and Vigrass. I believe that you have all the right intentions, but your rights, as well as those of your members, have been trampled to death. Identifying what’s left of those rights will not be cheap, easy, or likely to come through my one-man office. I just got out of the hospital myself, am still being diagnosed and evaluated, and am overwhelmed by what is going on within this District. I am desperately hanging on to my ability to achieve victories for your members, but also don’t have the resources to keep it up if the Unions don’t get involved more visibly and effectively.
The amount of real exposure created for the Unions is beginning to be massive to say the least. I am on your side, but I don’t have the resources or manpower to argue matters directly affecting your leadership. Messrs. Sibby and Vigrass have been upfront with me, pursued what information they could verify, and don’t appear to be neutral on the rights of their members. Even with their efforts, the District has now crossed battlefield lines that will end up with innumerable casualties of failures in applying the Principles of the Constitution.
Should you choose to share this e-mail with Ms. Elzig and Mr. Duchon, if they have not already seen it, please let them know that these are simply my opinions and the hearing transcript speaks for itself. The unions got worked over bad and were made to look very stupid and ignorant – and it wasn’t by me.
Perhaps we should discuss this in a more confidential forum. My clients are very concerned and so am I. If you want to meet with my clients as a group and get your colleagues to join us from the CSEA, it would be appreciated.
Richard D. Ackerman
Law Offices of R.D. Ackerman
www.AttorneyAckerman.com
Temecula Office:
Madison Executive Suites
27247 Madison Ave., Suite 116
Temecula, CA 92590
(951) 296-2442
Downtown Riverside:
Riverside County Bar Ass’n Bldg.
4129 Main Street, Suite B5
Riverside, CA 92501
(951) 267-7000
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Appeal of Poway Unified’s God Banner Ban Filed with U.S. Supreme Court
Update: Appeal of Poway Unified’s God Banner Ban Filed with U.S. Supreme Court
The U.S. Supreme Court has been asked to overturn a decision allowing the district to prevent a math teacher from displaying classroom banners about God.
By Shauntel Lowe
Rancho Bernardo Patch
January 24, 2012
A Michigan-based public interest law firm has filed an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court objecting to a lower court’s decision allowing the Poway Unified School District to prevent a math teacher from displaying classroom banners with messages about God.
The ruling is an unconstitutional restriction on free speech in a public forum because other types of speech—such as another teacher’s poster with the lyrics to John Lennon's Imagine—are allowed, argues The Thomas More Law Center in its appeal filed Jan. 19 and announced Tuesday.
“What you really had was an egregious demonstration of a double standard,” Richard Thompson, president of the law center and chief counsel, told Patch. “The double standard was used again to censor Christian speech.
“There is this agenda that is out there supported by the ACLU, supported by Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, that is trying to cleanse the public square from any kind of Christian message and they’re using the courts to do it.”
In September, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a 2010 decision by a federal judge in San Diego that said the district had violated the First Amendment rights of Westview High School math teacher Bradley Johnson in 2007 by ordering him to take down the banners. They bore messages such as “In God We Trust” and “All Men Are Created Equal/ They Are Endowed By Their CREATOR.”
In September 2010, the ACLU of San Diego and Imperial Counties filed a brief with the 9th Circuit Court supporting the district’s decision to have Johnson take the banners down, saying, “The banners’ repeated emphasis on ‘God’ and the ‘CREATOR’ creates a serious risk that reasonable persons would believe the District is endorsing religion.”
September’s ruling found that the district’s ban upheld the Establishment Cause prohibiting endorsement of religion.
The Thomas More Law Center—which describes itself as a “not-for-profit public interest law firm dedicated to the defense and promotion of the religious freedom of Christians, time-honored family values, and the sanctity of human life”—argues that this is a cherry-picked ban on Judeo-Christian speech. Another teacher displayed Tibetan flags with no recourse, and Lennon’s Imagine promotes an anti-religious point of view but was allowed, showing a bias against Christian speech, the center argues.
But this isn't about clamping down on Christian messaging, said David Loy, legal director for the ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties which believes the banners and the Tibetan prayer flags should have been taken down.
"It's our position that both of those were unconstitutional," Loy said. "Public school teachers should not be in the business of promoting religion in the classroom."
The large size of Johnson's banners and that they had been there so long—particularly in a math class and not in a philosophy or literature class—could lead a "reasonable" student to believe that they indicated an endorsement of religion by the school district, Loy said.
Johnson, in a 2007 lawsuit against the district, said the banners are not a means to proselytize but represent historical messaging about the country’s origins. Thompson, too, said the banners are just a means of educating students about the role of Christianity in the nation’s development. Taking the banners down and removing Christian messaging from the classroom runs counter to that, he said.
“It really is a way of indoctrinating our students into believing that our nation was founded on principles other than Christianity,” Thompson said.
The school district, in a statement from its attorneys, said it would file a written opposition to the appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court.
"We believe that the Ninth Circuit properly followed the Constitution and Supreme Court precedent in ensuring that all students have a proper environment for learning," attorney Jack M. Sleeth Jr., of Stutz Artiano Shinoff & Holtz, said in a statement. "The Ninth Circuit correctly found that teachers have no First Amendment right to espouse their personal religious beliefs in the classroom."
The issue about the banners in the classroom of Johnson, who had been with the district for three decades, arose when a fellow teacher questioned the school’s principal about them in late 2006. Johnson, according to court files, said he had had the banners up in some way since 1982. In January 2007, district officials had Johnson take the banners down and he soon filed suit against the district and school board, which approved the decision to take down the banners.
In February 2010, Johnson won his suit, arguing that the district had violated his First Amendment rights, but in September 2011 that decision was overturned on appeal. Poway Unified Superintendent John Collins, in a statement at the time, said the decision to overturn Johnson’s victory was “very consistent with the legal and educational rationale the District has used since the very beginning of this case. We are pleased with the outcome after more than four years in the courts.”
Whether the U.S. Supreme Court will hear the case has not been determined. The Court received more than 7,800 requests in the term running from October 2010 to October 2011, but only agreed to hear about 1 percent of the cases.
The U.S. Supreme Court has been asked to overturn a decision allowing the district to prevent a math teacher from displaying classroom banners about God.
By Shauntel Lowe
Rancho Bernardo Patch
January 24, 2012
A Michigan-based public interest law firm has filed an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court objecting to a lower court’s decision allowing the Poway Unified School District to prevent a math teacher from displaying classroom banners with messages about God.
The ruling is an unconstitutional restriction on free speech in a public forum because other types of speech—such as another teacher’s poster with the lyrics to John Lennon's Imagine—are allowed, argues The Thomas More Law Center in its appeal filed Jan. 19 and announced Tuesday.
“What you really had was an egregious demonstration of a double standard,” Richard Thompson, president of the law center and chief counsel, told Patch. “The double standard was used again to censor Christian speech.
“There is this agenda that is out there supported by the ACLU, supported by Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, that is trying to cleanse the public square from any kind of Christian message and they’re using the courts to do it.”
In September, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a 2010 decision by a federal judge in San Diego that said the district had violated the First Amendment rights of Westview High School math teacher Bradley Johnson in 2007 by ordering him to take down the banners. They bore messages such as “In God We Trust” and “All Men Are Created Equal/ They Are Endowed By Their CREATOR.”
In September 2010, the ACLU of San Diego and Imperial Counties filed a brief with the 9th Circuit Court supporting the district’s decision to have Johnson take the banners down, saying, “The banners’ repeated emphasis on ‘God’ and the ‘CREATOR’ creates a serious risk that reasonable persons would believe the District is endorsing religion.”
September’s ruling found that the district’s ban upheld the Establishment Cause prohibiting endorsement of religion.
The Thomas More Law Center—which describes itself as a “not-for-profit public interest law firm dedicated to the defense and promotion of the religious freedom of Christians, time-honored family values, and the sanctity of human life”—argues that this is a cherry-picked ban on Judeo-Christian speech. Another teacher displayed Tibetan flags with no recourse, and Lennon’s Imagine promotes an anti-religious point of view but was allowed, showing a bias against Christian speech, the center argues.
But this isn't about clamping down on Christian messaging, said David Loy, legal director for the ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties which believes the banners and the Tibetan prayer flags should have been taken down.
"It's our position that both of those were unconstitutional," Loy said. "Public school teachers should not be in the business of promoting religion in the classroom."
The large size of Johnson's banners and that they had been there so long—particularly in a math class and not in a philosophy or literature class—could lead a "reasonable" student to believe that they indicated an endorsement of religion by the school district, Loy said.
Johnson, in a 2007 lawsuit against the district, said the banners are not a means to proselytize but represent historical messaging about the country’s origins. Thompson, too, said the banners are just a means of educating students about the role of Christianity in the nation’s development. Taking the banners down and removing Christian messaging from the classroom runs counter to that, he said.
“It really is a way of indoctrinating our students into believing that our nation was founded on principles other than Christianity,” Thompson said.
The school district, in a statement from its attorneys, said it would file a written opposition to the appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court.
"We believe that the Ninth Circuit properly followed the Constitution and Supreme Court precedent in ensuring that all students have a proper environment for learning," attorney Jack M. Sleeth Jr., of Stutz Artiano Shinoff & Holtz, said in a statement. "The Ninth Circuit correctly found that teachers have no First Amendment right to espouse their personal religious beliefs in the classroom."
The issue about the banners in the classroom of Johnson, who had been with the district for three decades, arose when a fellow teacher questioned the school’s principal about them in late 2006. Johnson, according to court files, said he had had the banners up in some way since 1982. In January 2007, district officials had Johnson take the banners down and he soon filed suit against the district and school board, which approved the decision to take down the banners.
In February 2010, Johnson won his suit, arguing that the district had violated his First Amendment rights, but in September 2011 that decision was overturned on appeal. Poway Unified Superintendent John Collins, in a statement at the time, said the decision to overturn Johnson’s victory was “very consistent with the legal and educational rationale the District has used since the very beginning of this case. We are pleased with the outcome after more than four years in the courts.”
Whether the U.S. Supreme Court will hear the case has not been determined. The Court received more than 7,800 requests in the term running from October 2010 to October 2011, but only agreed to hear about 1 percent of the cases.
Monday, January 16, 2012
Stutz Artiano Adds New Associates to San Diego Office
Stutz Artiano Adds New Associates to San Diego Office
EIN PRESSWIRE
A Press Release distribution service of EIN News
New Associates Alex Tramontano, Kathryn Boyd and William Shinoff have joined the San Diego law firm of Stutz Artiano Shinoff & Holtz. All three are graduates of California Western School of Law, which, for three consecutive years, has had the highest pass rate in San Diego for those taking the California Bar Exam. [Maura Larkins comment: Good work, Cal Western! You've come a long way. I'm sure this isn't a case of teaching to the test.]
While attending law school, Mr. Tramontano received Public Service Honors in 2010 and 2011 and received an Academic Achievement Award in Medical Malpractice Litigation. Most recently, Mr. Tramontano served as a Certified Legal Intern with the San Diego County District Attorney's Office. He will focus his practice on litigation, insurance and public entity law.
Ms. Boyd graduated from California Western School of Law, earning a concentration in Labor and Employment Law with honors. While in law school, she received an Academic Achievement Award in Legal Drafting and was actively involved in the Labor and Employment Law Society, for which she served as Public Relations Officer. Ms. Boyd's practice will focus on employment, education and public entity law.
Mr. Shinoff graduated cum laude from California Western and served as an associate editor for California Western Law Review. He received an Academic Achievement Award in Evidence and was a member of the California Western Jewish Student Union from 2009 through 2011. Mr. Shinoff will focus on employment, education and public entity law.
Stutz Artiano Shinoff & Holtz was founded in 1982. The firm currently has 40 attorneys and five offices in San Diego, Temecula, Santa Ana, Los Angeles and Las Vegas, Nevada that serve clients throughout Southern California.
Here's a story from last year about academic achievement at Cal Western:
Cal Western students receive awards, scholarships
By DOUG SHERWIN
March 29, 2011
Last week, California Western School of Law honored 40 students with nearly 50 awards and scholarships for academic achievements, community service and campus involvement.
Third-year student Porsha Venable was among the award winners. The Brooklyn native worked for the public defender's office in New Jersey prior to attending California Western. She received the Alec L. Cory Award for Outstanding Pro Bono Service.
The Alec L. Cory Award is named for one of the founding partners of Procopio, Cory, Hargreaves & Savitch. It honors a student who "best represents the spirit of pro bono service."
Students were recognized for academic achievement and participation in student organizations, clinical programs and the law school's law journals.
Jihan Younis received the Diane Ethics Award. It honors the graduating student demonstrating the best understanding of the scrupulous ethics and high ideals of the legal profession in academic, professional and extracurricular activities.
Devin Sreecharana received the American Board of Trial Advocates/Schoville Excellence in Civil Litigation Award. The award recognizes a third-year student with the greatest aptitude and desire to pursue a career with a commitment to excellence and civility in civil litigation.
EIN PRESSWIRE
A Press Release distribution service of EIN News
New Associates Alex Tramontano, Kathryn Boyd and William Shinoff have joined the San Diego law firm of Stutz Artiano Shinoff & Holtz. All three are graduates of California Western School of Law, which, for three consecutive years, has had the highest pass rate in San Diego for those taking the California Bar Exam. [Maura Larkins comment: Good work, Cal Western! You've come a long way. I'm sure this isn't a case of teaching to the test.]
While attending law school, Mr. Tramontano received Public Service Honors in 2010 and 2011 and received an Academic Achievement Award in Medical Malpractice Litigation. Most recently, Mr. Tramontano served as a Certified Legal Intern with the San Diego County District Attorney's Office. He will focus his practice on litigation, insurance and public entity law.
Ms. Boyd graduated from California Western School of Law, earning a concentration in Labor and Employment Law with honors. While in law school, she received an Academic Achievement Award in Legal Drafting and was actively involved in the Labor and Employment Law Society, for which she served as Public Relations Officer. Ms. Boyd's practice will focus on employment, education and public entity law.
Mr. Shinoff graduated cum laude from California Western and served as an associate editor for California Western Law Review. He received an Academic Achievement Award in Evidence and was a member of the California Western Jewish Student Union from 2009 through 2011. Mr. Shinoff will focus on employment, education and public entity law.
Stutz Artiano Shinoff & Holtz was founded in 1982. The firm currently has 40 attorneys and five offices in San Diego, Temecula, Santa Ana, Los Angeles and Las Vegas, Nevada that serve clients throughout Southern California.
Here's a story from last year about academic achievement at Cal Western:
Cal Western students receive awards, scholarships
By DOUG SHERWIN
March 29, 2011
Last week, California Western School of Law honored 40 students with nearly 50 awards and scholarships for academic achievements, community service and campus involvement.
Third-year student Porsha Venable was among the award winners. The Brooklyn native worked for the public defender's office in New Jersey prior to attending California Western. She received the Alec L. Cory Award for Outstanding Pro Bono Service.
The Alec L. Cory Award is named for one of the founding partners of Procopio, Cory, Hargreaves & Savitch. It honors a student who "best represents the spirit of pro bono service."
Students were recognized for academic achievement and participation in student organizations, clinical programs and the law school's law journals.
Jihan Younis received the Diane Ethics Award. It honors the graduating student demonstrating the best understanding of the scrupulous ethics and high ideals of the legal profession in academic, professional and extracurricular activities.
Devin Sreecharana received the American Board of Trial Advocates/Schoville Excellence in Civil Litigation Award. The award recognizes a third-year student with the greatest aptitude and desire to pursue a career with a commitment to excellence and civility in civil litigation.
Wednesday, January 04, 2012
Suit says district liable for athlete's brain injury
The trial is scheduled to be webcast live on Courtroom View Network, a pay website that caters to attorneys and law schools across the country. A spokesman for the network said it chose the Eveland trial because it will feature “top-tier litigators and extensive expert witness testimony, which along with significant outside interest makes it a great candidate for electronic coverage.”
See also: Dan Shinoff's motion for gag order in Scott Eveland case is denied
Suit says district liable for athlete's brain injury
J. Harry Jones
Jan. 3, 2012
U-T
SAN MARCOS — On the second play of the second quarter of a high-school football game more than four years ago, Mission Hills High linebacker Scott Eveland limped off the field and collapsed on the sideline.
The 17-year-old’s life would be saved in surgery many hours later, but it would be a life greatly altered.
Now, a Vista Superior Court jury will be asked to determine why Eveland suffered a catastrophic brain injury that night in September 2007.
More to the point, they will be asked to decide if employees of the San Marcos Unified School District bear the brunt of responsibility.
Barring a last-minute settlement, the trial is scheduled to begin Friday and could last eight to 14 weeks. According to court documents, Eveland’s lawyers will ask the jury for roughly $25 million, which is what they say is needed to provide the expensive, 24-hour-a-day care Eveland will need the rest of his life.
Eveland suffered a subdural hematoma — bleeding in the brain. His mind is active, but his is body crippled. He can type out responses to some questions on a keyboard but can barely speak. He’s made some progress physically, but his mobility is very limited.
“He’s going to be severely disabled for the rest of his life,” said his mother, Diane Luth. “But you know what? That kid is motivated. He’s working hard. … He’s doing what he can to get the connection back. He hasn’t given up.”
Eveland will be brought into court in a wheelchair during the trial but will not testify, his attorney said.
Football head injuries have become a hot legal and health topic nationwide in the past few years, with far more attention being paid to signs of concussion because of the long-term effects such incidents can cause.
The trial is scheduled to be webcast live on Courtroom View Network, a pay website that caters to attorneys and law schools across the country. A spokesman for the network said it chose the Eveland trial because it will feature “top-tier litigators and extensive expert witness testimony, which along with significant outside interest makes it a great candidate for electronic coverage.”
Eveland’s lawyers maintain that during the days before the game, Eveland was experiencing worsening headaches. Just minutes before the game, they will argue, Eveland went to the team’s athletic trainer and told him his headache was so bad, his eyes couldn’t focus. They will say that he asked to be held out of the game for at least the first quarter and that the trainer, Scott Gommel, then went to Coach Chris Hauser with the information.
According to one witness, who was a student trainer at the time, Hauser was overheard telling Gommel “You aren’t a (expletive) doctor,” and something to the effect of “These are my players, and I’ll decide who plays and who doesn’t.”
Eveland started the game. Two other young witnesses are expected to testify that in the days after Eveland collapsed, Gommel told them that he had gone to Hauser and told him of Eveland’s health complaints but that the coach put Eveland in the game anyway.
See also: Dan Shinoff's motion for gag order in Scott Eveland case is denied
Suit says district liable for athlete's brain injury
J. Harry Jones
Jan. 3, 2012
U-T
SAN MARCOS — On the second play of the second quarter of a high-school football game more than four years ago, Mission Hills High linebacker Scott Eveland limped off the field and collapsed on the sideline.
The 17-year-old’s life would be saved in surgery many hours later, but it would be a life greatly altered.
Now, a Vista Superior Court jury will be asked to determine why Eveland suffered a catastrophic brain injury that night in September 2007.
More to the point, they will be asked to decide if employees of the San Marcos Unified School District bear the brunt of responsibility.
Barring a last-minute settlement, the trial is scheduled to begin Friday and could last eight to 14 weeks. According to court documents, Eveland’s lawyers will ask the jury for roughly $25 million, which is what they say is needed to provide the expensive, 24-hour-a-day care Eveland will need the rest of his life.
Eveland suffered a subdural hematoma — bleeding in the brain. His mind is active, but his is body crippled. He can type out responses to some questions on a keyboard but can barely speak. He’s made some progress physically, but his mobility is very limited.
“He’s going to be severely disabled for the rest of his life,” said his mother, Diane Luth. “But you know what? That kid is motivated. He’s working hard. … He’s doing what he can to get the connection back. He hasn’t given up.”
Eveland will be brought into court in a wheelchair during the trial but will not testify, his attorney said.
Football head injuries have become a hot legal and health topic nationwide in the past few years, with far more attention being paid to signs of concussion because of the long-term effects such incidents can cause.
The trial is scheduled to be webcast live on Courtroom View Network, a pay website that caters to attorneys and law schools across the country. A spokesman for the network said it chose the Eveland trial because it will feature “top-tier litigators and extensive expert witness testimony, which along with significant outside interest makes it a great candidate for electronic coverage.”
Eveland’s lawyers maintain that during the days before the game, Eveland was experiencing worsening headaches. Just minutes before the game, they will argue, Eveland went to the team’s athletic trainer and told him his headache was so bad, his eyes couldn’t focus. They will say that he asked to be held out of the game for at least the first quarter and that the trainer, Scott Gommel, then went to Coach Chris Hauser with the information.
According to one witness, who was a student trainer at the time, Hauser was overheard telling Gommel “You aren’t a (expletive) doctor,” and something to the effect of “These are my players, and I’ll decide who plays and who doesn’t.”
Eveland started the game. Two other young witnesses are expected to testify that in the days after Eveland collapsed, Gommel told them that he had gone to Hauser and told him of Eveland’s health complaints but that the coach put Eveland in the game anyway.
Monday, December 26, 2011
Reasons unclear for fatal CPS decision to return a child to her parents
Reasons unclear for fatal CPS decision to return a child to her parents
By Brad Branan
The Sacramento Bee
Dec. 26, 2011
Giovanni Melchor was just a year old when he drowned in the stagnant water of his family's backyard swimming pool in late 2006. The family's single-story, purple-trimmed home in south Sacramento seemed well maintained on the outside. But inside, a neighbor said, the house was infested with roaches and city inspectors later cited Giovanni's father for an unsecured pool fence, the lack of a door closing off the garage from the pool, and a host of other health and safety code violations.Not even three years later, Giovanni's sister, Yeinira, who had been removed from the home and then returned, was also dead, a victim of medical neglect by her parents. Case files from Sacramento County Child Protective Services, recently obtained by The Bee, show how the 2-year-old girl died. Court records show that her parents, Jose Jaime Melchor, 35, and Elizabeth Melchor, 29, pleaded no contest to child endangerment charges in July and were deported this year.What the records don't explain is how the agency made the decision to return the child to care that led to her death.County officials say they cannot discuss the case or the records because of confidentiality laws.But without documentation, evaluating the agency's actions is difficult, said Ed Howard, senior counsel at the Children's Advocacy Institute in San Diego, who reviewed Yeinira's file at the request of The Bee."If we take them at face value – that there is no documentation for reuniting this child with a very troubled family – then this is a fiasco," Howard said. "You can't do this job without documenting your reasons for making such a decision."Specifically, CPS records for Yeinira do not show whether the agency conducted an assessment about the risk of returning her to the home – using what's called the Structured Decision Making tool – in violation of its own policies."In all of its reports, the (CPS) Oversight Committee has recommended comprehensive and consistent use of the tool," said Gina Roberson, co-chair of the committee. "It means social workers are using the best practices in trying to prevent child abuse."The CPS Oversight Committee, echoing the complaints of experts and child welfare advocates, has repeatedly found the agency's social workers have made questionable decisions and serious errors in high-risk cases such as the Melchor's. That assessment was repeated in other reports this year, including one by the California State Auditor.CPS released two sets of files on the Yeinira case. The first contained 12 pages and no information about the family's extensive record with CPS. The second, released after The Bee requested it under the California Public Records Act, had 124 pages.County Health and Human Services Director Ann Edwards said the release of the incomplete file was unintentional. But neither set answers the questions about the fatal decision to return her to her parents. A troubled historyThe year Giovanni died, the Melchors were living in a working-class neighborhood on Center Parkway. They had five children.Neighbors, attorneys and a social worker who had contact over the years with the Melchors, an immigrant family from Mexico, said the family needed help. They said Elizabeth Melchor seemed incapable of caring for her children and, according to court records, Jose Jaime Melchor physically abused his wife.Five reports of alleged abuse or neglect involving the family were made to CPS prior to Yeinira's birth in July 2006, court records show.Some of the reports involved the father, who allegedly had a drinking problem and abused his wife, according to court and CPS files. Other reports involved the mother, accused of hitting the children. Two of the reports were upheld by CPS.Yeinira had a heart defect and a cleft palate that made feeding her difficult. Less than a month after she was born, CPS received another complaint, noting the mother wasn't learning how to take care of her fragile daughter. The child was still in the hospital and at risk of dehydration if not properly nourished.Melchor "admits she is depressed and overwhelmed," according to an unidentified reporter quoted in the CPS case file. The mother and the father were refusing the training needed to feed Yeinira, according to the report. The source recommended placing Yeinira in a special foster home for her medical needs.The complaint was upheld. CPS started monitoring the child, but allowed her to go home with her mother. Yvette Washington, a home visitation worker with the county's Birth and Beyond program, was assigned to counsel the family."She seemed withdrawn," Washington said of Elizabeth Melchor in an interview with The Bee.Washington said she brought a public health nurse to the family's home to explain the risks of having a pool with stagnant water and a small and unsecured fence.The mother didn't seem to take the matter seriously, Washington said, adding that she stopped providing service to the family in 2006 because Melchor was unreceptive.Giovanni drowned in October that year. Melchor told police she was taking care of Yeinira, and left her other children unattended in the garage for about an hour, records show. Giovanni apparently wandered from the garage and into the pool.Police found the missing garage door and the unsecured pool fence. Neither parent was charged. CPS also initially declined to take protective action, determining that an allegation of neglect was unfounded, court records show.That reluctance befuddled some of the Melchors' neighbors.Andrea Garcia, who lived next door to the family, said the Melchors were troubled. Her interactions with the family usually came when something went wrong, she said, such as when the children were left outside in diapers in cold weather.The Garcias watched the other Melchor children while the parents dealt with the emergency of finding Giovanni in the pool.Andrea Garcia said the children were filthy. She said she entered the Melchor home for clean clothes and saw cockroaches everywhere.Her father, Jesus Garcia, said he had worried about the safety of the Melchor children under their mother's care."We never understood why CPS let her keep the kids," he said.Taken away, brought backTen months after the drowning, the four Melchor children became dependents of the county as a result of abuse and neglect, court records show.In Yeinira's case, her parents repeatedly failed to bring her to doctor's appointments, CPS records show. She missed eight appointments in seven months. Doctor's notes indicated a growing concern about her well-being.In foster care, she had surgery for her ailments and had recovered well. But in May 2008, less than two months after her surgery, Yeinira returned to her parents' home, joining her siblings who had been reunited with them several months earlier.To place a foster child back in a parent's home, CPS must convince a dependency court judge that the conditions that originally made the home unsafe had been fixed. For Yeinira, CPS needed to ensure the issues at home had been addressed, said Bill Grimm, senior counsel at the National Center for Youth Law in Oakland, who reviewed the child's file at The Bee's request."Given all that was going on before, there was a pretty high threshold for them to resume care," Grimm said.The lack of documentation calls the agency's decisions into question, said Grimm, adding that returning Yeinira home without doing a risk assessment would have been a serious error, if that's what happened.Without careAfter Yeinira returned, she did not see a doctor for about a year because the family didn't have insurance, her father told Sacramento police investigators in 2009.During that time, Yeinira had a seizure, her mother told police. She said she put rubbing alcohol on a cotton ball and placed it under Yeinira's nose to revive her.A couple of months later, Yeinira had another seizure. Yeinira "fell back, arched her back, and her feet twisted" as she fell onto concrete, her mother said, according to the investigative report. She again used rubbing alcohol and an onion to revive Yeinira.The problem returned the next day, as Yeinira "fell forward, and her head hit the wall and her eyes went up," her mother said.Again, Melchor turned to an onion and rubbing alcohol to revive her daughter. Her father was holding Yeinira in his lap when the mother noticed Yeinira wasn't breathing, she told investigators.The father brought her to Kaiser Permanente Medical Center, south Sacramento, minutes away from their home. Two days later, April 20, 2009, Yeinira died at Kaiser's Roseville hospital because of a lack of oxygen in the brain, an autopsy found.The Coroner's Office said physical abuse also may have contributed to her death, noting that she'd had a broken arm and other recent injuries.In court documents, Dr. Michael Myette of Kaiser said he could say with "95 percent to 99 percent certainty that if the parents had accessed care when she began seizing, she would still be alive."One of the Melchors' attorneys, Lori Calvert, said the couple grew up without doctors and that Elizabeth Melchor had been taught to revive her mother, who also suffered from seizures, as she had revived Yeinira.The Melchors faced a number of obstacles, their attorneys said. They were illiterate in their native Spanish, couldn't speak English and were poor.The prosecutor handling their neglect case agreed and cited those factors when explaining to a judge why she sought approval for a plea agreement resulting in a two-year jail sentence for the Melchors, the lowest under sentencing guidelines.The judge agreed to the sentencing recommendation. The Melchors had served about a year in jail awaiting trial and, with various credits, were released in July after pleading no contest to the charges. They were deported to Mexico shortly afterward, without any of their children. Their attorneys said the children were put up for adoption by the county.
By Brad Branan
The Sacramento Bee
Dec. 26, 2011
Giovanni Melchor was just a year old when he drowned in the stagnant water of his family's backyard swimming pool in late 2006. The family's single-story, purple-trimmed home in south Sacramento seemed well maintained on the outside. But inside, a neighbor said, the house was infested with roaches and city inspectors later cited Giovanni's father for an unsecured pool fence, the lack of a door closing off the garage from the pool, and a host of other health and safety code violations.Not even three years later, Giovanni's sister, Yeinira, who had been removed from the home and then returned, was also dead, a victim of medical neglect by her parents. Case files from Sacramento County Child Protective Services, recently obtained by The Bee, show how the 2-year-old girl died. Court records show that her parents, Jose Jaime Melchor, 35, and Elizabeth Melchor, 29, pleaded no contest to child endangerment charges in July and were deported this year.What the records don't explain is how the agency made the decision to return the child to care that led to her death.County officials say they cannot discuss the case or the records because of confidentiality laws.But without documentation, evaluating the agency's actions is difficult, said Ed Howard, senior counsel at the Children's Advocacy Institute in San Diego, who reviewed Yeinira's file at the request of The Bee."If we take them at face value – that there is no documentation for reuniting this child with a very troubled family – then this is a fiasco," Howard said. "You can't do this job without documenting your reasons for making such a decision."Specifically, CPS records for Yeinira do not show whether the agency conducted an assessment about the risk of returning her to the home – using what's called the Structured Decision Making tool – in violation of its own policies."In all of its reports, the (CPS) Oversight Committee has recommended comprehensive and consistent use of the tool," said Gina Roberson, co-chair of the committee. "It means social workers are using the best practices in trying to prevent child abuse."The CPS Oversight Committee, echoing the complaints of experts and child welfare advocates, has repeatedly found the agency's social workers have made questionable decisions and serious errors in high-risk cases such as the Melchor's. That assessment was repeated in other reports this year, including one by the California State Auditor.CPS released two sets of files on the Yeinira case. The first contained 12 pages and no information about the family's extensive record with CPS. The second, released after The Bee requested it under the California Public Records Act, had 124 pages.County Health and Human Services Director Ann Edwards said the release of the incomplete file was unintentional. But neither set answers the questions about the fatal decision to return her to her parents. A troubled historyThe year Giovanni died, the Melchors were living in a working-class neighborhood on Center Parkway. They had five children.Neighbors, attorneys and a social worker who had contact over the years with the Melchors, an immigrant family from Mexico, said the family needed help. They said Elizabeth Melchor seemed incapable of caring for her children and, according to court records, Jose Jaime Melchor physically abused his wife.Five reports of alleged abuse or neglect involving the family were made to CPS prior to Yeinira's birth in July 2006, court records show.Some of the reports involved the father, who allegedly had a drinking problem and abused his wife, according to court and CPS files. Other reports involved the mother, accused of hitting the children. Two of the reports were upheld by CPS.Yeinira had a heart defect and a cleft palate that made feeding her difficult. Less than a month after she was born, CPS received another complaint, noting the mother wasn't learning how to take care of her fragile daughter. The child was still in the hospital and at risk of dehydration if not properly nourished.Melchor "admits she is depressed and overwhelmed," according to an unidentified reporter quoted in the CPS case file. The mother and the father were refusing the training needed to feed Yeinira, according to the report. The source recommended placing Yeinira in a special foster home for her medical needs.The complaint was upheld. CPS started monitoring the child, but allowed her to go home with her mother. Yvette Washington, a home visitation worker with the county's Birth and Beyond program, was assigned to counsel the family."She seemed withdrawn," Washington said of Elizabeth Melchor in an interview with The Bee.Washington said she brought a public health nurse to the family's home to explain the risks of having a pool with stagnant water and a small and unsecured fence.The mother didn't seem to take the matter seriously, Washington said, adding that she stopped providing service to the family in 2006 because Melchor was unreceptive.Giovanni drowned in October that year. Melchor told police she was taking care of Yeinira, and left her other children unattended in the garage for about an hour, records show. Giovanni apparently wandered from the garage and into the pool.Police found the missing garage door and the unsecured pool fence. Neither parent was charged. CPS also initially declined to take protective action, determining that an allegation of neglect was unfounded, court records show.That reluctance befuddled some of the Melchors' neighbors.Andrea Garcia, who lived next door to the family, said the Melchors were troubled. Her interactions with the family usually came when something went wrong, she said, such as when the children were left outside in diapers in cold weather.The Garcias watched the other Melchor children while the parents dealt with the emergency of finding Giovanni in the pool.Andrea Garcia said the children were filthy. She said she entered the Melchor home for clean clothes and saw cockroaches everywhere.Her father, Jesus Garcia, said he had worried about the safety of the Melchor children under their mother's care."We never understood why CPS let her keep the kids," he said.Taken away, brought backTen months after the drowning, the four Melchor children became dependents of the county as a result of abuse and neglect, court records show.In Yeinira's case, her parents repeatedly failed to bring her to doctor's appointments, CPS records show. She missed eight appointments in seven months. Doctor's notes indicated a growing concern about her well-being.In foster care, she had surgery for her ailments and had recovered well. But in May 2008, less than two months after her surgery, Yeinira returned to her parents' home, joining her siblings who had been reunited with them several months earlier.To place a foster child back in a parent's home, CPS must convince a dependency court judge that the conditions that originally made the home unsafe had been fixed. For Yeinira, CPS needed to ensure the issues at home had been addressed, said Bill Grimm, senior counsel at the National Center for Youth Law in Oakland, who reviewed the child's file at The Bee's request."Given all that was going on before, there was a pretty high threshold for them to resume care," Grimm said.The lack of documentation calls the agency's decisions into question, said Grimm, adding that returning Yeinira home without doing a risk assessment would have been a serious error, if that's what happened.Without careAfter Yeinira returned, she did not see a doctor for about a year because the family didn't have insurance, her father told Sacramento police investigators in 2009.During that time, Yeinira had a seizure, her mother told police. She said she put rubbing alcohol on a cotton ball and placed it under Yeinira's nose to revive her.A couple of months later, Yeinira had another seizure. Yeinira "fell back, arched her back, and her feet twisted" as she fell onto concrete, her mother said, according to the investigative report. She again used rubbing alcohol and an onion to revive Yeinira.The problem returned the next day, as Yeinira "fell forward, and her head hit the wall and her eyes went up," her mother said.Again, Melchor turned to an onion and rubbing alcohol to revive her daughter. Her father was holding Yeinira in his lap when the mother noticed Yeinira wasn't breathing, she told investigators.The father brought her to Kaiser Permanente Medical Center, south Sacramento, minutes away from their home. Two days later, April 20, 2009, Yeinira died at Kaiser's Roseville hospital because of a lack of oxygen in the brain, an autopsy found.The Coroner's Office said physical abuse also may have contributed to her death, noting that she'd had a broken arm and other recent injuries.In court documents, Dr. Michael Myette of Kaiser said he could say with "95 percent to 99 percent certainty that if the parents had accessed care when she began seizing, she would still be alive."One of the Melchors' attorneys, Lori Calvert, said the couple grew up without doctors and that Elizabeth Melchor had been taught to revive her mother, who also suffered from seizures, as she had revived Yeinira.The Melchors faced a number of obstacles, their attorneys said. They were illiterate in their native Spanish, couldn't speak English and were poor.The prosecutor handling their neglect case agreed and cited those factors when explaining to a judge why she sought approval for a plea agreement resulting in a two-year jail sentence for the Melchors, the lowest under sentencing guidelines.The judge agreed to the sentencing recommendation. The Melchors had served about a year in jail awaiting trial and, with various credits, were released in July after pleading no contest to the charges. They were deported to Mexico shortly afterward, without any of their children. Their attorneys said the children were put up for adoption by the county.
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Failure to Report Student-Teacher Sexual Relations Costs SD Unified $1.25 Millio
There is a lot of secrecy in schools about things that should be discussed and, in some circumstances, reported to authorities. Schools should make a habit of having adults tell the truth. They do the exact opposite.
Failure to Report Student-Teacher Sexual Relations Costs SD Unified $1.25 Million
By Dave Rice
December 21, 2011
The California Court of Appeals has confirmed a $1.25 million judgment against the San Diego Unified School District, a decision filed Tuesday reports. The case stems from the District’s failure to report suspected sexual abuse while plaintiff Anisa Wieder was a student at the District’s School of Creative and Performing Arts (SCPA).
In 2007, Wieder filed a complaint naming the District, John Lee, and Elizabeth Laughlin as defendants, alleging negligence and failure in their statutory duty to report suspected child abuse. In 2008 the complaint was amended to name sexual abuse, sexual battery, battery, negligent infliction of emotional distress, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
At trial, various school employees testified concerning their knowledge about a sexual and romantic relationship between Wieder and defendant Lee, that began while Wieder was in the 10th grade and continued through her high school years. Lee had been Wieder’s ninth grade physics teacher.
In the plaintiff’s sophomore year, she was a member of an after-school martial arts club that Lee instructed, and he often gave her a ride home after class in his pickup truck equipped with a camper shell. Wieder had developed a crush on Lee, who was 36 years old at the time. Shortly after Wieder’s 16th birthday, Lee initiated a sexual relationship.
The pair had intercourse one to three times per week throughout Wieder’s junior and senior years, according to testimony. Most of the time, Lee would drive her to a Mission Bay parking lot, where they would have sex in the back of his truck. The two were also close at school, with Wieder frequently eating lunch in Lee’s classroom and exhibiting displays of affection several testifying believe to be excessive.
Andrew Hinds, a teacher at SCPA, said he saw Lee and Wieder “hugging, grappling, stroking, and petting.” Wieder often spoke about Lee in class while she was a student of Hinds. In November 2005, Hinds began to suspect her relationship with Lee was sexual in nature.
Matt Stoever, another SPCA teacher, concurred. He told Hinds that a substitute teacher told him Wieder had confessed the nature of her relationship with Lee to a friend of the substitute. Hinds then wrote a letter to Laughlin, the school’s principal, informing her of what he had seen and heard. Stoever prepared a memorandum regarding what he’d seen, and made it available to police in a subsequent investigation.
Andrew Barbolla, yet another teacher at SPCA, testified that he heard from students that they believed Lee and Wieder were “maybe a little too close.” He also observed Wieder riding in the middle seat of Lee’s truck next to Lee, saw the couple hug multiple times, and witnessed Wieder run up to and jump on Lee, straddling him with her legs around his waist. Barbolla says he confronted Lee about the inappropriate relationship, and also conferred with Stoever and Laughlin about it, telling Stoever “it’s only a matter of time until [Lee] gets popped.” While Laughlin agreed she “needed to do something” about Lee, neither of them reported suspicions to Child Protective Services or police.
Hortencia Garcia-Rubio, another teacher, testified that she confronted Lee after having concerns expressed to her by another student. She says she also informed Laughlin about the report. The student, Daniel Hagos, testified that Susan Strasser, another SPCA teacher, was within five feet of Lee and Wieder while they engaged in some of the inappropriate behavior he’d witnessed.
Priscilla Pearson, an SPCA security guard, said she saw Lee and Wieder leave the campus together in Lee’s truck. She also saw them alone in Lee’s classroom, with Lee seated and Wieder standing behind him, running her fingers through his hair. Pearson immediately reported what she saw to vice-principal Emma Martinez, who went to the classroom and saw Wieder’s arm around Lee’s neck and her head on his chest, while other students milled about nearby.
Martinez pulled Lee aside and told him she thought the behavior was inappropriate, then reported what she’d seen to Laughlin. Martinez later wrote Lee, stating she was “shocked” with what she’d witnessed.
When it was principal Laughlin’s turn to testify, she denied Barbolla had reported any concerns to her. She likewise denied expressing concern about Lee to Hinds, and said Garcia-Rubio never reported student concerns either.
None of the witnesses reported what they’d seen to any higher authority than Laughlin. Child Protective Services and police did not become involved. The truth came out only after Wieder graduated SPCA and entered college, at which point Lee confessed to her mother that he and Wieder had shared a romantic and sexual relationship since her sophomore year. The relationship ended shortly after this conversation.
Before trial, Lee entered into a settlement agreement with Wieder for $40,000. After the trial, a jury awarded Wieder $250,000 in economic damages and $1,000,000 in noneconomic damages. It assigned 40 percent of the fault for harm caused to Wieder to the District, and 60 percent to Lee himself. The trial court then entered judgment against the District for $650,000.
On appeal, the District argued that Penal Code 11166, which requires “mandated reporters” including teachers, classified employees of any public school and others to report suspected child abuse, does not create a civil cause of action for its failure to follow the law. The district also argued that it “does not have any direct, mandatory duty under section 11166 to report reasonable suspicions of child abuse.” The appellate court struck down the appeal and upheld the judgment in total.
Failure to Report Student-Teacher Sexual Relations Costs SD Unified $1.25 Million
By Dave Rice
December 21, 2011
The California Court of Appeals has confirmed a $1.25 million judgment against the San Diego Unified School District, a decision filed Tuesday reports. The case stems from the District’s failure to report suspected sexual abuse while plaintiff Anisa Wieder was a student at the District’s School of Creative and Performing Arts (SCPA).
In 2007, Wieder filed a complaint naming the District, John Lee, and Elizabeth Laughlin as defendants, alleging negligence and failure in their statutory duty to report suspected child abuse. In 2008 the complaint was amended to name sexual abuse, sexual battery, battery, negligent infliction of emotional distress, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
At trial, various school employees testified concerning their knowledge about a sexual and romantic relationship between Wieder and defendant Lee, that began while Wieder was in the 10th grade and continued through her high school years. Lee had been Wieder’s ninth grade physics teacher.
In the plaintiff’s sophomore year, she was a member of an after-school martial arts club that Lee instructed, and he often gave her a ride home after class in his pickup truck equipped with a camper shell. Wieder had developed a crush on Lee, who was 36 years old at the time. Shortly after Wieder’s 16th birthday, Lee initiated a sexual relationship.
The pair had intercourse one to three times per week throughout Wieder’s junior and senior years, according to testimony. Most of the time, Lee would drive her to a Mission Bay parking lot, where they would have sex in the back of his truck. The two were also close at school, with Wieder frequently eating lunch in Lee’s classroom and exhibiting displays of affection several testifying believe to be excessive.
Andrew Hinds, a teacher at SCPA, said he saw Lee and Wieder “hugging, grappling, stroking, and petting.” Wieder often spoke about Lee in class while she was a student of Hinds. In November 2005, Hinds began to suspect her relationship with Lee was sexual in nature.
Matt Stoever, another SPCA teacher, concurred. He told Hinds that a substitute teacher told him Wieder had confessed the nature of her relationship with Lee to a friend of the substitute. Hinds then wrote a letter to Laughlin, the school’s principal, informing her of what he had seen and heard. Stoever prepared a memorandum regarding what he’d seen, and made it available to police in a subsequent investigation.
Andrew Barbolla, yet another teacher at SPCA, testified that he heard from students that they believed Lee and Wieder were “maybe a little too close.” He also observed Wieder riding in the middle seat of Lee’s truck next to Lee, saw the couple hug multiple times, and witnessed Wieder run up to and jump on Lee, straddling him with her legs around his waist. Barbolla says he confronted Lee about the inappropriate relationship, and also conferred with Stoever and Laughlin about it, telling Stoever “it’s only a matter of time until [Lee] gets popped.” While Laughlin agreed she “needed to do something” about Lee, neither of them reported suspicions to Child Protective Services or police.
Hortencia Garcia-Rubio, another teacher, testified that she confronted Lee after having concerns expressed to her by another student. She says she also informed Laughlin about the report. The student, Daniel Hagos, testified that Susan Strasser, another SPCA teacher, was within five feet of Lee and Wieder while they engaged in some of the inappropriate behavior he’d witnessed.
Priscilla Pearson, an SPCA security guard, said she saw Lee and Wieder leave the campus together in Lee’s truck. She also saw them alone in Lee’s classroom, with Lee seated and Wieder standing behind him, running her fingers through his hair. Pearson immediately reported what she saw to vice-principal Emma Martinez, who went to the classroom and saw Wieder’s arm around Lee’s neck and her head on his chest, while other students milled about nearby.
Martinez pulled Lee aside and told him she thought the behavior was inappropriate, then reported what she’d seen to Laughlin. Martinez later wrote Lee, stating she was “shocked” with what she’d witnessed.
When it was principal Laughlin’s turn to testify, she denied Barbolla had reported any concerns to her. She likewise denied expressing concern about Lee to Hinds, and said Garcia-Rubio never reported student concerns either.
None of the witnesses reported what they’d seen to any higher authority than Laughlin. Child Protective Services and police did not become involved. The truth came out only after Wieder graduated SPCA and entered college, at which point Lee confessed to her mother that he and Wieder had shared a romantic and sexual relationship since her sophomore year. The relationship ended shortly after this conversation.
Before trial, Lee entered into a settlement agreement with Wieder for $40,000. After the trial, a jury awarded Wieder $250,000 in economic damages and $1,000,000 in noneconomic damages. It assigned 40 percent of the fault for harm caused to Wieder to the District, and 60 percent to Lee himself. The trial court then entered judgment against the District for $650,000.
On appeal, the District argued that Penal Code 11166, which requires “mandated reporters” including teachers, classified employees of any public school and others to report suspected child abuse, does not create a civil cause of action for its failure to follow the law. The district also argued that it “does not have any direct, mandatory duty under section 11166 to report reasonable suspicions of child abuse.” The appellate court struck down the appeal and upheld the judgment in total.
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
From Finland, an Intriguing School-Reform Model
From Finland, an Intriguing School-Reform Model
By JENNY ANDERSON
New York Times
December 12, 2011
Pasi Sahlberg, a Finnish educator and author, had a simple question for the high school seniors he was speaking to one morning last week in Manhattan: “Who here wants to be a teacher?”
Out of a class of 15, two hands went up — one a little reluctantly.
“In my country, that would be 25 percent of people,” Dr. Sahlberg said. “And,” he added, thrusting his hand in the air with enthusiasm, “it would be more like this.”
In his country, Dr. Sahlberg said later in an interview, teachers typically spend about four hours a day in the classroom, and are paid to spend two hours a week on professional development. At the University of Helsinki, where he teaches, 2,400 people competed last year for 120 slots in the (fully subsidized) master’s program for schoolteachers. “It’s more difficult getting into teacher education than law or medicine,” he said.
Dr. Sahlberg puts high-quality teachers at the heart of Finland’s education success story — which, as it happens, has become a personal success story of sorts, part of an American obsession with all things Finnish when it comes to schools.
Take last week. On Monday, Dr. Sahlberg was the keynote speaker at an education conference in Chicago. On Tuesday, he had to return to Helsinki for an Independence Day party held by Finland’s president — a coveted invitation to an event that much of the country watches on television.
On Wednesday, it was Washington, for a party for the release of his latest book, “Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn From Educational Change in Finland?,” that drew staff members from the White House and Congress.
And Thursday brought him to the Upper West Side, for a daylong visit to the Dwight School, a for-profit school that prides itself on internationalism, where he talked to those seniors.
Ever since Finland, a nation of about 5.5 million that does not start formal education until age 7 and scorns homework and testing until well into the teenage years, scored at the top of a well-respected international test in 2001 in math, science and reading, it has been an object of fascination among American educators and policy makers...
By JENNY ANDERSON
New York Times
December 12, 2011
Pasi Sahlberg, a Finnish educator and author, had a simple question for the high school seniors he was speaking to one morning last week in Manhattan: “Who here wants to be a teacher?”
Out of a class of 15, two hands went up — one a little reluctantly.
“In my country, that would be 25 percent of people,” Dr. Sahlberg said. “And,” he added, thrusting his hand in the air with enthusiasm, “it would be more like this.”
In his country, Dr. Sahlberg said later in an interview, teachers typically spend about four hours a day in the classroom, and are paid to spend two hours a week on professional development. At the University of Helsinki, where he teaches, 2,400 people competed last year for 120 slots in the (fully subsidized) master’s program for schoolteachers. “It’s more difficult getting into teacher education than law or medicine,” he said.
Dr. Sahlberg puts high-quality teachers at the heart of Finland’s education success story — which, as it happens, has become a personal success story of sorts, part of an American obsession with all things Finnish when it comes to schools.
Take last week. On Monday, Dr. Sahlberg was the keynote speaker at an education conference in Chicago. On Tuesday, he had to return to Helsinki for an Independence Day party held by Finland’s president — a coveted invitation to an event that much of the country watches on television.
On Wednesday, it was Washington, for a party for the release of his latest book, “Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn From Educational Change in Finland?,” that drew staff members from the White House and Congress.
And Thursday brought him to the Upper West Side, for a daylong visit to the Dwight School, a for-profit school that prides itself on internationalism, where he talked to those seniors.
Ever since Finland, a nation of about 5.5 million that does not start formal education until age 7 and scorns homework and testing until well into the teenage years, scored at the top of a well-respected international test in 2001 in math, science and reading, it has been an object of fascination among American educators and policy makers...
Daniel Shinoff presentation: “Litigation in Schools Involving Athletics”
Daniel Shinoff presentation: “Litigation in Schools Involving Athletics”
Stutz law firm partner Daniel Shinoff presented “Litigation in Schools Involving Athletics” at the California Council of School Attorneys Workshop, held at the San Diego Marriott on December 1, 2011. The County Counsel Association helped arrange the presentation, which met State Bar of California requirements for Mandatory Continuing Legal Education (MCLE) for attendees.
Stutz law firm partner Daniel Shinoff presented “Litigation in Schools Involving Athletics” at the California Council of School Attorneys Workshop, held at the San Diego Marriott on December 1, 2011. The County Counsel Association helped arrange the presentation, which met State Bar of California requirements for Mandatory Continuing Legal Education (MCLE) for attendees.
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Dedicated teacher sentenced for murdering wife
It can be quite shocking hidden aspects of the personalities of "dedicated" teachers are revealed. You can't always judge a person by the personality he or she presents to the world. And you sure can't have any confidence at all in the hit-or-miss evaluations teachers receive in public schools.
Cruise ship killer gets life sentence
Greg Moran
Dec. 8, 2011
...On Thursday, Robert McGill was sentenced to life in prison by U.S. District Judge Irma Gonzalez, who acknowledged that McGill had led a life dedicated to helping at-risk teens but had to be punished for the murder for which precise motives remain unknown.
Shirley McGill’s children from a previous marriage and her elderly parents gasped in relief when the judge announced the sentence. They had pleaded with Gonzalez to impose the maximum sentence.
Robert McGill, 57, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in July, and his lawyers were seeking a sentence of slightly more than 11 years in prison. They cited his lifelong work as a dedicated teacher and that he was extremely intoxicated when he beat his wife, so much so that he has no clear memory of what provoked him or what happened...
Cruise ship killer gets life sentence
Greg Moran
Dec. 8, 2011
...On Thursday, Robert McGill was sentenced to life in prison by U.S. District Judge Irma Gonzalez, who acknowledged that McGill had led a life dedicated to helping at-risk teens but had to be punished for the murder for which precise motives remain unknown.
Shirley McGill’s children from a previous marriage and her elderly parents gasped in relief when the judge announced the sentence. They had pleaded with Gonzalez to impose the maximum sentence.
Robert McGill, 57, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in July, and his lawyers were seeking a sentence of slightly more than 11 years in prison. They cited his lifelong work as a dedicated teacher and that he was extremely intoxicated when he beat his wife, so much so that he has no clear memory of what provoked him or what happened...
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Police chief's many hats raise questions
Police chief's many hats raise questions
San Diego Union-Tribune letters
Chula Vista chief’s jobs raise questions
Susan and Peter Watry
Dec. 9, 2011
Recently on KUSI, Chula Vista Police Chief David Bejarano said that he spends 14 hours a day on Chula Vista police business (“Bejarano cuts ties to security firm,” Dec. 9). By that statement, it would seem that he certainly earns the $187,000 a year that Chula Vista pays him.
But then, when does he find time to earn $100,000 to $1 million as a board member of Vibra Bank? And when does he find time to earn $9,000 as a board member of the Chula Vista Elementary School District? And when did he find time to earn the $100,000 to $1 million that he earned, until recently, as an owner in Presidential Securities? And when does he find time to earn $1,000 to $10,000 serving as a consultant to Tatro & Zamoyski, LLP?
Whew, some guy!
And now he seems somehow mixed in with some private security firm, which in turns seems somehow mixed in with trying to smuggle Gadhafi’s son into Mexico. Wow. Wait until Vanity Fair writes its next story about Chula Vista!
Chula Vista
Stock options and security companies
J.F. Smith
Dec. 9, 2011
For the past two days, after reading about the hundreds of thousands of dollars that David Bejarano has made via stock options from a bank in which he serves on the board, at least two questionable security companies that he has “lent his name to,” and to consulting for an attorney firm that specializes in security legal services, all while serving as the sitting chief of police in Chula Vista, I have to ask the question — does “conflict of interest” mean anything anymore?
San Diego
San Diego Union-Tribune letters
Chula Vista chief’s jobs raise questions
Susan and Peter Watry
Dec. 9, 2011
Recently on KUSI, Chula Vista Police Chief David Bejarano said that he spends 14 hours a day on Chula Vista police business (“Bejarano cuts ties to security firm,” Dec. 9). By that statement, it would seem that he certainly earns the $187,000 a year that Chula Vista pays him.
But then, when does he find time to earn $100,000 to $1 million as a board member of Vibra Bank? And when does he find time to earn $9,000 as a board member of the Chula Vista Elementary School District? And when did he find time to earn the $100,000 to $1 million that he earned, until recently, as an owner in Presidential Securities? And when does he find time to earn $1,000 to $10,000 serving as a consultant to Tatro & Zamoyski, LLP?
Whew, some guy!
And now he seems somehow mixed in with some private security firm, which in turns seems somehow mixed in with trying to smuggle Gadhafi’s son into Mexico. Wow. Wait until Vanity Fair writes its next story about Chula Vista!
Chula Vista
Stock options and security companies
J.F. Smith
Dec. 9, 2011
For the past two days, after reading about the hundreds of thousands of dollars that David Bejarano has made via stock options from a bank in which he serves on the board, at least two questionable security companies that he has “lent his name to,” and to consulting for an attorney firm that specializes in security legal services, all while serving as the sitting chief of police in Chula Vista, I have to ask the question — does “conflict of interest” mean anything anymore?
San Diego
General counsel at UCSD gets $15K raise
General counsel at UCSD gets $15K raise
His is smallest of dozen UC pay hikes approved this week
Ashly McGlone
Nov. 30, 2011
The general counsel for the University of California San Diego will see a $15,000 boost in pay thanks to a 6.5 percent raise approved by the UC Board of Regents this week.
Daniel Park, chief campus counsel and associate general counsel for UCSD, received the smallest pay raise among the 12 raises approved by the board Monday, including increases for six lead attorneys, four vice chancellors, a dean, and a chief operating officer.
Park, whose annual salary will rise to $250,000, did not respond to requests for comment via phone and email Wednesday.
The highest raise totaled $103,500 — a 23 percent increase — for the chief operating officer of the UC Davis Health System.
Raises among attorneys reached as high as 21.9 percent.
The raises follow recent budget cuts and tuition increases.
Dianne Klein, spokeswoman for the UC system, said the raises, many postponed for years, are necessary to maintain skilled employees.
“Financially, it’s a bad time. We recognize that,” Klein said. “We believe that granting these petitions could not be put off any more without sacrificing the quality of the university as a whole.”
His is smallest of dozen UC pay hikes approved this week
Ashly McGlone
Nov. 30, 2011
The general counsel for the University of California San Diego will see a $15,000 boost in pay thanks to a 6.5 percent raise approved by the UC Board of Regents this week.
Daniel Park, chief campus counsel and associate general counsel for UCSD, received the smallest pay raise among the 12 raises approved by the board Monday, including increases for six lead attorneys, four vice chancellors, a dean, and a chief operating officer.
Park, whose annual salary will rise to $250,000, did not respond to requests for comment via phone and email Wednesday.
The highest raise totaled $103,500 — a 23 percent increase — for the chief operating officer of the UC Davis Health System.
Raises among attorneys reached as high as 21.9 percent.
The raises follow recent budget cuts and tuition increases.
Dianne Klein, spokeswoman for the UC system, said the raises, many postponed for years, are necessary to maintain skilled employees.
“Financially, it’s a bad time. We recognize that,” Klein said. “We believe that granting these petitions could not be put off any more without sacrificing the quality of the university as a whole.”
How For-Profit College Lobbyists Bought Congress
How For-Profit College Lobbyists Bought Congress
By Don Bauder
San Diego Reader
December 10, 2011
The New York Times today (Dec. 10) has a story on how the for-profit college industry spent $16 million to soften government plans to rein in industry corruption. The lobbyists won, as usual. This means another debt crisis is coming. This year, student loans will total $1 trillion -- more than the total of credit card debt outstanding. For-profit colleges have 10% of students but account for 44% of loan defaults. Ashford University, which accounts for almost all the students at San Diego's Bridgepoint Education, has a dropout rate of 84% in its two-year program and 63% at its four-year programs. When the Department of Education proposed tougher rules to thwart boiler room-type abuses at the for-profit colleges, the lobbyists, such as former House majority leader Richard Gephardt, assaulted the White House, Department of Education, and the White House, reports the Times.
The Times didn't touch on one of the most interesting angles: how much money was accumulated by investors in for-profit college stocks. Throughout this year, I was saying that while Bridgepoint was a disgusting boiler room draining money from the federal government, its stock would go up. First, more than half its stock was short -- that is, the majority of investment money was hoping the stock would go down. This meant that if there was any good news -- such as the softening of proposed reforms -- the shorts would rush to cover, or buy Bridgepoint stock. That happened. The stock zoomed. How many Washington insiders raked in fat profits, knowing the rules would be emasculated and the stocks would soar? Plenty, I would bet. The manna is probably tucked away in an offshore, tax and privacy haven.
By Don Bauder
San Diego Reader
December 10, 2011
The New York Times today (Dec. 10) has a story on how the for-profit college industry spent $16 million to soften government plans to rein in industry corruption. The lobbyists won, as usual. This means another debt crisis is coming. This year, student loans will total $1 trillion -- more than the total of credit card debt outstanding. For-profit colleges have 10% of students but account for 44% of loan defaults. Ashford University, which accounts for almost all the students at San Diego's Bridgepoint Education, has a dropout rate of 84% in its two-year program and 63% at its four-year programs. When the Department of Education proposed tougher rules to thwart boiler room-type abuses at the for-profit colleges, the lobbyists, such as former House majority leader Richard Gephardt, assaulted the White House, Department of Education, and the White House, reports the Times.
The Times didn't touch on one of the most interesting angles: how much money was accumulated by investors in for-profit college stocks. Throughout this year, I was saying that while Bridgepoint was a disgusting boiler room draining money from the federal government, its stock would go up. First, more than half its stock was short -- that is, the majority of investment money was hoping the stock would go down. This meant that if there was any good news -- such as the softening of proposed reforms -- the shorts would rush to cover, or buy Bridgepoint stock. That happened. The stock zoomed. How many Washington insiders raked in fat profits, knowing the rules would be emasculated and the stocks would soar? Plenty, I would bet. The manna is probably tucked away in an offshore, tax and privacy haven.
Nonprofit news website voiceofsandiego.org lays off three reporters, including education writer Emily Alpert
If I had known this, I would have thought much longer and harder before I made my donation five days ago. I can't help thinking that this should have been revealed sooner. All three of these people did work that was particularly meaningful to me. Is it possible that Emily was not enthusiastic enough regarding San Diegans 4 Great Schools to suit Buzz Woolley?
MEDIA: Nonprofit news website voiceofsandiego.org lays off three reporters
By ERIC WOLFF
nctimes.com
December 9, 2011
Voiceofsandiego.org, a nonprofit news website in San Diego, laid off three reporters and another staffer Friday because of a fundraising shortfall, according to a letter to readers on the site.
The three reporters are Sam Hodgson, photo editor; Emily Alpert, schools reporter; and Adrian Florido, neighborhoods reporter. Hodgson was the site's only staff photographer, according to its staff page. The letter did not identify the fourth person laid off.
The lay-offs amount to a 30-percent reduction in staff. The "about us" page lists 13 employees, including the now-departed workers.
In a letter on Voice's website, CEO Scott Lewis and Editor Andrew Donohue said they had raised $1.1 million this year, but had budgeted for $1.2 million. The pair budgeted $1 million for next year, a 17 percent reduction. The reduction did not come from the loss of a major donor, but out of concern that grants from national foundations might not be available, Lewis and Donohue wrote.
"Further budget reductions will not be considered for 2012," Lewis and Donohue wrote.
MEDIA: Nonprofit news website voiceofsandiego.org lays off three reporters
By ERIC WOLFF
nctimes.com
December 9, 2011
Voiceofsandiego.org, a nonprofit news website in San Diego, laid off three reporters and another staffer Friday because of a fundraising shortfall, according to a letter to readers on the site.
The three reporters are Sam Hodgson, photo editor; Emily Alpert, schools reporter; and Adrian Florido, neighborhoods reporter. Hodgson was the site's only staff photographer, according to its staff page. The letter did not identify the fourth person laid off.
The lay-offs amount to a 30-percent reduction in staff. The "about us" page lists 13 employees, including the now-departed workers.
In a letter on Voice's website, CEO Scott Lewis and Editor Andrew Donohue said they had raised $1.1 million this year, but had budgeted for $1.2 million. The pair budgeted $1 million for next year, a 17 percent reduction. The reduction did not come from the loss of a major donor, but out of concern that grants from national foundations might not be available, Lewis and Donohue wrote.
"Further budget reductions will not be considered for 2012," Lewis and Donohue wrote.
Thursday, December 08, 2011
Local Student Exchange Programs Under Fire
Local Student Exchange Programs Under Fire
Homestay Services International, Pacific Intercultural Exchange Under Fire
10News.com
December 6, 2011
Last week, allegations against a San Marcos man came to light. A Japanese exchange student said her host father, Fernando Paucar, molested her. Paucar denies the allegations.
Administrators at Palomar College – where the Japanese student is studying – have asked to meet with the owner of the agency who sponsored her, Homestay Services International.
According to an Oregon newspaper article, another San Diego-based exchange program, Pacific Intercultural Exchange, is facing a $2 million lawsuit after a boy said his host father molested him.
But American students studying abroad are also vulnerable. Danielle Grijalva of Oceanside founded the Committee for Safety of Foreign Exchange Students after hearing one horror story after another. She showed 10News reporter Itica Milanes a horrific picture of an emaciated American teen after he went to Egypt to study and explore the culture.
"When I see the photo, I have to rule out the word 'allegedly,'" said Grijalva...
Homestay Services International, Pacific Intercultural Exchange Under Fire
10News.com
December 6, 2011
Last week, allegations against a San Marcos man came to light. A Japanese exchange student said her host father, Fernando Paucar, molested her. Paucar denies the allegations.
Administrators at Palomar College – where the Japanese student is studying – have asked to meet with the owner of the agency who sponsored her, Homestay Services International.
According to an Oregon newspaper article, another San Diego-based exchange program, Pacific Intercultural Exchange, is facing a $2 million lawsuit after a boy said his host father molested him.
But American students studying abroad are also vulnerable. Danielle Grijalva of Oceanside founded the Committee for Safety of Foreign Exchange Students after hearing one horror story after another. She showed 10News reporter Itica Milanes a horrific picture of an emaciated American teen after he went to Egypt to study and explore the culture.
"When I see the photo, I have to rule out the word 'allegedly,'" said Grijalva...
Attorneys James F. Holtz, Ray Artiano flout court order in school free speech case Stutz v. Larkins
< < < Click on image to enlarge.
Note: A status conference in this case will be held in Dept. 68 of San Diego Superior Court on Dec. 9, 2011 at 10 a.m.. Defendant will ask the court to address the issue of plaintiff's having failed to amend an order as directed by the court over two years ago.On the trial date of April 6, 2009 attorneys James F. Holtz and Jeffrey Wade, Jr. showed up in Judge Judith Hayes' courtroom to represent Stutz Artiano Shinoff & Holtz in its defamation lawsuit against this blogger, Maura Larkins. Ray Artiano is the attorney of record in the case.
The court chided plaintiffs for adding a finding of malice to the court's grant of summary adjudication to plaintiffs. The plaintiff won the summary adjudication decision by default when the court threw out defendant's opposition because she used improper format.
The court directed Counsel for Plaintiff on April 6, 2009 to "prepare and submit an Amended Order After Hearing on the Motion for Summary Adjudication" (see attached minute order).
Two-and-a-half years later, Stutz law firm continues to flout the court's order. Maura Larkins has reminded them twice of the omission. We'll see if Stutz brings an amended summary adjudication order to the status conference hearing tomorrow in Department 68.
Monday, December 05, 2011
Call to cut Education Department gets mixed reaction from educators
Call to cut Education Department gets mixed reaction from educators
By GARY WARTH
nctimes.com
December 3, 2011
When presidential candidate Rick Perry called for the elimination of the federal Department of Education in a debate last month, teacher Jim Groth did not bat an eye.
"I think it comes up every four years during presidential elections," said Groth, a Chula Vista math teacher who is one of two San Diego County representatives on the California Teachers Association board.
Perry's call to eliminate the department was overshadowed by a now-famous mental slip in which he forgot the third of three departments he said he would cut. He later said he would cut the departments of Commerce, Education and Energy.
The Department of Education was created by President Jimmy Carter in 1980 by combining offices from several federal agencies. According to the department's website, the agency's official task is to establish policies on financial aid for education and distribute and monitor the funds. It also collects data on schools and disseminates the research, focuses national attention on key educational issues, prohibits discrimination and ensures equal access to education.
"As in any bureaucracy, they do some good things, and yes, they do some silly things," Groth said about the department. "It's good in that they do collect a lot of information for us. But at the same time, they are a bureaucracy and it gets frustrating to deal with them."
Asked what they thought of eliminating the department, some local educators and trustees acknowledged that while a federal commitment to education is a good thing, they wouldn't necessarily miss the department if it went away.
"If you go back to our Constitution, education is a federal interest but a local or state responsibility," said Linda Solis, principal of Ramona Unified's Olive Peirce Middle School, which last week was recognized by the state as a model middle school.
Repeating a criticism often heard about the department, Solis also is critical that the federal government mandates programs without providing money to support them.
But the federal department does fund some programs, including Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Program, or GEAR UP, which helps prepare underprivileged students for higher education.
Calvin One Deer Gavin, who runs GEAR UP at Palomar College, said he is highly concerned about the prospect of cutting the Department of Education, but understands arguments made by its critics.
"I know there's a debate ongoing that education should be local," he said. "Well, education is local. We have school boards, college governing boards. But the federal government's role is to guide the direction, to complement, supplement and attack some of the issues that the localities can't...
By GARY WARTH
nctimes.com
December 3, 2011
When presidential candidate Rick Perry called for the elimination of the federal Department of Education in a debate last month, teacher Jim Groth did not bat an eye.
"I think it comes up every four years during presidential elections," said Groth, a Chula Vista math teacher who is one of two San Diego County representatives on the California Teachers Association board.
Perry's call to eliminate the department was overshadowed by a now-famous mental slip in which he forgot the third of three departments he said he would cut. He later said he would cut the departments of Commerce, Education and Energy.
The Department of Education was created by President Jimmy Carter in 1980 by combining offices from several federal agencies. According to the department's website, the agency's official task is to establish policies on financial aid for education and distribute and monitor the funds. It also collects data on schools and disseminates the research, focuses national attention on key educational issues, prohibits discrimination and ensures equal access to education.
"As in any bureaucracy, they do some good things, and yes, they do some silly things," Groth said about the department. "It's good in that they do collect a lot of information for us. But at the same time, they are a bureaucracy and it gets frustrating to deal with them."
Asked what they thought of eliminating the department, some local educators and trustees acknowledged that while a federal commitment to education is a good thing, they wouldn't necessarily miss the department if it went away.
"If you go back to our Constitution, education is a federal interest but a local or state responsibility," said Linda Solis, principal of Ramona Unified's Olive Peirce Middle School, which last week was recognized by the state as a model middle school.
Repeating a criticism often heard about the department, Solis also is critical that the federal government mandates programs without providing money to support them.
But the federal department does fund some programs, including Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Program, or GEAR UP, which helps prepare underprivileged students for higher education.
Calvin One Deer Gavin, who runs GEAR UP at Palomar College, said he is highly concerned about the prospect of cutting the Department of Education, but understands arguments made by its critics.
"I know there's a debate ongoing that education should be local," he said. "Well, education is local. We have school boards, college governing boards. But the federal government's role is to guide the direction, to complement, supplement and attack some of the issues that the localities can't...
Sunday, December 04, 2011
Great idea: teachers could ask to be evaluated!
I like Paul Bowers idea of allowing teachers to ask for evaluations. The current system is close to useless. Many, if not most, principals write evaluations without doing adequate observations, and their opinions are often based on school politics. Many principals are afraid of their own bosses--and of their own teachers! Superintendents think no news is good news, so if a principal can keep a school quiet, that principal is considered a success.
Evaluations should be done by outsiders: ideally, the evaluators would come from another school district. I'd like to see both experienced and inexperienced teachers doing evaluations; it would be a great learning experience for the newer teachers.
What if someone started a business or non-profit dedicated to evaluating teachers?
VOSD Radio: No Way to Avoid Schools Insolvency?
November 21, 2011
by Dagny Salas
Listen to the Nov. 19 episode of our radio show on KOGO AM 600, which airs Saturdays at 7:30 a.m.
Editor Andrew Donohue and special guest Paul M. Bowers, a concerned parent and frequent VOSD commenter, spend the show talking about San Diego Unified School District's problems and potential solutions...
"Teachers are the second-most important part of the education equation."
Evaluations should be done by outsiders: ideally, the evaluators would come from another school district. I'd like to see both experienced and inexperienced teachers doing evaluations; it would be a great learning experience for the newer teachers.
What if someone started a business or non-profit dedicated to evaluating teachers?
VOSD Radio: No Way to Avoid Schools Insolvency?
November 21, 2011
by Dagny Salas
Listen to the Nov. 19 episode of our radio show on KOGO AM 600, which airs Saturdays at 7:30 a.m.
Editor Andrew Donohue and special guest Paul M. Bowers, a concerned parent and frequent VOSD commenter, spend the show talking about San Diego Unified School District's problems and potential solutions...
"Teachers are the second-most important part of the education equation."
Friday, December 02, 2011
District Investigating if Schools Use Poor Kids for Cash
I don't know anything about principals recruiting students, but I have experience of teachers trying to keep kids out of their classrooms, or forcing kids out of their classrooms after they were placed. Usually the teachers tried to get the kids placed in another classroom in the same school rather than in another school. I can say this for certain: some educators do not feel an obligation to help the students in their care; instead, they just try to make their jobs as easy as possible by getting rid of students who require extra effort. Many teachers are lazy when it comes to helping kids who are behind. They just don't want to do it.
I also agree with those who think that sometimes a neighborhood school with less than spectacular scores is better for some children than a school with very high scores. The child is more likely to be taught an an appropriate level.
District Investigating if Schools Use Poor Kids for Cash
by Emily Alpert
Voice of San Diego
Dec. 1, 2011
Imagine this: Principals recruit poor children to come to their schools. The poor children are counted so that the schools get federal money for disadvantaged kids. Then after the money is secure, principals nudge the poor children to leave. They keep the money but drop the kid.
It's a nefarious scenario — schools using children to get money. School board member Shelia Jackson alleges that it happens in San Diego Unified. Now the school district is going to investigate.
Jackson raised her allegations Tuesday night in the middle of a school board debate about how to divide up federal money for poor children. The school board voted unanimously to start an investigation into the allegations, seeing if principals are indeed using kids to bring in cash.
Schools get a share of roughly $21 million in federal money based on their poverty rate. San Diego Unified calculates that rate from the number of families who apply for free or reduced price lunch at each school. It also uses census data to add in local families who are poor enough to apply but didn't...
I also agree with those who think that sometimes a neighborhood school with less than spectacular scores is better for some children than a school with very high scores. The child is more likely to be taught an an appropriate level.
District Investigating if Schools Use Poor Kids for Cash
by Emily Alpert
Voice of San Diego
Dec. 1, 2011
Imagine this: Principals recruit poor children to come to their schools. The poor children are counted so that the schools get federal money for disadvantaged kids. Then after the money is secure, principals nudge the poor children to leave. They keep the money but drop the kid.
It's a nefarious scenario — schools using children to get money. School board member Shelia Jackson alleges that it happens in San Diego Unified. Now the school district is going to investigate.
Jackson raised her allegations Tuesday night in the middle of a school board debate about how to divide up federal money for poor children. The school board voted unanimously to start an investigation into the allegations, seeing if principals are indeed using kids to bring in cash.
Schools get a share of roughly $21 million in federal money based on their poverty rate. San Diego Unified calculates that rate from the number of families who apply for free or reduced price lunch at each school. It also uses census data to add in local families who are poor enough to apply but didn't...
Thursday, December 01, 2011
How unhealthy is teacher culture? Suggestions to create a culture of collaboration
In my experience, far too many teachers spend their energy trying to sabotage other teachers rather than improving their own teaching. The phrases "teamwork" and "collaboration" are often just a cover for team dysfunction. The reality is that teacher cliques tend to operate with the tactics of high school girl culture.
Response: Several Ways Teachers Can Create A Supportive Environment For Each Other
By Larry Ferlazzo
Education Week
November 29, 2011
S.H. asked:
Our school culture has a growing sense of [unhealthy] competitiveness. I believe a lot of this stems from the fact that our administration does not recognize (or maybe they do and simply don't voice) teacher expertise using specific, positive praise. We do receive thanks yous - but they tend to be blanket statements and pretty general. (For example, "Thank you Ms. _____ for helping your team out.")
This appears to have led to some teachers to measure themselves against others. Rather than feeling grateful that the students in our school are being taught by many talented teachers, it has become a zero-sum game and fed rivalries and pettiness.
It's sad for me to admit this, but I don't think there's a ton of hope in my administration changing their ways. I guess my question is, how can teachers create a sincere, supportive environment for each other?
I've asked Bill Ferriter and Parry Graham, co-authors of Building a Professional Learning Community at Work: A Guide to the First Year, to provide guest responses to this tricky question, and also include some excellent reader responses later in this post.
I think they offer excellent specific suggestions. The one thought I'd like to contribute is that a challenge to many of us -- whether it is how we operate as teachers with our colleagues or with our students, or if we are administrators or policymakers -- is that it's easy to get caught up in the belief that power (or potential advancement, or success -- whatever you want to call it) is a finite pie -- that if you get some that means I will have less. The reality in the vast majority of instances is that the more I share with you, the bigger the whole pie gets and greater possibilities are created for everyone.
If I share my lesson plan with you, that really means that you might be able to make it better for both of us. If I tell you about the challenges that I faced in the classroom today, instead of making me appear weak, it instead demonstrates that I have the self-confidence to share and hear ideas from others who have probably experienced similar problems (or will in the future).
This perspective of the "pie getting bigger" is a core belief of community organizers (which I was for nineteen years prior to becoming a teacher). The first step towards making this happen in any institution or neighborhood is to build relationships -- an exchange of personal and professional stories -- so that people can learn the hopes, dreams and challenges of each other. The trust that develops during these conversations is the key building block towards countless possibilities...
Response From Bill Ferriter:
Bill Ferriter teaches 6th grade language arts in North Carolina, where he was named a Regional Teacher of the Year for 2005-2006. He is a member of The Teacher Leaders Network.
Another factor that feeds rivalries and pettiness in PLCs is the unhealthy push in many districts and states to use standardized test scores to rate and sort teachers.
Anytime that we try to assign numbers to individual teachers--rather than recognize that improvements in student performance come from collective reflection around practice AND the collective contributions of all of the practitioners that work with a group of children--competition is inevitable.
One way to address this is to establish a team norm that collaborative efforts AREN'T about studying successful people. Instead, they are about studying successful PRACTICES. While that may seem like a subtle bit of semantic gymnastics, it is an essential shift made by every healthy learning team. Conversations focused on the practices--instead of the people--that produce the best results are safer for everyone.
More importantly, they send the message that by working together to enhance and amplify effective instructional practices, a learning team can make tangible improvements in student achievement.
You'll have to be militant about language in order to cement this norm into your collaborative work, though.
Because teachers are (1). surrounded by efforts to tie performance to individuals instead of collaborative groups and (2). used to working in isolation, it is only natural to see competitive teacher-centered language slip into our conversations.
"Wow," we'll say, "Mary is a master! Look at her student's scores on the last assessment."
Instead, we should be saying, "Wow. Mary has discovered a practice that works! Look at her student's scores on the last assessment. How did you teach those skills, Mary?"
When your team stops talking about teachers and starts talking about teaching--or more accurately, student learning--you'll begin to erase the competition and defensiveness that is destroying your collaborative work.
Response From Dr. Parry Graham:
Dr. Parry Graham is the current principal of Luftkin Road Middle School in the Wake County Public School System. He is also an adjunct professor in the education department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
From what I can tell, there are two levels to this complex question. The first level is, what can an individual teacher do to impact the culture of her individual professional learning team? The second level is, what can teachers do to impact the culture of their schools?
At the team level (or department level or grade level), I think there are a couple steps a teacher can take. First, model what you think is positive behavior: don't gossip about other teachers, keep comments about others positive, praise others when you see something worth praising. Second, bring up your observations in team meetings. Mention your perceptions of negativity during a team meeting, ask if others have similar perceptions, and identify specific behaviors at the team level that can help to build a positive team culture.
At the school level, things get more complicated. First, I am somewhat dubious that a relatively simple behavior on the part of the administrative team--i.e., not recognizing teacher expertise using specific praise--could be the primary factor underlying a competitive culture throughout a school. School cultures are complex creatures that typically result from years of behaviors, actions, attitudes, and beliefs. Yes, administrators have some control over culture, but my guess is that the factors underlying this school's culture go much deeper.
So get involved in the kinds of groups that can influence school culture. If they exist, volunteer to serve on the school's improvement or leadership team, on curriculum committees, or on a hospitality group. If your backyard will handle it, host a schoolwide barbeque to bring teachers together outside of school. Set up a Friday afternoon club that meets after school to decompress over beverages of choice. In short, work to improve the relationships between the adults in the building, one interaction at a time.
Reader Responses
Kristen Hewett:
Building a sense of family and community spirit has been something that my school has struggled with for the past few years. As a mentor to our beginning teachers, one thing that I have started this year has been to ask them to select a staff member who exemplifies a certain trait that they admire and would like to emulate and have them let this teacher know this through a short note or a card. My hope is that this will allow my beginning teachers to make connections with other staff members and that it will help to build morale. My ultimate goal is to take this idea and slowly branch it out into other areas and begin a "pay it forward" type of movement. I know that this is just one small step, but my hope is that our small steps will eventually spark bigger changes.
Tyrion Lannister shares a way not to create a supportive environment:
My old school ordered teachers to collaborate, and then graded our collaboration according to a rubric.
Response: Several Ways Teachers Can Create A Supportive Environment For Each Other
By Larry Ferlazzo
Education Week
November 29, 2011
S.H. asked:
Our school culture has a growing sense of [unhealthy] competitiveness. I believe a lot of this stems from the fact that our administration does not recognize (or maybe they do and simply don't voice) teacher expertise using specific, positive praise. We do receive thanks yous - but they tend to be blanket statements and pretty general. (For example, "Thank you Ms. _____ for helping your team out.")
This appears to have led to some teachers to measure themselves against others. Rather than feeling grateful that the students in our school are being taught by many talented teachers, it has become a zero-sum game and fed rivalries and pettiness.
It's sad for me to admit this, but I don't think there's a ton of hope in my administration changing their ways. I guess my question is, how can teachers create a sincere, supportive environment for each other?
I've asked Bill Ferriter and Parry Graham, co-authors of Building a Professional Learning Community at Work: A Guide to the First Year, to provide guest responses to this tricky question, and also include some excellent reader responses later in this post.
I think they offer excellent specific suggestions. The one thought I'd like to contribute is that a challenge to many of us -- whether it is how we operate as teachers with our colleagues or with our students, or if we are administrators or policymakers -- is that it's easy to get caught up in the belief that power (or potential advancement, or success -- whatever you want to call it) is a finite pie -- that if you get some that means I will have less. The reality in the vast majority of instances is that the more I share with you, the bigger the whole pie gets and greater possibilities are created for everyone.
If I share my lesson plan with you, that really means that you might be able to make it better for both of us. If I tell you about the challenges that I faced in the classroom today, instead of making me appear weak, it instead demonstrates that I have the self-confidence to share and hear ideas from others who have probably experienced similar problems (or will in the future).
This perspective of the "pie getting bigger" is a core belief of community organizers (which I was for nineteen years prior to becoming a teacher). The first step towards making this happen in any institution or neighborhood is to build relationships -- an exchange of personal and professional stories -- so that people can learn the hopes, dreams and challenges of each other. The trust that develops during these conversations is the key building block towards countless possibilities...
Response From Bill Ferriter:
Bill Ferriter teaches 6th grade language arts in North Carolina, where he was named a Regional Teacher of the Year for 2005-2006. He is a member of The Teacher Leaders Network.
Another factor that feeds rivalries and pettiness in PLCs is the unhealthy push in many districts and states to use standardized test scores to rate and sort teachers.
Anytime that we try to assign numbers to individual teachers--rather than recognize that improvements in student performance come from collective reflection around practice AND the collective contributions of all of the practitioners that work with a group of children--competition is inevitable.
One way to address this is to establish a team norm that collaborative efforts AREN'T about studying successful people. Instead, they are about studying successful PRACTICES. While that may seem like a subtle bit of semantic gymnastics, it is an essential shift made by every healthy learning team. Conversations focused on the practices--instead of the people--that produce the best results are safer for everyone.
More importantly, they send the message that by working together to enhance and amplify effective instructional practices, a learning team can make tangible improvements in student achievement.
You'll have to be militant about language in order to cement this norm into your collaborative work, though.
Because teachers are (1). surrounded by efforts to tie performance to individuals instead of collaborative groups and (2). used to working in isolation, it is only natural to see competitive teacher-centered language slip into our conversations.
"Wow," we'll say, "Mary is a master! Look at her student's scores on the last assessment."
Instead, we should be saying, "Wow. Mary has discovered a practice that works! Look at her student's scores on the last assessment. How did you teach those skills, Mary?"
When your team stops talking about teachers and starts talking about teaching--or more accurately, student learning--you'll begin to erase the competition and defensiveness that is destroying your collaborative work.
Response From Dr. Parry Graham:
Dr. Parry Graham is the current principal of Luftkin Road Middle School in the Wake County Public School System. He is also an adjunct professor in the education department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
From what I can tell, there are two levels to this complex question. The first level is, what can an individual teacher do to impact the culture of her individual professional learning team? The second level is, what can teachers do to impact the culture of their schools?
At the team level (or department level or grade level), I think there are a couple steps a teacher can take. First, model what you think is positive behavior: don't gossip about other teachers, keep comments about others positive, praise others when you see something worth praising. Second, bring up your observations in team meetings. Mention your perceptions of negativity during a team meeting, ask if others have similar perceptions, and identify specific behaviors at the team level that can help to build a positive team culture.
At the school level, things get more complicated. First, I am somewhat dubious that a relatively simple behavior on the part of the administrative team--i.e., not recognizing teacher expertise using specific praise--could be the primary factor underlying a competitive culture throughout a school. School cultures are complex creatures that typically result from years of behaviors, actions, attitudes, and beliefs. Yes, administrators have some control over culture, but my guess is that the factors underlying this school's culture go much deeper.
So get involved in the kinds of groups that can influence school culture. If they exist, volunteer to serve on the school's improvement or leadership team, on curriculum committees, or on a hospitality group. If your backyard will handle it, host a schoolwide barbeque to bring teachers together outside of school. Set up a Friday afternoon club that meets after school to decompress over beverages of choice. In short, work to improve the relationships between the adults in the building, one interaction at a time.
Reader Responses
Kristen Hewett:
Building a sense of family and community spirit has been something that my school has struggled with for the past few years. As a mentor to our beginning teachers, one thing that I have started this year has been to ask them to select a staff member who exemplifies a certain trait that they admire and would like to emulate and have them let this teacher know this through a short note or a card. My hope is that this will allow my beginning teachers to make connections with other staff members and that it will help to build morale. My ultimate goal is to take this idea and slowly branch it out into other areas and begin a "pay it forward" type of movement. I know that this is just one small step, but my hope is that our small steps will eventually spark bigger changes.
Tyrion Lannister shares a way not to create a supportive environment:
My old school ordered teachers to collaborate, and then graded our collaboration according to a rubric.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Are the wrong people chosen as "experts" in education?
The World Conspires to Make Expertise Unreliable
By Rick Hess
Education Week
November 23, 2011
Note: This week, I'm giving RHSU readers a look at my essay in Richard Elmore's recent Harvard Education Press volume I Used to Think...And Now I Think. If you find this stuff at all interesting, I'd definitely encourage you to check the book out. For days one and two, see here and here.
Say something smart once and there are huge rewards for spending a career saying it, in increasingly elaborate forms. Academics who own an idea get hired by prestigious universities, deliver keynotes, and get all kinds of attendant perks. Consultants who own an idea become must-haves for districts, foundations, and contractors. The result is a familiar kabuki of hyperspecialists airing their prebaked views.
The world is composed of niches. In each, a thinker may be iconic so long as she stays in her little crevice. Thus, an expert in pharmacology may speak to a cheering conference hall of awe-struck attendees only to walk across the campus or the hotel and quickly become just an anonymous face in the crowd. An expert on school violence or science instruction might be feted as legendary by those in her field but sacrifice that respect and deference should she wander outside that circle. The result discourages individuals from spending much time wrestling with thorny questions or complexities that reach beyond their core expertise. Hence, enormously respected thinkers will offer prescriptions for educational policy or practice that are woefully naïve in terms of political dynamics, organizational realities, institutional pressure, incentives, or practical constraints. Why? Because many of these experts have never spent much time thinking about how their expertise intersects with all the stuff in which they're not expert.
Meanwhile, within niches, the interest in weighing competing arguments or determining how one's expertise translates to the larger world is massively undervalued. Expertise promotes deep knowledge, which can too readily lead to inflexibility and self-assuredness (along with the expectation that one's biases and assumptions will be afforded deference). There are always exceptions, but most thinkers become expert by struggling to the top of their niche on the back of their big idea, and then do all they can to extend the reach of that idea and of the acolytes who aid in that quest--incidentally, or quite purposefully, stymieing heterodox perspectives. In fact, the very nature of expertise is that it stifles dissent and reifies the orthodoxy of the moment.
Moreover, since established figures typically find themselves addressing friendly audiences and gatherings where it is deemed impolite to contest their assumptions and evidence too ardently, it is frighteningly easy for experts to settle into a comfortable bubble where they are surrounded by like-minded peers and adoring disciples, their word is gospel and they are buffered from anything more than occasional interaction with those who might disagree.
Finally, our criteria for expertise are, almost inevitably, relational (e.g. my colleague tells me Trang is terrific) or formulaic (e.g. Wylie was executive director of X for a number of years, launched Y program, or has published eleven articles on this). Why? Our ability to form independent judgments of the hundreds or thousands of individuals most directly engaged in our field of endeavor, much less the thousands more peripherally engaged, is limited by our own inexpert grasp of the world. Only the arrogant or the deluded imagine they perfectly understand the strengths and skills of hundreds of friends, acquaintances, and strangers. Thus, we turn to proxies that are themselves deeply imperfect--but that can lead to our investing great authority in this or that expert for a season.
Done with sufficient skepticism and care, this manner of finding experts is natural and normal. But there's a decided temptation to lodge excessive influence in our choice of the moment. I can't tell you how many times I've been talking with a superintendent who has become a guru for a foundation and found myself wondering why this unremarkable man was deemed any more deserving of that status than any of a dozen other superintendents. The difference, in many cases, is nothing more than a personal relationship, experience in a few big districts, or the fact that a superintendent was an early adopter of a reform--all of which, perhaps bizarrely, results in an individual being invested with presumed expertise across a broad range of issues.
So why does any of this matter? Does it make any practical difference when it comes to schools or schooling? I think it does. In education, for instance, despite decades of research, experts have no systematic way to tell who will be a good teacher or how to design practices that lead to predictable improvement at scale. This state of affairs means at least four things.
First, we ought to be hesitant in casually suggesting that we can name, based on our experience, a list of the nation's best school districts, superintendents, or reading programs. Short of some protocol that helps us identify excellence in a transparent and consistent fashion (for better or worse), we ought to be much humbler about such exercises. They frequently amount to nothing more than an echo chamber, with participants passing on names that they themselves have received second- or third-hand.
Second, we should be wary of prescriptive advice, especially when it's based on the assumption that expertise easily and immutably travels across contexts. In fact, given its narrowness, expertise can exert a gravitational pull that distorts how one thinks about the larger world. Expertise can come at the cost of perspective when an expert starts contemplating efforts to change policy, organizations, or human behavior. After all, expert advice tends to reflect what experts know, which may not reflect what is most useful for solving the larger problem in the real world. For instance, grand assertions about merit pay, school choice, differentiated instruction, or class size reduction that overlook the practical impact of contracts, policies, existing incentives, and embedded routines can yield results quite different from those the experts are touting.
Third--all that said--expertise has a terrifically useful place, as long as we understand what the experts actually know, which is how to do specific, concrete tasks right. I'm always eager to turn to an expert when the question is how to build a bridge, estimate how many people will visit Vegas next month, design an assessment, erect a new school, or conduct a complicated statistical analysis. I'm less inclined to do so when the questions are bigger, messier, and more dependent on judgment and values.
Finally, we need to recognize that individual experts ought not be invested with too much prescience, but the right mix of experts can help identify tensions, incentives, and the contours of possible solutions. If one assembles the right mix of experts, their competing views can prove enormously helpful in crafting smart policies. The key, however, is not to empower any one expert to play guru but to allow competing expertise to illuminate and inform complex decisions.
One last thought. For what it's worth, my approach nowadays is not to casually reject educational expertise but to regard its acclaimed ministers with the same attentive skepticism I reserve for financial advisers and real estate agents. They know stuff that's useful, but that doesn't entitle them to blind deference or even trusting obeisance. At least not in my book.
By Rick Hess
Education Week
November 23, 2011
Note: This week, I'm giving RHSU readers a look at my essay in Richard Elmore's recent Harvard Education Press volume I Used to Think...And Now I Think. If you find this stuff at all interesting, I'd definitely encourage you to check the book out. For days one and two, see here and here.
Say something smart once and there are huge rewards for spending a career saying it, in increasingly elaborate forms. Academics who own an idea get hired by prestigious universities, deliver keynotes, and get all kinds of attendant perks. Consultants who own an idea become must-haves for districts, foundations, and contractors. The result is a familiar kabuki of hyperspecialists airing their prebaked views.
The world is composed of niches. In each, a thinker may be iconic so long as she stays in her little crevice. Thus, an expert in pharmacology may speak to a cheering conference hall of awe-struck attendees only to walk across the campus or the hotel and quickly become just an anonymous face in the crowd. An expert on school violence or science instruction might be feted as legendary by those in her field but sacrifice that respect and deference should she wander outside that circle. The result discourages individuals from spending much time wrestling with thorny questions or complexities that reach beyond their core expertise. Hence, enormously respected thinkers will offer prescriptions for educational policy or practice that are woefully naïve in terms of political dynamics, organizational realities, institutional pressure, incentives, or practical constraints. Why? Because many of these experts have never spent much time thinking about how their expertise intersects with all the stuff in which they're not expert.
Meanwhile, within niches, the interest in weighing competing arguments or determining how one's expertise translates to the larger world is massively undervalued. Expertise promotes deep knowledge, which can too readily lead to inflexibility and self-assuredness (along with the expectation that one's biases and assumptions will be afforded deference). There are always exceptions, but most thinkers become expert by struggling to the top of their niche on the back of their big idea, and then do all they can to extend the reach of that idea and of the acolytes who aid in that quest--incidentally, or quite purposefully, stymieing heterodox perspectives. In fact, the very nature of expertise is that it stifles dissent and reifies the orthodoxy of the moment.
Moreover, since established figures typically find themselves addressing friendly audiences and gatherings where it is deemed impolite to contest their assumptions and evidence too ardently, it is frighteningly easy for experts to settle into a comfortable bubble where they are surrounded by like-minded peers and adoring disciples, their word is gospel and they are buffered from anything more than occasional interaction with those who might disagree.
Finally, our criteria for expertise are, almost inevitably, relational (e.g. my colleague tells me Trang is terrific) or formulaic (e.g. Wylie was executive director of X for a number of years, launched Y program, or has published eleven articles on this). Why? Our ability to form independent judgments of the hundreds or thousands of individuals most directly engaged in our field of endeavor, much less the thousands more peripherally engaged, is limited by our own inexpert grasp of the world. Only the arrogant or the deluded imagine they perfectly understand the strengths and skills of hundreds of friends, acquaintances, and strangers. Thus, we turn to proxies that are themselves deeply imperfect--but that can lead to our investing great authority in this or that expert for a season.
Done with sufficient skepticism and care, this manner of finding experts is natural and normal. But there's a decided temptation to lodge excessive influence in our choice of the moment. I can't tell you how many times I've been talking with a superintendent who has become a guru for a foundation and found myself wondering why this unremarkable man was deemed any more deserving of that status than any of a dozen other superintendents. The difference, in many cases, is nothing more than a personal relationship, experience in a few big districts, or the fact that a superintendent was an early adopter of a reform--all of which, perhaps bizarrely, results in an individual being invested with presumed expertise across a broad range of issues.
So why does any of this matter? Does it make any practical difference when it comes to schools or schooling? I think it does. In education, for instance, despite decades of research, experts have no systematic way to tell who will be a good teacher or how to design practices that lead to predictable improvement at scale. This state of affairs means at least four things.
First, we ought to be hesitant in casually suggesting that we can name, based on our experience, a list of the nation's best school districts, superintendents, or reading programs. Short of some protocol that helps us identify excellence in a transparent and consistent fashion (for better or worse), we ought to be much humbler about such exercises. They frequently amount to nothing more than an echo chamber, with participants passing on names that they themselves have received second- or third-hand.
Second, we should be wary of prescriptive advice, especially when it's based on the assumption that expertise easily and immutably travels across contexts. In fact, given its narrowness, expertise can exert a gravitational pull that distorts how one thinks about the larger world. Expertise can come at the cost of perspective when an expert starts contemplating efforts to change policy, organizations, or human behavior. After all, expert advice tends to reflect what experts know, which may not reflect what is most useful for solving the larger problem in the real world. For instance, grand assertions about merit pay, school choice, differentiated instruction, or class size reduction that overlook the practical impact of contracts, policies, existing incentives, and embedded routines can yield results quite different from those the experts are touting.
Third--all that said--expertise has a terrifically useful place, as long as we understand what the experts actually know, which is how to do specific, concrete tasks right. I'm always eager to turn to an expert when the question is how to build a bridge, estimate how many people will visit Vegas next month, design an assessment, erect a new school, or conduct a complicated statistical analysis. I'm less inclined to do so when the questions are bigger, messier, and more dependent on judgment and values.
Finally, we need to recognize that individual experts ought not be invested with too much prescience, but the right mix of experts can help identify tensions, incentives, and the contours of possible solutions. If one assembles the right mix of experts, their competing views can prove enormously helpful in crafting smart policies. The key, however, is not to empower any one expert to play guru but to allow competing expertise to illuminate and inform complex decisions.
One last thought. For what it's worth, my approach nowadays is not to casually reject educational expertise but to regard its acclaimed ministers with the same attentive skepticism I reserve for financial advisers and real estate agents. They know stuff that's useful, but that doesn't entitle them to blind deference or even trusting obeisance. At least not in my book.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Why did Yahoo erase photos of Ray Artiano, whose law firm sued me for defamation?
See all posts about Yahoo and free speech.
UPDATE 11:25 a.m. November 29, 2011:
My erased and frozen web pages are back this morning. I wonder how long it will be before Stutz law firm gets Yahoo to erase them again. I'm getting a bit tired of this game. Why is Yahoo afraid of Stutz? Or who is it in Yahoo's legal department that does favors for Stutz?
Cecilia Yoshida
Sr. Legal Administrative Assistant at Yahoo!, Inc.
Company Address:
701 1st Avenue
Sunnyvale, CA 94089
Dear Cecilia:
It is clear that Yahoo's legal department has gone far beyond its stated standards to censor my website.
Ray Artiano's law firm sued me for defamation. The fact is that everything I said on my website was true. Still, Mr. Artiano's firm, representing itself in court, managed somehow to get a San Diego Superior Court judge to issue an injunction that said I couldn't mention Mr. Artiano's name! This ruling was unconstitutional, and every lawyer in Yahoo's legal department knew it. Yet Yahoo's legal department temporarily shut down my website at the request of Stutz Artiano Shinoff & Holtz. Why? As a favor to fellow lawyers?
That’s pretty unethical behavior for Yahoo, but it gets worse. Recently, even after the Court of Appeal threw out the illegal injunction, Yahoo again violated its own terms and conditions by doing favors for Ray Artiano.
Case in point: Yahoo has erased photos I took of Ray Artiano during his deposition. Does Yahoo not understand the concept of an issue of public interest? Ray Artiano sued me; he is the one who made his actions a public issue. A lawsuit is a public matter. The taxpayers pay for the judge, the bailiff, the court reporter, the clerks, and the courthouse. The justice system exists by and for the people.
What possible reason could Yahoo have for erasing these photos, which belong to me, from my website? It can only be a personal favor by Yahoo’s lawyers.
Sincerely,
Maura Larkins
HERE'S ANOTHER CASE INVOLVING YAHOO AND THE CONSTITUTION:
http://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/california/candce/3:2010cv05897/235632/1/1.pdf
NOTICE OF REMOVAL with COMPLAINT filed by Yahoo! Inc.. Consent ...
Cecilia Yoshida, Legal Ops Manager. Yahoo ! Inc . 701 First Avenue ... information of users of Yahoo! products and services (hereinafter "Yahoo! User"). ...
UPDATE 11:25 a.m. November 29, 2011:
My erased and frozen web pages are back this morning. I wonder how long it will be before Stutz law firm gets Yahoo to erase them again. I'm getting a bit tired of this game. Why is Yahoo afraid of Stutz? Or who is it in Yahoo's legal department that does favors for Stutz?
Cecilia Yoshida
Sr. Legal Administrative Assistant at Yahoo!, Inc.
Company Address:
701 1st Avenue
Sunnyvale, CA 94089
Dear Cecilia:
It is clear that Yahoo's legal department has gone far beyond its stated standards to censor my website.
Ray Artiano's law firm sued me for defamation. The fact is that everything I said on my website was true. Still, Mr. Artiano's firm, representing itself in court, managed somehow to get a San Diego Superior Court judge to issue an injunction that said I couldn't mention Mr. Artiano's name! This ruling was unconstitutional, and every lawyer in Yahoo's legal department knew it. Yet Yahoo's legal department temporarily shut down my website at the request of Stutz Artiano Shinoff & Holtz. Why? As a favor to fellow lawyers?
That’s pretty unethical behavior for Yahoo, but it gets worse. Recently, even after the Court of Appeal threw out the illegal injunction, Yahoo again violated its own terms and conditions by doing favors for Ray Artiano.
Case in point: Yahoo has erased photos I took of Ray Artiano during his deposition. Does Yahoo not understand the concept of an issue of public interest? Ray Artiano sued me; he is the one who made his actions a public issue. A lawsuit is a public matter. The taxpayers pay for the judge, the bailiff, the court reporter, the clerks, and the courthouse. The justice system exists by and for the people.
What possible reason could Yahoo have for erasing these photos, which belong to me, from my website? It can only be a personal favor by Yahoo’s lawyers.
Sincerely,
Maura Larkins
HERE'S ANOTHER CASE INVOLVING YAHOO AND THE CONSTITUTION:
http://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/california/candce/3:2010cv05897/235632/1/1.pdf
NOTICE OF REMOVAL with COMPLAINT filed by Yahoo! Inc.. Consent ...
Cecilia Yoshida, Legal Ops Manager. Yahoo ! Inc . 701 First Avenue ... information of users of Yahoo! products and services (hereinafter "Yahoo! User"). ...
Monday, November 28, 2011
We're still in Kansas, Toto: teen Emma Sullivan at center of free speech debate after criticism of Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback
In my experience, many California educators also fail to understand and support the US Constitution. And they also like to maintain secrecy in schools.
Kansas teen won't apologize for her tweet about Gov. Sam Brownback
By HEATHER HOLLINGSWORTH,
Associated Press
November 28, 2011
An American teenager who wrote a disparaging tweet about Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback said Sunday that she is rejecting her high school principal's demand for a written apology.
Emma Sullivan, 18, said she isn't sorry and doesn't think such a letter would be sincere.
The Shawnee Mission East senior was taking part in a Youth in Government program last week when she sent out a tweet from the back of a crowd of students listening to Brownback's greeting. From her cellphone, she thumbed: "Just made mean comments at gov. brownback and told him he sucked, in person #heblowsalot."
How much do you know about the US Constitution? A quiz.
She actually made no such comment and said she was "just joking with friends." But Brownback's office, which monitors social media for postings containing the governor's name, saw Sullivan's post and contacted the Youth in Government program.
Sullivan received a scolding at school and was ordered to send Brownback an apology letter. She said Prinicipal Karl R. Krawitz even suggested talking points for the letter she was supposed to turn in Monday.
The situation exploded after Sullivan's older sister contacted the media. Since then, Sullivan's following on Twitter has grown to about 3,000 people, up from about 65 before the tweet. She said she thinks the tweet has helped "open up dialogue" about free speech in social media..
"I would do it again," she said.
Sullivan has received emails from attorneys but is waiting to see what happens when she refuses to hand in a letter. Krawitz, her principal, told The Kansas City Star previously that the situation is a "private issue, not a public matter" but didn't return a phone message from The Associated Press at his home Sunday...
Kansas teen won't apologize for her tweet about Gov. Sam Brownback
By HEATHER HOLLINGSWORTH,
Associated Press
November 28, 2011
An American teenager who wrote a disparaging tweet about Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback said Sunday that she is rejecting her high school principal's demand for a written apology.
Emma Sullivan, 18, said she isn't sorry and doesn't think such a letter would be sincere.
The Shawnee Mission East senior was taking part in a Youth in Government program last week when she sent out a tweet from the back of a crowd of students listening to Brownback's greeting. From her cellphone, she thumbed: "Just made mean comments at gov. brownback and told him he sucked, in person #heblowsalot."
How much do you know about the US Constitution? A quiz.
She actually made no such comment and said she was "just joking with friends." But Brownback's office, which monitors social media for postings containing the governor's name, saw Sullivan's post and contacted the Youth in Government program.
Sullivan received a scolding at school and was ordered to send Brownback an apology letter. She said Prinicipal Karl R. Krawitz even suggested talking points for the letter she was supposed to turn in Monday.
The situation exploded after Sullivan's older sister contacted the media. Since then, Sullivan's following on Twitter has grown to about 3,000 people, up from about 65 before the tweet. She said she thinks the tweet has helped "open up dialogue" about free speech in social media..
"I would do it again," she said.
Sullivan has received emails from attorneys but is waiting to see what happens when she refuses to hand in a letter. Krawitz, her principal, told The Kansas City Star previously that the situation is a "private issue, not a public matter" but didn't return a phone message from The Associated Press at his home Sunday...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)