politics

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Things are heating up – particularly with regard to state politicos – concerning online ed at UC

Byuclafaculty

From the L.A. NOW blog of LA Times:Conference about online education attracts major players to UCLA January 8, 2013, Larry Gordon A national conference at UCLA on the future of online college education attracted some of the biggest names in the industry Tuesday, as well as politicians and faculty leaders from state universities. …Speakers at the event included Daphne Koller, the Stanford professor who is one of the founders of Coursera, a MOOC that offers courses from prestigious universities for free but usually without college credit, and Sebastian Thrun, a Stanford faculty member who co-founded Udacity, another MOOC that has…

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A whisper about higher ed in the forthcoming state budget

Byuclafaculty

In earlier posts, we have noted the practice of hints about the state budget proposal coming out before the official unveiling.  Up to now, the education hints have focused on K-12.  Today, the headlines were mainly about the governor’s complaints about the federal court jurisdiction over the state prison system.  However, he paired that complaint with a whisper about higher ed by saying it would be better to spend prison money on education.  And he did mention higher ed in that context. “We’re proposing increases in education at the higher level and in K through 12,” Brown said at a…

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Seven

Byuclafaculty

There are seven years in a sabbatical.  Snow White had seven dwarfs.  There are seven deadly sins.  And Prop 30 – the governor’s now-enacted tax initiative – raised taxes for seven years. So legislative Republicans are pushing for a seven-year freeze on public university tuitions.  Now it is true that the Republicans are in a diminished situation with Democrats holding a supermajority in the state legislature.  But the idea of a tuition freeze will have an appeal beyond Republican ranks. The PolitiCal blog of the LA Times has the story (excerpt): Legislative Republicans on Monday proposed a seven-year freeze on…

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More on the Powers That Be

Byuclafaculty

In an earlier post, we noted the names of state assembly members dealing with higher ed.  The state senate has a more general education committee that does all levels of education.  It will be chaired by Carol Liu who represents a district that runs from the Burbank/Pasadena area all the way east to Claremont and beyond.  Despite representing a southern California district, she has ties to UC Berkeley, especially the School of Education there. Poking around on the web, I find she at one time was on the UC-Berkeley Foundation Board of Trustees and that she and her husband have…

The Powers that Be (in Assembly)

Byuclafaculty

The state assembly’s Higher Education Committee membership has been announced.  The chair is Das Williams from the Santa Barbara area who has a degree from UC-Santa Barbara.  His interests seem to be mainly in the environmental area. Full membership of the committee: Assemblymember Das Williams, ChairAssemblymember Rocky J. Chávez, Vice ChairAssemblymember Richard BloomAssemblymember Paul FongAssemblymember Steve FoxAssemblymember Reginald Byron Jones-Sawyer, Sr.Assemblymember Marc LevineAssemblymember Eric LinderAssemblymember Jose MedinaAssemblymember Kristin OlsenAssemblymember Sharon Quirk-SilvaAssemblymember Shirley N. WeberAssemblymember Scott Wilk Williams’ personal website is at http://www.daswilliams.org/ Read more here: http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2013/01/assembly-speaker-perez-announces-full-committee-line-ups.html#storylink=cpy

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More Budget Leaks

Byuclafaculty

As we have noted in prior posts, at this time of year there are leaks that appear in the news media about the forthcoming budget proposal of the governor.  We noted also that he seems to be particularly concerned with education, but at the K-12 level.  Basically, policy wonks have long supported the idea that school payments should reflect in some way the kind of student being served rather than a simple body count.  Disadvantaged students would in effect get more dollars per capita. Of course, there are winners and losers in such weighted formulas among school districts compared to…

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More on State Budget Leaks

Byuclafaculty

As a previous post noted, this is the season in which there are leaks about the governor’s upcoming budget proposal for 2013-14 which will be presented officially in early January.  Given the timing, the budget is already prepared, or 99% prepared. So far, there has been no leak about higher ed.  However, there is an item today in the Sacramento Bee about K-12 (a much larger chunk of the state budget) that suggests the governor will propose revamping the K-12 allocation formulas to give more assistance to disadvantaged children and districts with concentrations of such children. He pushed for changes…

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How Ironclad is the Pension Guarantee?

Byuclafaculty

Famous clash of Civil War ironclads There is a risk in even blogging about this topic that someone will start worrying that his/her pension check next month won’t arrive.  So the usual caveats are in order.  1) There is enough money in the UC pension today so that if no one contributed (and in fact contributions are being made and ramping up), 2) and investment returns were zero over the long term (very unlikely), the fund would not run out of money for many, many years.  And even at that point, there could be pay-as-you-go funding.  In addition, the Regents’…

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Tobacco Tax for UC/CSU Student Aid Initiative Filed

Byuclafaculty

Note: We posted this story yesterday although blogger now shows it as today for reasons unknown. An initiative has been filed that would raise tobacco taxes to fund student aid at UC and CSU.  The usual caveats apply.  It takes $1-$2 million to pay signature gathering firms to get such a petition on the ballot (as opposed to $200 to file it).  A tobacco tax initiative brings out big money opposition from tobacco companies.  Recall the tobacco tax that failed last June.  So a sponsor – if serious – would have to have deep pockets to carry out an effective…

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Proponents of Tobacco Tax for UC/CSU Scholarships May Not Just Be Blowing Smoke

Byuclafaculty

Yesterday (although blogger now shows it as today and later than this posting for reasons unknown), we noted an initiative had been filed that would tax tobacco to provide scholarship aid for UC and CSU students.  We noted in particular that the initiative was professionally drafted, unlike many that are filed and, so, might have serious backers that could really fund a campaign. The San Francisco Chronicle picks up the story today and notes the Lt. Governor Newsom seems linked to the initiative.  The initiative’s spokesperson is someone named in an earlier item in the Chronicle as a key aide…