New Ideas from the State Legislature Seem to Correspond (pun intended) to Old Ones

1916 Correspondence School Ad

AB 1306, as introduced, Wilk.

Public postsecondary education:

Existing law establishes the California Community Colleges, under the administration of the Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges, the California State University, under the administration of the Trustees of the California State University, and the University of California, under the administration of the Regents of the University of California, as the 3 segments of public postsecondary education in this state. This bill would establish The New University of California as a 4th segment of public postsecondary education in this state. The bill would establish an 11-member Board of Trustees of The New University of California as the governing body of the university, and specify the membership and appointing authority for the board of trustees. The bill would specify the mission and goal of the university. The bill would provide for the appointment of a Chancellor of The New University of California as the chief executive officer of the university.

...The New University of California shall provide no instruction, but shall issue college credit and baccalaureate and associate degrees to any person capable of passing examinations... The New University of California is authorized to contract with qualified entities for the formulation of peer-reviewed course examinations the passage of which would demonstrate that the student has the knowledge and skill necessary to receive college credit for that course...  

The goal of the university is for its students to obtain the requisite knowledge and skills to pass the examinations administered by the university from any source, such as massive open online courses, the student deems appropriate. When the student feels that he or she is ready to take an examination, the student shall pay the examination fee, present acceptable identification at the examination, and, upon passage of the examination, receive academic credit. When a student receives sufficient academic credit in prescribed courses, the university shall issue an appropriate degree to that student...

Full bill text at http://leginfo.ca.gov/pub/13-14/bill/asm/ab_1301-1350/ab_1306_bill_20130222_introduced.html

An article about this bill appeared yesterday in the Chronicle of Higher Education:
http://chronicle.com/article/Under-California-Bill/138235/

Sally forth with your degree!

What Happened to LA Law?

Some readers of this blog may recall the popular TV series from the late 1980s and early 1990s: LA Law.  Folk wisdom at the time was that applications to the UCLA law school went up during the show’s run and dropped when it was cancelled.  In any case, things are not what they were according to some data – shown below - that appear today in the LA Times in connection with a story on the jobs problems of recent law school grads.

Here are percentages of California law school graduates in 2011 who had found full-time, long-term jobs as lawyers nine months after graduation:

School     Percentage (%)

= = = = = = = = = = = = =

Stanford             91.1

UC Berkeley          80.0

USC                  64.7

UCLA                 61.3

UC Davis             56.4

UC Hastings          46.5

= = = = = = = = = = = = =

Source: American Bar Assn.

Full article at http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-law-grads-20130402,0,1312864.story

Things were better back in the day:

Dog Days at the UCLA Medical Center

Several four-legged volunteers with the People-Animal Connection (PAC) program at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center and their human counterparts will star in an upcoming episode of the PBS television show, “Shelter Me: Let’s Go Home,” premiering in April...

The show followed a handful of human/dog teams with UCLA’s animal-assisted therapy PAC program as they volunteered at the hospital. All of the dogs featured were adopted from shelters and now help people by bringing comfort to patients and their families, as well as joy to the doctors and nurses. “Our animal-assisted therapy dogs truly provide a sense of healing and comfort that no medicine can offer,” said Erin Rice, the recently appointed director of UCLA’s PAC program. “The show will help raise awareness about the real impact dogs can have on our hospitalized patients and we hope viewers will be moved by the program.”...

Full story at http://www.newswise.com/articles/ucla-s-hospital-therapy-dogs-showcased-in-new-pbs-documentary

and centurycity.patch.com/articles/pbs-is-going-to-the-dogs?

The program can be seen on KOCE, April 3 at 12:30 p.m. and April 9 at 7 p.m. Below is an excerpt from the program from a longer YouTube promo: 

Pension Protection in Stockton Bankruptcy

From time to time, there have been suggestions that public employers should test the idea that prior defined-benefit pension promises - such as those made by UC - cannot be undone.  So far in California, all modifications of public pensions have been prospective, i.e, affecting new hires or possibly future accumulations of current workers.

In the case of the ongoing City of Stockton bankruptcy, certain insurers of Stockton bonds - who will suffer losses - challenged whether Stockton should be allowed to declare bankruptcy if it didn't try to undo its existing CalPERS pension liabilities.  CalPERS took the standard position that past liabilities were ironclad obligations. Now a bankruptcy judge has declared that Stockton could legitimately declare municipal bankruptcy without attempting somehow to renegotiate its past pension obligations:

...In a blistering critique, the judge assailed major Wall Street bondholders, Assured Guarantee Corporation and National Public Finance Guaranty Corp., for acting in a heavy-handed manner by refusing to negotiate the city's bond debt unless Stockton took actions to cut its massive employee pension obligations...

You can find the details at:
http://www.sacbee.com/2013/04/01/5308036/stockton-bankruptcy-challenge.html

UPDATE: The NY Times has a somewhat different cut on this story:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/02/business/ruling-sets-stage-for-pension-battle-in-bankrupt-city.html

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/04/01/5308036/stockton-bankruptcy-challenge.html#storylink=cpy

First Quarter Archive

As we do at the end of each quarter, we provide below an alternative was to read the blog (or download it as a pdf file) for the past three months.  In this format, however, there are no videos or audios.  For the originals with videos and audios, you have to scroll back on the blogsite itself.

Below is the alternative option:

Closed Again

A major nighttime freeway closure is scheduled on the San Diego (405) Freeway in the Sepulveda Pass Monday night, Caltrans officials said. Southbound 405 traffic from the San Fernando Valley into the Westside will be diverted late tonight and Tuesday morning as major work is under way to build the second half of the Mulholland Drive bridge. Metro officials said. Onramps and transition roads to the southbound 405 in the south end of the Valley will start closing at 7 p.m. Monday. Freeway lanes will begin to shut down at 10 p.m., and all 405 southbound traffic will be blocked at the Ventura (101) Freeway as of midnight Monday night...

Full story at http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_22914649/405-freeway-traffic-at-sepulveda-pass-be-diverted

Back in the day, the traffic at least moved:

No Joke

It's not clear why the University of California Press chose April First to bring out a new biography of Jerry Brown, but it did.

There is a review (really a comment) by Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Walters of the new book.  Some excerpts:

Chuck McFadden, a retired wire service reporter who worked in Sacramento, wrote "Trailblazer" for the University of California Press and the relatively slender volume takes a terse, journalistic approach that is both a plus and a minus. Someone who is unfamiliar with Brown's first governorship – that's just about anyone under the age of 50 – has a primer on his long and unusual political career that is neither critical nor admiring. But Brown is a mass of contradictions who wallows in his lack of consistency, as McFadden acknowledges but cannot explain...

"Brown is a man capable of attending a Zen retreat and on the return trip home plotting a campaign that involves the brutal ending of another politician's hopes and dreams," McFadden writes, adding that Brown "has seemed undisturbed by these seemingly contradictory themes running through his life and in fact has given every appearance of enjoying their interplay."...

Full article at http://www.sacbee.com/2013/04/01/v-print/5306584/dan-walters-new-biography-of-jerry.html

Since the book just came out, yours truly has not seen it.  But for those concerned about Brown as an ex officio regent, you should know that Brown has always enjoyed being provocative.  His first elective office was to the LA Community College board in 1969, during a period of student unrest related to the Vietnam War and other issues of the day. At that time, he argued for a specially-trained police squad under the governor to deal with campus violence: