Community colleges no longer a place to find yourself

Community colleges no longer a place to find yourself

By Tammerlin Drummond, Oakland Tribune Columnist

Ever since 1960, California's community colleges have been required to admit any state resident 18 years or older who has a high school diploma or the equivalent.

It doesn't matter if an applicant has a 1.0 or a 3.0 GPA. There is no requirement that he or she submit SAT scores. No personal essay, letters of recommendation or laundry list of extracurricular activities.

The idea behind California's Master Plan for Higher Education--signed into law by then-Gov. Edmund G. Brown Sr. -- was that a college education should be accessible to everyone.

The good thing was since pretty much anyone could get in, people who were motivated but couldn't afford a four-year school could take courses at community college and later transfer into the CSU or UC systems. Many were the first in their families to be able to pursue a college degree. Immigrants could come to community college to learn English. The schools offered remedial skills to students who had been awarded diplomas from California public high schools without being able to read or write at anything remotely resembling college level. There were vocational courses, certificate and associate degree programs. Then, there was the fun stuff for lifelong learners like painting, language and exercise classes. Seniors often got to go for free.

The bad thing was, anyone could get in.

A few years ago, I taught a beginning news writing class at Laney College in Oakland for two semesters.

Very few of my students showed up regularly or turned in assignments. I couldn't figure out why a number of them had even bothered to enroll. Earlier this year, I signed up for a video production class, also at Laney.

There were half a dozen young men who sat in the back of the room, loudly disrupting the professor's lecture, week in and week out.

Again, I wondered, why are these people here taking up valuable space?

There are students like these who go from class to class with no goal in mind.

Meanwhile, students who are trying to get their act together can't get into the classes they need to graduate or transfer because they're full.

In the 2009-2010 academic year, 133,000 entering students found themselves in that boat.

Community colleges still can't reject applicants. But if a student can't get into any of the classes he needs, it's the same as being turned away.

Over the past four years, state budget cuts have ravaged California's community colleges to the tune of $809 million.

There are 24 percent fewer classes system wide and nearly 500,000 fewer students -- 2.4 million currently.

Meanwhile, demand has never been greater with so many people out of work and seeking retraining.

There has been a push in recent years to hold community colleges accountable for student progress and to weed out individuals who are not seriously pursuing any kind of degree or certificate.

The Board of Governors, which oversees California's community colleges, decided earlier this month to start rationing classroom seats.

Starting in 2014, priority registration will be given to two groups:

1) incoming students who have completed an academic assessment and have an education plan for earning enough credits to transfer to a four-year-college or university, getting a vocational degree or learning English. 2) Returning students with no more than 60 credits.

Veterans, active-duty military personnel and foster youth move to the front of the list, followed by low-income and disabled students.

Lifelong learners move to the bottom of the list.

The mantra now is getting students through the system as quickly as possible.

Gov. Jerry Brown faces a very different set of circumstances than his father.

Senate Bill 1456, which is now on his desk, requires, among other things, that students make academic progress in order to be eligible for a fee waiver and that students to be assessed and develop an education plan.

One thing is for sure. The old days of being able to hang out and find yourself at community college until you figure out what to do next are over.

Posted:   09/17/2012 04:03:05 PM

Tammerlin Drummond is a columnist for the Bay Area News Group. Contact her attdrummond@bayareanewsgroup.com or follow her at Twitter.com/Tammerlin

Read more here

How to plug online ID leaks

How to plug online ID leaks

By Claudia Buck,cbuck@sacbee.com

Published: Sunday, Sep. 2, 2012 , Sacramento Bee

When it comes to online identity theft, it's a minefield out there. Every day, some cyber crook is devising new ways to sneak into our online accounts and pilfer money, or just our sanity.

And computer hackers are getting better at it, becoming increasingly sophisticated in their methods and targets.

"In the last five years, the bad guys have gotten as good as or better than the good guys," said Robert Siciliano, security expert with McAfee, the Santa Clara-based online security company.

Since 2005, about 560 million consumer medical, financial and personal records have been breached by hackers who broke into databases of numerous government agencies, hospitals and companies, from General Motors to Twitter. That's according to the San Diego-based Privacy Rights Clearinghouse.

No one is entirely safe, say online security experts.

"Based on the massive amount of information that people give away (online) and the staggering number of security breaches that occur each year, it's inevitable you're going to become a victim," said Adam Levin, founder of IdentityTheft911, a security breach consulting firm.

But there are ways to toughen up our defenses against online identity theft. Here's some advice:

Beef up passwords

Too many of us use the same, wimpy passwords, whether it's for banking, shopping or socializing. If just one account gets hacked, they're instantly all vulnerable.

Passwords should never be: a dictionary word, a sequence of numbers/letters (i.e. 45678 or abcdef) or anything that's personal (your kid's name, dog's name, anniversary).

Instead, they should be: at least 8 characters, a mix of upper-/lower-case letters, a combination of letters and symbols (#, &, $, etc.)

Try to make it something you can easily remember. Use the first letter of each word in a favorite phrase or song title, for instance. If you're on a site like Amazon.com, suggests Levin, include the letters AZ.

Too many passwords to remember? Use a password manager, which stores multiple passwords in an "online safe" where you only need one password for access. "They let you randomly generate strong passwords for all your accounts and store them securely," says Joanne McNabb, chief of the state's privacy protection office.

McNabb said there are free versions: KeePass (for Windows, OS X, Linux, Android and iOS), Password Safe (Windows) and Keychain (Mac).

Skip the quizzes

"What dog are you?" "What Michael Jackson dance move are you?" "Could you survive the Hunger Games?"

All those trivia quizzes, polls, surveys and personality tests that populate the online universe may be perfectly benign. Or they could be a cyber crook trying to assemble puzzle pieces of your identity.

"You have to look at the information elicited through those quizzes as components to a nuclear weapon," said IdentityTheft911's Levin. "Many of these personal factoids are harmless on their own but when combined, they create a mosaic of your life" that can be used by hackers.

His advice: Don't indulge.

Answer with caution

When signing up for online accounts, we're often required to answer selected security questions: your first pet, favorite color, mother's maiden name, high school mascot. But if someone wants to break into your online accounts, every answer they need could already be out there via social media.

Instead, use fake answers that you'll remember or repeat the same answer to every question: "Dog," for instance.

Don't click

You get an email from a friend, who wants to share a link to a cute video, political commentary or an intriguing story.

Problem is: It might not really be your friend, but an impostor. Or your friend may unwittingly be sharing an infected link that could worm its way into your computer.

"Don't click links in the body of an email. Ever," said McAfee's Siciliano.

If it's a work colleague who said she's sending a link or if a company you've signed up for is sending a confirmation link, it's probably OK. For everything else, "just hit 'Delete.' "

Social media savvy

There are ways to reduce your risks while still enjoying online socializing, notes McNabb. Among them: never post your email address or your full birth date (especially the year). Lock down your account so it's viewable to "friends only." Don't accept friend requests from people you don't know.

And while Facebook isn't the only social media venue, its 800-plus million users make it a giant target for hackers. Facebook itself has a "Bug Bounty" that pays $500 and up to anyone who pinpoints security holes before they're used by hackers.

Facebook's website has security notes for parents, teens and everyone else on how to report hacked accounts and other online mischief, such as "Please send money" scams.

Those privacy tips are yours to heed.

Palm of your hand

Your mobile phone can be a source of cyber intrusions, either by downloading apps infected with viruses or clicking on texts/links that try to con you into disclosing financial or personal information.

At the very least, McNabb says, everyone should use a password on mobile phones.

And don't click on the "Save my Password" feature, says Levin. If your mobile device lands in the wrong hands, that feature could provide instant access to everything stored on your phone.

Check your accounts

Although he freely uses his credit card online, Siciliano says he carefully scrutinizes his monthly credit card statements. "If you're not looking at your statement frequently, the next thing you know you're paying for dinner of a cyber-thief."

Same for your credit reports. Every adult is entitled to a free, annual credit report from each of the three credit reporting bureaus (Experian, TransUnion and Equifax). Check yours to ensure that no fraudulent accounts have been set up in your name.

"Monitor what's going on; either pay for a monitoring service or look (online) at your bank and credit card accounts every day for fraudulent activity," said Levin.

If your financial institutions offers it, sign up for online or text alerts of suspicious account activity.

Get security patches

Update your computer with the most current anti-virus and anti-spyware security.

Most newer PCs will do automatic updates, but if you have an older PC that requires manual updates, it may be time to upgrade. "You should be in at least Windows 7 or the latest version of Mac software. … You shouldn't be driving a Ford Pinto," Siciliano said, noting that older browsers and operating systems are often targets of hacker attacks.

For more security tips:

• "Staying Private in Public," state Office of Privacy Protection,  www.privacy.ca.gov

• "Social Networking Privacy: How to be Safe, Secure and Social,"  www.privacyrights.org

• Facebook's "Family Safety Center,"  Facebook.com/help/safety

Read more here: 

How to manage your bulging email inbox

Tech Savvy: How to manage your bulging email inbox

There are many simple steps you can take to cope with the flood of email that is expected to increasingly pile up in your inbox.

by Deborah Netburn, Los Angeles Times, August 16, 2012

I lost my entire day to email yesterday, and I bet you've had days like that too.

Recent studies found that the average employee spends a third of her workday dealing with email. On average, people receive 110 emails a day and double that in the office. It's a huge time suck, and it's expected to worsen as more people use email to communicate.

But you don't have to succumb to the digital deluge. There are many simple steps you can take to manage the bulging inbox.

The first big step is to fend off superfluous email. For instance, if you don't want to know what your Facebook friend is doing at the moment, change your notification settings by clicking on the arrow at the top of the screen. Click on "account settings" and then "notifications" on the far left of the screen. Click on Facebook and uncheck all the little boxes such as "tags you in a photo."

And if you're tired of newsletters and unsolicited emails from retailers, unsubscribe from them. There is usually an unsubscribe link at the bottom of the emails. Click on it and tell them not to send you any more.

You can also tell your email system to send certain emails directly to the trash bin so you don't have to look at them. In Outlook you can do this by right-clicking on the email, clicking on the junk mail tab and adding the address to "blocked senders list."

What to do with emails you want to keep and read?

Create an email filing system. One way is to create a folder called Old Email and move your entire inbox into it at the end of each day. You can still access the emails in this folder, but they won't distract you each time you open your inbox to see new messages.

Mark Hurst, author of the book "Bit Literacy," suggests you also create a To Do folder and move the emails that require action into it.

"The method is very simple: Separate your to do's from the rest of your emails, so that you can work from a to do list, rather than an inbox," which wasn't designed to manage workflow, he said.

You might also consider subscribing to an email management service such as SaneBox that automatically prioritizes your email. SaneBox costs $5 a month and leaves only the emails it thinks you need to see immediately in your inbox, while gathering the remaining emails in another folder.

The service will send you an email (yes, another email) with a list of the other emails you have received throughout the day.

"The average inbox has only 42% that are important and 58% that are not important," said Dmitri Leonov, a vice president at SaneBox. "Our users move things around a lot, but the split almost always remains the same."

Finally, be smart about the emails you send. Use the phone to conduct business that requires a lot of back-and-forth discussion. Remember, the more emails you send, the more you receive.

deborah.netburn@latimes.com

Read more >>>

11 things to do with your old iPhone

11 things to do with your old iPhone

AP by by BARBARA ORTUTAY, 09/11/2012

NEW YORK -- In case you haven't heard by now, Apple is unveiling its latest iPhone on Wednesday. That leaves the question: What should you do with your old one?

The new phones will join some 244 million iPhones sold since the first one launched in 2007. Some have been lost or stolen. Some of us are still hanging on to our old gadgets in some futile attempt to resist the constant upgrade cycle that technology companies are forcing on us.

But it's fair to say that millions of iPhones are languishing in desk drawers or gathering dust. Here are a few things to do with yours to keep it from meeting that fate once you buy the iPhone 5.

1. Give it to your kids so they stop taking yours

Every parent, aunt and uncle knows that no toy in the history of toys has ever been as appealing to a kid as an iPhone. They are shiny, they have games and grown-ups use them for important things. More importantly, they are either off-limits or doled out in limited quantities as a reward for, say, sitting still for a minute. Load up your old iPhone with games and give it to a deserving child in your life.

2. Or to your mom so she can finally see the light

Alternately, if a Luddite adult has been thinking of taking the plunge into the world of smartphones, your old iPhone may help him or her get over the hump. If you have an iPhone 4 or 4S, you might also find someone who's still hanging on to an earlier model and give them the gift of an upgrade. You may just buy a friend for life (or at least until iPhone 6 comes out).

3. Use it as a teeny-tiny iPad

You'll be able to watch videos, send email and search Wikipedia for random facts to end cocktail-party disagreements with your decommissioned iPhone - as long as you have a Wi-Fi connection. There's even a camera, which means you can avoid being that guy (or gal) at the concert who's turning heads for taking photos with an iPad.

4. Donate to charity

Several charities accept old phones for donation, though it's worth remembering that these groups likely won't physically give your old phones to people in need. Rather, they work with phone recyclers and sell your donated phones to them.

A nonprofit group called Cell Phones for Soldiers will take your "gently used" phone and sell it to recycling company ReCellular. It will then use the proceeds to buy calling cards for soldiers.

The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence works with another recycling group in a similar manner. About 60 percent of the phones it collects are refurbished and resold. The money goes toward supporting the coalition. The remaining 40 percent of the phones are recycled, according to the group's website. It pays for shipping if you are mailing three or more phones.

There are a few more suggestions from New York's Department of Environmental Conservation at: http://www.dec.ny.gov/chemical/8818.html

5. Alarm Clock

Do you still use that old radio alarm you bought for your college dorm room in the 20th century? Join the 21st century by turning your old iPhone into an alarm clock. Hide it in a different spot in your bed each night for an added challenge.

6. Sell, sell, sell!

Join the eBay hordes and sell your phone for a few hundred bucks if you can. There will likely be a flood of the gadgets soon after people start getting their new phones, so it might make sense to wait a little.

A company called Gazelle, meanwhile, will make an offer for your old phone based on its condition, your phone carrier and other information. A 32 gigabyte iPhone 4S on Verizon Wireless, for example, was recently going for $237 if it's in good condition and $90 if it's broken.

http://glyde.com/  also offers to help you resell your old phone. A recent check showed the above 4S getting roughly $325 to $350 after fees are deducted - provided there is a buyer. A "speed sale" that guarantees to sell it in seven days will get the seller slightly less money.

7. Trade in at GameStop

The video game retailer offers cash or store credit for old iPhones (along with iPods and iPads). The service is only available in stores and not online. A 32 gigabyte iPhone 4S on Verizon will get you up to $335 in store credit or up to $268 in cash.

8. Stream music

Stick that baby in a speaker dock, spring for a Pandora subscription ($36 per year) or Spotify ($10 per month) and bam, you have a stereo.

Or try SoundCloud. Although it's meant to let you create and share music with people, it's also a good place to listen to DJs you like or discover new ones. TuneIn, meanwhile, will let you listen to online radio stations playing music, sports, news or talk shows.

9. Keep as a backup in case you lose your fancy new one.

Nearly one-third of cellphone owners have had their gadgets lost or stolen, according to a recent survey from Pew Internet & Pew Internet & American Life Project.

10. Use as a camera

At its core, a decommissioned iPhone is a hard drive with a camera. Snap photos with it. No Canon needed. You can also use the iPhone to move photos and other files from one computer to another.

11. Recycle with Apple

Apple Inc.'s own recycling program will give you an Apple gift card if it is determined to have a "monetary value." A 32 gigabyte iPhone 4S with some light scratches but in good working condition was recently estimated at $280. That's higher than Gazelle, but you'll have to spend the money at Apple. The company also accepts broken phones for recycling but you won't get any money for them.

More info >>>

Community colleges across California face accreditation sanctions

By Laurel Rosenhall, Associated Press

Community colleges throughout California are facing sanctions from the agency that accredits colleges in the West, largely a result of the state cutting funding for several years as the federal government has stepped up performance standards.

The most severe cases are at the community colleges in San Francisco, San Luis Obispo and Eureka, where officials have issued sanctions one stop short of yanking accreditation -- and have ordered the colleges to make plans to shut down.

Several others are facing milder sanctions from the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges, a division of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges. This year the commission has put 10 campuses, including those in Modesto, Redding and San Jose, on the midlevel "probation" status. It has placed another 14 campuses -- including those in Berkeley, Oakland, Merced and Fresno -- on the low-level "warning" status.

"The problems colleges have run into with accreditation are abnormally acute at this point in time in California," said David Baime, a senior vice president with the American Association of Community Colleges.

"The colleges in California have been subject to such savage budget reductions that it has placed institutions under a great deal of financial and administrative strain. I think that's a big part of the issue for the colleges."

Money problems are at the core of the accreditation crisis at City College of San Francisco.

Accreditors dinged the school for three years of deficit spending, putting 92 percent of its budget toward salaries and benefits, and not reining in its mission even as funding dwindled. The college serves 90,000 students at more than 100 locations and offers scores of free non-credit classes.

"We have no choice but to fix these problems," said college spokesman Larry Kamer. "Loss of accreditation would be catastrophic, and we're just not going to let that happen."

Colleges need accreditation to accept federal financial aid, offer courses with transferable credit, participate in league sports and award diplomas. Without accreditation, many schools would shut down for lack of students.

Compounding the problem for California colleges are increased academic expectations set by the federal government, which tells accrediting commissions what to look for when they judge schools. The sticking point for some is a federal requirement that accredited schools demonstrate "learning outcomes."

In other words: It's not enough for a college to show what it teaches. It must also show what students learn.

The tougher academic standards were put in place just before the recession prompted California to start cutting funding to its community colleges. State funding has dropped 12 percent over the last three years, said Jack Scott, chancellor of California's community college system. It will fall another 7 percent, he said, if voters reject the tax hikes in Proposition 30 on the November ballot.

Together, the academic and financial pressures have created a one-two punch for California schools trying to renew their accreditation.

The three colleges facing the most severe sanctions -- City College of San Francisco, College of the Redwoods and Cuesta College -- are considered fully accredited while they go through a one- to two-year process to correct their problems.

Concerns
Accreditors detailed the following concerns for each school:
San Francisco City College: Deficit spending; too much of budget goes to salaries and benefits; too few administrators for size of school; failure to conduct financial audits.
"The Commission is concerned about the institution's ability to successfully adapt to the changing resource environment facing public community colleges," says its letter to the school.
College of the Redwoods (Eureka): Student records not securely stored; deficient professional development and employee evaluation systems; lack of documentation about student learning outcomes in course syllabi and other publications.
The school "has not demonstrated consistent and reliable compliance with Accreditation Standards," the commission wrote.
Cuesta College (San Luis Obispo): Lack of planning and evaluation in technology infrastructure and student learning. 

Posted:   08/16/2012 06:29:51 AM PDT

More info >>>

Average education won't cut it anymore in the global marketplace

A big mismatch exists today between how U.S. CEOs look at the world and how many American politicians and parents look at the world – and it may be preventing us from taking our education challenge as seriously as we must.

THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN; THE NEW YORK TIMES

Published: Aug. 12, 2012 at 12:05 a.m. PDT

A big mismatch exists today between how U.S. CEOs look at the world and how many American politicians and parents look at the world – and it may be preventing us from taking our education challenge as seriously as we must.

For many politicians, “outsourcing” is a four-letter word because it involves jobs leaving “here” and going “there.” But for many CEOs, outsourcing is over. In today’s seamlessly connected world, there is no “out” and no “in” anymore. There is only the “good,” “better” and “best” places to get work done, and if they don’t tap into the best, most cost-efficient venue wherever that is, their competition will.

For politicians, it’s all about “made in America,” but, for CEOs, it is increasingly about “made in the world” – a world where more and more products are now imagined everywhere, designed everywhere, manufactured everywhere in global supply chains and sold everywhere. American politicians are still citizens of our states and cities, while CEOs are increasingly citizens of the world, with mixed loyalties. For politicians, all their customers are here; for CEOs, 90 percent of their new customers are abroad. The credo of the politician today is: “Why are you not hiring more people here?” The credo of the CEO today is: “You only hire someone – anywhere – if you absolutely have to,” if a smarter machine, robot or computer program is not available.

Yes, this is a simplification, but the trend is accurate. The trend is that for more and more jobs, average is over. Thanks to globalization and the information technology revolution, every boss now has cheaper, easier access to more above-average software, automation, robotics, cheap labor and cheap genius than ever before. So just doing a job in an average way will not return an average lifestyle any longer.

Globalization and the Internet/telecom/computing revolution together challenge every town, worker and job. There is no good job today that does not require more and better education to get it, hold it or advance in it.

Which is why it is disturbing when more studies show that American K-12 schools continue to lag behind other major industrialized countries on the international education tests. Like politicians, too many parents think if their kid’s school is doing better than the one next door, they’re fine.

Well, a dose of reality is on the way thanks to Andreas Schleicher and his team at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which coordinates the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). Every three years, the OECD has been giving the PISA test to a sample of 15-year-olds, now in 70 countries, to evaluate reading, math and science skills. The U.S. does not stand out. It’s just average, but many parents are sure their kid is above average.

With help from several foundations in the U.S., Schleicher has just finished a pilot study of 100 American schools to enable principals, teachers and parents to see not just how America stacks up against China, but how their own school stacks up against similar schools in the best-educated countries, like Finland and Singapore.

“The entry ticket to the middle class today is a postsecondary education of some kind,” but too many kids are not coming out of K-12 prepared for that, and too many parents don’t get it, says Jon Schnur, the chairman of America Achieves, which is partnering with the OECD on this project as part of an effort to help every American understand the connection between educational attainment at their school – for all age groups – and what will be required to perform the jobs of the future.

Schleicher’s team is assessing all their test results – and socioeconomic profiles of each school – to make sure they have a proper data set for making global comparisons. They hope to have the comparison platform available early next year.

Says Schleicher: “If parents do not know, they will not demand, as consumers, a high quality of educational service. They will just say the school my kids are going to is as good as the school I went to.” If this comparison platform can be built at this micro scale, he says, it could “lead to empowerment at the really decisive level” of parents, principals and teachers demanding something better.

“This is not about threatening schools,” he adds. It is about giving each of them “the levers to effect change” and a window into the pace of change that is possible when every stakeholder in a school has the data and can say: Look at those who have made dramatic improvements around the world. Why can’t we?

Thomas Friedman is a Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist.

Read more here: http://www.thenewstribune.com/2012/08/12/2252728/average-education-wont-cut-it.html#storylink=cpy

Santa Clara startup Kno offers e-textbook rentals for K-12 students

Silicon Valley startup Kno is betting that parents will want to send their kids back to school with a lighter backpack.

The Santa Clara company and publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt announced Monday night that they are renting out digital textbooks to K-12 students. Each textbook, which can be accessed on an Apple (AAPL) iPad or a Web browser, can be rented for $9.99 or less for a school year. Kno had previously offered only college e-textbooks.

Read more >>>