Category: Education

By Colleen O’Connor

The attempt to forgive student loans for over 20 million applicants (thus far) is either a brilliant Machiavellian twist or just another Year of Magical Thinking as Joan Didion would understand in hindsight.

Why?  Won’t it ever happen?  What is so Machiavellian (meaning diabolically clever, devious and deceitful) about the suggestion?

A Florentine philosopher and author of The Prince, Machiavelli argued:

“…that his experience and reading of history showed him that politics have always been played with deception, treachery, and crime. He also notably said that a ruler who is establishing a kingdom or a republic, and is criticized for his deeds, including violence, should be excused when the intention and the result are beneficial to him.”

Go here for more info and links to buy tickets.

By Sarah Gleason / LomaBeat.com / Feb.8, 2023

An uptick in reported catcalling incidents at Point Loma Nazarene University has led the Assistant Director of the Department of Public Safety (DPS), Kaz Trypuc, to look into the events for patterns and perpetrators. However, Trypuc is unable to say if the increase is due to either a rise in incidents or reporting of incidents.

The Voice of San Diego reports today that “after a year of bargaining, High Tech High’s new teachers union has reached a tentative agreement on a contract with the school’s leadership. The breakthrough comes after the charter network’s board of trustees declared an impasse a few months ago.”

Back in November 2022 there was an impasse with the board. But there has been progress, as VOSD reports:

The two outstanding issues on the table were who would make a final decision if a teacher appealed a firing, and how long of a probationary period new educators would need to complete before becoming established teachers.

By Amy Graff / SFGATE / Nov. 29, 2022

After a grueling 15-day labor walkout by 48,000 academic workers at the University of California, two of the four groups striking announced Tuesday that they reached a tentative agreement that includes wage increases, officials said.

By Sofie Fransen / Lomabeat.com / Nov. 16, 2022

It is November, the time of year when cold weather and cold symptoms prey on students.

Some students, like third-year organizational communications major Bree Brandon, may not be so quick to peg the long-lasting cough as a cold.

Last October, Brandon got a cold that quickly turned into a two-month-long cough, stopping only when she went home to Colorado for Thanksgiving. Her roommate in Finch experienced the same thing. As soon as they returned to Point Loma Nazarene University’s campus, they got sick again. She then realized that her cold symptoms must be attributed to her living conditions.

Quick access to deep water and a unique underwater topography make the Nimitz Marine Facility home to many key scientific expeditions by Scripps Oceanography and a collaborative Navy.

By Tyler Faurot / Pt Loma – OB Monthly / Nov. 13, 2022

For decades, Point Loma has served as home port to dozens of momentous research expeditions in the field of oceanography. The knowledge gained has led to military victories and medical breakthroughs and has taken mankind to realms once unfathomable. Those successes are owed to an amalgam of factors unique to the area.

Edited From KPBS

Thousands of researchers and student employees at the 10 University of California campuses have gone on strike as of 8 a.m. this morning, Monday, Nov. 14, in an effort to secure improved pay and working conditions.

Contract talks affect 48,000 workers, including 17,000 student researchers, at the 10 schools in the UC system, including UC San Diego. They voted to authorize a strike in October. UC officials are in contract negotiations with the United Auto Workers regarding four separate academic bargaining units

by Ernie McCray

Just got back from
New York City,
still feeling the electricity
that wonderful town
always vibrates through me,
as I’ve never ended a trip there
without thinking
of better ways
for people to live
and this visit
was no different.

Here are Tom Ultican’s recommendations for the two races for the San Diego Unified School District Board, Area B and Area C.

By Tom Ultican / September 12, 2022

San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD) Public school students 95,250 – Charter school students 19,217 – Percent charter 16.8%

Area B

Area B represents northeastern San Diego from Scripps Ranch to Normal Heights. And Godwin Higa is perhaps San Diego’s foremost expert on trauma informed education.

by Ernie McCray

I might be in trouble
if I were in a classroom today,
approaching learning
as I did in the early 60’s,
trying to hip my students
to what was happening in their world,
first, letting them know who their teacher was
as a living breathing human being,
by telling them of my upbringing
as a Black boy
in a city

By Thomas Ultican / Tultican

Lily Geismer has performed a great service to America. The Claremont McKenna College associate professor of history has documented the neoliberal takeover of the Democratic Party in the 1980’s and 1990’s. In her book, Left Behind: The Democrats Failed Attempt to Solve Inequality she demonstrates how Bill Clinton “ultimately did more to sell free-market thinking than even Friedman and his acolytes.” (Left Behind Page 13)

When in the 1970’s, Gary Hart, Bill Bradley, Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, Paul Tsongas, and Tim Wirth arrived on the scene in Washington DC they were dubbed “Watergate Babies.”