Inside/Outside

One of my first memories of working at SF is of a happy hour. The first or second week I worked, a bunch of people who worked in the office were going out to happy hour and inviting everyone. The people "organizing" the happy hour were two people who, for some reason, seemed to think I had taken their job. I'm not sure of all the politics, but for whatever reason, they did not like me. So they proceeded to ask everyone around me if they were coming to happy hour, and not ask me.

Now, I don't think they plotted and said "We're going to ask everyone to come out but her right in front of her," but I do think it might have been sadistically fun for them to make sure I knew they were going out and that I wasn't invited.

A couple of people who work here in the office just did the same thing, I think with less malicious intent, but nonetheless, sort of "forgetting" that anyone else might be around and might appreciate an invite. Especially when one person is saying, "Oh, run after C (the boss) and ask her if she'd like to come."

I know, I'm doing a bit of whining, but it seems that a lot of my life I feel as if I'm on the outside. But this organizational situation at SF seems to encourage this kind of behavior. And other schools, too, seemed to have a need to have "insider" and "outsider" groups to define and organize themselves. I wonder if this is inherent in school politics, and how it affects the students. Because it must, and it can't be a good precedent for them.

Wow!

My blogging has been LAME, y'all! (I'm channeling my inner Britney Spears). As you probably can tell, I'm working on writing about 14 3-million page papers. Ok, ok, by my random use of numbers, you can tell that's exaggeration. Whatever. I reserve my right to exaggerate.

For the moment I'll reserve my right to silence. I'll just say that it's that point in the semester when I get sick of my ideological classmates and want to rip out all my hair. After a week of "The culture of the South is f'ed up" and "White people have no culture," I'm ready to go celebrate my lack of culture and my f'ed up culture (wait, do I not have any or is it f'ed up? I'm confused. Please, liberal know-it-alls, explain!) with my family and eat deep fried turkey an' mashed patatas an' graaavy an' some greens fried in butta. Yum. And use some improper English. Like, "she don know how to cook the turkey!" and "this ole dress? I just drug it outta the back o'my closet."

Just remember, the "culture" that waves the Confederate flag is also the one that produced Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, blues, jazz, and fried chicken. It's not one monolithic thing. I wish we could separate them and have only the beautiful things, but sometimes it seems pain and beauty are all mixed up in one. And that one would be the South.

Democrats and Higher Ed

First, a colleague of mine tipped me off to the great "Inside Higher Ed" emails you can sign up for. Since my interests are kind of K-16 (mostly centered around foreign language ed policy, as many of you know), I like to sort of scan the field and see how everything works together for or against foreign language. If you like getting little sound bites, go to Inside Higher Ed and sign up for their emails. It's cheaper than subscribing to the Chronicle of Higher Education, in any case.

In my inbox today was a comprehensive report of how Democrats in Congress will change higher education. It seems they want to make college more affordable (which the article says will be very expensive), but also will not let up on accountability for higher ed, which has university types quaking in their boots. Hey, as long as it doesn't turn into No Undergrad Left Behind, I think we might be ok. We'll see.

"Colleges and the New Congress." (Lederman, D. Inside Higher Ed. Nov. 8, 2006.)

What will they do for us?

Now that the Democrats have taken control of the house (I'm unspeakably proud of the fact that we have a woman as speaker - yeah!) and presumably the senate (um, c'mon, Burns and Allen. Just like when we knew it was over for Kerry, we know it's over for you. Conceed. Be the bigger men.), what will the dems do for education?

There's an article in EdWeek to that effect - apparently dems will work to lower interest rates on student loans in their first wave of legislation (thank God), and then eventually work on tuition tax credits. Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) has said that he will work to reauthorize No Child Left Behind, but that they will examine state accountability and testing for special education and English language learners. Sounds good to me. I believe in high standards and accountability (especially fiscal accountability, which I don't think NCLB really does), but I don't know that any of that is actually happening at their schools. To me it seems that states are lowering their standards to ensure their schools recieve federal funds.

Oh, and former Dem governor of Iowa Tom Vilsack is going to run for president. I need to check out his education record before I make any decisions. I've decided to become an education voter. I abstained from voting for DC mayor because I'm inclined to dislike mayoral control of schools, which Fenty seems to want. Although I am slowly warming up to Fenty. We'll see where he takes us. I also didn't vote because I don't like not being given a real choice in the election. A Republican no one takes seriously doesn't do much for debate. And all the Republicans here run in Democrats clothing. What does it tell you that our "Democratic" mayor-elect wants to do some of the same reforms that the "Republican" mayor of New York City has done? I don't think either one of them fits party label.