Teaching While Homeless

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Friday September 01, 2017 · 9:00 AM PDT

2017/09/01 · 09:00

A colleague of mine was recently featured in the local news. She’s a lecturer at San Jose State University. She has an advanced degree in English. She teaches part-time, technically, but only because we teach on an FTE or Full-Time-Equivalent basis. This basis does not include work done outside the classroom such as prep and grading. Most with her FTE (.8, which means she works “32” out of “40” hours) put in at least 50 if not 60 hours a week of work. Because teaching is considered a professional occupation as defined by the Department of Labor, we are exempt from normal overtime rules, even if we make below the salary threshold. Teaching is one of the few professions in which you are punished for not working off the clock. All of this is prelude to the fact that my colleague is homeless and living in her car with her husband and two dogs.

The cost of living in the Bay Area is such that a two bedroom apartment can go for as little as $2,000 a month or as high as $5,000 a month. My wife and I are paying $2,000 a month for a one bedroom apartment, just so we can live in between our two places of employment. At the lower ends of the pay scale for adjunct faculty in the California State University system, a lecturer makes maybe $600 to $700 a class each month, after taxes. That means a take home of $2,400 to $2,800 a month. I’m fortunate that I’m in the $2,800 a month category and that my wife also works. However, for someone on an income of only $2,400 a month, paying rent is an extravagance. My colleague is closer to $2,400 a month; her husband is unemployed. She teaches just as many classes as I do. She works just as hard as anyone else in the system, yet she cannot meet her most basic needs on a salary that has grown only 5% in the last twelve years, and that’s only after an adjustment made two years ago to address the 7% depreciation we experienced after the economy tanked.

What’s sad is that it’s not that the CSU can’t afford to pay its lecturers more. It’s just that it would rather pay for its administrative bloat than for its mission of quality education. Having a talented teacher so dedicated to her students that she grades in the passenger seat of her car helps no one in the end. The cost of living in California and the Bay Area especially is ridiculous. That we have homeless professionals is a travesty. We should be better than this. We must be better than this.

The True Face of Terrorism

POwriter

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Saturday February 11, 2017 · 10:26 AM PST

2017/02/11 · 10:26

This morning I read Rosa Brook’s “And Then the Breitbart Lynch Mob Came for Me,” and was immediately infuriated. Those who keep trying to play politics as usual don’t understand that this is not politics as usual. So, in an act of frustration, I wrote the following in my share on Facebook. The Getty image above is the image in the article.

This picture? This is the face of a terrorist. This is the face of the majority of terrorists in America. They are white, male, and so full of hate that they think "Die Bitch" is political discourse. While I still think of conservatism as a valid political position, albeit one with which I disagree, modern day conservatives are collaborators in the White Supremacist holy war being waged against our country and the things that make us exceptional.

Yes, I do believe in American Exceptionalism, because we always reach for better, even when the loudest voices push us backward.

We need to stop coddling the Alt-Reich. Call them Nazis. Call them terrorists. Call them unhinged. Most of all, call them UN-AMERICAN. They don't represent the country that I love.

Michael Cohen on the Votes.

POwriter

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Thursday November 10, 2016 · 10:10 AM PST

2016/11/10 · 10:10

Boston Globe writer Michael Cohen just offered up his own analysis of what happened in the more contentious states this election. I’ve storified it for easy perusal.

Embedded Content

For me, the fact that Clinton won the popular vote and the complexities of the state by state races puts to bed the idea that Bernie would have done better. That’s merely a canard at this point. That line of reasoning does nothing but let progressives eat their own. All the relitigation of the primary serves to do is pit the social progressives against the economic progressives against the environmental progressives, when what we really need to is embrace an intersectional progressive movement. I saw that in Hillary Clinton. No, I didn’t think she was perfect, but I was willing to work with her, flaws and all, because she spoke to both economic and existential anxieties among all people, especially people of color. I refuse to be part of any movement that denies that white liberalism is still part of a racist structure.

That said, I highly disagree with Michael Cohen in his assessment that voter suppression had little effect on North Carolina.

35) Considering Clinton lost by 180K votes in NC, you'll have a hard time convincing me that she lost because of voter suppression
— Michael Cohen (@speechboy71) November 10, 2016

In fact, the very nature of Trump’s win seemed to have been “Shave a little here, shave a little there” until it’s only by dint of geographic quirks that he managed to win the electoral votes while losing the popular vote.

As has been his Modus Operandi for his entire career, Trump gamed the system and took advantage of the loopholes to turn an actual loss into his personal gain. And like the investors in his casinos and real estate developments, we’re the ones left footing the bill.

I Voted in California

POwriter

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Wednesday October 12, 2016 · 2:02 PM PDT

2016/10/12 · 14:02

Three Ballot Cards Means Lots of Postage

I’ve been in lurk mode since the primaries. My wife became concerned that the battle for the nomination was spiking my blood pressure. Today, though, I’ve decloaked to share that my mail-in ballot came to me yesterday, and with a happy heart, I drew a line connecting the arrow next to Clinton and Kaine.

Sample Ballot Pictured. The real thing is safely enveloped and stamped.

It comes as no surprise to those who used to converse with me in the HNV threads that I’ve jumped on the early voting bandwagon. I did the same when my primary ballot arrived last spring.

This November marks the 20th anniversary of my first election. In that election I cast my first vote for Bill Clinton. This time around, much older and much wiser, I got to cast a vote for the better, smarter, more qualified Clinton. As much as I love Bill, I know that Hillary will do even better.

Of course, we still have one debate and the actual election to get through, but for now, I’m satisfied knowing that my vote is down, ready to send out, and will be counted in our quest to hammer Trump into political irrelevancy.

Now, that doesn’t mean I’m not going to spend election night with a few friends and good beer. Right now, though, it looks like we’ll be celebrating the returns rather than numbing the pain.

Playing the Woman Card

POwriter

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Thursday April 28, 2016 · 10:57 AM PDT

2016/04/28 · 10:57

I’ve been holding this one in my deck for a while. At first, I didn’t think much of it. Like many I underestimated it. I didn’t realize how powerful it actually was, more mistaken I.

Here goes.

The Woman Card trumps all red cards and unites the blues.

Victory! We're Not Going on Strike!

POwriter

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Monday April 11, 2016 · 7:10 AM PDT

2016/04/11 · 07:10

Calfac.org — We fought the law, and the law lost.

A few months ago I wrote about my union, the California Faculty Association, and it’s fight to secure the faculty of the California State University system an across the board 5% general increase. The CSU system had stuck by their guns, offering us only a 2% increase.

We won.

We won by a lot.

Reality and facts saved the day.

The CFA represents about 26,000 faculty members across 23 campuses. The average pay, right now, for instructors is about $45,000 a year, but that is offset by long term, tenured professors, and a lot of part-timers who earn roughly a $24,000 to $33,000 a year, depending on course load. Add to that the fact that most salaries are based on less than 1.0 FTE, or full-time-equivalent, and you have a system rife with inequity.

Finally, some of those inequities are being addressed. Some history:

in 2006, when I was still a grad student, the CFA bargained for and got a 10% general increase. 2006 was a flush year for California, and Governor Schwarzenegger was pretty profligate with the state spending. Then 2008 happened, and California was hit really, really hard by the recession. The CSU took back the 10% increase, froze hiring, froze all raises for faculty and staff (but not administrators), and furloughed everyone to the tune of a 10% decrease in pay. By the time I arrived in 2010, the worst of these austerity measures had been lifted, but we were still fighting for the old contract.

In 2014, we received our first increase: an across the board 1.6% raise. This amounted to about $25 a month after taxes. But we also bargained for a revisiting of pay sooner rather than later. That day came, and we ended up in the 5% vs 2% fight.

A couple of things have changed the outcome.

An independent fact finder was hired to investigate the matter. That fact finder discovered that not only could the CSU afford to pay the 5% increase, but that in the last ten years faculty pay, when adjusted for inflation, had gone down by a whopping 7%, meaning a 5% increase would not even begin to put us on par with our earnings ten years ago. Also discovered was that 60% of faculty could not afford to live in the communities in which they taught.

We spent last week gearing up for the strike: informing students about possible canceled classes, holding meetings to discuss picket locations, reassuring each other that we were in the right, that sor of thing. Then on Wednesday we got word that all organization for the strike was on hold, a media blackout was in effect, and that talks had intensified. The talks had intensified to the point that Chancellor Timothy White, who had famously told faculty that they should “live within your means” took his first active role in the negotiations.

We waited with bated breath as the strike was held in limbo, uncertain if this current week would contain classes or clashes. Apparently this was to be the largest faculty strike in the history of our nation. On Friday morning we got word that a tentative agreement had been reached. We got well beyond our 5%.

This summer we will get our 5% raise on June 30th, followed by an immediate 2% raise on July 1st, bringing us back on par with our 2006 payscale. I attribute the weird split as a vagary of fiscal year calculations and budget considerations. 5% is tacked on to this current fiscal year, and the 2% comes out of next year’s budget. In July of 2017, we will get an additional 3.5%, bringing us to a 10.5% increase over the next two years. Also, for those of us on the bottom of our current pay-range, and additional 2.65% is in the offing. So some of us are looking at a 13.15% increase by the end of the 2017/2018 fiscal year.

Other considerations will include a change in contract negotiations so that they occur before the budget is set. That way, it is no longer a question of trying to squeeze money out of the budget for faculty remuneration, but becomes an integral part of the budget creation. That, above all else, feels like a solid victory. No longer will be be an afterthought. Our needs, which directly benefit the students, are now part of the equation, and not a remainder.

I had planned on documenting the strike with diaries, pictures, and videos. Instead I’m going to celebrate by going to class and teaching.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled primary fight.

How Hillary Lost My Vote

POwriter

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Tuesday February 23, 2016 · 4:16 PM PST

2016/02/23 · 16:16

2014-06-14_15.01.36.jpg — Hillary Ate My Kitty!

I’m a lost little lamb now that my political fortunes, once tied to the incrementalism and crony capitalism championed by Hillary Clinton, have come to an irrevocable end. You see, Hillary Clinton broke into my home and ate my cat.

At first I didn’t believe it. I didn’t believe when the Bernie Sanders supporters said that there was something suspicious about her because she took money from Wall Street. She’s bought, they said. She’s Diet Republican, they said. She’s a woman, they said. I excused these by pointing out that there has never been a quid pro quo exchange between Clinton the politician and Wall Street. But, Bankruptcy, they said. To which I replied that she opposed the bill as FLOTUS, getting her husband to veto it, worked behind the scenes to protect women and children in the bill when she was a senator, and couldn’t vote for the revised bill, which she had no say in, because Bill, not bill, but Bill, her husband, was in the hospital. Fool was I, I now know, because my poor Teddy, my poor little girl, is now gurgling in Hillary’s intestinal tract.

I didn’t want to believe the good versus evil dichotomy the Sanders supporters kept throwing my way. She’s a neoliberal, they said. She’s a hawk, they said. She’s establishment, they said. I would point out that neoliberal deficit concern most likely came about as a defensive position against the country’s shift from Keynesian to Supply Side economic theories, and it became incumbent upon all Democrats to show how they planned to pay for their programs (even if no such requirement has ever existed for the Republicans) in the 1980s, and by the time Hillary was in office in 2001, those beliefs had become entrenched and impossible to overcome, and it’s only now that we’re starting to really reject Reaganomics. I would point out that Bernie is himself no stranger to AUMF votes, having voted for the invasion of Afghanistan, that other Bush quagmire, and that Hillary’s vote for the Iraq AUMF was based on a (in hindsight, admittedly mistaken) strategy to delay Bush’s use of armed forces in Iraq because the whole nation, including Colin Powell, was duped by the Bush administration’s doctored evidence. I would point out that Hillary Clinton has been on the outside of the establishment she has worked so hard to protect, to the point that her failure to successfully win health care in 1993 was directly blamed for the loss of congress in 1994, and that she has spent her entire political life being called “That Woman,” as in “I will never support THAT WOMAN.” More mistaken I.

At 3:30PM, PST, Hillary Clinton broke into my apartment, captured my cat with promises of ear scritches and catnip, and ate her. Hillary Clinton is a monster.

I’m sorry I couldn’t see it before. I am so ashamed.

But I’m just a delusional Hillary Supporter, so I guess I’ll still vote for her in the primary.

Note: I was going to save this for tomorrow, but the Hillary derangement in today’s poll made this kairotic.

The Manichean Heresy: Democratic Primary Edition

POwriter

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Tuesday February 23, 2016 · 9:37 AM PST

2016/02/23 · 09:37

There is a belief commonly alluded to, suggested, or outright espoused that the current primary race is a race for “the soul of the Democratic Party,” that we are talking about a duality between the light and the darkness, the spiritual and the material, the good and the evil.

One candidate offers us the only true path to economic and social prosperity, cares about us as all creation’s creatures, and wishes to form a more perfect union free from tyranny. The other candidate is a mendacious opportunist who cares for nothing but the lining of friends’ pockets and the personal collection of power above all else, who will, in fact, send the country down the river by handing the keys to the Republicans at the first opportunity.

This is of course bullshit. But in siding with the conventional wisdom that we no longer have loyal opposition, but only enemies, we breed this kind of Manichean thinking.

Manichean: from the early Christian heresy that there were two equal but opposite forces of good and evil controlling the world. Often this term is used to describe false binaries.

Let us get this straight. Bernie is not the wild haired Jewish hippy to lead us to salvation, and Hillary is not the serpent in the grass tempting us with the fruit of incrementalism. They are both qualified public servants and politicians who have between them eighty plus years of making this country better for the rest of us. Does Hillary have a Wall Street problem? Maybe, but not in any quid pro quo, here let me deregulate that for you way that the Berners believe. Does Bernie have an NRA problem? Maybe, but I doubt he’s going to waffle on common sense regulation should that come up. Does Hillary have an honesty problem? Maybe, but changing positions to fit new facts does not a flip flop make. Does Bernie have a sexism problem? Maybe, but it’s difficult to look past your own privilege when you’ve never had to before. Are they both trying their best despite decades of baggage, some earned, some heaped upon them? Definitely.

By all means let’s discuss the policies they espouse, the details, the plans, the differences in scope and probable effectiveness. Let’s discuss the sexism when it comes out (and yes, there is sexism, and yes #notallberners, and yes Albright was problematic in her use of her famous catch phrase, but that doesn’t make her a monster) and discuss when sexism is a reach (no, voting for Hillary just because she is a woman is not sexism). Let us discuss.

Let us stop with the rending of clothes, the gnashing of teeth, the flying of spittle, and the popping of eyes. When we close ourselves off to the discussion of policy, all we are doing is reenacting King Lear’s yelling into the storm. When we see one candidate as good and one as evil, we’ve not only made up our minds, but we’ve closed them off to the criticisms of our candidates.

I’m a Hillary supporter. I’m a proud, enthusiastic, and ardent supporter of her policies. I wish she’d go further economically, but I really love what she has to say socially. I love that she focuses on listening to marginalized communities. That she’s not interested in telling them what to do or how she’s going to swoop in and save them. She’s interested in hearing them tell her what they need. I don’t see that with Bernie. But that doesn’t mean I think Bernie is a bad man or a bad leader or even a bad politician. I just disagree with his position. I don’t think intersectionality works the way he thinks it does. I think economics are simply one node in the web of oppression, but that’s a topic for another diary.

In the end, this is a Democratic, big D, website. I’m all for electing Democrats. To paraphrase Obi Wan Kenobi, only the Republicans deal in absolutes. We deal in nuance. We know the world exists in gradations. Let’s not forget that as we move forward. That’s what progressives do. We move forward.

Welp, We're Going on Strike

POwriter

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Wednesday February 10, 2016 · 10:19 AM PST

2016/02/10 · 10:19

I’m going to dare talk about something other than the current primary.

In October of last year, my union, The California Faculty Association, voted to authorize a strike should negotiations stall. The California Faculty Association represents the 26,000 faculty members of the California State University system, from part-timers to full professors. We’re currently negotiating for a 5% raise, and the administration is locked in at 2%. With negotiations stalled, we will walk out on April 13-15 and 18-19. This is a vital and necessary step for a group that has gone without any kind of meaningful raise in almost a decade.

Some history:

I joined the faculty in the fall semester of 2010, after having finished my graduate degree in 2007 and living in New Mexico for two years, where I taught at UNM, before finally moving back to California in 2009. In that time this country saw one of the most devastating financial collapses in modern memory. Prior to the financial collapse, the CFA and the CSU system had negotiated a faculty raise based on the relatively flush coffers in California of 2006 and 2007. When the market fell, the CSU system asked to defer that raise, pleading poverty due to economic hardships. Wages and hiring were frozen; faculty were furloughed (taking a 10% cut in the process); and tuition was increased. On the other side of the coin, administrators (especially presidents) were hired, given raises, and lured in with perks such as cars and homes. The hiring freeze and furlough ended by the time I arrived in 2010, but the wages remained frozen. In fact, when I arrived, the CFA was still negotiating the 2008 contract because the CSU system was trying to use the economic downturn to grab all the takebacks it could, including benefits and retirement.

In November of 2011, two CSU campuses, East Bay and Dominguez Hills, went on strike, with faculty from neighboring campuses filling out the picket lines. Our voices were heard, but ultimately we only managed to stave off the takebacks.

In 2014 we negotiated a 1.6% general increase after years of nothing for the 2014/2015 school year, with an opening to renegotiate a raise for 2015/2016.

Now we’re asking for a measly 5% and the system is balking.

Current reality:

The median household income in California is about $51,000. The average wage of faculty members is $46,000. Many of those faculty members are only part time, however, and subsist on a mere $27,000 a year, with higher paid, tenured faculty helping to bump up the average. All raises for lecturers (non-tenured), who make up a majority of faculty, are negotiated through collective bargaining. While there are mechanisms in place to reward years of service, those too must be included in the collective bargaining apparatus. Indeed, without collective bargaining, for many dedicated lecturers, this is a dead-end job, with few prospects for increased pay or promotion. There is a system for range elevation, a kind of promotion to a new pay bracket, but that occurs only after having maxed out on contract bargained service increases.

Final Analysis:

The cost of a 5% raise would be $84 million. Many faculty members work at multiple schools, or at multiple jobs to make ends meet. They live huge distances from their campuses and still pay an upward of 40-50% of their paychecks toward housing. In terms of real money, a 5% raise would put approximately $125 a month extra in my bank account. That’s more food on the table, more toward my student loan, more chipped in so that my wife and I, one day, in the next twenty years, can have the down payment on a house. It’s a tiny bit to ask for those who have dedicated their lives to making higher education in California something to be proud of.

This April, we’re going on strike. We’re going on strike over a lousy 5%. This is why unions matter. This is why workers matter. This is why power in the hands of many matters. This is why democracy matters.

Support us in our strike.

For more information, visit www.calfac.org

E Pluribus Unum

POwriter

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Thursday July 09, 2015 · 3:05 PM PDT

2015/07/09 · 15:05

Out of many, one. From many comes one. One from many. However you want to translate it, this simple Latin phrase has been a mainstay of American idealism since the country's inception. Set in our country's seal in 1782, and the country's motto until the red scare replaced it with the more religious "In God We Trust", this phrase, for almost two hundred years, embodied what was best about our more perfect union.

Perhaps it's time to bring it back. Perhaps it's time not only to readopt it, but to codify it into law. As such, a friend of mine has started a White House petition push for just that. Please, sign and share.

A Few Thoughts on South Carolina

POwriter

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Friday June 19, 2015 · 8:36 AM PDT

2015/06/19 · 08:36

~ Complaining that left wingers are politicizing the terrorism in South Carolina to strengthen gun control is itself a politicization of that same act.

~ Calling the terrorist mentally ill besmirches those who struggle with mental illness every day.

~ Denying that race was the sole motivating factor in the terrorist's attack when the terrorist himself has confirmed that this was indeed his motivation makes you an ass.

~ By the way, the terrorist received a gun on his 21st birthday as a present. It was most likely legally bought.

~ Calling the terrorist anything other than a terrorist denies the realities of what terrorism really is. Terrorism is not brown boogeymen in some distant desert country plotting to underwear bomb your local Dairy Queen. Terrorism is a tactic used to inspire fear in the targets and resolve in the perpetrators and their allies. The purpose of this attack was to cow African American communities and signal White Supremacists to rise up.

WTF!?! WaPo, Teachers Should Not Sleep with Their Students.

POwriter

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Saturday August 31, 2013 · 11:15 AM PDT

2013/08/31 · 11:15

My twitter feed exploded with this opinion column from Betsy Karasik on WaPo explaining why sexual relations between students and teachers should be decriminalized. The teachers should be fired, but not prosecuted.

She Karasik uses anecdotal evidence from her own teen and college years to explain why it's all right when she says

I’ve been a 14-year-old girl, and so have all of my female friends. When it comes to having sex on the brain, teenage boys got nothin’ on us. When I was growing up in the 1960s and ’70s, the sexual boundaries between teachers and students were much fuzzier. Throughout high school, college and law school, I knew students who had sexual relations with teachers. To the best of my knowledge, these situations were all consensual in every honest meaning of the word, even if society would like to embrace the fantasy that a high school student can’t consent to sex. Although some feelings probably got bruised, no one I knew was horribly damaged and certainly no one died.

What she misses here is the blatant abuse of power a sexual relationship between teacher and student constitutes. Teachers, especially at the high school level, wield all sorts of power over their charges, from the power to issue detention to power over grades to the fact that they are legally in loco parentis while those students are under their care. I teach college English, and while the standing in for the parent issue is moot at that point, the rest of the power dynamic still remains. As a figure of authority, it is up to me to maintain healthy boundaries with those who come to me to learn, to not abuse that authority for my own physical or emotional gains. That is true of every teacher.

So yeah, WTF, WaPo.

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