TCCTA Blog

"Pretty Good"

The following poem was written by Charles Osgood and broadcast in 1986 on the CBS radio program, "The Osgood Files." It was reprinted a few years ago in the TCCTA Messenger, receiving a number of favorable comments.

The Blog is taking a break for the holidays. All the best to you and yours. See you on the flip side.

"Pretty Good," by Charles Osgood

There once was a pretty good student

Who sat in a pretty good class

And was taught by a pretty good teacher

Who always let pretty good pass.

He wasn’t terrific at reading,

He wasn’t a whiz-bang at math,

But for him, education was leading

Straight down a pretty good path.

He didn’t find school too exciting,

But he wanted to do pretty well,

And he did have some trouble with writing

Since nobody taught him to spell.

When doing arithmetic problems,

Pretty good was regarded as fine.

5+5 needn’t always add up to be 10;

A pretty good answer was 9.

The pretty good class that he sat in

Was part of a pretty good school,

And the student was not an exception:

On the contrary, he was the rule.

The pretty good school that he went to

Was there in a pretty good town,

And nobody there seemed to notice

He could not tell a verb from a noun.

The pretty good student in fact was

Part of a pretty good mob.

And the first time he knew what he lacked was

When he looked for a pretty good job.

It was then, when he sought a position,

He discovered that life could be tough,

And he soon had a sneaking suspicion

Pretty good might not be good enough.

The pretty good town in our story

Was part of a pretty good state

Which had pretty good aspirations

And prayed for a pretty good fate.

There once was a pretty good nation

Pretty proud of the greatness it had,

Which learned much too late,

If you want to be great,

Pretty good is, in fact, pretty bad.

Strategies that Work—and Protect Standards

TCCTA members are urged to attend the general session of the TCCTA annual convention, on Thursday, January 27, 2011, at the Marriott Rivercenter Hotel in San Antonio.

In collaboration with key foundations providing significant support to student success programs at community colleges in Texas, TCCTA will feature presentations of programs on campuses that are achieving results today in preparing students to perform successfully in college. As the Coordinating Board and Legislature consider new approaches designed to enhance productivity and student performance, it is imperative to provide a showcase for “best practices” that are succeeding presently at the campus level. These programs show promise for other two-year colleges—without jeopardizing standards or academic integrity.

By participating in the session, faculty members will learn first hand about these impressive initiatives and will return to campuses all over Texas to share the results. To this end, TCCTA believes there is great value in bringing together representatives from the key foundations supporting such projects, to compare findings and generate discussion.

Each foundation will feature a breakthrough initiative it is currently supporting at a Texas community college, with a short video describing the program, key individuals in its development, and a summary of its impact. An award will be presented by TCCTA to representatives of the college and supporting foundation. Panel discussions will be scheduled for the next day, to explore each concept in more depth.

Here's a link for more information and a banquet ticket request form.

Section Programs Finalized

The discipline-specific TCCTA Section Programs are the heart of the annual convention. This year's menu includes over 100 sessions on Friday and Saturday during the conference in San Antonio. Presenters include prize-winning authorities, round table discussions, and presentations led by two-year college faculty. Many sessions will appeal to teachers in all disciplines.

Here's the link.

December News from ERS

The Employees Retirement System of Texas (which administers health insurance benefits for community and technical college educators) has distributed the following update via its e-mail news letter. Those who live in the North Texas area will want to pay particular attention to the final portion of this message. For additional information please visit the ERS Web site.

HealthSelect Deductible and Coinsurance Maximum Start Over in January

Your HealthSelect of Texas deductibles and coinsurance maximums are based on the calendar year, January 1 to December 31. At the start of each calendar year, participants are responsible for any applicable deductible or coinsurance amounts. These amounts do NOT carry over from the previous calendar year.

Dental Choice Plan EOBs Show Deductible Credit

If you are a State of Texas Dental Choice Plan (PPO) participant, any covered dental expenses that applied to your deductible during the last three months of 2010 will apply to your 2011 deductible. You can see your Carryover Credit deductible on the EOB you receive after obtaining services.

The “accumulations toward deductibles,” which starts in October of the prior year, means you don’t have to satisfy a deductible at the end of one year and a deductible at the start of another year. For Plan Year 2011, it will run from October 1, 2010 to December 31, 2011. For example, if you have individual coverage and meet the $50 out-of-network deductible for Diagnostic and Preventive services in November 2010, you would not have to pay a deductible for these expenses again until January 1, 2012. You can see the deductible on the EOBs you receive from HumanaDental. This carryover also applies to your combined deductible for Basic and Major Services.

Providers Could Leave HealthSelect Network

Those in the North Texas area will find the following message of particular interest.

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas (BCBSTX) is negotiating terms for a new contract with Texas Health Resources (THR) in North Texas. THR’s current contract expires on December 31, 2010. If the two sides do not reach an agreement, about 145 THR physicians—as well as all THR hospitals and outpatient facilities—will not participate in HealthSelect of Texas or ParPlan beginning January 1, 2011.

The negotiations have been under way since July. If BCBSTX and THR are unable to reach an agreement, THR will be considered out-of-network for HealthSelect participants. BCBSTX will work with physicians in the area to help participants find other hospitals and facilities in the network, with minimal disruption of services. HealthSelect participants can elect to stay with a THR doctor or hospital, but if they do, they will have to pay higher out-of-pocket costs.

Many other network providers are available in North Texas. Participants can visit the HealthSelect website, or call (800) 252-8039 to find the one that is right for them. ERS supports BCBSTX in these negotiations. The State and the HealthSelect Plan cannot afford to pay increased costs. If the limited health care budget dollars go to pay providers more, there is less money for everyone else.

It is important to remember that BCBSTX negotiates regularly with dozens of providers to ensure their costs remain acceptable to ERS. HealthSelect is a self-funded plan, which means that every dollar that the plan pays to physicians, hospitals, and other health care providers comes from a fund built through contributions from you and your employer, not BCBSTX. When BCBSTX holds provider costs down, every dollar saved is a dollar in benefits that our participants get to keep.

HealthSelect participants who utilize THR providers can visit www.bcbstx.com/hs/providerterm.htm to learn more about selecting a new primary care physician, referrals for specialty care, inpatient and outpatient services, and emergency care.

Pre-Convention Training Slated

The Institute for Emotional Intelligence invites all TCCTA members to participate in a one-day certification forum on developing emotionally intelligent students, employees, and organizations.

Established in 2004, the annual Institute for Emotional Intelligence provides opportunities for educators, researchers, practitioners, and leaders to share research and practical applications in emotional intelligence (EI) for primary-secondary education, higher education, and business, government, or organizational settings.

The forum will be conducted on Thursday, January 27, from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. For more information contact Gary Lowe at Gary@EiLearningSys.com. Web site: www.eilearningsys.com. Phone: 1-888-680-7983.

Students Report Untruths on Faculty Evaluations

As colleges continue, in conformance with HB 2504, to formulate their plans to post student evaluations of faculty online, we can likely expect more stories like the one recently published in the Des Moines Register. The article concerns a survey conducted by University of Northern Iowa professor Dennis Clayson and Debra Haley, a Southeastern Oklahoma State University marketing professor.

For background on HB 2504, see this post from 2009. Here's the text of the bill.

The survey asked students a number of interesting questions about their honesty when giving anonymous responses on faculty evaluation forms.

Here's a sample, including the response results from students:

Do you personally know of a student who wrote something untrue on the written comments because:
(a) they wanted to protect a teacher? Yes: 5.4 percent
(b) they liked a teacher? Yes: 17.8 percent

Do you personally know of a student who wrote something untrue on the written comments because:
(a) they wanted to hurt a teacher? Yes: 16.5 percent
(b) they disliked a teacher? Yes: 36.5 percent

Have you written something untrue on the written comments because:
(a) you wanted to protect a teacher? Yes: 3.9 percent
(b) you liked a teacher? Yes: 11.2 percent

Have you written something untrue on the written comments because:
(a) you wanted to hurt a teacher? Yes: 2.6 percent
(b) you disliked a teacher? Yes: 12.9 percent

Do you think that giving an evaluation higher or lower than what a teacher deserves is a form of cheating? Yes: 43.2 percent

Do you think that writing something untrue on an evaluation about a teacher is a form of cheating? Yes: 60.2 percent

By all means, please read the entire article. The piece gets into the issue of faculty members relaxing standards due to concerns over poor evaluations. It also refers to research at Duke University indicating that students who receive higher grades give more favorable evaluations.

An interesting passage (rated PG-13):

The findings are sure to stoke an age-old debate over the fairness of teacher evaluations, which factor into pay raises and promotion and tenure decisions. The paper forms are as much of a classroom tradition at semester's end as final exams, which take place this week at Iowa's state-run universities.

Clayson has spent years evaluating teacher evaluations, which direct students to assign a number grade - 1 to 5, for example - on topics ranging from how much they learned in class to how accessible a professor was. Evaluations also generally set aside room for written comments. Among the worst comments Clayson has seen: "Die, you son of a bitch."

The stakes are even higher in classes where instructors dumb down their classes or inflate grades to boost the odds that students will like them. The practice is widely acknowledged by professors and has been studied by researchers, including Duke University statisticians who found professors who give better grades get higher marks on evaluations.

Paul Trout, a retired Montana State University professor, said he became a vocal critic of teacher evaluations when he noticed he was teaching fewer and shorter books in his English classes.

Benefits to Be Examined in Session

Many state pension systems around the country are in crisis mode, as they face extraordinary budget deficits and a "no new taxes" attitude among the public. Texas is in better shape than most, due in part to constitutional protections that mandate a minimum state contribution for the Teachers Retirement System and Employees Retirement System.

Nevertheless, some lawmakers and advocates want to look into new ways to approach pensions and health care for public employees. A recent article in the Austin American-Statesman by Kate Alexander explores the issue.

"The Legislature owes it to taxpayers to examine whether the guarantee of a lifetime retirement check is still affordable, said Talmadge Heflin, director of the Center for Fiscal Policy at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank. Mr. Heflin is a former chair of the House Appropriations Committee.

Such statements may resonate more deeply with members of the Teachers Retirement System than with participants in the Optional Retirement Program (which is a "defined contribution" plan). However, one variable to watch carefully is the state contribution rate for ORP, which does not enjoy the same constitutional protection as TRS. Also, all community and technical college educators participate in health coverage provided by the state through the Employees Retirement System.

Regarding health care, it is probably prudent to expect the Legislature to revisit co-payments and deductibles, and perhaps the eligibility of retirees who wish to receive benefits before they qualify for Medicare. In 2003, during the last Session with a severe budget deficit, the Legislature raised the premiums dramatically for dependent coverage.

Also from the AAS piece:

A 1975 amendment to the Texas Constitution required the state — and active members — to contribute at least 6 percent of the relevant payroll to each of the Employees Retirement System of Texas and the Teacher Retirement System of Texas.

"Without strong constitutional safeguards, state officials facing a budget gap as huge as that which Texas now confronts might well choose to balance the budget through the politically expedient path of undermining public retirement plans rather than making tough decisions on taxes and spending," said U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett , D-Austin, who wrote the amendment as a state senator.

Under Texas law, retirees cannot get a benefit increase unless the pension funds have the assets necessary to cover their long-term obligations.

Much to the frustration of current retirees, the last time they got a bump in their monthly checks was 2001 , before two recessions in a decade took their toll on the funds' investment returns.

Unlike many states, Texas has never enacted an automatic yearly cost-of-living increase. Several other states, such as Colorado and Minnesota, are embroiled in lawsuits filed by retirees after lawmakers tried to roll back those annual increases.

The checks on both the state and the members have helped keep Texas' two biggest pension funds from falling into a deep, seemingly insurmountable hole.

Public Holds Students and Parents Accountable

Students and their parents are largely responsible for poor college graduation rates, according to a poll recently conducted by the Associated Press and Stanford University. Perhaps it says something about our times that such a discovery is worthy of a headline.

When asked about graduation rates at public four-year colleges, seventy percent of the respondents said students shouldered either a "great deal or a lot of responsibility," and 45 percent felt that way about parents. "Other people involved in higher education got a pass," according to an AP article on the survey. From 25 percent to 32 percent of those polled blamed college administrators, professors, teachers, unions, state education officials, and federal education officials.

This is especially interesting in light of nationwide efforts to transform pedagogy and funding models to boost graduation rates at all levels of higher education. Today's students and parents face a world of financial and other obstacles, but "reform" proposals never seem to emphasize student or parental responsibility.

Two-year colleges (see below) have broad public support, according to the survey. Some interesting findings, as reported by the AP:

• Seventy-seven percent of Republicans and 68 percent of Democrats fault students heavily for low graduation rates. Republicans are also slightly likelier than Democrats to blame federal officials for the problem.
• Fifty-seven percent of minorities blame parents for college graduation rates, while just 40 percent of whites do.
• Minorities are more prone than whites to blame professors and teachers for college graduation rates, with 40 percent of minorities but just 29 percent of whites doing so.
• When asked about the quality of schools, public four-year colleges received the highest marks, with 74 percent calling them excellent or good.
• Other institutions got strong marks, too: Four-year private nonprofit colleges (71 percent), two-year public colleges (69 percent), private for-profit colleges (66 percent) and private for-profit trade schools (57 percent).

The poll was conducted September 23-30 by Abt SRBI Inc.

Success Seminars Announced

TCCTA plans to conduct a number of Success Seminars during the annual convention. All sessions will be conducted at the Marriott Rivercenter Hotel on Friday afternoon, January 28. No fee or pre-registration is required, but seating may be limited. Room locations will be published in the program, which is distributed at convention registration.

Attendees who have laptop computers may wish to bring them for any hands-on training or software that could be available at some sessions.

Some Success Seminars represent follow-up discussions from the previous evening's General Session. Here's a link for more information. All registered members are encouraged to attend, as prior participation at the General Session is not necessary. These demonstrations are made possible through funding initiatives at Texas community colleges, aided by non-profit or governmental organizations such as the Lumina Foundation's Achieving the Dream (ATD) initiative, the Greater Texas Foundation, the Gates Foundation, the Meadows Foundation, Houston Endowment, and the Texas Developmental Education Initiative (DEI).

Other sessions will feature technology now demonstrating measurable success, or programs designed to fulfill the instructional mission of community colleges in new and promising ways. Many presenters are faculty members at Texas two-year institutions.

Here is a list of sessions that are scheduled so far. Please consult this page for updates or changes as the convention approaches.

New Leader Has Texas Ties

The American Association of Community Colleges announced recently that it has selected Walter G. Bumphus, former president of Brookhaven College, as its new chief executive officer.

Dr. Bumphus, now A.M. Aikin Regents Chair in Community College Leadership at the University of Texas at Austin, will succeed George R. Boggs as AACC's top official in January. He will take the reins of the 1,200-member community college association "at a time when the institutions are in the public policy spotlight—and potentially the cross hairs—as never before," according to Inside Higher Ed. Dr. Bumphus has held a number of positions at community colleges around the country.

Here are some interesting quotes given to Jennifer Gonzalez in the Chronicle of Higher Education:

One of the challenges, even with that spotlight on community colleges, is that I still don't think we are truly understood by everyone. I don't think they truly understand the mission of community colleges, like the significant role we play in work-force training. In many states, we are really addressing students who come underprepared for college-ready work. We have been called the Ellis Islands of higher education, and really of America. Who is going to serve those students, if we don't? If not, us, then, whom? We truly represent the gateway to the middle class for many students, and to many of our citizens, a better way of life.

And:

State funding is not only being cut but being cut in draconian ways. [Community colleges] are doing more truly with less today. This is a major issue. The truth is that the money will never come back. That is forcing many of our leaders to be much more entrepreneurial and innovative. There are wonderful examples of colleges out there that have instituted major cost-savings programs so they can redirect their resources to their core business. No one wants to serve fewer students. Every college wants to make a difference in its community, so they are looking now at big ideas.

And:

One of the other pieces I'm looking to do, as part of this whole college-completion agenda, is talk about ways to enhance transfer. Believe it or not, even with the spotlight on community colleges, there are still states that have transfer issues where students are not able to transfer at the junior level even after completing two years at a community college. We've got to take that barrier down.

This is a ridiculous conversation at this point. Most research now has found that those students who transfer to a four-year college tend to do better than the native students on average. So if that is happening, and we've got evidence to support it, the discussion of transfers should be finished. But nevertheless it still exists.