CalWatchdog Morning Read – April 15, 2016

By CalWatchdog Staff

Hello, everybody! A California appeals court on Thursday reversed a two-year-old landmark decision that upended teacher tenure laws.

The Vergara case challenged several state laws establishing layoff procedures based on seniority, dismissal procedures and how tenure (permanent status) was awarded. Presiding Justice Roger Boren decided the plaintiffs failed to show how the tenure laws “make any certain group of students more likely to be taught by ineffective teachers than any other group of students.”

“It is clear that the challenged statutes here, by only their text, do not inevitably cause poor and minority students to receive an unequal, deficient education,” Boren added.

The ruling is a big win for unions and is likely to be appealed. CalWatchdog has more.

In other news:
– In honor of Tax Day (which is Monday), a new Field Poll says that 54 percent of Californians think their income taxes are too high. Unsurprisingly, that sentiment is more popular with Republicans (80 percent said they pay too much) than Democrats (only 42 percent said they pay too much).

– Income taxes generate roughly two-thirds of the state’s revenue. Nearly 90 percent of that comes from the top one-fifth of taxpayers ($91,000 annually and above), which is the only group of taxpayers whose average income has increased over the last twenty years, reports The Sacramento Bee.

– Two more state lawmakers are asking for UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi to step down in response to several unflattering stories by The Sacramento Bee about outside positions she held and a six-figure effort to scrub the Internet of negative details of an 2011 pepper-spraying-of-students scandal. CalWatchdog has more.

– The legislature approved $176.6 million “to conduct testing and cleanup of lead contamination in the neighborhoods surrounding the closed Exide battery recycling plant in Vernon,” reports the Los Angeles Times.

Assembly:
– Gone ’til Monday at 1 p.m.

Senate:
– Gone ’til Monday at 2 p.m.

Gov. Brown:
– No public events scheduled.

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Official Portrait – Chancellor Linda Katehi | Flickr, courtesy of UC Davis

Two state lawmakers took to Twitter on Thursday and joined the growing chorus of Democratic legislators who are calling for the resignation of UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi after a series of unflattering stories by The Sacramento Bee.

On Wednesday, The Sacramento Bee reported that the university paid consultants at least $175,000 to scrub the Internet of negative postings about the pepper-spraying of students in 2011, in an effort to improve the school’s and the chancellor’s reputations.

The Bee also reported that between 2009 and 2015, the school’s strategic communications budget increased from $2.93 million to $5.47 million.

In response, Democratic Assemblymembers Freddie Rodriguez of Pomona and Mike Gatto of Los Angeles took to Twitter to condemn Katehi and demand her resignation.

.@ucdavis don't spend millions to cover up a bad reputation. Invest in students. Time for Katehi to resign. https://t.co/Fodn4fNV7V

— Freddie Rodriguez (@AsmRodriguez52) April 14, 2016

Spend millions on PR while student costs soar? It is time for Katehi to resign. @dianalambert

— Mike Gatto (@mikegatto) April 14, 2016

Other incidents

In March, it was reported that Katehi, who receives $424,360 annually as chancellor, earned an additional $420,000 between 2012 and 2014 as a board member for textbook publisher John Wiley & Sons.

Katehi had also came under fire in March for violating University of California policy by accepting a $70,000 per-year seat on the board of DeVry, a for-profit university.

Katehi has since stepped down from DeVry board and pledged $200,000 in John Wiley & Sons stock to a scholarship fund. And she apologized.

But those actions weren’t enough and Democratic Assemblymembers Luis Alejo of Watsonville, Lorena Gonzalez of San Diego, Kevin McCarty of Sacramento and Evan Low of Campbell had called for her resignation, who Gatto and Rodriguez have now joined.

In Katehi’s defense

UC Davis spokesperson Dana Topousis would not say whether Katehi intended to step down (which likely means the answer is “no”). In a statement responding to only the most recent article from The Sacramento Bee, Topousis defended the overall cost of communications.

Here is the entire statement:

“Communicating the value of UC Davis is an essential element of our campus’s education, research, and larger public service mission. Increased investment in social media and communications strategy has heightened the profile of the university to good effect.

“As part of this overall communications strategy, it is important that the excellent work underway at UC Davis with respect to educating the next generation of students, pursuing groundbreaking research, and providing important services to the State is not lost during a campus crisis, including the crisis that ensued following the extremely regrettable incident when police pepper-sprayed student protesters in 2011. Communication efforts during this time were part of the campus’s strategic communication strategy. In fact, one of the main objectives during this time was to train staff on how to effectively use digital media to improve engagement with our stakeholders.

“Communicating the value of UC Davis is among the many reasons why our campus was able to increase its endowment to $1 billion last year, garner more than $700 million in research grants, and attract the highest caliber of students and faculty from around the country, with a record number of student applications this year.

“Most of the growth in the communications budget is tied to raising the visibility of our College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and the School of Veterinary Medicine, both rated the best in the nation.

“In a 2014 Chronicle of Higher Education Report titled, “Higher Ed Marketing Comes of Age,” the mean amount that universities spend on marketing was reported as $3.7 million, with the highest at $25 million. We believe UC Davis compares favorably with other institutions of higher learning. Communications spending represents a small fraction of the $4.3 billion operating budget of UC Davis.”