Monday, January 25, 2010

Act Now! Apply for the Citizens Redistricting Commission‏

Act Now!

Apply for the Citizens Redistricting Commission

Dear Friend,

There's still time to apply to the Citizens Redistricting Commission! You -- yes you -- could play a leading role in the 2011 electoral line-drawing process. Fill out your initial application online by February 12, 2010 at www.WeDrawTheLines.ca.gov . If you've already thrown your hat into the ring, California Forward encourages you to spread the word to your friends and colleagues.

Information on the Citizens Redistricting Commission and how to apply is available here and also on California Forward's website (scroll down the right hand side of www.caforward.org for the link). If you are interested in receiving future communications from us regarding redistricting, or are interested in getting involved in CF generally, please reply to this email. California Forward urges you to get involved in this once-in-a-decade opportunity to help map California's political future.

Thanks, and please stay in touch!

The California Forward Team

First Juvenile Hall Open House to be Held Jan. 30 — The Rancho Cordova Post

If you’re looking for a weekend trip that can also teach children about consequences, then Sacramento County’s first-ever juvenile hall open house on Saturday, Jan. 30 might be exactly what you’re looking for.

Visitors to the open house can see first-hand how juvenile detainees spend their incarceration. Though visitors will not be able to see or visit with juvenile detainees, the open house will give an inside look at three housing units that have recently been upgraded and renovated.

“Information about Juvenile Hall is largely anecdotal and not always based on facts,” said Chief Probation Officer Don Meyer. “This Open House will allow members of the community to see, first hand, the facility and its structure. It’s an opportunity seldom offered due to the security needs of the facility.”

Approximately 2,911 juveniles age 13-18 spent at least one day at the facility in 2009, and all juveniles who are arrested, booked and considered a “risk to the community” are housed there, a media release from Sacramento County said. Juveniles in detention are supervised through a program that promotes behavior modification, education, recreation and counseling. El Centro Junior and Senior High is an educational program run year-round at the facility, and detainees can earn high school credits while in detention.

STILL WAITING FOR SUPERMAN?

Waiting for Superman - Patti Hartigan - No Child Left - True/Slant

Waiting for Superman

Can documentary filmmaker Davis Guggenheim do for education what he did for global warming? The director of “An Inconvenient Truth” unveiled “Waiting for Superman” at Sundance on Friday, and the documentary was picked up by Paramount Vantage. That means it will be seen on more screens than other earnest, but little known education docs like “Children Left Behind.” Will the message get out to the popcorn crowd that the richest nation in the world is systematically failing its children, year after year after year?

I haven’t seen it (stuck here in the blue purple state of Massachusetts), but the word out of Sundance looks positive. Variety describes it as “”Exhilarating, heartbreaking and righteous,” continuing,

“Waiting for Superman” is also a kind of high-minded thriller: Can the American education system be cured? Can it be made globally competitive? Can it, at least, be made educational?

I’m not so sure about the thriller part — kinda hard to have a thriller without a resolution — but the film is sure to draw attention to our struggling schools. The doc follows several families who are trying to work their way through the system; the title comes from a girl’s dream that someone will magically appear to rescue her.

Talking heads include college dropout and education philanthropist Bill Gates, the visionary Geoffrey Canada of the Harlem Children’s Zone, and controversial DC school chancellor Michelle Rhee. From what I’ve read, the documentary is particularly tough on teacher unions and gonzo on charter schools, both of which are hot points of contention in any discussion of what’s failing education.

Urbanski may stop mayor's plan for Rochester schools | democratandchronicle.com | Democrat and Chronicle

Urbanski may stop mayor's plan for Rochester schools | democratandchronicle.com | Democrat and Chronicle:

"As a teenage immigrant at Franklin High School in the 1960s, Adam Urbanski was so ashamed of his dense Polish accent that he spoke with a hand covering his mouth."

A dose of confidence from a girl's whispered compliment changed that, and today, as he approaches his 30th year as president of the Rochester Teachers Association and vice president of the American Federation of Teachers, people listen when Urbanski speaks.

While Mayor Robert Duffy seeks to assume control of the Rochester School District, Urbanski's voice — and the influence he wields as one of the nation's most powerful teachers union leaders — might represent the best chance opponents have of thwarting the plan.

"I don't like systems that are built for one person," Urbanski, 63, said in an interview shortly after Duffy made his intentions clear. "What are these new ideas that Duffy would bring? Why haven't we heard any of them until now?"

Because Duffy's request for control of schools requires the approval of the state Legislature and the governor, Urbanski's sway and that of the state teachers union — which Urbanski said will support his opposition — will help decide the plan's fate.

"Adam Urbanski is there to serve the teachers and the members of his union," said Duffy, who met with Urbanski recently to discuss his proposal. "He is a very tough, experienced, successful union leader. In the current system, he has as much influence in Albany as anyone here."

How UFT torpedoed NY's shot at $700m - NYPOST.com

The city teachers union did its best to scuttle the state's application for $700 million in federal school aid by refusing to embrace reform measures required to compete for the funds, education authorities told The Post.

State officials confirmed that the United Federation of Teachers refused to sign a memo supporting the state's Race to the Top application because it would have allowed student test-score data to be used in the evaluation of the union's members.

The UFT also refused to agree to paying the best teachers extra to work in high-poverty schools, arguing that such a move smacked of merit pay. And it sought to add obstacles for bouncing the lowest-performing teachers from the system, city officials said.

PAUL MARTINKA

PUTTING TEACHERS TO TEST: Principal Julie Kennedy leads a class at the Williamsburg Collegiate Charter School in Brooklyn. The Race to the Top contest pushes schools to evaluate teachers based on student scores.

"What the union was proposing on issues of teacher evaluation and teacher compensation not only was not in accordance with the mandates of Race to the Top but would have damaged the state and the city's ability to win the $700 million award," Deputy Schools Chancellor John White said.

"Any statement that the teachers union was trying to satisfy the requirements of Race to the Top through an agreement with the state and the [city] Department of Education is a lie."

UFT President Michael Mulgrew countered that the union had been looking to negotiate a memo with the city for weeks but that education officials waited until the 11th hour to tackle the tough issues.

He said many of the items in a separate memo the UFT signed and sent to the state demonstrated it was a ready partner.

"It clearly says that we are willing to sit and work with the state on coming up with some sort of [teacher-evaluation] system," he said. "The Department of Education is once again spinning and misrepresenting . . . If they're saying we're lying, then I'll tell you they're lying, and I can prove it."

Without Paul Robeson, Many Students Will Have Their Needs Unmet - NY1.com

All this week, NY1 has taken a unique, behind-the-scenes look at one of the major schools the city wants to close. The city says shutting down Paul Robeson is the best solution to the many problems plaguing the Brooklyn high school. But as NY1's Education reporter Lindsey Christ shows in her final report, the city still has no answer to the fundamental question -- who is ready to do a better job for Robeson's struggling students?

Education Meeting On NY1

The Panel for Educational Policy's vote on Tuesday to close Paul Robeson High School and 20 other schools in September will be seen LIVE on NY1.

If the Department of Education has its way, the Panel for Educational Policy will vote Tuesday to begin closing Paul Robeson High School in Crown Heights, Brooklyn this September. But unlike most of the other 20 schools the city wants to close, there is no immediate plan to replace Robeson.

"If students make that choice to cut class or stay home when their school is a few blocks away, I don't understand the reasoning of sending on them on a train further to get them to go to school," said Robeson student Victor Rodriquez.

There are more than 1,000 students at Robeson, and while the city says there are other Brooklyn high schools with space, teachers wonder if those schools will be willing to take all the students with special needs who now go to Robeson.

Education officials say they eventually plan to replace the school but they are not going to rush.

"We want to take the coming year to work with the community here to create a new school that gives all of our children great opportunities," said Deputy School Chancellor Kathleen Grimm.

Meanwhile, a block away, other children will be getting a great opportunity right away at a brand new high school building that will be ready in September. It's just for charter schools and will only be open to students who were in charter middle schools.

The construction project is being overseen by a team that includes Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s daughter, Emma, whose employer, the Robin Hood Foundation, split the cost of the multi-million dollar building with the city.

H is for: Hypocrisy, one thing at which anti-charter school legislators excel

By killing a charter school expansion last week, the state Legislature blew New York's shot at $700 million in federal aid and denied thousands of parents the ability to choose better schools for their kids.

One and all, the lawmakers claimed to be keeping faith with traditional public schools. Oh, really? So why did so many of them get their educations elsewhere?

The Foundation for Education Reform and Accountability conducted an eye-opening survey, asking all 208 sitting members of the Legislature about their educational backgrounds.

Of the 138 who answered, 49% benefited from school choice in their own lives - receiving at least part of their K-12 education in private institutions or in the city's elite high schools.

That includes 52% of the Senate Democrats and 46% of the Assembly Democrats who responded - the very group whose collective inaction doomed a plan to open hundreds more charters across the city and state.

Even the top charter enemy - Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver - is a product of private religious schools.

Thousands of New York families would love to give their children the same advantages that Silver and the pols got. They would love to yank their kids out of failing public schools and put them in schools that work. But they can't afford tuition, so they and their kids are trapped.

Depth of Paterson’s School Cuts Depends on Who’s Getting Them - NYTimes.com

Depth of Paterson’s School Cuts Depends on Who’s Getting Them - NYTimes.com:

"ALBANY — When Gov. David A. Paterson proposed this week cutting more than $1 billion in school aid to help address the state’s financial crisis, the critics quickly pounced. Mr. Paterson’s cuts would cripple New York’s schools, they charged, hurt children and undermine the state’s economic recovery."

“The governor’s proposal in essence pries open our schoolhouse doors and extracts every dollar from children’s education that Albany can put its hands on,” Billy Easton, the executive director for the Alliance for Quality Education, said in one widely quoted statement.
But looked at more closely, Mr. Paterson’s cuts — likely to be the most bitterly fought-over, most fiercely resisted portion of his budget plan — may not be quite as dire as some education advocates make them appear.
The discrepancy between rhetoric and reality is clearest when it comes to the state’s wealthier and more politically connected school districts, especially on Long Island and in Westchester County, where suburban lawmakers have long flexed their muscle to ensure that their districts receive a disproportionate share of state money. Wealthy districts have also piled up significant cash reserves in so-called undesignated accounts, to be used for emergencies.

Square Feet | The 30-Minute Interview - David C. Walentas - NYTimes.com

Square Feet | The 30-Minute Interview - David C. Walentas - NYTimes.com:

"Mr. Walentas, 71, is the founder and principal of the Two Trees Management Company, which has developed and managed more than four million square feet of commercial and residential real estate, mostly in New York City. Mr. Walentas is also credited with establishing the Dumbo neighborhood in Brooklyn."

Q. Could you explain the genesis of the Dumbo name?

A. We were in SoHo almost 40 years ago, and then we did the Silk Building in NoHo. When I was in NoHo, I asked one of the artists, one of the kids, SoHo, NoHo, what’s next? And somebody said, “Dumbo.” I said, Where the hell is Dumbo? He said, “Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass.” So I came over one day, walked around the neighborhood and said, Wow!

Q. And that’s where the bulk of your development has been since — by the Manhattan Bridge.

A. We bought two million square feet 30 years ago for $12 million, about $6 a foot, which today seems incredibly cheap. But for 20 years everybody thought I was the dumb in Dumbo; now they think I’m a genius.

Q. What are you getting per square foot now?

A. We routinely sell condos for $1,000 a foot. We have a 6,000-square-foot triplex at One Main for $25 million — the Clock Tower.

Q. Are you close to selling that Clock Tower penthouse?

Schools comparison website going live

The federal government's controversial website giving information on the performance of all schools will go live from this Thursday.

The site, called My School, will provide profiles for almost 10,000 schools and will allow parents to compare schools in their area as well as statistically-similar schools in other regions.

In navigating the web page, parents will be able to look at the profiles of their child's school which includes the numbers of students, teachers, attendance rates and the percentage of indigenous students.

Federal Education Minister Julia Gillard made no apology for the introduction of the website.

"I'm passionate about this and I believe this is the right direction for this country," she told Sky News on Monday.

It was about providing more information for parents and the nation than was ever provided before.

"We're going to shine a light on best practice."

However the government's push to introduce the website and National Assessment Plan - Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) results has been met with staunch criticism from the public education union, the AEU.

New York entrepreneurs look to profit from rising interest in Chinese business

When Mike Cheng moved from midtown to Shanghai three years ago, he could barely speak Mandarin Chinese. By the time the young Asian-American entrepreneur moved back to New York nine months later, he was on his way toward mastering the language - and starting a business.

Knowing he had many friends eager to learn, Cheng, now 28, decided to launch Mando Mandarin, a Chinese-language education company that provides live, Web-based classes taught by instructors in China.

With minimal marketing effort, the Rego Park, Queens-based company has grown steadily, with 40 private students currently signed on. Cheng is now making a push into the private school arena. He expects Mando Mandarin's sales to hit $250,000 this year.

"With China rising, there has to be a business opportunity," Cheng said in an interview from Shanghai, where he was working on expanding his business.

From Chinese-language course providers to book publishers and media startups, New York entrepreneurs are positioning themselves to profit from the exploding interest in Chinese business, language and culture.

"A large and growing number of companies throughout the city are taking advantage," said Robin Harvey, founder of Greenwich Village Chinese, an after-school and summer language program whose students range in age from toddlers to eighth graders.

Threatened With Closure, Jamaica High Still Inspires Fond Feelings - NYTimes.com

Threatened With Closure, Jamaica High Still Inspires Fond Feelings - NYTimes.com:

Multimedia

Interactive Feature

They Passed Through Jamaica High

Enlarge This Image

Julie Glassberg/The New York Times

JAMAICA NOTABLES Clockwise from top left: Bob Beamon, ’66, Olympic champion; Michael Weiner, ’58, now known as Michael Savage, conservative author and talk show host; Letty Cottin Pogrebin ’55, Co-founder of Ms. Magazine; Judith Shapiro, ’59, President, Barnard University.

"INSIDE the high-ceilinged vestibule of the Georgian Revival showplace that is Jamaica High School, a red sign reads, “Eighty percent of success is just showing up.” Alas, the school’s average attendance rate this year is 79 percent."

Jamaica, which spent most of a century as a jewel in the city’s public school system, is now slated to be closed for poor performance. At a recent public hearing, hundreds of parents, teachers and alumni defended its record, and angrily asked why the city did not do more as the school’s graduation rate slipped below 50 percent starting in 2002.

The original Jamaica High opened in 1896 with a few hundred students in what was then a rural enclave of central Queens. The current building opened in 1927 and, in its heyday, had an enrollment topping 5,000. From the letter sweaters and pleated skirts of the late 1950s to the secretary of education’s naming it one of the nation’s outstanding high schools in 1985, Jamaica maintained a strong reputation. Among the graduates found in the pages of its yearbook, Folio, are Walter O’Malley, longtime owner of the Brooklyn (and, later, Los Angeles) Dodgers (class of 1922); the author and composer Paul Bowles (1928); John N. Mitchell, President Richard M. Nixon’s attorney general (1931); Stephen Jay Gould (1958); and the men who became the Cleftones (1955).

Congress Finances Program to Use Technology in Education - NYTimes.com

More than a decade ago, Lawrence K. Grossman, former president of both NBC News and PBS, and Newton N. Minow, the former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, were asked by several foundations to explore how nonprofits like schools, libraries and museums could tap into emerging digital technologies.
Their bold recommendation in 2001 was to set up a multibillion dollar trust that would act as a “venture capital fund” to research learning technology.
After a tortuous journey — “It’s been one ‘starting all over again’ after another after another after another,” Mr. Minow said — their organization, what is now being called the National Center for Research in Advanced Information and Digital Technologies, finally has Congressional appropriation through the Education Department and will be introduced Monday. It could be handing out grants by fall.
“It’s time that education had the equivalent of what the National Science Foundation does for science, Darpa does for the national defense and what N.I.H. does for health,” Mr. Grossman said in an interview. He and Mr. Minow, senior counsel at the law firm Sidley Austin, will be the co-chairmen of the nonprofit organization, along with Anne G. Murphy, former director of the American Arts Alliance.

Link by Link - Google Entices Africans to Contribute to Swahili Wikipedia - NYTimes.com

“THE farmer and the cowman should be friends” is the hopeful refrain of Oklahomans in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical “Oklahoma.” After all, their activities rhyme: “one likes to push a plow; one likes to chase a cow.”
Alas, the cultivators and the grazers seem destined for conflict. The largest online grazer of them all, Google, has repeatedly come upon fences as it roams the Internet seeking new material for search results.
There is China’s corner of the Internet, for example. The government there allowed Google to enter but insisted that its computers ignore writing and photographs about the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989, say, or the status of Tibet or political dissent in general.
Google agreed to those conditions — that material simply doesn’t show up when someone looks for it at google.cn — though it says it is now refusing to abide by those rules in light of a hacking attempt emanating from China.
Another barrier Google recently ran up against involves authors and publishers concerned by the company’s effort to digitize books in university libraries. Many of these are so-called orphan works, for which copyright holders could not be found, and so without securing permission, Google unleashed its page scanners. Only recently has it tried to settle with the authors and publishers so it can put the works online.

Morning Roundup: "Hurt Locker" Gets Oscar Boost; Bill Gates at Sundance; "Jersey Shore" Melee; "Hope For Haiti Now" Raises More Than $57 Million - Speakeasy - WSJ

Morning Roundup: "Hurt Locker" Gets Oscar Boost; Bill Gates at Sundance; "Jersey Shore" Melee; "Hope For Haiti Now" Raises More Than $57 Million - Speakeasy - WSJ:

"Bill Gates’ Sun-Dance?: If you’re following Bill Gates on Twitter, then you know he’s at Sundance to check out “Waiting for Superman,” a film about the education system. “An amazing reception for ‘Waiting for Superman’ here at Sundance. not a dry eye in the house,” he tweeted. The businessman and philanthropist may have also found time to party. Drummer ?uestlove, the hip-hop bandleader for the talk show “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon,” wrote to Gates on Twitter: “Pleasure meeting you. Who knew you knew how to dance your arse off? lol” [Twitter]"

San Mateo Daily Journal Local named Educator of the Year

San Mateo Daily Journal:

Local named Educator of the Year

"As a child, he taught his sister to read when he was in first grade and she was in kindergarten. Despite that story, Lance was not sure of his career aspirations for some time. Clearly going into teaching was the right choice. Lance, a Hillsdale High School English teacher, was named Educator of the Year from the California League of High Schools for both his region and statewide at the annual conference in Monterey earlier this month.

Don Dawson, a member of the California Teachers’ Association Board of Directors, noting Lance was chosen for a number of reasons including his work in transforming Hillsdale into small learning communities, but also “involvement of the students in exciting projects such as the micro-loans to Guatemalan women and the student-produced video about it.”
Lance humbly points to the supportive nature of Hillsdale faculty that makes any of these projects possible."

West Coast Lessons: Don’t Give Universities Tuition Authority :: Olympia Newswire

After several years of discussion, 2010 might be the year that the legislature finally decides to give its four-year colleges the ability to set its own tuition rates for in-state students. Senators Derek Kilmer and Ken Jacobsen, along with Rep. Reuven Carlyle, all have proposed bills that would enable schools like UW wide latitude to hike tuition. Though the bills differ on the details, including whether the increases can be limited or not, they all share one thing in common: they’ll merely accelerate the decline in affordability and accessibility of Washington’s public university system.

In this case, as with so many other aspects of the state’s budget crisis, a comparative perspective can help Washingtonians understand the options available to deal with the deficit – and the actual consequences of proposed solutions. The experience of California universities suggests that allowing the schools to set their own tuition rates will create a situation in which it is very difficult to hold anyone responsible or accountable for higher education becoming unaffordable.

The University of California system has had the authority to set its own tuition rates for many years. In November 2009, after the state legislature made yet another cut to its already tight budgets, the UC Regents voted to increase student fees by a whopping 32% — bringing the cost of an undergraduate year at a UC school to $10,300 (and that’s before room, board, and books are included). In contrast, when I graduated UC Berkeley in 2000, I paid $4,400 a year.

George Lakoff: Where's The Movement?

In forming his administration, President Obama abandoned the movement that had begun during his campaign for deal-making and a pragmatism that hasn't worked. That movement is still possible and needed now. Here is look at what is required, and how a version of it is forming in California.

We begin with this week's triple whammy.

Freedom vs. The Public Option

Which would you prefer, consumer choice or freedom? Extended coverage or freedom? Bending the cost curve or freedom?

John Boehner, House Minority Leader, speaking of health care, said recently, "This bill is the greatest threat to freedom that I have seen in the 19 years I have been here in Washington....It's going to lead to a government takeover of our insurance] for you."

This is exactly what Frank Luntz advised conservatives to say. They have repeated it and repeated it. Why has it worked to rally conservative populists against their interests? The most effective framing is more than mere language, more than spin or salesmanship. It has worked because conservatives really believe that the issue is freedom. It fits the conservative moral system. It fits how conservatives see the world.

Student trustee resigns from governor-appointed position Daily Titan

Student trustee resigns from governor-appointed position Daily Titan:

"Former Cal State Fullerton ASI President Curtis Schlaufman resigned from the California State University Board of Trustees January 11.

In November, Cal State Fullerton’s own Curtis Schlaufman was appointed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to the California State University Board of Trustees as one of only two student trustees.

In a phone call to the governor’s office on Jan. 11, just months after his appointment to the board, Schlaufman confirmed his decision to discontinue his higher education.

“I will no longer have the position because it is a student trustee position. You have to be a student, and since I no longer will be, I had to resign,” Schlaufman said."

Lenny Mendonca: California Needs to Press the Restart Button

A democratic revolution is brewing in California in the form of a Constitutional Convention that reformers are working to put on the ballot for November this year. More citizens every day are realizing that a clean slate - a fundamental break with today's dysfunction - is the only way to fix the messthat California's broken government has inflicted on its people.

The state has fallen far and fast. Our public schools, once the nation's best, are now among the worst. Our crumbling transportation and water systems were the envy of the world just a generation ago. Our business climate is ranked among the worst in the United States. California's prisons are so overcrowded that the state must turn loose tens of thousands of felons into its neighborhoods. Our higher education system - the once proud jewel of our economic success - is witnessing an academic talent flight, slashing the number of students it will accept and socking them with crushing fee increases.

SGA members brainstorm ideas for March 4 “Day of Action to Defend Education” | The Daily Collegian

SGA members brainstorm ideas for March 4 “Day of Action to Defend Education” | The Daily Collegian:

"On Thursday, Jan. 21, members of the University of Massachusetts Student Government Association (SGA) met to decide on a course of action for the “March 4 National Day of Action to Defend Education.”

The National Day of Action to Defend Education is an attempt at a national movement by students to raise awareness of the problems that educational institutions are faced with during the nation’s economic crisis.

Members of the SGA discussed possibilities to aid this national effort such as creating fliers and posters outlining facts and statistics about the University’s budget cuts, working with other registered student organizations to plan awareness events and creating a word-of-mouth campaign.� In order to hear out the views of all those present, the committee sat in a circle and each individual was given the opportunity to speak in a “go around.”"

Telegram.com - A product of the Worcester Telegram & Gazette

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has made a habit these last several years of using his annual budgets and state-of-the-state addresses to rail against alleged inequities in how the Golden State is treated by Washington, D.C. His state, Mr. Schwarzenegger complains, receives only 78 cents in federal aid for every dollar it sends to Washington, but gets no relief from federal mandates. The implication is clear: California should get more of its “own” money back to help close its multibillion dollar deficits.

There’s a lesson for other states in Mr. Schwarzenegger’s pique, but it isn’t what you might think. Californians — and other states grappling with deficits — should take a hard look at their own spending habits, rather than lining up at the federal trough and exclaiming, À la Oliver Twist, “Please sir, I want some more!” Massachusetts is also a “donor” state that sends more money to Washington than it gets back, but that fact alone does not prove any inequity exists. Nor would doling out more federal largess to donor states put an end to budgetary problems, in Sacramento, Boston or anyplace else.

The main reason a state becomes a net donor of funds to Uncle Sam is because it has high average incomes relative to the rest of the nation. Individuals and businesses in Massachusetts, California and other wealthy states simply pay more in federal taxes, while government assistance programs and formulas are designed to help those areas most in need — usually concentrated in states with a higher percentage of rural and low-income populations.

The reality, of course, is that Massachusetts is better off with its relatively wealthy and well-educated population, even if that means making do with less from Washington.

Kirschenbaum gets Superintendent of the Year honors from state education group - Whittier Daily News

Kirschenbaum gets Superintendent of the Year honors from state education group - Whittier Daily News:

"WHITTIER - Norm Kirschenbaum began his career in education as a teacher, working his way up to principal and superintendent at several area school districts, including Montebello Unified, Hacienda-La Puente Unified and Charter Oak Unified.

And his colleagues say it's his extensive K-12 experience that makes him so valuable in his current role as superintendent of the Tri-Cities Regional Occupational Program, a public school district that provides career training to students at the El Rancho Unified and Whittier Union High school districts.

'He's a great guy,' said Kathy Tryon, president of the Whittier Area School Administrators, which nominated Kirschenbaum for Superintendent of the Year honors for Region 15 of the"

Stanford receives record number of applications

Stanford receives record number of applications:

"Despite a shaky national economy, Stanford University has received a record number of applications for its fall freshman class."

With foreign applications still trickling in, the university already has topped last year's record of 30,428 applications overall, said Lisa Lapin, a university spokeswoman.
Only about 1,700 spots are available in the freshman class, which means a lot of high school seniors will be disappointed when the acceptance letters go out from the university in late March and early April.
"The number of applicants has been rising in recent years, and Stanford has been getting more and more selective," Lapin said. "Last year we had an acceptance rate of around 7 percent, which was the lowest in our history."
Stanford was the third-most-selective university in the country last year, behind Harvard and Yale. By contrast, the sprawling University of California system typically accepts about three-quarters of its freshman applicants, although that percentage is far lower at its most popular campuses, such as UC Berkeley, UCLA and UC San Diego.
Even Stanford's decision last February to boost the cost of tuition and room and boa

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/01/25/BAM81BLR9D.DTL#ixzz0ddCUScMl

Censorship settlement thrills speech advocates - SignOnSanDiego.com

FALLBROOK — Free-speech advocates are seeing a recent settlement of a lawsuit that challenged Fallbrook High School’s censorship of its student newspaper as a triumph that could send ripples throughout the country.

After last month’s settlement, school administrators nationwide will think twice before killing an article in their student paper just because they don’t like it, student-press advocates said.

The Fallbrook Union High School District’s attorneys have long maintained that administrators stepped in when they thought one article contained falsehoods, and when they suspected another article may have been written clandestinely by an adult.

School officials have an obligation to supervise student journalists and exert a certain degree of control over what is printed in student publications, the attorneys have said.

Advocates of student-press freedoms argue that California law is designed specifically to limit that control — even if students rarely challenge administrators who censor them.

“School attorneys are regularly advising their clients to go ahead and censor the newspaper because the risk of adverse consequences is remote,” said Frank LoMonte, executive director of the Student Press Law Center in Arlington, Va. “The Fallbrook case is a two-by-four between their eyes, telling them the consequences are potentially great. … The settlement is still very new, but I guarantee you we will be citing this settlement as a cautionary tale to other school districts about the consequences of overreaching.”