Sunday, March 21, 2010

Hispanic enrollment growing | TimesDaily.com | The Times Daily | Florence, AL

Hispanic enrollment growing

Daniel Giles/TimesDaily

Florence High School 11th-grade guidance counselor Glenda Page talks to student Marcella Villagrana about her options as she looks into colleges.

By Michelle Rupe Eubanks
Staff Writer

Published: Sunday, March 21, 2010 at 3:30 a.m.
Last Modified: Saturday, March 20, 2010 at 11:42 p.m.

Marcela Villagrana has steep aspirations for college.

The Florence High School junior is preparing for her ACT and hoping the scores will be high enough not just to get her a coveted spot at Tulane University or Vanderbilt, but a scholarship as well.

But Marcela is keenly aware of the obstacles that could stand in her way.

"I'm the first in my family to go to college, so I don't really know what to do," she said. "My parents want me to ask questions, but I don't really know who to ask. It's complicated."

As a first-generation college student as well as a student of Hispanic heritage, Marcela is preparing for her higher education career at a disadvantage compared to her peers. In order to make the transition from high school to college as smooth as possible for students like

Op-Ed Columnist - A Ruinous Meltdown, State After State - NYTimes.com

Op-Ed Columnist - A Ruinous Meltdown, State After State - NYTimes.com:

OP-ED COLUMNIST

A Ruinous Meltdown

"A story that is not getting nearly enough attention is the ruinous fiscal meltdown occurring in state after state, all across the country."

Taxes are being raised. Draconian cuts in services are being made. Public employees are being fired. The tissue-thin national economic recovery is being undermined. And in many cases, the most vulnerable populations — the sick, the elderly, the young and the poor — are getting badly hurt.
Arizona, struggling with a projected $2.6 billion budget shortfall, took the drastic step of scrapping its Children’s Health Insurance Program. That left nearly 47,000 low-income children with no coverage at all. Gov. Jan Brewer is also calling for an increase in the sales tax. She said, “Arizona is navigating its way through the largest state budget deficit in its long history.”
In New Jersey, the newly elected governor, Chris Christie, has proposed a series of budget cuts that, among other things, would result in public schools receiving $820 million less in state aid than they had received in the prior school year. Some well-off districts would have their direct school aid cut off altogether. Poorer districts that rely almost entirely on state aid would absorb the biggest losses in terms of dollars. They’re bracing for a terrible hit.
For all the happy talk about “no child left behind,” the truth is that in Arizona and New Jersey and dozens of other states trying to cope with the fiscal disaster brought on by the Great Recession, millions of children are being left far behind, and many millions of adults

Funding gap widens - ContraCostaTimes.com

Liability surge raises concerns

Matt Wrye, Staff Writer

Posted: 03/20/2010 09:46:46 PM PDT

Updated: 03/20/2010 11:15:06 PM PDT

As local lawmakers brace for yet another round of budget cuts to make up for chronic shortfalls trickling down from Sacramento, some are pointing to burgeoning public pension liabilities as a looming financial disaster.

Over the past decade, California's unfunded public pension and health care liability has soared from zero to nearly $60 billion, and experts warn that unless costs are cut and policies change, that number could increase dramatically in coming years.

"We're long overdue on a challenge to the benefit laws on public employees," said Marcia Fritz, a California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility board member.

While many public pension funds are self-sustaining, meaning they have sufficient assets to

(Jennifer Cappuccio-Maher/Staff Photographer)

cover all liabilities, an increasing number of funds are finding themselves coming up short.

California's fund, for example, had assets equal to 118 percent of its liabilities in 1999. In 2008, however, its assets equaled only 89 percent of its liabilities, according to a February study by the Pew Center on the

Edison embarks on innovative plan: Kindergarten to graduate school education � Naples Daily News

Edison embarks on innovative plan: Kindergarten to graduate school education

FORT MYERS — For most students, the road from kindergarten to college is a little like hopscotch.

An elementary school here, a middle school there, a high school and maybe a community college, and they’re on their way to an independent, employed life.

Edison State College wants to make that path a seamless one, offering a complete education from pre-kindergarten through graduate studies.

After gaining status as a state college in 2008, following its addition of six baccalaureate degrees, Edison went from community college to four-year institution. Now, it is one of 17 Florida community colleges offering bachelor’s degrees, out of 28 community colleges in the state.

In the fall, Edison opened its first charter high school, in Charlotte County, and plans to open another in Lee County this fall. Administrators intend to continue expanding in

Student's work helps honor Japanese-Americans interned during World War II | Recordnet.com

Student's work helps honor Japanese-Americans interned during World War II

STOCKTON - Kristi Agari got the idea last year after reading an article about a girl in Northern California who had organized a very belated high-school graduation ceremony for elderly Japanese-Americans in her community who had been sent to internment camps during World War II.

What if she could do the same thing in Stockton? What if she could find some of these people while they were still alive and give them a ceremony they'd been denied nearly 70 years ago? What if she could give them "a pat on the back" that was long overdue?

SPECIAL CEREMONY

Japanese-Americans interned during World War II will be recognized at the Stockton School For Adults' graduation ceremony on May 26. Those who never received their high-school diplomas because of the internment will have the opportunity to get them at the event. For more information, call School For Adults Principal Carol Hirota at (209) 933-7455.

She spoke to her grandmother, Masako. They started locating former internees in the Stockton area. She sent letters to about 20 of them. And so far, seven have said they plan to attend.

The ceremony will take place at the University of the Pacific on May 26 as part of the graduation for the Stockton School For Adults. Kristi, a 16-year-old junior at St. Mary's High School, says she will be relieved when it's over and all of her months of hard work have paid off.

"I just want to give them what they should have gotten," she said recently as she sat in the dining room of Masako's north Stockton home. "I told them that maybe this is something that you want to forget. But I still want to give them what they should have gotten."

University World News - US: Decline of a once-great system

US: Decline of a once-great system

Sarah King Head
21 March 2010
Issue: 116

It may be that higher education is in greater demand during economic downturns but - after years of insidious cutbacks - American public institutions are struggling to maintain their traditionally high standards. Indeed, the Great Recession seems poised to wreak lasting damage on one of the most successful models of higher education in the world.

Higher Education Budgets and the Global Recession, a report published by the University of California at Berkeley's Center for Studies in Higher Education last month, outlines the discouraging picture. The report's author and a senior research fellow, John Aubrey Douglass, gives a global overview and explores - in particular - the situation in the union's wealthiest and most populous state, California.

The report notes that, while other OECD nations are actually using the recession as an excuse to improve the quality of output in the post-secondary sector and to promote innovation, the US is witnessing uncoordinated cuts in funding at the state level.

This is inevitable given the decentralised structure of higher education where colleges and universities must rely on financially-strapped state legislatures for much of their money. And more than 75% of all higher education students in the US attend publicly-funded institutions.

Explains Douglass: "In short, how state budgets go, so goes US higher education; whereas [for] most national systems of higher education, financing is tied to national budgets with an ability to borrow."

According to the report, 34 states have already been forced to make draconian cuts to spending on their colleges and universities, imposin

Kern teen birth rates ratchet up as prevention programs axed - Bakersfield.com

The unvarnished facts of life, Kern County-style, came rapid-fire in the crowded classroom at West High School.

“How many of you know that Kern has the highest teenage birth rate of any county in California?” Barbara Gladden asked the students.

As a family life and sex education specialist from Clinica Sierra Vista, Gladden spends much of her time travelling from campus to campus talking about the life-altering consequences of becoming sexually active too early in life.

Sexually-transmitted disease. Pregnancy. Poverty. Single motherhood. Failure to graduate high school.

These pitfalls and many more are hammered into the heads of teenagers by Gladden nearly every day. But for how much longer?

As a result of California’s epic budget crisis, several sex education and pregnancy prevention programs have already been cut — and more may be on the chopping block, said Norman Constantine, a clinical professor of public health at UC Berkeley and the

EXAMPLES OF CUTS TO TEEN PREGNANCY PREVENTION AND INTERVENTION PROGRAMS IN KERN

Adolescent Sibling Pregnancy Prevention Program

Funding: State general funds and matching federal Title XIX

Description: Provided case management and support services to siblings of pregnant and parenting teens to prevent teen pregnancy and improvement school performance. Siblings of parenting teens are at high risk of pregnancy. Program served nearly 500 teens between 1997-2006. Only 49 teens became pregnant or caused a pregnancy.

Cuts: 2000 vs. 2010 funding: $305,660 / $0

Program eliminated in 2006. No new funding proposed.

Male Involvement Program

Funding: State general funds and matching federal Title XIX

Description: Teen pregnancy prevention program that focused on young at-risk males by providing education and group activities

2000 vs. 2010 funding: $86,500 / $0

Program eliminated in 2008. No new funding proposed.

Teen Smart Outreach Program

Funding: State general funds and matching federal Title XIX

Description: Teen pregnancy prevention program that linked high school teens to local resources including family planning, pregnancy testing, STD testing and treatment and counseling.

2000 vs. 2010 funding: $100,000 / $0

Program eliminated in 2008. No new funding proposed.

Information and Education

Funding: State general funds and matching federal Title XIX

Description: Provides middle and high school students with curriculum-based information

2000 vs. 2010 Funding: $150,000 / Unknown

Expected Cuts: Program was cut from $150,000 to $125,000 in July 2007 and cut again to $81,741 in July 2008. Education officials fear this program could be eliminated entirely in 2010.

Source: Clinica Sierra Vista

Tough medicine: Gov. Chris Christie's proposed cap on public worker costs is a must | NJ.com

Tough medicine: Gov. Chris Christie's proposed cap on public worker costs is a must

By Star-Ledger Editorial Board/The Star-Led...

March 21, 2010, 5:30AM

Tony Kurdzuk/The Star-LedgerGovernor Chris Christie delivers his budget address in the Assembly Chamber March 16, 2010
In the long run, the most important move Gov. Chris Christie has made to shrink government is not his cuts to mass transit, or higher education, or even the public schools.

It is his plan to impose a cap of 2.5 percent on annual increases in labor costs and property taxes. That would bend the cost curve for local government in New Jersey for years to come. It offers taxpayers a chance to gain control over a collective bargaining process that has gone off the rails.

Take a hard look at the problem. New Jersey has the nation’s highest paid police officers and firefighters, and our teachers are close behind. They earn significantly more than the typical taxpayer. And most of them are getting healthy raises this year, despite the crushing recession.

Benefits are even more out of whack. It’s not unusual for senior police officers to retire with a cash payment of $100,000 or even $200,000 for unused sick and vacation time, along with a lifetime pension equal to 70 percent of their highest salary. Teachers, coddled by tenure protection for most of their careers, get Cadillac health care plans for life, usually without paying a penny on premiums.

This is plainly not sustainable. Most of these costs are paid for with

Is consolidation an answer for schools? - Bee Editorials - Modbee.com

Is consolidation an answer for schools?

In the midst of declining revenues and painful budget cuts, parents and other taxpayers are asking whether consolidating school districts is an idea whose time has finally come.

The idea hasn't gotten much support in the past, when times were good — or, at the worst, only marginally uncomfortable.

A year ago, when we urged school districts to give it some thought, none did.

These days, though, the consolidation idea is being brought up at school board meetings, in letters to the editor and elsewhere, not just here but around the state. But so far there's no serious momentum.

Last year, there were three consolidations, including one in Tuolumne County, but only as a last resort. After its enrollment dropped to about a dozen students, the tiny Chinese Camp School District was essentially folded into the Jamestown Elementary School District in a procedure called lapsation. It happened within a few months.

Typically, however, the consolidation process can take 18 months to two years or more, meaning it offers no immediate relief to the districts trying to figure out how to survive through 2010-11.

Over the decades, there have been plenty of school district mergers in California, most of them when the state was offering incentives or insisting on unification votes.

The carrots disappeared in the early 1970s, and not much has happened since. There's no legislation pending that proposes a new round of incentives for consolidation.

Under Calfiornia law, consolidations must be initiated from the grass roots — through a citizen petition or by a majority vote of a school board.

It's not enough for someone to throw out the idea and expect others to run with it. One or more citizens who want consolidation to be considered need to put it forward as a specific request — I or we want you, our school board, to review the financial impact of consolidating with (name another district).

State law doesn't mandate a financial impact study, although it would be absurd to start the petition process without one. Such a study could be done by the school districts involved, by the

CounterPunch: Arnold's Replacement | NBC San Diego

CounterPunch: Arnold's Replacement

Updated 6:12 AM PDT, Sun, Mar 21, 2010

BUZZ UP!TWITTERFACEBOOK

Two of the brightest young lights in the San Diego political sky -- Democrat Bryan Crane and Republican Andrew Lund -- are weighing in every other week on hot topics.

This week's topic: Who should take the reigns from Arnold Schwarzennegger and why? -- Ed.

Lund's Punch: Of the two major Republicans running for governor, I believe Meg Whitman should succeed Arnold Schwarzenegger. As CEO of eBay, she revolutionized the company that was almost bankrupt and turned it into an $8 billion company with 15,000 employees by 2008.

Source:CounterPunch: Arnold's Replacement | NBC San Diego

Billboards in motion, ads on school buses to raise revenue

As school districts across the nation cut costs, selling advertisements on buses is being considered by more districts as a way to generate revenue. Opponents argue that little revenue is raised and keeping unwanted ads off buses may not be easy.

ABC News reports that dozens of states, including Minnesota, Arizona, and Texas, already permit school bus advertising. According to the article, “The idea can be traced back about 15 years, but budget woes have led to a recent resurgence.”

Lawmakers in states like Washington, Utah, New Jersey and Ohio are now considering placing advertisements on buses.

John Green, supervisor for school transportation at the California Department of Education, notes, however, that there are arguments against this fundraising method. Green was quoted as saying:

Bus ads are rarely as lucrative as the school district expects, they may distract drivers and lead to accidents, and keeping unwanted ads off buses may not be as easy as people think.

The highway authority in Southern California, for example, must now allow a Minuteman militia group to adopt a highway and put a sign on the freeway after a “judge decided the case on first Amendment issues.”

State budget cut foes march in Valley - Local - fresnobee.com

State budget cut foes march in Valley- Local- fresnobee.com

State budget cut foes march in Valley

A group of eight marchers headed down rural stretches of roadway between Reedley and Sanger on Saturday to call attention to state budget cuts to education, health and public safety.

The "Fight for California's Future" protest march is a 260-mile trek that began March 5 in Los Angeles and will wrap up April 21 in Sacramento.

But before they finish the Valley leg of the trek, marchers will host a noon rally Monday in front of the fountain at Fresno City College. "This is about raising awareness in the Central Valley in some of the counties hardest hit by the cuts," said Jenn Laskin, a teacher with Pajaro Unified School District in Watsonville. Laskin has seen many of her colleagues handed written notice in recent weeks that they could lose their jobs because of state cuts.

Organizers said the goal of the march is twofold: To inform the public that state jobs and services are being compromised, and to put pressure on elected officials to halt the cuts and find different ways to balance the state budget, such as by increasing taxes on the state'

Editorial: Culture warriors: Give schools a break - Sacramento Opinion - Sacramento Editorial | Sacramento Bee

Editorial: Culture warriors: Give schools a break

Published: Sunday, Mar. 21, 2010 - 12:00 am | Page 6E

Sacramento area atheist Michael Newdow has said he will appeal the latest 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling rejecting his argument that the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance constitute an unconstitutional state endorsement of religion.

In this newest ruling, the 9th Circuit reversed its controversial 2002 decision that upheld Newdow's side of the case.

Reasonable people can disagree on whether the words "under God" inserted into the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954 violate the separation of church and state as required under the Constitution or are "merely an endorsement of our form of government, not of religion of any particular sect," as Justice Carlos Bea wrote in his majority ruling last week.

The Newdow suit follows a recent legal battle in San Diego County involving a math teacher who displayed patriotic banners in his classroom that

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Sunday, March 21, 2010