Tuesday, March 16, 2010

voiceofsandiego.org | News. Investigation. Analysis. Conversation. Intelligence.

voiceofsandiego.org | News. Investigation. Analysis. Conversation. Intelligence.



This Kid Is In 
Hundreds of local teens didn't get into San Diego State University when it changed its admissions rules, ending the guarantee of admission for local students who met the minimum criteria. But I was especially interested about one applicant in particular: Alfredo Beltran, who showed up in our story about the SDSU changes. We wrote about why Beltran needed to get in:
Alfredo Beltran, a senior at San Diego High School of Business, only applied to


A Blueprint for Helping Black Students
A coalition of black teachers and community leaders are seeking changes to boost the academic achievement of black children in San Diego County schools, from training school staff in race relations to offering more optional classes on African American history.
"Our children are beyond a state of emergency," their report reads. "They are experiencing on a daily basis a mental/educational death."
African American students, as a group, have higher dropout rates and lagging test scores compared to the county average. This isn't the first time that someone has tried to highlight the problem and possible fixes: Black leaders created a similar "blueprint" for helping students in the 1980s.
Some schools are already following those earlier recommendations, but other ideas have been abandoned or inconsistently applied, said Wendell Bass, president of the local Association of African American Educators. Bass said the goal is to set up a clear