Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Data on Bullying Remains Scant, as City Touts Its Efforts (Gotham Gazette, Mar 2010)

March 8 to 12 is Respect for All Week in the New York City public schools, a chance to intensify efforts around increasing respect for diversity in this incredibly diverse student population. The city, after a concerted effort by advocates, instituted the Respect for All program to combat bullying and has hailed it as a success. But critics say the system has not collected enough data to show whether the campaign has really managed to reduce what almost everyone agrees is a prevalent problem in the city schools.

In September 2008, the chancellor issued anti-bullying regulation A-832, which set up a procedure for filing, investigating and resolving "complaints of student-to-student bias-based harassment, intimidation, and/or bullying." The announcement, made with much fanfare, came after years of delays and the administration's adamant refusal to implement the Dignity in All Schools Act enacted by the City Council over the mayor's veto.

The administration continued to trumpet its achievements a year later. On the eve of the mayoral election in October, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, schools Chancellor Joel Klein and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn held a press conference hailing the "added mandated reporting and investigating guidelines" for the program. In a release, Bloomberg said, "We have set an example nationally in our efforts to combat intolerance and reduce bullying in our schools."

Dearth of Data

Critics, though, charge that the program was slow to get off the ground and that data simply does not exist to back up the administration's claims of success. Bloomberg likes to say that everything he does -- particularly when it comes to the schools -- is data-driven. However, when the anti-harassment program launched, the department did not collect any baseline data on the extent to which bullying was a problem. Since then qualitative data is not being collected on the impact of the regulation, and the numbers that do exist has been called into question.

The department did not issue a report on the results of the first year of the program, and even the second year of the regulation began in September

Local News | Federal government offers grants to overhaul 'worst' schools | Seattle Times Newspaper

Federal government offers grants to overhaul 'worst' schools

Along with the competition for states known as Race to the Top, the federal government is offering "turnaround" grants aimed at overhauling the nation's lowest performing schools. Washington state has about four dozen that will be eligible for those grants, which will range from $50,000 to $2 million a year for three years.

By Linda Shaw

Seattle Times education reporter

Marysville Superintendent Larry Nyland says Tulalip Elementary doesn't deserve to be on a new list of Washington state's lowest-performing schools.

In his view, the school progressed tremendously in the past few years — just not in ways that the federal government measures.

Still, Nyland intends to apply for a share of $50 million in federal grants available to his school and some four dozen others in Washington that are on that list, including three in Seattle.

It's just too much money to pass up, he said.

"Although we might have some angst about the process, we ... want to do well by the kids, and the grant can help us do that."

The grants are part of a $3.5 billion national effort, announced last summer, to overhaul schools judged to be among the lowest 5 percent in terms of student achievement. On Monday, President Obama announced that he wants to add another $900 million to the program.

Schools can receive anywhere from $50,000 to $2 million a year for three years, provided they agree to one of four types of major overhauls, which range from closing the school to introducing a new instructional program and new methods for evaluating and rewarding teachers.

The state Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction has not yet publicly released the names of the schools on Washington's list, saying it's still awaiting final approval from the feds.

In the meantime, eligible districts must apply for a grant by Friday, and the state plans to announce the winners on March 26.

Education cuts fuel wide protest - ContraCostaTimes.com

Solano County schools are in the midst of a downhill race toward $100 million in budget cuts over two years, prompting teachers and education supporters on Thursday to declare they've had enough.

Napa County teachers also will participate in the statewide "Start the Day for Students" protests Thursday.

"We have no money at this point in time for supplies for our school. Anything that we run out of we have to rely upon parents to give us," said Kathy Kerridge, a third-grade teacher at Donaldson Way Elementary School in American Canyon.

Thursday's campaign against education budget cuts extends beyond K-12 education to college students.

Teachers at Kerridge's school plan to protest from 7:45 to 8:15 a.m. in front of the school. Vallejo teachers are to hold a march along the waterfront after school Thursday.

That night, Benicia Unified School District board members are expected to vote on laying off the equivalent of 19.6 full-time certificated -- teaching and management-type -- employees, including more than a dozen elementary teachers.

The night before, the Vallejo City Unified School District board is scheduled to take up its own vote on laying off more than 100 employees.

Vallejo, Benicia and Napa school districts are all proposing increased class sizes in kindergarten through third grade to save money next year.

The Napa Valley Unified School District is looking to increase those classes from 24 to 29 students, after raising them

from 20 to 24 students this year, Napa teachers union representative Natalie Regan said.

Teachers also are expecting four furlough days next year unless the district gets an infusion of cash, which is not expected, Regan said.

The Death of Public School Choice CityWatch - An insider look at City Hall

CityWatch - An insider look at City Hall

The Death of Public School Choice

EDUCATION
By Charles Taylor Kerchner and Dominic J. Brewer (Posted first at HuffingtonPost.com)

T Active Image

he Los Angeles Unified School District board, which in August voted 6-1 for a competition between internal and external education providers, did its best to kill it off on last week. A different policy for change is needed. Here's why. The board's Public School Choice resolution subjected 24 new schools and 12 chronically underperforming ones to a request-for-proposal process. This was thought of as a spirited but fair competition that invited participation from a wide swath of organizations.

In the heat of summer, the hope was that the resolution would spur the district further on the path of becoming a networked organization, "a system of schools" rather than a massive hierarchy designed in the early 20th Century. It is already well on its way.

Of the district's 885 schools, some 155 are charter schools. In addition, 172 magnet schools are freed from some District regulation. Two prototype charter districts are under operation. The Mayor's partnership operates 11 schools. Locke High School is operated by a charter management organization. The public school choice resolution raised the prospect of a rapid acceleration of this approach.

In the space of only a few weeks, wondrous things happened. Seventy-nine proposals were written for these schools, 41 from charter schools and other external operators, 4 from the Mayor's partnership, 34 from internal groups of teachers and administrators.

Alongside the charters, the most innovative LAUSD administrators were suddenly given the green light to innovate within the district. Teacher groups came forward with ideas that had been brewing for years. Principals of some of the failing schools gained cooperation from their faculties when it was known that an external takeover might be possible. Think of it as a jungle where hundreds of leopards were furiously changing their spots. (The rest of the Kerchner/Brewer article .)

UCF rally: Students to protest budget cuts - Orlando Sentinel

Students worried about state-mandated cuts at the nation's third-largest university are hoping to attract a big crowd to catch the attention of lawmakers gearing up for some tough budget deliberations.

The rally at UCF coincides with the first week of the Florida Legislature's annual session.

Lawmakers are used to hearing the collective voices of education supporters during legislative sessions. In Florida in recent years, the PTA has taken a lead role in organizing a Rally in Tally that draws thousands of students, parents and teachers from across the state to Tallahassee.

But the idea to make March 4 a "National Day of Action to Defend Education" grew out of organizing in California, where deep state budget cuts to public higher education and the imposition of tuition and fee hikes have already led to protests. As students in other states heard about the regional and campus-based events planned out West, they began planning their own.

UCF has avoided large-scale program eliminations and other drastic actions by relying on savings and leaving hundreds of job openings unfilled. But the University of Florida and Florida State University have cut or merged several programs and eliminated dozens of jobs to curb costs.

SDSU’s admissions for local students fall by more than 50% - SignOnSanDiego.com

SDSU’s admissions for local students fall by more than 50%

BY KEITH DARCÉ, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

TUESDAY, MARCH 2, 2010 AT 12:02 A.M.

A new admissions policy at San Diego State, which is slashing enrollment, has reduced by more than half the number of high school graduates from the university’s local service area who will join the next freshman class.

Of the 3,534 first-year students expected to start in the fall, 1,484 will come from high schools south of state Route 56 in San Diego County and those in Imperial County, SDSU officials said yesterday.

An additional 1,740 applicants from the service area would have been accepted under the old admissions system, which allowed such applicants to qualify with lower test scores and grade point averages.

The policy change, announced in September, is part of a larger effort to reduce fall enrollment by 2,750 students in the wake of major state budget cuts. SDSU administrators have said they want to emphasize academic quality and maximize admissions flexibility while still maintaining a healthy geographic mix.

Overall, the university’s student population will fall to 28,986 this year, its lowest level since 1995 and down from 31,579 in fall 2009.

For many students who didn’t get accepted, it marks the end of their dreams to earn a four-year university degree, said Isidro Ortiz, an SDSU professor and critic of the policy change.

“The number of students who were denied is very substantial,” Ortiz said. “That’s not acceptable.”

School administrators said the smaller pool of service-area freshmen will be offset by a larger group of juniors and seniors who are transferring from community colleges in the greater San Diego region. About 90 percent of the 2,624 transfer students are coming from those two-year institutions; it was 70 percent last year.

“That’s as high as it has ever been,” said Sandra Cook, who oversees SDSU enrollment services as the assistant vice president for academic affairs.

Trying to put a positive spin on yesterday’s announcement, administrators hailed the incoming class as the most qualified group of first-year enrollees ever admitted by the university.

The new class has an average high school GPA of 3.78 and an average SAT score of 1148. That compares with a 3.62 GPA and a 1110 SAT score for last fall’s freshman class.

“The better the scores, the more likely students are going to graduate (from SDSU),” said university President Stephen Weber. “But when we have to turn away students, it’s not good for the students

The Daily Aztec - LOYAL DISSENTER: Rally defends students’ rights

We are in an education crisis. Budget cuts have forced students to face furloughs, faculty layoffs and tuition hikes.
Students are angry and want to change their situation.
Students, teachers and laborers are uniting for a protest on Thursday because the conventional means they have available — be it voting or contacting someone who is serving in the state legislature — are not working for them.
On Thursday, actions will be taken on the San Diego State campus in defense of education. There will be a student walkout at 11:30 a.m. followed by a rally at noon in front of the Open Air Theatre. Following the rally, students will take public transportation to Balboa Park where they will meet with students of other San Diego colleges and march to the governor’s office downtown.
The rally is not going to be meaningless noise. It is about students coming together not only to express anger at the declining state of education, but also to become more politically aware of the crisis they are now faced with.
Our powerlessness as workers and students is the underlying problem of the education crisis. Our needs are not being met because the few people who can afford to influence the government repeatedly ignore them. That is why students have organized protests on campuses throughout San Diego and at every CSU and UC campus. That is why many teachers and labor unions in California are also endorsing Thursday’s rally.
A protest is not about a few people getting together to yell about what they think of budget cuts. A protest is about everyone who feels some sort of anger about our situation being able to learn more about it. This is about students hearing what others have to say about the education crisis.
Students want to know what is going on. They want to learn why our schools do not have enough teachers or classes, why tuition is through the roof while classes are being cut and what they can do about this situation that leaves them feeling cheated. To get answers, you have to ask questions.
If someone asks you what all of the protesting at SDSU is about, you mig

March 4 Day of Action

Campus community unites March 4 to support higher education funding

March 1, 2010 -- March 4, designated as a state-wide day of action, offers an opportunity to highlight the critical need to fund higher education and restore state funding to the California State University (CSU).

San Francisco State University sign on campus.

March 4 Day of Action activities are planned for SF State .

The impact of the budget decisions made by the state legislature affects the entire campus community. The Education Budget Action Committee (EBAC), comprised of representatives of SF State faculty, students, staff and management, has met regularly to share information and coordinate the campus-wide efforts to influence the state's budget process.

"It is now up to the state legislature to fund the Governor's budget," Derek Aitken, associate director of government relations, said. "We must impress upon our elected officials the need to do so. The March 4 Day of Action is an opportunity to reach out to the campus community and beyond to make the case for supporting higher education."

Through a series of e-mails, phone calls and advertisements, EBAC has encouraged campus-wide advocacy for appropriate budget support for the CSU.

Activities have included working with faculty, alumni, parents and students to contact their legislators, write opinion pieces for their local papers and participate in special action days, reports Aitken. Upcoming actions include activities on March 4, March 22, April 27 and May 24, all of which are designed to focus attention on the legislators in Sacramento.

"Devastating budget cuts to public higher education have raised anxiety and frustration across the state," Shawn Whalen, chair of the academic senate, said. "We are hopeful that activities on March 4 will help channel those reactions into a productive dialogue with legislators over the future of our state, while preventing the kind of disruptive and unproductive reactions that weaken the coalitions that are so important to our success."

March 4 will include a range of activities designed to build unity, raise awareness, entertain and teach the campus community how to communicate effectively about solutions to the budget crisis.

"It is so important for everyone to get on board," said Brigitte Davila, lecturer in Raza Studies and chair of the California Faculty Association's political action committee at SF State. "Faculty and staff can engage in peaceful, non-violent and meaningful protest on March 4."

Schedule of Events for March 4, the SF State Day of Action for Public Higher Education:

10 a.m. to 12:15 p.m.: Informational Picket Line on 19th Ave. and Holloway.

12:15 to 12:30 p.m.: Picket Line march to Malcolm X Plaza

12:30 to 1:30 p.m.: Political Theater and Spoken Word performed by SF State talent, addressing the budget cuts

1:30 to 3 p.m.: Do-It-Yourself Protest signs and T-shirt stenciling (bring a T-shirt, if you can)

2 to 3:30 p.m.: Teach-in scheduled on Malcolm X Plaza

3:30 to 4 p.m.: Board MUNI or shuttle to BART (Anyone boarding at 19th Ave. MUNI with a March 4 T-shirt or protest sign will receive a pass for boarding)

4 to 4:45 p.m.: SF State community will gather and meet at the steps of the Asian Art Museum in the Civic Center before proceeding to the stage area.

5 to 6:30 p.m.: Rally for California’s Future, San Francisco Civic Center. Stand together with Pre-K to Higher Education educators, parents, students and all those who work in the public sector to send a message to Sacramento.

For further information:

Learn about activities planned for March 4 by visiting http://www.takeastand4publiced.org/or contacting Brigitte Davila at lawebjefa@gmail.com or 415-531-9743 (cell).

Learn what you can do to become an advocate for SF State:http://www.sfsu.edu/~news/budgetcentral/

Learn more about CSU-wide budget news and activities:http://blogs.calstate.edu/budgetcentral/

-- University Communications

Former 'No Child Left Behind' Advocate Turns Critic : NPR

In 2005, former Assistant Secretary of Education Diane Ravitch wrote, "We should thank President George W. Bush and Congress for passing the No Child Left Behind Act ... All this attention and focus is paying off for younger students, who are reading and solving mathematics problems better than their parents' generation."

Four years later, Ravitch has changed her mind.

"I was known as a conservative advocate of many of these policies," Ravitch says. "But I've looked at the evidence and I've concluded they're wrong. They've put us on the wrong track. I feel passionately about the improvement of public education and I don't think any of this is going to improve public education."

Ravitch has written a book about what she sees as the failure of No Child Left Behind called The Death and Life of the Great American School System. She says one of her biggest concerns is the way the law requires school districts to use standardized testing.

Emphasis On Test Scores Led To Cheating, Dishonesty

"The basic strategy is measuring and punishing," Ravitch says of No Child Left Behind. "And it turns out as a result of putting so much emphasis on the test scores, there's a lot of cheating going on, there's a lot of gaming the system. Instead of raising standards it's actually lowered standards because many states have 'dumbed down' their tests or changed the scoring of their tests to say that more kids are passing than actually are."

Some states contend that 80 to 90 percent of their children are proficient readers and have math proficiency as well, Ravitch notes. But in the same states, only 25 to 30 of the children test at a proficient level on national tests such as the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

"Secretary (of Education Arne) Duncan often says we're lying to our kids," Ravitch says. "And weare lying to our kids."

'There Should Not Be An Education Marketplace'

Part of the reason schools were so intent on achieving high tests scores was because they were competing with other schools for resources, which were often doled out on that basis alone.

Beyond The Riot:Looking Toward March 4 - The Daily Californian

(Editor's Note: This piece was written in collaboration with members of the Fee Strike Working Group and the Education Crisis Research Group.)

To many, the recent "riots" near Berkeley's campus seem ill-timed at best, and reprehensible at worst, even among ostensible supporters of the movement. We should not, however, allow fallout from this incident to distract us from the March 4 mobilizations occurring across 18 states. Whether the events of Feb. 26 hurt us or help us is beside the point. The movement to save the tatters of public education that remain in California and to defend democratic educational institutions has always contained a range of political opinions. Its diversity, in fact, is its greatest strength.

And so, drawing strength from our diversity, we mobilize for March 4, despite the administration's attempts to demonize the "rioters." More homogenous groups, pressing for "achievable" goals by patiently and carefully issuing demands rarely see them met by policy-makers with a stake in preserving business as usual. Successful movements have always been a collaborative and messy process between groups, individuals, factions and fractions who rarely agree. Tension produces dialogue-total agreement is neither realistic nor desirable. Regardless of how we differ on tactics, strategy, and ethics-in a word, politics-we share a fundamental

opposition to how the crisis of public education in California has been framed and acted upon by those in power.

If you read the paper Friday morning, you might have experienced a feeling of distance from those who took to the streets the night before. We encourage you to fight the urge to give up, the urge to walk away, or worse yet, the urge to police one another because of disagreement over tactics. There is always uncertainty surrounding tactical effectiveness. But there is absolute certainty about the consequences of disengagement from the movement.

The March 4 mobilizations will not stand or fall on whether we all agree. They will stand or fall on whether our numbers convey the grave urgency of the status of public education in California and the broken budgeting process which harms all Californians. While the powerful wring their hands, shed crocodile tears and say, "there is no alternative," we must insist. We've heard this excuse before, and we're still not falling for it.

On March 4, some of us will march to the seat of obstructionism in Sacramento, where cuts to the vulnerable are the answer to every fiscal question. Some of us will march on campuses in the East Bay and in San Francisco, showing that whatever happens in Sacramento, business as usual here at home cannot continue. Some of us have already taken action, seizing buildings and spaces on and off campus, in carnivals of insurrection. And some of us have supported our fellows even when we disagreed with their tactics, defending ourselves against police batons and paying for it in blood, bruises and broken bones. We all oppose those who have partnered with corporate capital against the students, workers and families of California. We are unafraid of the specter of guilt by association. Our spectrum of engagement keeps us growing. Attempts to slow us down, divide us, or trick us into

UC students protest to legislators over cuts

Sacramento -- Five UC students were arrested Monday
at the office of Assemblyman Jim Nielsen after refusing to leave unless the Gerber (Tehama County) Republican pledged to preserve funding for higher education and increase student diversity.
Dubbed "the Nielsen Five" by fellow students, those arrested at the Capitol were part of a 200-student lobbying effort intended to be a departure from the raucous, sometimes violent student protests on university campuses in recent months. More buttoned-down but equally angry, the students aimed their demands for more funding at state legislators Monday.
As Nielsen refused to meet with the students, California Highway Patrol officers guarded his door, and Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, tried to mediate the situation. He praised the five as they were led away.
"My hat's off to them," said Yee, who favors increased funding for UC. "Those are brave students."
It was a dramatic moment that stood in contrast to a day when small groups of students in business attire met with lawmakers or their aides to express frustration at Sacramento's failure to maintain its world-class public university systems. The students urged them to create a dedicated funding stream for higher education, fully fund Cal

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/03/02/BATB1C769N.DTL#ixzz0h1Sl2But

Following String of Racist Incidents, UC San Diego Students Occupy Chancellor's Office

Following String of Racist Incidents, UC San Diego Students Occupy Chancellor’s Office

Crowds of students stormed and occupied the office of a University of California, San Diego chancellor for six hours Friday after a noose was found hanging from a bookcase in the main library. The noose is only the latest in a string of incidents over the past few weeks. Protests were initially sparked by an off-campus party last month they called “Compton Cookout” that mocked Black History Month and denigrated African American women. UC San Diego has the smallest percentage of African American students in the nine-campus UC system. The Black Student Union at UC San Diego has declared the campus climate for racial minorities to be in a “state of emergency.” [includes rush transcript]

Calif. education leader Jack O'Connell, John Laird to join massive rally in Monterey | thecalifornian.com | The Salinas Californian

On Thursday, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell and former Assembly member John Laird of Santa Cruz will join students, faculty, staff, cheerleaders, athletes, parents and workers at Colton Hall in Monterey to demand that education in California be funded.

Colton Hall is the site of the first publicly funded school in California and where the California constitution

was written.

Other speakers will include Cesar Lara, executive director of the Monterey Bay Central Labor Council, county schools Superintendent Nancy Kotowski, and students and faculty from Hartnell College, Seaside High School, Monterey High School, Monterey Peninsula College, and California State University, Monterey Bay.

Entertainment will be supplied by the Seaside High drumline, the Monterey High Schoolband/cheerleaders and slam poets from the high schools and CSUMB.

Students, staff and faculty all across the state and nation are joining together Thursday to protest the recent massive cuts in education. This day of action is one of the first times in recent history that parents, students, teachers and staff from all segments of the educational sector - from pre-school to post-graduate - are uniting to make a joint stand on behalf of the precarious future of public education.

In the past few years, organizers say education in California has been underfunded and under attack.

They say California spends $2,400 less per student than the national average and ranks 46th in per-pupil funding. Community colleges

have increased enrollment by 3 percent over last fall but have been forced to decrease the number of classes that they offer. At CSUMB, more than 1,000 students have been turned away for next year, and organizers say tuition has gone up by 182 percent since 2002.

At a Watts school, layoffs take a heavy toll - latimes.com

When the Los Angeles Unified School District laid off thousands of teachers last spring, the school where I teach, Markham Middle School in Watts, was decimated. Already one of the lowest performing in the state, Markham lost more than half its teachers. The number was so high because inner-city schools like ours tend to have a disproportionate share of teachers just starting their careers, and in last year's layoffs, the most recently hired were the first to receive pink slips. But at Markham, many of those teachers were extremely dedicated and hoped to build a career at the school.

Because experienced teachers from throughout the district weren't lining up to transfer here, the school was left scrambling to staff classes. Today, months into the school year, many students are still without permanent teachers. Some teachers who received layoff notices agreed to stay on as long-term substitutes, working without the benefits we'd received the previous year.

I was one of them until January, when I was rehired by the district as a full-time teacher.

Currently, more than 20% of Markham's teaching staff consists of long-term substitutes, and as late as December, we still had six vacant classrooms where students were taught by a constantly rotating parade of substitutes. This kind of instability would be difficult at any school. But at a school like ours, where many students are desperately poor and often have language difficulties as well, it has been catastrophic.

In general, I think that decisions about a child's education should be made in the classroom, not the courtroom. But like a lot of other Markham teachers, I applaud the lawsuit filed last week by a coalition of civil rights attorneys to defend California's most neglected children by seeking to stop the layoffs at three inner-city middle schools.

William McGurn: California Students Complain About 'Tax Hikes' - WSJ.com

You don't often hear complaints about large and unfair tax hikes issuing from the ramparts of America's most progressive public university system.

Nevertheless, many faculty, students and staff on the 10 campuses of the University of California system are ticked off at how the state is handling its budget crisis. Last week, their anger over the resulting layoffs and tuition increases helped turn a dance party at Berkeley into a riot. The question now is whether on Thursday we will see more of the same at the protests, marches and teach-ins planned for what is being billed as a "Day of Action to Defend Public Education."

Angry protests involving the UC community are nothing new. What's interesting is the way some are characterizing their grievances. In an article for the Huffington Post earlier this month, Bob Samuels—a UCLA lecturer who also serves as a president for a faculty union—explained that "students have understood that the recent increases of student fees (tuition) by over 41% in one year is the same as a tax hike."

Mr. Samuels is right: Some of these students do understand it that way. "Let's call this what this really is," Berkeley sophomore Robbie Bruens told his former high school newspaper. "A big fat Schwarzenegger tax hike on middle class students and their families."

It's hard to blame them when you don't hear much better from people who ought to know better. A year ago, John Garamendi—then California's lieutenant governor and a University of California Regent—issued a press release declaring that a proposal for higher tuition fees was "nothing more than a $662 a year tax increase on every student at the University of California."

At an October Democratic rally at UC Davis, he was quoted as calling the tuition increases "the single biggest tax increase" in the last California budget. The next month he was elected to Congress.

Now, when professors and politicians cannot distinguish between a reduction in a state subsidy and an increase in taxes, we better understand the dismal shape of university and state finances. On further reflection, however, it seems we might have here what our president likes to

Editorial: We understand the protest for California education, but not the violence - ContraCostaTimes.com

THIS WEEK'S "Day of Action to Defend Public Education" could be a constructive uniting of students and faculty from local districts, community colleges and the state university systems to raise awareness of the unacceptable erosion of our public school systems.

Or, it could devolve into an deplorable day of violence.

Organizers must ensure that on Thursday we see the former, not the latter. Critical attempts to save California's education system depend on rational discussion, not the sort of destructive vandalism we saw last week on the UC Berkeley campus when a day of teach-ins on state school funding was followed by a nighttime party that served as an excuse for some to spray paint graffiti and break windows on and near the campus.

We understand the frustration, but violence is not the answer. Clearly, protesters have reason to be angry about state funding that has seen a growing portion of the state budget dedicated to prisons, while proportional spending on the state university system has shrunk.

Similarly, the rapid rise in the number of University of California administrators during the past decade is unacceptable. As The Sacramento Bee reported this week, student enrollment has increased 40 percent in the last 10 years, while senior administration has increased 97 percent, but full-time, tenured-track faculty has increased only 23 percent.

Priorities are wrong. We must find a way

to free up money to protect a public university system that was once a crown jewel and remains the envy of every other state in the nation, a world-class teaching and research institution that helps drive California's economy. We must redirect more of the available university funds to teaching and research.

Just as state lawmakers must not enable the gutting of our universities, they must stop the undermining of our K-12 public school system.

We cannot continue to cut music classes, shut down funding for school libraries, allow campuses to fall into disrepair, eliminate critical academic electives, wipe out after-school sports and lay off teachers, thereby forcing class sizes to soar.

At the same time, we encour

Tufts Daily - Budget cuts, fee increases draw anger of University of California students

For many high school students, the University of California (UC) system offers the perfect option for higher education. The UC system’s appeal, aside from the sunny California weather, lies in the competitive education it offers for in−state tuition fees at a fraction of the cost of a private university for California locals. In light of the recent economic crisis, however, the ability of the UC system to continue to offer financially appealing education is uncertain.

In November, University of California’s Board of Regents voted to raise tuition by 32 percent in response to a $637 million cut in state funding, resulting in a series of protests that are still ongoing months after the cuts took effect.

While the hike of student fees has been at the epicenter of student protests, other serious measures have been taken to cut costs. This past summer, 2,000 UC staff and faculty members were laid off. The rest of the staff and faculty are required to take furlough days — or short, unpaid leaves of absence. This has resulted in pay cuts of up to 10 percent, according to a press release issued last July by the Office of the President of the University of California. Class sizes are expected to increase as a result of the layoffs, and programs and classes are being cut.

“Mostly liberal arts related majors have been hit, like philosophy majors,” Jihan Batuman, a sophomore at UC Davis, said. “Those are the ones that are being cut the most.”

According to Batuman, the tuition increase has had a palpable effect on the UC campuses. “A friend of mine’s boyfriend couldn’t come back due to the fee increase; he couldn’t afford to be here anymore,” he said. “We all had to spend more money. Some students had to get jobs … Almost everybody knows someone who is being affected by this.”

These changes have been met by protests at the various campuses. UC Berkeley, known for its history of activism — most notably the Free Speech Movement in 1964 and 1965, a response to the university restricting on−campus political activities — has been bustling with student outrage.

Students Support Worker Demands for Independent Unions and End to Abuses : Indybay

Students Support Worker Demands for Independent Unions and End to Abuses : Indybay:

"CLAREMONT, California - The student movement made an unexpected move in solidarity with university employees in a large-scale action at Pomona College, a private institution and part of the Claremont consortium of colleges at the eastern edge of Los Angeles County. Well over a hundred students joined with numerous employees of the three campus dining commons, other Pomona employees, and a few faculty members to deliver a petition to Pomona President Oxtoby."

The mobilization began in the morning, when students from Pitzer College assembled on their campus, while Pomona students gathered on theirs. At about ten, the two contingents converged, singing the union hymn "No nos moverán."

Students, arm-in-arm with workers, entered the president's office two-by-two to deliver the signed petition demanding a neutral card check process to form a union. This is the process that would be permitted in all workplaces if the much-hyped but now-stalled Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) would have become law.

The petition read, in part, "An NLRB-administered election, which permits management to campaign against the Union on work-time and create a climate of fear in the workplace, is not free and fair." It went on to demand employer neutrality in the workers' decision to organize, and recognition of a majority-backed union.

Previous efforts to organize food service workers on the campus have been thwarted by intimidation, collaboration between the administration and upper-level bureaucrats from established unions and bribery-based decertification drives by management.

This time, however, the workers are seeking an independent union to collectively bargain in their interest. Over 90 percent of the food service workers signed the petition.

Forming an independent union is the first step toward justice for the workers, who complain of poor salaries, few opportunities for advancement, abuses such as disallowance of breaks and working off the clock, and underemployment.

"The salaries that we have are miserable," reports Maria R. Garcia, a Pomona food service worker. "I've been working here for ten years already. I started at $8.40, and now it's $10.65 [per hour]. Two years without a raise. The first year, they said I didn't qualify because I was pregnant, and I had an injury. Another thing, we work for seven-and-a-half months of the year. So how do you support a family?" She made it clear that it wasn't an issue of disliking the job. "We like working here; we love working here. But with these conditions, it's hard. They just make it worse every year."

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