Saturday, March 27, 2010

Faculty divided on draft equity resolution�|�The Guardsman

Faculty divided on draft equity resolution

Posted on 26 March 2010 by Liska Koenig, The Guardsman

By Liska Koenig
The Guardsman

A draft resolution by the City College Board of Trustees has some faculty up in arms because they feel the board is interfering with their responsibilities.

Based on data from the Student Equity Report and “Poppy Copy,” a study that evaluates basic skills as a foundation for students’ success at California community colleges, the draft resolution calls for major changes to the curriculum.

The draft resolution, which was presented to the board on Feb. 25, aims to bridge the student achievement gap and prepare students to more efficiently transfer to four-year colleges.

Students who identify as African-American, Native American, Filipino, Latino or Pacific Islander are 19 to 21 percent less likely to complete two- or four-year degrees than their white and Asian counterparts, according to the 2009 City College Student Achievement Gap and Social Equity Report.

“The role of the English and math curriculum is very important in how we understand the problem facing different groups at the college,” Trustee Steve Ngo said. “We need to intensify our basic efforts to get students college-ready and if we can’t do that, then we aren’t doing our job.”

A student entering at the lowest possible level may need to take six English classes and four math classes to finally take transferable math and English courses.

Ngo said these classes will have to be restructured so students don’t have to slowly work their way up in 3-unit increments. To speed up the process, the board is debating turning them into 11- or 12-unit classes.

Under the draft resolution students would have the option to take these subjects as pass/no pass. The board also wants to give students better access to English and math classes and improve professional development training programs to teach basic skills.

Why the GOP is delaying Obama's judicial nominee | San Diego Gay & Lesbian News

Why the GOP is delaying Obama's judicial nominee

Lisa Keen - Keen News Service | Fri, 03/26/2010 - 10:14am | Login to bookmark or comment

ENLARGE

Goodwin Liu

WASHINGTON -- The Senate Judiciary Committee was squaring up for a showdown this week over President Obama’s most controversial judicial nominee to date, but that showdown has been indefinitely delayed after Republicans use a parliamentary delaying tactic.
The nominee is Goodwin Liu, a professor of law at the University of California Berkeley School of Law. President Obama nominated him last month for a seat on the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, which covers California and eight other Western states. The American Bar Association gave him a “unanimously well-qualified” rating.
But he also has a paper trail a mile wide and a mountain high. That trail reads like good news for the LGBT community, but it screams “liberal” to Republicans.
Fox News has reported that Republicans are “champing at the bit to grill Liu, who has described the Constitution as a living document, advocated for same-sex marriage and suggested health care is a right.”
Fox says Liu’s nomination “is getting extra attention because conservatives are concerned that he could be on the fast track for the Supreme Court.”
Liu is one of four people Obama has named to federal appeals court positions since Feb. 24. The other three -- Ray Lohler Jr. and Robert Chatigny for the 2nd Circuit, and Scott Matheson for the 10th -- have relatively quiet credentials.
But Liu has been very much part of the public discourse on a number of civil rights issues, including Proposition 8, the initiative which voters in California passed in November 2008 to ban same-sex marriage.
In one of many essays he has published in various newspapers and publications, Liu told the Los Angeles Times, “there is no question that [Proposition 8] targets a historically vulnerable group and eliminates a very important right.” He has

Assemblymember Blumenfield Proclaims April as Genocide Awareness and Prevention Month | Asbarez Armenian News

SACRAMENTO—The Armenian National Committee of America – Western Region expressed its steadfast support this week for the introduction of ACR 144, a resolution authored and introduced by California State Assemblymember Bob Blumenfield, proclaiming the month of April each year as Genocide Awareness and Prevention Month in California.

“The first step to genocide prevention begins with raising awareness about human rights atrocities of the past,” said Shant Hagopian, former student instructor of 20th Century Genocides at UC Berkeley and ANCA-WR State Relations Committee member. “Moreover, the last step to genocide is its denial. This resolution stands as a deterrent for those looking to rewrite history in the future, just as the Turkish lobby has attempted to do by sending out an action alert expressing their strong opposition to ACR 144,” he added.

ACR 144 begins by stating that Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin was “motivated by the attempted extermination of the Armenian and Assyrian communities during the First World War, coined the term ‘genocide’ to describe a coordinated plan of actions aimed at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating a group itself.” Furthermore, the legislation marks the tragic anniversaries of the Armenian Genocide, the Holocaust, the Cambodian Genocide, the Bosnian Genocide and the Rwandan Genocide by recognizing April of each year as Genocide Awareness and Prevention Month. Survivors of these genocides live in California and ACR 144 would offer them respect and comfort, knowing that their chosen home supports the type of recognition and education required for preventing the crime of genocide in the future.

California has a proud record of standing up against genocide. California was one of the first states to pass targeted divestment and contract prohibitions legislation against worst-offending companies doing business in Sudan. Just last year, then Assemblymember Paul Krekorian introduced Assembly Bill 961 (AB 961), which helps ensure that California taxpayer dollars are not spent on companies that profit from genocide. AB 961 identifies the Armenian Genocide, the Holocaust, the Cambodian Genocide, the Rwandan Genocide, and the genocide in Bosnia as cases fo

Dear Obama: You're destroying education - Education - Salon.com

Dear Obama: You're destroying education

Diane Ravitch was a champion of No Child Left Behind. Now she's speaking out about the public system we abandoned

BY MARY ELIZABETH WILLIAMS

iStockphoto

Diane Ravitch has spent a lifetime in school. She was the assistant secretary of education under George H. W. Bush and an early advocate of No Child Left Behind. Today, she's a research professor of education at New York University, a passionate critic of the system and an articulate, outspoken advocate for saving our public schools. Her new book has the provocative title "The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education."

She's certainly got my attention. As a public school parent in New York City, where on Thursday, chancellor Joel Klein threatened to cut 8,500 teaching jobs -- 20 percent of which would come from theimpoverished South Bronx -- I've been watching the ongoing fiasco in education reform with a mixture of fear, anger and outright disgust. In his announcement, Klein said he would fight Albany's mandate to cut jobs with a "last in, first out" strategy -- unsurprising given his long-standing promise to get rid of "bad" teachers. It doesn't take long, however, to notice how often Klein's criteria for career jeopardy seems to involve a higher salary and/or a class with lower test scores. At my own school, parents have heard our principal speak in meetings of removing particular teachers who make the most money -- while several of the tenured staff have suddenly found themselves written up for questionable infractions.

It's a scenario being repeated all over the country -- earlier this month in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, entire faculties at low-performing schools faced the ax. On Thursday, a Savannah, Ga., high school announced it was firing its whole staff. And California recently issued layoff notices to a staggering 30,000 teachers.

DJ Skee Tapped As California's Hip Hop Ambassador | Get The Latest Hip Hop News, Rap News & Hip Hop Album Sales | HipHopDX

DJ Skee Tapped As California's Hip Hop Ambassador

March 26, 2010 08:03:00 AM CDT | By Edwin Ortiz

DJ Skee has been appointed as Hip-Hip Ambassador to ASAS-LA, the Governor’s founded charity, serving disadvantaged youth in L.A.

Founded by Governor Schwarzenegger, ASAS-LA aims to serve 10,000 middle school and high school students in the Los Angeles area with after-school programs that promote education and youth leadership, as well as fitness and nutrition. ASAS-LA also has a separate music program, which teaches kids about the fundamentals of Hip Hop.

Skee, who has made a name for himself as a popular radio deejay in Los Angeles, as well as doing extensive mixtape work with artists across the nation, explained the opportunity to work with kids is an essential part of creating a positive image for Hip Hop. “Being involved with the kids in the After-School All-Stars, Los Angeles programs brings things full circle.”

He continued, “Hip Hop originates from the communities that these students come from. Hip Hop

March delivers three blows to California public school system | CAIVN

MARCH DELIVERS THREE BLOWS TO CALIFORNIA PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM

by Adrienne Verrilli

Fri, Mar 26th 2010

This month there has been little good news for the California public school system. On March 4, California got word that the state’s bid for a piece of over $4 billion of the federal stimulus dollars available to improve education for the poorest students, the program known as Race to the Top, was denied. Instead, fifteen states including New York, Pennsylvania and Louisiana as well as the District of Columbia were selected in the first round ofRace to the Top dollars.

California won’t know until April why it was rejected. It is suspected that its proposed reforms were not strong enough. The Governor has promised that it will seek more aggressive reforms and apply for the second round of funding in June.

A few days later on March 8, the California Department of Education released a preliminary list of 188 public schools that are considered “persistently lowest achieving” schools. Performance is calculated based on how students perform on standardized tests. Provisions under the federal stimulus funding require that the schools listed take specific actions such as replacing the principal and most of the staff, closing and sending the children to other schools, or closing and opening as a charter school. However, the schools listed are now eligible for federal grants from $50,000 to as much as $2 million to improve their performance. The list included 12 San Francisco schools, 20 in the East Bay and 35 in Los Angeles.

Last, a report released on March 25 by the Brookings Institution, Brown Center Report on American Education, found that

Race to the Top funding brings hundreds to San Bernardino education summit - San Bernardino County Sun

Race to the Top funding brings hundreds to San Bernardino education summit

Debbie Pfeiffer Trunnell, Staff Writer

Posted: 03/26/2010 04:27:29 PM PDT

SAN BERNARDINO - Officials from the frequently colliding worlds of politics and education shared thoughts on Race to the Top funding at an education summit Friday at Cal State San Bernardino.

The university's dining room was packed with educators and local school district administrators, still reeling from recent announcements of reforms they must take to turnaround their lowest performing schools, at the event held by Rep. Joe Baca, D-San Bernardino.

"We are here today to look at Race to the Top and what it means for students in the Inland Empire and come up with reforms that give our schools the flexibility to succeed," said Baca.

In November, President Obama and U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan announced eligibility for states to compete for $4.35 billion in Race to the Top funding, the largest pool of discretionary funding for education reform in this country's history.

California lost out in the first round of allocation of the funding.

The state is now waiting for feedback to come back from the federal government in April that will describe the improvements needed to be made, said Tina Jung, spokeswoman for the California Department of Education.

Recently, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and several other governors sent a letter to Duncan requesting the U.S.

California Student Aid Commission Commends Federal Student Aid Legislation -- RANCHO CORDOVA, Calif., March 26 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --

California Student Aid Commission Commends Federal Student Aid Legislation

RANCHO CORDOVA, Calif., March 26 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The California Student Aid Commission today publicly acclaimed the landmark passage of the "Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010", which enacts sweeping reforms in federal student loan programs.

The legislation allocates $36 billion over 10 years to increase the maximum annual Pell Grant scholarship to $5,550 in 2010 and to $5,975 by 2017. Starting in 2013, the scholarship will be linked to match rising costs-of-living by indexing it to the Consumer Price Index.

Executive Director Diana Fuentes-Michel commented: "The Pell Grant increases are an important adjunct to our existingCal Grant financial aid programs and will open the door to increased educational prospects for California's low income population."

The Commission previously unanimously endorsed President Obama's proposals to increase Pell grants for students by issuing new federal student loans through the Direct Loan Program, while saving taxpayers billions of dollars by eliminating subsidies for banking industry lenders.

Director Fuentes-Michel also noted, "This historic measure offers hope, access and opportunity for students to earn the education they need to advance in this economic recession. Given the fee increases to our state colleges and universities, the passage of the federal student loan reforms is well timed, and offers valuable additional financial aid avenues for our future workforce."

In addition to the Pell Grant increase, the legislation includes important funding for the College Access Challenge Grant

Textbook flap staying in Texas - Local - SanLuisObispo.com

Textbook flap staying in Texas

Fight over new social studies curriculum won’t affect the local school system, county superintendent says

By Bob Cuddy | bcuddy@thetribunenews.com

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The flap over social studies curriculum textbooks that is roiling Texas parents and teachers is not likely to be felt in California, according to county Superintendent of Schools Julian Crocker.

“I don’t think it would have an impact on California,” Crocker told The Tribune. He said the California Board of Education adopts curriculum, and textbook publishers “come in and present their wares.”

The sorts of changes to curriculum that are making headway in Texas “would get ferreted out” in Sacramento, Crocker said.

Adding to the unlikelihood that such textbooks would be used in California is the fact that adoption of curricula is frozen in the state because of budget cuts.

The Texas Board of Education tentatively adopted guidelines March 12 that skew the curriculum to the right, according to published reports. Board President Don McElroy told The New York Times that he and his colleagues are merely trying to move the curriculum back to what they consider the center after a long leftward drift.

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