California Campuses Rocked By Student Protests

By Laurel Brishel Prichard -University of New Mexico/Talk Radio News Service

Students held protests at over 100 California college campuses Thursday in response to the state’s proposal to raise tuition by 32 percent and a series of significant budget cuts.

“Today’s the day that the students are on strike and standing up in solidarity with our fellow brothers and sisters, who are facing cuts in K-12, community colleges and the California state university system," activist Don Kingsbury, a teaching assistant and former graduate of University of California Santa Cruz, told Talk Radio News Service. "No more business as usual. We’re changing things."

Kingsbury said the administration at UC Santa Cruz has misplaced its priorities, as has the California state government.

“We think it's ridiculous that the UC president makes more than the President of the United States,” he said.

The students are urging the UC's Board of Regents to return to “The Master Plan,” which was a 1960 document that would allow for free, high quality and universally accessible education for all citizens of California.

“My students are telling me daily that they aren’t sure what they are going to do. Some of them are literally being priced out of their education,” said Kingsbury.

Duncan, NYC Mayor Racing To Improve Nation's Educational System

By Laura Smith - University of New Mexico/Talk Radio News Service

While folks across the country are putting the finishing touches on Thanksgiving dinner preparations, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg are working on bringing education reform to the table.

Duncan and Bloomberg met in Washington D.C. Wednesday to discuss the Obama administration's education reform program "Race to the Top," and how to get more out of America's schools.

Duncan said that communities across the nation are demanding better education for their children, and urged Americans to keep pushing very hard for change.

“What are we trying to do with Race to the Top?...We’re asking folks to make the kinds of changes that will last two, three, four years...We want the kind of fundamental changes that will last for two, three, four decades,” Duncan said.

Bloomberg blasted a 2008 law passed by the New York the State Legislature that forbids principals from evaluating teachers based on student achievement data.

“That’s like saying to hospitals: You can evaluate heart surgeons on any criteria you want. Just not patient survival rates. Thankfully, the law in New York is set to expire this June, but that isn’t enough,” Bloomberg said.

Bloomberg also listed six key educational reforms he'd like to see his state and others make, including paying higher salaries for high-performing teachers and principals, ending a layoff policy called “last-in, first out,” identifying and removing the lowest performing teachers and lifting restrictions on the growth of charter schools.

D.C. Mayor Unveils First School Produced By $2 Billion Education Campaign

By Mariko Lamb-Talk Radio News Service

D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty unveiled the Walker Jones Education Campus Tuesday, a new $50 million K-8 public school that is part of an eight year, $2 billion campaign to rebuild and modernize all schools in the sixth congressional district.

The 100,000 sq. ft. campus includes a 20,000 sq. ft. recreation center and a 5,000 sq. ft. library that will be open to the public during non-school hours. This campus is the first in D.C. to combine a school with a public library, recreation center, and athletic amenities.

"[Projects are being completed] on-time, on budget, and we get more out of these public projects than you’d see in any private sector buildings," Fenty said during the opening ceremony.

The campus is part of what Fenty described as a "grander vision" to improve the Northwest #1 neighborhood near Capitol Hill, noting that the project created more than 150 jobs during its construction. The mayor ensured that he will “keep working to make sure those jobs keep going to neighbors around the projects.”

“So many great schools in our area are finally seeing the upgrade that they deserve,” he said. Although D.C. schools are “not all the way there,” Fenty said, “if you had to pick three school districts in the entire country that are headed in the right direction, according to any of the top critics, we would make everybody’s top three list.”

The Senate Rebuilds Pakistan

By Michael Ruhl, University of New Mexico - Talk Radio News Service

Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.)
Photo by Michael Ruhl

In the next 5 years, the Pakistani infrastructure will be fortified by almost $10 billion American dollars, if Senators John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) have anything to say about it. The aptly titled Kerry-Lugar Bill will provided money for rebuilding the lives of civilians in war torn Pakistan.

Both Kerry and Lugar said that most of the money that has been funneled into Pakistan in the past few years has gone towards security. The aim of this bill is to shift the balance, to place more of an emphasis on infrastructure.

The Senators want to use the money for building schools, improving health care, building bridges, water projects, and other elements of infrastructure. Kerry said that the target projects are “things that would improve life and give people a sense of progress” to civilians.

The money would also be used for ensuring an independent media, expanding human rights and the rule of law, expanding transparency in government, rooting out political corruption and countering the drug trade.

Additionally military funding would be conditioned upon several things, including Pakistani security forces preventing al Qaeda and Taliban forces from operating in Pakistan. The military forces would not be able to interfere in politics or in the judicial process, according to the provisions of the bill.

The legislation bill would give $1.5 billion each year from FY 2009-2013, and would recommend similar amounts of money over the subsequent five years. There would be required benchmarks to measuring how effective the funding is, and the President will have to submit semi-annual reports to Congress about progress made.