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From the Wrestling Mat to the Dance Floor

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By Judi Curry

I hope that some of you remember the story about my grandson Colin and his goal to win a medal in the Nationals in wrestling and go on to Stanford on a wrestling scholarship.  Colin, you might remember, is 14 and had just placed 3rd in his division at the nationals held in Las Vegas a few weeks back.  Colin is an excellent athlete – excels in all sports he likes.

There is one other “sport” that he excels in that I want to tell you about.

When he entered the 6th grade he was told that “Ballroom Dancing” was a requirement. He was so upset that he cried and wanted to switch schools. He did not want to take the class, but since it was mandated, he had no choice.   [Read more…]

Time Works Wonders: Oak Tree Academy Preschool Owners Transform El Cajon Property

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By Annie Lane

When owner Conni Huntley reflects on Oak Tree Academy’s move from La Mesa to their new location in El Cajon, the preschool administrator admits it was she who dragged her feet.

“I’m afraid of the heat,” the Ocean Beach resident confided. “I’m a beach brat.”

Roseann Rinear, Huntley’s business partner and a longtime Jamul resident, didn’t share her concerns in that regard. The dilapidated state of the property, however, had them both a little nervous.

“It wasn’t until we drove around back and saw those Chinese Elms that we knew what the property could become,” Huntley said of the three full grown trees lining the expansive yard.   [Read more…]

School Board Okays Controversial Sale of Prime Mission Beach School Property – Despite Mayor Filner’s Plea

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By Frank Gormlie/ OB Rag

On Tuesday, May 14th, the San Diego Unified School District board authorized the sale of the former Mission Beach Elementary School property to private developers – despite objections by Mayor Filner, residents and community activists.

The 4 to 1 vote by the Board was the culmination of the process to cement the controversial sale of 2.23 acres of prime public school land, a half block from the Pacific Ocean and mere yards from Mission Bay. Mayor Filner, community planners and civic activists, as well as residents pleaded with the Board to keep the land in the public arena, and work with either the City or developers on alternatives.

The site was sold for $18.5 million to a duo of developers, doing business as McKellar-Ashbrook LLC, registered in La Jolla.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – Special Ed Student Used as “Bait” in School Drug Bust After Parents Refused Permission

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By Doug Porter

We’ve seen an up tick in stories recently about drug busts in schools in the region.  While no parent wants to see their kid on the wrong side of the law, it turns out that at least one of these ‘stings’ wasn’t quite the law enforcement coup touted to the news media.

The San Diego Sheriff’s Department’s ‘Operation A Team’ spent a year posing as students at four county high schools, scoring drugs at Poway, Mission Hills, and Ramona High Schools. The busts were announced with much fanfare recently, and the UT-San Diego even garnered an undercover interview with one of the agents.

Last fall undercover officers enrolled at Temecula high schools rounded up 22 ruffians in a similar investigation.

Yesterday the Press-Enterprise ran a story regarding a special education student recruited by a Temecula school official over the objections of his parents to pose as ‘bait’ in an on-campus sting. And it turns out this isn’t the only case involving a special education student and drug stings in the Temecula Valley Unified School District.   [Read more…]

Free Barrier-Breaking College Prep Program in Barrio Logan to Expand

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The Barrio Logan College Institute Moves in with Monarch School

By Frances O’Neill Zimmerman

From late afternoon to early evening daily, a bilingual team of eight devoted staffers works throughout the week with 200 committed barrio kids — some as young as Grade 3 — establishing curriculum, coordinating tutors, arranging for in-house speakers and field trips, setting up collaborative learning experiences, conferring with parents, interfacing with students whose names and histories they know well.

This is Barrio Logan College Institute (BLCI) where students absorb what an old teacher friend of mine used to call “the culture of school.” Learning how to study. How to shake hands in greeting and goodbye, with an abrazo here and there. Tutorials in language arts and math. Goal-setting. Learning about self-organization, follow-through, discipline, promptness. How to be resilient when there’s disappointment.

BLCI students will be the first in their families to go to university, knowing they are following patterns set by these mentors on the staff. Development director Luis Murillo, 30, has for now set aside an earlier interest in law school, saying, “I love what we do here.”   [Read more…]

Is College Really Worth It?

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Many PhDs Can’t Find Jobs

By John Lawrence

Former Secretary of Education, William Bennett, has written a book, Is College Worth It?  Evidently even education experts are starting to question the value of obtaining a college education especially if it means taking on a mountain of debt, and there is no guarantee that once graduated there will even be a job there waiting so that payments on that debt can even begin.

If not, the college graduate faces delinquency, default and penalties that can add greatly to the original debt making it all but insurmountable and one that will follow the individual for the rest of his or her life.

There seems to be a myth that a college education is part of the American dream and that not having acquired one makes one a loser. However, consider this. Some of the greatest contributors to society and some of the richest people never graduated from college.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – Dougie Manchester’s Minions Twerking the Night Away

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By Doug Porter

‘What the hell?’ you’re probably thinking, how did he come up with that headline?

 I was just reading the UT-San Diego’s editorial page today, something not recommended for the faint of heart or weak of stomach.

Leading the inane parade of profoundly partisan digestational by-products today is another in this week’s ObamaScare is coming missives.  We’re being schooled this week on “the broken promises that President Barack Obama used to sell the Affordable Care Act”.

Did you know that the President and his liberal/socialist cabal are going to take away your health insurance right after they grab your guns? It must be true; look what happened in Massachusetts when essentially the same plan was enacted…   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – The National NRA Convention: No Sane People Allowed

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Going Great Guns, Deep in the Heart of Texas

By Doug Porter

Stories about pushback resulting from votes against the Senate’s most recent efforts at gun legislation are making the rounds this week, including poll results showing voter frustration with elected officials who opposed background checks.

This weekend, however, the media landscape will shift as the National Rifle Association holds a three day gathering in Houston, Texas.  Today’s ‘leadership forum’ will boast conservative heart-throbs like former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and Rick Santorum.

INSIDE: Is Obama the Worst Socialist Ever?, Ethiopian Blogger Imprisoned, Where Have All the Teachers Gone?   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – Hell Froze Over: UT-San Diego Endorsed Labor Leader Lorena Gonzalez

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By Doug Porter 

I checked the calendar to make sure it wasn’t April Fools Day this morning after reading an editorial in UT-San Diego endorsing Lorena Gonzalez in the race for the 80th District Assembly seat.

There are, after all, only two Democrats, officially in the race and I fully expected the paper would pass up the opportunity to say anything encouraging about either of them. (There is, I’m told, also a write-in campaign by a Republican.)

Their endorsement was apparently triggered by Gonzalez’s positions on ‘job creation’.  Rather than play into the conservative meme that ‘jobs’ and ‘the environment’ are mutually exclusive propositions, she told them during an extensive interview that policies  respecting both are possible.

As much as I hate to do this, I’m going to agree with the UT-San Diego’s choice of candidates in this race, although for different reasons.  Lorena Gonzalez has done a terrific job of actually ‘leading’ labor in this town into areas way outside their traditional comfort zone.

I don’t know how the UT-SD missed this, but her efforts to get out the vote and involvement with grassroots organizing outside the walls of the Labor Council offices are a major reason why Democrats are an ascendant force in this town.

If she was smart enough to fool them, just think how good she’ll be with those dumbasses up in Sacramento.

INSIDE: Fighting Test to the Test, Junior Seau’s Brain, and the GOP’s Rube Goldberg Immigration plan.   [Read more…]

Desde la Logan’s Las Monthly Ondas May Edition: Cinco de Mayo is Not Mexican Independence Day

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By Brent E. Beltrán

Cinco de Mayo commemorates El Día de la Batalla de Puebla (The Day of the Battle of Puebla) where in 1862 a ragtag Mexican army lead by General Ignacio Zaragoza defeated a much superior and better equipped force of the French army. Cinco de Mayo is not Mexican Independence Day. It’s not even a significant holiday in Mexico except in the state of Puebla where the battle took place.

After the great liberal Mexican president Benito Juarez decided to stop paying Mexico’s foreign debt for two years to help it’s near bankrupt national treasury France’s Napoleon III, pissed off by this move, decided to invade and build up it’s empire.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – California Education Issues Come Front and Center

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By Doug Porter

There’s a lull between big electoral periods right now (except for Los Angeles) and, fortunately this means there’s space available for bytes or ink with articles discussing education without the overlay of various campaigns.

The Big Issue in education since the “A Nation at Risk” study released during the Reagan administration has been reform. The changing needs of the nation’s workplaces, spurred by the revolution in technology, ran smack dab into the rising credo that argued for a smaller role for the public sector.

The word ‘reform’ has become tainted, laden with expectations or fears that private enterprise would alter the educational landscape. Three decades of interventions (and, yes, the ‘reformers’ have had many opportunities to try out their ideas) have left us only incrementally better off than we were when this entire hubbub started.

Along the way, programs not central to the theology of ‘teach to the test’ have been downgraded or discarded. Playing clarinet will not enhance your abilities to fill in bubbles on test sheets.  And earlier attempts at ‘scientifically’ updating instructional methods were conveniently forgotten. (Anybody remember the ‘New Math’?)

So it’s interesting that so many angles on the quest for a better education are in the news this week.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – Koch Brothers’ Coachella Failure-fest Set for this Weekend

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By Doug Porter

This weekend (Apr 28-29) hundreds of business executives and wealthy conservative donors will descend upon the Coachella Valley, hoping to forge a strategy to turn last fall’s drubbing of conservative candidates into future victories. I imagine the crowd will be considerably different from what locals have seen over the past two weeks.

Since 2003 billionaire industrialists David and Charles Koch have been hosting regular retreats at luxury resorts seeking to focus the resources and energy of wealthy and politically ambitious conservatives in the US.

Their latest invitation-only gathering, originally scheduled for January, was postponed.   [Read more…]

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