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Education

Firing bad teachers

01.19.12 - 12:44 pm | Tim Redmond |
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Diane Ravich, who used to be on the wrong side of school reform but has pretty much come around, was on Forum Jan. 18 talking about education policy. For the most part, she was right on target, explaining that too much of a focus on testing (as a measure of school and teacher accomplishment, not as a diagnostic tool) and too narrow an emphasis on math and reading has damaged public schools.Read more »

Exporting our brains

As libraries close and tuition soars, a California university sets its sights on... China?

01.17.12 - 5:54 pm |
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By Gary Brechin

The chancellor was absent as University of California police, kitted out in battle gear, vigorously beat and arrested students and professors at on the Berkeley campus. Called to account by the academic senate two weeks later, Robert Birgeneau explained that he had been on a trip through Asia at the time. The trip, he said, concluded with a "phenomenally successful," though unspecified, mission to Shanghai, so he did not hear how badly things went at home until the following day.Read more »

The good news about the mid-year state cuts

12.13.11 - 3:03 pm | Tim Redmond |
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Well, there isn't much good news, really -- Gov. Jerry just announced another $1 billion in cuts, mostly to education and services for the disabled and poor. Check out the state's priorities: $429.6 million in cuts to education, $225 million in cuts to MediCal, In-Home Supportive Services and developmental services -- and a whopping $20 million in cuts to the prison system.Read more »

Protesters target UC to demand openness, accountability, and the restoration of cuts

11.28.11 - 11:56 am | Steven T. Jones |
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UPDATED BELOW -- Protesters with ReFund California and other groups are gathering today (Mon/28) at UCSF-Mission Bay and three other UC campuses to protest a teleconference of the UC Board of Regents, which will discuss state funding levels and tuition increases, as well as recent incidents of police violence against nonviolent student protesters.Read more »

Student protests shut down business as usual (VIDEO)

11.17.11 - 12:32 pm |
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By Yael Chanoff, Nena Farrell, and Shawn Gaynor

Tuesday and Wednesday, Nov. 15 and 16, marked galvanizing student-led protests that shut down a Bank of America branch at Davis and California streets in San Francisco, prompted walk-outs and marches through the streets of Berkeley, and fed the momentum initiated by the Occupy Oakland and Occupy San Francisco encampments. Read more »

The growing 99 percent

Student and faculty groups take to the streets, adding to the Occupy movement

11.08.11 - 7:48 pm | Steven T. Jones |
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steve@sfbg.com

In recent weeks, the Bay Area has been roiled by anger and frustration with how the rich have grown richer while the rest of us endure underemployment, foreclosures, and deep cuts to public education and services, peaking with the Nov. 2 Oakland General Strike that drew more than 10,000 people into the streets to demand economic justice.Read more »

Spike salute: Showing love for Mission High volleyball team

10.14.11 - 2:23 pm | Paige A. Ricks |
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When head coach Geraldine Poon and assistant coach Kris Thomas got involved with Mission High School’s volleyball program two years ago, their goal was to significantly improve the team’s attitude on the court and in the classroom. They did. 

The young women on the team made such strides on and off the court, in fact, that Thomas got in touch with the Guardian to ask if we could show them some love. We would love to! Read more »

Protesters disrupt Murdoch speech (VIDEO)

10.14.11 - 10:25 am | Rebecca Bowe |
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In the Grand Ballroom of the Palace Hotel in downtown San Francisco on Oct. 14, News Corporation CEO Rupert Murdoch delivered a keynote address to a crowd that included senators, businesspeople, and high-ranking education officials from throughout the country -- yet he was interrupted repeatedly by activists, some of whom were dressed as Sesame Street characters.Read more »

Artistic boot camp looking for recruits

02.09.11 - 1:09 pm | Emily Appelbaum |
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With an average body mass index of 24.8 (measured in 2008), SF rates as the second skinniest city in the United States. Work it out people – all those bikes, parks, and beaches paying off, or at least putting us out ahead in America's race against obesity. But next to nearly every one of our yoga studios and muscle gyms is an art gallery. It's fair to say that art appreciation is as ingrained in San Francisco culture as athletic mastery – but where does one go to buff up one's rock hard appreciation of digital art film and radical myth iconography? Enter Yerba Buena Center for the Arts' new program, “YBCA: YOU”, currently accepting applications (this means you) for a free program that'll have you doing heavy lifting of the city's creative offerings in no time. Read more »

The Free University of San Francisco kicks off teaching -- to a lot of white people

02.08.11 - 10:52 am | Caitlin Donohue |
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“A piece of blank paper means anything you want can happen,” SF beat poet laureate Diane Di Prima was imparting a rare free lecture on shamanic poetry, the marquee event of this weekend's popular first Free University of San Francisco teach-in at Viracocha. She had a packed the antique store-community center's first floor showroom, encouraging in regards to the FUSF collective's run at making free education available to all. But if the Free University wants to teach the world, why are the vast majority of its students – let's not parse words here – white?

Read more »