Results tagged “education”

Facing a $150 million budget deficit this year due to cuts in state funding and higher operating costs, UC Berkeley has hired Bain & Co., a Massachusetts-based consultant with offices in San Francisco, for a hefty $3 million fee, plus expenses, to help the university find long-term ways to save money. As Fark.com aptly puts, "Somehow, cutting consultant fees from the budget isn't likely to make the list."

All books for $5 or less -- what a deal! The 45th Annual Big Book Sale, put on by Friends of the SF Public Library, is going on all weekend at Fort Mason Center's Festival Pavilion. The sale, which is the largest book sale on the West Coast, features over 300,000 books in 50 different categories, as well as DVDs, CDs, books on tape, vinyl, and other forms of media. For the big bargain-hunters out there, if you wait out the sale until Sunday, all books will be only $1!

FILM: This month's Incredibly Strange Picture Show features the zany Zach Galifianakis: Live at the Purple Onion. Filmed in 2005, Galifianakis' performance at SF's famed Purple Onion is said to still be his funniest. The footage of the stage show is accompanied by a tour diary and an interview between Brian Unger and Zach's "twin brother." It's also the Incredibly Strange Picture Show's 5th anniversary, and there will be pre-show entertainment and giveaways with host John Hamilton.

MUSIC: Jazz quartet Yellowjackets are promoting, Lifecycles, their first album in 15 years, which was recorded in collaboration with high-energy guitar virtuoso Mike Stern and received a Grammy nomination. The five players will be shaking up Yoshi's tonight and tomorrow night.

Twenty-four Isabelle Jackson Elementary School students in Elk Grove, near Sacramento, went home on the last day of school last Friday with a DVD that was supposed to contain a year in review of the class. The DVD turned out to be full of inappropriate images involving the teacher, about six seconds of which at least two students watched. The teacher has since contacted all of the students' parents warning them of the DVD and asking them to throw it away. It is unknown whether the teacher still has a job.

A class of 17 juniors and seniors at the Urban School of San Francisco have brought environmental education into the 21st Century with their comprehensive eco-wiki, Greening San Francisco. Currently the site covers six main topics: Environmental justice, Waste reduction, Climate change, Reducing toxins, Alternative fuels, and Water use.

Parents of students in the Alameda School District are split down the middle regarding the district's decision to proceed with a new set of classes aimed at curbing anti-gay bullying. Starting next year, students in kindergarten through fifth grade will take one 45 minute class per year based on the GroundSpark curriculum. Fifth graders will read And Tango Makes Three, the true story of a pair of male penguins at the Central Park Zoo who successfully hatched an egg and raised a chick.

Looking to go deeper in debt while you work toward an increasingly useless degree? Well, look no further than the UC system. Making this the sixth tuition hike in seven years, the UC Regents voted to increase student tuition by 9.3 percent yesterday. (An aside: They also agreed to hire several "new top administrators at eye-popping wages -- UC San Francisco and UC Davis landed new chancellors at annual booties of $450,000 and $400,000, respectively. Wee.) Will this most recent increase help the ailing UC system? No. No, it won't. As Regent Eddie Island of Oakland told the Chron, "I feel like I'm witnessing the death of a great institution ... We ought to pause and say, Where are we going with this? We know this isn't the last student fee increase. Are we giving up on affordability? Are we giving up on access? And what's the effect on diversity?" Let us help: yes, yes, and it's not good. Champagne wishes and hummus dreams, Regents. You bastards. In related news, overseas hackers swiped confidential information belonging to "tens of thousands of students and alumni at UC Berkeley and Mills College" after gaining access to systems at the Cal campus' health services center. Luckily, your tuition is going to pay for the organic wine collection of a transgressive comparative literature professor, not a decent IT team.

With over 26,000 teachers getting pink slips in the mail, the California Teachers Association has organized Pink Friday, "a day of action to protest mass layoffs and drastic cuts to public education." But I don't teach algebra to ungrateful brats all day long, so how can I help, you ask? Like this: 1) Wear pink on Friday, March 13 to show your support for public schools, students and educators; 2) organize or attend an event at a school near you; and 3) call or e-mail your Legislator and tell them that investing in public education is an investment California's future. In related news, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom released 25 percent (about $24 million) from the city's rainy day fund this week. If approved by the the Board of Supervisor, the cash flow would help save the jobs of over 300 teachers.

Mayor Gavin Newsom announced a bold plan today, SF Promise. The idea is that all SF 6th graders who graduate high school will gain admission to San Francisco State University. The partnership between the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD), the City and County of San Francisco (CCSF), and San Francisco State University (SFSU) will also provided financial aid for those who need it. The goals of the plan, according to the press release, "are to increase state university admission eligibility and graduation rates, increase the number of students who receive post-secondary education, and increase the number of students who attend California universities from traditionally underrepresented groups." (Find out more about SF Promise.)

(By Joe Kukura)

If you’re anything like us, you’ll get unnecessarily riled up woot-woot-ing for the Bay Area in any kind of regional representation-structured contest. If there’s a competition and any kind of trophy involved, screw it – we’re down. Add to that the factor that these kids are totally cute as hell with their awful posture and adorable lack of telegenic savvy, and the Scripps National Spelling Bee – the Super Bowl of these things – makes great entertainment.

Is this for real, or one of those ridiculous made-uppy New-York-Times-imagined-it problems? Apparently, the times reported a month ago that in SF, there are some low-income students who would rather starve than accept government-subsidized food. And now, at last, the SF Schools Blog offers a loooooong rebuttal with loads of context. Here's the gist: yeah, it's a problem, it's a problem everywhere, but we already knew about it and we're trying solve it. (The solution: switch to a debit-card system that makes method-of-payment less obvious. Cost to taxpayers: $1 million, though it'll allegedy "pay for itself.")

We just received word, via a former student who has asked to remain anonymous, that New College of California has allegedly lost its accreditation. It should be noted that we have yet to confirm the validity of this letter from either WASC and New College But the full letter that was sent to SFist can be found after the jump.

For as much as everyone pretends to be indie coffee house-loving, Starbucks-hating, people of god -- we're not. Especially when we're lazy. If we're in the financial district and want our half-caff, venti macchiato with a double shot of sugar-free vanilla and only want to walk two steps from our door to get it, so be it. We're going to Starbucks. But NOT, however, on February 26th between the hours of 5:30 to 8:30 PM. All Starbucks across the US will be closed during these hours (local time) to "[Demonstrate] Unprecedented Level of Commitment to Partner (Employee) Coffee Education and Training." At least, that's according to the Starbucks press release.

BeyondChron has a civil point/counter-point debate going on about Yoshi's SF, which opens its doors today. But let's go back a bit, shall we? If you didn't know, San Francisco has the most cheery pockmark on its record: the "Negro removal" period. During this time historic buildings were torn down and black Western Addition residents were shooed out of the city. A movement that "never succeeded in driving all blacks from the Fillmore," but...

By Frances Reade

-- The Pogues: Like most music-taste education, our college roommate got us listening to these guys. And they're one of the few acts that we still dig after all these Britney-influenced years. Kudos, Pogues! Starts tonight at 8 p.m. at the Fillmore; $65.

Harbor seals near the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge are now being studied to determine the effects of such exposure. Researchers hope that this new study will enlighten the scientific world, not just in terms of how toxic chemicals affect harbor seals, but how such chemicals can affect harbor seals and the people who love them, or don't (aka Canadians).

We were super-excited when we got the chance to talk with Alex Ross, the New Yorker's resident classical music critic (and blogger). Ross's writing has profoundly affected the way we think about music and music writing in all its genres and forms, and his twin enthusiasm for new classical music of the 21st century along with his deep love of the profoundly musical Icelandic pixie that is Björk always liven up our weekly periodicals reading list. (Thanks for helping set it up, M.C-!)

Someone told us a story of a famous pianist who believed in bringing culture to the people, and went to a factory in Italy to give a lecture in front of a piano. He started to talk about Schoenberg, and after a few minutes, a voice rose from the audience: "Shut up, and play!" Ok, he said, and sat down at the piano, playing the Schoenberg piece. The voice rose again: "Rather, talk!"

Thank goodness the Department of Homeland Security's on top of all the threats to American freedom -- the New York Times today profiles Nalini Ghuman (at right), a British musicologist and assistant professor at Mills College who hasn't been able to get back to Oakland to teach her classes and work on her book about composer Edward Elgar, because Immigration and Customs refuses to let her back in the country.

Dave Eggers, well-known author and tutoring activist via 826 Valencia and its affiliates, has been awarded a grant from the Heinz Family Foundation. $250,000 smackers.

San Rafael-based Edutopia Magazine, which is brought to us by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, looks to the future in its latest issue, identifying 10 ideas or trends that its experts believe can improve K-12 education. We found them thought provoking, and hope you agree.

Hey, everyone loves a list, right? Especially those ranking institutions of higher learning. The yearly U.S. News & World Report list is out -- any wagers on how local schools did? And, really, how much would it affect your choices? We remember mulling the 1991 list saying "can't get in there, can't get in there, nope, not there either . . ." But it's still fun to see how stuff measures up, we suppose. Unshockingly, Stanford University was high on the list, reaching No. 4 this year, undoubtedly driving the next generation of Azia Kims.

Judith Schaefer's movie, , screened at the Roda Theatre in Berkeley on Tuesday and when the lights went back up, the crowd of mostly senior citizens were on their feet wildly applauding the filmmaker. The gray-haired lady sitting in front of us was shouting, "your movie is a gift! It's a poem!"

The problems with Oakland's University Preparatory Charter Academy (or "Uprep") are mounting, with an anonymous teacher leaking papers to the Chron today that indicated possible grade-changing on official transcripts sent with college application papers. For instance, the teacher gave one student Fs and Ds on his/her work, the report card that went home had Ds and Cs, and the transcript that went to the colleges showed only As and Bs. Teachers also noticed that the names of the classes were changed: for instance, from Math to Math Analysis to Trigonometry on the offical transcript.

Sonoma State University in Rohnert Park,\ already offers an undergrad degree in wine business -- but now the school is expanding its program. Graduate students cam now earn an MBA in Wine Business.

You want to know the best thing about the San Francisco Courtesan Carnival, a "solidarity party that will support labor rights and education funding for erotic service providers"? Their PR is handled by a man whose last name is "Buttner." Hee hee hee!