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| 5/25 |
| 2004/9/24-25 [Politics/Domestic/California, Politics/Domestic/California/Prop] UID:33742 Activity:very high |
9/24 I am annoyed by the Chron's sloppy reporting on the UC admission
GPA increase. http://csua.org/u/971
In one paragraph, they talk about "4900 fewer students in the
eligibility pool". In another paragraph, they talk about the
smaller number of each racial group who would be admitted, but
they do this trick that confuses members of the eligibility
pool with the students actually admitted. (I imagine not that
many 2.8 GPA students were admitted into UCB.) What I really
want to know is how the policy would actually affect admissions,
say by looking at admission statistics of the last several years.
But the Chron deliberately, lazily, or misleadingly does not
provide that information. Does anyone know?
\_ I was admitted with a 2.8 highschool gpa. I agree that it's
probably rare. There were also minimum SAT score requirements
which were higher the farther your gpa was below 3.0, iirc.
\_ You mean "the Chron's sloppy reporting." period.
\_ I am not usually bothered by the Chron since I use other
news sources most of the time. Thinking about it more
though, I am somewhat worried that there are people who
depend on it for their primary "in depth" news source.
\_ I don't understand. If conditions are bad at your school,
shouldn't it be easier to get a high GPA?
\_ Easier given the same amount of effort, but if you've ever
been to a bad school you'd understand why this is not
necessarily true. Lots of kids are trying to survive, not
get a high GPA.
\_ Generally those kids aren't too worried about going
to a UC either.
\_ Which is the sad part, because they should be. To
compare Beverly Hills High to Crenshaw High in terms
of GPA is silly. It's probably *harder* to get a high
GPA at a place like Crenshaw, despite less
competition.
\_ I agree with you there. Which is why we need to
fix the schools, not make it easier to get into
college. Then it's already too late.
\_ What's that? The public schools are broken?
But ... how can that be? Aren't they overseen
by the ALMIGHTY STATE? WHAT WENT WRONG? It
must be the greedy private interests that fucked
up our schools!
\_ In fact it was. Prop 13.
\_ BWAHAHAHA!
\_ Not Prop 13. Check out:
http://makeashorterlink.com/?A18D12E59
[disguised wingnut link]
\_ Read:
http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/R_1003HRR.pdf
"Despite Proposition 13 and other limitations,
state and local government spending in
California in in line with spending in other
states. In 1999-2000, state and local
government spending per capita in California
exceed the average of all other states by 9%."
The lack of tax money is not a problem. What
is a problem is how we choose to spend it.
\_ is that adjusted for things like local
cost of materials/cost of living?
\_ Doesn't look like it. Nor the teachers'
salaries, for that matter.
\_ Ah, but what's spending as % of GDP?
\_ California had good public schools before
Prop 13. I am old enough to remember.
\_ And free junior colleges. We REALLY
need to reexamine.
\_ And CA ranks near the bottom of
the US in state spending per student
\_ I don't think most people are
against spending more on
schools, if there was any
chance of it getting better.
Have you seen the schools?
They're run my complete
morons!
\_ Have you considered working in
the schools? It's terrible! The
pay is shit, the hours are long
and you have medeling from nosy
parents and a school-board run
by junior politicians. It's no
wonder they can't attract good
people!
\_ Wow... how can this
travesty happen with a
STATE-RUN INSTITUTION?
Surely, there must have
been some sort of shadowy
special-interest involvement
from greedy multinational
corporations that caused
this!
\_ Okay, think about it
this way. How often have
you received good service
at a Denny's, or some
shop at the mall, or
first level tech support
from a big company. If
you don't pay enough,
the good people won't
stick around "for the
love of it."
\_ It is not relevant that CA had good
schools before Prop 13. CA has plenty
of tax revenue. The reason CA spends
less on education is because we spend
a smaller % of tax revenue on
education (22% for CA versus 25%
elsewhere). Read the PPIC article. Prop
13 is just a scapegoat. In the 1970s
sale tax was 3% and houses cost $35K
(i.e. property values far outstripped
inflation). More taxes is not the
answer.
\_ What does California spend it tax
money on then? I am genuninly
curious. Do you have a reference?
\_ Yes. THE LINK ABOVE TO PPIC says
that. If you want to know
everything broken down look here:
http://makeashorterlink.com/?Q25E25F59
BTW, CA has the highest paid
teachers in the nation.
\_ they make TWO hunks of dirt a day!
\_ http://www.edsource.org/sch_ca_us_pupil_xpn.cfm
California lags far behind the rest of the
nation in per pupil expenditures.
\_ Try looking at: Serrano v. Priest |
| 5/25 |
|
| csua.org/u/971 -> sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/09/24/BAGQP8TQAH1.DTL Click to View graphical line Students hoping to enter the University of California in 2007 will need at least a B average instead of a B-minus, the UC regents decided Thursday over the objections of critics who predicted enrollment will become more white and wealthy than it is today. The regents' 14-6 vote raised the required grade-point average from 28 to 30, on a 40 scale. The higher threshold is intended to shrink the pool of eligible students from 13 percent to 128 percent of the public high school graduating class -- a figure closer to the 125 percent originally set by the state's Master Plan for Higher Education in 1960. "Restricting eligibility is excruciating," said UC President Robert Dynes, who presented the plan to his fellow regents. Most of the regents agreed, referring in near-reverent terms to the Master Plan that has helped the university system maintain its enviably high standards for more than 40 years. But it was money that cinched the decision for many of them, they acknowledged, noting that the state bases UC's funding on Master Plan specifications. "We have a fiduciary responsibility to this university," said Regent Norman Pattiz. Opponents -- including Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuez, state schools chief Jack O'Connell and Lt. Cruz Bustamante, all regents -- argued that the Master Plan's limits on eligibility had been set in an era when attending UC was less a crucial stepping stone to good jobs and the middle class than it is today. And the fact that more students are eligible for UC despite sometimes difficult conditions at their schools "is not something to mourn, but to celebrate," O'Connell said. The regents held their meeting at UCSF's Laurel Heights campus. Their vote was the second time they had raised eligibility requirements this year. In July, the regents toughened the kinds of courses that will be used to calculate grade-point average, and they made other technical changes to shrink the pool of eligible students from 144 to 13 percent of the high school graduating class. That is expected to translate to 4,900 fewer students in the eligibility pool from the 48,400 who were eligible last year, according to a study commissioned by the faculty Academic Senate. Thursday's change in the grade-point average is expected to shave off an additional 750 eligible students, beginning three years from now. In all, the combined changes are calculated to admit up to 23 percent fewer African Americans (340 students), 14 percent fewer Latinos (1,060 students), 11 percent fewer whites (2,630 students), and 10 percent fewer Asian Americans (1,460 students). The numbers outraged students from UC campuses all over California, dozens of whom showed up to lobby the regents with speeches that were by turns eloquent, angry and even tearful. "We understand that you want UC to have more prestige -- but prestige comes when more students are served, not less," said Lakshmi Sridaran of UC Berkeley as students snapped their fingers in a soft chorus of support. Like many speakers, Linda Salinas of UC Berkeley attacked the quality of the research on which the regents based their decision. She said the research did not provide numbers precise enough to know for sure if the university was meeting the admission figures set forth in the Master Plan. Raising the required grade-point average now, she said, could unwittingly bar thousands of qualified students. "You're putting people's lives in danger based on faulty, sloppy, cheap research," Salinas said. Allende Palma-Saracho of UCLA said the downward spiral of eligible African American and Latino students was nothing short of a crisis. "You should be thinking about how we can bring more students of color in, " he admonished the board. Regent Ward Connerly, the target of many of the students' bitterest wrath, was absent. Connerly wrote Proposition 209, the voter-approved anti- affirmative action law, and many students wore stickers reading "Connerly Out Now." They vowed to return to the regents' next meeting in November. "We'll be back," said Peter Gee, a UC Berkeley student majoring in rhetoric. |
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| makeashorterlink.com/?Q25E25F59 Make A Shorter Link: It's not long now! About | Help | Options | Credits Make a shorter link! If that doesn't look like something you would want to do then link back to our home page or go to another page now. Copyright The PANTS Collective. A Useful Production. Contact us. |
| www.edsource.org/sch_ca_us_pupil_xpn.cfm California behind US average in per-pupil expenditures August 2002 From the 1970s to the late 1990s, per-pupil expenditures in California lost ground compared to the national average. That fact, combined with the high cost of living in California, has meant that the states public schools have had less money to work with than the majority of their counterparts, particularly in the nations other industrial states. |