October 11, 2012
By Sharon Noguchi

California schools continued their steady gains in achievement, and for the first time more than half of them met the state’s target score, according to California’s annual index of school achievement released Thursday.

As always, Santa Clara, San Mateo and Contra Costa county schools in general outperformed state averages. The statewide numbers offered some encouraging trends: Black and Latino students made greater gains than did white and Asian students but still lag far behind in scores. The scores for the 2011-12 school year are based on standardized tests administered last spring.

But the slew of scores released also highlighted the stark divergence between state and federal scores. Even while more schools are meeting state targets, more of them are missing federal ones. That’s because the state measures year-to-year improvement in achievement, while the federal system looks only at proficiency, or how many children are at or above grade level. And its demands for the proportion of students expected to meet that benchmark rise steeply every year. For 2011-12, about 78 percent of students had to test proficient in math and English.

By the standards of the No Child Left Behind Act, only 26 percent of California schools met federal targets. That’s a drop from 35 percent last year, largely because that target was raised by 11 percentage points last year.

To read more.

October 9, 2012
By Lisa Hewitt

“If we can expose more young people to the business sector, we can inspire more people to be entrepreneurs.”-Jose Corona

Jose Corona, the CEO of Inner City Advisors (ICA), a non-profit serving the entire Bay Area, strives to create locally-based jobs. From an early age Jose had a passion for entrepreneurship. His father, a strawberry grower in Watsonville, CA, demonstrated the importance of community-based businesses as a tool to aid the local economy.  Before venturing into non-profit work, Jose worked in the corporate world for several years, learning operation and management skills. Marrying practical business skills and a passion for community development, Jose joined Inner City Advisors in 2004.

By providing entrepreneurship education, management consulting and advisory services, and capital investment into socially responsible entrepreneurs, ICA seeks to aid companies in their efforts to employ populations with higher barriers to employment. Jose explains, “by higher barriers to employment, we mean, lower educational attainment levels, English as a second language learners, formally incarcerated and aged-out foster youth. We try to connect them to the right workforce partners.” ICA’s mission mandates that they take on companies that are in the position to create a substantial number of jobs. Jose adds, “they have to have a social responsibility component to their business model. So it can either be environmental or it could be through supporting education. It has to be a core value or their business model. It can’t be something that all the sudden they instituted a recycling program and all the sudden they’re green and responsible. It has to be core, as part of their core model. So it has to be from deep down in their values.”

ICA works primarily with companies, but over the past couple of years, they’ve found that they need to be more intentional with their companies, specifically connecting them to the workforce. “Companies are coming back to us and asking, ‘Well we want to hire, from the populations you care about. Can you help us get to those populations?” Jose sees where ICA has grown in the last few years and where it would like to extend its reach in the future. “We’ve started to think about how ICA can be more thoughtful and really create some strategic alliances with some existing work force development partners. So we don’t have to create another workforce development program, but work with ones that are working out there; connecting their populations and their clients with the jobs that are being created through our companies.”

Jose sees the importance in engaging and working with young people, specifically those living in moderate to low-income households and emancipated youth. “I think for me personally, and as an organization, I think it’s critical that we engage youth in the work force. The whole discussion right now around job creation, there’s a lot of rhetoric about it, and it typically focuses on the adult that are unemployed and don’t have jobs. Too often, I think especially now, the youths are often overlooked as part of that unemployment figure. They focus on the adults that don’t have jobs or they lost jobs, but what about the youth that are up-in-coming and are going to be that next generation of work force with the jobs that we’re creating? For us it has become a critical population. How do we work with not only our companies, but with ICA ourselves to provide these job opportunities for the youth…from high school, undergrad, to grad school students to become engaged in projects or internships with ICA, and engage our companies to actually invest in the youth?” One means is through strong community outreach.

Jose believes the missions of ICA and KQED are the same, “KQED is hugely inline with our mission. [KQED adds] value to communities through information, [and by] educating communities. We try to do the same thing. We try to educate our companies on how to be better, more active and committed community members.”  KQED caters to an audience that might not know about ICA, but cares about solving the same issues they do.

If you’re interested in getting involved with ICA please visit: http://innercityadvisors.org/

Jose attending the Oakland Youth Friendly Business Awards.

San Francisco Chronicle
September 4, 2012
Written by Jill Tucker

In the first hour of the first day of school Tuesday, the sixth-grade Oakland boy was sure he was in trouble for goofing off.

His teacher, Peter Wilson, had stopped his lesson in mid-sentence and turned his attention to the African American preteen, who now wore an uh-oh expression as he braced for a rebuke.

“Did you eat breakfast this morning?” Wilson asked quietly as the confused boy shook his head no. “Your actions are telling me you’re hungry.”

The teacher, also African American, then promised to bring fruit and granola bars the next day and returned to teaching. The boy’s behavior immediately improved.

That might not have been the result at other Oakland middle schools, where a third of black males were suspended at least once last year.

But at the 100 Black Men Community School, a new all-male public charter school, educators and organizers say they refuse to accept those odds – or any of the other statistics associated with black boys that include higher dropout rates, lower test scores and disproportionate placement in special education programs.

The school, started and financially supported by the Bay Area chapter of the 100 Black Men nonprofit organization, is open to all male students, but it was created specifically for issues facing black boys – including difficult family lives, street culture, community violence and lack of male role models outside professional sports and the music industry.

“We know our children can perform as well as any other children,” said Dr. Mark Alexander, an epidemiologist and chairman of the board for the local 100 Black Men. “We’re going to create a culture that hopefully will be stronger than the streets.”

Read More>>

Originally aired August 31, 2012

A state bill overhauling teacher evaluations, which was set to be voted on by the Legislature today, has been withdrawn. AB-5 would have made test scores optional in assessing teachers. We’ll discuss the controversy the bill has stirred up in Sacramento, and the broader issue of teacher evaluations.

Listen in>>

Mind/Shift Blog
August 3, 2012
Written By Almetria Vaba

Summer can be a great opportunity to leverage a child’s interest in specific subjects, like science or history, with their fascination for digital games. PBS Learning Media, launched a year ago, has a robust collection of free interactive games to experiment, manipulate, and investigate.

Read More>>

Video streaming by Ustream

CBS News
June 13, 2012

Actor Mark Wahlberg is returning to school later this month to study for his high school diploma.

The star quit school at the age of 13 and, after a stint behind bars for assault, he became a model and pop star before making it in Hollywood.

Last year, the Massachusetts-born Wahlberg admitted he was eager to go back to school so he can become a better role model for his children – and the actor has now enrolled in an online course to complete his education.

He tells David Letterman, “I am going back now. They have this new program in Massachusetts now where you can actually take the courses online, so I’m starting this month; I’m gonna go and get my high school diploma.”

Wahlberg admits he is “a little nervous” at the prospect of returning to his school books, but he is determined to pass with flying colors – and he’s hoping to take advantage of his spare time in between filming movies so he can speed through the tests and graduate within months.

He says, “It’s an actual diploma, so I gotta take up all the courses that I missed and I’m a little nervous, but … I have a lot of down time on sets and in trailers so I just wanna blast through (the course). Hopefully be able to do it (graduate) in six to eight months.”

Wahlberg’s kids aren’t the only reason behind his desire to complete school. He feels guilty serving as the spokesman for Taco Bell’s Graduate To Go program, which provides support to at-risk students.

He adds, “They asked me to do this and I was like, ‘Dude, I never graduated, why would you pick me to do this?’”

And Wahlberg has his sights set on another type of studies once he passes his high school exams.

He says, “I would love to, at some point, go to film school.”