Youth Radio - Newsroom

The Decade That Was

noah — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 13:45:45 -0600

The Tee’s are by far the crayziest decade to ever hit this planet. Here’s a little look back --posted as both an injectable memesplice and in olfash txt for both Luddites and nostalgia's sake-- at the decade that was and will be (thanks to the continuum slip of 2017!)

December 23, 2012 - The End of The World [As We Knew It]
Turns out the Mayans were right, the world actually ended in a very colorful display of some wonderful pyrotechnics. There were flesh eating unicorns and rabid inanimate objects and renegade mimes for some reason. I think I speak for all of us in saying that was the bombest party ever!!!

December 22, 2012- March 14, 2014- The Great Hangover
Who can forget? Who wants to remember?

August 17, 2014- Rupert Murdoch buys the moon
That’s right; this was the time that Rupert Murdoch went too far. He bought the entire moon under shady circumstances and built a steak cannon capable of launching meat at the planet Earth in a very vexatious fashion.

May 7, 2016- Asteroid impact
After Earth’s collision with Asteroid 2003 QQ47 and traveling through the wormhole that subsequently opened up, we had a pretty epic battle with the hamburger people of the planet Gorboth from the 9th dimension; that was fun. We ended world hunger but unfortunately it had much worse implications for the world’s obesity epidemic.

January 1, 2017- Lady Gaga turns in to a dragon
It made for a great music video but an even better test for the newly developed lasercats! What was even cooler is that she proved that dragon scales are actually somewhat laser resistant.

April 14, 2018- Arnold Schwarzenegger goes back in time
We all knew the governator meant business when he began pursuing a political career, but he took it to the next level by going cyborg and traveling back in time. Unfortunately he never came back…

October 19, 2018- Wigs invade Greece
Due to the advances in Rogaine technology, tupés worldwide rose up in a strike resulting in a widespread occupation of Greece. After their creation of a nation-state, the rogue wigs developed advanced robotic technology and were able to construct an army of robotic giraffes to take over all uninhabited parts of the world which surprisingly went quite unnoticed.

DREAMers Embark On 3,000 Mile Walk From S.F. To D.C.

rgee — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 14:42:54 -0600

The Campaign for an American Dream (CAD) is starting to make some buzz on the West Coast, as four young undocumented residents prepare to walk from San Francisco to Washington D.C., in an attempt to raise awareness along the way about the DREAM Act and Immigration rights.

The DREAM Act is a piece of legislation that would allow undocumented youth to get on a track to citizenship by going to college or being in the military. Many young people find out that they are undocumented years after they have moved to the U.S., and then realize that their pathways to becoming employed or continuing their education are blocked. Jose Antonio Vargas is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who revealed that he was undocumented, and became a spokesperson for the undocumented population. You can watch his statement of support for the Campaign for an American Dream on their website.

The four walkers are between 22 - 26 years old, and from different parts of the U.S. They are converging in California in the next couple of weeks where they will participate in a day of lobbying in Sacramento and a protest at Travis Air Force base. Then they will make their way across the country for an estimated seven months. The walkers depart on March 10 and plan to arrive in D.C. in late October.

According to Jesus Guzman, Chair Emeritus of the CAD Finance Committee, and co-director of DREAM Act Alliance for Sonoma County, the walkers will not be doing the same thing in every city they visit. The campaign is leaving it up to each city to receive the walkers in a unique way. “In Colorado, they want to do work around a for-profit immigration detention center, so the walkers will contribute by holding a demonstration there. It’s up to the individual communities what they want to highlight,” said Guzman.

Guzman said they planned their arrival to coincide with the presidential election momentum, in order to raise awareness about immigration issues as people go to the polls. “Depending on how the elections fall into place--that will determine how we can respond to issues. During election season there’s so much that can happen,” said Guzman.

Stay tuned for an interview with a CAD walker and details on their route.

Will Measuring Creativity In Schools Help Youth Be Workforce Ready?

rgee — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 18:53:34 -0600

Last month, the California State Senate approved a bill to develop a Creativity and Innovation Education Index, designed to measure how schools are fostering creativity among their students. California is just one of several states to implement a law like this, Massachusetts being the first, according to Education Week.

It might seem like a shock that California is concerned with measuring creativity opportunities when the budget for arts classes and music programs has been cut in school districts all over the state in recent years. However, employers and business owners are saying that new applicants to the workforce are not equipped with the creativity and critical-thinking skills required to get hired.

The California Alliance for Arts Education describes the index:

A creativity and innovation index would provide a way for schools to rate their progress in teaching, encouraging and fostering creativity in students. Index scores would be voluntarily compiled by school and district staff from a survey of curricula and teacher reports. It would quantify the opportunities in each school as measured by the availability of classes and before and after-school programs offered by and through school districts that nurture creativity and innovation in students. Examples might include visual and performing arts education classes, debate clubs, science fairs, theatre and dance performances, music concerts, film-making, creative writing, and independent research.

We spoke with Mary Wright, Associate Director for The Conference Board, a business membership and research association, who specializes in the intersection of business and education. She was a leader on a report called, “Are They Really Ready To Work?” in 2006, which identified key skill sets that employers thought were important for their employees to have, and creativity / innovation were among the top five.

We spoke with Wright about the concept of a Creativity Index and how she thinks it could affect the workforce readiness of young people today.

Youth Radio: Explain in a nutshell, the findings of your workforce readiness research with regards to the need for non-academic skills.

Wright: We wanted to understand what business really meant by--new entrants are not workforce ready. We looked at both basic skills, which we took from No Child Left Behind-- the reading, writing, and arithmetic skills, and also asked about the applied skills, like 21st century skills. The applied skills are things around critical thinking, information technology application, teamwork and collaboration, and creativity and innovation. There are about 13 or 14 skill sets we looked at.

It was clear to us that the applied skills were the ones that were considered most important. Certainly, people would argue that math and science develop significantly critical thinking skills. They give you tools to figure out problems. But if you can’t communicate what you just learned or what you just did, you’re not as valuable in the workplace.

It was interesting given the emphasis that people have on STEM [science, mathematics, technology and engineering] skills, and yet, what employers were saying, it wasn’t the math skill that was important, it was the critical thinking skill. That would be true regardless of whether someone was in a STEM career or a retail career.

Youth Radio: How does this research reflect a changing trend in the workforce?

Wright: In my parent’s generation, you started working at the bank, and you were at the bank for 50 years and you retired with your gold watch, and that’s all you did. Today’s generation, you’re not only looking at six different jobs at the bank, but six different careers. You may start in a retail company, and take those skills and go to a manufacturing company, and take those skills and go to a bank, and take those skills and go somewhere else.

The ability to use your knowledge as a set of tools, to be ably to analyze, regardless of the industry or the role you find yourself playing - that seems to be a far more valuable skill set than whether you have the technical skills. There’s a stubbornly high unemployment rate, and people are saying that there’s a huge mismatch between the skills of the people available and the skills of the jobs that are there. That, I think, people are attributing to the decline of technical education, or the fact that people are saying everyone needs a four year degree, I think the data shows that that’s not necessarily true.

Youth Radio: Do businesses and schools deal with creativity in the same way?

Wright: We were curious to see, how is it that creativity is taught, and how is it enhanced. We asked both business executives and school administrators how they were thinking about creativity. Everybody said creativity was very important, but how it is defined was quite different. Businesses said that it was the ability to define the problem, whereas school administrators were saying it was the ability to find the answer.

A lot of businesses have gone out of business because they were solving the wrong problem. The auto industry has solved the wrong problem many times over - maybe they’re building bigger cars but the problem was fuel... We also saw that when we asked schools -- what are the programs that help develop creativity? They said creative writing and arts classes. Yet the majority of those classes are not required, not part of the strict core curriculum, they were an elective.

Now business had a very similar result. We asked, once you have these employees, how do you help develop creativity? They said yes, it’s important, but we don’t require them to take advantage of these things, they’re not required. Neither schools nor businesses are making creativity a requirement of either their employees or their students.

Youth Radio: Do you think creativity indices are a good way to increase the amount of creativity in schools?

Wright: What’s important gets measured. I think that therefore developing some metric by which you can determine - are you making a difference? - is a critical one. Massachusetts and California are two states with big high-tech industries and very interested in making sure there’s a creative nature. If we develop this measure and we think these schools are doing it really well - it allows for inter-state and inter-district sharing about what programs have really helped.

We're hoping to be able to ask, if these are the most creative people in the company, what is their training? What is similar in their background that would suggest that therefore if you did the following six things, you are going to be more successful as a creative person? If schools had some measure that begins to say-- it’s because they had a fabulous science teacher, or project-based learning, or a theater program -- because we don’t have a sense of what is the most significant driver.

Youth Radio: Do you have any concerns about the index?

Wright: There’s always an issue around equity -- if kids are coming from an upper-income area and parents can supplement what kids are exposed to, then you begin to worry about the bias. Is it just the school environment? Or what is happening before and after school that is going to make a difference? I haven’t seen the indices so I don’t know how they’re going to factor in that kind of thing.

There’s always the concern about how inclusive is the data and how are they used -- are they used to really benefit all the kids in the system?

Then there’s the issue of preference... If a kid chooses not to be involved in activities like theater, are they missing out on the opportunities?... If that project-based learning is not used in the traditional classroom, then that child will not be exposed. Then there’s the reverse - just because a kid was in a classroom with project-based learning, does that mean they’re inherently more creative? No.

Youth Radio: Do you see a common goal for businesses and education in terms of workforce readiness?

Wright: We continue to look at the issue around how businesses and schools talk to each other. Schools have always felt that their role is to make that person ready to be an important contributor to society, someone you want to have as a neighbor. We certainly feel that the skill sets involved in being workforce-ready are exactly the same as those of being a good citizen -- you can read, you can write, you can express yourself, you can understand, you can take knowledge from a variety of areas and turn it into something useful. We feel that the bridge between the business world and the education world is there - and it’s something we need to work on strengthening.

Ostracism Turns Young People Off To Physical Activity

rgee — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 16:51:34 -0600

The American Pediatrics Association released results of a study today that seems to indicate that when students are ostracized, they are less inclined to participate in physical activities.

The study included 19 children between the ages of 8 and 12 years old. The first part of the study involved a computer game called Cyberball. Each child was told that they were playing with two other children on the Internet, but the computer actually controlled the other two “players.” One group of students was tossed the ball regularly, but the other group of students was intentionally ignored and not thrown the ball.

After the Cyberball sessions, the children were given the option of using physical activity equipment or doing stationary activities like word searches and reading. The ostracized students spent 41 percent more time on the stationary activities, reports Education Week. In addition, these children reported greater negative feelings, less emotional-control, and without a sense of belonging.

A Shadow Of Acceptance: Growing Up Overweight

denise — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 16:35:48 -0600

The following originally aired on KCBS

By: Dereke Williams

Some days when my knees are giving me a lot of pain I’ll look over at my shadow doing a slow pigeon toed wobble down the street, and I just think to myself how gross and unhealthy I look.

My mom taught me how to love me for me. I remember she once told me, “You’re fat simple as that, and until you’re ready to put in the hard work to change, you might as well be the cutest fat boy in the game.”

Some people in my life worry that if I accept myself the way I am, that it means I don’t want to change, but what they don’t understand is that the only way I can lose weight is to do it from a place of strength, not shame.

I’m accepting myself for who I am now, not what I wish to be or who I may become in the future, keeping in mind that wherever I go, my shadow will be there. Except now when see it, my shadow doesn’t have a negative hold on me. Instead I smile to myself and think, what a fat black beautiful bowlegged young man.

Too Much Temptation

rgee — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 16:59:19 -0600

This story was originally published on L.A. Youth.

Distractions are all around us—Facebook, YouTube, texting, TV. It’s sometimes so overwhelming that it can be hard to focus on homework. So we challenged these teens to do their homework without distractions for three days. They were allowed to take breaks to do things like check their Facebook, go on YouTube, talk to their friends or watch TV, but they couldn’t do those things while doing their homework.

By Moviz Dar 18, Hawthorne HS

I usually come home after school and eat, sleep for one to three hours and then watch videos on YouTube. I promise myself that I’ll start my homework the next hour but it never happens. I do my homework from 9 p.m. until midnight. I knew that starting my homework at 9 was bad because I wasn’t getting all my work done.

On the first day of the challenge, I deactivated my Facebook account and put my phone on silent. My brain was telling me every second that I had to log onto Facebook and reply to text messages I assumed I had. But I was able to resist. I finished my economics homework in half an hour. I usually take two hours. And I finished all of my homework one hour earlier than normal and got eight hours of sleep. Even though I got homework done faster, I felt like I was stuck in a cage and being forced to do it.

So on the last two days I went back to my old habits. I texted, watched YouTube videos and went on Facebook while doing my homework. Because of all the distractions, I stayed up until 1 a.m. I realized that if I want to do my homework fast I need to remove the distractions around me. When the three days were over, I wanted to do my homework without distractions but I was unsuccessful again and again. One day I didn’t even do my homework. I woke up at 4 a.m. and I rushed through it but I didn’t have enough time and I finished only half of it. When my English teacher said, “OK, turn in your homework,” I felt guilty that I let myself procrastinate.

By Jazmine Mendoza 16, Valley Regional HS #5 (San Fernando)

I was excited to do this challenge because I need to learn to stay focused. I do my homework with my computer on because I listen to music. When I get bored I check Facebook or spend an hour listening to new bands on YouTube. When I call a friend for homework help, or to take a break, I end up talking for hours. I was confident the first day. I left my computer and phone on because I wanted to challenge myself by keeping temptations nearby. I felt more focused because I wasn’t thinking about checking my Facebook every five minutes. I spent only three hours doing homework instead of the six to seven hours I usually take. I even had time to read for pleasure before going to bed.

The following day at school I felt better prepared because without distractions, I had fully understood the homework. During the second night I found myself dozing off and getting bored since I was used to going online or calling a friend when my homework got hard. I didn’t want to cave in though, so I dedicated myself to doing portions of my homework for about an hour and then taking five-minute breaks. I didn’t use the breaks to go online though, because I knew that I’d stay on longer than five minutes. Instead I cleaned my room, got a snack or saw what my family was doing. Then I continued my homework more refreshed.

I repeated the same routine the third day, and will try to keep that routine from now on. Spending less time on Facebook made it less important. I knew I wasn’t missing out on much because I could go on later and nothing had changed. It feels good being on the computer less.

For more technology temptation stories, visit L.A. Youth.

Suspended From School: Days Off? Or Days Behind?

rgee — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 18:39:08 -0600

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A group of sixth graders shared their stories with Youth Radio about getting suspended from school, and whether they thought it was a fair and a meaningful punishment. They Skyped with us from their classroom in Oakland, CA.

Listen to their stories above.

Their teacher Ms. M., who preferred her name not be mentioned, shared some thoughts after listening to her students speak. “I’m just surprised at some of the situations that my students have gotten themselves into... I feel like in my classroom these students are very respectful to me, they’re generally not behavior problems. None of these students have been sent to the office by me this year,” she said.

In general, she senses from students that suspension is not seen as a punishment. It’s the opposite. “That definitely is the feeling among kids - suspension is a time to take off or play around, a break from school... It depends on what is going on at home. If you have a parent that cares a lot about their child getting suspended, then the kid is going to be at home doing chores, and doing their homework. Other kids come back to school and say, ‘I was at Six Flags when I was suspended,’ or ‘I was watching tv,’ or ‘I was playing video games when I was suspended,’” she said.

How Can We Lower The Student Drop Out Rate?

rgee — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 11:49:56 -0600

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In last week’s State of the Union address, President Obama proposed something radical, that dropping out of high school no longer be allowed. But that might be complicated. Every school district has tried numerous solutions to the dropout dilemma without success. The problem prompted Russell Rumberger to write a book called Dropping Out: Why Students Drop Out of High School and What Can Be Done About It.

Rumberger is director of the California Dropout Research Project, and he currently serves as provost in the Office of the President at the University of California. He recently talked about his theory that high schools need to promote alternatives to college – and that some people might be better served not getting a higher education at all. KALW's Ben Trefny sat down with Youth Radio’s Robyn Gee to discuss this idea of education.

This story was produced by Youth Radio with support from the New Options Project and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

"Suspension Stories" Brings You Personal Narratives

rgee — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 17:58:59 -0600

Suspension Stories, a youth-led project by the Young Women's Action Team and Project NIA, produced a series of written, audio, and video testimonies about students getting suspended. The project intends to highlight the school-to-prison pipeline and show how school discipline policies often seem premature, too extreme, or unfair to students.

Below, Adeola M. shares her story of getting suspended. If she had been guided to talk out her conflict with her classmate, she says, she would not have missed a week of school, including a test.

Ana Mercado discusses why she thinks schools should be using "restorative justice" methods instead of suspensions. To see how "restorative justice" is working in San Francisco's public schools, check out this article from the Center for Public Integrity.

Suspensions Don't Work, But They're My Only Tool, Says School Counselor

rgee — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 14:19:53 -0600

Over the past thirty years, school discipline tactics have hanged drastically. According to a study out of Texas called, Breaking School Rules, the number of student suspensions in the U.S. increased from 1.7 million in 1974 to 3.3 million in 2006.

Part of the increase is due to legislation, like the Drug Free Schools and Communities Act, and the Gun Free School Zones Act. Both went into effect in the 90's, and schools saw a rise of zero-tolerance discipline policies in schools. However, researchers, educators, and policymakers are looking at the current suspension numbers and seeing problems with the population of students that is hit the hardest by these suspensions.

According to the Texas study, the rate of black students suspended at least once rose from 6 to 15 percent, while the rate of white students suspended rose from 3 to 5 percent.

A recent Washington Post article reports that more than 35,000 students in the Washington suburbs were suspended or expelled from school last year, and more than half of them were black students. In addition, 71 percent of all suspensions for insubordination were given to black students, which means the offenses were more likely to be subjective, as opposed to offenses like being caught with a firearm on campus.

The federal government recently announced the “Supportive School Discipline Initiative” to address the high numbers of suspensions and the “school to prison pipeline,” by ensuring that discipline practices in schools maintain students’ civil rights and keep students in school as much as possible.

Mr. W. is a school counselor at a middle school in Richmond, CA who sees the problem first hand. In 2008, this middle school had a violence-suspension rate of 41 percent. When W. accepted the position, he thought he would be doing academic counseling, but has accepted his role as school disciplinarian. “Honestly, I don’t have time to do both... If kids need to talk to me about personal stuff, sorry I don’t have time.” said W. At the beginning of this school year, there was at least one fight per week, he said.

W. said one of the biggest problems at his school is the recently instituted "Hall Sweep" policy to prevent students from being tardy to class. Students have five minutes to get to each class, and when the bell rings, teachers lock their doors. Any student still in the hallway, is rounded up and brought to the office. Then, the student needs a consequence.

According to W., there is currently only one detention session every week, for an hour and a half on Wednesdays. “For a while I had 40 kids in detention for an hour and a half. Then it happened so frequently, that the detentions would fill up. I was issuing detentions three to four weeks in the future... Like there’s no room in detention this Wednesday or next Wednesday so you have detention January 25, and right now it’s December before winter break,” he said.

W. eventually decided to create his own tardy policy. “I give them a first warning. The second time they get a 45 minute detention, the third time they get an hour and a half detention, and the fourth time it’s a suspension.” A student could easily get suspended for being tardy four times in one day. For every period, it takes W. 30 minutes to issue consequences, call parents, and log the information for the group of tardy students. “It’s just not feasible, I need to get the kids to class,” he said.

At this middle school, 56 percent of the student population is Latino, 36 percent is African American, 7 percent is Asian, and 1 percent is white. In places like Washington, black students are suspended and expelled two to five times more often than white students, and W. sees those trends reflected at his school.

“I’m disciplining the same kids over and over for the same thing and the behavior’s not changing. What do you do then? I keep suspending them--I have to-- I have no choice. But [the students] don’t care about the discipline, they don’t care about the consequences... Sometimes I do feel like kids see suspension as a day off. They get to sleep in, watch tv, play video games,” he said. “Suspension doesn’t work, but it’s the only tool we have.” He mentioned one student in particular that skipped the same class six days in a row. Whittaker suspended him for a day, and the student returned to school and skipped the same class again.

So why keep issuing a consequence that isn’t helping behavior?

“How I look at it, suspension isn’t for the kid, but it’s to get him or her out of school so the teacher can teach. It’s not necessarily a punishment--it’s so the teacher can do their job,” said Whittaker.

One of the major areas of scrutiny in current investigations regarding school discipline is the actual offense that leads to suspension. Many researchers say that minor offenses are included under a larger, more serious category of bad behavior. Things like refusing to take hats and hoods off, talking back to teachers, refusing to move seats, and throwing things can all lead to suspension at his school, where one of the school rules is to follow all reasonable requests. “Those aren’t little things. You’re basically telling an adult no. I could suspend them for that,” said W..

Legally, students can only be suspended for 20 days out of the entire school year before they are considered for expulsion, or placement at a different school. W. said he doesn’t have answers, but ideally, he would like to see teachers implementing their own consequence, and parents getting more involved in the progressive discipline model. “I need help at home in order to do my job here. If they’re not getting disciplined or punished at home for these things then they’re not going to care about it here... I think we should bring back Saturday school, get the parents involved,” he said.

Teachers at this school have volunteered to start instituting a detention system on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which W. thinks will help with progressive discipline, but puts a strain on teachers--many of whom hold their own detentions in their classrooms already.

Healthy School Lunches Have To Taste Good

rgee — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 12:05:18 -0600

When Los Angeles schools tried to go the healthy route with school lunches they hit a snag.

The students flipped--they stopped eating the food. Dennis Barret, L.A. Unified's food services director, told the LA Times that the introduction of the healthy meals was "a disaster." School lunch enlistments fell by 13 percent. Students who were part of the lunch program dropped the healthy food for junk they brought in their backpacks, like chips and soda.

As of last week, the Federal Government is raising nutrition standards for school meals. This new movement will try to ensure that students across the nation receive healthier meals in their cafeteria. But LA already tried this, without success.

LAUSD was off to a good start. They tried to turn the tables on unhealthy lunches and re-do the whole lunch menu, but the real issue is getting the students to enjoy the food, regardless of the health benefits.

I understand how hard it is to convert students into healthy eaters. I worked in the healthy foods department at Youth Radio for two years. My job was to cook for a group of high school students. Each meal I prepared had a healthy spin on it. If we were making Rice-A-Roni, we only used whole wheat rice and noodles. Students enjoyed our food and always asked questions about what they were eating.

Although some students have never eaten some of these dishes in their life, taking small steps helped them learn. Instead of introducing students to quinoa and black-eyed pea salads, L.A. schools should take surveys on what students enjoy eating. Encourage them to learn about healthy eating, and the benefits that come with it.

Not too long ago I didn’t care about eating healthy. My attitude soon changed when I started learning about health and the ingredients that were in our foods. M.S.G was a big eye-opener for me. It started a whole chain reaction, and I started seeking knowledge about the food we eat every day. Just by learning and knowing about additives and high-processed foods, I felt even more comfortable knowing that what I ate was healthy at the same time.

I understand this movement won’t be easy but one way to help the process would be to give L.A. students the opportunity to learn more about why schools are changing their meals and maybe the kids would be more receptive when it comes to eating healthier. Sure--it might take a while for students to eat unknown foods, but introducing them to creative, tasty options would encourage students to try new things and become more aware.

Making Cycling Part of Your Daily Routine

denise — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 15:25:34 -0600

More than 23 million children and adolescents are either obese or overweight, according to a recent study by the Safe Routes to School Project. According to the study, only a third of children are getting the recommended level of 60 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity per day. The project is hoping to reverse those trends by encouraging biking and walking to school. “We try to make it fun and add it to their school routine,” said Nora Cody, Program Director for Alameda County’s Safe Routes to School effort, who has been working with 80 county schools. Cody says you have to redefine exercising for young people to get them on a healthier path.

Youth Radio’s Meles Gebru and Alex Candia are both avid cyclists. Not only has biking become part of their everyday routines, but it’s become part of their identities as well. Check out their top-five cycling tips.

Alex Candia, Youth Radio

Top five tips for being an urban female biker

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5. Riding a bike doesn't mean you have to sacrifice fashion. I suggest wearing leggings, and wedges. Leggings mean your skirt can be as short as you want; wedges are cute, comfy, and won't get stuck in your pedals.

4. Take your date for a ride. My boyfriend and I had our first date on bikes, and we still bike around all the time. It was a major selling point for both of us. It’s fun, spontaneous, and you can still hold hands!

3. Be adventurous: There are so many awesome things to do in the Bay Area that are way more fun on a bike than utilizing other forms of transportation. Plus, you don’t have to worry about parking let alone parking tickets.

2. Know your bicycle friendly routes: As a female biker, having an angry driver yelling profanities at me, or someone obsessively honking at me because they think I’m cute, is not how I want to start my day. I generally avoid these types of confrontations by riding on bike friendly boulevards throughout the East Bay, And YES those routes DO EXIST!

1. Safety: Now, I’m not promoting drunk bicycling, but I’d much prefer heading home from a party or local bar on my bike than to get behind the wheel of a motorized vehicle. Just saying!

Meles Gebru, Youth Radio

Top five tips for customizing a fixie bike

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5. Handles: Customize your bike to fit your biking needs. It’s important to have handle bars to fit the way you ride. My handle bars looks like mini poll bent up on both sides, so i have two ways to ride my bike.

4. A fresh color job: Color says a lot about your bike. My bike frame is red with white wheels and a baby blue tape wrapped around the handle bars.

3. Comfort: When I ride my fixie I want to be seated comfortable, as I roam or speed out. My seat is pretty narrow but it’s perfectly shaped to me.

2. Brakes: Fixie riders are known for speeding on a bike and a number of fixie riders skid and think they don’t need brakes but it’s important in order to avoid collisions. I’ve had my shares of experiences. Safety first, I recommend getting brakes.

1. Make it your own: The freshest personalization you can do, is sticking vinyls and stickers on your bike. You can even put stickers on your wheels. I got TRUE clothing, FTC and AllDayPlay stickers on my wheels. Other bikers change the colors of bike parts with no type of color coordination. But eye catching if you ask me. It gives onlookers an insight of who you are.

Getting Real About Graduating

rgee — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 15:24:19 -0600

This piece was originally published on L.A. Youth.

A new program called the Diploma Project is trying to reduce dropout rates at Los Angeles Unified School District schools. The Diploma Project, which is funded by the federal government, has dropout prevention counselors in six middle schools and six high schools.

The high school counselors find students who have dropped out and work with them to get them back in school. They can either re-enroll at their high school or in a program where they can make up their credits, like adult school, continuation school or independent study.

We talked to students from Fremont and Gardena, two high schools that are part of the Diploma Project, about why they dropped out and what helped them return. They were all thankful for the Diploma Project for helping them get back on track to graduate.

Editor Mike Fricano: Why did you drop out?

Maycoll Arata, 20, Gardena Adult School graduate: I was too busy partying, clubbing, going out and having fun instead of studying and doing homework.

Cindy Ávalos, 18, Alternative Education Work Center (AEWC), an independent study program on the Gardena High campus: When I was in ninth grade I didn’t know it was that important to graduate. I didn’t go to class, I didn’t pay attention at all. In 11th grade I realized it was important and I noticed I wasn’t going to be able to graduate.

Mayra Frias, 19, Gardena HS: For me it was a personal problem … Me and my mom would fight every day. That’s when I decided to drop out, which I did when I was in 11th grade for two months. I started looking for a job and I never found one. Then I decided to come back.

Rosario Franco, 18, Gardena AEWC: Since ninth grade I started ditching and I guess it becomes a habit … Every year I would be like, “I’m going to do better next year” but then the next year I’ll go some days but then I’ll miss school other days and I’ll be like “When I miss out, it’s better.” So I started falling back. My senior year I went for three weeks. I was like, “I’m behind credits, I know I’m not going to graduate. Why go and waste my time?”

Curtis Hess, 19, Gardena Adult School: I dropped out of school because I was kicking it with the wrong crowd, gang bangers.

Abigael Perez-Rodriguez, 18, Gardena AEWC: When I entered ninth grade I started hanging out with the wrong people. I was getting high, drunk. I started ditching more and more. We used to hop on Metro and go to downtown, Hollywood, do whatever we want, drink a couple 40s, have fun. I stopped going to school my senior year.

Brigitte Olguin, 16, Fremont HS: In ninth grade my dad was sick. He was almost dying so all that depression got to me and I missed school. I went with friends to try to feel better. It stopped at 11th [grade] because I got caught. They told me, “Why are you missing school? You have a future to go to.” I don’t want to be a low-life. I want to have a good car, a home. If I do good in school I’ll be the first one to graduate in my family. That motivates me to go to school.

Cynthia Garcia, 16, Fremont HS: I had family issues and then from there I started hanging out with the wrong crowd. I started ditching school. I was doing drugs. It started in eighth grade and it went until 11th.

Mike: How were you able to get away with this for so long? Where were your parents or teachers or truant officer?

Cynthia: Both my parents worked. So they thought I was in school when I really wasn’t.

Mike: But what about if you came home with a bad report card?

Cynthia: I would get the report card. They would ask, “When are the report cards due?” I was like, “I don’t know, probably they have the wrong address.” At that time my dad was an alcoholic so he never really paid attention. My mom was too busy trying to make money to put food on the table for us.

Cindy: I would get home first to get my report card, hide it, throw it away.

Abigael: In ninth grade my grades started being Fs. She [My mom] would be like “What’s going on?” But after a while she got tired.

Mike: Did you have parents who emphasized education?

Abigael: My parents came from a foreign country so they’re always telling me to look for a better opportunity that we have here in the United States but I didn’t listen to them.

Mike: When you were at your lowest point—ditching and done with school—what did you think your futures would be?

Cynthia: My older brother would tell me, “I don’t want to see you like me.” I’d listen but then I’d get a little image of me, like what if in the future I’m going to be a pothead? That would get me down and I would keep doing more drugs.

Brigitte: I would put in my head, “I’ll just go to adult school or continuation later on and I’ll make it through.” So I didn’t worry.

Abigael: I just got lazy.

Rosario: I have always worked with my cousin. She works in the swap meet. They pay you cash so I’ve always had money. I was like, “I could work more days.” I really didn’t focus on school. But now you think about it, you can’t do nothing without a high school diploma. The swap meet is hard, after a while you get tired of it. It’s a job that’s not going to take you nowhere. So I’m like, “I have to go back.”

Maycoll: I used to think life was easy. You just get a job anywhere and you live off that. But now that I’m in the real world and I have a kid to support, I have my wife to support, now that I have a family it’s so hard. You can’t even get the low-paying jobs without a high school diploma. That got me to go back to school.

Mike: What motivated you to make school a priority?

Cynthia: My brother was telling me, “Go back to school because it’s not easy without a high school diploma. I mean, look at me. I can’t even get a job and you’re going to struggle a lot so take life more seriously.” And then he’s like, “Look at our little sister and our little brother, they look up to us. You don’t want them to be like us.” So I said, “Yeah, I need to take this more seriously.”

Abigael: I turned 18 and basically you’ve gotta grow up. It took me a while but I managed to come back to school.

Rosario: I have a younger sister, we’re one year apart. She was doing everything I was doing. I would tell her, “You finish school, stop ditching.” She was like, “How can you motivate me if you dropped out?” I started thinking, “I can’t tell her to do something that I couldn’t even do myself.” My teachers also, Ms. Robinson [in attendance] and Ms. Carmi [a Gardena Diploma Project counselor], they would call me every day. [They’d say,] “You have to go back to school, what are you going to do with yourself?” And then my older sister, she graduated and she goes to UC Riverside. She was like, “It’s not that hard … You have the brains to do it.”

Mayra: I have always pictured myself being a nurse, working with kids with cancer. When I used to hear friends say, I’m a senior already, I’m going to be this, I’m going to graduate, that’s what persuaded me because I didn’t want to stay behind.

Cindy: I’m an only child so I would want my mom to be proud of me. I would want her to be out in the crowd and see me graduate. Mike: How did you get hooked up with the Diploma Project? Rosario: When you drop out, they see how many credits you have and if you’re not that far behind they tell you, you still have the opportunity to get [a diploma]. Ms. Robinson was the one who would tell me, “Go to adult school and get the diploma.” Then Ms. Robinson introduced me to Ms. Carmi and she enrolled me.

Judi Carmi, a Diploma Project counselor at Gardena High: These are six of probably 250 students that I’m working with to try to locate and enroll in a credit recovery program. Once I get them re-enrolled, I check in with them often to make sure they’re staying on track. I invite them in if they’re in the area and I call them a lot.

Curtis: Often, often. Just to make sure … I stay on that track.

Mike: What are some of the things about the Diploma Project program that are making you have more success?

Brigitte: Help from Mr. Jones [a Diploma Project counselor at Fremont High]. He was like, “You could go to a continuation school” and I didn’t know about that.

Rosario: The program is independent study so they give you the work and you turn it in every week. I don’t have to go to school and I’m still getting my credits. [School] seemed boring, just dealing with the teachers for a whole hour, listening to them. Not all teachers teach you something. So you’d be like, “Why be in his class if all he’s doing is letting his students go wild?”

Mike: Why do you think independent study has been a good fit for you?

Cindy: Ms. Carmi calls me often. When she calls me I want to give her good news. So I’ll do my work. Every time I have some good news to give her.

Maycoll: I graduated last month. Everybody’s getting their stuff done. I used to see people getting into fights in the middle of class. It’s a different environment because people are actually serious about their education.

Mike: What do you think could be done differently to have prevented you from dropping out?

Curtis: Nothing could have stopped me from doing what I was doing.

Rosario: In the first month I only went four times. How do you let a student miss out for so long and then when they come back you just admit them like nothing? If you don’t have an excused absence, try to talk to their parents. Students would take it more serious.

Maycoll: Phone calls, voicemails, mail, none of that cuts it. You should get to the point with them like the second time. Start sending people to that person’s house until they finally see the parent, not just the student. Sit down with them and tell them what’s going on.

Mike: What are your goals for the future?

Cynthia: If I graduate, I want to be a social worker. I hope I will be able to help students with staying in school.

Brigitte: My goal is to graduate and work in the morgue.

Curtis: My goal is to be a tattoo artist someday. I’m good at drawing so it’s something to keep me busy, keep me out of trouble.

Rosario: I plan to finish high school and get a job and I guess go to college after.

Mayra: I plan to be a nurse at St. Jude and after that I plan to go to Mexico and work in this program that helps kids who have disorders.

Cindy: I want to get my high school diploma and I want to be a pediatrician.

Maycoll: Get a stable job and finally get to college.

Mike: If you could talk to your former self, what would you have told that dropout?

Cynthia: I would tell them it’s not worth dropping out because in the future you won’t have a good life. Stop ditching and get your life straight.

Mayra: My advice is to stay in school and to not hang out with the wrong crowd. Now I don’t care if I’m by myself. Don’t be with people who you know are going to end up making you or influence you to do what they do.

Cynthia: Don’t let nobody bring you down. If somebody tells you, “You’re not going to make it in high school or in life,” that’s not true. You just gotta put it in your head and think positive, yes I’m going to be able to do this.

Suspension Should Not Be The Only Option

rgee — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 17:31:37 -0600

The video below shows journalist Roland Martin interviewing Judith Browne Dianis, co-director of the Advancement Project, about new data showing that black students are being suspended at higher rates than others. The data comes from a study done by the Yale University Child Study Center.

The study shows that black students, no matter their income receive less attention, harsher punishments, and lower marks in school than white students.

Watching this video made me think about the challenges that I, as well as my siblings, faced in school. There could have been other ways to help us or discipline us, but our schools weren’t aware of them.

Dianis says, “Our schools are not using common sense when it comes to the behavior of children.” I agree 100 percent. There are times when suspension is unnecessary.

My little brother, who is 13 years old, was suspended for five days for play-fighting a block away from his school. He and the other student were having fun after class off-campus, but still got suspended. What happened to calling a child’s parents? Is that method not valuable anymore? I expected someone to call my mama or at least give my brother a warning, but suspension is what they had in mind.

I feel worried for my brother and other black students. They’re becoming part of a static based on skin color. My brother is a bright student so I hope this suspension doesn’t mess up his reputation and cause teachers to look down on him, like Dianis says in the interview.

There are many solutions to disciplining students without suspending them. Counselors play a big role in youth development--so why not use them? There are a lot of students who walk around all day with burdens on their chest; no one understands them and lashing out is the only thing that feels right to them. What they really need is for someone to listen and help them along the way.

Sometimes I think back on my high school days and how absent my mind was from school. I wish I had had counselors who were actually worried or cared that I wasn’t graduating on time. I wished they talked to me more and encouraged me to do better because at that time, that’s all I really needed to hear.

Another suggested solution I feel strongly about is the school and parent partnership. Parents are as responsible as the school when it comes to teaching and developing a child’s behavior. It takes a supportive parent to help a child focus in school. I was a student who didn’t have that, or help from counselors. So I feel strongly about parents and counselors being there and encouraging a student through school.

A Euology Too Soon

rgee — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 15:46:55 -0600

This story was produced by Philly Youth Radio, a project started in response to bullying and violence in Philadelphia schools.

By Luis Lopez

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(download mp3)

Have you ever lost anybody you were close to?

I have.

Recently, my friend Anthony was shot four times over a drug deal gone bad. He didn’t deserve this. Anthony was ten years older than me and he was the guy I would go to if I had a problem. I couldn’t believe that people hated him enough to kill him.

I remember when I was seven, on a hot sunny day, Anthony and I hanging out with the others from the block. They would all come to my house – sitting on the stoop telling jokes. Anthony told the funniest ones. He was the ‘funny man’ of the block. He had voices that at times, were as deep as a movie super villain or as screechy as a cat. People walking by would squint, grin, and laugh.

Today the block I used to live on in North Philly looks deserted, except for dealers lurking for drug fiends. When I visit my uncle, who still lives on the block, I don’t stay outside, I just go straight in. The block isn’t the same ever since Anthony’s death.

But it’s not just my community that changed. My school is also different. To me school feels numb. It’s like time has been frozen. I sit there at my small brown desk and put my head into the comfort of my arms and just replay the good old days in my head.

I want to ask him: Anthony, my friend and brother. Why? I heard that the shooter wanted a single twenty dollar bag of marijuana, but instead, you gave them four five dollar bags. For that, they took your life?

Anthony, I miss you. I miss the laughter you brought into my life, my school, and my neighborhood.

What Now?

rgee — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 15:17:16 -0600

This story was originally published on L.A. Youth.

Author's name not given to protect their identity.

I’ve always worked hard in school because I want to go to college and be successful. But because I’m not a citizen, my hard work could be for nothing. My parents don’t have the money to pay for college and I can’t get federal financial aid because I don’t have a Social Security number. In October, Governor Jerry Brown signed the California Dream Act, which will allow undocumented students like me to get financial help to attend public colleges in California. This made me feel hopeful for my future. However, the state Dream Act doesn’t provide a path to citizenship. Even if I graduate from college, would I have to work in a low-wage job? Will my status prevent me from obtaining my dream job as a journalist?

I think it’s really unfair that I can’t get the same opportunities as a citizen. I grew up here like any other student. Some people say that undocumented immigrants are criminals because they came here illegally. But I don’t consider myself a criminal because it wasn’t my choice to come here. My parents brought me here because they believed they could provide a better education and a better life for me and my sister.

When I was 2 my parents left my older sister and me with my grandma and came to the United States. They were trying to give us a better life than what they had in Mexico. We were living in a small one-room house and my sister and I were sharing a bed with our parents. Their plan was to live in the United States for a few years and then return to Mexico once they made enough to buy a house in Mexico, pay for our education and open a business. But they stayed because they weren’t able to make enough money. We were brought to the United States right before I turned 3 and my sister was 5 because my mother missed us and she couldn’t bear being apart from us. Three years later my little sister was born here and a few years after that my brother was born.

Once I was here for a few years I forgot about Mexico and the United States became my home. I liked McDonalds for the toys in the Happy Meals. One of my favorite things to do was watch cartoons, like Ren & Stimpy, Looney Toons and Animaniacs. I didn’t know English but the TV shows were helping me learn it.

When we were young my mother would tell us to do well in school so we wouldn’t end up like her and my father. I don’t think they understood that attending college was hard if you’re undocumented. They worked as street vendors. They’d wake up at 3 a.m. to prepare the champurrado, a drink like hot chocolate. They’d leave the house at 6 a.m., carrying the champurrado and heavy pots full of tamales. They’d get home at 10 a.m., rest and then prepare for the next day. They always seemed busy buying ingredients and making the tamales. But they still dedicated time to my sister and me. They’d wake us up and get us ready for school. My mom would take us to school with her cart full of tamales.

My mom pushed us to work hard

After I got home from school I would finish my homework and go outside to play with my friends. When my mother saw me playing she’d tell me to come inside and read a book or do extra math problems.She would tell us that nobody’s born smart and we need to study and that’s how you become successful.

I wasn’t aware that I was illegal until fifth grade. We took a trip to Mexico because my aunt was getting married. Coming back, my younger sister got on the plane with our relatives who were born in the United States. My parents had to cross the border illegally and me and my older sister went through the car line with someone my parents knew. They told us it was because we didn’t have the same papers my sister had. We had to pretend we were sleeping. When the Border Patrol agents stopped us and looked inside the car, I felt my heart beating fast, hoping that they wouldn’t ask us questions. I knew that if we got caught we would be sent back to Mexico and we wouldn’t be with our parents. When we got away from San Diego I felt relieved.

Even though that was a scary experience, I never thought that being undocumented would affect me. I just thought it meant that I couldn’t travel to other countries and go back to the United States. I didn’t understand that not having papers meant you aren’t a legal U.S. citizen. I always thought I was a citizen because I was living here.

I started realizing in middle school that being illegal meant you had to be careful or else you’ll get deported. The news would talk about ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) raids at workplaces and how the undocumented workers were deported back to their home countries.

Also in middle school my mom started talking to us about college. She always said that she would be the happiest mother in the world if she could see her children at a university like UCLA or Harvard, which were the schools she’d heard about. I really wanted to go to college because I knew it was important. My mother would say to my older sister and me, “Hopefully Congress will pass the DREAM Act someday and you’ll be a citizen.” I didn’t understand what the DREAM Act was or that being a citizen helped you pay for college.

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How could my family afford college without financial aid?

When my sister started looking at colleges when I was in 10th grade, I’d overhear her and my parents arguing. They saw that Congress wasn’t going to pass the DREAM Act soon so they were trying to persuade her to go to Mexico for college since they didn’t have the money to pay for college in the United States. My parents said, “You won’t be able to get a loan from the government.” My sister argued that she’d be able to get private scholarships. I realized that she couldn’t get financial aid because she was illegal. It confused me since my parents had always told us to work hard and we’d be able to have a better life in the United States, but now they were telling my sister to go to Mexico to pursue a better life.

My sister wanted to be an environmental scientist, which is why she chose Northland College, a small private school in Wisconsin that focuses on environmental science. They offered her $14,000 in scholarships to help her pay the tuition and housing costs, which were about $32,000 a year. They also offered her a job to work at the college but she didn’t get it. My parents assumed it was because she lacked a Social Security number. It seemed unfair because the school had offered her the job and she was relying on it to help her pay for college. It meant my parents had to pay more but they didn’t have that kind of money.

My parents had to pay $1,000 every month but it was difficult and they had to borrow money from friends and my uncle. At the end of my sister’s first year of school, they owed $7,000 but they didn’t know where to get the money. My sister had to return home without getting her report card since my parents didn’t pay the bill.

My parents gave her a decision to make—to pay for her college herself or go to Mexico. She knew that she couldn’t come up with the money because without a Social Security number, she couldn’t get a job. So she went to Mexico to live with our relatives and study there.

I was sad that my sister had left but I wasn’t worrying about what I would do about college because it still seemed far away.

But in 11th grade, people started talking about their dream colleges. I felt it was unfair that I wouldn’t be able to go to college here. My parents pay taxes when they buy food and clothes. I’ve been here my whole life, so why can’t I continue my education in this country? If I go to Mexico I’d feel sad not being close to my family.

When the DREAM Act was introduced in Congress again my mom talked to me about it. She’d watch the news and saw that there was no support for it in Congress. She’d say, “You see what’s happening? This is why you should go to Mexico.” I wanted to stay in the U.S. but I wouldn’t say anything because she seemed right.

I wanted to find out more about the DREAM Act so I Googled it. I learned that it’s a proposed bill in Congress that would allow undocumented students who have been in the United States for at least five years, who graduated from high school or got a GED (the high school equivelancy exam) and don’t have a criminal record, to become legal U.S. residents. They could apply for federal financial aid and work legally. After completing two years of college or military service they could apply for citizenship.

We won’t be a burden if we’re given a chance to succeed

Even though I knew that most of the people in Congress didn’t support the DREAM Act, it was still disappointing that it didn’t get passed. I don’t think that it will cost the country money. It’ll be a boost to our economy because undocumented students will be able to work. They’ll be able to pay taxes and will not be a burden on the government because they can provide for themselves. I understand the people who say that the DREAM Act is helping someone who has broken the law but I don’t agree because I didn’t have a choice to come here.

I felt like my only option was to go to college in Mexico, until this summer when I attended a science research program at USC. A speaker from a low-income family said he got a full ride from Harvard. I thought that only the government gave you money for college. I realized I could receive private aid from a college and not depend on the government. Later, one of my mentors said I could go to a community college, which wouldn’t cost as much, while I waited for the DREAM Act to pass. I decided I would stay in the United States.

But when I told my mother, she brought up the same arguments as always. She said I won’t be able to get a job when I graduate. She told me she’d be heartbroken if she saw me working illegally like my dad. I felt discouraged and scared that I wouldn’t have any other options than to go to Mexico.

When senior year began, I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to stay here but I felt that going to college in the United States was out of reach. How would I pay for college? What would I do after college? But if I go to Mexico, when will I see my family again? Will I be able to return to the United States and work here? In Mexico I hear it’s really dangerous to be a journalist.

Then one Sunday in October I read that Gov. Brown signed the California Dream Act (which is different from the federal DREAM Act). The state Dream Act allows undocumented students to get financial aid from California public colleges. The news was exciting. I felt like the struggles of undocumented students were finally being heard.

Now that the California Dream Act has passed, I’ve decided I’m going to stay here. I told my parents and they told me about a scholarship they had heard about. I felt like they were supporting my decision to stay in the United States for college. I’ve been researching schools to see which ones offer journalism. And I’m hoping that Congress will pass the federal DREAM Act while I’m in college. If they do, undocumented students won’t have to worry as much about how to pay for college and what they’re going to do once they graduate. They’ll be much more motivated to go to college, knowing that the American dream exists for them.

Low Salaries Chase Talent Out Of Teaching, Says Film "American Teacher"

rgee — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 15:00:48 -0600

Robyn Gee, Turnstyle News

A new film on the education circuit offers a new assessment of the answer to America's public education woes. Simply put: our current treatment of the teaching profession is killing all prospect of growth. American Teacher -- which is making its debut in select screening locations around the country -- attempts to emphasize that good teachers in a variety of school settings are the linchpin to improving American schools.

The movie is one component of The Teacher Salary Project, which hopes to document the stories of teachers and assert that teachers are undervalued in American society in terms of compensation. The book, Teachers Have It Easy: The Big Sacrifices and Small Salaries of American Teachers, written by Ninive Calegari, Daniel Moulthrop and Dave Eggers, inspired the making of the film, which was produced by Calegari, Eggers, and Vanessa Roth, and is narrated by Matt Damon.

According to the project’s website, “46 percent of public school teachers leave the profession within the first five years of being in the classroom. Salaries and stress are among the top reasons teachers say they leave.” I became a classroom teacher at age 22, but left the position after two years. As I watched the movie American Teacher, memories of my own teaching experience flooded back -- arriving at school before sunrise and leaving after dark, just to go home and work some more.

Calegari was a classroom teacher in Massachusetts and California. After three years in a Marin school, she left to teach at a charter school in San Francisco. She started working with Dave Eggers, author of A Heartbreaking Work Of A Staggering Genius, to start a literacy center in San Francisco.

The film looks at five stellar teachers from across the country who are revered by their school communities, and what challenges they confront every day to continue teaching. One teacher has two secondary jobs to supplement his teacher salary. Another returns to teaching just six weeks after giving birth, and frantically looks for places to use a breast pump during passing periods. The movie also interviews experts who speak to the lack of support for new teachers, and the disparity between how teachers are treated in America versus other countries. Turnstyle spoke with Calegari about producing the film.

Turnstyle: What was your strategy for tackling the huge issue of teaching?

Calegari: Our strategy is to elevate the teaching profession and shine a light on good and excellent teachers. I think when you are focused on attacking the bottom, bad teachers, even good teachers get offended and feel that it dishonors and denigrates the excellent work that they do on a day-to-day basis, so I think it’s a really important strategy to be positive and think about the excellent work that is happening and try to amplify that, and make a profession that is attractive to college kids. My goal has always been that the teaching profession is so exciting and so attractive that college students would stay up at night and worry about whether they could become a teacher just like they would worry about whether they could get into medical school.

Turnstyle: Were you torn between not wanting to scare people away from joining the teaching profession, and wanting to show some of the harsh realities teachers face?

Calegari: I don’t see the movie as a teacher recruitment tool. We’ve taken the film to teacher training sessions, and it’s a heart-breaking film to watch because … you see and feel the sacrifices people make to be good teachers, and that’s very painful for people going into the profession. You see the financial strain. I’m hoping the film serves as a place for people to come together to have conversations -- to figure out how to shift our culture and realign our priorities. I would say that classroom teachers should be at the top of our list right now. Some people feel even more inspired because I think the film does a good job of showing how critical this job is to our economy and our democracy.

Turnstyle: All of the teachers profiled in the film have very different situations. Could you pick one and tell me why you felt their situation was representative of larger issue in the field of teaching?

Calegari: I taught with Jonathan Dearman at Leadership High School and I witnessed first-hand the magic that he brought to the classroom and to our school community. When he decided to leave Leadership I was physically crushed. In the film, the students are now young successful, engaged adults and they talk about the loss of him leaving, and his influence in their present day lives. In terms of the country, he is a really important person because we know that it’s incredibly challenging to attract and retain black intellectuals, especially men in this profession, which is predominantly white women. We want to make sure that kids see a reflection of themselves in their teachers... Right now our teaching faculties are not as diverse as our student bodies. [Dearman] says in the film that he thought he had enough money saved up to “subsidize his teaching habit.” But when he had his second child, his financial buffer ran out, and he just could not raise a family on a salary of $40,000. At the time when he left, the highest salary you could earn in San Fransisco Unified School District was $71,000. We need to look at models where there is great earning potential at the height of their careers. The figures need to be larger, it’s not charity work.

Turnstyle: Why did you decide to avoid going into depth around the issues of merit-based pay for teachers, and unions?

Calegari: Merit pay is imperfect, but we certainly shine a light on various examples of it, without going into depth. Evaluating teacher effectiveness and being clear on what it takes to support people who are doing a good job, is definitely a piece of the puzzle.

About the union piece, we absolutely left it out on purpose. The whole history of unions and everything about that dynamic could be a whole separate movie. We’ve had heads of unions supporting the film. The movie isn’t in any way anti-union, it’s pro-individual teachers doing an excellent job... We’ll work with anybody who wants to talk about elevating this profession so that excellent teachers can stay. I was a very proud union member, and yet, I was laid off because I was the last-hired. I didn’t think twice about it at the time. But now I think that last-in, first-out is a ludicrous policy.

When I was teaching in Marin, CA I received tenure even in my twenties. I wasn’t sure that the way tenure was set up made a lot of sense. And yet I paid my union dues and I felt really grateful for the support that I had, but I didn’t think it was perfect.

Turnstyle: Was your film in any way, a response to Waiting for Superman?

Calegari: Our film is based on the book that came out in 2005, and [Davis Guggenheim] didn’t start that early. Waiting for Superman didn’t impact our film one way or another. But when I heard Davis Guggenheim had a movie, I did think we were sunk. I thought it meant we would never make it. For the bulk of the movie we had about $232 in the bank. We weren’t receiving these ginormous grants. A lot of people said, ‘No one wants to see a documentary about teachers and teaching.’ But Waiting for Superman proved them wrong! I think our film came out at the perfect time.

In today's world, everyone is looking for the answer to improving public education. The charter school model was highlighted in Davis Guggenheim's movie, Waiting for Superman as an alternative to schools that are bogged down by bureaucracy. American Teacher on the other hand, simply attempts to emphasize that good teachers in a variety of school settings, are the linchpin to improving American schools, but our current treatment of the profession is killing all prospect of growth.

Diane Ravitch Calls Herself A Voice For Teachers In a Cruel Reform Movement

rgee — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 14:52:14 -0600

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Professor Diane Ravitch is a big voice in education policy and a huge critic of No Child Left Behind. But here's the interesting part -- as former Assistant Secretary of Education under President George H. W. Bush, she helped promote the same policies she's now criticizing.

Ravitch's latest book is called, The Death and Life of the Great American School System. In the book, she details why she drastically reversed her position on school reform. While she used to push for testing, charters and privatization, now she's worried these efforts are making things worse and hurting students.

As an education reform veteran, Ravitch can tell you change isn't easy, and it isn't kind. Here are her thoughts on what's wrong with school reform today.

Peer Mediation With A Pencil

rgee — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 12:02:21 -0600

This story was produced by Philly Youth Radio, a project started in response to bullying and violence in Philadelphia schools.

By Shayla Torres

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Violence can be found in something as simple as a No. 2 pencil.

I was called down to the peer-mediation room, where we peer-mediators step in to resolve fights between fellow students. The room had one table in the center, surrounded by four chairs. I sat at the middle of the table and wondered who’d be walking through those doors. And what problem would escort them in.

The door opened with a creek. I stood up - all 4’11’’ of me and saw one girl as big as a line backer, with her white button up shirt torn a bit and scratches ripped across her face. She was brought in by Rico, our school police officer, who left after placing her at one end of the table.

Then a skinny girl walked in, who was at least 5’9’’. Her braids had been yanked out of her head, left and right. Bruises claimed random spaces of her body and her left cheek was puffed up, as if her molars had been pulled out. I could easily see that she had lost the battle. I was kind of relieved when my co-mediator, Christian appeared, because I was no longer alone with them.

I asked my first question: “So girls, why are we here today?” They answered almost in unison: “She stole my pencil.” At that moment, Christian and I looked at each other. “Really, a pencil?” For twenty minutes, they unloaded their rage. I thought we would never get to the root of anything. Then, in the middle of their sage, I imagined:

“Ding Ding Ding. Let’s get ready to rumble! Welcome to Math Class 208, where the classroom champions match up for the fight of the semester! We have the Linebacker pacing on one end of the ring and her opponent standing calm, but assertive. The Line backer strikes first, snatching the pencil from her skinny opponent- who’s a fighter and holds her ground. But the fight gets out of control! The thin one is finally knocked out, unconscious! Ding Ding Ding.”

In the classroom, she really was knocked out by the taller girl. But as the whole story came out, I could see sadness overtake the winner’s face, as she thought about what she had done. And she made what sounded like a sincere apology. Although the smaller girl was still upset, she accepted it.

Christian and I then decided to take it a step further. We came up with an idea. We decided to break the pencil in two. And with that “snap”, everyone laughed. And each girl left with her piece of an olive branch. There are millions of pencils in other schools, which could cause an equal amount of conflict. But it’s better to snap a pencil, than break a bunch of bones and hearts.

Job Search Swag

denise — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 20:56:41 -0600

The following originally aired on KCBS

By: Chris McCoy

The months following graduation have been a precious time for me to reflect on what I want to do with my life. What kind of work should educated young people like me aim for and what wages must we expect entering the work force?

I am not returning to school in the fall for the first time in seventeen years. I don’t have classes to enroll in or textbooks to buy, but pressure is building up for me to move forward and launch my career--whether it be as a poet, public servant, actor or journalist.

Now I’m starting to post my resume online and submit applications to organizations I respect. I’ve been getting myself out there, volunteering for campaigns and media outlets to get more experience and to stay active.

But will all that, I know an undergraduate degree may not immediately translate into a high paying job. During this transitional phase, I’m making sure to keep my job search swag.