“This spring — as federal prosecutors announced charges against wealthy Californians, who paid bribes to get their kids into elite universities — a poor kid from a poor California town faced her own dilemma: How could she help others go to college?
Fabiola Moreno Ruelas, an 18-year-old from the Salinas Valley town of Gonzales, was perhaps California’s most unlikely philanthropist. She had suffered much of the worst of California, from the deportation of her father, to an auto accident, to her family’s eviction from their home.Fabiola received $29,000 on her 18th birthday, she knew she didn’t want to spend it on herself.
This is a simple story about a small, new scholarship program. It’s also a timely fable about the real meaning of poverty and community, and the abundance of spirit that can spin bad luck into good. It might even be considered an updating of another Salinas Valley child, John Steinbeck, who advised: “If you’re in trouble or hurt or need—go to poor people. They’re the only ones that’ll help—the only ones.”..”
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“…Among those dreams is to vanquish the steep decline in underrepresented groups — black, Latino and Native American students — since 1996, when voters approved Proposition 209 and stopped statefunded schools from considering ethnicity in admissions.
Before then, black students, for example, made up 7% of freshmen admitted to UC Berkeley from California. By 1998, just 3% of instate admissions went to black students. This year, the figure stood at 4%, or 391 of the 9,634 California high school seniors admitted.
Overall, 26% of California students admitted to the freshman class this year were underrepresented groups: 2,091 Latino, 391 black, and 66 Native American students, about the same as last year.
UC Berkeley is not the most selective campus in the system (UCLA is). Yet no UC campus has a lower ratio of underrepresented groups.
“I know that some members of our community feel we talk a good game about improving diversity, but haven’t backed up our words with appropriate actions,” Christ said in December as she unveiled her Undergraduate Student Diversity Project. She cited Prop. 209, but said: “We cannot and will not use that as an excuse.”
One of the project’s goals is to become a “HispanicServing Institution” within the next decade, a designation that opens the door to federal grants. But overall, the plan calls for better ways to recruit and enroll far more people of color…”
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“…More than 2 million high school graduates begin college every year. Yet only 60 percent of four-year college students finish their degree within six years, and less than 40 percent of community college students graduate or transfer to four-year institutions. UC Berkeley professor David Kirp, who details these issues in his latest book “The College Dropout Scandal,” believes colleges a…”
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“…California’s proposed ethnic studies curriculum “falls short and needs to be substantially redesigned,” said state education leaders as more ethnic organizations called for revisions Tuesday.
Earlier, the draft sparked opposition among many Jewish groups, who have been joined by organizations representing Armenians, Greeks, Hindus and Koreans in calling for changes.
The draft curriculum is being developed as state lawmakers are poised to make ethnic studies a graduation requirement in high schools.
But the draft did not meet the goals to be “accurate…”
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