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Few things are as of much interest to parents of children who will soon be entering elementary, middle or high school then how students are actually assigned to schools. In San Francisco we have had a system of family-ranked preference, called “school choice,” combined with a lottery based on socioeconomic factors for those schools receiving more requests than available openings. That system, known as the “Diversity Index,” was an effort to accommodate individual preferences while simultaneou...

Note: The intended purpose of this piece is to help various activist communities in Santa Cruz, and the UC system at large, better understand Chancellor Denice Denton’s role at the University, and to spark a community conversation about how we will move forward for the better. I have specifically chosen not to speculate about the circumstances surrounding Denton’s death, focusing instead on discussing her achievements, contextualizing her criticism, and analyzing the potential for radical soc...

The safeguards of financial accountability got bypassed to approve a "gift" that transfers the expenses of a corporate-philanthropic advertising rag to public funding. A publication that solicits for the corporate interests of Friends & Foundation was approved by "friendly" supervisors in the "wrong" committee. This is a little pearl of a controversy that shows just how shallow the protections of public review really are. This is why privatization always wins. This is what corporate phila...

What are people's thoughts about the suicide of Denice Denton?...

Segment from The Indynewswire Show covering June 6th student demo for diversity in student and faculty retention at UCSC campus. 20:33...

It's official. Today is the last day of the school year and most of us are breathing a sigh of relief. This was a tough one. Paired with continued successes throughout classrooms all over the City was enough heartbreak for all of us to have an ample portion. We all need and would like a bit of a summer vacation from the challenges around us. But, the upcoming year is already too packed with significant issues for us not to take advantage of the relative quiet of these interim months to become...

Polynesian youth from the Bay Area and Southern California attended the Annual Retreat at South Lake Tahoe and came out with flying colors. It was awe inspiring to see our beloved Polynesian youth shine when they spoke, in the dances they performed, the sports they played and the way they all behaved. Kudos to the Mentors and the Chaperones for doing such a wonderful job....

On June 7th, UC Santa Cruz students concerned about their missing journalism program asked questions of Bill Ladusaw, UCSC's Vice Provost and Dean for Undergraduate Education. Ladusaw seemed to place blame on UCSC's faculty for the loss of the journalism program, while dodging questions about the misappropriation of funds at the administrative level, including Chancellor Denice Denton's extravagant dog-run. Ladusaw encouraged students to seek support from faculty members and the academic sena...

On Tuesday, June 6, coalitions of students and workers charged UCSC with institutional racism and sexism, declaring that seemingly passive and apolitical administrative practices and policies as well as subtle forms of racism and sexism have the effects of producing inequality, particularly for communities of color. Students and workers demanded affirmative diversity, arguing that for diversity not to be empty rhetoric, UCSC would need to provide infrastructural support for student initated o...

Ms. Luz Cardona, a Migrant Education youth counselor at Vaca High in Vacaville, reported this week that sometime on Friday (June 2) afternoon a 16 year-old migrant youth was beaten while in the bathroom severely enough to be attended by a physician, by some six anglo youths....