Education Quotas (2 of 3):
California Older News

California (state):  Teacher Tests Do NOT Racially Discriminate!  (08/25/99)
          "Last month, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the State of California is not in violation of federal civil-rights statutes by testing prospective public school teachers.

          "According to a July 14 Los Angeles Times article, eight unsuccessful test-takers, and groups representing minority teachers, challenged the legality of the California Basic Education Skills Test (CBEST), charging it discriminates against minorities. Statistics presented during the litigation showed that 80 percent of whites passed the test the first time, compared to 38 percent for blacks, 49 percent for Mexican-Americans and 60 percent for Asian-Americans.

          "CBEST is not rocket science, especially for a college graduate. A multiple choice question on the math portion asked: A school district is proposing a 5 percent increase in the number of days in a school year. Currently there are 180 days in a school year. How long would a school year be with the proposed increase? a. 181 days, b. 183 days, c. 185 days, d. 189 days or e. 270 days.

          "One would expect that an eighth-grader, surely a 10th-grader, would have mastered most of the material on California's teacher test.

          "It's disgraceful that people who want to teach our young people have not mastered eighth- and 10th-grade reading, writing and arithmetic. What's worse is they sue the state after having failed the test. I'd go hide in a corner."   (WorldNetDaily 08/25/99 by Walter E. Williams)
[link http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_williams/19990825_xcwwi_news_from_.shtml ]

California (UC System):   The Class of Prop. 209 (05/02/99)
          "Ending affirmative action on campus has had many fewer nightmarish effects in California than you might have thought from the initial returns. Many, though scarcely all, of the minority students who didn't get in to Berkeley or U.C.L.A. the first year after Prop. 209 was passed enrolled instead at one of the less selective U.C. campuses, including Irvine, Santa Cruz and Riverside -- a phenomenon known in the affirmative action world as "cascading."

          "What's more, thanks to some deft fiddling with admissions criteria, Berkeley found that the zero-sum calculus was not quite as inexorable as it seemed. In early April, the admissions office announced that Berkeley had admitted 30 percent more minority students than it had the year before. Apparently it takes a year to get the fiddling right, since Boalt Hall, Berkeley's law school, experienced a comparable jump in its second post-preference entering class as well.

          "Finally, ending affirmative action has had one unpublicized and profoundly desirable consequence: it has forced the university to try to expand the pool of eligible minority students. Outreach programs like the one underwritten by Proposition 3 have proliferated; the State Legislature authorized $38.5 million for such efforts last year and has required the public schools to spend an additional $31 million on similar initiatives.

          "U.C. campuses are now reaching down into the high schools, the junior highs and even the elementary schools to help minority students achieve the kind of academic record that will make them eligible for admission, thus raising the possibility that diversity without preferences will someday prove to be more than a fond hope. Academics and administrators throughout the system admit that the university would never have shouldered this burden had it not been for the elimination of affirmative action; and many say that the price is worth paying. As Saul Geiser, head of student academic services for the U.C. system, says: "California has brought this whole new thing to the country with Proposition 209. Maybe we can be the ones who begin to show what's on the other side."  (New York Times Magazine 05/02/99 by James Traub)
[link http://www.nytimes.com/library/magazine/home/19990502mag-traub.html ]

California (UC System):   Post Prop 209 Admissions Did NOT Exclude Minorities (04/16/99)
          "The admissions to the UC Medical Schools at San Francisco, Davis and Los Angeles are more race based now than they were before California voters approved a constitutional amendment to ban racial preferences! It appears that enforcement of the amendment will have to be done through the courts. Surely, someone who was denied entrance due to racial preferences will sue the Admissions Director and UC for violating their right to equal access under the law. In April such a Lawsuit was settled for $2.75 million, where a CSU San Francisco lecturer was denied promotion under a racial preference system."  (Jerry Cook 04/16/99 UC admissions data)
[link http://www.acusd.edu/~e_cook/ ]

California (UC System):   The Sky Did NOT Fall After Prop. 209!  (posted 04/08/99 - no link)
          Washington Times headline "Trashing the quotas, not the minorities" -- "A funny thing happened to California's celebrated university system on the way to desolation and destruction, wrack, ruin and ignorance. What it was, as it turns out, was nothing very much.

          "When the university system, under the prodding of a statewide referendum, abandoned racial discrimination as a formula for the admission of students, the conventional wisdom among the conventional liberals was that minority students could be permanently shut out of the universities. Without the crutch of affirmative action few of them could compete with whites [as the racially condescending liberal philosophy maintains].

          "The final admission figures for 1998-99 were tallied last week and, surprise, none of the bad stuff happened. The combined number of blacks, Latinos and American Indians admitted to the eight undergraduate campuses of the University of California system has returned, almost, to the level of 1997, when the system of racial quotas --never called that, of course -- controlled who got in and who didn't."  (Washington Times by Wesley Pruden, editor in chief)
[no link]

California (Oakland):  Put a stop to bilingual education? Maņana!  (04/05/99)
          "First graders in Angela Allen's class at Manzanita Elementary School here learn their numbers from a brightly colored banner. On it, the words uno, dos, tres are printed under the numerals 1, 2, and 3. Alphabet charts lining the classroom walls remind students that A is for amigo, B for bueno, and C for casa. Kids take turns reading aloud from essays they've written in their native Spanish.

          "Despite the broken heating system, Allen's classroom is warm and lively. But the emphasis on Spanish seems a far cry from what California voters had in mind last June when they resoundingly passed Proposition 227, a controversial initiative intended to end bilingual education. The measure says that "all children in California public schools shall be taught English by being taught in English." Prop. 227 requires non-English-speaking students to take classes in which "nearly all" instruction is in English, taught at a slower pace. The theory goes that the kids will be fluent enough after a year in English "immersion" programs to switch into regular classes.

          "English sprinkling. But Prop. 227 hasn't been the death knell that both fans and foes predicted. Many students are learning far more in English than in the past. But tens of thousands of others, like Allen's pupils, still study reading, writing, math, and science in Spanish, the native language of 80 percent of California's 1.4 million schoolchildren with limited English skills. Those classes are accompanied by an hour or so of daily English lessons. "The idea is that while they're learning English, they shouldn't be stopped from learning other subjects," says Allen, summing up the theory behind bilingual ed.

          "How do schools–and parents–avoid the new provision [Prop 227 requires mainstreaming of foreign-born students into English Language]?  Parents can request waivers to allow their children to enroll in traditional bilingual classes. Ron Unz, a software entrepreneur who sponsored Prop. 227, complained last fall that many districts were encouraging Hispanic parents to seek waivers."  (U.S. News, 04/05/99, by Ben Wildavsky)
[link http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/990405/5engl.htm ]

California (Berkley):  Cal chancellor won't meet with minority protesters  (05/04/99 - dead link)
          BERKELEY -- "UC-Berkeley Chancellor Robert Berdahl said Monday he will not negotiate with a group of students waging a hunger strike on campus to protest what they say is inadequate funding for the ethnic studies department.  'The allocation of resources within the university is not subject to negotiation in the street,' he added."

          "Roughly 100 student protesters, including the fasters, have been camping out since Friday, demanding more teachers and funding for ethnic studies.  Berdahl said he is "extremely concerned" about the health of the students, but won't discuss department funding with protesters."

          " 'There is nothing more I can or will do,' said Berdahl, speaking at an afternoon news conference. He called the conference after students and some ethnic studies faculty members rejected a proposal he and other teachers worked out over the weekend."  (Contra Costa Times 05/04/99 by Kate Darby Rauch)
[former link *http://www.hotcoco.com/news/eastbay/ebaystories/mpr03233.htm]

California (Berkley):  State set to fawn over minority students  (03/24/99 - dead link)
          BERKELEY -- "Minority students offered a seat at UC-Berkeley next fall will get phone calls encouraging them to take it, and many of them will be invited to the homes of top administrators and alumni who will urge them to choose Cal.  University officials hope the personal touch of an unprecedented recruiting drive will improve diversity and persuade top minority students to attend UC-Berkeley.

          "We want to make sure there is no question in the minds of these students that we want them here at Berkeley," said Chancellor Robert Berdahl. "Our goal is that, through this extraordinary level of personal contact, they will see that for themselves."   Recruiting drives are old hat at Berkeley, which works hard to attract top students who have their pick of leading universities. But the effort has gained added importance with the end of [racial admissions and quotas in California], because it is one of the few ways to ensure campus diversity, officials said.

          "With that in mind, Cal administrators, faculty and students will call every black, Latino, Filipino and American Indian student admitted to the university. They also will press the flesh with prospective students at receptions across the state and invite them to dinner with Berdahl and alumni.   (Contra Costa Times, 03/24/99, by Chuck Squatriglia)
[former link *http://www.hotcoco.com/news/eastbay/ebaystories/zip53259.htm]

California (statewide):  Rogue Federal Agency Encourages Schooles to Violate Proposition 227 (11/04/99)
          (From the Center for Equal Opportunity) -- A long-term investigation into the enforcement practices of the San Francisco regional office of the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the U.S. Department of Education has uncovered an agenda to help school districts in California thwart Proposition 227, the anti-bilingual education initiative that replaced failed bilingual programs with English immersion.

          More than one year ago, in the wake of Proposition 227, OCR prepared a detailed memorandum to answer questions regarding the initiative. Stefan Rosenzweig, the director of the West Coast regional office of OCR in San Francisco, was instructed to distribute this document to California school districts. Instead, he ignored this order and chose to send out his own letters, which were misleading and intended to thwart the effects of Proposition 227.

          "Clearly, Rosenzweig is pursuing his own agenda. He is a federal official but is behaving more like an advocate for the anti-227 cause. Perhaps he should resign his federal job to pursue his political interests." said Linda Chavez President of CEO. Indeed, prior to working for OCR, Mr. Rosenzweig was Executive Director for Public Advocates, Inc., a radical pro-bilingual education litigation organization.

          For this reason the Center for Equal Opportunity has mailed the original OCR memorandum to every school district in California. "If Rosenzweig won't do his job, then we will," added Chavez. CEO is a non-profit research organization in Washington, D.C. Copies of the letter and memorandum are available by contacting CEO. (Center for Equal Opprotunity 11/04/99)
[link http://www.ceousa.org/pressreleases/current.html ]

California (statewide): Asian students struggle with high rate of success (03/18/99)
          "It's the season of disappointment for many minorities in America's most diverse state. Like pollen wafting on spring winds, the thin, instantly identifiable rejection letters from the state's public universities are landing in mail boxes across the state, bringing bad news to a growing number of Latinos and African-Americans. California's ban on affirmative action has made it so. But for Asian Americans, doors to universities are flying open and opportunity is soaring. More mailboxes than ever are stuffed with the fatter acceptance packages, rich with paperwork and glossy brochures. Yet, collectively, Asians are not celebrating.

          "Instead, there is deep anxiety as they struggle to balance success and ambition with broader social responsibilities befitting a group that, while still relatively small, is growing rapidly in size and political aspiration."  (Christian Science Monitor, San Francisco, by Paul Van Slambrouck, 03/18/99) (0file)
[link http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/1999/03/18/fp1s2-csm.shtml ]

California (statewide):  Gender Quotas Against Males In Sports Violates Title IX (03/02/99) (no link)
          "In an effort to comply with Title IX, a federal law prohibiting gender-based discrimination in college athletics and elsewhere, the California State University system promised to keep its ratio of male to female athletes proportional to its overall population.

          "But a federal district court judge ruled Feb. 22 that CSU Bakersfield's compliance with this "proportionality" agreement violates Title IX by discriminating against male athletes.When the CSU system planned to cut its athletics budget earlier in the decade, Bakersfield drafted a contingency plan that would have maintained all its women's teams while abolishing the men's swimming and wrestling teams.

          "Last month's decision by Judge Robert Coyle upheld the plaintiffs' complaint and said the university's efforts to cancel men's wrestling purely to achieve gender proportionality amounted to illegal discrimination against male athletes.  'The court concludes that relying on proportionality to cap the men's athletic teams at CSUB in order to comply with the Consent Decree constitutes implementation of a quota based on gender in violation of Title IX,'  Coyle wrote."  (From "Yale Daily News", 03/02/99, by Ben Trachtenberg)
[no link]

California (statewide):  Prop. 227 includes $50 million for English language classes (01/04/99)
          "Programs for non-English speaking adults soon will be getting big checks from what some educators describe as the good part of Prop. 227. The proposition was passed last June, ending the state's 30-year bilingual education system in favor of a one-year crash course in English designed to get all children into regular classrooms faster. But a lesser known provision of the measure will send $ 50 million a year statewide to adult classes for English learners."   (Riverside Press-Enterprise, Mon., 01-04-99, by Kamrhan Farwell).
[ link http://www.onenation.org/9901/010499.html ]

California (UC system): 4% Solution Solves Nothing (03/25/99 - dead link)
          "The University of California has a problem: Without ethnic and racial preferences, fewer Latino and black students are qualifying for Berkeley and UCLA, diminishing diversity at the elite campuses. Instead, they're enrolling at less-selective campuses, such as UC-Riverside.

          "The University of California has a solution: Last week, regents voted to guarantee UC admission -- but not Berkeley or UCLA -- to the top 4 percent of graduates at each high school, in addition to current statewide admission standards.  The 4 percent per high school rule is a solution to a different problem: How can regents look like they're doing something without doing anything that might deny UC admission to the children of middle-class voters?

          "Diversity is a diversion. Most students in the top 4 percent already are UC-eligible and, among the newly eligible, most are white or Asian. According to UC estimates, the 4 percent rule will add about 500 Latino and black students to a freshman class that totaled 24,503 in fall 1998. With relatively low SAT scores, many will end up at Riverside, which already has the highest numbers of Latinos and blacks. Few will qualify for Berkeley and UCLA."  (San Jose Mercury News, 03/25/99, by Joanne Jacobs)
[former link *http://www.mercurycenter.com/premium/opinion/columns/jacobs25.htm]

California (UC system):  Regents Approve 4% Admissions Policy (03/19/99)
          "University of California regents are set today to open UC's eight undergraduate campuses to students in the top 4 percent of each high school class in the state, creating a new avenue to the university in an era of race-blind admissions.  A regents committee overwhelmingly endorsed the plan yesterday. The full board is expected to approve it today at the conclusion of a three-day meeting at UC San Francisco's Laurel Heights center.

          "After nearly a year of talk and several months of hard-sell campaigning by Governor Gray Davis, 14 of the committee's 15 members, were convinced that the proposal will allow UC to educate more students without diminishing quality.   'We're increasing opportunity, and we're rewarding excellence. We're going to get high achievers with guts and heart,' said Davis.   'It says we understand that some schools are better than others, but that is not the students' fault.'

          "Regent Ward Connerly, a Pete Wilson appointee and architect of UC's 1995 repeal of affirmative action, said the idea jibes with the race-blind policy.  'When we passed (it), we committed ourselves to think boldly and to try things we may not have tried before,'' he said. ``This doesn't violate Proposition 209. It does not displace any students. It does not diminish the quality of the University of California.'

          "To qualify under the proposal, current high school sophomores would have to rank in the top 4 percent of their junior year classes with no lower than a C in 11 college-prep courses. About 12,000 of them will receive invitations from UC to apply, including about 3,600 who do not now qualify for UC."  (San Francisco Chronicle, 03/19/99, by Pamela Burdman)
[link http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1999/03/19/MN68649.DTL ]

California (UC system):  UC entry OKd for shcools' top 4%   (03/19/99 - dead link)
          "The top 4 percent of every public high school's graduating class will get automatic admission into the University of California after regents voted Thursday to change admissions policies.

          "The change, approved by a 13-1 committee vote and expected to be endorsed by the full board today, would take effect in fall 2001. To be admitted, students still will have to take college-board tests and UC's required course load in high school.

          "Gov. Gray Davis said the switch will encourage students in poor and rural California schools. Schools such as University High in Irvine currently send more than 100 students to UC each year, while others, like Anaheim High, send fewer than a dozen.

          "The 4 percent admissions program will say to every student in every high school, 'Keep dreaming big dreams, keep working hard. If you really excel, we will reward your effort,' " he said.   (Orange County Register, 03/19/99, by Elisabeth Chey)
[former link *http://www.ocregister.com/education/uc019w1.shtml]

California (UC system):  4 percent solution assailed (02/12/99 - dead link)
          "A proposal to guarantee a spot at the University of California for students who graduate in the top 4 percent of their high school class got a grilling at a Senate committee hearing.

          "The plan, proposed by UC faculty members as a way to widen the pool of candidates and championed by Gov. Gray Davis, was assailed Wednesday as failing to address the real problem -- lack of space for more students.  'This is an idea that has not been vetted in the real world, and it will be obliterated once it reaches the ground with respect to real people -- real moms, real dads, real students. This dog won't hunt,'  said state Sen. Steve Peace.   Peace, D-La Mesa, blasted the plan as an 'insider game' and took issue with UC's claims that the 4 percent plan won't displace students admitted under existing criteria."  (AP, via San Jose Mercury News, 02/12/99, by Michelle Locke)
[former link *http://www7.mercurycenter.com/premium/local/docs/uc12.htm]

California (UC system):  More Latinos, Blacks Applying to UC Campuses (01/21/99; dead link)
          State Education Officials are pleased with the increase of minority applicants in the wake of the Prop. 209 ban on race-based student admissions.  "Ever since UC ended its [race-based admissions] programs, university officials have worried that the change in policy would be perceived by minority high school students as a message that they were not welcome.

          "[However] UC officials were pleased with the systemwide increase in applications, saying that the figures show that minority students are not turning away from the overall system. ...   Systemwide, more blacks and Latinos are applying to UC campuses," said officials.  (LA Times, 01/21/99, by Kenneth R. Weiss)
[former link  http://www.latimes.com:80/excite/990121/t000006267.html]

California (UC system):  U. of California Gains Minority Applicants After Prop. 209 [subscribers only] (01/22/99)
          "[T]he number of minority students applying to all campuses in the [California] state system has increased, according to statistics released Wednesday. The class is the second to apply to the University of California under a policy, established by the Board of Regents in 1995, that bars the use of racial or gender preferences in admissions."  (Chronicle of Higher Education, for paid subscribers only, 01/22/99)
[link (paid subscribers): http://www.chronicle.com/daily/99/01/99012203n.htm ]

California (UC system):  Gov. Gray Davis Can Continue Racial Admissions by Stacking the UC Board (dead link)
          "On this 26-member board charged with leading one of the nation's most prestigious university systems, 18 appointed members wield considerable power and serve longer terms than the governors who appoint them."  Gov. Davis will have the opportunity to appoint up to 10 members to this board by the year 2002, with three - and perhaps five - appointments opening up in 1999.  Rumors are flying that Davis will use this opportunity to stack the board with members who will re-institute racial quotas and preferences in student admissions, in defiance of Prop. 209. (By Emily Bazar, Sacramento Bee, published 12/21/98)  See Also From Pete Wilson to Gray Davis.
[former link http://www.sacbee.com/news/news/local02_19981221.html]

California (UC system):  Gov. Gray Davis to Increase "Diversity" at State Universities (dead link)
          "California Gov. Gray Davis endorsed a controversial plan Monday to increase diversity in the state's elite public universities by admitting the top 4% of every high school graduating class.   Supporters say the plan would allow more black, Hispanic and poor white students to earn admission and would counter the effects of Proposition 209, (the) 1996 ballot initiative that banned" the use of racial quotas and racial preferences.

          Opponents of this newest end-run around Prop. 209, "including Ward Connerly, a UC regent and the author of Proposition 209, say that automatically admitting a percentage of students from poor-performing high schools would deny admission to scores of high-achieving students elsewhere."

          "The 26-member Board of Regents, which has three vacancies Davis will fill, could consider the proposal as soon as next month. Davis sits on the board." (USA Today 01-04-99 by John Ritter)
[former link http://www.usatoday.com/news/ndsmon07.htm]

END of California Education: OLDER News (2)