اینترنت

برچسب: EdSource

  • Fresno City College instructor placed on administrative leave following EdSource report

    Fresno City College instructor placed on administrative leave following EdSource report


    Tom Boroujeni, Fresno City College academic senate president.

    Credit: Mark Tabay / Fresno City College

    The State Center Community College District placed Fresno City College instructor and president of the school’s Academic Senate, Tom Boroujeni, on administrative leave late Thursday, district officials said in a statement.

    District officials cited no specific reason for the action. It takes effect immediately.

    The move came one day after EdSoruce reported that in 2021 Fresno State University determined that in 2015, Boroujeni “committed an act of sexual violence” against a professor who also teaches part-time at Fresno City College. He denies committing the act. 

    Chancellor Carol Goldsmith did not respond to messages Thursday night.

    Boroujeni did not respond to messages following the district’s brief announcement.

    In a message to the City College campus community Thursday, President Robert Pimentel wrote that “investigative action” was being taken, and that “the college takes allegations of this nature very seriously.” He did not explain the specific allegations.

    Boroujeni, 38, of Clovis, is also known as Farrokh Eizadiboroujeni and Tom Eizadi, documents show. He has taught at Fresno City College since 2015, the same year he began his academic career at Fresno State while still a graduate student. 

    Earlier Thursday, three female instructors in the communication department at Fresno City College refused to teach their classes, citing the EdSource report.

    Tiffany Sarkisian, the college’s program-review coordinator and a communication arts instructor, told the administration and her students that she and others decided to stay off campus in an effort to advocate for a safe teaching, learning and working environment. 

    “The environment at FCC (Fresno City College) grows more toxic and unsafe by the day, especially as an abuser has been – and continues to be – protected by various campus leaders,” she emailed college administrators.

    Late Thursday, after learning the district put  Boroujeni on administrative  leave, Sarkisian said the college’s decision was appropriate. 

    “It provides a space where other parties can feel safe to actually do the job of teaching and learning,” she said, but the paid administrative leave is “essentially rewarding (him) for behaving badly.”

    She added that the college had deeper problems than Boroujeni.  “It’s not just this individual being a bad actor; it’s institutionalized practices and structures that allowed this to continue for so long.” 

    “This (was) another example of an institution protecting the abuser and not the victim,” she told EdSource. “What happened on our campus should not have happened, and there should have been other structures in place.” 

    Boroujeni told EdSource in an interview that he also faces complaints from three female employees of the college for what he described as gender discrimination. 

    He was also reprimanded last year by Cyndie Luna, dean of the school’s Fine, Performing and Communication Arts Division, for unprofessional conduct that included allegedly referring to a colleague with an apparent racial slur and threatening “to get” the colleague, according to a copy of the reprimand letter EdSource obtained. Boroujeni claimed Luna fabricated the slur and threat she attributed to him, adding, she “makes things up all the time.” 

    He also claimed that a Fresno State professor was lying when she told an investigator that she did not consent to sex with Boroujeni in her apartment on June 21, 2015, and that he “pinned down her upper region” and that she “zoned out” during what followed.

    EdSource does not identify victims of sexual abuse or violence. The woman declined to be interviewed.

    Boroujeni told EdSource the woman made up the assault allegation in retribution for a sexual harassment allegation he brought against her, claiming she seduced him into a relationship he didn’t want but entered into out of fear that she would undermine his ability to earn a master’s degree and become a Fresno State instructor.

    That claim, which Bouroujeni linked to his removal in 2020 as coach of the school’s nationally prominent debate team, was dismissed by a university investigator.

    It was during the probe of his claim that the alleged victim told the investigator about what happened at her apartment on June 21, 2015. The investigator determined she was credible and found that Boroujeni committed what Fresno State has called “an act of sexual violence.”

    The university couldn’t discipline him because he was a graduate student when the alleged violence occurred. Boroujeni resigned from Fresno State last year after officials said a report on the matter would be placed in his personnel file when he was up for a performance review. 

    In his resignation, he agreed to not seek or accept work in the California State University system again.  

    But the matter had no immediate impact on his teaching a few miles away at Fresno City College, where the victim teaches part-time in addition to her tenured position at Fresno State.

    A State Center Community College District document obtained by EdSource shows that “in August 2021, (the victim) sought a ‘no contact order’ from Fresno City College against Tom Boroujeni… as a result of a sexual misconduct investigation at CSU Fresno.” The ‘no contact order’ was granted, the document, titled an “Administrative Determination,” states.

    The district granted Boroujeni tenure in March. He assumed the academic senate presidency in May, after a two-year term as president elect.

    Jill Wagner, spokesperson for SCCCD, told EdSource that Boroujeni’s tenure committee “considered multiple factors in favor of granting tenure, and areas of concern were not identified” at the time of the review. Asked if the committee that considered Boroujeni’s tenure had access to or was of the district’s administrative determination which confirmed Fresno State’s finding that an act of sexual violence had occurred, Wagner did not respond directly, writing instead that the district followed state law and the district’s union contract, “which prescribes what information can be included in tenure review.”  

    Boroujeni told Edsource that he “got tenured with the district’s knowledge of everything that had happened.”





    Source link

  • Ask Me Anything: Join EdSource live on Reddit to discuss arts education

    Ask Me Anything: Join EdSource live on Reddit to discuss arts education


    EdSource reporter Karen D’Souza

    There’s a strong body of research that suggests arts education can boost everything from test scores to social-emotional learning, but when budgets get tight, the arts are often the first thing on the chopping block.

    In California though, that’s about to change following the passage of Proposition 28, which guarantees a new annual funding stream for arts education equal to 1% of the state’s general fund. In 2023, that’s about $1 billion for schools to hire teachers in the arts and fund arts education initiatives.

    Join EdSource reporter Karen D’Souza on Thursday, Dec. 14, at 12:30 p.m. for a Reddit Ask Me Anything (AMA) session. D’Souza will answer your questions about the rollout of Proposition 28 and how California’s groundbreaking arts education initiative compares with how states across the country fund and implement arts education programs. Click here to ask a question.

    EdSource readers are encouraged to submit their questions during the online event.

    • Not a Reddit user? Create an account here.

    What is a Reddit AMA?

    An AMA, which stands for “Ask Me Anything” is a crowdsourced interview. The interviewee begins the process by starting a post describing who they are and what they do. Then commenters from across the internet leave questions and can vote on other questions according to which they would like to see answered.

    The interviewee can go through and reply to the questions they find interesting and easily see those questions the internet is dying to have the answer to. Because the internet is asking the questions, they’re going to be a mix of serious and lighthearted, and interviewees will end up sharing all sorts of things you won’t find in a normal interview.





    Source link

  • Ask Me Anything: Join EdSource live on Reddit to discuss the nationwide teacher shortage

    Ask Me Anything: Join EdSource live on Reddit to discuss the nationwide teacher shortage


    A 2022 study by the Rand Corporation found that nearly every school district in America had to combine or cancel classes or ask teachers to take on additional duties due to a nationwide shortage of teachers.

    The US has struggled with shortages for decades, but the pandemic worsened the problem, according to the Learning Policy Institute, with teachers citing online teaching and disruptive student behavior as reasons why they are leaving the profession.

    This has led some states, like California, to loosen requirements for aspiring teachers, as well as ramp up recruitment efforts to entice teachers into the classroom.

    Join EdSource reporter Diana Lambert on Wednesday, March 6 at 3:30 p.m. for a Reddit AMA focused on the nationwide teacher shortage, why teachers are leaving and what leaders are doing to bring educators into classrooms. Not a Reddit user? Create an account here.

    Ask your question here.

    What is a Reddit AMA?

    An AMA, which stands for “Ask Me Anything” is a crowdsourced interview. The interviewee begins the process by starting a post describing who they are and what they do. Then commenters from across the internet leave questions and can vote on other questions according to which they would like to see answered.

    The interviewee can go through and reply to the questions they find interesting and easily see those questions the internet is dying to have the answer to. Because the internet is asking the questions, they’re going to be a mix of serious and lighthearted, and interviewees will end up sharing all sorts of things you won’t find in a normal interview.





    Source link

  • An EdSource investigation into policing in California schools

    An EdSource investigation into policing in California schools


    An unprecedented glimpse into policing in California schools

    EdSource filed public records requests with hundreds of California public schools to obtain nearly 46,000 incident logs documenting calls to police from and about 852 schools.
    Here’s what we found and the data we gathered.



    Source link

  • Don’t criminalize homeless students | EdSource

    Don’t criminalize homeless students | EdSource


    Credit: John Cudal/St. Joseph Center

    Gov. Gavin Newsom’s recent encampment executive order mandating the clearing of homeless encampments on state property, coupled with the start of the school year and a new Supreme Court decision, shines light on an often-overlooked crisis — the devastating impact that both homelessness and the criminal justice system can have on our youth.

    I know firsthand how housing insecurities, combined with a broken criminal justice system, can destabilize the lives of young people, pushing them further into systems that fail to support their complex journeys.

    As a high school student growing up in Los Angeles, I remember coming home after a full day of classes to find something unexpected on our door — an eviction notice. My mom, an educated single mother who worked tirelessly to afford our Culver City condominium, looked at me with sorrow in her eyes.

    She handed me trash bags and told me we had a day to leave the home we had spent a decade making our own. Uncertain of the future, I packed all my belongings in those bags, making sure to grab my grandfather’s wooden cane, which I needed for my leading role in the school’s upcoming Black History Month assembly.

    As my mother and I slept in an acquaintance’s living room, I convinced myself to keep going to school, clinging to the fact that I had a play to complete. On the day of the play, I woke up early, grabbed the cane, and walked to Culver City High from our new neighborhood. On the way, the police stopped me and questioned why I was carrying what they considered a weapon.

    Confused, I explained that the cane was for my role in the school play. They handcuffed me, searched my belongings, and asked where I lived — a question I couldn’t answer. They interrogated me about gang affiliations and potential tattoos while noting my information, likely for future stops.

    Although they eventually let me go, I realized then that my reality had shifted — I was now a young Black man navigating systems not designed for my success.

    Unfortunately, my story is far from unique. Black and Latino people are overrepresented in both the criminal justice system and the unhoused community. Although Black youth make up about 6% of California’s population, they account for roughly 29% of the homeless youth population.

    A 2021 report from the Coalition for Juvenile Justice indicated that homeless youth are more likely to be criminalized for “survival behaviors” such as loitering, panhandling or sleeping in public places. These interactions can lead to arrests, fines or incarceration, further entrenching them in the justice system.

    The Supreme Court’s misguided Grants Pass v. Johnson decision this spring allows cities and counties to criminally charge people who sleep in public. This will disproportionately affect youth and families of color — those who have historically been displaced from their housing due to redlining, rising costs, gentrification and lack of access to resources. Communities of color find themselves pushed into a criminal justice system designed to marginalize and penalize rather than support and serve them.

    Intertwining the brutal inequities of homelessness with those of the criminal justice system has devastating long-term impacts, particularly for youth. The lack of stable housing often leads to repeated interactions with the criminal justice system, as these youth may be detained for minor offenses or for violating terms of probation that require them to maintain a stable address.

    Criminalizing our unhoused youth further exacerbates homelessness, creating a vicious cycle of jail, debt and inevitable future homelessness. According to the Prison Policy Initiative, people who have been to prison even just once experience homelessness at a rate nearly seven times higher than the general public. A criminal record can also reduce the likelihood of a callback or job offer by almost 50%.

    We must address the root causes of youth homelessness, including economic instability, lack of affordable housing, and inadequate support systems for those aging out of foster care. Let’s not place undue burdens on the youth most impacted by our systemic failures — those who have the least power to do anything about it.

    While there is much work to be done, we’ve seen progress from Santa Monica to downtown Los Angeles in moving people inside humanely with tangible results. The recent Los Angeles Housing Services Authority Homeless Count showed declines in the number of people living outside across LA, including a nearly 20% decrease in homelessness on the Westside of LA, where I experienced housing insecurity growing up. This decline is the product of homeless service providers and community-based organizations working with policymakers to provide quality case management, interim and permanent supportive housing, mental health supports, and workforce development opportunities for our unhoused neighbors.

    Gov. Newsom and other leaders should seize this moment to end the youth homelessness-to-prison pipeline once and for all. LA County’s Office of Diversion and Reentry Housing program has successfully housed thousands of people, including youth, through diversion and development programs tailored to both young people and adults.

    Also, organizations like Safe Place for Youth and Covenant House California provide a comprehensive range of services, including housing support, education, employment resources, and mental health care for homeless and at-risk youth. The SJC Santa Monica Youth Resource Team, a collaborative network that connects youth with essential services like shelter, counseling and job training, is doing everything possible to end youth homelessness in this generation.

    It’s not just about what we do, but how we do it. Los Angeles and all of California must continue to lead with compassion, confronting the roots of this crisis with the care and dignity that all our neighbors deserve.

    Even though I nearly gave up on high school, I had a counselor who was, committed to helping me apply to colleges and then assistant principal Leslie Lockhart, who paid for my application to UCLA. Because of their efforts, I completed my undergraduate and graduate studies at UCLA.

    We overcame our challenges because of support systems that focused on my family’s needs with healing and dignity. Now is the time to double down on resources and evidence-based practices for the communities we serve.

    We must prioritize care, not cages.

    •••

    Ryan J. Smith, who holds a doctorate in education, is the president and CEO of the St. Joseph Center, a homelessness services and poverty alleviation agency, and an affordable housing commissioner for the city of Los Angeles. 

    The opinions in this commentary are those of the author. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.





    Source link

  • Nonprofits should help improve student voter turnout | EdSource

    Nonprofits should help improve student voter turnout | EdSource


    Photo: Andrew Reed/EdSource

    Every election cycle we hear about the challenges of getting certain groups of people to vote. This is particularly true of younger and more diverse voters who typically vote at rates well below other groups.

    Often, the disconnect between these voters and the ballot box is caused by structural barriers; sometimes it has more to do with an absence of prioritization by candidates and campaign strategists.

    Low turnout among younger and more multicultural voters not only reflects the troubled state of our democracy, but it also it stifles progress toward a society and economy that is more representative and more responsive to the needs of 21st century America. When these groups do turn out to vote, they tend to support more forward-looking policy positions that would help people and communities in need to achieve far greater economic security, including increased public investment in child care, education, affordable housing, and accessible transportation. When they don’t vote in proportion to their eligibility and interests, our democracy and societal well-being are the poorer for it.

    Recognizing this, California cities like Oakland and Berkeley are beginning to support efforts to engage high school student voters as young as 16 and 17 years old, by enabling them to register and vote in local school board elections, beginning this fall. Other California cities should follow suit.

    We know that voting is a habit. Once people start voting regularly, they continue to do so. Increasing voter turnout in the short run is essential to establish regular voting habits in the long run. In our current system, political campaigns are often tasked to lead get-out-the vote efforts by default, but campaigns are temporary and focused on winning elections, not stewarding a healthy democratic system. They are not designed to spend a lot of time and resources on hard-to-reach and hard-to-mobilize voters because the cost of turning out a likely voter is cheaper than the cost of turning out an unlikely voter.

    Elections are all about who gets the most votes, and campaigns focus on the cheapest and easiest ways to get there. For that reason, low-propensity voters, like eligible high school and college students, are largely ignored. This is where nonprofit organizations can step in.

    We’re seeing nonprofits playing an increasingly vital role in student’s lives — starting with out-of-school services like after-school programs, club sports, arts (like theater and dance), and camp activities. More and more now, nonprofits are involved with curricular support in areas where districts are short-staffed or just don’t have solid programs in specific areas of work (sometimes even embedding in the school-day offerings). Then, of course, there are myriad field trips and specific academic add-ons that are run by nonprofits in partnership with districts.

    Research shows that turnout rates increase significantly when voters are encouraged to vote by nonprofit leaders they have relationships with, in a nonpartisan and active way. This kind of nonprofit engagement has been shown to make particularly significant improvements in turnout rates for young voters, voters of color and low-income voters.

    Once turnout rates improve, campaigns start giving that category of voters more attention. This attention in turn engages voters further and encourages even higher turnout rates, creating a kind of virtuous engagement cycle. Census data indicates that about 80% of people who register to vote in a presidential election year actually go out and vote. This makes the next few weeks crucial for increasing turnout and creating new habitual voters during the 2024 cycle.

    Recent research by political scientists and advocacy groups like NonprofitVOTE confirms that there are two things that nonprofits can do to increase voter turnout among their clients: Get them registered and then remind them to vote with a message that their vote matters and can make a difference. The message that “you matter” works a lot better in turning out disengaged youth voters than a policy message.

    This is likely because they often assume that their vote will not have an impact on the election outcomes, so when a trusted source contacts them and tells them that their vote is important, it resonates.

    So if your nonprofit can only do one thing this election season, make sure you encourage all eligible voters in your communities to get out and vote. Hearing from you that their voices are important can make a huge difference.

    •••

    Robb Smith is a political consultant, voting rights lawyer, and the author of the Margin of Error blog, a newsletter for progressives on polling, campaigns and election law. 

    Henry A. J. Ramos is a senior fellow at the Institute on Race, Power and Political Economy at The New School. They are co-authors of “Promoting Nonpartisan Multicultural Youth Get-Out-The-Vote Activities: A Guide for California Nonprofit Organizations,” produced by the California Explorations Project of The Institute on Race, Power and Political Economy.

    The opinions expressed in this commentary represent those of the authors. EdSource welcomes commentaries representing diverse points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.





    Source link

  • A new year and a new CEO for EdSource

    A new year and a new CEO for EdSource


    This week, I step into the role of EdSource’s CEO, only the fifth in the news organization’s near-50 year history. So I thought I’d take a moment to introduce myself and tell you why I’m excited about what’s ahead.

    I’m a lifelong storyteller — one of those people who discovered a calling at a very young age. My passion has been predicated on two notions: one, that everybody has a story to tell, and two, if we understand the world around us, we can make better decisions and, frankly, make the world a richer and more just place.  

    Deborah Clark, Chief Executive Officer of EdSource.

    That passion led me into public service journalism, where I’ve worked across TV and radio for organizations including PBS and NPR. For more than a decade, I was the general manager of Marketplace, APM’s suite of podcasts and radio shows on business and the economy.

    Our North Star at Marketplace was to raise the economic intelligence of the country by covering business and the economy in a way that was smart enough for Wall Street insiders or Beltway policymakers and relevant and accessible to real people living in the real economy. 

    It feels like a very direct line, then, to take over the reins at EdSource. I’ve long viewed the world through a lens of economic mobility. That may stem in part from being from England, where there’s a greater sense that the world is not a level playing field.

    I’m fascinated by how the circumstances of your birth can fell or fuel you. That dynamic plays out nowhere more starkly than in education.

    So I come into this organization believing that the work we do is crucial in helping our audiences — whether they are parents or policymakers (and everything in between) understand the complicated landscape of public education in California.

    Let’s do the numbers (if you’re a listener to Marketplace, you’ll appreciate my homage there):

    • California has nearly a thousand school districts.
    • The second charter school in the nation started in California, which now has roughly 1,300 schools. The next closest state — Texas — has just 700.
    • Our community college system is the largest in the country, to say nothing of the vast California State University and University of California (UC) systems. The three systems together serve about 2.8 million students. 
    • More than 100 languages are spoken in schools up and down the state.

    I was educated in the UC system, the first in my family to attend college. I paid my way through UC Berkeley by juggling work with my academic demands. When I think about the cost of college today, I think of how many young people work harder than I did and have the added burden of loans to make it all work. I wonder about the promise of California’s master plan.

    EdSource is a great organization. The journalists here are dedicated to telling great stories about the people and policies that are shaping the futures of young people in our state. I am ready to roll up my sleeves, dig in and find new ways to grow EdSource so we can serve more Californians and do right by our kids.

    I’d love to hear what’s on your mind. What should we be covering more? Less? Send story ideas, questions or just your own reflections on public education in California. You can reach me at dclark@edsource.org.





    Source link