UC budget increase

After facing years of state budget cuts, the University of California’s higher education system will see an increase in funding in the state’s 2010-2011 budget agreed to by the California legislature and Governor Schwarzenegger. The budget allocates $2.9 billion dollars and will fund nearly half of the University’s core programming, $371 million of which will be used to cover the funding cuts UC has taken during the past three years. Of the $371 million, $260 million will come from the state and $106 million from federal stimulus dollars.  The budget also includes $353 million for capital projects including dollars to provide more classrooms and to invest in building upgrades to meet seismic safety needs. 

The UC system made headlines earlier this year with its 32 percent increase in student tuition, igniting protests on many UC campuses. While the boost in funding does not guarantee that tuition will not rise again next year, it will ensure Cal Grants are still available for students to apply for (the Governor eliminated Cal Grants in his original budget), lower interest rates on those Cal Grant loans, and the end to furlough days for students and teachers.  Other highlights from the UC budget include:
$51.3 million to support 5,121 unfunded students. (The state does not fund more than 16,000 students currently enrolled in the UC system)
$10 million for startup funding for the UC Riverside Medical School
$2 million for the UC PRIME medical education programs at Davis, Irvine, San Francisco, UCLA and San Diego to train physicians to work in underserved communities
$1.7 million for increasing nursing student enrollment, from entry-level clinical care training to doctoral programs
$14 million for increases in retiree health benefit costs


 http://www.caivn.org/article/2010/10/18/uc-system-gets-temporary-boost-new-state-budget-and-federal-stimulus-dollars

teacher interview

can spending money on students help them get a better grade? answer: no, because the use of the money should be spent on the school to help them with any school work or projects they have like getting more computers, more books, etc. their many things that can help the students study more and work more on the school work.

what can parents do?

what can parents do to help their kids from commiting suicide, well their are alot of things parents can do they can talk with their kids, tell them not to listen towhat they say, or tell an adult at your school whats going on. what should not happen kids with a lot potenial and seeing them commit suicide. plus the schools are not doing nothing to help the kids or contact the parents so they can help their kids by going to counciling, but us as kids have something to do with this also by being witness to a bullying and not getting a adult to calm the situation but being to getting bullied themselves because they called an adult or snitched on you. so what i would like to know is what will the federal government do to stop this bullying or cyber bullying.

bullying cartoon

Crystal Bowersox: 'Just Imagine…'

Bullying is not acceptable at any age, for any reason. To my adolescent mind, the reasons why my peers treated me poorly were cruel and insignificant; and mostly for reasons that were completely out of my hands. I experienced what seemed like constant emotional bruises and jabs, repetitive negative verbiage, name calling, and harassment not only within the walls of my home, but also in the halls of my school. I understand that growing up is tough for everyone. It's not an easy task for pliable minds to weave through the labyrinth known as puberty. But there are lines in this human experience that are not meant to be crossed so furiously and frequently.
I was often picked on for being poor. My brothers and I were part of the low-income school lunch programs, so our lunches were free. My clothes were never name brand or new, and usually rust stained due to hard water. I remember feeling so proud of myself for making the junior high school swim team, then hassled for attending meets wearing a used Goodwill suit because we couldn't afford the team ones and gear. In the winter season, I smelled like a camp fire and kerosene because our mother would use anything to heat the house, i.e. kerosene heaters -pluming smoke into the middle of the living room, or old shoes or garbage to stoke the wood-burning stove in the kitchen. My home life was beyond humble. At school, I was punished for it. I was also taunted by a few students for being diabetic. I was diagnosed at the age of 6, so these taunts started early on and were usually based upon fear and/or curiosity. Literally, students used the word, "Diabetic!!" as an insult among sneering and scoffing when I would eat something in class. I later learned to manipulate my health to miss school, because I dreaded being there so, and the hospital felt safer than home.
There are a few incidents that I remember quite vividly. I've managed to let go and block out a lot of things, but this one has stayed in my mind. School had just let out. I was headed to the bus, when I was suddenly pelted with ice. A few of the Varsity jackets had taken snowballs dipped them in water, which then turned into baseball-sized hail, and began stoning me. In pain, I tried to throw the ice-snowballs back, to no avail. I went home that night with my body and my spirit, black and blue.

http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2010/10/08/crystal-bowersox-just-imagine%e2%80%a6/?iref=allsearch

Being bullied is hell, but life gets better

LZ Granderson before going to bed I walked into the bathroom, opened the medicine cabinet, and swallowed an entire bottle of aspirin. I was 12, poor and not very attractive.
My stepfather routinely used me as a punching bag, and as I was entering puberty, I was entering a confusing period with regard to my sexuality. I just didn't see life getting any better, and so that night I decided to end mine.
When I woke up the next morning, I was dizzy, lethargic, vomiting -- and confused. "Why am I still alive?" I wondered. Maybe I was a loser, as my stepfather had told me countless times before; after all, I couldn't even kill myself right. Of course I would find out much later that I had less than a 5 percent chance of dying from an aspirin overdose.
And despite everything that was going on in my life, and I mean everything, life would get better.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/10/05/granderson.it.gets.better/index.html?iref=allsearch

FBI allegedly caught using GPS to spy on student

A California student got a visit from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation this week after he found a secret GPS tracking device on his car, and a friend posted photos of it online.
The post prompted wide speculation about whether the device was real, whether the young Arab-American was being targeted in a terrorism investigation and what the authorities would do.
It took just 48 hours to find out: The device was real, the student was being secretly tracked and the FBI wanted their expensive device back, the student told Wired.com in an interview Wednesday.
The answer came when half-a-dozen FBI agents and police officers appeared at Yasir Afifi's apartment complex in Santa Clara, California, on Tuesday demanding he return the device.
Afifi, a 20-year-old U.S.-born citizen, cooperated willingly and said he'd done nothing to merit attention from authorities. Comments the agents made during their visit suggested he'd been under FBI surveillance for three to six months

.http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/gaming.gadgets/10/08/fbi.tracks.student.wired/index.html?iref=allsearch

teen kills his family on ranch

A young man who was 14 when he shot and killed his family on a New Mexico ranch owned by newsman Sam Donaldson is expected to go free on Saturday, his 21st birthday, his lawyer said.
"This is Cody's last day," Gary Mitchell, defense attorney for Cody Posey, told CNN on Friday.
Posey had just finished the eighth grade when he was arrested on July 7, 2004, in connection with the slayings of his father, stepmother and stepsister.
He confessed to the slayings, but said he snapped after years of physical and psychological abuse. He said he fatally shot his father, Paul Posey, 34, stepmother, Tryome Posey, 44, and stepsister, Mairlea Schmid, 13, and then used a backhoe to bury their bodies inside a manure pile.
Posey was convicted in February 2006 of voluntary manslaughter for his father's death, second degree murder for his stepmother's death and first degree murder for his stepsister's death.
The state asked the court to impose the maximum adult sentence, life without parole. But Judge James Waylon Counts ruled that it was possible Posey could be rehabilitated and sentenced him as a juvenile offender. Once he reached 21, he could no longer be held as a juvenile and was free to go.
Posey turns 21 on Saturday, said his uncle, Carl Clees, and he is expected to leave the transitional center in Albuquerque that has been his home for the last six months.


http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/10/08/new.mexico.posey.release/index.html?hpt=T1

girl commits suicide

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2010/10/08/ac.phoebe.prince.panel.cnn?iref=allsearch