Year: 2013

  • SD Unified’s Lopsided Suspensions Ratio

    By Mario Koran When Daniel Noriega was in the elementary school he cussed at teachers, he refused to do his work and he was sent home. Again and again. Between the sixth and eighth grades, Noriega, who’s now a sophomore at E3 Civic High, was suspended about two dozen times by his count. One teacher…

  • Second Opinion: Will Obamacare Streamline Care for Disabled People?

    Christina Mitchell is a graduate student at the University of San Diego. She’s working with families who care for disabled dependents to document the challenges of coordinating care for their loved ones through a tangled web of doctors, insurance providers and community resources. | Video Credit: Brian Myers, Media Arts Center San Diego By Megan…

  • What’s Behind San Diego’s Gang Problem?

    By Megan Burks Local street gangs are growing and getting harder to police, according to officials from nine out of 11 law enforcement agencies who spoke to SANDAG for a study released this week. A possible reason, they said, is the state’s prison realignment effort, which shortens sentences for low-level offenders and relies more heavily on local jails…

  • California Parents In the Dark About New School-Funding System

    By Kyla Calvert More than half of California’s public school parents — 57 percent — said they know nothing at all about the state’s new school-funding system, according to a survey released Thursday by California nonprofit EdSource. That new system gives school districts more spending flexibility. But it also requires them to get input from…

  • On School Curriculum: ‘You’re Asking Students to Hate Who They Are’

    By Mario Koran Alberto Ochoa remembers how, as a freshman at a Los Angeles public high school, the vice principal told his class that half of the students wouldn’t graduate. Turns out, Ochoa said, “that’s exactly what happened.” Many of his classmates dropped out, some “survived public education” and made it out with a diploma,…