What happened to that lunch money?

Parents who are curious about where their kids' lunch money is going have a new resource, The Times' Alana Semuels writes.

Teenagers saying goodbye and goodbye and goodbye

Adam Thursby, soon to be a freshman at UC Riverside, writes:

August is winding down and that means reality has struck for all of us who are going to college. You really do have to leave all your old hangouts, friends, and habits behind and almost start a new life.

 

For me it’s not quite that drastic. I’m going to UC Riverside, close enough that I can home on the weekend if I feel so inclined. For many of my friends who are leaving California it’s a little bigger deal. Suddenly, it’s not just going to In-N-Out, it’s your last double double for three months. The trip to the beach is the last time you’ll sink your toes into the sand for a long time. And friends you’ve seen every day at school are giving you a hug and telling you that they’ll see you at Thanksgiving.

So now I spend a lot of time at going away events. This is hardly insightful, I know, but bear with me. Our parents have told us all about how going off to college is hard, you lose touch with a lot of friends, so we try to make up for that by having one last time together. Often it’s a bonfire at the beach. (We in the OC watched “Laguna Beach” too.) Sometimes it’s a “parental-sponsored” going away party, and sometimes it’s just a bunch of people at a pool.

I’m sure you have heard the stories about people who spend more time on Facebook or instant messenger than interacting with people in the real world, but those things already have allowed me to stay in touch with my friends who have gone off to college. Without them, I would have no idea that there’s an A&W root beer near Cornell with an indoor mini golf course. I wouldn’t know that there’s been bad weather in South Bend, Ind., lately and that Grand Forks, N.D., is really rural, but they have awesome steaks.

At first glance, these details probably seem trivial, hardly a way to create or maintain a friendship. But I’m reminded of how Charlie Epps (one of the main characters in the television show "Numb3rs") describes human interactions.  All human interactions are exchanges, friendship is no exception, it’s the exchange of information. No matter how trivial the information, it’s how we are going to keep our friendships alive.

Photo: Richard Hartog / Los Angeles Times

Comparing high school graduation statistics

Graduation rates for school districts around the country can be found on the Education Research Center website.

The reports include district enrollment, graduation rates and trends, analysis of where students are lost throughout the high school pipeline, and comparisons with state and national figures.

The Education Research Center’s analysis of graduation rates is featured in the recent Diplomas Count report, a special edition of the newspaper Education Week. The center estimates that 1.23 million students failed to graduate from high school last year, almost 30% of the class of 2008. 

Read The Times' look at the dropout problem here.

-- Mary MacVean

Grading student papers

Antero Garcia, an English teacher at Manual Arts High, writes:

It’s over so quickly?

It was only two months ago that I wrote about the frustrations of grading and piled up late work amassed at the end of the year. And yet, here I am again.

While many teachers have just returned to school to start the year, the students at Manual Arts High School are wrapping things up: Our first quarter of the year is finished. Along with a third of the students -– those on the school’s B-track -– I’m looking forward to a much-needed break.

As always, I have learned a ton from working with my students. I’m looking forward to spending time during the break reflecting on the experiences and challenges I faced throughout the past two months.

School starts already???!!

Erin Shachory, the mother of two students at Riverside Drive Elementary School in Sherman Oaks and pictured at left, writes:

A friend and I were trying to work out a play date for our kids today.  "How 'bout next week?" I asked.  "It's finally nice and hot outside..."

"Uh... school starts next week," she said.

And so it does.  Lulled by the lazy calendar and late wakeup times, I have nearly lost track of days.  Can you believe it?  I have barely shopped at the grocery store (unless I needed birthday candles or margarita mixes), and my usual spot at Starbucks is gathering dust. Thank goodness my kids' birthdays are in August or I would have missed out on the back-to-school shopping deals too. 

The truth is that maybe I don't want school to start again.  Aside from the obvious perks of summer (traveling without homework deadlines, unscheduled days with my kids, learning their innermost likes and dislikes, teaching them to decoupage and do laundry), which I will miss dearly, I'm dreading the "work" that we parents have to do during the school year.  Not just homework and chauffeuring kids to and fro, but fundraising and being community ambassadors for our public school.

From the edusphere

Some headlines about schools from around the region:

Finishing the job (Pasadena Weekly)

Los Angeles Unified School District warehouse in Pico Rivera to be solar-powered (Whittier Daily News)

Aggressive action urged against dropout crisis among L.A.'s black students (Los Angeles Wave)

Kids protest library shutdown (Long Beach Press-Telegram)

A statistical profile of Hispanic public school students

The Pew Hispanic Center has a new report looking at Hispanic students in public schools.

The number of such students nearly doubled from 1990 to 2006, to 20% of all public school students -- or 10 million students. In 2006, Hispanics were about half of all public school students in California, up from 36% in 1990. They were more than 40% of enrollment in Arizona.

Strong growth in Hispanic enrollment is expected to continue for decades, according to a recently released U.S. Census Bureau population projection. In 2050, there will be more school-age Hispanic children than school-age non-Hispanic white children.

Some findings from the Pew report, called, "One-in-Five and Growing Fast: A Profile of Hispanic Public School Students" and issued this week, follow:

From the edusphere

Some headlines about schools from around the region:

Westchester school principals move on (Torrance Daily Breeze)

Fewer buses won't 'significantly' affect traffic, pollution (Orange County Register)

High school students go to Denver convention

Amanda Alvarez, a student at Bell High School, is among a group of students from Southeast Los Angeles who are the Democratic National Convention as part of a project through Pepperdine University. She writes:

(Goo Goo Dolls, shown here at a previous concert, were a highlight of the long convetion day.)
Monday, Aug. 25. When I boarded the plane Sunday morning at LAX, I had my doubts. After today, I cannot imagine being anywhere else in the world.

Our first morning in Denver started quickly. All the students had to be downstairs bright and early and dressed sharply. We received a few quick pointers from our directors and headed off to the convention center.

When we jumped off the light rail, we were met by all kinds of political advocates. Some were protesting abortion, while others were getting into heated discussions about taxing meat. It was a totally new sight for me, but I have to admit that I was completely relieved to walk into the convention center. After walking for a few blocks in my heels, the Denver heat was getting to me.

It took us a while, but once we found the right ballroom, we ate free bagels (and who doesn’t like that?) and listened to a panel representing different religions discuss issues that affect religious Democrats today.

Photo by Ann Johansson / Los Angeles Times

Applying to college: the inside story

Anum Khan, a senior at Whitney High School in Cerritos, writes the first in an occasional series about the college application process:

I was as confused as you might be. At Whitney, a college preparatory school, it isn’t a question of whether a person’s going to college, but rather, where.

Only problem is, how do they get there? So I’ve decided to chronicle my process of applying, and maybe make the way clearer for students, who, like me, aren’t exactly sure how to begin, or what to do.

Essay writing

If you’ve been a high school student for more than a day, you’ll know that applying to colleges means writing essays. And from what I’ve heard from past students, lots of them.

That’s why I decided to take a weeklong college writing workshop (for $150) that our school offers, and that I attended last week. While it’s probably not as intense as some of the college consultation coaches that people dish out thousands of dollars for, I thought it would at least give me a starting point.

I started writing my two UC essays, which the teacher critiqued for revision, and though I’ve written four drafts, it’s not done. For the first prompt (“describe the world you come from”), I’m writing about my religion (Islam), and how that’s affected my life. For the second prompt (on a general talent or quality you possess), I’m writing about writing (yes, you read that correctly).

And while I’ve developed and refined my essays, there’s always the possibility that they might not be unique, or as good as you need it to be to get into the college you want.