Education

SACRAMENTO - Gov. Jerry Brown wants to tie some state funding for California's public universities to a host of new requirements, including 10% increases in the number of transfer students from community colleges and the percentage of freshmen graduating within four years. Brown, who has repeatedly said the universities should be leaner and serve more students, is asking for equivalent increases in several other areas as well, according to a copy of his plan obtained by The Times.

Record spending will continue in the last remaining race for a seat on the Los Angeles school board, as a political action committee has put together a war chest of about $600,000 to use on behalf of a candidate endorsed by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. In all, the Coalition for School Reform, which is spearheaded by the mayor, has raised nearly $4.5 million for three Board of Education races to support candidates who would back the aggressive policies of Supt. John Deasy and pledge to keep him on the job. Contributors praise Deasy for including student test scores in teacher evaluations and limiting job protections that they view as impediments to academic progress.

Students and faculty are gearing up for a fight to oppose legislation that would allow California community colleges to charge more for high-demand courses during summer and winter sessions. Colleges would be able to offer extension programs for credit leading to certificates, associate's degrees and for transfer to four-year universities, if enrollment was at capacity the preceding two years. The bill, AB 955, is similar to a controversial plan attempted by Santa Monica College last summer to offer core education classes such as English, math and history at a cost of about $180 per unit, alongside state-funded courses set by the Legislature at $46 per unit.

Maria Martinez's kitten heels clicked as she trailed behind a recent campus tour at UC Irvine. Except for those short stiletto heels, Martinez might not have stood out from thousands of other prospective parents touring campuses in California this spring. But unlike most of them, Martinez had never seen the vastness of a large college campus before, and now she struggled to keep up in shoes that are ill-suited for walking. Martinez, a garment worker, might have been even more unprepared if it weren't for a 3-year-old program called Parent College, an unusual education effort run by the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools aimed at low-income and immigrant parents who don't know enough about college to help their teenage children get admitted.

A new building complex will rise on the grounds of the Huntington Library in San Marino. The $60-million construction project, which recently kicked off following a ground-breaking, will create a new education and visitors center that is expected to be completed in 2015. The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens said the new complex will feature 43,000 square feet of educational facilities and visitor amenities. There will also be 6.5 acres of new garden grounds.  The project will include a 400-seat lecture hall and four classrooms as well as meeting rooms and an expanded café and gift shop.

Occidental College has hired two former sex crimes prosecutors to complete an extensive review of the university's handling of sex abuse cases amid allegations that officials don't take such cases seriously. The university announced the review Thursday after a group of Occidental students, faculty and alumni filed a civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Education alleging that the school failed to protect women from sexual assaults. Flanked by six current and former students, attorney Gloria Allred said the complaint outlines violations of Title IX, which bars sex discrimination at schools.

A group of adult education students held a rally Wednesday to demand greater funding for adult education programs. About 30 members of the group United Adult Students gathered at the Evans Community Adult School in downtown Los Angeles to gather signatures for petitions that will be presented to lawmakers in Sacramento on Thursday. With about 10,000 signatures already in hand, they are calling on Gov. Jerry Brown to dedicate greater funding to adult education and to keep programs located in local K-12 school districts.

For the first time since California's controversial parent-trigger law went into effect, a school district has elected not to challenge a petition submitted by parents. The Los Angeles Board of Education this week ratified a partnership between the district and a charter school to take control of the struggling 24th Street Elementary. The 2010 law gives parents increased authority over low-performing campuses, including the option to convert them to independently operated charter schools.

Michelle Rhee, head of an influential education advocacy group that backs using student test scores to evaluate teachers, this week fended off accusations that she failed to pursue evidence of cheating when she ran the District of Columbia school system. In an internal memo, a district consultant warned that about 190 teachers at 70 schools - more than half the system's campuses - may have cheated in 2008 by erasing wrong answers on student testing sheets and filling in correct ones.

Sexual misconduct allegations at Miramonte Elementary School sparked a surge of investigations of Los Angeles teachers, pushing the ranks of those in "teacher jail" to more than 300 - and prompting officials this week to consider the rights of accused employees. On Tuesday, the Board of Education will weigh a proposal designed to speed up and improve investigations, in hopes of quickly ousting the guilty and exonerating the innocent. "You don't need 300 days to figure out who's a monster," said Carpenter Elementary parent Julia Bricklin.