Merced's UC Pig-in-a-poke
(Merced Mayor Stan) Thurston agreed. "It's going to be the college's magnet that will bring both to this area, eventually, in the long-term," he said. "We know that in time, with UC Merced here, that is going to change, because as the university grows, high-tech companies will relocate to the Merced area to support the university." ...Officials believe those numbers will gradually increase. Aguilar said that before UC Merced was established, students didn't have access to pursue a higher education "in their own backyard." -- Yesenia Amaro, Merced Sun-Star, Jan. 11, 2013
Yo, Stan, after the boom in home construction when local political and economic leaders promised it was for all those people who didn't know they were going to move to Merced yet because of the wondrous opportunities opening up with the arrival of UC Merced (and they didn't move here), now you are promising us that there will be jobs here for people who doing even know they will work here doing some high-tech thing requiring high-tech training from UC Merced to build a Black Box to be sold as the Cure for Global Warming or something like it. Government funds will pay for its development; a corporation will manufacture it for profit, paying the lowest skilled, lowest wage workers it can find on the planet to assemble it and may locate its assembly plant here if our wages keep falling and unemployment keeps rising and the corporation doesn't have to pay any local taxes for a hundred years.
The jackasses at UC Merced continue to insist that there is not other access to higher education in Central California but UC Merced. Contradicting this absurd propaganda are the existence of UC Davis, and California state universities in Chico, Sacramento, Turlock, Fresno and Bakersfield.
Agreeing with Gomes, O'Leary said disrupting the poverty cycle starts with education.
...The more educated someone is, the higher income that person will take home.Median earnings for someone in the county with a high school diploma or equivalent is estimated to be around $26,834, while estimated median earnings for someone with some college classes or an associate degree are around $30,590, according to the earnings by education level data from the American Community Survey.
The estimated median earnings for someone with a bachelor's degree is around $50,846 and $66,965 for those with a graduate or professional degree.
The national unemployment rate of recent college graduates with bachelors degrees is higher than Merced County's 15.7-percent unemployment rate. So, these salary figures don't make any sense in our present economic depression and offer no real solid futures and the great risk for the student and family of additional debt that cannot be modified by bankruptcy. So, in the context of economic reality, this propaganda is a pitch for the salaries of educators and the profits of lenders.
In fact, what disrupted the poverty cycle in the Great Depression was a combination of world war and widespread union organization. Not college education. The rise of the percentage of college educated people in the society has marched apace with the rise in the inequality of distribution of incomes, culminating at the moment an elite-ridden society in economic and ecological collapse.
Great job there, universities!
Badlands Journal editorial board
1-11-13
Merced Sun-Star
County found low on higher education
Fewer than 10 percent of residents have a degree, survey finds…YESENIA AMARO
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/2013/01/10/v-print/2750769/county-found-low...
MERCED Fewer than 10 percent of the people in Merced County have earned higher education degrees, according to data from the U.S. Census' American Community Survey.
Out of the county's 143,187 population of people who are 25 years and older, an estimated 25.1 percent are high school graduates or the equivalent, while 6.9 percent have an associate's degree, according to recently released survey data on educational attainment.
Out of that same population group, only 8.1 percent have a bachelor's degree and only a 4.2 percent have a graduate or professional degree, according to the 2012 data.
Scott Scambray, superintendent for the Merced Union High School District, said one factor in the low higher education attainment in the region could be that many jobs in the area don't require people to have college degrees. "We have a lot of our students go on to college, but because the jobs aren't here, they move somewhere else," he said.
A similar situation is mirrored in other places where agriculture dominates the area, such as Imperial Valley in Southern California, said Stan Thurston, mayor of Merced.
Bringing more skilled jobs to the area would help change the situation, Scambray added. "We have to break the mold and entice companies to relocate here," he said. "If the jobs are here, they do want to stay."
But the situation is complex. Scambray said companies say the area doesn't have an educated work force, but the educated workforce won't stay or move here if there are no jobs.
Thurston agreed. "It's going to be the college's magnet that will bring both to this area, eventually, in the long-term," he said. "We know that in time, with UC Merced here, that is going to change, because as the university grows, high-tech companies will relocate to the Merced area to support the university."
There are high-tech companies in the area already, but it's not enough to make a notable difference, Thurston said.
Jorge Aguilar, associate vice chancellor for educational community partnerships at UC Merced, said officials certainly hope to see an improvement in the numbers of educational attainment.
Officials believe those numbers will gradually increase. Aguilar said that before UC Merced was established, students didn't have access to pursue a higher education "in their own backyard."
"Prior to the UC, those students who wanted a UC education would have left the Valley," he said. "I think that's a critical point to make."
UC Merced's student enrollment is 5,760, and a third of those students are from the Central Valley, Aguilar said.
Aguilar believes job opportunities will be a huge factor in keeping those students in the region once they achieve their higher education goals. "I think it will be dependent on how they feel about their future opportunities in the Valley," he said.
On the other hand, schools are doing their job to help keep students in school and eventually for them to pursue a higher education.
Most high schools in the Merced Union High School District boosted their graduation rates between 2010 and 2011, according to the data from the California Department of Education released last year.
The Merced Union High School District had an 85.9 percent graduation rate in 2010-11, according to data from the district. The statewide average was 76.3 percent.
Scambray said the latest graduation rates are encouraging because they are going up. The district is about 9 percentage points higher than the rest of the state, he said.
"But at the same time we are not satisfied," he said, adding that officials' goal is to have an 100 percent graduation rate.
Students attendance and involvement play a critical role in decreasing the dropout rate, he said. "They can't pass a class unless they come to school," he said.
District officials are working hard to continue to increase the graduation rates at all of its high schools. Each high school might unfold the programs a little different, but essentially they are all doing the same, Scambray said.
Costa Aguilar, principal at Golden Valley High School, said the school this year implemented an intervention model that's embedded within the school day.
Every freshmen participates in a 30-minute class four days a week to ensure they are getting the appropriate study, social and academic skills they need to succeed, Aguilar said. Sophomores, juniors and seniors receive a 30-minute tutorial or study hall four days a week where they can catch up on work.
Previously, students had to come before or after school if they needed assistance with school work, but now they have no other choice since the time is built in to the school day, Aguilar said.
School officials saw a 60 percent reduction in student failure this first semester in comparison to last year, he said. But officials will really see how the graduation rates increase when this year's freshmen class graduates.
The more educated someone is, the higher income that person will take home.
Median earnings for someone in the county with a high school diploma or equivalent is estimated to be around $26,834, while estimated median earnings for someone with some college classes or an associate degree are around $30,590, according to the earnings by education level data from the American Community Survey.
The estimated median earnings for someone with a bachelor's degree is around $50,846 and $66,965 for those with a graduate or professional degree.
Jorge Aguilar said the Center for Educational Partnerships works with high school students across the valley to help them advance their educational careers.
"We make sure they are taking the right courses, test and how to navigate through the (college) admission process," he said.
Children's poverty rate soars, study finds
Level in Merced County is second highest in California…RAMONA GIWARGIS…1-8-13
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/2013/01/08/v-print/2744174/childrens-povert...
A poverty study released this week paints a grim picture for Merced County, highlighting one of poverty's growing victims -- children.
The county has a child poverty rate of 36 percent, the second highest in all 58 California counties, according to The Center for the Next Generation.
Since 2006, that number has grown more than 27 percent.
Merced County's overall poverty rate is 25.4 percent, the highest in the state, the report found.
The Center for the Next Generation, a nonprofit based in San Francisco, was started in 2011 by two brothers who wanted to tackle the issues of clean energy and investing in children and families.
The group defines poverty as a family of four making less than $22,000 a year.
Neighboring counties Fresno and Madera ranked in the top five for child poverty rates, with Fresno coming in at 36 percent and Madera at 35 percent. Stanislaus County's child poverty rate was 28.5 percent.
Statewide, California's official poverty rate is 6.1 million, or 16.2 percent, with more than one in five children living in poverty.
Ann O'Leary, the center's vice president and director of its Children and Families Program, said the report was developed using public information from the U.S. Census Bureau.
The group analyzed unemployment data, percentage of single-parent households, and each county's education and income levels in an effort to explain the report's findings.
After crunching the numbers, a few trends became apparent, O'Leary noted.
"There was a dramatic rise in single-parent households," she said. "Over one-third of households in Merced County are single parent, and half of those live in poverty. It's quite telling that we don't have a support system for single parents in our state."
According to the report, 33.2 percent of homes in Merced County are headed by a single parent, and 51.1 percent of those are in poverty.
The state's poverty rate for single mothers is 35.5 percent.
Another trend emerged when looking at the ethnicities of the children: 68 percent of the children in Merced County are Latino. Of those, 30 percent are living in poverty.
By comparison, white children make up 27 percent of the youth population and and less than 10 percent of them live in poverty.
Education level also plays an important part, according to the study. Merced County's percentage of people holding a four-year degree is 8.1 percent.
Merced County Superintendent of Schools Dr. Steven E. Gomes said parent education level is the highest predictor of student academic achievement, followed by socio-economic level.
"Children don't always have the advocates at home, because if their parents haven't been to college, they may not know how to help their kids go to college," Gomes said, adding that area schools have implemented resources to help.
"We take all the students that come through the door, and we work with all of them," he said. The schools may intervene by giving impoverished students the books to take home to read or allowing them more time to finish tasks.
According to the report's findings, education levels correspond with the county's median income level, which is $41,588 per family.
Another factor is the unemployment rate, currently 15.7 percent, O'Leary said.
"There's not family income stability and that's a big factor," O'Leary said.
O'Leary said low enrollment in assistance programs such as food stamps and earned-income-tax credit could be a contributing factor to the high poverty rates, including lack of awareness and outreach.
Alexandra Pierce, program administrator for the Merced County Human Services Agency's Child Welfare Services, said her department has experienced an increase in phone calls from families seeking assistance, with roughly 350 to 380 referrals a month.
"A lot of families are having difficulty making ends meet, so we've seen a rise in families for contacting us for community resources like housing assistance or help with electric bills," Pierce said. "Many people call us and want to know if we have links to help them find jobs, along with food, clothing and other benefits."
Pierce said the Child Welfare department has hired more social workers to help meet the need, as well as shifting staff when necessary.
Agreeing with Gomes, O'Leary said disrupting the poverty cycle starts with education.
"Education is, by far, the best way someone who has grown up in poverty can succeed as an adult," she said. "One of the things we help to do through the report is to raise awareness and challenge leaders in Sacramento to do a better job of sending money down to school districts with highest levels of poverty."