Featured events- 06/02/2012 - 9th Annual Berkeley World Music Festival, Sat, June 2
- 06/02/2012 - EAST BAY OPEN STUDIOS 2012 // JUNE 2-3, JUNE 9-10
- 06/02/2012 - Chocolate & Chalk Art Festival, Saturday, June 2, 2012 (Rain Date June 9) 10AM-5PM
- 06/01/2012 - Hillside Club Concert - Beth Custer Ensemble - 'My Grandmother'
- 05/31/2012 - One Man, Two Guvnors from National Theatre, London
Daily Archives: December 16, 2009
The Berkeley Wire: 12.16.09
Drooling over third-wave coffee purveyors in Berkeley and Oakland [East Bay Express]
City eyes tougher restrictions on smoke from restaurant char-broilers [ABC Local]
San Francisco looks at Berkeley energy retrofit model [Business Wire]
Students: a few rooms are available at Int’l House for 2010 [Twitter]
Catch Berkeley Symphony in Mark Morris’ The Hard Nut at Zellerbach [CalPerfs]
[Photo by Anastasia Wunderbar, Berkeleyside Flickr pool]
Tagged Berkeley energy, Mark Morris
eVe Restaurant is open
I’ve been keeping an eye on the progress of a new restaurant on upper University, and it’s now open for business. eVe is a 28-seat jewel box whose cozy, classy look promises civilized, intimate dinners for two. Continue reading »
Tagged Eve Restaurant
Science and equity: BHS parents weigh in
The controversy continues over Berkeley High School principal Jim Slemp’s proposal to eliminate before- and after-school time for science labs in order to direct funding towards “equity grants” aimed at reducing the achievement gap in the school.
See Berkeleyside’s original post on this issue here and an open letter on the subject from Priscilla Myrick, a former BHS Governance Council parent representative, here.
A group of BHS parents has set up a “Science and Equity” group which is questioning the need to choose between the two.
They have drafted a letter to the community articulating their point-of-view and suggesting steps those who support them can take. We reproduce it here:
BERKELEY HIGH PARENTS FOR SCIENCE and EQUITY
Dec. 15, 2009
Subject: BHS science program under attack
Dear Berkeley Community,
Can you believe it – they are reducing science education at Berkeley High School when everyone else, led by President Obama, is going in the other direction? That’s what the SGC decided last week when they approved the principal’s new plan, written in secrecy and voted in at the same hour it was reviewed.
The plan hid the fact that BHS would get rid of 0 & 7th period science labs for all students e.g. ALL labs at Berkeley High. This money would be allocated to a new made-up term an “equity grant,” a concept invented by the principal. The SGC was asked to choose between science (real classes for real kids) and “equity” (an undefined idea that will cost half a million dollars of taxpayers’ money.) Well documented research and common sense shows that what struggling students need most are strong experienced teachers teaching solid curriculum. This is not a time to experiment with unsubstantiated untested ideas. There are strong support programs at Berkeley High right now; we should be expanding those instead.
The funds from Berkeley’s BSEP Measure A, your special parcel tax dollars, are currently the only funding given to science labs at Berkeley High. All students take science. Less science instruction will only hurt the kids already struggling with the achievement gap, contrary to what we are all trying to achieve here. The achievement gap cannot shrink with less science instruction. That’s crazy.
Tagged Berkeley High School, BHS science labs
