What started as a compelled feeling to lend our (young professionals) knowledge and wisdom to tomorrow’s leaders, turned to be a great inaugural program for the CLIMB Youth Leadership Institute.

In CLIMB’s journey of service, there are simultaneous efforts that occur during the various activities and operations: efforts to showcase what we do, efforts to seek out more volunteers, efforts to attract funders, etc.

With that said, after being introduced to Ira McAliley (Tight Spots Media) through Curtis Jewell (President & CEO of MyCypher.com), we were excited to finally capture [through video form] a portion of our work and be able to show our many supporters/potential funders a glimpse of CLIMB in action.

Lastly, I ask that you please help spread the word and efforts of CLIMB, by simply reposting the video link (here), adding to your facebook profile, or any other form of broadcasting. We thank you in advance and always encourage you to get involved, join the CLIMB.

Sharron Pearson is the first student from the Los Angeles school to be accepted by Oxford Tradition, officials say. She has a scholarship but figures she needs $2,500 for airfare and other expenses.

By Louis Sahagun | LA Times

When Crenshaw High School junior Sharron Pearson asked for permission to apply for a scholarship to attend a summer program at Oxford University, her father’s response was blunt: “No. We can’t afford it.”

Sharron, 17, applied anyway. “Then I went to work trying to persuade my parents to reconsider,” she recalled. “I just knew they’d come around and see things my way.”

A month ago, Sharron was among 400 high school students from around the world chosen to attend the Oxford Tradition 2009 on a scholarship that covers tuition, breakfast and dinner, and 28 days of room and board in a dorm. Her studies will emphasize drama and creative writing.

Sharron is the first Crenshaw High student to be accepted by the program, school officials said.

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On Saturday, March 21st, I shall embark on a journey of self-assessment and finding purpose. For starters, I will participate in a day-long workshop engineered by a good friend and business colleague of mine (introduced by JaMaar Everett), Mr. Jullien Gordon: the purpose finder. Jullien has identified his purpose as “helping as many people in the world find their purpose”. (that’s the WHAT) // The HOW? He has developed a new venture and workshop series traveling around the country administering the Driving School for Life: www.drivingschoolforlife.com | Jullien Gordon’s 2009 License To Live Tour

Driving School for Life is a one-day motivational experience designed for anyone who wants to leave their mark on the world, especially career transitioners, students, and entrepreneurs.

The day consists of thought-provoking group activities, discussions, and writing exercises to develop your passions and align them with your life purpose and profession. Participants gain insight about themselves and develop a personal vision and strategy to realize their dreams.

With that said, I’m beyond excited to sit amongst thought-leaders, progressive-thinkers, creatives, and young leaders as we share experiences and help one another in this journey called LIFE. The main thing I am considering is “what do I want to get out of this workshop?”…after drawn out thought, I think the main thing(s) I want to get out of the workshop is identifying the HOW. I’m almost certain about my purpose (connecting the progressive + serving the at-risk community), so I’m more interested/focused on the HOW: how to grow influence in the community? how to encourage potential funders? how to connect all of the dots (leveraging capitals)? etc.

All in all, this shall be an interesting experience and again, I’m anxious to take part in it. Stay tuned…

Some of the most influential thinkers, entertainers, and political leaders of our time gather each year to discuss the State of the Black Union during Black History Month. Presented annually in February by Tavis Smiley Presents, the symposium was created to educate, enlighten and empower America by bringing people together and engaging them in thoughtful dialogue, leading the way to constructive action.

If you (and your colleagues) are interested in volunteering for the Los Angeles Professional Network @ the State of the Black Union, pls contact us at info@LAProfessionalNetwork.com

click here for more details »

Faced with a massive budget deficit, the governor wants to stop state funding for a week of classes. Educators criticize the plan as most harmful to poor students.

By Seema Mehta (LA Times)

A proposal by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to shorten the school year by five days is creating panic among educators across California, who say they barely have enough time to fit the state’s academic standards into the existing 180-day calendar.

The idea to cut funding equivalent to five school days would save $1.1 billion at a time when California faces a massive budget deficit. But state Supt. of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell called the proposal “devastating.”

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Arne Duncan has a reputation for boosting test scores and closing weak schools. His policies — and basketball skills — are seen as a match for Obama’s.

By Michael Muskal (LA Times) 

President-elect Barack Obama today formally announced Chicago schools superintendent Arne Duncan as his choice for Education secretary.

Duncan has built a reputation over seven years for improving test scores in the nation’s third-largest school district. He has also closed failing schools and replaced ineffective teachers.

“If we want to out-compete the world tomorrow then we’re going to have to out-educate the world today,” Obama told reporters in a televised news conference this morning at the Dodge Renaissance Academy, which was once closed as a failing school.

Duncan reopened the school as an academy where candidates for advanced degrees in education could gain practical experience in classrooms. Obama and Duncan, who often play basketball together, visited the school three years ago and hailed it as a successful model for teacher residency programs.

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Students wonder whether Albany State University will lose its culture, and special status, under a plan to merge with a majority-white school.

By Richard Fausset (LA Times)

Reporting from Albany, Ga. — Every freshman who enrolls at Albany State University knows the saga of this small, proud school.

In a mandatory class, they learn how Joseph Winthrop Holley, a son of slaves, built the campus in 1903 to educate his fellow African Americans here along the banks of the Flint River. They learn how the historically black school survived the roiling race issues of the 20th century — from Jim Crow to desegregation and beyond — and how it survived the muddy Flint, which has flooded the campus time and again.

But today, there is talk of a new kind of deluge at this public school, one that many students fear would do even greater harm: The potential influx of white students from a nearby two-year college, who could go to Albany State under a proposal to merge the campuses that is floating around the Georgia Statehouse.

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pictured above: Students learn in a cheerful room, part of a campus that sits in an area of seafood and produce wholesalers, social service agencies, single-room-occupancy hotels and auto-parts shops.

A downtown arts center signals constancy and community.

By Christopher Hawthorne / Architecture Critic (LA Times)

“In this neighborhood the most radical thing you could do was make a white building,” architect Michael Maltzan told me on a recent afternoon as we toured the campus of Inner-City Arts, where his firm completed an $8.5-million expansion earlier this fall.

The ICA complex — which indeed has the surprising brightness of a soap-opera actor’s teeth seen up close, or the pages deep inside a newspaper that has yellowed on top — offers classes in the arts to students bused in from a number of public-school campuses. Its 1-acre site, at 7th and Kohler streets near the edge of downtown’s skid row, is surrounded by seafood and produce wholesalers, social service agencies, single-room-occupancy hotels and auto-parts shops. Bunker Hill’s gleaming, mirrored-glass towers loom quite visibly to the northwest, but at ground level these blocks are dominated by roll-down security doors and loops of razor wire.

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pictured above: Students line up Saturday before the start of the Operation Graduation Winter Commencement Ceremony at USC’s Bovard Auditorium. The ceremony presented at-risk teens with high school diplomas and GEDs from alternative education programs run by the Los Angeles County Office of Education.

At USC on Saturday, 170 at-risk teens — young mothers, juvenile camp inmates, troubled students — are awarded their high school diplomas and congratulated by keynote speaker Magic Johnson.

By Seema Mehta (LA Times)

Tevin Bradley ran with the wrong crowd, started doing drugs when he was 14 and picked fights so frequently that he was kicked out of a continuation school for troubled teens. So when the 17-year-old received his high school diploma Saturday, it symbolized not only academic achievement but also a radical life change.

“I didn’t see myself getting here,” said the Bellflower teen, clad in a burgundy cap and gown. If not for a dedicated teacher and his parents, he figures, he would have ended up “in jail or on the streets. Not here.”

Bradley was among more than 170 teenagers who completed their high school education through alternative programs run by the Los Angeles County Office of Education. They were honored at an afternoon commencement ceremony Saturday at USC’s Bovard Auditorium with parents, siblings and friends cheering as they crossed the stage to the familiar strains of “Pomp and Circumstance.” 

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New report finds that the groups are doing better on meeting application requirements for UC and CSU but still trail whites and Asians.

By Larry Gordon (LA Times)

Despite recent improvements, Latino and black students continue to lag behind whites and Asians in becoming academically eligible to enter California’s two public university systems, according to a state report released Tuesday.

The study by the California Postsecondary Education Commission also showed that female high school seniors still do significantly better than males in taking required classes and earning grades and test scores that could gain them admission to the University of California and California State University systems. 

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