By Courtenay Edelhart. It looked like a commencement exercise, the rows of black male teens in neckties or sweater vests and neatly creased slacks. One by one they rose as Project BEST scholarship committee chairwoman Fuschsia Ward called out their names, grouped by school, and announced where they had been accepted to college. Then she handed them checks as beaming parents cheered. It's been more than two decades since the founding of Project BEST, which stands for Black Excellence in Scholarship and Teaching. The program was founded in response to a series of articles in this newspaper that listed alarming statistics about young black males. The dropout rate for black students in general was 40 percent higher than for the Kern High School District as a whole, and the rate of black males quitting school was 70 percent higher than for black females. Read more...

By J. Michael Ortiz. Over the last month, I have been heartened to see that immigration reform is again an issue of national prominence. A bipartisan group of senators proposed overhauling our immigration policies. Their plan would lift the threat of deportation for the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States.
I am not a fan of every provision in the bill, but I agree with enough to urge you to support it. These issues hit close to home - not just for me, but for everyone. Let me cite two major reasons. Immigration reform is good for our economy. But it also is good for our souls. Let me explain.
I work at a university. Each year, about 4,000 students graduate. We have relationships with industries to ensure that our graduates are career ready. By graduation, they have put their classroom knowledge to the test in real-world exercises. Read more...