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As Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa leaves office, the city's voters are deeply split over his tumultuous eight-year tenure, according to a new USC Price/Los Angeles Times poll.
Villaraigosa will turn over the reins of the city Sunday night to Eric Garcetti in a markedly different environment from the euphoric one that greeted him in 2005, when he was elected the first Latino mayor in the city's modern history. He came into office with soaring marks ? nearly two-thirds of the city's voters viewed him favorably.
Voters surveyed in recent days do not look as kindly upon him, with 47% giving him a favorable rating and 40% disapproving of his time in office.
"The mayor's leaving office with some very mixed voter opinions of his accomplishments," said Jeff Harrelson, a partner at M4 Strategies, the Republican firm on the bipartisan polling team that conducted the survey for the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy and The Times. Still, he said, "it's not overall all that bad for someone whose time in office included a national recession."
Villaraigosa's two terms in office coincided with high unemployment and the crash of the housing market across the nation, both of which hit California and Los Angeles particularly hard.
"Given the length and the severity of the state's and region's recession, these are very good numbers for an outgoing mayor," said poll director Dan Schnur, head of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at USC and a former GOP operative.
Demographic and partisan divides drove poll respondents' feelings about Villaraigosa. Latinos, younger voters and Democrats tended to have more favorable views of Villaraigosa; less favorable views came from whites, Republicans, older voters and those who had lived in the city for three decades or more.
The contrast among white and Latino voters was the starkest. Villaraigosa was effectively tied among white voters, whereas 58% of Latinos viewed him favorably and only 33% viewed him unfavorably.
Several Latino poll respondents who approved of the mayor's performance said Villaraigosa's ethnicity did not affect their views.
"That doesn't matter to me," Adriana Navarro, a 43-year-old grocery store supervisor, said in a follow-up interview.
The Winnetka resident, a Democrat, said she especially appreciated the improvements under Villaraigosa in public transportation and development in downtown Los Angeles, which she enjoys visiting.
"He did a lot of good things in the downtown, and I like that because I'm a downtown girl," Navarro said.
As expected, Villaraigosa did as well among Democrats as with Latinos, with 58% viewing him favorably.
"As his term has gone on, he's become more visible on the national stage," said Amy Levin of Benenson Strategy Group, the Democratic firm that worked on the poll. "There's more of a partisan split going on here than there has been in the past."
Republicans widely viewed Villaraigosa unfavorably. In interviews, some said that was due to their perception that he paid greater attention to raising his profile ? chairing the Democratic Party's 2012 presidential convention, making the rounds on cable television to support President Obama and self-aggrandizing, they said ? than to his duties at home.
"He spent more time out of the office than in the office, always on TV, always at sports games," said Don Gray, who lives in West Los Angeles and identified himself as a "strong Republican."
"Villaraigosa's a very good talker, and he can be likable to a certain extent, but when it comes to actually putting your foot down and doing what's necessary, he shakes."
Villaraigosa won the highest marks for his work on public transportation and public safety, and his lowest grades on education, the city's gaping budget deficit and job creation.
His standing on education marked a repudiation because one of the hallmarks of Villaraigosa's tenure was his effort to shake up the city's schools. Twenty-two percent of poll respondents said schools had declined the most during the last eight years, making it their greatest concern.
Villaraigosa sought unsuccessfully to take over the schools, took a strong stance against the city's teachers union, shaped the school board through his support of candidates and took over some of the city's most struggling campuses, with mixed results.
Navarro, who gave Villaraigosa a "very favorable" rating, said that during his tenure she was most disappointed in the performance of the city's schools. Her two children both attended public school, and she saw steady declines in services, from music education to after-school tutoring.
"A lot of the sports got cut. Now we have to pay; the parents need to pay and donate time for the programs to continue. We have to raise money," she said.
Schnur, of USC's Unruh Institute, noted that many voters do not realize that the mayor has no formal authority over the schools. Funding was slashed in recent years by lawmakers in Sacramento.
Typically, perceptions of mayoral tenures are most affected by economic conditions, which are largely out of mayors' control. In Villaraigosa's case, his two terms were hobbled in some voters' minds by the national recession.
Alexandria Polsky-Bethune, a self-described moderate Democrat who gave Villaraigosa a "very unfavorable" rating, said many of her classmates at Cal State Northridge have graduated but not been able to find work.
"I'm worried," said the 21-year-old communications major, who will start her senior year in the fall. "Most of them move back home with no jobs. I love my family, but I don't plan on moving back home."
The poll, which interviewed 500 registered voters by telephone, was conducted June 24-26. The survey has an overall margin of error of 4.4 percentage points in either direction, with a higher margin of error for subgroups.
seema.mehta@latimes.com
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By Moses Nosike
President Goodluck Jonathan?s gigantic steps to improving agriculture in the country are getting a boost with the recent establishment of an Agricultural International Market in Enugu State.? The market which is a sole venture from a reputable industrial outfit based in Lagos, Eugene-Rose, will surely break the much needed barrier in the growth of commerce and industry in the south eastern part of Nigeria.
Coming at a time when clarion calls for such ventures by the enterprising and business-inclined men and women from that part of the country have fallen on deaf ears, the new International market will surely fill the much needed yawning gap created by negligence or abandonment. Chief Executive Officer of Eugene-Rose, the company pioneering the gigantic stride, Chief Eugene Ngozichukwuka Ibeaham spoke exhaustively on the project. Excerpts:
Background: I started manufacturing in 1994 after a stint in buying and selling in Lagos. During that time, I ventured into producing nylon, before I started processing water and toilet roll.? That was the two major things I was producing then, but because of the competitive nature of toilet roll, we had to leave it and faced water both in sachet and in bottle. After that, we went into? estate development. That is what we have been doing till date.
Secret of success in business
I have tried as much as possible not to engage in any shoddy deal while doing my business.? I always ensure that what we do is legal, no manoeuvreings and no faking.? We go for the best in quality.? People should avoid using other people?s wealth or ingenuity to make money.? We all know that God comes first if you want to achieve success but we must endeavour to avoid the temptation to get involved in criminal deals.
New stride
We have started investing at home, trying to encourage people especially Igbos to look inwards.? If you look around now, I can say our society, mostly in the Eastern region, we have been witnessing cases of kidnapping, armed robbery and other criminal acts which is inimical to the development of any society.
The once applauded economic prowess of the people from the East has gone down while criminality has taken over.? We all know that kidnapping is a curse and it is anathema for any society to be known for that.? It is just like dealing in slave trade in those days and we are all witnesses to the curse it brought to the perpetrators.
So, after thinking about all these ugly development, I decided to engage in meaningful ventures that will, to a large extent, checkmate the rising spate of these crimes in our area.? God has given us that commercial ability to progress in this country.
In the North, God gave them very fertile land; they cultivate any type of crop all year round.? In the east, what we have is commerce, we know how to trade.? Even when an Igbo man packs sand, he will sell it. So, we have to start on that line of market.? In realization of this fact, we decided to build a very big international market in the east.? The name is Agric. International Market.
It is situated along Enugu- Onitsha express way, Ugwu- Oba -Aniocha-Oji River in Enugu state.?? The land mark is very big. The plot we are using now is more than a hundred and fifty.? It is located in a very large expanse of land and we anticipate that in future, it may even extend to Ninth-Mile.
The good thing is that we have enough land for any kind of expansion and development. We are calling all Igbo sons and daughters at home and abroad to come, because as the saying goes, ?one man doesn?t stay in the bush?. So, we are calling on every one, both male and female investors to join us.
For now, the market has kicked off with my personal financial commitment but I expect all that have the good interest of the people of the South east at heart to come and invest there.? From what we are seeing now, it will turn out to be the widest and prosperous investment in the East of the Niger in future.
The first block was laid in 2012, around February.?? We are about one year plus now and if you go to the market, you will see a lot of structures on ground; blocks of shop, hotels, security posts and other things. People are even coming in, trading in a small capacity as they can, and I believe that more people will be coming.
How it all started?
Before we entered into the business, we advertized, shared and distributed fliers calling on interested people to come; we sold our forms for N10,000.00 and all that.? The initial problem we had was skepticism on the part? of would-be investors.
You know in the east, we have had such markets but they failed to flourish or develop well.?? However, we convinced investors by telling them the difference in our own which is that normal business will kick-start without delay and that we will not wait for the completion of the entire structures before swinging into action.
Our style is that if it is one shop we build, we start from there. If it?s two, we progress. We are not going to wait until every where and every bank comes over before we can start it.? Big markets like Alaba in Lagos started that way.
Initially, people thought it was a fraudulent venture but when they saw structures rising up in the market and activities started booming, they now realized that we are serious.? We equally assured investors that they can pay gradually until they are able to own the structures after completing their payments.
Sponsors
To be frank with you, up till this moment I am talking, no government has? asked us how we are doing or what we are? doing there?? only the Local Government Chairman came to see what we are doing and he commended us. We are planning to meet them because we have just completed the security post? inside the market which will be opened soon.
We want to hand it over to the army for now.? This will show you the type of efforts we have made towards securing the market.?? So far, I have been sponsoring the project single-handedly. It is very difficult to say the exact amount of money we have put into the project so far but I can tell you? it is quite enormous.
Source: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2013/06/opening-the-frontiers-of-international-business-in-the-east/
Impertinent. Mumbling. Offended. Teary-eyed. Rachel Jeantel, star witness for the prosecution in George Zimmerman's murder trial, was all of those, and more, as her testimony Wednesday provided new details into Trayvon Martin?s last moments and infused racially loaded commentary into an already-sensitive trial.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/t-mobile-buys-wireless-spectrum-u-cellular-308-123352590.html
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June 25, 2013 ? A new approach to teaching pre-kindergarten could take a bite out of the achievement gap and level the playing field for America's growing population of English language learners, according to a recently published study by researchers at Vanderbilt's Peabody College of education and human development.
"We are excited that we have helped teachers develop ways of teaching that result in such remarkable gains among children," David K. Dickinson, professor of education and one of the project's leaders, said. "Our teachers are committed to continuing using the approaches that are working, which means that many more children will benefit from being in their classrooms."
The Enhanced Language and Literacy Success Project, a four-year intervention and research effort performed in collaboration with Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools, proved that a language-rich pre-K curriculum paired with coaching, feedback and professional development for teachers, can improve student outcomes significantly.
An article about the research was recently published by the journal Early Childhood Research Quarterly.
"Research shows that children from low income families are behind when they start kindergarten and it's really difficult for them to catch up," said Sandra Jo Wilson, associate director of the Peabody Research Institute.
Wilson, one of the project leaders, managed the analysis of data for the study.
"Our study demonstrates that it is possible for children from diverse languages and backgrounds to enter kindergarten with literacy skills at or near national norms," she said.
The researchers evaluated the outcomes of 700 students and 13 teachers in seven Nashville pre-K programs. About half of the students were English language learners and nearly all came from low-income households.
"The element of providing feedback to teachers turned out to be a key to the curriculum's success," Dickinson said. Dickinson co-authored the curriculum, helped guide the delivery of the intervention and did some of the teacher professional development. "Teachers were asking for their reports and wanted to see how they were doing -- they were very responsive to what the coaches had to say."
Deborah Wells Rowe, associate professor of education at Peabody and an expert on early childhood writing, worked with the teachers to incorporate writing into their lessons.
The Enhanced Language and Literacy Success Project is supported by U.S. Department of Education grant No. S359B080078.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_health/~3/AzBKUGZ52l4/130625172212.htm
