State budget hurts two school programs...

State budget hurts two school programs

The two Newport-Mesa Unified School District programs that will

suffer side effects from the state budget cuts are Home to School

Transportation, which involves busing kids to school, and the School

Improvement Program, which is money provided to each school that is

budgeted by the school site council for things like additional

materials and instructional aides.

The state is withholding payments to these programs this year

because of the multibillion-dollar shortfall it had to compensate for

in the budget.

So the district will not see $800,000 for the Home to School

Transportation Program and $300,000 for the School Improvement

Program.

But this loss will not affect the school district this year

because it stocked up enough in its reserves to deal with

contingencies like this, said Paul Reed, assistant superintendent of

financial services.

Although the state is promising to deliver the funds next year,

Reed said he is taking a wait-and-see attitude.

UC I’s overall ranking drops, magazine reports

UC Irvine’s stature has dropped slightly relative to the nation’s

best universities, according to the latest U.S. News & World Report

annual ranking of America’s leading universities.

UCI fell from 10th to 12th in the past year among the nations’

best public universities and fell from 41st to 45th among the

country’s top public and private universities. For the past decade,

UCI has been ranked among the top 20 public universities.

The information is published in the 2003 “America’s Best Colleges”

guidebook, which will be available at newsstands and bookstores

today.

“We are happy to continue to rank in the top tier of public and

private universities,” said Chancellor Ralph Cicerone in a press

release. “Our efforts to expand academic programs, increase major

research efforts and attract growing numbers of outstanding

undergraduate and graduate students have enabled us to consistently

rank among the best institutions nationwide -- even while we are

still building our full faculty.”

U.S. News & World Report ranks the nation’s more than 1,400

four-year accredited colleges and universities on 16 indicators of excellence, including academic reputation and student retention to

graduation rate performance, faculty resources and alumni giving

rates.

Again this year, UC Berkeley was chosen as the nation’s top public

university and, overall, Princeton University was ranked as the

nation’s best university among all public and private universities.