Local news on education is a little slim today — probably because everyone is bracing for San Diego Unified to start deciding what to cut in a morning school board meeting today. Check out this budget piece from KPBS and the blitz of television coverage of the rally against slashing the arts. SDNN looks at water conservation at San Diego Unified, and back at VOSD, we sum up why a long-lived charter school is facing the school district ax.
The Los Angeles Times and the Sacramento Bee report on school officials from across the state pleading with legislators not to cut education, and the San Francisco Chronicle covers a court ruling that finds that schools can’t discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or identity. The Chronicle also notes that four Bay Area school districts are asking their voters to approve parcel taxes for funding — this is an idea that San Diego Unified dropped last year.
ProPublica, diligent trackers of the stimulus bill, find a teensy-weensy $2.3 billion accounting mistake in California’s application for the funds. The New York Times examines the uphill battle that federal education czar Arne Duncan faces in his quest to close underperforming schools nationwide. And a new report from the New Teacher Project finds that like in Lake Wobegon, almost all teachers are rated above average and school districts do not recognize key differences in how effective teachers are. Check out this summary from Education Week or read the full study here.