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I’m off to interview longtime principal Wendell Bass — shoot me your questions before I head out the door. But before I do, here’s your daily dose of education news: We look into the practice of paying teachers not to teach in San Diego Unified. It’s rare — but it seems to have grown in the past two years. Elsewhere, I overlooked this round of ask-the-board-member with John de Beck at SDNN a few days ago. KPBS reports on the national teachers union kicking off a literacy campaign here in San Diego. And back at VOSD, we blog on the continuing saga over building plans at Gompers, a charter school that shares a plot of land with school run by San Diego Unified.
Across California: The Los Angeles Times chronicles the controversial history of one high school trying to break away as a charter school — and how that weird episode with ‘Bruno’ fits in. The folks from the California Budget Project opine on cuts to adult education. And the San Jose Mercury News writes that more school districts than in years past are reporting that their finances are dicey.
And in national news: Louisiana schools are adding an alternative “career diploma” in addition to the college track, the Christian Science Monitor Reports. Education Week details the tug-of-war between holding states accountable for results from the federal stimulus money for schools — and giving school districts the power to make the decisions. And the New York Times dissects school spending under mayoral control, which seems to be coming to an end in New York City schools. This is a big deal because mayors are believed by some reformers to be better at pushing change than school boards. So what happens now? Well, the good folks at Gotham Schools are untangling it, but it’s really, really confusing.