Education news cometh! We track the rehiring of employees who took a golden handshake to leave San Diego Unified and bring you the breaking news that San Diego Unified is using roughly $10 million in stimulus dollars to — in part — continue a controversial program that provided smaller classes for the youngest students at a dozen select schools. The Union-Tribune writes that the school board vote on ponying up money for a consultant to research and design a parcel tax was delayed. Look for more updates from us here at voiceofsandiego.org later as I sort through the shrapnel of a particularly explosive school board meeting last night. If you think I’m kidding, you haven’t been to enough school board meetings.
The Los Angeles Times reports that the school board is struggling with whether to let charter schools and other groups bid for control of new buildings — which could be an interesting precedent for San Diego Unified as it contemplates a charterbrary. Reuters and the Christian Science Monitor write that the state budget battle over whether to suspend a law that maintains minimum education funding has taken to the airwaves. And the San Francisco Chronicle localizes that big national study about the gap between test scores for black and white students.
And in national news, a new report finds that teacher mobility is most closely tied to whether educators feel they have a role in school decisions — find the link and commentary here through blogger Alexander Russo. Education Week reports that quality and accountability are the big buzzwords for the charter school movement now. And Eduwonk guest blogger Ted Kolderie argues that sweeping debates and studies on whether charters are better than district schools are like comparing “one-story buildings and two-story buildings or east-facing schools and west-facing schools” — it doesn’t tell you much about what the schools are actually doing to boost student achievement.