I’m off to summer school today. But I’ll study harder next time — I promise.
We blog that longtime school board member John de Beck has a competitor for his San Diego Unified seat: a 21-year-old college student who assists students at his old high school. KPBS reports on the debate over allowing a largely Somali charter school to expand.
And the Union-Tribune writes that public health officials are setting a much higher threshold for closing schools due to swine flu.
Elsewhere in the state, dropout rates dropped big time in Los Angeles Unified, which released its numbers before the official state data came out, the Los Angeles Times reports. The Times also writes that California legislators are weighing whether to change a law that curbs the use of student scores to evaluate teachers. As things stand now, the law is hurting the state’s chances at another round of federal stimulus money.
And the San Francisco Chronicle reports on a program specifically for college students with autism.
The New York Times examines whether testing in New York City schools is showing real gains or are students simply getting used to testing. The paper also opens up the question to its guest bloggers. The Washington Post reports that summer school is still in session in the Capitol ‘burbs.
And out in the blogosphere, a writer at the Fordham Institute argues that teachers are usually wrong about the positive impacts of smaller classes: “The question isn’t whether or not we feel badly or upon hearing anecdotes of overcrowded classrooms … but whether or not the research is conclusive in this area. It isn’t.”