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I’m feeling better and catching up on all the news I missed while I was sick. Here’s a roundup for you and me both.
- Five teachers were honored as County Teachers of the Year this weekend, including a teacher from the Preuss School and one who works at a school in juvenile hall, the Union-Tribune reports.
- The U-T also writes that lunch sales have exploded after San Diego Unified overhauled its menu. It’s a win-win: Kids are eating and schools are getting more money from the federal government.
- We blogged Friday on a report slated to go to the San Diego Unified board on Tuesday that finds that the school district doesn’t have a systematic way to evaluate instructional programs. An educator e-mailed me with a good point: Two of the specific programs I mentioned as examples of innovation in the district, a mentoring program and one to boost attendance, are being measured and evaluated. The concern is that San Diego Unified doesn’t have a consistent, automatic way to do that with all programs.
- KPBS reports on how San Diego State is responding to critics about its decision to start requiring the same grades and test scores of local students as it does from out-of-state students.
- We also interview Jaime Hernandez, an outside consultant who reviewed special education files in San Diego Unified, on his research that focuses on why children of different races are more likely to be diagnosed with disabilities.
- John de Beck opines in San Diego News Network on why schools are losing teachers, and how trying to fix the problem could hurt the bottom line of the San Diego Unified budget.
- It’s official: The Associated Press writes that Schwarzenegger signed a bill to remove a state law that barred California from using standardized test scores to evaluate teachers. It was one of several barriers to the state getting more school stimulus dollars.
- The Associated Press also reports on why experts say we need more black male teachers.
- An Oakland high school is creating a smaller school-within-a-school where teachers will have more say in how things operate, the Oakland Tribune reports.
- Testing experts are warning the federal government against using a single test to measure school gains, as now proposed, and said it might be too soon to use data on growth in student scores to evaluate teachers. Education Week breaks it all down here.
- The Washington Post zeroes in on why schools are using a Japanese method called “lesson study” to tweak their lessons gradually over time, instead of doing what U.S. schools usually do — bring in an outside expert to train everyone and expect wholesale reform.
- And finally, an education reporter in Florida takes apart the often-repeated idea that states use third-grade scores to decide how many prison beds they need. The short answer? They don’t.