I’m launching a contest for all you readers today on my blog. The winners will be richly rewarded. Check back soon for the details. Now on to the newsblitz:
- We provide new details on our previous reporting on the County Office of Education: When an executive advises her boss that it should look outside for legal help on personnel issues, it is almost guaranteed that that work will go to her husband’s firm. The numbers were gathered in a voiceofsandiego.org analysis of public records.
- A Carlsbad high school could soon be partially powered by the sun, the North County Times reports.
- KPBS asks local education leaders what they think of Schwarzenegger signing a bill to allow the state to evaluate teachers with test scores.
- The California legislature passed a flurry of bills that will speed up the process of getting stimulus money to schools. The only problem is that using the money now means that it won’t be around later, when the deficit is supposed to persist, the Los Angeles Times reports.
- Also in the LAT: Plans to open a new lab school run by UCLA have been put on hold indefinitely. The problem? Money.
- The San Francisco Chronicle throws out the question: Do we need school boards?
- Scariest news of the week: The guy who kidnapped and imprisoned Jaycee Dugard got a business license for his own school, the Antioch Grove writes.
- The Associated Press reports on how schools are grappling with the legacy of Christopher Columbus and how to present it to kids nationwide. One 4th grade class put Columbus on trial and convicted him of misrepresenting the crown and thievery. And the Wall Street Journal asks: Is Columbus Day dying off?
- Nevada says no dice to changing its laws on teacher evaluation to try and get a second batch of school stimulus dollars, Education Week blogs. That’s in sharp contrast to California, which has altered its rules so it can vie for the money.
- Public school teachers are expected to be the big winners when states report how many jobs they saved with stimulus money, the Associated Press reports.
- Time Magazine writes about the large number of Catholic schools shutting their doors, and what they are doing to try and stem the tide.
- And I missed this last week, but apparently syndicated columnist Thomas Sowell got bent out of shape when a 5th grader sent him a letter as a class assignment, saying it was a waste of class time. Bloggers thought he was being a little churlish. “Give the kids a break. Take an interest. Write a letter back,” one argues.