Local news on schools is a little thin today, but there’s plenty of fascinating stuff going on across the state and the nation. Read up in the newsblitz!
- Now that student newspapers are online, I can post news written by kids! The student newspaper at the San Diego School of Creative and Performing Arts opines that musical tours should be brought back, even though some kids couldn’t pay the expenses last year.
- A Fremont charter school may become the first Arabic immersion school in the country, the San Jose Mercury News reports. Sa n Diego has an elementary school with an Arabic program, but this charter would go a step further and have kids spent part of the day entirely in Arabic.
- California could face a crisis in school leadership, Education Week reports. Principals are retiring and fewer are in the pipeline.
- Santa Rosa schools may dip into their reserves to survive the budget crisis, the Press-Democrat writes.
- The San Jose mayor is trying to draw together different school districts and charter schools to strategize about how to close the achievement gap, Educated Guess blogs.
- The Los Angeles Times opines that skirmishes over smaller issues are threatening to harm the Los Angeles Unified effort to open up campuses to outside operators.
- USA Today reports that some school districts now use income as the basis for diversifying schools instead of race.
- The ACLU is suing an Indianapolis school after it punished two girls for putting sexually suggestive photos on Myspace that had nothing to do with the school.
- Educated Reporter Linda Perlstein is not convinced by the rationale that superintendent searches should be secret. “Is educational leadership public service, or a Robert Ludlum novel?” she asks.
- Literacy experts worry that some of the folks consulted on how to create national academic standards could profit off the results, Education Week writes.
- A Washington Post writer opines that all the turbulence surrounding controversial D.C. chancellor Michelle Rhee is getting in the way of reform.
- And better late than never: USA Today has another account of the troubling story of Filipino teachers who say they were held in virtual servitude by an overseas company and its sister agency in California. The American Federation of Teachers filed a federal complaint over the issue.