This Bright and Early is brought to you by the letter G, the number 5 and this fabulous video of Feist. Now on to the newsblitz!
- Students and parents expressed outrage about San Diego State’s decision to change its admission policies at a hearing held last night by San Diego Unified, the Union-Tribune reports. But there could be another way to help local students: KPBS reports that SDSU is floating the idea of an admissions guarantee like the one in Sweetwater, if the school district steps up its academic game.
- I was Principal for a Day. Nobody got hurt. But there will be repercussions, mainly in the form of a dance tribute to Michael Jackson.
- In the San Diego News Network, Marsha Sutton writes that the country has reached a tipping point on education reform when Newt Gingrich and Al Sharpton can agree on it.
- Solar panels are planned for two North County high schools, the North County Times reports.
- A new high school in East Los Angeles trying to stake out its identity, the Los Angeles Times reports. One school board member argues, “I want us to get as excited about reading at grade level and being career- and college-ready as we do about spirit week and football games.”
- Educated Guess writes about a San Jose charter school with remarkably high test scores and a tight financial ship. It runs a hybrid school that is part online, part classroom-based.
- A bipartisan report rates states on how innovative their schools are, from how they handle staffing to classroom technology. California gets a C on the former and a D for the latter. The Christian Science Monitor breaks it down here — and with some nifty maps. The Washington Post zeroes in on one issue in the study: how hard it is to dismiss bad teachers. California got an F for that.
- Good news about math education: Oregon middle schoolers are surging ahead in math by focusing on fewer subjects and devoting more time to them, instead of the usual mile-wide-and-dime-deep approach, the Oregonian reports.
- Blogger Nate Silver reports that it seems that a survey of Oklahoma kids that found them woefully unaware of basic facts and names such as George Washington was faked. The tipoff? The kiddos supposedly said the two political parties were “Republican and Communist.”
- Younger teachers are more open to the idea of merit pay than older teachers — but most remain wary of paying teachers based on test scores, Education Week reports. And teachers ranked the idea of merit pay — based on test or not — last among a dozen ideas for improving teaching.
- How did I miss this earlier? Sesame Street celebrates its 40th anniversary. NPR gives the deets.