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The almighty dollar strikes again in your morning newsblitz! It ain’t pretty out there:
- We blog on two clashing views on what it takes to do “zero-based budgeting” — one way that San Diego Unified wants to revamp its financial planning — and how the school board is nudging labor unions to look at ways to save money on health and welfare benefits.
- The Union-Tribune does a Q & A with embattled Southwestern College President Raj Chopra. “I am being penalized for doing what the public expects a good public officer to do,” he tells Tanya Sierra. In more controversial college news, there’s a swirl of speculation over who will fill the spot after San Diego State’s athletic director resigned, the Union-Tribune reports.
- The University of California just hiked tuition by 32 percent, despite a storm of protests statewide. Here’s the deets from the San Francisco Chronicle, the Sacramento Bee, the Union-Tribune and the Los Angeles Times.
- California Capitol Network reports that community college enrollment has jumped. (Via KPBS.)
- Gov. Schwarzenegger is being asked to roll back funding for an after-school initiative that ties up more than $500 million annually — an idea that he vetoed last year, the Associated Press reports.
- Everyone’s trying to find ways to save money: The Sacramento Bee writes that two elementary schools will close in a nearby school district. The Record reports that Lodi schools are ending summer school and requiring kids who fall behind to do work online instead. And things are so bad in Chico that they’re openly talking about being taken over by the state. Maybe everyone can just take a lot of money out of this bank in a Sacramento high school?
- Meanwhile, the Gates Foundation is spending millions on the question: What makes a good teacher a good teacher? The New York Times explains how they’re looking for the answer.
- The Christian Science Monitor writes about how the Obama Administration wants to make better preschools for disadvantaged kids, how they’d pay for it and what the skeptics say.
- The feds are getting a lot of complaints about the rules tied to their school innovation grants, which critics say could make foundations the gatekeepers for crucial school dollars, Education Week writes.
- And finally, a piece of positive news in the midst of all this dour budget talk: Education Week reports that more children worldwide are in school and fewer are dying, two decades after the United Nations launched a treaty on children’s rights.