Bright and Early: The Education Newsblitz

Local school news is skimpy today, so take the chance to read part two of this incredible series by Kelly Bennett and Dagny Salas on how — and why — the social safety net in San Diego County is failing. Kids fall through that gap too. I’m also loading up your newsblitz with interesting tales from California and afar:

• The Associated Press sums up what to expect when Obama rewrites No Child Left Behind. The San Bernardino Sun reports on a new study that finds, yet again, that teachers dislike the existing law. And a blogger writes that Obama is walking “a rhetorical tightrope.”
• Also on No Child Left Behind: A psychology professor argues in The New York Times that what schools need is to focus on fewer, deeper goals instead of “the laundry list of goals currently harnessing our teachers and students.” And blogger Alexander Russo picks out a few telling details from all the reporting on NCLB and cautions that the new NCLB is just a proposal at this point.
• Educated Guess blogs that there are actually fewer California school districts in financial distress this year than last, according to a report by a financial management group.
• California Watch blogs more on the UCLA study that tracked how the recession is impacting schools.
• The Los Angeles Times has several interesting education stories: A new school caters to gay and lesbian students who want to get their diploma independently. A new study finds, for the first time, that abstinence-only sex education can work in some circumstances. And Mitchell Landsberg chronicles the stormy reopening of a school in Haiti.
• I forgot to include this one yesterday: The New Yorker profiles Arne Duncan, the secretary of education.
• New York Magazine looks at the tests that kiddies take to get into elite private schools in the Big Apple — and why they may favor kids who are already advantaged. Does this happen here? Send me your stories.
• Tuition hikes at public universities across the country are putting families under stress, the Associated Press writes.
• Jay Mathews in the Washington Post asks: Can a school superintendent as uncompromising as Michelle Rhee survive? The saga echoes the revolving door worries about the superintendency in San Diego.

— EMILY ALPERT