I just got back. Nothing happened while I was gone, did it? We’ll catch up together with the newsblitz:
- Remaking the San Diego Unified budget based on priorities helped scrounge up some savings — but it won’t be enough to close the gap, we blog. The Union-Tribune reports on teachers and parents protesting the cuts in the rain.
- Other local school news from the UT earlier this week: The Poway superintendent is retiring. Poway teachers may take a pay cut. And Helix High in Grossmont could be up for revocation again after another, smaller scandal.
- And if you want to understand what the heck is going on at Southwestern College, read this fascinating piece by voiceofsandiego.org contributors Sean Campbell and Lyndsay Winkley about the contentious tenure of superintendent Raj K. Chopra. Campbell and Winkley are students at Southwestern.
- Budget cuts are also on the table in Oceanside schools, the North County Times reports.
- And the state budget crisis is also impacting the renovation of a Rancho Sante Fe school, the Rancho Santa Fe Review writes. (Via SDNN.)
- KPBS zoomed in on an unusual private school in La Jolla that focuses on students’ inner being.
- The Los Angeles Times reports that Los Angeles Unified could deny tenure to more teachers than usual, which may help them spare other, more experienced teachers if layoffs happen later this year.
- As budgets drop, school fundraisers are helping cover the costs for necessities, not extra niceties, the Sacramento Bee writes. Sound familiar?
- California Watch has a nice explainer on the “funding cliff” ahead for California schools when the stimulus money runs out.
- Educated Guess blogs that the California Teachers Association is going to fight corporate tax breaks.
- I’ve never heard of this in San Diego County: San Francisco schools are adding more instruction and services related to gay and lesbian issues, the Chronicle reports.
- A proposed oil tax meant to benefit the California college systems has split them, the Contra Costa Times writes. This doesn’t bode well for other school revenue efforts.
- Denver schools are tackling the issue of forced placement of teachers, who don’t get to choose their schools and aren’t chosen by the schools, either. Education News Colorado reports on the phenomenon, which echoes my project on teacher placements in San Diego.
- States are cutting back on incentives for teachers to get a prestigious national certification, Education Week writes. In a similar vein, Houston schools may stop giving teachers a salary boost for getting masters’ degrees, the Chronicle reports.
— EMILY ALPERT