Bright and Early: The Education Newsblitz

I’m off to two schools today to get schooled. But first I’ve got to school you with the newsblitz:

• We explain how San Diego Unified is tentatively planning to balance its budget, including a shorter school year, fewer tests and charging families who have the means for busing and Advanced Placement exams. Hundreds of jobs would be cut under the plan, but it’s unclear if that means layoffs.
• The Union-Tribune reports that the Oceanside superintendent says employees will need to take pay rollbacks through salary cuts, furloughs or both.
• We also show you what is budgeted for each elementary school, per student, through a nifty map. And we added more maps to check out later.
• And who will get to sift through resumes for the next San Diego Unified superintendent? We post the list of committee members picked by the school board on our blog.
• SDNN delves into how the expansion and growing ubiquity of Advanced Placement classes has come with concerns about diluting the classes or overwhelming kids who aren’t prepared.
• Our guest blogger Bey-Ling Sha weighs in on games and drama in Sacramento.
• In a surprise turn, Los Angeles Unified gave control of many of its troubled schools to teachers, rather than to outside groups or charter schools, as was expected, the Los Angeles Times reports.
• Educated Guess blogs about a new, California-based report on what makes middle schools work.
• Virtual schools are cropping up around Sacramento, the Bee reports.
• The Chronicle writes that nearly 900 educators in San Francisco were warned of possible layoffs.
• The New York Times reports on the attempted turnaround of a faltering Rhode Island school where the school board sacked every teacher in a plan put forward by the superintendent.
• In the blogosphere, Eduwonk isn’t convinced by the argument that policymakers aren’t listening to teachers.
• Claus van Zastrow blogs that people are putting too much blind faith in charter schools as a miracle cure.
• Jay Mathews at the Washington Post says he doesn’t think it’s such a bad idea for parents to help pick their kids’ teachers.
• File this one away in the it-could-be-worse files: Half of Kansas City schools may be closed and a quarter of its employees may lose their jobs to save money for the school district, USA Today reports.

— EMILY ALPERT