Bright and Early: The Education Newsblitz

Your Bright and Early is decidedly less early today thanks to Daylight Savings Time … my nemesis.

• What happens when the state demands that a school turn around with big changes … when it’s already made almost all the changes the state wants? We explore the strange situation of King-Chavez Arts Academy, which has replaced its teacher and its principal, converted into a charter school, and yet still ended up on the infamous state list.
• Pinkslips that warn teachers of possible layoffs are going out, the Union-Tribune writes, and a strong sense of déjà vu is going out with them. Marsha Sutton at SDNN compares them to the Ides of March.
• Also in the UT: Recent racial incidents at UCSD have upped the pressure for the school to diversify. They’ve also gotten some people calling for funding for a campus publication to be pulled — but it looks like it won’t happen.
• KPBS talks about newly announced ways to attract more black students to UCSD.
• Also in SDNN: San Diego teachers finalized their agreement for furlough days.
• In the Los Angeles Times, historian Diane Ravitch argues that if anyone tells you they have the big idea to save education, they’re wrong.
• Educated Guess gets a wide range of viewpoints on what California should do now after losing the first round of Race to the Top, a competition for more federal school stimulus money.
• Switching from community colleges to other public universities can be a nightmare, the Sacramento Bee writes, and legislators are trying to figure out how to fix it.
• The San Francisco Chronicle argues in favor of national education standards that set out what children are supposed to learn and when.
• The New York Times dissects how Obama plans to remake No Child Left Behind. Education Week explains in more detail. The plan gives more leeway for schools that don’t meet NCLB goals and it doesn’t include required tutoring.
• But while many folks are happy with the new, revised NCLB, unions are the big exception, EdWeek blogs. Politico writes that it scrambled the political decks.
• Alexander Russo blogs that in some ways, the new NCLB doesn’t look that different from the old NCLB.
• Comedian Bill Maher says we should fire the parents, not the teachers.
• Texas textbooks will not mention the idea that the United States was founded on the idea of religious freedom, nor will they call it a democracy — and that has implications for kids far outside of Texas. The Associated Press explains why. Here’s more from the NYTimes.

— EMILY ALPERT