National test scores come out today. I’ll keep you posted if I spot anything interesting — and if you want to do some digging on your own, keep an eye on my Twitter feed for a link to the results! Now for the newsblitz:
- Eleven percent of San Diego Unified freshman average a D or lower in their classes — more than in any other high school grade. The numbers are much higher in disadvantaged schools. We explore why freshman year is a crucial point for teens and a red flag for future dropouts.
- KPBS has this nice explainer on school funding in California as part of their series on Proposition 13.
- We also fact checked a San Diego Unified official’s statement that the school district had lost 25 percent of its revenue in the past three years. The budget has definitely taken a hit, but the statement is wrong .
- Poway celebrated its Teachers of the Year, the North County Times reports.
- The UC system is weighing major changes to save money, such as admitting more out-of-state students or giving classes online, the Sacramento Bee writes.
- Meanwhile, a medical professor argues in the San Francisco Chronicle that very modest taxes could restore funding for public universities.
- The Educated Guess blogs that huge numbers of Bay Area students are having to repeat algebra in the ninth grade after taking it in eighth — and they aren’t doing much better the second time around.
- In the Los Angeles Times, a former education editor argues that charter schools have had a big impact on public education by giving families a choice.
- The Capistrano Unified school district has been reprimanded for violating open meetings laws for the fifth time in three years, the Orange County Registrar reports.
- The Modesto Bee writes that schools there are eyeing online classes as one way to boost their enrollment and get more school funding.
- NPR airs a debate over whether teachers unions are to blame for failing schools.
- Rick Hess blogs that revelations that the federal schools chief once kept a list of VIPs seeking spots for their kids in plum Chicago schools don’t bode well for keeping politics out of Race to the Top, a competition between states for school money.
- The Associated Press reports that a North Carolina school district is ending the busing program that helped integrate its schools, spurring angry accusations of resegregation.
- Waitlists are growing at coveted public schools in New York, partly because more parents are passing on private schools and staying in the city, The New York Times writes.
— EMILY ALPERT