The hills are alive with the sound of education news. Listen up:
- We blog that San Diego Unified is offering to pay $155,000 in a settlement over groundwater monitoring near a former landfill that lies under one of its middle schools.
- We also update you on the new San Diego Unified policy on pregnant students and a fizzled idea from school board member John de Beck of eliminating staff training days. The Union-Tribune has more details on both decisions.
- Also in the U-T: The Del Mar superintendent could be on her way out after clashing with school board members.
- KPBS reports on how a parcel tax could impact funding for San Diego schools and the hurdles it would face.
- Poway school employees who aren’t teachers say they’re fed up with their union and want to start a new one, the North County Times writes.
- Parent blogger Paul Bowers is not impressed with the new, transparent way of picking a San Diego superintendent.
- And our blog also features an interesting new interactive map: How experienced are the teachers at your neighborhood school?
- Legendary Los Angeles math teacher Jaime Escalante, who was portrayed in the film “Stand and Deliver,” died yesterday. The Los Angeles Times has a compelling obituary. The Washington Post reprints an old article by Jay Mathews about Escalante’s success.
- A Republican gubernatorial candidate is under fire over what he wrote about his time teaching at a San Jose high school, the Mercury News writes.
- The State Board of Education is taking the rare step of intervening in a small, dysfunctional Salinas school district, Educated Guess blogs. The Monterey Herald has the details.
- Education Week reports that a scandal over magnet school admissions in Chicago is shadowing the federal secretary of education.
- John Thompson blogs that student scores on the different tests that states came up with under No Child Left Behind show very little correlation with student scores on a national test, raising questions about the state tests’ reliability.
- Now that the first round of Race to the Top is over, do losing states like California still have a chance? The Christian Science Monitor explores that question.
- The New York Times reports that paying poor families cash for good behavior, like coming to school, hasn’t worked well. Larry Ferlazzo blogs that unfortunately, he isn’t surprised.
- And most importantly: Do ladies love country boys? Not without a degree. Poor education is making working class men less likely to marry, USA Today writes.
— EMILY ALPERT