Bright and Early: The Education Newsblitz

Your nominations for the worst education jargon are coming in fast and furious! Send me more of the eduspeak you love to hate — and look for a blog post soon. Now for your newsblitz:

• We tell the winding story of what happens when a child is kicked out of a charter school, but the school district doesn’t agree that the child should be expelled. Sending them back to district schools has upset school staff and stirred up talk of an uneven playing field.
• The Union-Tribune reports that a soccer team at an alternative school is helping kids get to school on time.
• Also in the U-T: Iraqi immigrants are struggling to find the English classes they need to get a job and keep their welfare benefits.
• In SDNN, San Diego Unified school board member John de Beck questions whether a plan to move around the department that analyzes data will leave nobody guarding the hen house.
• Also in SDNN: Marsha Sutton opines that everyone should withhold judgment on the ousting of the superintendent in Del Mar.
• Carlsbad students are learning about solar power, the North County Times writes.
• The San Diego Business Journal highlights a nonprofit that teaches kids business skills.
• The U-T editorializes that the gubernatorial candidates don’t have new answers on education.
• California may start rating preschools, the San Gabriel Valley Tribune reports. It could start as soon as July 2011.
• San Diego Unified isn’t alone: Los Angeles teachers have agreed to furloughs to shorten the school year, the Times writes.
• Educated Guess blogs about the challenges ahead in making better tests that rely less on multiple choice and more on free answers, one thing that the Obama Administration is seeking.
• Big surprise: The Contra Costa Times reports on a study showing that most teachers pan No Child Left Behind.
• The architects of the idea of a 10th grade diploma argue that they were misrepresented by a guest writer in the San Francisco Chronicle.
• Halt the language wars! Education Week writes that a Johns Hopkins University study found that kids pick up English just as well whether they’re in an English immersion or a bilingual program.
• The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports that the Obama Administration could expand the subjects that kids are tested on for state accountability.
• The Wall Street Journal complains that school districts in New York are still hiring teachers even when enrollment drops. Local philanthropists and business leaders have brought up the same worry in San Diego.
• And here’s one from very, very far away: Australian teachers may boycott giving a test that’s being used to rank their schools. Thanks to GothamSchools for the link!

— EMILY ALPERT