If you can’t get enough of the school board, you can find a play-by-play of their last meeting on my Twitter feed. Now for the newsblitz:
- San Diego Unified’s finance chief will resign at the end of June, he informed the school board. We blog about the future of James Masias, who was put on paid leave a few weeks ago.
- City News Service reports that summer school will survive, despite earlier talk of cutting it in San Diego Unified.
- Also in our blog: We write that San Diego Unified says it won’t chase state money for failing schools, but will make its own plans for the targeted schools, whether or not the state and feds like them.
- And there’s another sign that the era of former Superintendent Terry Grier is over in San Diego Unified: No more special interviews for principals.
- Home-to-school busing might disappear or cost more in San Dieguito schools, the North County Times writes. The district already charges parents for busing but could up the price.
- Educated Guess blogs that a new nonprofit will help retrain teachers who are laid off to work in special education, where there are more jobs. San Diego Unified did something like this last year.
- OMG: College professors are not happy about seeing texting shorthand show up in students’ papers, the Contra Costa Times reports.
- The Orange County Register writes that Capistrano families are keeping their kids home to protest a roughly 10 percent pay cut imposed on teachers by the school board.
- The Ventura County Star opines that converting a remote, isolated school into a charter could actually mean less choice and power for parents.
- The California Chronicle reports on a proposed state law that would raise the minimum age to start kindergarten by a few months, allowing more kids to go sooner.
- Jim Miller, a local college professor who is marching to Sacramento, writes in the Huffington Post about the tax system and schools.
- The Washington Post has a fascinating and very well-written article about how President Obama is reinventing the federal Department of Education as “a venture capitalist for school reform,” investing more in schools that adopt favored reforms, instead of the usual method of allocating money based on needs. The idea has split Democrats.
- USA Today reports that a new analysis from a conservative think tank puts teacher pensions $900 billion in the red.
- A national teachers union has put forward its own ideas on how to rewrite No Child Left Behind — and they diverge from those of President Obama, Education Week writes, especially when it comes to the idea of “teacher effectiveness.”
- And what does Obama mean when he says students should be career and college ready? Inside Higher Ed reports that one group argues they aren’t really the same thing.
Correction: The original version of this post said a proposed law would lower the age for kindergarten. It would actually raise it. We regret the error.
— EMILY ALPERT