It’s the newsblitz and it’s coming your way:
- You’re new to the country and speak little English. You’ve only had a few years of schooling in your own tongue. And now you’ve got to pass the California high school exit exam. Newcomer teens are in a race against time, and Crawford High is one of five campuses that have a special program to help them catch up.
- The Union-Tribune writes that Carlsbad teens swept a national student broadcast competition.
- Also in the UT: Escondido is starting young — very young — on the idea of college.
- And the UT editorial page has two arguments on education: It urges City Council to move forward on the schoobrary. And it wants California to keep working to link teacher pay to student test scores.
- Parents and bus drivers in Poway will plead with their school district not to cut bus routes, the North County Times writes.
- The NCT also reports that Vista teachers are going back to the bargaining table with the Vista school district after months of protests at school board meetings.
- Educated Guess blogs that a newly proposed law would allow school districts to lay off teachers based on effectiveness, not seniority, and push back the date for warning teachers of a possible layoff. The California Teachers Association is likely to fight it, John Fensterwald writes.
- What went wrong with the California public university system? The San Jose Mercury News analyzes the rise and fall of the UC and CSU systems, chalking up problems to plummeting state support, little coordination, continued expansion and no guaranteed funding.
- The Sacramento Bee reports that its local schools are trying to serve healthier food, but some still have sausage pizzas and corn dogs for breakfast. New federal guidelines may force them to shape up.
- Education Week writes about the federal push for school turnarounds — dramatic changes such as firing half the staff or becoming a charter school — for the lowest performing schools nationwide.
- Claus van Zastrow blogs that when it comes to education reform, especially the question of whether to tie teacher pay for student scores, it’s becoming more difficult to have reasonable discussions.
- The New York Times highlights a Massachusetts charter school that does philosophy for the younger set. But Robert Pondiscio blogs that this just sounds like what thoughtful teachers have always done.
- Online textbooks are creating buzz in Texas, the Dallas Morning News writes.
- And the Philadelphia Inquirer writes about the newest turn in the bizarre case of school laptops that could secretly snap photos: Parents will get to see the photos taken of their children.
— EMILY ALPERT