Bright and Early: The Education Newsblitz

I’m exploring the brave new world of adult education this morning, something I haven’t done before. Got questions? Send them my way! Now for your newsblitz:

• We report that the city of San Diego has signed off on a lease for the schoobrary with San Diego Unified, a step that brings the downtown library one step closer to reality. 
• State schools chief Jack O’Connell was wowed by the free breakfast program in San Diego Unified when he came for a visit, the Union-Tribune reports.
• Also in the UT: Poway parents pleaded with their school board to save busing, invoking the death of Escondido teen Amber Dubois as one reason. KPBS focuses on the pleas of the bus drivers.
• Our guest blogger Ashley Hermsmeier says her teen students need a reason to care about standardized tests.
• SDNN reports on new grants available for local schools.
• California Capitol Network looks at one push to up the entrance age for kindergarten. Via KPBS.
• A Los Angeles study found that preschool enhances kids’ social and emotional skills, the Times writes.
• Education advocates are nearing the end of a 48-day march across the state to publicize schools’ budget woes, the Sacramento Bee reports.
• The San Francisco Chronicle writes that the Obama administration is taking notes — literally — about what helped turn around one struggling school in the city by the bay.
• Yuck: The Los Angeles Times reports that an accidental needle stick at a charter school has underscored how unusual problems can be especially challenging for schools without a district bureaucracy.
• Capistrano teachers offered a compromise instead of going on strike, something they threatened to do if their salaries were cut, the Orange County Register reports.
• The military is joining the fight to make school food healthier, USA Today reports. The reason? They need fitter recruits.
• New Jersey taxpayers are paying more for less at their public schools, The New York Times writes, and they aren’t happy about it.
• The Associated Press reports that in Louisiana, Gov. Bobby Jindal wants everything that the teachers unions don’t want.
• And NPR reports on how texting is impacting teens’ writing and social skills.

— EMILY ALPERT