Bright and Early: The Education Newsblitz

If you want to get the gory details on what happened at the school board meeting last night, you can always check out my Twitter feed. Now for the newsblitz:

• We blogged about the latest news from the San Diego Unified school board: Students won’t have to take an Advanced Placement test to get a higher grade in AP classes. And the schoobrary took another key step forward when the school board approved a lease with the city.
• Marsha Sutton at SDNN writes that the AP decision puts San Diego Unified in line with other districts.
• Two Escondido school districts are weighing whether to unify, the North County Times reports.
• California lost out on the first round of Race to the Top, a competition between states for more school money. Now it has a new strategy for the second round, the Los Angeles Times reports: Only having three large districts apply. San Diego Unified, which has sat out on Race to the Top, isn’t one of them.
• Educated Guess blogs about how a radio show, This American Life, challenged the way that California gubernatorial candidate Steve Poizner portrayed a San Jose high school. I just listened to the show last night and it is fascinating stuff.
• The new No Child Left Behind could focus more on student health and other needs outside the classroom, Education Week writes.
• Private foundations who helped pay for raises for D.C. teachers say that if the controversial D.C. chancellor Michelle Rhee leaves, they will too, the Washington Post reports. This is an especially striking example of how private entities with cash to spare can exercise influence on public schools.
• The New York Times has this funny story about what happens when you ban kids from texting.
• And the Wall Street Journal analyzed teacher absenteeism in New York City schools and found that it was most acute in some of the poorest areas. Is this a problem here? Please let me know.

— EMILY ALPERT