The Education Newsblitz: Protests Galore

Thank goodness it’s the newsblitz:

• A grassroots group of parents, educators and others who oppose school budget cuts are holding a rally on Saturday morning in Balboa Park, the Union-Tribune reports.
• We follow up with Grossmont schools, which say that just like San Diego Unified, their budgets won’t be impacted by the state pulling redevelopment money to schools because they were planning for it already. 
• Marsha Sutton at SDNN delves into just how the San Diego Unified school board decided to change its rules on Advanced Placement exams. You know the old saying about sausages and the law?
• San Marcos High School sought to combat hunger through a fundraiser, the North County Times writes.
• The state handed out millions for school building projects in San Diego County, the Daily Transcript reports.
• The San Jose Mercury News tracks the success of school parcel taxes near Santa Cruz; one failed by a very narrow margin while a neighboring district passed. San Diego Unified will be eyeing these numbers as it floats a tax of its own.
• Also in the Merc: Four boys in a small town outside San Jose who wore American flag clothing to school on Cinco de Mayo have sparked a firestorm of controversy about free speech, patriotism and respect.
• Educated Guess blogs about some of the strange twists in a case brought by the ACLU against Los Angeles Unified for laying off teachers based on seniority. The ACLU argues that the system is discriminatory because disadvantaged schools suffer the most layoffs.
• The New York City schools chancellor argues in the New York Post that schools there should lay off teachers with bad ratings from their principals first.
• A federal study of three extra programs meant to help kids’ reading skills found that only one actually worked, Education Week reports.
• This isn’t a news article, but it’s fascinating: A research paper looks at what private schools spend compare to public schools. The average private school spends more per child than a nearby public school, but the numbers are all over the map and correlate to religious affiliation.
• Reuters reports on how U.S. schools are trying to add fresh food to lunch menus.
• And Jay Mathews of the Washington Post examines one argument about how too much change can actually be bad for failing schools.

— EMILY ALPERT