The Education Newsblitz: The Small High School Saga

No time for chitchat. On to the newsblitz!

• We blog that small high schools on two campuses, which have had a mixed track record in San Diego Unified, came up with a plan to improve. But that plan didn’t scrounge up much savings, which the school district had earlier pressed them to do. 
• KPBS also tracks the small high school saga and why they’re being pushed to improve.
• San Diego Unified agreed to furloughs and eventual raises for its classroom assistants and school police officers, in line with what teachers agreed to earlier this year, the Union-Tribune reports.
• The U-T opines that laying off teachers shouldn’t automatically come down to seniority.
• San Marcos school officials are trying to convince voters to pass a new bond that would pay for a modernized high school, the North County Times reports.
• Democrats in the state Legislature are proposing borrowing money and paying it off with an oil tax to help bring more money to education and avoid cutting social safety net programs, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
• Educated Guess blogs that California hasn’t been notified by the feds about how much money it will get to help school districts turn around perennially failing schools, adding to an already tense process.
• A California teachers union leader argues in the San Jose Mercury News that Gov. Schwarzenegger is merely blaming teachers for the budget cuts by trying to shift the focus to seniority rules in layoffs.
• The Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that Virginia schools can now http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2010/05/25/33mct_vatracking.html?tkn=QLQFyIV%2FR1WgpFilizsl9lJZ2d7cSTIJfPqd&cmp=clp-edweek” target=”_blank” title=””>track how their students fare in college. This sounds similar to a California system that San Diego Unified agreed to join last night.
• Reuters reports that the prospects for a nationwide school funding bailout just wilted. Politico dissects what happened and what it means.
• Want your kids to score high on tests? Make them play in the dirt. Well, maybe. Education Week blogs that a new study shows that bacteria in soil can help mice run a maze faster.
• The Quick and the Ed questions the link between high school grades and college success.
• And the New York Times highlights problems with the oversight of charter schools.

— EMILY ALPERT