voiceofsandiego.org |Schools Undo Another Grier Change

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Schools Undo Another Grier Change

Last week I reported that San Diego Unified is planning to reverse changes to its central offices that were made by former Superintendent Terry Grier, returning to a system that looks a lot like what it had before.

Now there's another sign the era of Grier is over in San Diego Unified: The school district will no longer be using a controversial interview tool that Grier introduced to choose principals.

Grier had touted the Haberman interviews as a way to measure would-be-principals' values. We wrote about it nearly two years ago when Grier introduced it:

The interview is modeled on the teachings of University of Wisconsin Milwaukee professor Martin Haberman, who studies disadvantaged students and the educators who help them best. Principals applying for new jobs were interviewed as well. San Diego Unified signed a $23,000 contract with the Haberman Educational Foundation to train staffers in the interview process, which includes problem-

Bright and Early: The Education Newsblitz

A friend of mine did a terrible thing and introduced me to this British television show about high schoolers who run a newspaper. I may never get work done again. At least I managed to scrape together your newsblitz:

• We blog that the San Diego Unified school board will decide tonight whether or not to offer summer school and which grades could get it. Paring back could save money, but as we wrote earlier, it could also have consequences.

• The Union-Tribune writes that the board is also weighing whether to suspend a policyaimed at ending social promotion by requiring students to take summer school or be held back a grade.

• Marsha Sutton at SDNN blogs about national trends on teacher tenure, video essays for college applications and California's so-far-failed bid for Race to the Tip.

• Classroom assistants and other support employees are losing their jobs in Vista schools, the North County Times reports.

• Teacher salaries in California, once the highest in the country in absolute dollars, now fall behind those in New York, the Educated Guess blogs. Meanwhile, student-to-teacher ratios are higher in California than almost anywhere else. John Fensterwald unpacks the information from a national teachers union report.

• Internships are becoming a way of life for college students, the Sacramento Bee writes. One even has a blog called "The Eternal Intern."

• A new report says UC Berkeley spending is wasteful, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

• What works best for English learners? The debate continues: A Kentucky economist finds