Monday, August 9, 2010

As San Diego Schools Plan Reforms, Details Are Still Elusive

As San Diego Schools Plan Reforms, Details Are Still Elusive

As San Diego Schools Plan Reforms, Details Are Still Elusive

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The Issue

San Diego Unified has countered critics who call it a failure by saying it has plans to fix its problems, but many of those plans are still vague.

The Problem

The lack of details has given ammunition to school district critics and could endanger the reforms themselves.

The Quest

School district leaders are trying to find clear, measurable ways to emphasize critical thinking, collaboration between teachers and other ideals.
Posted: Sunday, August 8, 2010 5:15 pm | Updated: 8:05 am, Mon Aug 9, 2010.
By EMILY ALPERT
Critics call San Diego Unified a failing school district. Even worse, they say, it has turned down federal reforms -- and federal money to back them.
The school district argues it has reform plans of its own. Plans to amp up critical thinking. Plans to encourage teachers to collaborate. Plans to empower schools to make their own decisions instead of imposing ideas from the top. Plans to ensure that each child is measured individually.
But the school district still has to translate most of those plans into concrete changes in classrooms. While San Diego Unified has working groups and slideshows loaded with phrases like "focus


San Diego Unified didn't get a $5 million federal innovation grant that would have helped it revamp the way it analyzes data. The grant, which would have spanned from three to five years, would have helped the school district amp up its existing efforts to better track and review data to see what programs are working and how well, bringing financial, staffing and student achievement data together.

Summer Schoolers’ Poetry in Motion
In my story today, I focused on a group of teens who are trying to improve their English at Mira Mesa High this summer -- and wrote some pretty amazing poetry in the process. Last night, I got to check out poems and prose from all six San Diego Unified high schools that hosted summer schools for English learners last night, at a showcase event at Centro
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