Put up, or shut down. That was the message from the San Diego Unified school board to two struggling charter schools, writes Emily Alpert.
The board voted to send letters to the schools seeking changes after lists of accusations, ranging from "failing to hold open meetings" to "failing to report child abuse," were leveled. The touchy subject has Promise Charter School's parents and teachers taking sides. "Clearly there's a lot of dysfunction going on in this school," school board member Scott Barnett said.
But the school board itself is no high-functioning dream machine, either. Last month it Read the rest of this article
Months after San Diego Unified took a controversial step to concentrate more of its federal money for disadvantaged students on the very poorest schools, one school board member wants a do-over.
John Lee Evans abstained in December when the school board made one of its most controversial calls: It chose to gradually pull money away from schools with lower percentages of poor children and give it to schools where 75 percent of students or more are poor enough to get free or reduced price lunches. Though the highest poverty schools already get more money per pupil, this move would concentrate the money even more heavily on the most disadvantaged schools.
The change would take place slowly, phased in over five years. Parents and principals on the losing end have protested it will strip services for poor children who go to somewhat better-off schools. Backers say it will focus more of the money where it is most sorely needed, arguing that San Diego Unified has diluted the dollars by spreading them out to schools with lower poverty levels.
Evans said he didn't vote on the idea in December because he felt the school board didn't have any solid information about how well the money was being used to make their decision. The vote was 3-0, with Evans abstaining and Kevin Beiser absent from the meeting. Read the rest of this article
I'm looking into how much harder it is to get into a public college with California's budget crunched. One of the most striking factoids I've found is that in the fall, local community colleges turned away roughly 10,000 students. Community colleges are Read the rest of this article