This is a sampling of The Education Report, Katy Murphy's Oakland schools blog. Read more atwww.IBAbuzz.com/education. Follow her at Twitter.com/KatyMurphy.

I'm back from my trip, catching up on what I missed while I was visiting old temples and dodging motorbikes in Southeast Asia. Here is some of the education news that developed in the last two weeks:

Charter schools: The Oakland school board rejected the charter school petitions submitted by the faculties of ASCEND and Learning Without Limits, public elementary schools in the Fruitvale area that want to secede from the school district. The district's charter schools office recommended that the board approve the request, but Superintendent Tony Smith took a different stance, pointing to the financial investment the district has made in the schools since they opened.

This section of a staff resolution seems to sum up the superintendent's position: "Whereas, the District cannot