Monday, October 29, 2012
The top compensated superintendent in the county is John Collins of Poway Unified, a district that made national news this year with a $105 million bond deal that will cost taxpayers ten times that amount to pay back over 40 years.
Lincoln Elementary students will return to their newly rebuilt school in January, marking the final project funded after Anaheim City School District voters approved a $111 million bond measure 10 years ago.
A set of exam scores was dropped from the semester grades of 100 students enrolled in a Woodbridge High School teacher's geometry classes, boosting the final letter grades of 36 students without the teacher's knowledge or consent.
After years of declining revenue and budgetary uncertainty, Chaffey Joint Union High School District officials are hoping voters will help them cut the cord with Sacramento - at least partially.
Today, more than 10,000 students attend one of the county's 13 charter schools, accounting for nearly one out of every 50 public school students countywide. Enrollment has more than tripled over the past decade as parents have sought out these alternative public school options.
Amid the ongoing budget crisis affecting schools statewide, six superintendents in San Diego County have seen their base salaries increase more than 10 percent in the past two years.
The top compensated superintendent in the county is John Collins of Poway Unified, a district that made national news this year with a $105 million bond deal that will cost taxpayers ten times that amount to pay back over 40 years. His compensation was $386,000, which included a $67,000 retirement benefit payout and an $18,000 longtime service bonus, according to a survey by The Watchdog of 42 districts.
Some parents throughout the state are taking advantage of a new program that can give their children a head start in school and change the age they will be when they graduate.
From sending letters to prospective college students to using automated phone calls reminding parents to vote, education officials are pushing harder than ever for the passage of Gov. Jerry Brown's tax initiative. But some critics call these methods scare tactics and in at least one case say the educators' efforts violated election laws
With five straight years of budget cuts and deferred payments from the state, California school districts have increasingly had to turn to borrowing. Now, if neither state proposition that would shore up education funding passes Nov. 6, the cost of borrowing for many districts is likely to go up. Some may be forced to seek a state bailout, or possibly face bankruptcy.
As Gov. Jerry Brown's revenue-raising proposition loses support, school superintendents say class sizes could grow, cherished programs could die and jobs will be lost.
Auto shop's long skid in the face of budget cuts and a shift toward college-prep classes may be reversing. Nowhere is that more apparent than in the San Diego Unified School District.
The Los Angeles teachers union has refused to sign off on Los Angeles Unified's bid for a prestigious Race to the Top grant, costing the district a shot at winning $40 million in federal money, sources said Saturday.
In TV commercials and campaign stops, Gov. Jerry Brown has told Californians that voting against his tax-hike measure, Proposition 30, will mean devastating cuts for public schools. Yet the governor's finance team concedes that state spending will go up next year regardless of your vote. So what's a voter to think? Does the state of California really need more of your money?
I hope that the Educator Excellence Task Force’s recommendations for developing and supporting beginning educators carry weight with policymakers and program administrators in Sacramento. Let’s learn from the best. Let’s build upon what’s working. Let’s fix what’s not.
The state’s Environmental Protection Agency finalized a revision of a controversial K-12 environmental curriculum on plastic bags Friday. California Watch, sister site of The Bay Citizen, reported last year that whole sections of an 11th-grade teachers' edition guide for a new curriculum had been lifted almost verbatim from comments and suggestions submitted by the American Chemistry Council, the chemical and plastics industry trade group.
A decision by the Roseville Joint Union High School District board this month to give the superintendent the right to approve advertising content in school newspapers and yearbooks has sparked a First Amendment civil rights debate within the district.
The Los Angeles Unified School District's Academic Growth Over Time measurement system, based on students' progress on standardized tests, spurs debate over fairness, accuracy.
State Schools Superintendent Tom Torlakson has named Keric Ashley director of the Analysis, Measurement and Accountability Reporting Division of the state Education Department. He is a key player in redesigning the state's accountability system for schools. T
Teachers helped students correct mistakes on standardized tests, prepared them with actual test questions or left instructional posters displayed in the classroom during testing, according to school district reports.
One reason several months ago to think Gov. Jerry Brown's ballot measure to raise taxes might have a better chance of passing than previous, failed tax initiatives was its potential to look more like a local issue than a statewide one. But a week before Election Day, the effort appears to be falling short.
Friday, October 26, 2012
A San Diego man has complained to the Encinitas Union School District that its website has inappropriate campaign material supporting tax propositions on the November ballot.
Over the next five years, Galt Joint Union Elementary School District estimated it will need room for an additional 106 new students due to new housing projections — and officials there are asking developers to foot the bill.
The governor of California may not be toast – yet – but, one might say, he's turning browner by the moment in the heat of a political campaign he hoped would be his legacy achievement. Two new statewide polls confirm what political instincts – and Jerry Brown's body language – were already telling us: His tax increase measure, Proposition 30, is fading fast with scarcely a week remaining until Election Day.
This analysis published in theDaily News points out that the $6 billion in cuts that the Governor has threatened if Prop. 30 doesn’t pass are only “cuts” because they were pre-built into the budget by over-optimistic politicians and could be addressed through other means than solely cutting 15-20 days of school as has been reported, and that school funding (red line in this chart) would still rise in future years thanks to economic growth (just not as much or as quickly as under Prop. 30).
