Emily Alpert's Bright and Early

Emily Alpert's Bright and Early column is jam-packed with links to stories I wouldn't come across if I didn't read Voice of San Diego. Here is a sampling from today's column.

Bright and Early
EMILY ALPERT
September 11, 2009

...# The North County Times reports that the future of a controversial reading program is uncertain in Vista schools. Schools will use similar strategies after class, but will not use the consultants who are supposed to oversee the program.


# Schools historian Diane Ravitch blogs at Education Week that the reforms boosted by the stimulus may not be so hot: "What is extraordinary about these regulations is that they have no credible basis in research," she writes. "They just happen to be the programs and approaches favored by the people in power."


# The Washington Post reports that the D.C. teachers union may be nearing a deal with firebrand Superintendent Michelle Rhee on a contract. Rhee has relinquished the idea of a two-tiered salary schedule with higher pay for teachers who give up key job protections, but the nascent deal could still give D.C. schools more power to fire ineffective teachers.


# And the USA Today zeroes in on a Kentucky school district where a football coach took players on a voluntary trip to be baptized in church. He used a school bus -- but another coach paid for the fuel. Is that a problem? Their superintendent says no. The American Civil Liberties Union says yes.