A Mess in the Middle for Lincoln High
Unlike every other school in San Diego, Lincoln High School has no neighborhood middle school that automatically feeds teens into the local high school. That longstanding problem could loom even larger...
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What Works in Schools? Good Question
San Diego Unified wanted to see if class sizes mattered. So it poured more than $30 million in federal stimulus money into creating smaller classes for its youngest students at more than two dozen...
View ArticleMorning Report: It’s Right vs. Left in Battle for Mayor
San Diego voters have a stark choice for mayor in November: the famously partisan liberal Democrat Rep. Bob Filner or the famously partisan conservative Republican Councilman Carl DeMaio. And it looks...
View ArticleMorning Report: Democrats Rout
San Diego County’s Democratic coalition could not have hoped for a better Election Day. After 18 months of campaigning, the mayor’s race was too close to call late last night. But as of 2:24 a.m.,...
View ArticleNew SD Unified School Board Sworn In
The San Diego Unified School District’s newest school board member, Marne Foster, was sworn in Monday night at an unusually festive school board meeting. Foster, who handily beat opponent Bill Ponder...
View ArticleWhat to Watch for in the D4 Runoff
At first glance, there isn’t much difference between San Diego 4th District runoff candidates Myrtle Cole and Dwayne Crenshaw. Both are longtime Democrats who want to prioritize jobs, education,...
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Why San Diego’s Slice of the School Funding Pie Is About to Get Bigger
Local school districts have endured years of cuts, and the ever-shrinking pot of state money came with lots of strings attached. That is changing in a big way with the implementation of the Local...
View ArticleHere Are All the New State Laws Written by San Diego Legislators
This post has been updated. Unless there’s an emergency, the work of lawmaking in Sacramento is done for the year. Gov. Jerry Brown last week signed a huge slate of bills into law, marking the...
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Sacramento Report: San Diego Lawmakers Accepted $84K in Gifts
Christmas lasted all year long for state lawmakers. San Diego’s 11 state lawmakers accepted more than 300 gifts last year, with a combined retail value of more than $84,000. Assemblyman Rocky Chavez...
View Article‘We Hear You And We’re Going to Deal With This’
When Assemblywoman Shirley Weber began talking to law enforcement officials to discuss the raft of bills she’s writing to address concerns about policing and people of color, she said their reaction...
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Sacramento Report: No Drought of Water Wonkery
California lawmakers are on their version of Spring Break this week, so there’s been a bit of a drought, if you will, of news about bills and other legislative moves. But the big news of the week was...
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Sacramento Report: Vacation’s Over for Lawmakers
Vacation’s over for state lawmakers, who returned from a weeklong spring break Monday to begin the first committee hearings of the 2015-16 session. San Diego lawmakers avoided any signs of a...
View ArticleSacramento Report: What the Hell Are We Doing?
There was high drama in the Capitol this week. Gov. Jerry Brown threatened water wasters with $10,000 fines. Anti-vaxxers stormed the Capitol in droves. But Assemblywoman Shirley Weber stole the show....
View ArticleMorning Report: Green Stadium Will Cost More Green
A football stadium produces pollution, and we’re not just talking about the hot air from sports columnists and out-of-town fans. Everything from tailgaters to cannons have the potential to hurt the...
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The Learning Curve: ‘What the Hell Are We Doing?’
Last May, during a state Assembly Education Committee meeting, Assemblywoman Shirley Weber implored her colleagues to approve a bill that would require evidence of student progress to be used in...
View ArticleWhat We Learned This Week
The beauty of being a journalist in San Diego, Scott Lewis and Andy Donohue told me while I was interviewing for this gig, is that all you have to do is look. Look into a corner of politics or policy,...
View ArticleWeber: Schools Need New Thinking — Not New Buildings
Memorial Preparatory for Scholars and Athletes is the school parents avoid most in San Diego, and we recently learned that discussions are going forward about tearing it down and rebuilding it....
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Sacramento Report: Anderson Could Run for Three Different Seats in Six Years
State Sen. Joel Anderson might not be leaving Sacramento after all. The East County legislator got a lot of publicity from his decision to run against fellow Republican Dianne Jacob for a San Diego...
View ArticleVOSD Podcast: We Will Make You Care About Education
“If you don’t care about education, we will make you …” That’s the warning — er, promise? — from VOSD’s Scott Lewis this week. He explores some entertaining and important facets of education with...
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Shirley Weber Challenged Two Powerful Interest Groups
Some people who manage to make headlines get there based on what they say – they’re conveying important, revelatory information; others get there based on how they say it – they know how to harness...
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