Gov. Schwarzenegger has vetoed Senate Bill 1446, which would have exempted special ed students from having to pass the California High School Exit Exam to receive a diploma. The exemption would have been good through 2010.

State schools Superintendent Jack O’Connell applauded the governor’s veto.

Since 2006, California students in regular ed have had to pass the exit exam, which tests students in 10th-grade English and eighth-grade math skills. For the class of 2008, 90.2 percent of students statewise passed, and almost 54 percent of special ed students had passed as of May. We wrote a story about this last month.

The California Department of Education today released revised graduation and dropout rates for the 2006-07 school year. For details, check out the state’s press release.

I’ve put together charts comparing the revised rates to the preliminary results that came out in July for schools in the Tri-City area.

Click here for the graduation rates and here for the dropout rates.

Last night, the Fremont school board discussed whether classes should start later, at least at the high schools. (For the district staff report, click here. The report starts on page 80.)

Some studies suggest that teenagers are biologically wired to sleep later, and when they’re forced to wake up early for school, they’re less attentive. Read the rest of this entry »

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell unveiled his “Algebra I Success Initiative” today in response to the state Board of Education’s recent decision to require all eighth-graders to take Algebra I starting in three years.

O’Connell opposed the decision but said in a statement that “given the State Board’s decision, I believe it is imperative we focus on ensuring our students are now given the resources they need to successfully reach this mandate.”

His plan calls for $3.1 billion in state funding to lower seventh- and eighth-grade math class sizes, increase instructional time, expand afterschool and weekend tutorial programs, provide professional development and instructional materials to teachers, and recruit and retain quality instructors, among other things. Read the rest of this entry »

It should come as no surprise to anyone who’s been following our coverage of local elections that the candidate filing period is tomorrow.

Just a reminder that while the deadline is 5 p.m. Friday for most candidates, the deadline is 4 p.m. for those planning to run for the Union City City Council.

Union City’s City Hall is closed every other Friday, including this week. But because of the filing deadline, the city clerk’s office will stay open tomorrow for special hours.

A reader called me yesterday to ask where people need to go to pull papers. Basically, if you want to run for a school board, Washington Hospital board or pretty much any race other than city council, you can file through the Alameda County Registrar of Voters office in Oakland.

Fremont and Union City City Council candidates can file through their city halls.

image from Joseph Dath's site at flickr.com

A story in today’s paper talks about the latest student dropout rates, with figures for local schools, districts, the county and state.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have space in the print edition to compare results from the past two years. (Clarification: I’m really talking about dropout rates for the 2005-06 and 2006-07 school years because the state is always one year behind in reporting the results.)

What makes this year’s report noteworthy is that, for the first time, it was based on a new student tracking system that makes the data more accurate. Read the rest of this entry »

A bill to better inform families of students with disabilities of the services provided through the California School for the Blind and the California School for the Deaf passed through the state Assembly today on a 63-0 vote.

The bill, by Assembly Majority Leader Alberto Torrico (D-Newark), now heads to the governor for approval. For more information, click here.

UPDATE: The East Bay Express has corrected their mistake online as of Friday (see link below).
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In Thursday’s The Argus, we will have a round-up of Newark-related election news, including the outcome of retiring city schools Superintendent John Bernard’s try for a seat on the county board of education.

Barring a possible editing mistake, the story will explain that Bernard came in second place in a three-way race for the Area Three trustee seat in Oakland.

Other newspapers, namely the East Bay Express and Berkeley Daily Planet, reported on their Web sites Tuesday that Bernard would head to a runoff in November because winner Ken Berrick got less than 50 percent of the vote.

But county Deputy Registrar Cynthia Cornejo assured me that the seat is chosen by plurality, meaning the candidate with the most votes wins. So there’s no runoff.

So wherever those other reporters got their information, it’s wrong, unless the official source is wrong. Maybe they just assumed there would be a runoff, but the old journalism adage is “check your facts” — as in with the registrar’s office.

So who cares about Measure K, we’re keeping the Newark news straight. (Now I just hope nobody finds an error in my story.)

Here’s some more about Bernard, if you want it.

UPDATE: Our schools reporter tells me that the rankings released today don’t mean jack. I’m too simple to understand this stuff, but she’ll explain it in her story in tomorrow’s paper. 

Here’s a handy database for looking up API rankings which came out today for local schools: http://www.sfgate.com/webdb/2007api/

Congratulations to the Washington High varsity cheerleading squad. The Huskies took 1st place Sunday in the Large Varsity Show Cheer Novice competition at the 2008 United Spirit Association Spirit Nationals in Anaheim.

Irvington High’s squad finished 5th out of 19 teams in the same competition.

Kennedy’s varsity squad finished 2nd in the Small Varsity Show Cheer Novice competition.

Washington also finished 6th out of 77 squads in the Group Stunt competition and 4th out of 15 squads in the Junior Varsity Cheer Novice competition.

Thanks to Jet Lacebal for the results. Newark Memorial also participated in the nationals, but we haven’t gotten its results yet.