Schools

A Stanislaus County school board banned a celebrated but controversial piece of Chicano literature from its high school classrooms this week because trustees and the superintendent believe "Bless Me, Ultima" contains too much profanity. The Newman Crows Landing Board of Education voted 4 to 1 Monday night to strip the coming-of-age novel by Rudolfo Anaya from the sophomore required reading list at Orestimba High School.

In a cheery classroom decorated with posters exhorting students to "Dive into a Good Book," four first-graders, who are struggling to read, recited words ending with the "ang" sound -- bang, rang, sang, fang, gang. The Foothill Ranch Elementary School students used their index fingers to trace the letters into squares of felt and carpet, imprinting the connection between the letters and the sound into their minds.

A proposal by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to shorten the school year by five days is creating panic among educators across California, who say they barely have enough time to fit the state's academic standards into the existing 180-day calendar. The idea to cut funding equivalent to five school days would save $1.1 billion at a time when California faces a massive budget deficit. But state Supt. of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell called the proposal "devastating."

The massive federal economic stimulus package hammered out by Congress this week contains about $106 billion earmarked for education, an unprecedented expansion of federal spending into the nation's schools. District officials throughout California, bracing for another round of painful state budget cuts, were grateful for a new infusion of funds. The money would pay for, among other things, special education, school repair and retaining teachers who might otherwise be laid off.

Parents in Los Angeles this week will receive a one-page report card that will provide a less varnished and more accessible picture of how well their child's school is doing. For high schools, the report card will provide more accurate dropout figures and display, for example, how many students are proficient in English and math -- and whether that number is going up or down.

Rachel Bennett, 12, loves playing soccer, spending time with her grandparents and making jewelry with beads. But since she entered a magnet middle school in the fall -- and began receiving two to four hours of homework a night -- those activities have fallen by the wayside. "She's only a kid for so long," said her father, Alex Bennett, of Silverado Canyon. "There's been tears and frustration and family arguments. Everyone gets burned out and tired."

In a sign of challenging economic times, UCLA has put on hold indefinitely plans to open a second campus of its experimental laboratory school, a project that had been touted as a major effort to expand its mission to low-income communities beyond Westwood. The UCLA Lab School had planned to open classrooms in South Los Angeles or the Pico-Union district near downtown, bringing its research-based programs directly to areas of poverty and low expectations. It was to be a new educational model, the first of two or three other campuses that would reach into Los Angeles' urban neighborhoods.

Three public schools in California led the nation in helping Latino students outperform their counterparts in other states on Advanced Placement exams in Spanish language, Spanish literature and world history, according to a report released Wednesday by the College Board. Woodrow Wilson High School in Long Beach was cited as the public school with the largest number of Latino students from the class of 2008 earning a 3 or better in AP world history.

Porter Middle School administrators believed a boy was dealing pot on campus. So they allegedly sent a student to buy some. The sting worked -- to a point. The student successfully bought drugs and the administrators at the Granada Hills campus reported the incident to authorities.

School's out for summer -- except for hundreds of children in western San Bernardino County who, because of an administrative snafu, must make up 34 days of school this summer. The fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders at Rolling Ridge Elementary in Chino Hills and Dickson Elementary in Chino exceeded the state's requirement of minutes spent in the classroom, and the last day of school was supposed to be Thursday.