The news that didn't fit from Aug 19th!

►UNION'S 'BIG IDEA' FOR LAUSD: Proposed charter-like model would give schools more control - "Los Angeles Unified's teachers union stepped into district-reform efforts this week, proposing a charter-like model that would give campuses greater control over budgets, hiring and curriculum…", says the Daily News. But the new UTLA plan is an old plan that's been on the table in some form or another since spring. But (calm down Duffy!) in UTLA's defense: Maybe it's time the plan – which puts control for a school's budget and accountability for the school's performance at the school site – gets some consideration?

►49 DAYS WITHOUT A BUDGET: 4LAKids lays out the cost to LAUSD and kids in the classroom of the budget impasses in Sacramento.

►LONG-TERM SUBSTITUTES TO CUT COSTS FOR LAUSD: But the Teacher's Union Opposes the Proposal, Which Would Shuffle Instructors After Winter Break. The Daily Breeze's take on "Renorming" - a complicated issue that's even more convoluted than first it seems – filtered and spun through UTLA.

►Williams: WE'RE STILL FAILING OUR STUDENTS - Camille Esch's Op-Ed in the LA Times isn't as upbeat as the "'upbeat progress report' on the results of the settlement of Williams vs. California, a class-action suit brought on behalf of the state's most-neglected students" …even though the report comes from the plaintiffs themselves! "Sometimes," Rick Nelson said; "if you can't please everyone, you've got to please yourself."

►THINK TWICE ON RANKINGS + THE EDUCATION CONSERVANCY - The Education News column in the Dallas Morning News (what a concept!) and some College Admission Folks take on the annual silliness of the US News and World Report College Ranking – which are out ….but won't be reported here!

►WHY THE RUSH TO MANHATTANIZE L.A.?: There seems to be little public debate about the dramatic remaking of Los Angeles into a left-coast New York. At first blush Joel Kotkin's OpEd in the LA Times about city planning seems a bit off topic for a blog about public education – until one confronts and connects the dots.

►NOTHING WILL HAPPEN WITH NCLB – Arianna's hard to figure and No Child Left Behind is nobody's darling. Here the Huffington Post takes NCLB on – and the right, the left and the conventional thinking.