August 30, 2017
Delaware News
Department of Education
New Delaware Certificate of Multiliteracy recognizes advanced language skills
Delaware has developed a new Certificate of Multiliteracy to honor and recognize students with high levels of language proficiency in addition to English, Secretary of Education Susan Bunting announced today. The certificate applauds students for attaining high levels of language proficiency in multiple languages and also values native language proficiency for the 11,000 English learners in Delaware.
Rodel Blog
New data about Delaware’s earliest learners reveal need and opportunity
Blog post by Madeleine Bayard, vice president of policy and practice at the Rodel Foundation of Delaware, and Michelle Taylor, CEO and president of United Way of Delaware
In Delaware, we’ve known for years the importance of getting off to a great start. By the time a child celebrates his or her fifth birthday, nearly 90 percent of intellect, personality, and social skills are already developed. And when children arrive to kindergarten ready to learn, their chances to thrive in school skyrockets. Thanks to some key investments and programmatic support, the state’s early childhood education system has come a long way in recent years.
Delaware still lagging behind in state-supported pre-k
Blog post by Madeleine Bayard, vice president of policy and practice at the Rodel Foundation of Delaware
According to the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER), Delaware ranks 35th among states for pre-K enrollment, with only seven percent (845) of four-year olds enrolled in state-sponsored pre-K. Despite Delaware’s laudable progress in early childhood education, the fact remains that we’re below most other states when it comes to state-sponsored pre-K. Why is that figure important?
The News Journal
Brandywine parents bond over Boo Hoo Breakfast
“Cut those strings!” Hanby Elementary School Principal Veronica Wilkie said sternly, hands on her hips. In front of her sat red-eyed parents, fresh from dropping off their kids for the first day of kindergarten. They held small packets of tissues in their hands, given to them by fellow parents serving on the school’s PTA.
National News
Chalkbeat
When school districts resegregate, more black and Hispanic students drop out
After courts lift school desegregation orders, students of color are more likely to drop out, a new study finds — the latest signal that school segregation harms black and Hispanic kids. Court-mandated integration efforts across the U.S. have sharply declined in recent decades. Of 480 school districts that had an integration order in place in 1991 (and at least 2,000 students), 214 had the court order eliminated by 2010.
Education Week
What families really need from a teacher’s back-to-school letter
Our school year is upon us, and many of us are scrambling to set up our classrooms, get those first few weeks planned, and convince ourselves that, yes, we have to wear real, actual, big-kid pants to open house. The beginning of the year is an especially important time to connect with families, but we often use it for some of our least important communication.
NPR
A school counselor takes to the floodwaters to rescue his students and their families
Brandon McElveen’s Ford F150 pickup is lifted up about six inches. He says that’s just the style in the South, but this week, “it’s come in handy” for driving through up to four feet of water. McElveen’s a counselor at the KIPP Explore Academy elementary school in Houston. Within hours of the flooding this week, he began getting calls and messages asking for help.
The Hechinger Report
After decades of pushing bachelor’s degrees, U.S. needs more tradespeople
At a steel factory dwarfed by the adjacent Auto Club Speedway, Fernando Esparza is working toward his next promotion. Esparza is a 46-year-old mechanic for Evolution Fresh, a subsidiary of Starbucks that makes juices and smoothies. He’s taking a class in industrial computing taught by a community college at a local manufacturing plant in the hope it will bump up his wages. It’s a pretty safe bet.
The Wall Street Journal
Bronx charter school caters to students on the ‘margins’
At Mott Haven Academy Charter School in New York City, fifth-graders start the fall reading “Locomotion,” the story of a boy in foster care. Every kindergartner gets a teddy bear to keep in school for comfort. And from time to time, class parties celebrate a student’s adoption. The Bronx charter is believed to be the first in the U.S. designed for children in foster care or at risk of entering it, often due to parental addiction, abuse, or neglect.