September 7, 2017

September 7th, 2017

Category: News

Delaware News

Cape Gazette
Cape’s new PR coordinator settles in to latest role
Pennsylvania native Stephanie Kichline spent the summer after college graduation working in Bethany Beach, and she never left the area. Cape Henlopen School District’s new public relations coordinator began work in August after working for Schell Brothers for the past seven years. “I planned on working the summer at a surf shop and ended up getting a full-time job with Schell,” she said.

Delmarva Now
As Love Creek Elementary opens, a growing Cape Henlopen School District plans for future
The Cape Henlopen School District unveiled its newest school building Aug. 29, one that signals the start of a new plan for the future. The district is growing, both in terms of population and schools as the halls were open to Love Creek Elementary. And it’s happening in the midst of an education budget crisis that saw schools statewide lose more than $26 million.

Newsworks
Pennsylvania, Delaware join in suing Trump administration over ending DACA
Fifteen states — including Pennsylvania and Delaware — and the District of Columbia sued Wednesday to block President Donald Trump’s plan to end a program protecting young immigrants from deportation — an act Washington state’s attorney general called “a dark time for our country.” Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro joined in the suit and on Wednesday put out a video explaining his decision to fight for the program for undocumented young people.

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
Scholarship honors Delaware Cpl. Stephen Ballard
A new scholarship fund at the Delaware Community Foundation will honor the memory of Cpl. Stephen Ballard, a Delaware State trooper killed in the line of duty in April. Ballard, an eight-year veteran of the Delaware State Police, was shot and killed while investigating a suspicious vehicle at a Bear-area Wawa. When he approached the car, the passenger jumped out and began firing at him.

National News

Business Insider
A study of 36,000 students just backed Bill Gates’ favorite style of education
Former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates has said repeatedly that one of his favorite ways of teaching kids is by letting them guide their own education, typically with laptops or tablets, and moving the teacher more into the role of coach. The style is known as “personalized learning,” and a study involving 36,000 students just upheld it as a major driver of improvement in reading and math skills.

Education Week
Senate panel rejects Trump teacher-funding cut, school choice proposals
Lawmakers overseeing education spending dealt a big blow to the Trump administration’s K-12 budget asks in a spending bill approved by a bipartisan vote Wednesday. The legislation would leave intact the main federal programs aimed at teacher training and after-school funding. And it would seek to bar the U.S. Department of Education from moving forward with two school choice initiatives it pitched in its request for fiscal year 2018, which begins Oct. 1.

KQED
How ending behavior rewards helped one school focus on student motivation and character
Handing out colored bracelets and upbeat stickers when students behave well seems like an effective strategy for encouraging civility. Little prizes and public praise would seem to encourage honesty, generosity and other marks of good character, and for years schools have relied on such rewards to elicit the behavior they desire in their students.

The Hechinger Report
How the federal government abandoned the Brown v. Board of Education decision
On weekends, North Smithfield Manor smells like freshly cut grass, as men venture out under the Alabama sun to tend to their lawns. Kids race their bikes up and down the neighborhood’s hilly streets. Leslie Williams, a 34-year-old mother of three, lives in her childhood home in this secluded subdivision, perched atop a ridge five miles north of downtown Birmingham.

The New York Times
New York City offers free lunch for all public school students
Lunch at New York City public schools will be available free of charge to all 1.1 million students beginning this school year, Carmen Fariña, the schools chancellor, said on Wednesday in the basement cafeteria of a Hell’s Kitchen elementary school. The new school year begins on Thursday. “This is about equity,” Ms. Fariña said. “All communities matter.” This move has been long sought by food-policy advocates and many members of the New York City Council, who said that some students would prefer to go hungry rather than admit they cannot afford to pay for lunch.

The Washington Post
‘We didn’t know it was this bad’: New ACT scores show huge achievement gaps
New results from the nation’s most widely used college admission test highlight in detailed fashion the persistent achievement gaps between students who face disadvantages and those who don’t. Scores from the ACT show that just 9 percent of students in the class of 2017 who came from low-income families, whose parents did not go to college, and who identify as black, Hispanic, American Indian or Pacific Islander are strongly ready for college.

 




Author:
Rodel Foundation of Delaware

info@rodelfoundationde.org

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