December 9, 2014

Delaware News

The News Journal
Delaware to text students college application advice
More than 4,000 students signed up for text alerts from the Delaware Department of Education during College Application Month. These alerts give quick, easy reminders to guide students through the steps of the college application process, reminding students of deadlines and helping them stay on track. “Kids aren’t reading emails and they’re probably not reading snail mail. But they are always looking at their phones,” said Michael Watson, the department’s Chief Academic Officer. “We really want to reach kids in the ways that make sense to them.”

District proposes uniforms for high schoolers
The Christina and the Colonial school districts are considering requiring students in all grades, including high school, to wear uniforms, arguing they bring calm and order to schools and remove some peer pressure. Most other districts in Delaware have a dress code, but do not have uniforms. In the Red Clay School District, individual schools make the choice, with A.I. DuPont High, for example, having a stricter dress code and Conrad School of Sciences requiring uniforms.

Competition teaches kids about the stock market
There are more than 1,000 students in Delaware participating in the Stock Market game this year. The program is designed to teach students how the stock market works while also helping them understand the importance of investing. Students compete against each other to create the most profitable portfolio, and each class is against the others doing the same game elsewhere in the state. As of Friday, a class at Shue-Medill Middle school was at the top of the leaderboard.

Should teachers know a child takes ADHD meds?
Though teachers say it could be helpful, parents are not required to disclose to teachers that their child has ADHD, or whether their child is on medication to help improve his or her ability to concentrate. Parents can have their children take medicine at home or they can ask that school nurses administer ADHD medication to their child during the day. However, teachers aren’t required to know when or what kind of medication a child is taking once he or she goes to the nurse’s office.

Reach Academy should be allowed to stay open
An op-ed by Carol Hirschfield Roth, Board of Directors, Reach Academy
I was shocked and disappointed when Reach Academy was not recommended for renewal. Reach is the only free, single-sex school in Delaware for young girls who, to even the most casual observer, are thriving daily in a multitude of ways. I have learned of the past academic struggles of Reach and am aware of the three years of low test scores. However, it seems that the school leadership team has miraculously turned around the school.

International Business Times
Schools, race, and integration: Complaint says charter schools are resegregating public education
Charter schools are often promoted as a tool to address educational inequities, but a potential precedent-setting legal case launched this week says the opposite. In filings with the U.S. Department of Education, two Delaware nonprofit groups allege that some of the state’s publicly funded, privately managed schools are actively resegregating the education system — and in a way that violates federal civil rights law.

Town Square Delaware
Igniting the ‘Spark’ with help from Teach For America
A blog post by Garrett Lyons, Teacher, Howard High School of Technology
In partnership with Teach For America and the Boys and Girls Club this summer, I launched the SPARK initiative: a summer program designed to teach entrepreneurial skill sets where students turn ideas into concrete achievements. I have seen how we as educators need to devote more time towards developing critical thinking skills, fostering collaboration strategies, and connecting the world of academics to personal passions.

WDDE
New autism center opens in North Wilmington
The Brandywine Center for Autism will officially open its doors in Wilmington Thursday. The center is the first of its kind to offer specialized services for children with autism in Delaware. “Before here a lot of people would go out of state for services. Or pay privately for someone in the area,” said Jess Baldwin, the clinical director for the autism center.

National News

Chalkbeat Colorado
Higher ed commission signs off on new funding model
The Colorado Commission on Higher Education gave unanimous approval to a new formula that would fund state colleges and universities based partly on performance factors such as student retention and graduation and service to low-income students.

The Elkhart Truth
Education war shows the 2012 election never ended
The 2012 election was more than two years ago, but ballot results appear to have settled little in Indiana’s ongoing education war between Democrats and public school supporters and conservative education reformers.

Education Week
Consortium begins Common-Core tests in some districts
The first common-core tests designed collaboratively by a group of states are making their debut this month, with 30,000 middle and high school students sitting for exams in mathematics and English/language arts. Millions more students in grades 3-11 will take such tests later in the winter and next spring.

Glens Falls Post-Star
U.S. education department to probe NY school funding
Federal education officials have granted a year-old request from two upstate school districts to investigate whether New York’s school aid system shortchanges districts with large minority populations.

ABC News
Plan aims to improve confined juveniles’ education
Attorney General Eric Holder and Education Secretary Arne Duncan on Monday unveiled new guidance aimed at improving the quality of education for roughly 60,000 confined juveniles.