June 8, 2016

Delaware

Delaware Public Media
Partnership between Wilmington and state aims to help register kids for kindergarten
Families in Wilmington preparing to send their kids to kindergarten may now find it a bit easier thanks to a new partnership between the state and its largest city. The Department of Health and Social Services and the City of Wilmington have teamed up to open a satellite office of the state’s Vital Statistics office at the city’s Northeast State Service Center, making it more convenient for city residents to obtain the birth certificate needed to register a child for kindergarten.

Cape Gazette
Lewes In Bloom hosts after school program students
Shields Middle School students in the Lewes After School Program sponsored by the Lewes Presbyterian Church, met with Lewes in Bloom volunteers for the second time to plant and harvest from the Children’s Learning Garden in Stango Park May 20. After refreshing some planters with annuals and herbs, the children harvested lettuce and radishes for a light snack under the trees.

Cape students form gospel choir
Cape High student Byron Sivels wanted to sing with a gospel choir. It took a while, but he eventually found teachers to advise the group and a room at the high school to meet. In February, with the help of Assistant Principal Angela Thompson, he invited any interested student to participate, and the new gospel choir, Voices of Praise, was established.

Parents oppose Cape elementary plan 
Concerned Milton parents are circulating a petition asking the Cape Henlopen school board to reject a plan that concentrates low-income students in Milton schools, while low-income populations at Lewes and Rehoboth elementary schools are as much as 17 percent lower. In a Facebook group called “Opposed to Redistricting Plan F for Milton, DE,” Milton parents have posted a petition, and since June 5, 38 people have signed.

Newark Post
Glasgow High graduates ready to embrace the future
Graduations are typically full of celebrations, joyous family photos and happy platitudes about big dreams and bright futures. But those stereotypes didn’t stop Glasgow High School valedictorian Hannah Walters from hitting her classmates with the cold, hard truth. “I’ve been told that as valedictorian, I’m supposed to imbibe you with great wisdom that you’ll carry forth with you the rest of your life,” she said.

National

Chalkbeat
Here’s what happened to the original 69 priority schools in Memphis
When Tennessee issued its first list of “priority schools” — the lowest-performing 5 percent of schools in the state — Memphis emerged as the battleground for school turnaround work. The city was home to 69 of the 83 schools identified by the Tennessee Department of Education in 2012 as eligible for intervention by the state-run Achievement School District or inclusion in a local Innovation Zone.

DNA Info
16 schools where students opted out of tests got penalized by state
The state has penalized 16 high-performing city schools — potentially costing them each up to $75,000 in grant money — because of their exam opt-out rates, DNAinfo New York has learned. These schools were on track to win recognition from the state as “Reward Schools” — an annual honor that makes schools eligible to apply for grants — but were not included in the list because they failed to meet a 95 percent participation rate on the exams, state education officials confirmed.

Education Week
Skill levels remain issue in Pre-K staffing
One of the hottest topics in early-childhood education is the “word gap”—the division in pre-literacy skills between children who are immersed in rich language from their earliest days and children who do not get that experience. High-quality child care and preschool are supposed to help close that gap. But those programs often may be relying on a workforce that has a literacy gap of its own.

The Atlantic
Where calculus class isn’t an option
Fewer than half of all high schools in the United States offer calculus—and the kids who don’t have access to the math course are disproportionately students of color. That finding is among the many disparities between white students and their black and Latino peers revealed in a new report from the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights.

The Hechinger Report
A state embraces the idea that not everyone needs to go to college
Dasani Johnson, a sophomore at Southern High School, is using a machine to create a baseball bat out of a piece of foam. Standing over her, as she readies to start the machine, are her teacher and two classmates. A little frustrated by all the attention she’s getting, she waves them off, measures one last time before starting the machine.