June 13, 2016

Delaware

Cape Gazette
Cape seniors graduate as rain gives way to sunshine
A little wind and rain gave way to plenty of sunshine and happiness as Cape seniors became graduates June 7. Happiness was the theme of Superintendent Robert Fulton’s graduation address to 307 seniors. “Happiness is the key to everything,” he said.

Delaware Business Times
Public education leadership past due, so they might want to call on DuPont
The next governor of the First State needs to call on a DuPont family member to tend public education for the next generation, and beyond. Public education in Delaware has benefited from 200-plus years of the family’s patrician interest in public education, although most generations of the DuPont family have eschewed public education for their young in favor of schools like Tower Hill School, The Pilot School and others.

Delaware Public Media
Lead for Delaware offers alternative certification for First State principals
But last year, with approval from the State Board of Education, Delaware’s chapter of Teach for America added to that mission – launching an alternative principal certification program. Delaware state regulations changed a few years ago to permit alternative principal certification programs, allowing organizations other than universities to run programs certifying principals.

Mixed results for Delaware’s charter schools in 2015-2016
When the opening bells rang last August, they ushered in a year of great promise for Delaware’s charter schools. Three new schools opened in downtown Wilmington, a harbinger, some hoped, of a new era in urban education, one which would put more city students into schools closer to home, giving their parents a better opportunity to become partners in their children’s learning journeys.

Community Education Building navigates changes
Was it a case of trouble in Paradise, or merely a “learning moment” that played out over several months? The words in the document spelled trouble, but conversations with the key players suggest that the “learning moment” description might be more apt. The players here are the leaders of Academia Antonia Alonso, a dual-language charter elementary school that is completing its second year this week, and the officers of the Community Education Building, the plush high-rise two blocks from Wilmington’s Rodney Square that had served as the school’s first home.

Third revision for Wilmington redistricting plan introduced
Pilot programs in all three counties for low-income students, English language learners and special needs education from Kindergarten to third grade could be on the horizon for three First State school districts. This appeal to downstate schools is the latest move in the long running chess match to overhaul Wilmington’s education system.

The News Journal
Historic moment looms for Wilmington schools
For the first time in 50 years, state elected representatives – rather than a judge – are on the verge of reshaping the fragmented, confusing and chaotic patchwork of Wilmington schools. The vote in the Delaware House of Representatives, and a following vote in the Senate, would be historically significant, city leaders say, regardless of whether lawmakers adopt the new school redistricting and funding plan.

If WEIC vote fails, lawsuit threatened
The division of Wilmington students into four suburban school districts is both rare and contentious, as is Delaware’s lack of weighted funding for underprivileged schools, experts and local advocates say. If the legislature doesn’t pass the Wilmington Education Improvement Commission’s plan to address those issues, civil rights leaders have threatened to sue the state in order to balance a system that they see as unequal.

Wilmington has long, messy education history
Supporters of the Wilmington Education Improvement Commission say you cannot understand the significance of their efforts unless you know the long, messy history of education reform in the city. The story starts in 1953, when Louis Redding, the legendary civil rights lawyer whose statue stands in front of Wilmington’s city government building, challenged the state’s racially segregated school system.

Spacebound: Delaware teacher heads to Houston
If you look up at the night sky, you’ll probably see the stars. Nancy Ventresca’s students at Thurgood Marshall Elementary School in Newark see questions. Among them: Can you see stars in the daytime? Why are some clustered together? Why are some different colors? Why is the Big Dipper in Ursa Major? How did astronomers find it? She is teaching them about the constellations, so she sent them home last weekend with an assignment to stargaze.

Kids get support for summer fun off of city streets
Ten kids were perched on the sidewalk outside of an Acme Saturday afternoon working on their after-school program’s primary source of funding – donations. “It’s actually kind of fun,” said Kniaya James, 11, who was nearly hidden behind the big plastic jug where grocery shoppers were depositing their crumpled dollar bills.

National

Charleston Gazette – Mail
WV state school board OKs revised A-F policy
Against opposition from teachers unions and school administrator groups, the West Virginia Board of Education on Wednesday approved a revised policy that will give entire schools A-F grades based largely on their students’ scores — and growth in scores — on the statewide Smarter Balanced standardized tests. No nays were heard in the voice vote, for which Gayle Manchin was the only board member absent.

Education Week
Data and the debate over diversity in charters
Almost every hand is raised in Ms. Markeesha Zigbuo’s 2nd grade class at The Mastery School in Minneapolis, Minn. Twenty girls, all African-American and all dressed in matching purple plaid jumpers over white collared shirts, squirm in their seats, locking their elbows and stretching their torsos in an attempt to make themselves taller and their hands higher.

Governing
School funding, Common Core and 2016 superintendent races
Just two years ago, Common Core was a major issue for the GOP in state races. So strong was the opposition to the K-12 education standards that several red states — among them Indiana, Oklahoma and South Carolina — backed out of them, and a number of potential Republican presidential candidates railed against them, including Chris Christie of New Jersey, Scott Walker of Wisconsin and Bobby Jindal of Louisiana.

NPR
As the number of homeless students soars, how schools can serve them better
When Caitlin Cheney was living at a campground in Washington state with her mother and younger sister, she would do her homework by the light of the portable toilets, sitting on the concrete. She maintained nearly straight A’s even though she had to hitchhike to school, making it there an average of three days a week. “I really liked doing homework,” says Cheney, 22, who is now an undergraduate zoology student at Washington State University.

The Atlantic
What first-generation college students want
As policymakers and educators debate how to help high-schoolers from all backgrounds get to and through college, young people’s ideas about the support they need to succeed are sometimes left out of the discussion. Yet conversations with students who are the first in their families to pursue higher education reveal seemingly small things that, added up, can make the difference between dropping out and graduating.