August 2, 2016
Delaware News
The News Journal
Grants for college prep
Nine Delaware school districts and high schools got grants to increase college readiness and access during the next school year with grants from the state’s College Access fund. The grants from the Delaware Department of Education’s Higher Education Office are part of a broad state strategy to increase secondary education, including certificates, apprenticeships, and two-year and four-year degrees.
Secretary of education visits Wilmington classroom
John King, the U.S. Secretary of Education, visited Del Tech’s Child Development Center Tuesday morning to highlight Delaware’s gains in early childhood learning.
Traveling the world in the Serviam gym
The students of the Serviam Girls Academy took a trip around the world this summer, learning about countries across the globe without leaving Delaware. The New Castle area Catholic middle school, which educates low-income girls tuition-free, has a mandatory summer session every July, but, this year, the school added a month-long project to the curriculum that had students researching and exploring countries from Europe to South America.
National News
The Atlantic
What Boston’s preschools get right
On the ground floor of Russell Elementary School in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston one February morning, three teachers supervised 20 students in what is considered one of the best free, public preschool programs in the country. Sitting on a bright rug in a cozy classroom, 4- and 5-year-old students discussed how the letter M looks a lot like the letter W. Judging by their looks of concentration, this was a tricky point.
Chalkbeat
Now accepting applications: Tennessee’s first-ever school voucher program, for students with disabilities
Up to 20,000 Tennessee families can now request funds from the state’s first education voucher program, which opened applications Monday. The program will allow parents of students with disabilities to receive public money for private services such as home-schooling, private school tuition and tutoring.
Education Week
Educators weigh learning value of Pokémon Go
Like a thunderbolt from Pikachu’s tail, Pokémon is once again electrifying the nation. The latest incarnation of the Japanese franchise is a mobile app, Pokémon Go, which puts a digital overlay on the real world, requiring users to walk around their neighborhoods to collect characters and do battle with one another.
The Hechinger Report
More than just a science lesson: NASA EarthKAM fascinates a special education classroom
Thanks to the NASA EarthKAM (Earth Knowledge Acquired by Middle school students) program, the students can learn about earth from a new perspective: as astronauts orbiting the earth over 200 miles away on the International Space Station. They’ve turned their classroom into a miniature mission control center; they take photos of earth by entering the coordinates of locations they want photographed using an online interface, which communicates with a camera mounted on the International Space Station.
NPR
3 things people can do in the classroom that robots can’t
How should schools best prepare kids to live and work in the second half of the 21st century? In previous eras, the job of school was simple: give them math and reading skills. Have them learn some basic facts about the world. Today the challenge is a lot different. Most people all over the world, even in the poorest countries, have much easier access to a calculator, a dictionary and great swaths of knowledge in their pockets.