March 30, 2017

Delaware News

Delaware Department of Education
Annual College Success Report: Too many still need remediation
Of Delaware public high school graduates entering an in-state college or university, 41 percent will begin their post-secondary education behind their peers, according to the state’s 2017 College Success Report released today. The report shows that the remediation rate for Delaware’s Class of 2015 remained flat from last year, despite more students attending college. College enrollment for the Class of 2015 increased three percentage points to 61 percent.

Office of the Governor
Governor Carney accepts strategic plan from Delaware Pathways Steering Committee
The Delaware Pathways Steering Committee presented its Strategic Plan to Governor John Carney on Wednesday – including priorities designed to more effectively connect Delaware educators and employers, create additional work-based learning opportunities for Delaware middle and high school students and better prepare Delaware students to enter college or a career in a high-growth industry.

The News Journal
Report: 41% of Delaware graduates not ready for college
Even as Delaware expands access to college-level courses such as dual enrollment and Advanced Placement classes, 41 percent of public high school graduates are entering in-state colleges and universities unprepared, according to a report released Wednesday. The news was put out by the state Department of Education during a large conference at the Chase Center in Wilmington.

Mr. Trump, Don’t boost our budgets while cutting education: Charter school CEOs
Opinion by Dacia Toll, co-ceo of Achievement First, Richard Barth, ceo of KIPP Foundation, and Brett Peiser, ceo of Uncommon Schools.
In the “skinny budget” that the White House released this month, President Trump offered $168 million in new funds for charter schools. As public charter school operators, we appreciate the proposed investment in new schools like ours. But we cannot support the president’s budget as proposed, and we are determined to do everything in our power to work with Congress and the administration to protect the programs that are essential to the broader needs of our students, families and communities.

WDEL
State updates ESSA plan to reflect federal changes, public feedback
The Delaware Department of Education (DDOE) Wednesday released updates to the final draft of its Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) state plan, reflecting changes to guidance provided by the U.S. Department of Education, public feedback and feedback received from the Governor’s Office. The updates are color coded in the online documents so the public more easily can note the changes.

Techincal.ly Delaware
These Concord High students made the finals of a national engineering competition
Eleven students, nine seniors and two sophomores from Wilmington’s Concord High School, are heading to Washington, D.C., next month as finalists in the 2017 SourceAmerica Design Challenge. We caught up with student team leader Justin DiGiovanni ahead of the finals to find out more about their project. They worked with Waggies by Maggie and Friends, a Wilmington-based nonprofit that sells dog treats baked by people with intellectual disabilities, to create what they’ve called The Weigh Master.

Why kids love Delaware Tech’s annual hands-on STEM Expo
Several middle and high school students gathered in front of a scaled-down distiller, capable of converting corn into ethanol. “We start with this,” says Delaware Tech chemical process operator student Amanda Garzon, holding up a vial of dried corn kernels. A set of vials in front of her contain material from each step of the process: fine powder, slurry, a thick dark liquid, and, finally, crystal clear ethanol, ready to be used as fuel or an additive to gasoline.

National News

The Atlantic
Will personalized learning become the new normal?
Over the last few years, Rhode Island has emerged as a national leader in the drive to put personalized-learning programs into actual classroom practice. Now education leaders in Providence, the state’s capital and most populous city, are looking to scale their early efforts statewide, pushing district leaders to think bigger about pilot programs and technological infrastructure, while also commissioning new research on how an understudied learning model could drive student performance.

Education Week
DeVos compares school choice fight to Uber vs. Taxis; Decries state of test scores
At a Tuesday event hosted by the Brookings Institution’s Center on Children and Families, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos in a speech compared the response of the education establishment to taxi services undercut by services like Uber and Lyft. “Just like the traditional taxi service revolted against ride-sharing, so too does the education establishment feel threatened by the rise of school choice,” DeVos said.

The Sacramento Bee
California bill would give teachers more time to earn tenure
A California lawmaker who says schools do not have enough time to make teacher tenure decisions announced a bill on Tuesday that would give teachers additional years to prove they deserve permanent status. Assemblywoman Shirley Weber’s proposed legislation would give public school teachers up to five years to earn tenure, a permanent status designation granted after a probationary employment period.

The Hechinger Report
Why academics write and speak in jargon — and what they can do about it
“Inquiry-based shared inquiry across cognitive and affective domains.” “An experiential based learning process covering multiple modalities.” “Terminal and enabling objectives with trans-disciplinary functionalities.” “Stackable credentials in the education space.” Educators, policymakers and entrepreneurs often speak in the multisyllabic jargon of a doctoral thesis. And it diminishes their message.