August 14, 2017
Delaware News
Rodel Blog
Three things to know about Delaware state tests
Blog post by Jeremy Hidalgo, policy fellow, and Shyanne Miller, policy associate at the Rodel Foundation of Delaware
It’s that time of year again—the release of Smarter Assessment and SAT results. The Delaware Department of Education officially released data in late July. While reactions were mixed (see the official release from DDOE, as well as The News Journal’s reaction), we tried to look behind the numbers to shed a bit more light on the results.
Techincal.ly Delaware
TeenSHARP receives $10,000 contribution from Navient Foundation
TeenSHARP, the intensive college preparation program for underserved students that launched its Delaware program in 2015, has received $10,000 from the Navient Foundation, according to the Delaware Chamber of Commerce. The chamber posted the success story of incoming Wesleyan College freshman Alejandra, a straight-A student who learned in her junior year of high school that her school didn’t offer courses advanced enough for her to be considered by an elite college.
National News
Alternet
Seven ways that teachers can respond to the evil of Charlottesville, starting now
White supremacy did not appear as a surprise guest to this weekend’s events. It is a plague that permeates every aspect of our shared society. At the same time as it threatens to strip people of color—especially black—of their lives and freedom, it corrodes the logic, reason, and future of our society as a whole. White supremacy is also a deeply embedded feature of our education system even as it runs counter to the values we claim to hold in pursuit of education.
Education Week
Teaching materials for English-learners are in short supply. That could soon change
A common complaint among English-language-learner educators is that high-quality learning materials are hard to come by. The Council of the Great City Schools wants to do something about it. The council—which represents 70 of the nation’s largest urban public school systems—has formed a purchasing consortium to encourage the production of better instructional materials for English-learners.
The Atlantic
The art of teaching the youngest students
Scattered around a meeting room in groups of three or four, 13 women bent over laptop computers and smartphones, squinting at Colorado’s hundreds of child-care regulations. They were child-care and preschool employees from all over Denver on a scavenger hunt of sorts, searching for answers to worksheet questions such as how quickly child-care workers must be trained on child-abuse reporting and which eight kinds of toys and equipment classrooms are required to have.
The Washington Post
Teacher contract proposed in D.C. for the first time in five years
Teachers in D.C. Public Schools, who are among the best paid in the country, will be offered salary increases of 9 percent over three years under a proposed contract that could end a lengthy labor impasse. D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) was expected to publicly announce the tentative contract deal at a news conference Monday morning. D.C. and union officials provided The Post with a summary of what they said were the highlights of the agreement, but they did not provide a copy of the agreement itself.
U.S. News & World Report
DeVos undeterred by critics even as agenda remains stalled
Among the paintings and photographs that decorate Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ sunlit, spacious office is the framed roll call from her Senate confirmation. It’s a stark reminder of the bruising process that spurred angry protests, some ridicule and required the vice president’s tie-breaking “yes” vote. Six months on the job, DeVos is no less divisive.