November 10, 2014

Local News

The News Journal
Parents, kids explore Delaware charter school options
The Delaware Charter Schools Network hosted the Charter School Expo, where families and educators from 21 schools could meet and talk in one place. Margie Lopez-Waite, a co-founder of Las Americas Aspira Academy, a kindergarten through eighth grade dual-language school in Newark, was impressed. “These kids had good questions,” she said. “What would they be doing? What kind of projects would they be doing?”

New Castle County, city work on economic strategy
New Castle County Executive Tom Gordon and Wilmington Mayor Dennis Williams will separately be announcing strategic plans produced by consulting firms. The consultants said a marketing plan was needed to combat what they said was a perception that Pennsylvania schools were better than New Castle County schools. The perception hurts the county’s ability to attract new residents, they said.

This plan could be New Castle County’s roadmap to the future
An op-ed by Marcus Henry, Economic Development and Policy Director, New Castle County
The New Castle County Economic Development Strategic Plan provides a competitive assessment of the County as a “product” in the highly competitive economic development marketplace. One of the primary goals for the future economic efforts is an effective business-education-government collaboration that provides a desirable and adaptable workforce that meets the needs of today’s and tomorrow’s businesses and offers the training and services needed by today’s and tomorrow’s workers.

Safety, skilled workforce keys to Wilmington’s future
An op-ed by Jeff Flynn, Economic Development Director, City of Wilmington
An integrated approach to economic development – one that nurtures and supports regional, national and global competitiveness, great natural attractions and vibrant culture, a constantly improving quality of life and affordable cost of living, and a commitment to education and workforce development – are all paramount in achieving his vision. I am committed to bringing the necessary energy and “open door” to fine-tuning and then executing the plan to the best of our collective abilities.

The coming U.S. education advantage
An op-ed by Rhonda B. Graham, columnist
This week, Delaware’s Department of Education had measurably good news about student academics, according to Spokeswoman Alison May: Nine schools made significant gains, allowing those buildings to exit state support programs for low-performing schools. And this is how they accomplished it – by upping the game on instruction, retargeting the needed resources to strengthen students in subject areas where there was demonstrated weakness. But is this enough to address the incredible advantage of emotional and psychological grit and self-discipline that is a natural part of peasant children’s DNA?

Change will disturb many, but not those who live through it
An editorial
Those who study the numbers tell us that Delawareans will look and sound a lot different 30 or more years from now. So what? We have bigger problems ahead of us than race and ethnicity. We have challenges ahead of us: Where will the jobs come from? What will Delaware be like with far more old people than there is now? And, with changing family structures – divorce, blended families, single parenthood – how will today’s children fare as they move into adulthood?

Improving college is a political winner for conservatives
An op-ed by Ramesh Ponnuru, Senior Editor, National Review; and Yuval Levin, Editor, National Affairs
Higher education reform offers a huge opportunity for Republicans. It is an arena in which misguided federal policy causes many families great anxiety and exacts enormous costs – and where conservative principles put into practice could make for great improvements.

Delaware State News
Capital school board begins search for new superintendent
With Dr. Michael Thomas set to retire at the end of the school year, the Capital school board is already setting up a search for a new superintendent. At a special meeting on Friday afternoon, the board voted on the model it hopes to follow for the search. Board members plan to use the model to formulate a request for proposals to hire a consultant to coordinate the search.

Cape Gazette
Sussex Academy to build new fields, pool
Sussex Academy has big plans for its Georgetown campus. Officials of the public charter school recently unveiled plans that include new athletic fields, a middle school classroom wing and a swimming pool. The additions would build on Sussex Academy’s academic success for grades six through eight and establish a comprehensive high school for grades nine through 12.

Delaware Department of Education
Delaware FFA students bring home awards from national convention
A press release
Ninety-six Delaware FFA Members were among the more than 60,000 FFA Members who attended National FFA Convention & Expo recently in Louisville, KY.

National News

The Columbus Dispatch
Ohio House committee votes to repeal Common Core
A bill to repeal Common Core education standards in Ohio passed a House committee yesterday — but there is doubt about whether it has the momentum to go further.

Cabinet Report
Crisis brewing among early learners
Superintendent Carey Wright is a staunch advocate of early childhood education but her mission to improve these programs for Mississippi kids has taken on new urgency in the wake of the state’s first assessment of kindergarten readiness. Released late last month, the report revealed that two-thirds of the state’s youngest students enter school unprepared to learn and are, in fact, well below where they should be in terms of literacy.

Education Week
Common Core redoes the math
As detailed in this report, part of a series of special reports by Education Week that identify and explore high-priority issues in schools, the common standards for math differ from most previous state standards in significant ways. They are fewer in number, connect more broadly across grade levels, and emphasize conceptual understanding along with the procedural skills that schools have traditionally taught.

Adaptive testing shaping instruction
Students have performed well on the adaptive tests, which appears to have translated to state testing. Less than 5 percent scored in the 24th percentile or lower on state tests, compared with nearly 20 percent five years ago when the school was not using adaptive testing tools. But it was an inadvertent benefit of adaptive testing that demonstrated to educators at the 336-student school just how individualized their instructional approach could be, whether in the classroom or during pullout interventions.

New Jersey’s No Child Left Behind waiver extended
New Jersey has been granted a one-year extension of its waiver freeing it from some requirements of the No Child Left Behind law, federal officials announced Friday. The extension, one of more than two dozen granted to states by the Obama administration in recent months, runs through the end of the 2014-2015 school year. Without the waiver, New Jersey schools could have been subject to sanctions unless every student in the state scored proficiently on statewide tests.