March 23, 2015

Delaware News

The News Journal
New charter school options on display at expo
There were plenty of well-established charter schools at the Delaware Charter Schools Network’s annual expo on Saturday, but there were also plenty of new ones.

Students embrace classmates with Down syndrome
A third grade class at Claymont Elementary created this video titled “Our Friend Aaron,” which focues on Aaron Janusz, a classmate with Down Syndrome. Students sing the Randy Newman song “You’ve Got a Friend in Me.”

Teachers, not test, help students understand government
Editorial
Delaware has examples of creative teachers who bring civics alive. By doing so, they go well beyond the requirement. We are willing to wager that if we put a civics test to these students years from now, they will readily pass.

Time is ripe to study role of charters
Editorial
The need for the study is important and the governor is right to call for a statewide assessment. Charter schools should be part of our public school system – they are after all, public schools.

WDDE
New charter schools coming to First State face enrollment and other challenges
On April 1, the new schools – three in Wilmington, one in suburban New Castle County and one in Kent County – must give preliminary enrollment projections to the Charter Schools Office in the state Department of Education. According to the department’s rules, they are supposed to have confirmed enrollments equal to at least 80 percent of their authorized enrollments.

Innovative Schools expanding its role in Delaware’s charter schools
Gaining approval to start a charter school in Delaware is a challenge. Getting it open is an even bigger challenge. Working behind the scenes is a nonprofit that helps smooth the way, the Innovative Schools Development Corporation.

Department of Education
New tool helps teachers let students drive their learning
Press release
The Delaware Department of Education announced today that it has signed a contract with Schoology, a New York City-based company, for a learning management system (LMS) that all schools and teachers in the state will be able to use to personalize instruction, provide students with access to a wide variety of content aligned with the Common Core State Standards and share lesson plans with other teachers with a click of a button.

National News

Chalkbeat Colorado
CO Gov. Hickenlooper defends ed reform, endorses testing bill
Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper said there’s no reason to go back on state education reforms and endorsed a new bipartisan bill that would reduce high school testing and streamline assessments in early grades. While agreeing the testing system needs some change, he said, “We thought it important to re-emphasize that we are not slowing down.”

Central Penn Business Journal
State lawmakers want to end seniority-based teacher layoffs
Two Central Pennsylvania legislators have introduced measures that would require school districts to use teacher performance as a guide for furlough and reinstatement decisions, rather than basing it solely on seniority.

Education Week
For students who want to be teachers, new documentary explores obstacles
Blog post by Jacob Bell
Though many students have an interest in becoming educators, they may also have apprehension about joining a profession that can sometimes sound less than desirable. “The Road to TEACH” follows the cross-country road trip of three 20-somethings who are considering careers in education despite discouragement from parents and peers.

Vermont state board suspends use of standardized test scores
The Vermont State Board of Education has voted to suspend the use of scores from a new standardized test this year to evaluate schools. Board chairman Stephen Morse says there were implementation challenges for some schools with the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, or SBAC, which is administered by computer.

Sacramento Bee
California’s teacher shortage is becoming a crisis
Opinion by Lynn Beck, dean of the University of the Pacific School of Education and Nikolas Howard, executive director of Teach For America-Sacramento/Stockton.
It’s hard to imagine that after nearly six years of constant pressure on school districts to balance budgets through teacher layoffs, we could be talking about a serious teacher shortage.