April 2, 2015

Delaware News

The News Journal
Parent group protests standardized testing
About 20 parents protested in front of Legislative Hall in Dover on Wednesday afternoon about how the state is using standardized tests. The group voiced their support for a bill that would explicitly allow parents to remove their children from those tests.

Red Clay voting was fair, honest
Letter to the editor by Judy Cronin, Wilmington
This is to all those complaining about the fairness of the Red Clay referendum. I am a senior with seasonal asthma. Voting day was particularly cold and windy. I went and voted and had no trouble parking up close. The school had designated all the front row of the parking lot for voters. That being said, I made sure I didn’t go when school was being dismissed and there would be buses and parents picking up children.

NewsWorks
Poverty growing for Delaware children
The number of Delaware children in poverty has nearly doubled over the past 20 years, according to the just released Kids Count Fact Book. More than 21 percent of Delaware children were living in poverty from 2012 to 2014. In 1992 to 1994, the child poverty rate in the state was only 12.7 percent.

Cape Gazette
Cape mourns JROTC teacher’s loss
One of Cape High’s beloved teachers has suffered a recent loss of his own.
Lt. Col. Ronald Erale, head of the school’s Army JROTC, has been on leave since a Valentine’s Day skiing accident took the life of his daughter, Angela.

Coastal Point
Cordrey brings life to the classroom at Indian River High School
On a typical day, a gray furball runs circles around Jennifer Cordrey’s classroom at Indian River High School. Baloo the bunny is one of a menagerie of ferrets, guinea pigs, hamsters, fish and a chinchilla that live in Cordrey’s room. Leopard geckos are coming soon. Bringing life to the class, Cordrey was named IRHS Teacher of the Year for 2015-2016.

National News

Education Week
Teacher-Leadership Movement Gets Boost from Ed. Dept.
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has pledged continued support for the Department of Education’s Teach to Lead program, an effort that invites teachers to come up with ideas to promote teacher leadership in schools and offers them support for implementation.

The New York Times
Yes, Your Time as a Parent Does Make a Difference
The latest salvo in the mommy wars is that all that time you spend parenting just doesn’t matter. But it’s a claim that, despite the enthusiastic and widespread coverage by news media outlets that include The Washington Post, Vox, The Guardian, The Independent, The Globe and Mail, NBC News, The Chicago Tribune and The New York Times’s Motherlode, does not hold water.

The Des Moines Register
Education department proposes funding formula “fix”
Last month, the superintendent of Davenport Public Schools said he’ll break state law and spend more money than allowed by Iowa’s school funding formula, which requires that his district spend less per-student than others.

Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
Cuomo: Education plan a ‘dramatic shift for the system’
Gov. Andrew Cuomo took to the radio Wednesday to tout the state’s new $142 billion budget, hailing the package’s education reforms as change that will push progress in the school system.