November 23, 2015

Delaware News

The News Journal
UD releases draft plan to increase diversity
A draft plan to improve diversity at the University of Delaware released Friday calls for changing hiring practices, improving outreach and boosting accountability to increase the number of minorities and women at the school. The university has come under fire after efforts to diversify the population proved unsuccessful.

New UD pres. praised for vision, relationship-building
Faculty, staff, administrators and students at Stony Brook University have a message to the University of Delaware community: You are lucky to have Dennis Assanis as your new president. Assanis was named UD’s 27th president on Wednesday. On Thursday and Friday, people were already wondering how they would replace the charismatic man who has served as provost here the past four years.

Student-built Eiffel Tower featured at Delcastle Tech
A 20-foot scale model of the Eiffel Tower sat prominently next to the flag pool at Delcastle Technical High School on Friday to honor the victims of the terrorist attacks in Paris one week ago.

Associated Press
Delaware officials eye new Pathway to Prosperity grants
Gov. Jack Markell is joining Delaware education officials to announce the state’s second round of Pathways to Prosperity grants. Monday’s announcement involves grants to high schools to offer students the opportunity to gain workplace experience and earn college credit in high-demand fields. Those fields include finance, health care and information technology.

WHYY
Delaware approves new accountability system despite objections
Delaware approved a new formula for evaluating schools Thurday, despite a provision that some say will discourage students from opting out of standardized tests. The Delaware School Success Framework (DSSF), as the formula is called, will be the basis for new school report cards slated for release later this year.

National News

Education Week
‘Washington Gave Us Leverage’
Rural schools are often charged outrageous rates for lousy Internet service. Can billions of federal dollars and a menu of market-based reforms fix the problem? The federal effort to deliver affordable high-speed Internet to rural schools has brought new hope to one of Mississippi’s most disconnected districts.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Gates Foundation Awards over $34 million in grants to help improve teacher preparation programs
Press release
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced it will commit $34.7 million over three years to five newly formed Teacher Preparation Transformation Centers that will bring together higher education institutions, teacher-preparation providers and K-12 school systems to share data, knowledge and best practices. These cooperatives will develop, pilot and scale effective teacher-preparation practices to help ensure that more teacher-candidates graduate ready to improve student outcomes in K-12 public schools.

The New York Times
Urban charter schools often succeed. Suburban ones often don’t.
Charter schools are controversial. But are they good for education? Rigorous research suggests that the answer is yes for an important, underserved group: low-income, nonwhite students in urban areas. These children tend to do better if enrolled in charter schools instead of traditional public schools.

Mark Zuckerberg gives $20 million to help schools get faster internet
Mark Zuckerberg, who has made global Internet access a top priority through Facebook’s Internet.org project, is now using some of his personal wealth to expand high-speed Internet access in the United States. On Monday, a nonprofit group that helps kindergarten through 12th-grade schools tap federal funds to acquire and improve high-speed Internet connections announced that Mr. Zuckerberg and his wife, Dr. Priscilla Chan, had agreed to donate $20 million to its work. The nonprofit group, called EducationSuperHighway, had received a gift of $3 million from Mr. Zuckerberg and Dr. Chan in 2013.

The Hechinger Report
Growth mindset guru Carol Dweck says teachers and parents often use her research incorrectly
Praising effort alone, she says, is useless when the child is getting everything wrong and not making progress. Either students will feel misled when they are eventually confronted with the reality of their low achievement, or the hollow praise will convey adults’ low expectations for them. Instead, she advises teachers and parents to praise a child’s process and strategies, and tie those to the outcome. For example, Dweck suggests these phrases: “Wow, you really practiced that, and look how you’ve improved.” “See, you studied more and your grade on this test is higher.” “You tried different strategies and you figured out how to solve the problem.” “You stuck to this and now you really understand it.”