April 30, 2015

Delaware News

The News Journal
Delaware students’ engineering prowess put to the test
Hundreds of students from all over Delaware are putting their quick thinking and engineering skills to the test in in more than 60 different events at the Technology Student Association state conference at the Delaware State Fairgrounds.

Have Sussex Tech’s gains cost other schools?
At Sussex Technical High School, its students excel on state tests and take college-credit courses through a partnership with a university. Schools with records like that usually are showered with praise. But many feel the single-school district has taken a shortcut through the modern era of high-stakes testing, using its status as a choice school to skim off other districts’ high-performing students while keeping difficult-to-teach children away.

Delaware Department of Education
Public-private partnership supports STEM education for Delaware students
Press release
Project Lead the Way (PLTW), the nation’s leading provider of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) programs, will partner with seven Delaware high schools to offer an Engineering Career Pathway program announced by Gov. Jack Markell last week.

Middletown Transcript
Markell approves $500k in education grant funding
Tim Elmer, a mechanical engineering teacher at Sussex Academy, said Sussex will focus its grant money on helping its students achieve engineering proficiency. “If they have that jump on it at the high school level, that will help them be more successful in college and on into the industry,” he said.

Milford Chronicle
If referendum fails students will feel the pinch
Voters will weigh in on whether the district will get access to some needed funding and have the ability to address overcrowding by building a new high school. The operating funds and construction of a new high school will be funded by increasing property taxes on homes in the Milford School District.

United States Environmental Protection Agency
EPA regional administrator joins Delaware officials to honor state’s green ribbon schools
Press release
At an awards ceremony at Mt. Pleasant Elementary School in Wilmington, state and federal officials praised school administrators, faculty and students at Mt. Pleasant Elementary, Linden Hill Elementary School in Wilmington, and Kirk Middle School in Newark for receiving the U.S. Department of Education 2015 Green Ribbon Schools Award.

National News

The Washington Post
Study: Far fewer new teachers are leaving the profession than previously thought
Ten percent of teachers who began their careers in 2007-2008 left teaching after their first year, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. But attrition then leveled off, and five years into their careers, 83 percent were still teaching. That figure — indicating that just 17 percent of new teachers left their jobs in the first five years — stands in stark contrast to the attrition statistic that has been repeated (and lamented) for years: That between 40 percent and 50 percent of teachers leave the profession within their first five years.

Education Week
Groups pledge $100 million to expand access and equity to AP, IB courses
Blog post
Recognizing the need to get more underrepresented students into college-level courses in high school, a group of education, nonprofit, and business leaders are giving $100 million to identify and enroll 100,000 low-income students and students of color in Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate classes over the next three years.

Fortune
Education tech funding soars — but is it working in the classroom?
From iPads in kindergarten to virtual classrooms in high schools to online graduate degrees, technology has captured the American education system. As it does, the money keeps flowing in — and so do questions about its impact.

The Chronicle of Higher Education
State aid should change to meet needs of students, report says
The who and how of going to college are changing rapidly, but state financial aid programs are stuck in the past, according to a report by the Education Commission of the States. The report calls on state officials to change their aid programs to focus more on the needs of students rather than institutions and to allow state aid to be used for a greater variety of postsecondary programs.

The Chicago Tribune
Department of Education cracks down on Illinois for lack of science exam
In the latest controversy over state exams, Illinois is in hot water with the federal government for not administrating statewide science tests this school year.