April 5, 2016

Delaware

Cape Gazette
Shields students raise awareness of Phelan McDermid Syndrome
Staff and students at Shields Elementary School in Lewes are Phelan Lucky. They celebrated St. Patrick’s Day by supporting a great cause and spreading awareness. Many members of the Shields Elementary community bought and wore T-shirts to support research for a rare disease called Phelan McDermid Syndrome.

Delaware Public Media
Brandywine refines plan for second referendum try, removes turf field proposal
The Brandywine School Board voted unanimously at a special meeting Monday April 4th to take another referendum to voters, but the proposal on the ballot May 17th will be slightly different. After a great deal of discussion and public comment, the board ok’d asking residents again for a 28 cent tax increase to bolster the district operating budget and to greenlight a slate of capital projects.

Gates Notes
Meeting students where they are
Blog post by Bill Gates
When I was applying to college, I wanted to go to one of the best schools. At the time, I thought of “the best,” as the colleges that were the most selective. I applied to Harvard, Yale, and Princeton—schools whose reputations are burnished as much by the huge numbers of applicants who are denied admission, as the privileged few who are let in. But over the years I’ve learned that there are many other ways to measure what makes a school great.

Newsworks
A tale of two schools: the evolution of school design in Delaware
You can tell a lot about the educational trends of an era by looking at its school buildings. In Delaware, there are no two finer examples of that than MOT Charter High School in Middletown, Delaware and P.S. DuPont Middle School in Wilmington. MOT’s recently finished campus represents the future, a signal for where many believe education is headed. P.S. DuPont represents the past, an enduring example of what so many still value about public education.

The News Journal
Brandywine School District to try a second referendum
Brandywine School District is sending to voters the same referendum that failed last month, minus a turf-field project. Brandywine had asked voters in March to approve tax increases to support $9.5 million to cover its regular operating budget, $19.3 million for a building project and $5 million to put synthetic turf on its athletic fields.

National

Chalkbeat Colorado
Move over, GED. Coloradans will have three choices for high school equivalency exams
Colorado residents wishing to take a high school equivalency exam soon will have up to three options, not just one. The Colorado Department of Education announced Friday it has signed contracts with three vendors, opening up new options after nearly 50 years of allowing only one test — the GED, or General Education Development exam — in Colorado.

Education Week
Can ‘micro-credentialing’ salvage teacher PD?
Last year, Kay Staley and Jessica Scherer, literacy coaches in the Kettle Moraine district in Wisconsin, led groups of teachers in a book study on close reading—a complex and important skill emphasized in the Common Core State Standards. Participants were paired with a coach and peers as they wrestled with how to teach kids to analyze details of an author’s narrative technique. At the end of the school year, the teachers documented how they applied close-reading instruction in class and how it impacted student learning.

Inside Higher Ed
Creative solutions in Florida
Florida’s two-year colleges have become more creative in how they handle their lowest-performing students in the wake of a new performance funding formula and a controversial remediation law. In an attempt to save students money, Florida lawmakers three years ago passed a law requiring that traditional high school graduates could no longer be mandated to take a remedial course if they didn’t score well on the state’s standard placement assessment.

The Hechinger Report
Student voice: What taking the new SAT was like
Opinion by Ried Yesson, junior at Commonwealth School in Boston
Standardized tests were no stranger to me through my primary and middle school careers. I attended the New York City public school system, where every year ended with a state-wide exam testing English writing skills and math skills. Standardized testing was something every one of all ages and grades had to do at the end of the year.

WNYC
Chancellor on state tests: ‘I Don’t Believe in Opting Out’
Despite a report that she sympathized with parents of special-needs students who wanted to opt out of New York’s state tests, on Monday Chancellor Carmen Fariña made her position clear. “I don’t believe in opting out,” she told reporters at a Brooklyn high school where she announced an expansion of dual-language programs for the fall.