August 11, 2014

Local News

Dover Post
Vision Coalition holds meeting to solicit public input on plan for education in Delaware
Vision Coalition, a group made up of educators; community stakeholders and members of civic organizations, presented a draft of its A Vision for Education in Delaware in 2025 plan at the meeting on Wednesday, which was created using information gathered by surveying Delawareans and through the ideas that were generated by a steering committee and working groups. Capital school board member John Martin Jr. said he felt the presentation was great. “I like the fact that they embraced a bold vision of trying to make sure that things are done well to ensure success for all students,” he said. Implementation is still far off though, said Jeff Taschner, a spokesperson for the Vision Coalition. “We have to work on the vision, which is going to be focused on children and driven by what they need to succeed,” he said. “Once we have a consensus on what they should look like we’re going to say ‘what does the system need to do’ and then we need to develop the plans to implement it.”

Caesar Rodney school board presented with possible plans for district development
The Caesar Rodney School District could look very different in the coming years if the board of education moves forward with a proposal to renovate all 12 of its schools, expand four buildings and construct a seventh elementary school. The Caesar Rodney school board is slated to vote Aug. 19 on whether to approve some or all of the capital improvement proposal, as well as take the first steps toward seeking state funding approval.

The News Journal
Walking away from Common Core will harm future grads
An op-ed by Lynn Okagaki, Dean, University of Delaware College of Education and Human Development; John A. Pelesko, Chair, Department of Mathematical Sciences; and Carol Vukelich, Director of the Delaware Center for Teacher Education
Realizing the full promise of the Common Core standards, that is, ending the mathematics “remediation problem” and genuinely having students on track for college-level coursework when they arrive at college, is not something that will happen overnight. Parents should become familiar with the Common Core standards and hold their local schools accountable for teaching to these standards.

Class Notes: News from Delaware Schools
Nominations open soon for iEducators; Christina School District hosting back-to-school BBQs; young women sought for college scholarships; Polytech student named state Distinguished Young Woman

Freshman start school early to get a head start
When the freshman at Caesar Rodney High School arrive for the first day of school, it can be easy for them to get overwhelmed. “We wanted to find some way to get them acclimated,” said Assistant Principal Kevin Long. “We wanted to find a way to ease the transition between middle school and high school, and everything that goes with that.”

How to prepare our students to work anywhere
An op-ed by Donald L. Gephardt, Dean Emeritus, Rowan University College of Fine and Performing Arts
To meet global needs, students do not need to be limited to a local, customized approach. Today, many parents might not understand what kind of education is needed to provide this global outlook and competence. Not too long ago, it was common to live your entire life within a 50-mile radius of where you were born and went to school. In that situation, localized needs take on more relevance. However, those days are over.

How Delaware should test special needs students
A letter to the editor by Richard Lamb, Kennett Square, Pennsylvania
With lack of understanding, under the best of educational circumstances, students can benefit greatly from remedial efforts. Students who can’t meet the goals of their class level, should not be advanced to the next level. This guarantees continued disaster for these underperforming students. My son attended a summer remedial reading program, after his third-grade teacher pointed out his problem. He just retired after 30 years working in the Hewlett-Packard computer division, writing programs, etc.

Hockessin Community News
In Red Clay, DCAS data still valid even with Smarter Balanced testing on the horizon
With the Delaware Comprehensive Assessment System tests on their way out and Smarter Balance on its way in, administrators in the Red Clay Consolidated School District are preparing for a paradigm shift. “That’s the first thing you’re concerned about as educators,” said Red Clay Superintendent Mervin Daugherty. “We have a change in how these scores are going to look.” Daugherty said he’s confident, however, that the staff and student body will rise to a challenge that may mean a harder test, but less testing overall.

WHYY Newsworks
Delaware lawsuit over school experiment proceeds
A Sussex County judge has refused to dismiss a lawsuit filed against the Indian River School District and a teacher following a classroom experiment gone bad. The lawsuit involves a 2012 experiment at Southern Delaware School of the Arts involving the sinking of the Titanic, with students holding their hands in ice water for as long they could.

WDDE
Delaware State Univ. dean to work on NASA’s next Mars mission
DSU announced last week that Dr. Noureddine Melikechi, the dean of the College of Mathematics, Natural Sciences and Technology was selected by NASA to join the SuperCam team. Melikechi works on the ChemCam Team on the current Mars Curiosity Rover mission, which is looking for the building blocks of life on the planet. He says the SuperCam, like the ChemCam, will use a laser to search for life, and the mission in 2020 will build on Curiosity’s discoveries.

Enlighten Me: Introducing city youth to new sports
Competitive rowing and golf are sports which historically required a membership to pursue. These so called ‘country club sports’ were once dominated by white athletes or the privileged. They have since become more inclusive but there is still more than can be done to introduce the sports to urban youth. Two Wilmington based organizations are aiming to do just that

National News

Washington Post
Rocketship to build charter school on Anacostia hilltop
The next outpost of one of the country’s best-known high-tech charter school chains will be on a wooded hilltop across the street from an aging public housing development in Anacostia. School officials recently announced plans for Rocketship’s first D.C. school: A 54,000-square-foot, two-story building with a glass entrance, outdoor terrace, multiple play areas and nature trails. It is scheduled to open in the 2015-2016 school year.

Education Week
School meal programs extend their reach
Fifty years after the War on Poverty, child hunger persists despite deepened understanding of the problem and growing efforts to eradicate it.

U.S. reviews of standards, tests enter new phase
The U.S. Department of Education is on the verge of releasing the first draft of new guidance on the peer-review process for standards and tests, a document that could exert a powerful influence on how states set academic expectations. Little known outside the assessment world, the process is wonky and technical. But it is an important tool for the federal agency in reviewing—and shaping—states’ academic standards and testing systems.

Can schools respect individuality without cultivating narcissism in students?
Teachers, you weren’t imagining it: Students today really are a little narcissistic—and schools’ efforts to boost students’ self-esteem may be partially to blame. So concludes Jean Twenge, a psychology professor at San Diego State University in California, and author of a book on generational difference in empathy, Generation Me. She found University of South Alabama college students scored higher on the Narcissistic Personality Inventory in 2009 compared to students in 1994.

Iowa announces withdrawal from Smarter Balanced testing group
Iowa says it’s withdrawing from the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, citing the need to design a test that is “the right fit for Iowa.” In a letter to the consortium dated July 29, reported yesterday by the blog Caffeinated Thoughts, Gov. Terry Branstad and schools chief Brad Buck noted that the Iowa legislature created a task force in 2013 to explore the state’s assessment options. They said that the task force would “give careful consideration to all options.”

Amid bumps, new school funding system rolls out in California
One California educator compares keeping up with the rules in California’s historic new school funding system to a cat chasing a laser pointer’s beam—a shifting target always just out of reach. Educators say the state was slow to roll out rules for the system, which gives schools their first significant authority over spending since the late 1970s, when the state took over education funding after a taxpayer revolt and lawsuits challenging funding disparities.