August 28, 2017

Delaware News

Cape Gazette
Rehoboth school project to go back before board
lans for a new Rehoboth Elementary School will head back before the city’s Board of Adjustment for an additional variance from the city’s lot coverage requirements. The board will hold a public hearing on the school’s request at 7 p.m., Wednesday, Aug. 30, at the Rehoboth fire hall. The Cape Henlopen School District is requesting a variance to allow 33 percent lot coverage. Unlike residential and commercial properties, the school is zoned ER, or Educational Residential.

The Dover Post
Department of Justice reissues guidances to law enforcement, schools on hate crimes
Delaware Attorney General Matt Denn reiterated the Delaware Department of Justice’s position that “threats and intimidation against our neighbors based on who they are will not be accepted here in Delaware,” and reissued enforcement guidelines from last November to schools and law enforcement on responses to hate speech. Denn also released a new video aimed at returning school students about bullying and mutual respect.

The News Journal
Nickle Electrical president looks to future of skilled labor
For more than 30 years, Steve Dignan, president and chief executive officer of Nickle Electrical Cos., has been in the construction field. But Dignan is focused only on the next 30 years. To tackle the skilled labor shortage, Dignan has been reaching out to his alma mater, Hodgson Vocational Technical High School, recruiting and encouraging apprentices to master their trade, whatever that trade may be.

Fire education grant to benefit youth in Wilmington, Christina schools
Wilmington youth’s fire prevention and safety education this year will be supported by a $20,000 grant from the Hartford, a financial services company. The Wilmington Fire Department and the Christina School District received the grant through the company’s Junior Fire Marshal program, one of the country’s oldest corporate-sponsored public education programs, the Hartford said.

In-depth history teaching can help heal our social divides
Opinion by Kathy Doyle, former social studies teacher
Full disclosure: I just completed a 31-year career in Delaware as a social studies teacher, so I am biased, yet I know that a relevant social studies education — a relevant education, period — is one of the most powerful weapons we have to limit white supremacists, neo-Nazis and other extremist groups. Delaware educators have worked for years to design model units that have become part of a “recommended curriculum,” and yet essential subjects appear to be missing, such as world religions, the Holocaust or media literacy.

To help at-risk schools, look outside the classroom
Opinion by Matt Albright
In some schools, the supply closet is full of paper, pencils, protractors and other classroom goods. But in other schools, those closets hold things more suitable to a pantry or bedroom closet: granola bars, toothbrushes, mittens and winter coats. This mundane difference illustrates a harsh truth about our education system: In an affluent neighborhood, a school’s time and resources can be focused on teaching; in an impoverished neighborhood, educators’ time and resources are too often spent giving kids the basics they need to survive.

UDaily
UD summer teacher training takes many forms
On the last Saturday in July, as thousands streamed toward the beach to enjoy one of the summer’s finest days, 20 men and women hunkered down in a classroom at 200 Academy Street on the University of Delaware campus, glued to their chairs for eight hours except for lunch – take-out from Chipotle – and a break here and there. The teachers-in-training were soaking in the third of six intensive all-day Saturday training sessions as part of the Alternative Routes To Certification (ARTC) Plus program.

National News

NBC Chicago
4 top leaders meet in Springfield ahead of education funding reform votes
Illinois’ four top legislative leaders met in Springfield yet again Sunday to iron out details for the “historic” school funding reform deal ahead of a vote in the House. Democratic leaders, House Speaker Mike Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton, met once more with their Republican counterparts, House Minority Leader Jim Durkin and Senate Minority Leader Bill Brady Sunday afternoon.

Pew Research Center
4 charts on how people around the world see education
Publics around the world disagree about which is more important to emphasize in school: creative thinking or basic academic skills and discipline. Here are four key findings about educational preferences from a 2016 Pew Research Center survey of 19 countries.

South China Morning Post
Educators say they lack the knowledge and expertise to manage youngsters in need
More than half of 400 teachers polled at 62 primary and secondary schools around the city in June and July said their schools lacked “emotional education” on how to identify, express and manage feelings. The survey, conducted by the Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups, a service organization for young people, also found 43 per cent of teachers said they lacked the knowledge and expertise to manage pupils in need.

The Atlantic
The urban-school stigma
Urban schools don’t inspire much confidence these days. Politicians and policy leaders routinely bemoan their quality. And media outlets regularly run stories of “failing urban schools.” Middle- and upper-income parents have expressed misgivings, too. But they’ve done it much less volubly. With relatively little fuss, they’ve simply picked up and moved—departing from city school systems at ever-greater rates.

U.S. News & World Report
John King: DeVos, Trump administration not doing enough after Charlottesville
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ response to the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, has been inadequate, her predecessor under President Barack Obama said Friday. “Condemning the KKK and Nazis is a really low bar,” John King, now president and CEO of The Education Trust, said Friday afternoon during remarks to the Urban Superintendents Academy, a joint effort of The School Superintendents Association and Howard University geared toward preparation and certification for urban school leaders.