August 7, 2017
Delaware News
Cape Gazette
Sussex Consortium gets $5.7 million from bond bill
This year’s legislative session ended with a bond bill bonus for Sussex Consortium. Cape Henlopen School District got the news they had been waiting to hear when $5.7 million was earmarked for construction costs for the new facility. “We got great news from the state. Our local legislators really went to bat for us,” said Brian Bassett, director of facility operations and construction.
Rehoboth planners delay vote on elementary school site plan
The Rehoboth Beach Planning Commission has delayed a vote on the site plan for a new Rehoboth Elementary School amid concerns over the building size, traffic issues and proposed stormwater management. Following a nearly four-hour public hearing July 14, the commission agreed to continue discussion of the plan at its Friday, Aug. 11 meeting.
Newsworks
Collaborating to cut Delaware’s low-income school achievement gap
Catherine Lindroth has had a singular mission the last five summers — reducing the huge achievement gap in Delaware between low-income children and those of means. Her ground zero is Wilmington, where the Yale-educated former Teach for America administrator has steadily grown her Summer Learning Collaborative.
The News Journal
DeVos approves Delaware’s education plan, first in the country
Delaware’s school evaluation system will not include a Yelp-like, five-star rating system. U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos approved Delaware’s consolidated education plan this week, which sets up a system to evaluate schools based on cumulative index scores from numerous educational factors and describes them as “exceeding,” “meeting” or “meeting few” expectations.
National News
Iowa City Press-Citizen
Equity, special education and bond issue highlighted at Community Rocks rally
Iowa City Community School Board candidates shared views on equity, special education and other topics at a rally Saturday evening. All seven candidates greeted attendees of the Community Rocks rally in University Heights, organized by Fourth Room Theatre, and talked about what drove them to seek four open board seats in the Sept. 12 school election.
The Atlantic
The ‘Trump effect’ on Canada’s classrooms
Standing at the front of her classroom this past February, the public high-school English teacher Jana Rohrer wrote the words “American Flag” on the board and asked her ninth-grade students to tell her what came to their minds. Over the past six years, Rohrer has used the exercise as part of a lesson to help explain symbolism in Harper Lee’s classic To Kill a Mockingbird.
The Journal Gazette
States struggle to make plans, revive schools
Two years after Congress scrapped federal formulas for fixing troubled schools, states for the most part are producing only the vaguest of plans to address persistent educational failure. So far, 16 states and the District of Columbia have submitted proposals for holding schools accountable under the 2015 law known as the Every Student Succeeds Act. With few exceptions, the blueprints offer none of the detailed prescriptions for intervention, such as mass teacher firings or charter school conversions that were once standard elements of overhauling schools.
The New York Times
Britain turns to Chinese textbooks to improve its math scores
Educators around the world were stunned when students in Shanghai came first in their international standardized testing debut, in 2010, besting their counterparts in dozens of countries in what some called a Sputnik-like moment. Now, some British schools will try to replicate that success by using translated textbooks that are otherwise all but identical to those in public elementary schools around Shanghai.
The Orange County Register
A lesson in innovative education
Tempers can flare in the national debate over public education, which sometimes feels like a winner-take-all conflict for the highest of stakes. But those with the most to lose are students. That’s the case here in Southern California, where public charter school options are showing notable promise in potentially surprising ways, yet still face political obstacles. Charters have become a beacon for innovation, even as traditional public schools are facing challenges.