January 29, 2013
Local News
WDEL
4 NCCo schools get literacy grants
The Delaware Community Foundation has given out nearly $240,000 in literacy grants to New Castle County Schools. The money must go towards early childhood literacy programs with special emphasis on programs for disadvantaged students.
The News Journal
Milford to close middle school
The Milford School Board voted unanimously to close what may be Delaware’s oldest operating schoolhouse, Milford Middle School, heeding administrators’ warnings that the building is too rundown to keep open through next fall. The board’s decision means that starting in the fall, sixth- through eighth-grade students will all attend Milford Central Academy and grades nine through 12 will attend Milford High School, Superintendent Phyllis Kohel said.
National News
Education Next
Taking back teaching
In June 2012, a California judge ruled that the way the Los Angeles Unified School District evaluates its teachers violates state law because it does not factor in student achievement. He ordered the district and the local teachers union to come up with a reasonable way of doing just that.
The New York Times
Bloomberg asks for legislature’s help in teacher evaluation fight
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg on Monday urged the State Legislature to intervene so that New York City does not lose hundreds of millions of dollars because it missed a deadline this month to finish negotiating a teacher evaluation system.
Education Week
Ed. Dept. raises evidence, research ante in grant awards
Using the Investing in Innovation program as a building block, the U.S. Department of Education is taking the next formal step to make research and evidence far more important factors as it awards competitive grants. The goal is twofold: to reward projects that already have established a research-based track record of success and to encourage grant winners to produce rigorous evidence detailing the extent to which their project does—or does not—work.
Related Topics: ED, Grants, Teacher Evaluation