March 18, 2013

Local News

The News Journal
Solar panel project has creative juices cooking in class at Tower Hill
On Thursday, the students set up one of several tests at the private school to see if their concepts work. Though the solar panels may be a low-cost, low-tech design, they require high-level thinking skills. Encouraging creativity and innovation is key, said teacher Peter Rust, and so is learning to move quickly to test prototypes.  The engineering course was added this year at the school, and is meant to help students learn concepts through hands-on projects.

Schools in New Castle County do not properly serve all students
A letter to the editor
I read the article about people moving out of New Castle County. There is an aspect of the moves that has been left out. The education system in Delaware, public and private, targets the gifted child. This is not the case outside of Delaware.

National News

Education News
Diane Ravitch: Wrong on the Common Core
A couple of weeks ago, Diane Ravitch came out against the Common Core State Standards, saying that they “…have been adopted in 46 states and the District of Columbia without any field test. They are being imposed on the children of this nation despite the fact that no one has any idea how they will affect students, teachers, or schools. We are a nation of guinea pigs, almost all trying an unknown new program at the same time.”  But the Common Core State Standards are not a program, like a new drug, to be field-tested. They are a statement of what we want our children to know and be able to do when they graduate from high school and what they ought to know and be able to do at key points along the way to graduation.

Omaha World-Herald
State takes closer look at national education standards
Nebraska’s refusal to adopt the Common Core standards could cost students, teachers, and taxpayers as 45 other states press full steam ahead to implement them, some educators say. Critics, however, believe that adopting the standards amounts to forfeiting education decisions to Washington. Amid this debate, the state board voted to pay a consultant to compare Nebraska’s standards to the Common Core.

The New York Times
A tough road for charter proposal
In his new role, Mr. Patrick, a Houston Republican, has championed the policies — robust virtual learning, unrestricted charter-school growth and private-school vouchers — advanced by national reformers like Mr. Bush. Conservative, business-friendly Texas, where Republicans have controlled the House and Senate since 2003, would appear to be fertile ground for a philosophy based on the belief that low regulation and high competition encourage innovation. But in the state that gave birth to the accountability movement embodied by the No Child Left Behind law, other key policies linked to that philosophy have struggled to take root. Senate Bill 2, the centerpiece of Mr. Patrick’s plans for the session, is the most ambitious attempt to expand the state’s charter school system since it was established in 1995. To succeed, it will have to pass a Legislature that defeated more modest proposals just two years ago.

Better colleges failing to lure talented poor
Most low-income students who have top test scores and grades do not even apply to the nation’s best colleges, according to a new analysis of every high school student who took the SAT in a recent year.

The Los Angeles Times
Some see adult-school funding shift as disastrous
The governor’s plan would make it the responsibility of community colleges. Providers think the plan unrealistic; students fear being out of their comfort zone.  Adult schools operated by K-12 districts have historically provided the majority of classes for this group of students even as the state’s 112 community colleges have increased their basic-skills offerings.  Gov. Jerry Brown’s budget proposal shifts all responsibility for adult schools to community colleges. Under that plan, adult programs would be funded with a new grant of about $300 million in the 2013-14 budget.

Related Topics: Achievement Gap, Common Core, high-need, Higher Education, Low-income, STEM