March 26, 2013
LOCAL NEWS
The Newark Post
Christina board votes to keep working on teacher-retention program
The Christina School Board voted unanimously Thursday night to continue working with the Delaware Department of Education on a teacher-retention program rather than forfeit $2.3 million in federal Race to the Top funds. The vote came after more than four hours of sometimes-rancorous discussion about the DOE that included three state legislators who had just driven back from Dover after two hours of talks with the DOE about what Sen. Bryan Townsend, D-Newark, called “the wedge” between the district and the state.
SCSuntimes
Clayton Intermediate students learn forensics, history of fingerprinting
A group of students at Clayton Intermediate School learned about the history of fingerprinting Thursday during a visit from state fingerprinting analyst Rodney Hegman. Hegman works for the State Bureau of Identification. The program was put on for students involved in the Student Triad Enrichment Program (S.T.E.P.). S.T.E.P. is a program designed to challenge students and help them reach their maximum potential, according to CIS teacher Irene Buscemi. Topics covered in S.T.E.P. mainly cover social studies/history and science.
NATIONAL NEWS
New Republic
Six steps effective teacher development and evaluation
Some see us as education’s odd couple—one, the president of a democratic teachers’ union; the other, a director at the world’s largest philanthropy. While we don’t agree on everything, we firmly believe that students have a right to effective instruction and that teachers want to do their very best. We believe that one of the most effective ways to strengthen both teaching and learning is to put in place evaluation systems that are not just a stamp of approval or disapproval but a means of improvement. We also agree that in too many places, teacher evaluation procedures are broken—unconstructive, superficial, or otherwise inadequate. And so, for the past four years, we have worked together to help states and districts implement effective teacher development and evaluation systems carefully designed to improve teacher practice and, ultimately, student learning.
The New York Times
Deal may end city’s standoff with teachers
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and legislative leaders said on Monday that they had reached an agreement to help New York City and its teachers’ union settle on a teacher evaluation system and save the city from losing hundreds of millions of dollars in future education financing. The agreement on a new measure in the state budget seeks to resolve a standoff between the Bloomberg administration and the United Federation of Teachers about how to assess the performance of public school teachers, as required by a 2010 state law.
Education Week
Teacher-prep programs zero In on effective ‘practice’
What’s not immediately apparent from the ease with which Ms. Vuolle handles the room is that this is only her second time teaching a full class. She’s among the 40 teachers-in-training at the Match Teacher Residency, a teacher education program run by the Boston-based Match Education, a nonprofit charter-management organization that requires candidates to practice and master a repertoire of specific competencies before they lead a full classroom. It is an approach to student-teaching that does away with much of the trial-and-error that often characterizes the experience.
Partnership blends Science and English proficiency
As the release of the Next Generation Science Standards draws near, hands-on, inquiry-based methods of science instruction like those taught in Sonoma are becoming more common. Yet its use of science to teach English is a novel approach—one that offers significant potential for other districts to replicate, some educators say, especially as the number of English-language learners rises.