April 1, 2013

LOCAL NEWS

Cape Gazette
Academy, Delmarva Christian prepare for campus swap
Organizers of Sussex County’s only charter school say eighth-graders looking toward high school need more choices. They say research shows only 30 percent of high school graduates from Sussex County attend a four-year university and more than 70 percent of seniors can’t pass an advanced placement test.

The News Journal
Polytech’s dental lab makes an impression
Tierra Fenwick is studying to be a dental assistant, and on this day, she was the one in the dental chair as Polytech High School classmate Ashleigh Veney practiced taking teeth impressions. The teens, both seniors, are in the dental assisting track at the technical school and were taking advantage of the newly renovated dental lab.

Middletown Transcript
Japanese students discuss 2011 earthquake during visit to Middletown
Shino Kondo was one of nearly two dozen Japanese high school students who visited Delaware last week and shared their experiences with nearly 100 people who attended a presentation at Alfred G. Waters Middle School near Middletown on Friday.  Funded by the Japanese government through The Laurasian Institution, their visit was a part of The Kizuna Project, a student exchange program that seeks to educate children from other nations about the ongoing recovery efforts.

Hockessin Community News
Revamped radio station and new TV station give boost to McKean High’s potential
Thomas McKean High School’s radio station has come a long way from the fall of 2008, when equipment had fallen into disrepair and hindered students’ ability to realize the full potential of this resource.  A few months ago, construction was completed on a revamped radio station, not to mention the addition of a new television station to round out the career & technical education program focused on communications at McKean. In a word, the state-of-the-art technology has faculty and students excited about what lies ahead with their revamped and expanded multimedia facilities.  McKean Principal Lisa Ueltzhoffer credited Red Clay Consolidated School District Superintendent Dr. Merv Daugherty, Public Information Officer Pati Nash and career and technical education director Sharon Rookard for finding federal money that was made available for career & technical programs, thereby making construction of the revamped station possible.

NATIONAL NEWS

Education Week
‘Personalized Learning’ varies for Race to Top districts
The 16 Race to the Top district winners, pushed by $400 million in federal grants that put a premium on personalized learning, are embarking on vastly different makeovers of the classroom experience—from districtwide approaches to a narrower blueprint focused on middle school math.  Despite the divergent approaches, a review of the winning applications shows those districts are tapping similar tactics: mobile devices and individualized learning plans for students, personalized learning coaches for teachers, and data dashboards that collect all student learning information in one place.

Study: Middle School Algebra push yields minimal performance gains
Many states are pushing students to take Algebra 1 in middle school to prepare them for advanced math in high school. A new analysis, however, suggests that increased enrollment hasn’t led to higher math performance for states on the National Assessment of Educational Progress.  The study was released last week as part of the annual report on education by the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution, in Washington.

News Oklahoma
Oklahoma City rally questions common core state standards planned for public schools
Speakers at a rally that attracted about 150 in front of the old Supreme Court chambers in the state Capitol also warned about an overreaching federal government, a familiar foe of constitutional conservatives in the statehouse. Federal privacy laws were rewritten last year, they said, to let the government collect and then share typical student records such as test scores and discipline history with personal information such as medical records and psychological evaluations.  “The federal government is taking over the banking industry, the housing industry, the auto industry,” said Rep. David Brumbaugh, R-Broken Arrow. “They need to stay away from education.  “Good teachers know what to teach,” he said. “We don’t need the federal government telling us what to teach.”  Contacted later, Joel Robison, chief of staff for the state Education Department, said the only link the common core state standards has with the federal government is that federal election officials encouraged states to include implementation of the standards during the Race to the Top competition three years ago.

Alabama.com
Alabama could Be first state to use standardized tests aligned with Common Core
Alabama elementary and middle schools could be the first in the nation to adopt “next generation” standardized tests from the makers of the ACT test. The new assessment system, called ACT Aspire, is “fully aligned” with the controversial Common Core State Standards, reports ACT Inc. The state board plans to consider the proposal at an upcoming meeting.

EdSource
U.S. Ed Department agrees to review 9 districts’ plan for NCLB waiver
The nine California districts seeking a waiver from the federal No Child Left Behind Act have gotten their foot in the door. On Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Education announced that it has accepted their waiver application and will treat it as they would an application from other states, with a formal review.

The New York Times
Teacher’s vision, but done New York City’s way
At last year’s State of the City speech, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced the creation of a public high school called the Academy for Software Engineering. The school would be part of an ambitious expansion of computer science education in the city, and Mr. Bloomberg called it the “brainchild” of a local teacher named Michael Zamansky.   Mr. Zamansky was seated on the stage, a few steps from the mayor. But by that point, he said recently, the project was his in name only: he said he had been effectively cut out of the school’s planning process, and his vision of an elite program had given way to one that was more focused on practical job skills.