April 26, 2013

Local News

The News Journal
Pencader Charter School gets $350,000 from Delaware to help pay bills
The standoff between the state Department of Education and Pencader Charter is over after the state agreed Thursday evening to pitch in $350,000 to brace the troubled school’s budget through the end of the year, school and state officials said. “It’s been a long haul, but I think in the end we’ve come to a decision that’s best for children, teachers and parents,” said Frank McIntosh, the school’s president. In a statement released Thursday night, a Department of Education spokeswoman said the money will be used only to cover outstanding payroll. The statement also says Pencader promised to have record transfers and other transitional needs completed by the time it closes in June.

Hockessin Community News
Charter School of Wilmington wins Delaware Envirothon Competition
School of Wilmington Team A won the 2013 Delaware Envirothon competition held Thursday at Wicked R Western Productions in Kent County. Charter School of Wilmington Team B placed second, and Polytech High School won third place in the competition. Eighteen teams prepared all school year for Thursday’s competition. Each team answered questions, reviewed specimens and took measurements in topics dealing with aquatic ecology, soils/land-use, wildlife, forestry, air quality, and the current environmental issue – pastureland management. Teams also gave a 6- to 7-minute oral presentation discussing a resource management plan they developed for a given scenario. After more than three hours of testing, the results were announced. Charter School of Wilmington Team A, with top scores in soils, forestry and wildlife, was crowned the 2013 state champion.

National News

Las Vegas Review Journal
Sandoval touts high school student jobs program
Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval and Delaware Gov. Jack Markell said that a new program to help at-risk high school students already has shown signs of success in Nevada. Sandoval launched the Jobs for America’s Graduates (JAG) program in six high schools and is seeking legislative approval to expand it to 50 schools. Nationally, about half of JAG students go on to college and the rest to the working world.

The Sacramento Bee
Jerry Brown pledges foes ‘battle of their lives’ over education funding
Facing resistance at the Capitol and in suburban school districts to his effort to shift more education money to California’s poor and English-learning students, Gov. Jerry Brown on Wednesday called his measure a civil rights issue and promised opponents “the battle of their lives.” The education financing proposal is a central part of Brown’s budget plan and an emerging source of division between the Democratic governor and lawmakers of his own party. “This is a matter of equity and civil rights,” Brown said at a news conference flanked by local school officials. “So if people are going to fight it, they’re going to get the battle of their lives, because I’m not going to give up until the last hour, and I’m going to fight with everything I have, and whatever we have to bring to bear in this battle, we’re bringing it.”

Education Week
Michigan House approves budget stripping Common Core funds
The Michigan House of Representatives has approved a budget that would prohibit any general funds from being spent to implement the Common Core State Standards or the Smarter Balanced assessments based on the standards. The House approved the budget language on April 24. The budget now moves to the Michigan Senate for consideration. (The GOP controls both chambers in the legislature.) This means that Michigan has moved further along to blocking the common core than Alabama, which dumped a bill to block the standards earlier this week.

The Washington Post
Close gap in access to good teachers, curriculum, schools, says new book, campaign
For more than a generation, educators and policymakers have been agonizing about America’s achievement gap, the persistent chasm in academic performance between poor and privileged children. A new book and a national campaign launched Thursday says the country must pay equal attention to the “opportunity gap” — which exists when poor and minority students and English-language learners lack the same access as affluent students to skilled teachers, quality curriculum and well-equipped schools. The book, funded by a grant from the Ford Foundation, argues that the accountability movement that began in earnest with the 2002 No Child Left Behind law placed too much emphasis on testing students and measuring outcomes. Under that federal law, schools for the first time were required to test students in math and reading in grades 3 through 8 and once in high school, and to make progress each year in scores or face a series of escalating penalties.

Related Topics: Achievement Gap, Common Core, Governor Markell