July 12, 2013
Local News
The News Journal
Teamwork will better the city of Wilmington
An opinion by Darius Brown
Andrew Carnegie called teamwork “The ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.” For our city, we need uncommon efforts to repair the ladder of opportunity for Wilmington residents by reducing poverty and investing in human capital to grow our middle class. None of us can do it on our own.
Delaware State News
Capital school board rejects proposed tax increase
The Capital School District Board of Education struck down a proposed tax hike on Wednesday morning. Last month, the General Assembly appropriated an extra $228,000 to the district for minor capital improvements and state guidelines call for Capital to match the funds by raising the tax rate.
The Middletown Transcript
Appoquinimink school board elects new leadership for coming year
The Appoquinimink school board has a new president and vice president for the first time since 2011. Norm Abrams was unanimously elected the new president of the five-member board Tuesday, while Richard Forsten was unanimously elected vice president.
National News
Education Week
Nebraska joins states trying to link student data systems
Nebraska joined 13 other states that are part of the Ed-Fi Alliance, a nonprofit subsidiary of the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation. The alliance aims to create an automated, one-stop shop for teachers, principals, and others looking for information on students’ test scores, attendance patterns, class rosters, and more to adjust their instruction in order to meet individual students’ needs
Connecticut Mirror
State to seek flexibility for rollout of teacher evaluations, Common Core
Connecticut officials are seeking flexibility from the U.S. Department of Education to avoid double-testing students during the roll-out of the Common Core State Standards. If granted, districts will be able to choose between a new test or the old state standardized test. State officials said they also will seek flexibility on new teacher evaluations that link student test scores to teacher ratings.
Mlive.com
Education Trust: Michigan has poor track record with low-income and black students
An Education Trust report examines student performance and the rate of improvement on eight years of NAEP test scores to determine how states are performing compared to national averages in advance of the Common Core tests. Oklahoma, Oregon, and West Virginia had the worst track records overall in the assessment, while Maryland, Massachusetts, and New Jersey topped the rankings.
Burlington Free Press
Public-private funding expands Vermont pre-k offerings
Gov. Peter Shumlin announced a program through which $400,000 in state money, paired with $400,000 raised privately by the Vermont Community Preschool Collaborative, will go to the 12 communities to expand early learning offerings. Legislation that passed the House would have expanded public funding of preschool, but the bill was left pending in the Senate in the final days of the session.
Inside Higher Ed
New yardstick of quality
Eighteen institutions are trying to get ahead of the growing accountability push with the release of a new set of performance measures. The Voluntary Institutional Metrics Project seeks to give a holistic view of the performance of private nonprofits, for-profits, community colleges, online institutions, and one research university.
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