July 30, 2012

Local News

The News Journal
Spending cuts could cost Delaware 2,200 jobs
Essentially, an uncompromising Congress decided to bludgeon itself into reaching an agreement on future spending. But the window to do so is narrowing. Unless Congress does something to reverse itself before Jan. 2 – and it’s not likely to begin trying until after Election Day – the cuts, termed “sequestration,” are going to happen. By two analysts’ reckoning, that will mean the loss of 2,200 or more jobs in Delaware – including public education.

Cutting-edge AP lessons begin at teachers institute
For the 14th consecutive year, the Lewes Advanced Placement Training Summer Institute introduced first-time and veteran AP teachers to the latest changes in their curricula. Last year, APSI Director Wilson Frampton said, AP students at Cape Henlopen High School reported their highest scores to date. He credits his institute for the improvement.

Cyber camp teachers how to outwit hackers
The annual camp is a collaborative effort between UD, Wilmington University and Delaware Technical Community College, and it is affiliated with the U.S. Cyber Challenge’s Summer Cyber Camp program, a national initiative. The camp’s attendees included 20 undergraduate college students, five graduate students and five high school students. All of them had to complete an online test showing they could handle the rigors of the camp. Cotton said the camp is equivalent to the amount of material covered in four weeks of a college classroom.

Tell a parent: Summer is a time for learning
An editorial
On average students lose about a month’s worth of learning. That’s bad enough as an average. The first challenge is to get more students in those programs. Scholarships often are available for science and math camps, for example. The second, and greater, challenge is to get parents and guardians to recognize the child’s need to learn.

National News

Wall Street Journal
New York’s charter schools get an A+
An opinion by Joel Klein
During the eight years I served as chancellor of New York City’s public schools, the naysayers and the apologists for the status quo kept telling me “we’ll never fix education in America until we fix poverty.” Although the traditional public schools in the city have about the same ratio of poor children–and a significantly smaller ratio of black and Latino children–the charter schools outperformed the traditional schools by 12 points in math and five in reading.

Stateline
Choice often limited in ‘school choice’ programs
Scholarship tax credit and voucher programs are growing rapidly across the country. But a Stateline analysis found that many private schools choose not to participate in these school choice programs. Many of are wary of government regulations, especially standardized test requirements. Others are concerned about the possible impact on their educational mission, among other things.

Washington Post
Is a charter school chain called Rocketship ready to soar across America?
What sets Rocketship apart from other successful charters is a financial model that allows it to operate on government payments without continual infusions of cash from private donors. Computers shave 25 percent from Rocketship’s labor costs — savings used to extend the school day to eight hours, pay higher salaries to its nonunion teachers and to construct its own school facilities, among other things.

Associated Press
Teacher effectiveness focus of new Kentucky panel
Five Kentucky teachers told a newly formed advisory panel Friday that student achievement should be part of teacher evaluations in the future, but factors besides test scores should be part of that equation. The teachers said evaluations should take into account students’ individual progress, not just their scores on standardized tests.

Education Week
Lawmakers explore impact of automatic cuts on education
Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, the chairman of the subcommittee that oversees education spending, said at hearing that the federal trigger cuts could be as high as 17.6 percent, across-the-board. Sen. Barbara Mikulski, a Democrat whose home state of Maryland won two Race to the Top grants, asked Secretary Duncan, Would big, across-the-board cuts slow that momentum? Yes, he said. The cuts would be “a huge blow to those efforts.”

Related Topics: Achievement Gap, Expanded Learning Time, next generation learning, Teacher Effectiveness