July 8, 2013

Local News

The News Journal
Tracing consequences of Delaware’s racial divide
An opinion by Harry F. Themal
Almost 40 years after its publication, “Simple Justice” by Richard Kluger remains the most accessible history of the struggle to end school segregation in the United States. His chapter on Delaware, “Jim Crow, Inc.,” summed up the history of how not just the schools but also almost the entire society’s segregation was supported by the establishment.

The Newark Post
Program helps NHS students ‘Aspire’ to attend college
Newark High School rising senior Akia Johnson wants to be a social worker and help troubled kids in either Delaware or New York City. However, she said she was concerned about applying for college in order to follow her dreams until a program set up by the University of Delaware and Johnson & Johnson helped her out. “I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to complete college applications and FAFSA and all that, and my mom doesn’t have the knowledge and it’s hard for me to find out,” Johnson said. “This program provided me with a lot of help.”

National News

The New York Times
A new education mayor
An editorial
The next mayor of New York City will assume control of the country’s largest school system at an especially challenging moment. That person will oversee installation of the rigorous new Common Core learning standards. This ambitious set of academic goals, which has been adopted by all but a handful of states, is intended to move schools away from rote learning and memorization toward a writing-intensive curriculum that cultivates reasoning skills required by the new economy.

Education Week
NCLB waiver states split on new flexibility offer
States with waivers from provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act are almost evenly divided on whether they will take U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan up on his offer of extra time to begin using new teacher-evaluation systems to decide which educators to hire, fire, or promote. The federal Department of Education has decided to allow states that received waivers by the summer of 2012 to push back the deadline for using their new evaluation systems

Tulsa World
Oklahoma to drop testing consortium, develop own tests, Barresi says
State Superintendent Janet Barresi announced that she is withdrawing Oklahoma from the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, or PARCC, which is developing tests for the Common Core. Instead, Oklahoma will develop its own new standardized tests. The decision was driven by concerns over additional testing time, the technological readiness of schools, and higher anticipated costs.

USA Today
States revive preschool funding as economies recover
As Congress evaluates the Obama administration’s plans for universal preschool, several states—including Alabama, Michigan, and Minnesota—already are inching toward that goal. The additional funding is meaningful, some education experts say, but largely reflects the rebounding of state economies, rather than a renewed emphasis on early childhood.

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