August 12, 2013

Local News

The News Journal New Moyer Academy under scrutiny State education officials say they’ll closely watch the New Moyer Academy charter school’s first few months of the academic year and how it handles new deadlines to decide what action to take with the school, which currently is in violation of its charter. Moyer leaders say they’re up to that scrutiny and they’ll do everything the state expects to come back in compliance with state rules. Moyer became in violation of its charter when state officials rejected the school’s proposals to lower its required enrollment and overhaul its curriculum. The Washington Post Wilmington charter school facing scrutiny from state education officials over problems A charter school serving at-risk students in Wilmington is facing scrutiny from Delaware education officials after falling out of compliance with state rules. The News Journal of Wilmington says the state sent a corrective action plan last month to the New Moyer Academy charter school and could place the school on formal review, leading to a possible closure. The Dover Post Montessori students combine science and life lessons during class trip The students, ages three to five, experienced the work environment and steps taken to prepare lunch and dessert items for customers. “Because everything is hands-on with Montessori, that’s why we like to do activities like this,” said Margaret Clang. “Learning is experiential. In our environment the kids learn by experiencing, touching and feeling. Everything is sensorial.”

National News

The Washington Post Gates pours millions in new grants to change teaching profession An opinion by Valerie Strauss The Gates Foundation is spending millions of dollars in new grants that will further its already vast and controversial influence on public education. After spending hundreds of millions of dollars to develop teacher assessment systems, it is putting many millions more into that issue, as well as into the creation of new online “adaptive” courses, the implementation of the Common Core standards, and more. Education Week Missouri school transfer ruling opens old wounds Beth Gratta has heard the whispers, read the venomous online comments and watched with dismay as some of her friends and neighbors publicly condemned a plan to bus 475 students from a distressed urban school district nearly 30 miles away to her children’s better-performing suburban schools. Yet Gratta, who teaches in another area district, said she is hopeful that her daughters, ages 7 and 13, and other students will be more accommodating than the parents, politicians and community leaders who worry the newcomers will bring increased delinquency, larger class sizes and lower test scores. Standards unveiled for improving principal pipeline As a way to help spark ideas for boosting the quality of school leadership in districts across the nation, the Wallace Foundation released the revised principal pipeline standards developed by its six grant-recipient districts. As states overhaul their teacher evaluation systems and implement the Common Core standards, strong school leadership becomes even more important, according to the report. The new dropouts? The new dropouts? The states divide on testing and accountability An opinion by Marc Tucker It’s funny how things work. For some people in this country, the idea of the Common Core State Standards—national standards for student achievement—was more than they could bear, an affront to their sense of the right relationship between government and its people. But these critics were not stupid. They knew that the support for such standards was very strong. So they attacked the new standards by professing to believe in high standards and announcing that what they were opposed to was replacing strong standards—say in Massachusetts or California—with weaker standards. Stateline.org States train teachers on Common Core Twenty states are scheduled to implement the Common Core for the first time in the upcoming school year. Seven states and the District of Columbia already have implemented the English and math standards. Some states are playing a central role in preparing teachers for the new standards, while others are letting districts take the lead. Tennessee and North Carolina are two states that have set up teacher training programs. Denver Post Denver Preschool Program graduates outperform peers, study finds About 64% of 3rd graders who received tuition credits to attend the Denver Preschool Program scored proficient or advanced on the state reading test, compared with 58% of their peers, according to new analysis. White children continued to outperform minorities on the reading test but 3rd graders of all backgrounds did better than their peers if they participated in the program.

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