September 16, 3013

Local News

The News Journal
Charter School of Wilmington students place in environmental competition
A five-member team of Charter School of Wilmington students took 7th place in the North American Enviroth¬on, the continent’s largest high school environmental competition. The competition tested teams for their practical knowledge of soils and land use, aquatic ecology and forestry.

Milford Beacon
Milford School District amps up security in schools
The Milford School District is taking precautionary measures this year to increase security by adding school resource officers, securing building access and digitally monitoring school visitors. These additions are part of a proactive approach, according to district officials, to ensure the safety of students and staff should the need arise, like it did Wednesday morning after two suspects involved in a Rehoboth Beach outlet robbery led a police chase that ended in a crash in Milford.

Sussex Countian
Sussex Tech welcomes Chinese language teacher
Sussex Technical High School is hosting a native mandarin-speaking teacher from China for the 2013-14 school year as part of the Chinese Guest Teacher program. Hong Xuan (Jenny) is among more than 100 Chinese guest teachers who will be teaching at schools across 30 states. The program places visiting teachers from China in U.S. schools for one to three years, in order to jump start or expand school Chinese language and culture programs.

National News

Education Week
Ed. Dept., Arizona clash over waiver
Arizona may be the next state in trouble over its No Child Left Behind Act waiver after it submitted a final draft of its accountability system that does not meet federal demands on high school graduation rates or teacher evaluations.
When Arizona won a one-year NCLB waiver in mid-2012, the federal approval came with two stipulations: The state had to increase the weight of graduation rates in its high school rating system, and it had to use student growth on state tests as required by federal rules as part of its teacher-evaluation system.

The New York Times
Can emotional intelligence be taught?
James Wade’s approach — used schoolwide at Garfield Elementary, in Oakland, Calif. — is part of a strategy known as social-emotional learning, which is based on the idea that emotional skills are crucial to academic performance. “Something we now know, from doing dozens of studies, is that emotions can either enhance or hinder your ability to learn,” Marc Brackett, a senior research scientist in psychology at Yale University, told a crowd of educators at a conference last June. “They affect our attention and our memory. If you’re very anxious about something, or agitated, how well can you focus on what’s being taught?”

The Washington Post
New Teach For America study: What it really proves
An opinion by Valerie Strauss
Teach For America (TFA) has sought to direct attention to a new study released by Mathematica. A blogger at the Washington Post even argued that my prior critiques of TFA were “not true anymore.” (See all of my prior posts on TFA here.) Is that the case? Next week I will start an entire series on the Mathematica TFA study, but for now, because there is an avalanche of email and media inquiries about the study, I will discuss several important issues that I have noted in the study.

Inside Higher Ed.
Going to the root of the problem
A group of Tennessee community colleges has been working with high schools to try to help more students get ready for college math. The experiment, known as the SAILS project, has shown impressive early results. Gov. Bill Haslam is spending $1.1 million from a state college-completion fund to expand the project to 114 high schools and all 13 of the state’s community colleges.

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