December 31, 2014
Delaware News
WDDE
A conversation with Chairman of Wilmington Education Advisory Group
Delaware Public Media’s Anne Hoffman spoke to the council’s Chairman, Tony Allen. Allen outlined the four areas the group will focus on in their recommendations, which include governance, early childhood education, financing education and race and class disparities.
Delaware Central News
‘Kids don’t ask to be hungry’
Out of the 415 students at the W. Reily Brown Elementary School, 242 children participate in the Backpack Program, which provides food to children in need when school is not in session. At Brown, a van from the Food Bank pulls up every Wednesday to drop off the meals, and students pick up a bag of food each Friday. The week before winter break, students took home food twice, on Thursday and Friday.
Delaware Department of Education
Information session for Reach families Jan. 7
A press release
Delaware Department of Education officials will host an informational session for Reach Academy for Girls families from 5 to 7 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 7 to help them learn more about enrolling in another school for next year.
National News
NPR
The man behind Common Core math
Jason Zimba helped write the Common Core standards for math. And four years after signing off on the final draft of the standards, he spends his weekends trying to make up for what he considers the lackluster curriculum at his daughter’s school, and his weekdays battling the lackluster curriculum and teaching at schools around the country that are struggling to shift to the Common Core.
Politico
Testing under fire
Republicans on the Hill are finding unusual common ground with teachers unions about an overthrow of the annual testing mandate embedded in No Child Left Behind. Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee is making reauthorization of the law one of his biggest priorities — and testing is expected to take center stage. He plans to tackle the issue during a hearing early in the new year. Under serious consideration: slashing the number of federally required tests or even doing away with them all together.
Education Week
Maine Gov. LePage tap senior adviser as state education chief
Gov. Paul LePage on Monday appointed a new acting education chief, his second in two years. The governor tapped Tom Desjardin, his senior policy adviser for education and natural resources, to serve as acting commissioner of the Department of Education. Desjardin has been in the LePage administration since 2013.
This is the technology idea that will revolutionize education
Technology will never revolutionize education. The premise that traditional teachers will no longer be relevant is based upon the false notion that the primary role of a teacher is the transmission of information. In reality, effective educating and learning is much more—it is based on the social interaction between teachers and students.
Can superstar teachers save failing schools?
An interesting phenomenon in many public, private and charter schools is the adoption of accountability standards that read more like a white paper on business efficiency than suggestions for actually teaching human beings. The problem with these standards, of course, is that with stringent, subjective targets for learning, schools are able to “game” the system to make it work in their favor. In other words, these schools are looking for ways to meet a specific, narrow goal – think of it like a salesperson closing a deal – and then they are rewarded for that piece of shallow success.