February 19, 2015

Delaware News

WHYY
Delaware lawmakers question success of Race to the Top
Secretary of Education Mark Murphy said the additional $7.5 million would go toward sustaining Race to the Top programs that had proven both effective and popular. They include supports for staff development, data collection, and teacher retention.

The News Journal
Lawmakers grill education leaders on Race to the Top
Secretary of Education Mark Murphy and members of his staff faced a grilling from state lawmakers on Wednesday as they pitched spending $7.5 million to sustain programs from the mammoth federal Race to the Top grant that ends this year.

Delaware State News
Joint Finance panel blasts ‘Race to the Top’
Half of the requested sum goes to teacher training, recruitment and evaluation, and about $1.6 million goes to the retention of 10 positions. The latter is the most controversial facet.

Coastal Point
Edwina Kruse: A ‘mighty oak’ of black education
Edwina B. Kruse went about starting schools in Kent and Sussex counties. By 1867, she established a school in Wilmington where she taught, and later became principal of what became known as Howard High School.

Jobs for the Future
Pathways to Prosperity Network to serve as key strategy for Delaware college completion initiative
a blog post
Amy Loyd, executive director of the Pathways to Prosperity Network, noted that the work in Delaware illustrates the importance of working across sectors.

National News

Town Talk
Career education overhaul starts with current freshmen
Students in Louisiana used to have three options for a high school diploma — TOPS university, basic or career diploma. The state Department of Education’s Jump Start initiative has done away with basic and offers “pathway” options for the career diploma.

Education Week
Teacher leadership makes inroads, but strives for permanency
Advocates say the current interest in teacher leadership speaks to a need many teachers feel to influence education outside of the classroom, without leaving it.

Associated Press
New computerized tests debut this week, starting in Ohio
Ohio will be the first state to administer one of two tests in English language arts and math based on the Common Core standards developed by two separate groups of states. By the end of the school year, about 12 million children in 29 states and the District of Columbia will take them, using computers or electronic tablets.

The New York Times
The promise and failure of community colleges
Opinion by Eduardo Porter, columnist
There are two critical things to know about community colleges. The first is that they could be the nation’s most powerful tools to improve the opportunities of less privileged Americans, giving them a shot at harnessing a fast-changing job market and building a more equitable, inclusive society for all of us. The second is that, at this job, they have largely failed.

The Philadelphia Inquirer
SRC approves five new charter schools
Amid intense pressure from all sides, the Philadelphia School Reform Commission voted Wednesday night to approve five new charter schools from among the 39 applications at the end of an often tumultuous evening.