February 22, 2017
Delaware News
Coastal Point
LB PTO holds Penny Wars to kick off sign fundraising
Lord Baltimore Elementary School students were able to do something a little unorthodox last week, as students were able to duct tape Assistant Principal Matthew Keller to a wall. The students had participated in “Penny Wars” for two weeks to help raise funds for a new school sign. “We had the grade levels compete against each other to bring in change — pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters. Some students even brought in bills,” said Jennifer Lovellette, president of the school’s PTO.
Rodel Blog
A wholehearted approach to learning
Blog post by Paul Herdman, president and ceo of the Rodel Foundation of Delaware
A few years ago, my fellow members of the Vision Coalition and I began reaching out to Delawareans. We wanted to hear what they thought a well-educated young person would need to know and be able to do in the year 2025. What we heard from more than 4,000 people was not surprising. People told us that better academics and improved test scores are important—being able to read and understand math would still be foundational. But they wanted more than that.
Digging Deeper: Are Delaware students safe and engaged?
Blog post by Shyanne Miller, policy associate at the Rodel Foundation of Delaware
Academic achievement is but one aspect of student success. To develop the “whole child” we must also nurture a student’s social and emotional skills. Research shows that a positive school climate impacts both academic achievement and the development of social and emotional skills. As recent concerns about school safety intensify, a stronger focus on school climate could help ensure that students remain safe and engaged.
National News
Chalkbeat
Indianapolis is experimenting with a new kind of teacher — and it’s transforming this school
A King County Superior Court judge ruled Friday that the plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging Washington’s charter-school law didn’t demonstrate that charter schools are unconstitutional. Friday’s ruling is part of an ongoing legal battle over the constitutionality of Washington’s charter-school law. The lawsuit was filed by a coalition of parents, educators and civic groups.
Idaho Ed News
School funding committee wants to get back to work
The House Education Committee signed off on a resolution to put the Legislature’s interim school funding formula committee back to work this summer. House Education took action less than 24 hours after the funding formula committee delivered a report on its work from 2016, its first year in business. “That was kind of the easy part, that was bringing all the stakeholders together that was going out listening to the public and hearing what their issues were” said Sen. Chuck Winder, R-Boise, advocating for extending the committee’s work into 2017.
Seattle Times
King County judge rules state’s charter-school law is constitutional
A King County Superior Court judge ruled Friday that the plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging Washington’s charter-school law didn’t demonstrate that charter schools are unconstitutional. Friday’s ruling is part of an ongoing legal battle over the constitutionality of Washington’s charter-school law. The lawsuit was filed by a coalition of parents, educators and civic groups. Coalition members haven’t decided whether they’ll appeal yet, said Rich Wood, spokesman for the Washington Education Association.
The Atlantic
Using historical fiction to connect past and present
Shanna Johnson, a middle-school language arts teacher in Grand Rapids, Michigan, had just begun teaching the historical-fiction novel Dragonwings when it took on added relevance during the 2016 presidential election. The book follows a young Chinese boy at the turn of the 20th century as he migrates to the United States to live with his father. The context of the story and its setting in San Francisco is the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the first major piece of U.S. legislation that restricted immigration and which, in targeting an ethnic group, set the precedent for subsequent restrictive immigration laws.
The New York Times
Have we lost sight of the promise of public schools?
In the days leading up to and after Betsy DeVos’s confirmation as secretary of education, a hashtag spread across Twitter: #publicschoolproud. Parents and teachers tweeted photos of their kids studying, performing, eating lunch together. People of all races tweeted about how public schools changed them, saved them, helped them succeed. The hashtag and storytelling was a rebuttal to DeVos, who called traditional public schools a “dead end” and who bankrolled efforts to pass reforms in Michigan, her home state that would funnel public funds in the form of vouchers into religious and privately operated schools and encouraged the proliferation of for-profit charter schools.