February 9, 2017

Delaware News

The News Journal
New DSU program to teach high schoolers to code
Delaware State University is opening up its Wilmington Campus to at least 50 high school students next fall, giving them the opportunity to take advanced technology classes at a new IT Center due to open in the 2017-18 school year. Red Clay Consolidated School District will pilot the program, it was announced Wednesday. The center will be open to all Red Clay juniors and seniors, as well as to students from other New Castle County school districts, Supt. Mervin Daugherty said.

Conrad Redskins now the Red Wolves
The Conrad Redskins will be known as the “Conrad Red Wolves” following a student vote to replace the controversial nickname. Conrad Schools of Sciences shed the mascot and logo last June after the Red Clay Board of Education voted to replace the old nickname after months of controversy and a recommendation from the Red Clay Mascot Committee.

Sussex County Post
Family, IR PRIDE are high school principal’s principle pillars
Family and school pride are principle pillars in life for Elbridge Bennett Murray. “My No. 1 priority is my kids. It is family first,” said Mr. Murray, principal at Indian River High School.  “It is one thing that I emphasize to all of my employees here: make sure you take care of your family first.” As IRHS principal, he is the top-level building administrator for hundreds of others who aren’t blood relatives. He calls them his extended family.

National News

Austin Daily Herald
Career, technical teachers in short supply at Minn. Schools
Minnesota schools say they don’t have enough teachers to help prepare high school students for careers, and in the coming weeks lawmakers at the Capitol are expected to step in to help. The debate about career-focused classes like manufacturing, business and health care has been part of a broader state conversation about changes to teacher licensing.

Education Week
At Ed. Department, Betsy DeVos calls for unity after bitter confirmation process
U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos—who took office after barely squeaking through a bruising confirmation process kicked off her tenure by calling Wednesday for unity and saying she was ready to learn from long-time employees and the field.

Fox News
The real Democratic party revealed: Why not a single senate democrat voted for Betsy DeVos
The Senate made history Tuesday when Mike Pence became the first Vice President to cast the deciding vote for a cabinet nominee. The nominee is now Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. The vote came after an all-night Senate debate in a futile effort by Democrats to turn the third Republican vote they needed to scuttle the nomination on claims that the long-time education reformer isn’t qualified.

The Los Angeles Times
If Republicans won’t take a stand on someone as incompetent as Betsy DeVos, what will they take a stand on?
Editorial
Surely there are more than two Republican senators who are smart enough to realize that Betsy DeVos is neither qualified nor competent to lead the U.S. Department of Education. Which makes her confirmation Tuesday all the more maddening. For all of President Donald Trump’s talk as a candidate about disrupting Washington as usual, there is nothing more politics-as-usual than this: Elected officials who know better, who know they’re doing a bad thing for the country, but who go ahead and do it anyway because they need a future relationship with a president who they probably also know is unsuited for his job, and because they fear incurring the wrath of GOP leaders if they cross the party line in the name of good governance.

The New York Times
Betsy DeVos teaches the value of ignorance
“Government really sucks.” This belief, expressed by the just-confirmed education secretary, Betsy DeVos, in a 2015 speech to educators, may be the only qualification she needed for President Trump. Ms. DeVos is the perfect cabinet member for a president determined to appoint officials eager to destroy the agencies they run and weigh the fate of policies and programs based on ideological considerations.

The Washington Times
Bill to ease class-size limits in early grades passes panel
North Carolina school districts would preserve some flexibility with early-grade classroom size limits under legislation that cleared a House committee on Tuesday. Supporters say the bill could preserve staffing for supplemental programs such as art and physical education.