January 20, 2016

Delaware

Cape Gazette
Cape sets referendum for elementaries
Cape Henlopen school board will ask voters to approve spending a $154 million referendum to replace or renovate its four elementary schools and build a new Sussex Consortium. If passed, Cape Region property owners will pay $48 million as the local share of the building project. A homeowner of a $200,000 home assessed at $22,509 would see a property tax increase of about $74 a year. The tax rate would increase 37 cents to a total of $3.41 per $100 of assessed property.

The News Journal
Delaware lawmakers spar over charter school audit bills
Two lawmakers have proposed dueling bills over how charter schools are audited after a string of high-profile incidents in which charter leaders were caught misusing taxpayer funds. State Rep. Kim Williams, D-Newport, wants the state auditor to select and oversee the firms that do the annual financial reports of charter schools. Currently, charter school boards work out those contracts themselves. But state Sen. Dave Sokola, D-Newark, has instead proposed a bill he says would strengthen the existing laws to clarify and tighten up the expectations for charter audits.

Four-year college isn’t only path to career readiness
Opinion by Freeman Hrabowski, president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase & Co.
As president of one of America’s leading educational institutions and CEO of one of the world’s largest financial firms, we see the world through two very different lenses. But there is one challenge that we both see clearly and are deeply concerned about: too many young people are not on a path to meaningful employment that will enable them to join the middle class. We see it when students drop out of school and struggle to obtain even a minimum wage job. And we see it when well-paying technical jobs go unfilled because applicants don’t have the necessary skills. Millions of Americans have come to appreciate the value of four-year college degrees.

Mount Pleasant nurse: Helping kids stay in class
It was a typical morning, with a steady stream of problems: I don’t feel well. I’m having difficulty breathing. I fell playing in the gym. I just need to sit. I’ve been dry-heaving. Although some of these Mount Pleasant High School students visiting the nurse’s office clearly have physical complaints, “a lot of kids just need a break from class. They’re worried,” said Beth Mattey, a Brandywine School District school nurse for 29 years, a Mount Pleasant High School nurse for 16 and, since this summer, president of the National Association of School Nurses.

We need to fix the problems now, or we’ll pay for them later
Opinion by Senator Gary Simpson
Delaware must focus on improving the quality of our early childhood development now, or pay in remediation, incarceration and health-care costs later. Why should this matter to our state? I learned a great deal about early-childhood issues over the past two years, when I joined leaders from across 16 states as part of the nonprofit Southern Regional Education Board (SREB). The SREB Early Childhood Commission brought legislators, educators and others with many different perspectives together with national experts and scholars on early education and brain development.

The Washington Post
Police investigate threats against schools in six states
In Delaware, the caller said he was armed, and he claimed to be on the roof of an elementary school, ready to hurt children and teachers. On Maryland’s Eastern Shore, the caller said there was a bomb inside a high school. And in New Jersey, the caller left a voicemail message for school officials saying that a bomb would be followed by a mass shooting attack. Tuesday’s threats of violence, which affected dozens of schools in at least six states in the East and Midwest, were just the latest in a rash of threats against U.S. schools in recent weeks.

WBOC
FBI joins investigation into yet another round of threats at several Delmarva schools
For the second week in a row, law enforcement agencies are investigating bomb and related threats called into several public schools across Delmarva. The FBI in Baltimore is now taking a lead in investigating the threats, according to Wicomico County Sheriff Mike Lewis, whose county has had schools affected by the threats. “Today, I learned from the Baltimore Field Office of the FBI that they have now formed a Bomb Threat Task Force that will continue to work with local law enforcement in an effort to track down those responsible for these threats,” Lewis said in a statement on the Sheriff’s Office’s Facebook page.

National

Atlanta Journal – Constitution
Georgia schools to receive grants for blended learning
Forty-seven Georgia school districts and one state school will be awarded about $8.2 million through a collaborative funding effort that seeks to provide high speed broadband access required for blended learning, Gov. Nathan Deal’s office said today. Connections for Classrooms grants are distributed in three rounds and funded through an effort between the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement, the Georgia Department of Education and the One Georgia Authority. The funds will enable the 48 entities to receive another $16.8 million in federal funds toward classroom network infrastructure.

Chalkbeat
Gov. Cuomo unveils plan to expand community schools, urges scrutiny of charter enrollment
Gov. Andrew Cuomo proposed boosting state education spending, particularly for troubled schools, in an agenda-setting speech Wednesday that shied away from the contentious education proposals that defined last year’s address. His most significant proposal was a $100 million plan to convert struggling schools into resource-filled “community” schools. He also called for more funding and oversight for charter schools, a $2.1 billion increase in school funding over the next two years, and a series of changes to the Common Core learning standards, which a state panel recommended last month.

Education Week
A User Guide to Me: How individual learning plans powers personalization
Some Google employees maintain an electronic form called A User Guide to Me. It includes information about strengths, preferences, and tips for working together. In a project-based world where teams are forming and storming every few weeks the User’s Guide appears to be a great tool organizations can encourage teams to use to improve communication and collaboration. It also appears to be a useful addition to a high school individual learning plan. A recent study indicates that 29 states and the District of Columbia mandate Individual Learning Plans (ILP) and 44% of surveyed high school counselors in states that do not require using ILP report using them in their schools.

NPR
The Obama administration proposes $2 billion more in college aid
President Obama has increased college aid by over $50 billion since coming into office. And he’s trying to do more. Acting Education Secretary John King announced two new proposals today that would expand the Pell Grant program, the biggest pot of federal money for students with financial need. The 2013 graduation rate for first-time, full-time students seeking a bachelor’s degree was just 59 percent after six years. And the three-year graduation rates for associate’s degrees was a dismal 29 percent. That means a lot of taxpayer-funded assistance goes to students who simply don’t finish their studies.

The Hechinger Report
What happened when one state tried to rewrite the Common Core
Carla and Carl Hebert, with two daughters and a granddaughter in tow, made the hour-long drive from their home in Lake Charles in October to watch a panel of Louisiana educators transform the controversial national Common Core standards into “Louisiana standards.” Like many, the Heberts’ anger over the Common Core began with homework assignments. Carla remembers days when the whole family grew frustrated trying to help her granddaughter with the new Common Core-aligned homework questions.