January 21, 2015
Delaware News
WDEL
EdWatch: Get ready for kindergarten now
A new step-by-step guide from the state helps parents sort out the process of registering for school for the first time.
WHYY
Christina district approves Delaware priority schools framework
The Christina School District Board of Education board approved an agreement Tuesday that outlines how it will turn around three struggling, Wilmington schools.
The News Journal
Christina reluctantly compromises on Priority Schools
The Christina school board reluctantly agreed on a 4-3 vote Tuesday night to a compromise with state officials in the months-long debate over how to improve its three inner-city Priority Schools in Wilmington.
Letters to the Editor: Kowalko hurts education reform
I don’t normally agree with Democratic House Speaker Pete Schwartzkopf, but he and I evidently agree John Kowalko is the biggest obstacle to the sorely needed education reform that Delaware needs.
Delaware Department of Education
Text message program launches
The state’s program to provide high school seniors and their families information and reminders about important college application and enrollment deadlines launched last week.
National News
Education Week
In State of the Union, Obama pitches college access, child-care aid
President Barack Obama used his penultimate State of the Union address to call for a dramatic expansion in college access and increased investments in early childhood, including help for parents in covering childcare costs. Meanwhile, K-12 policy largely took a back seat, despite an escalating debate in Congress over federally mandated student testing.
Maryland grooms assistant principals to take schools’ top jobs
The Maryland education department is immersed in a yearlong endeavor aimed at developing a model program to provide support, networking, and practical training for assistant principals who want to become principals.
The New York Times
Support our students
Obama’s community-college plan would largely be a subsidy for the middle- and upper-middle-class students who are now paying tuition and who could afford to pay it in the years ahead. The smart thing to do would be to scrap the Obama tuition plan. Students who go to community college free now have tragically high dropout rates. The $60 billion could then be spent on things that are mentioned in President Obama’s proposal — but not prioritized or fleshed out — which would actually increase graduation rates.
Cuomo’s education agenda sets battle lines with teachers’ unions
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York has been laying the groundwork for an aggressive education agenda as he begins his second term, signaling that he will seek several major changes that, atypically for a Democrat, will put him in direct conflict with teachers’ unions.
Politico
Hill fight on No Child Left Behind looms
The coming debate may be the most dramatic congressional fight over education in more than a decade.
Houston Chronicle
Repeal of A-F school grading scale advances in Va. Senate
A bipartisan effort to repeal an A-F grading scale for entire schools is advancing in the General Assembly. The A-F scale for schools was adopted in 2013 at the urging of then-Gov. Bob McDonnell, a Republican, as a public measure of school quality based on student test scores.
Philadelphia Inquirer
Phila. district spends less per pupil than most other cities
Compared with big-city peers, the Philadelphia School District spends less per pupil than almost any other education system in the country – even Detroit’s.