January 26, 2016

Delaware

Department of Education
DE increases student access to language proficiency test
Press Release
Holderline Lebreton, 19, is thankful she could take her State of Delaware language proficiency test in Haitian Creole. A senior at Seaford High School in the Seaford School District, Lebreton, like all Delaware students, must earn two credits in a world language other than English to graduate high school. Now more districts throughout Delaware will be able to offer their students this opportunity thanks to a recent grant provided by the state. The Assessing Native Language Proficiency for English Language Learners Grant gives $45,000 to seven Delaware school districts to cover test costs for the 2016 – 2017 school year.

Delaware Public Media
Delaware Community Foundation awards STEM grants
The Delaware Community Foundation is handing out just over $16,000 for science, technology, engineering and math education programs, in an extra third year of focus on STEM. DCF’s Next Generation North young professionals organization typically spends two years on different themes for its grants program. But co-chair Lindsay Lancaster says they saw enough buzz around STEM in the First State to spend another year supporting it.

The News Journal
Schools announce closing for Tuesday
Hazardous roads remaining from the colossal weekend blizzard have forced most Delaware schools to cancel classes for another day. The districts that serve New Castle County — Appoquinimink, Brandywine, Christina, Colonial, Red Clay and New Castle County Vo-Tech — all made the call to shut down for the day on Tuesday. Offices in school districts will open, and 12-month employees should report at 9 a.m., officials said Monday.

National

Education Week
Building empathy in classrooms and schools
Empathy is a complex concept and a difficult skill. It’s time for educators to recognize the strength it takes to create, balance, and sustain an empathic mindset in a culture that doesn’t always value it. Empathy in education is often deemed a “soft skill.” Sometimes we equate empathy to coddling, weakness, or even label it as a gender-specific trait. It is none of these things. We’re neither born with it, predisposed to it, or incapable of it. Empathy doesn’t happen because we do a few icebreakers in the beginning of the school year.

NPR
Why Female Professors get lower ratings
Picture your favorite college professor. Here are some adjectives that might come to mind: Wise. Funny. Caring. Prompt. Passionate. Organized. Tough but fair. Now, are you thinking of a man or a woman? A new study argues that student evaluations are systematically biased against women — so much so, in fact, that they’re better mirrors of gender bias than of what they are supposed to be measuring: teaching quality. Anne Boring, an economist and the lead author of the paper, was hired by her university in Paris, Sciences Po, to conduct quantitative analysis of gender bias.

Philly Voice
11-year-old Jersey girl launches #1000BlackGirlBooks
In the past year, Philadelphia native Marley Dias has successfully written a proposal for (and received) a Disney Friends for Change grant, served food to orphans in Ghana and recently launched a book club. Dias is 11 years old. Dias’ latest social action project is the “#1000BlackGirlBooks” book drive. Frustrated with many of the books she’s assigned in school, she confessed to her mother during dinner one night that she was unhappy with how monochromatic so many stories felt.

The Denver Channel
These 2 bills would force Colorado to pay more for kindergarten programs
If two Colorado lawmakers get their way, the state will pick up more of the tab for the cost of kindergarten enrollment, placing less of a burden on school districts and parents. As of now, the state picks up 58 percent of the bill and local districts and parents are left to pay for the rest — meaning some parents pay as much as $300 per student per month, to send their child to kindergarten full time. Wilson is introducing a bill that would shift all of the cost of full-day kindergarten to the state, which comes with a price tag of $247 million.

The New York Times
Studio in a school expands arts education nationwide
Blog post by Robin Pogrebin, New York Times Culture Reporter
Studio in a School, a New York City nonprofit that enlists professional artists to teach visual arts to public school students, is expanding its mission and scope by creating a Studio Institute to bring its program to the rest of the country. “These are programs that can be replicated,” said Agnes Gund, the organization’s founder and chairwoman. “They have substance, they work for children in schools that don’t have many opportunities. Art is the first thing that’s cut.” Thomas Cahill, Studio’s president and chief executive, will serve as the institute’s director.