January 27, 2017

Delaware News

Middletown Transcript
State Education Association endorses Hansen in 10th District election
The Delaware State Education Association (DSEA) announced Wednesday that the association has endorsed Democrat Stephanie Hansen in the special state Senate election in the 10th District. The district includes parts of Middletown and the Glasgow area in southwestern New Castle County.

Sussex County Post
As DOE secretary, Bunting aims to state Carney’s case for education
It’s now official: Dr. Susan Bunting has been confirmed as Secretary of the Delaware Department of Education, overseeing Delaware’s public school system and serving as an education policy adviser to  Governor John Carney. Dr. Bunting, superintendent of the Indian River School District since 2006, was among Gov. Carney’s cabinet nominees confirmed Wednesday by the Delaware State Senate.

Education Week
Lawmakers look to encourage attendance, lower dropout rate
House lawmakers are eyeing legislation to encourage teenagers to stay in school and get their high school diploma. A bill before the House Education Committee on Wednesday increases the minimum age of required school attendance from 16 to the age of 17. The minimum age for truancy would increase accordingly.

Hockessin Community News
Susan Bunting: A lifetime in education
Susan Bunting’s entire public school education from kindergarten through twelfth grade took place in the building that later housed her office as superintendent of the Indian River School District. “I haven’t gotten very far in life, have I?” she joked. Bunting has, in fact, ascended steadily through the ranks of her career and was confirmed this week by the Delaware State Senate as the Secretary of the State Department of Education.

National News

The News Courier
Multiple choice: Options for education take center stage
Making decisions about a child’s education is often the topic of serious discussion in many households. Thousands of Alabama families and education advocates have spent the week in Montgomery, bending the ear of state legislators and officials of the Alabama Department of Education about school choice. This is National School Choice Week: “An independent public awareness effort designed to shine a positive spotlight on effective education options for every child.”

The Tennessean
Tennessee education board turns eye toward accountability plan
Tennessee’s plan for its lowest-performing schools and students under a new federal education law dominated the feedback received from the state’s education board. Tennessee State Board of Education’s members had the chance to pose questions to the state’s education department about the plan to comply with the federal Every Student Succeeds Act. The sweeping education law will replace No Child Left Behind.

South Coast Today
Education leaders call for student-centered reforms
Calling for a personalized, student-centered approach to reforms, state education leaders gathered to mark the release of an annual report on the state of education in Massachusetts. “Unless we change the rules of operations in our state and give more schools the types of freedoms we allow charters, we will not see that type of personalization, and we will see a continuation of a top-down approach,” said Board of Higher Education Chairman Chris Gabrieli, who advocated for empowering individual schools to lead the way on reforms.

Education Week
State ESSA plans seek to be ambitious but achievable
When the No Child Left Behind Act passed in 2001, state education leaders hated the law’s mandate that every child in the country be proficient in math and reading by 2014. Unrealistic and demoralizing, they called it. But now that states can set their own goals under the Every Student Succeeds Act—NCLB’s replacement—some are proposing to one-up the feds with even more ambitious timelines of their own.

At ‘Nature Preschools,’ classes are outdoors
At Audubon Nature Preschool, a “classroom” can be a pond, a bamboo forest, a meadow, or a garden. That’s because Audubon is a “nature preschool”—one of a growing number of preprimary schools where children spend all or part of their days outdoors. Five years ago, only a couple dozen such schools operated in the United States. Today, there are close to 250, according to the Natural Start Alliance, a coalition supporting early-childhood and environmental education.