July 10, 2014

Local News

The News Journal
Cape Henlopen pulls book, draws fire
Cape Henlopen School District’s decision to take a book off a summer reading list for incoming high school freshmen has drawn protests from librarians, some parents and teachers. The young-adult book, “The Miseducation of Cameron Post,” which features a main character who is gay, was removed from the list by the school board in late June.

Delaware Tech selects new president
Delaware Technical Community College has named Murray “Ray” Hoy, currently head of Wor-Wic Community College in Maryland, as its new president. “As a graduate of a community college, [Hoy] brings an inherent understanding of and commitment to the mission of these institutions,” Chairman Mark Stellini said in a message to students, staff and supporters. “His breadth and depth of leadership experiences will serve him and the College well as he leads the institution in the future.”

Philly schools bill stalls in legislature
Philadelphia’s superintendent of schools is urging Republican state lawmakers to resolve a fight that has hung up an increase in the city’s sales tax on cigarettes that he says is crucial to ensuring the city’s schools can open in the fall.

National News

The Advocate
Teaching the teachers: preparing students for the workforce
About 300 career and technical education teachers from across Louisiana started weeklong training courses as part of a push to prepare high school students to take full advantage of the state’s growing jobs market.

Governing
Teachers to keep tenure in North Carolina, for now
North Carolina’s teachers will no longer face the choice of getting a pay raise or keeping their tenure. Senate budget negotiators abandoned their proposal to eliminate tenure in exchange for an 11 percent pay raise. Though major issues remain, the offer removes another obstacle toward adoption of a state spending plan and adjournment of the legislative session.

Providence Journal
Bill delaying evaluations for high-performing R.I. teachers become law
Teachers deemed “effective” and “highly effective” will see less frequent evaluations now that Gov. Lincoln Chafee has allowed a bill delaying assessments for those teachers to become law.

Education Week
In final keynote, Van Roekel attacks education-reform trajectory
In a long and wide-ranging final keynote as president of the National Education Association, Dennis Van Roekel focused on testing and the need for improved teacher-certification requirements, but avoided discussion of the common-core standards. And notably, he argued that today’s so-called education-reform movement has a long, checkered history dating back 30 years.

For Vergara ruling on teachers, big questions loom
Among the lingering questions: Will the ruling, at a slim 16 pages, hold up on appeal? Will California’s notoriously polarized legislature, fearful of additional litigation and bad press, consider changing the statutes at issue on its own? And finally, will similar lawsuits elsewhere—one is already primed for introduction in New York—be as initially successful?

New York Times
As New York City expands, pre-K, private programs fear teacher drain
Directors who oversee independently run programs in New York City say that a program promising to be a boon for families of young children may end up being a loss for them, an unintended consequence of prekindergarten expansion.