July 14, 2014
Local News
Delaware State News
Capital Administrator Thomas earns Superintendent of the Year honors
Capital School District Superintendent Michael Thomas has been named Delaware Superintendent of the Year. “Education doesn’t remain static,” Dr. Thomas said. “You have to be constantly be moving forward.”
The News Journal
Northern end of Indian River School District growing fast
In the past five years, enrollments at North Georgetown and Georgetown Elementary schools have risen by about 30 percent, part of what officials say is an amazing amount of growth at the northern end of the Indian River School District.
Welcome to Delaware Tech’s new leader
An editorial
In this global economy, all of us – individual and institution alike – will be required to reinvent ourselves constantly. DelTech has been successful in meeting those challenges. Now it is Dr. Hoy’s job to ensure that DelTech keeps rising to those future challenges.
Delaware students win big at tech competition
The state sent a delegation of 151 middle and high school students to the National Technology Student Association Conference in Washington. Those students competed in 101 individual and 93 team events, ranging from architectural renovation, dragster design and robotics to video game design. All told, the state racked up 17 top-10 finishes. The delegation also claimed four first-place awards, including Postlethwait Middle School students for promotional design and P.S. duPont Middle School students for a written technology quiz bowl.
Class notes: Seats available in Christina’s Montessori program
The programs are offered at West Park Place Elementary in Newark and Bancroft Elementary in Wilmington. Kindergarten is free, and Preschool costs $650 a month.
STEM programs show promise for future generations
An op-ed by Ted Kaufman, former U.S. senator from Delaware
There are more important goals in life than making money. And there are many fulfilling job choices available for liberal arts majors. But if your children have any aptitude for science or math, a new report from the Brookings Institute should certainly encourage them to consider a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) education and career.
Cape Henlopen School Board allows politics to ban a book
The Cape Henlopen School Board supposedly acted to stop one group from imposing its views on another. In reality, the members did the opposite and allowed another group to impose its views. The board meets again on July 26. It should take the opportunity to reconsider its vote. The members should show more faith in their teachers and in the individual parents to decide.
Young Delaware author to sign copies of book
Monica Keszler, a Charter School of Wilmington student, is an author of a published book. She wrote the book as part of the B’nai B’rith International Diverse Minds Youth Writing Challenge in the Delmarva Peninsula. Ninth- through 12th-graders in Delaware and 10 Maryland counties entered by writing and illustrating books about tolerance and diversity for readers up to fifth grade.
Newark Post
Christina teacher to be honored at MLB All-Star Game
A Christina School District teacher is among 30 “all-star” educators who will join the best of the best at Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game in Minneapolis, Minn., this week. Each teacher will represent a team based on where her or she lives. Gina Rexrode, a third-grade teacher at Leasure Elementary School, will represent the Philadelphia Phillies.
National News
Education Week
FCC approves e-rate modernization along partisan lines
The Federal Communications Commission on Friday approved a broad series of changes to the E-rate program meant to boost support for Wi-Fi technology and create more efficiency, though Republicans on the panel strongly criticized the plan as bloated and bureaucratic. The approved order, as described by the FCC, would boost Wi-Fi funding for schools and libraries by $1 billion a year over the next two years, and set an annual “funding target” for that amount for years after that.
District’s teachers take leading role in policy overhaul
The Kingsport city school system, a close-knit community tucked away in the northeastern corner of Tennessee, was one of more than a dozen districts across the state to overhaul its compensation system as a result of promises Tennessee made in its application for federal Race to the Top money. Hyper-aware of how controversial restructuring compensation models can be, Superintendent Lyle Ailshie made his first priority ensuring that the process evolved from the bottom up, driven by the teachers instead of from the district’s central office.
States that drop Common Core under gun in replacing them
States that drop the Common Core State Standards face the prospect of less time to create new academic standards, and under intense political pressure. Generally, states have years to review content standards and make major changes if state school board members, those usually charged with ultimate approval of content standards, and others feel it’s necessary. The process usually involves lengthy discussions, drafts, and revisions overseen by teachers at each grade level, as well as content-area experts and others who try to ensure the standards connect across grade levels.
Washington Post
The Washington Teachers’ Union should let its member weigh in on a longer day
An editorial
The D.C. school system’s experiment with a longer school day has produced encouraging results. None of that, though, seems to matter to the Washington Teachers’ Union. Nor does the fact that teachers in these schools willingly signed on to the new hours or that they were paid for their extra effort. For reasons that are impossible to fathom, the union is resisting — unfortunately, with some success — plans to expand this initiative.
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
A fourth of SD superintendents are new this year
Nearly a quarter of the superintendents in South Dakota’s 151 school districts will be new to their positions this school year, in part because of retirements. Usually, superintendents move laterally among districts, but this year many of the positions will be filled by former principals and teachers with less administrative experience.
Politico
Teachers union take on Common Core
The American Federation of Teachers will open its annual convention Friday morning with a startling announcement: After years of strongly backing the Common Core, the union now plans to give its members grants to critique the academic standards — or to write replacement standards from scratch.