June 1, 2017

Delaware News

Delmarva Now
Education a focus of budget talks at Carney town hall in Sussex
Concerned about Delaware’s $400 million budget shortfall, Sussex County residents listened to a presentation by Gov. John Carney on Wednesday. Those in attendance expressed their concerns about the budget and what Gov. Carney called a “shared sacrifice” when it came to budget cuts. The meeting occurred as the Joint Finance Committee slashed away millions in preparation for the June 30 deadline.

The News Journal
Appo school project will launch into space Thursday
After months of waiting, seventh-grade students from Everett Meredith Middle School will finally see a specially designed research project launch into space aboard the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft on Thursday as part of a large commercial resupply mission to the International Space Station. The students make up one of 11 teams in the United States to have an original experiment chosen for the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program this year.

Rodel Blog
Digging Deeper: Student need grows as budgets shrink
Blog post by Shyanne Miller, policy associate at the Rodel Foundation of Delaware
Delaware’s budget crisis has taken quite a toll on education and the state as a whole. At the same time, student needs are growing, with some of our highest-need populations (low-income students, English learners, and students with disabilities) increasing at a faster rate than ever. With changing demographics and the expanding role of the public school system, students are going to need all the resources they can get.

The link between career/technical education and student success
Blog post by Jenna Bucsak, senior program officer at the Rodel Foundation of Delaware
Just one career and technical education course above the average can boost a student’s odds of graduating high school and enrolling in a two-year college, according to a study by the Fordham Institute. It can also lead to a higher likelihood of college enrollment, employment, and better wages.

Digging Deeper: Why graduation rates don’t tell the whole story
Blog post by Jenna Bucsak, senior program officer at the Rodel Foundation of Delaware
It may be stating the obvious, but a high school diploma is not the sole determinant of student success. Instead, we usually need to examine a student’s entire academic career—from kindergarten through 12th grade—to get a picture of how well prepared they are to pursue their interests after high school.

National News

Governing
Nation’s least-funded schools get what they pay for
In his 17 years as a school official in Oklahoma, Robert Romines has dealt with more than his share of painful situations. In 2013, as superintendent in the town of Moore, he had to shepherd his system through the aftermath of a tornado that caused $2 billion in total damage, destroying entire neighborhoods and taking down two elementary schools. Today, he is up against a subtler but deeply corrosive attack on his schools: death by a thousand spending cuts.

NewsOk
Oklahoma education bills include targeting school waste, teacher recruitment
Bills seeking a pay raise for public school teachers failed to materialize this year in the Oklahoma Legislature. But over 140 education-related bills were able to advance addressing a variety of issues, including teacher recruitment and finding cost savings in school districts. A handful of bills that passed created multiple commissions and boards charged with reviewing district administrative costs and the school funding formula.

The Atlantic
How school choice affects test scores
At last week’s gathering of school-choice supporters, there was an awkward fact in their midst: A wave of new studies had shown that students receiving a voucher did worse, sometimes much worse, on standardized tests. That was the inconvenient verdict of studies examining programs in Louisiana, Ohio, Washington, D.C., and in Indianapolis, where the advocates had convened for the annual conference of the American Federation for Children.

The Washington Post
Teachers at D.C. charter school launch campaign to unionize
Teachers at a D.C. charter school are pushing to unionize, citing a desire to provide more resources to students and a need to stabilize the teaching force. About 80 percent of the 35 teachers, librarians, and social workers at Cesar Chavez Public Charter School at Chavez Prep Middle School in Northwest signed a petition to ask the school’s administration to recognize their union, the D.C. Alliance for Charter School Teachers and Staff at Chavez Prep.