May 15, 2015

Delaware News

The News Journal
‘Honesty gap’ cited in standardized tests
Achieve, a national education reform organization, and the Collaboration for Student Success say there is an “honesty gap” between state standardized tests and the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the only widely used nationwide test. Many state tests show large percentages of students are academically on track, but the NAEP says far fewer are well-prepared. In Delaware, for example, the percentage of students scoring proficient on the statewide test was 30 to 36 points higher than the NAEP, depending on the grade and subject.

Editorial missed point of testing opt-out bill
An op-ed by John Kowalko, Delaware State Representative
It is certainly not a hidden “power play” by the author, yours truly, but may be called a “power play” by the parents of Delaware’s public school children. In order to wrest back their rights as parents from the feverish grasp of the non-educator salesmen who produce product after product in an isolation chamber in a never-ending attempt to sell said products under the guise of education reform tools.

Delaware Department of Education
Teachers lead shift to Next Generation Science Standards
During the past year, 95 of Delaware’s leading teachers revised their lessons and teaching styles to give their students more opportunities to work like scientists: creating hypotheses, conducting experiments, thinking through the results, collaborating with other students and communicating their results. Over the course of the next 12 months, 110 more Delaware teachers will do the same as they join their colleagues as NextGen Teacher Leaders to implement new science standards in their schools.

National News

Education Week
California unions ‘deeply flawed’ Vergara ruling
California’s teachers’ unions have filed their opening brief in their appeal of the ruling in Vergara v. California, launching the next salvo in the ongoing battle over teacher quality in the Golden State.Most of the evidence brought by the plaintiffs was anecdotal, the unions argue. Finally, the laws don’t set out to discriminate against any particular class of students, since they apply uniformly to all, they contend.

Common Core backers hit states’ high proficiency rates
A new report shows how most states produce much higher proficiency rates on their own tests than they do on NAEP, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, also known as “the nation’s report card.” The report was issued by Achieve, which had a central role in organizing the initiative to write the common core, and the Collaborative for Student Success, a foundation-funded group that works to expand support for the standards.

American Educational Research Association
Researchers urge caution in using measures of students’ “non-cognitive” skills for teacher evaluation, school accountability, or student diagnosis
A press release
Policymakers and practitioners have grown increasingly interested in measures of personal qualities other than cognitive ability that lead to student success. However, they need to move cautiously before using existing measures to evaluate educators, programs, and policies, or diagnosing children as having “non-cognitive” deficits, according to a review by Angela L. Duckworth and David Scott Yeager.

WRAL
Proposals aim to get more people in NC teacher pipeline
A House committee on Tuesday approved two measures designed to boost teacher recruitment in the state. House Bill 844 would set aside $2.9 million in the 2015-16 fiscal year and $5.4 million in the following year to create a loan program for students planning to teach STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) or special education classes.

Wall Street Journal
Silicon Valley venture help connect low-income students with elite colleges
A group of Silicon Valley’s top venture capitalists have been quietly pouring resources into an education nonprofit that boosts the number of low-income students at the nation’s top colleges. Part of their interest, they say, is to help build a deeper talent pool for American corporations, especially in jobs requiring training in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, so-called STEM skills.