May 2, 2016

Delaware

Delaware Public Media
Delaware kids getting healthier, falling behind in education
Children in Delaware are getting healthier, but they’re falling behind in education. Those are the key findings in this year’s Kids Count Report. The report was released this week and finds the annual median income for single-parent families has dropped from $29,000 to $25,000 in the past five years. More than 40 percent of children living in one-parent homes are living in poverty. That number drops to 10 percent for children living in two-parent homes. In education, graduation rates have declined in the past four years, from 87 percent to 84 percent.

Delmarva Now
What candidates think about Cape school board elections
On May 10, voters will be going to the polls to elect two new members to the Cape Henlopen School District. Voters have three candidates to choose from for the at-large vacancy. The person voters select for that post will serve a five-year term. The candidates are: M. Camilla Conlon of Rehoboth Beach, Janis P. Hanwell of Lewes and Heather Ingerski of Lewes. Voters also will get to choose from two candidates seeking a two-year term for Area A. Those two candidates are: Teresa C. Carey and Jessica Tyndall.

Sussex County Post
Indian River’s Teacher of the Year: Education is relative!
For Melissa Grise, Indian River School District’s 2016-17 Teacher of the Year honoree, education is relative – literally. The 35-year-old fourth grade teacher at John M. Clayton Elementary is one branch on her family’s education tree. “I actually married into a teaching family,” said Ms. Grise. Her mother-in-law, Debbie Grise, was Teacher of the Year for the district (2000-01). Her sister-in-law, Lauren Grise teaches at the Southern Delaware School of the Arts and was that school’s Teacher of the Year in 2002-03.

National

NPR
Taking on poverty and education in school costs a lot of money
There’s a long-held debate in education. “‘Do you fix education to cure poverty or do you cure poverty to cure education?’ And I think that’s a false dichotomy,” says the superintendent of Camden schools in New Jersey, Paymon Rouhanifard. “You have to address both.” That can be expensive. In 1997, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that the state’s school funding formula was leaving behind poor students. It ordered millions of dollars in additional funding to 31 of the then-poorest districts.

The Times-Picayune
John Bel Edwards, business groups reach compromise on some education issues
Gov. John Bel Edwards’ administration has helped broker a consensus between the state’s teachers unions and business groups over a couple of education issues  they have been fighting over for years.  The two sides have agreed to change the way public school teachers are evaluated overall, placing less of an emphasis on test scores than in current state law. They also have decided to put off implementing any consequences for schools, teachers and school districts based on low standardized test scores until after next year.

The Virginian –Pilot
Early childhood education initiatives coming to fruition for Chesapeake schools
Guest Column by James T. Roberts, superintendent of Chesapeake Public Schools
Now I must applaud the General Assembly for beginning to restore those dollars. I commend Gov. Terry McAuliffe for proposing the increased funds, and the General Assembly for improving on the governor’s recommendation. Let me now turn to some positive things happening next year in Chesapeake Public Schools in the area of early childhood education. In the past, the school division was fortunate to contract with the YMCA of South Hampton Roads to provide preschool opportunities through a state grant.

The Washington Post
Special-education report makes one thing clear: There’s a lack of clarity on the issue.
The biggest difference between schools I attended a half-century ago and schools I visit now is special education: It took a while for our country to grasp how to help students with extra needs. Many were amazed when Richard Rothstein and Karen Hawley Miles of the Economic Policy Institute revealed that about 60 percent of increased education spending between 1967 and 1991 went to special and compensatory education for students with disabilities or disadvantaged backgrounds.

U.S. News and World Report
Connecticut history teacher named Teacher of the Year
When Jahana Hayes was a high school student in Waterbury, Connecticut, living in the city’s public housing, surrounded by drugs and violence and with a baby on the way, teachers saved her life. “They challenged me to dream bigger and imagine myself in a different set of circumstances,” she said. “I was oblivious to opportunities that existed outside of the projects where I grew up, but my teachers vicariously ignited a passion in me.” More than a decade later, that passion led her to be the first in her family to attend and graduate from college, to return to Waterbury and become a veteran high school history teacher, and to be named the 2016 National Teacher of the Year.