May 5, 2016

Delaware

Delaware 105.9
STEM education program to start this fall at John M. Clayton Elementary School
An elementary school in Sussex County will start a STEM education program in the school year that starts this fall. The STEM fields are science, technology, engineering and math. The Indian River School District says the STEM subjects will be taught in grades kindergarten through five at John M. Clayton Elementary School during the school day. The district says classes will be designed to prepare students for STEM pathways offered at Selbyville Middle School and Indian River High School.

Department of Education
Delaware Readiness Teams celebrate impact on kindergarten readiness
More than 100 representatives of the 21 Delaware Readiness Teams from across the state gathered in Dover today to celebrate family, school, business and community engagement in promoting children’s success in early childhood and beyond. The Readiness Teams are a partnership between the Delaware Department of Education’s Office of Early Learning and private funders and supporters — including the United Way of Delaware, the Rodel Foundation of Delaware, PNC Foundation, and Nemours — that promote grassroots collaboration to support young children’s healthy development.

Newsworks
Delaware legislators introduce bill to provide resources to student loan borrowers
Delaware legislators have introduced a bill that aims to protect student loan borrowers from predatory practices and to educate incoming and outgoing students about loan procedures.  Rep. David Bentz, D-Newark/Bear, said he drafted House Bill 349 as a response to the dramatic growth in student loan debt and defaults.  “Being relatively young for a legislator….It’s really effecting my generation who delay their plans, such as buying a house or starting a family, because they have this financial burden hanging around their neck when they come out of college. And it’s really difficult and it’s taking years and years to pay back.”

The Milford Beacon
Mispillion teacher named tops in Milford district
Julie Hickman, a fifth-grade teacher at Mispillion Elementary School, has been named Milford School District’s Teacher of the Year. Hickman is completing her fifth year of teaching, all at Mispillion Elementary She attended Cape Henlopen High School and graduated from the University of Delaware. Hickman will represent Milford School District as she competes for the Delaware State Teacher of the Year.

The News Journal
Troubled district seeks experienced superintendent
The search is on for a new, permanent superintendent in the Christina School District. Its acting superintendent, Robert Andrzejewski, has been leading the district since last October when he stepped in after Freeman Williams went on leave. Williams, who had been in charge since 2012, then retired in February. Williams left the district at a turbulent time – 2015 begun with a battle between the district and the state over how to fix three schools that had been targeted for improvement and Christina had been defeated in its bid to increase property taxes in order to fund its budget when voters rejected two referenda in the spring.

Foreign language skills important in our global environment
Opinion by Dr. Annette Giesecke, chair of the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures at the University of Delaware
Fluency in a foreign language involves knowledge beyond ordering meals in a restaurant. Foreign language students are students of literature, business, art, history and diplomacy. They understand the complex intricacies of world cultures and can effectively communicate to promote mutual respect, cooperation and problem solving in an increasingly global and multicultural environment. There are also less obvious benefits of foreign language study. Research has shown that foreign language study helps children develop cognitive skills and native language reading ability.

National

Chalkbeat Indiana
Indiana data system fusing education, jobs needs state funding to continue
Indiana will get its first look this summer at a new $3.9 million data system that aims to help the public and state agencies better plan and make decisions about education and jobs. The “Indiana Network of Knowledge” — called INK — plans to merge reams of data from different state agencies to give Hoosiers a better sense of the connections between schools and the workforce. Once it’s up and running, it might be possible, for example, to look up stats on how many 2010 college grads found jobs in the state, where those jobs were and what they paid.

Education Week
Schools see less crime, fewer students feel unsafe, federal data show
Counter to popular narratives, American schools may actually be getting safer. Reports of student victimization at school continue to decline, and students’ reports of fear of harm at school also keep falling, data released today show. Between 1992 and 2014, the total victimization rate at school fell from 181 victimizations per 1,000 students in 1992 to 33 victimizations per 1,000 students in 2014, according to the most recent federal data.

NJ.com
N.J. revises, renames Common Core academic standards
Nearly a year after Gov. Chris Christie declared that Common Core academic standards were “simply not working” in New Jersey, the state has adopted a revised and renamed version with few substantial departures from the original.  The state Board of Education on Wednesday gave final approval to the New Jersey Student Learning Standards, a roadmap that will outline what skills students should learn in each grade level.

The New York Times
Zuckerberg and Chan hire education leader to run philanthropic effort
Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Facebook, and Dr. Priscilla Chan, a pediatrician who is his wife, said Wednesday that they had hired James H. Shelton III, a former deputy secretary of the United States Department of Education, to oversee their efforts in education, in the latest example of former federal officials who are taking up jobs in Silicon Valley.

Townhall
Celebrate education choice during National Charter Schools Week
The first week in May is National Charter Schools Week, a time to celebrate the advancements made in the charter school movement over the past 25 years. Because of the nation’s hundreds of new and developing charter schools, thousands of parents and their children now have the opportunity to enroll in a school that better meets children’s specific education needs. Currently, there are 2.9 million students attending one of over 6,800 public charter schools across 42 states and Washington, DC.