May 10, 2016

Delaware

Cape Gazette
Cape voters to select new school board members
Cape Henlopen School District voters go to the polls Tuesday, May 10, to elect two new school board members. The area A seat, held by a person who lives in Milton or the northern section of the district, is sought by Milton residents Teresa (Terri) Carey and Jessica Tyndall. The seat was held for nearly three terms by Noble Prettyman, who died in 2015. Jackie Brisco was appointed to fill Prettyman’s seat but she decided not to run for election, leaving two years left on the seat sought by Carey and Tyndall.

Delaware 105.9
Superstars in Education Awards handed out
The spotlight shines on seven of the state’s top educational programs. From kids learning in the great outdoors to inside a hospital, the state Chamber of Commerce’s Superstars in Education recognizes programs that take learning to new levels.  Rob Naylor, a bio-med teacher at Conrad Schools of Science, says more than two dozen of his students spent time in the ICU and the ER at Christiana Care.

Rodel Blog
May 2016 Teacher Newsletter: Take action!
The Rodel Teacher Newsletter is a resource for Delaware’s teachers to learn about teacher leadership opportunities across the state, nation, and world.

The News Journal
Editorial
School reform will bring families to Delaware
Retirees love Delaware. Our beaches, our relatively cheap cost of living, our proximity to major metropolitan areas. There is no arguing with those selling points. Millennials — folks born in the early 1980s to around 2000 – are not sold on the First State. According to reporter Molly Murray, about 61 percent of people born in Delaware now live somewhere else. Much of this migration has consistently been young, well-educated people seeking opportunity elsewhere. It’s correct to say that Delaware natives are leaving in large part due to a lack of job opportunities here.

Delaware school board elections Tuesday
School board seats across Delaware are up for election on Tuesday, but only a handful are contested. One seat in New Castle County has two candidates – Desiree Brady and incumbent Elizabeth Paige – vying to represent the Bear area of the Christina School District. The other seat open on that board has one candidate, Margaret Mason, running for it since the incumbent, David Resler, from the White Clay Creek section dropped out last month. The other five seats that are up for election in the county – including the districts of Appoquinimink, Brandywine, Colonial, and Red Clay – will each be filled by uncontested incumbents.

WDEL
Innovation in education celebrated in Delaware
From kids learning in the great outdoors to getting an up-close look at the inner workings of a hospital, the Delaware State Chamber of Commerce’s Superstars in Education recognized programs that take learning to new levels. Inside Wilmington University’s Doberstein Auditorium Monday, seven programs from up and down the state were highlighted. Robert Naylor, a science teacher at Conrad Schools of Science, said more than two dozen of his students spent time in the intensive care unit and the emergency room at Christiana Hospital.

National

MLive
School, business leaders driving proposal to change graduation requirements
West Michigan school leaders and businesses are the driving force behind legislation offering greater flexibility in the Michigan Merit Curriculum by allowing students more options to meet graduation requirements, including computer coding class. The bill (HB 5643), sponsored by Rep. Lisa Posthumus Lyons, R-Alto, would replace the current requirement of at least two foreign language credits and one credit in visual arts, performing or applied arts for a high school diploma, with a total of three credits in “21st century skills.”

SCTimes
School counselors face changing roles, growing need
On a typical day, Rick Larson’s job duties can run the gamut from career counselor to bully buster to cheerleader to therapist. Larson, a counselor at St. Cloud’s Apollo High School, is never sure what to expect. “It depends on the hour,” he said. “I could be helping a student apply to Stanford one minute, and then the next minute be doing a child abuse report.” The role of the school counselor has evolved dramatically over the years. Decades ago, they were primarily responsible for helping students choose a college and apply for scholarships.

Education Week
Colorado Officials hit the road to gather views on ESSA
Under the now-replaced No Child Left Behind Act, the Colorado education department pumped in millions of state and federal dollars to improve the Pueblo public schools, almost half of which the state deems failing. The test scores barely budged over the past several years. So when a handful of department officials trooped down to this southeastern part of the state last week to ask community members what changes to the state’s accountability system they’d like to see under NCLB’s replacement, the Every Student Succeeds Act, district Superintendent Constance A. Jones was ready for her turn at the microphone.

U.S. News & World Report
Education is not a guessing game
Opinion by Bev Perdue, senior education advisor to Whiteboard Advisors and the managing director of Perdue Strategy group and Rob McKenna, partner with law firm Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe.
The education community seems to agree that the federal Every Student Succeeds Act corrects many flaws of the No Child Left Behind Act, while preserving what worked and presenting huge opportunities to refocus the lens on student success. As our peers in states nationwide wait for ESSA’s provisions to become concrete regulations and turn their attention to implementing the law, we have some advice for them when it comes to collecting and using data: Don’t just simply follow the rules on this one.

The New York Times
New York schools struggle with new rules to help students learning English
In a bright classroom at Public School 160 in Borough Park, Brooklyn, three teachers orbited 28 students, 21 of whom were still learning English. One teacher, trained to teach English as a new language, drew pictures to go along with words on a whiteboard: a sweater next to “seamstress,” an apple next to “farm.” A table by the door was littered with work sheets about firefighters and teachers that included words in English, Chinese and Uzbek, along with colorful pictures all the third graders could understand.