October 13, 2015

Delaware News

The News Journal
Red Clay not required to bus, serve 3 kids, judge says
The Red Clay School District will not have to transport and enroll three students with a messy housing situation who live outside the district after a federal judge refused to issue a court order last week.

Opt-out penalty for Delaware schools considered
Delaware is working on a new accountability system that will give parents a score to figure out how well their school is performing. The U.S. Department of Education requires such a system and insists it must include “consequences” for schools that don’t get at least 95 percent of their students to take the statewide exam.

Delmarva Now
Delaware fifth-graders get lakeside education
The program took place Oct. 8, just three days after Delaware Gov. Jack Markell announced the launch of an Environmental Literacy Plan, which will be a key part of the state’s Children in Nature Initiative. The plan is basically a blueprint for teachers designed to increase understanding of nature and environmental sciences.

WGMD
Principal For A Day program brings together business and education professionals
This month, over 100 Delaware business and government leaders will serve as guest principals at schools throughout the state, as part of the Delaware Principal for a Day program. The event brings together business and education professionals to share perspectives, ideas, and experiences – these pairings often lead to meaningful and mutually beneficial partnerships. Delaware Senators Tom Carper and Chris Coons, Major General Frank Vavala, and Bank of America’s Delaware Market President Chip Rossi are just a few of the leaders who will be principal for a day.

UDaily
Richard Heck, professor emeritus and Nobel laureate, dies
Richard F. Heck, Willis F. Harrington Professor Emeritus of Chemistry at the University of Delaware and a 2010 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, died on Oct. 9 in Manila, where he lived. He was 84. His pioneering research changed the world in many fields, including pharmaceutical manufacture and discovery, DNA sequencing and electronics.

Cape Gazette
Milton school-demographics debate continues
The district has spent years discussing the need to balance student populations at the two Milton schools which sit less than a mile away from each other. Student populations at HOB have hovered around 60 percent nonwhite and low socioeconomic status; percentages are flipped at Milton Elementary. There, state statistics show a student population that is 70 percent white, with 30 percent low socioeconomic status.

Delaware Public Media
Enlighten Me: Grant helps One Village Alliance reach city kids
Delaware Public Media’s Annie Ropeik speaks to Chandra Pitts of Wilmington’s One Village Alliance and United Healthcare CEO Darrin Johnson about mentorship programs reaching out to city youth.

Sussex County Post
Continued growth spurts Indian River’s enrollment past 10,000
It is official: Indian River School District’s enrollment has reached five digits. On Sept. 30 – the day that matters most in Delaware education for enrollment – Indian River’s district-wide tally was 10,171.

National News

The Hechinger Report
Communities come together to increase college-going from the ground up
Business, civic coalitions pick up where the federal and state governments fall short

Education Week
Carol Dweck revisits the ‘growth mindset’
Commentary by Carol Dweck
Recently, someone asked what keeps me up at night. It’s the fear that the mindset concepts, which grew up to counter the failed self-esteem movement, will be used to perpetuate that movement. In other words, if you want to make students feel good, even if they’re not learning, just praise their effort! Want to hide learning gaps from them? Just tell them, “Everyone is smart!” The growth mindset was intended to help close achievement gaps, not hide them. It is about telling the truth about a student’s current achievement and then, together, doing something about it, helping him or her become smarter.

Training gains a toehold for instructional aides in Special Education
By the hundreds of thousands, the instructional aides known as paraeducators, paraprofessionals, or simply “paras” help enable students with disabilities to take part in the general education classroom through instructional, behavioral, and personal support. But these workers—crucial in assuring that school inclusion happens for students receiving special education—often are left out of the loop when it comes to professional development. Change is beginning to happen in some areas. For example, support organizations, such as the Paraprofessional Resource and Research Center, at the University of Colorado in Denver, are training teachers and paraeducators in districts around the country.

WJLA
Pilot program underway in Manassas to get public pre-kindergarten to children
At Jennie Dean Elementary in Manassas, a new pilot program is underway to get public pre-kindergarten to the children who need it most. It’s called the Blended Learning Program which utilizes parents, teachers and technology.

Governing
The implacable resistance to charter schools
They’re a big success in Massachusetts. So why doesn’t the state have more of them?