October 20, 2014

Local News

WDDE
College Application Month expands efforts to help students explore college options
Last year, 221 volunteers from 47 different organizations filled more than 400 time slots, most of them for two-hour blocks, at the 20 participating schools, according to Kelly Sherretz, an associate policy scientist at IPA who helps coordinate the program. This year, she says, 617 volunteer slots have been filled at 32 schools that requested assistance. “You don’t need to know the entire college application process. You just have to have a desire to assist students,” she says.

Cape Gazette
Neil Beahan awarded State Middle Level Principal of the Year
Neil Beahan, principal of the Southern Delaware School of the Arts in Selbyville, received the Delaware State Middle Level Principal of the Year Award at the Principal of the Year Institute Sept. 9 in Washington, D.C. Beahan is a 33-year veteran educator for the Indian River School District and is starting his sixth year as principal at SDSA.

The News Journal
Brawls break out at Newark High School
More than a dozen Newark High School students were arrested Monday morning after several brawls broke out at the school, police said. Police initially reported that “hundreds of students” were involved in the fighting but have since revised the statement and said a smaller group of students were involved in the actual fights, however, the hundreds of student onlookers prevented officers from getting to those involved.

School bus problems
A letter to the editor by John Townsend, Millsboro
The State of Delaware is so busy bailing out casinos that our children getting to school is so underfunded that they are actually abusing the children. Five-year-old children getting up at 5 or 6 o’clock and going to the bus stop as early as 6 o’clock – hours before light in the dead of winter.

National News

Education Week
What is ‘Personalized Learning’? Educators seek clarity
Over the past few years, a number of education and technology organizations have sought to move beyond generalities to forge a clearer definition of what personalized learning really means—in the hope that the guidance will provide more specific and useful information to the K-12 community.

Skills gaps for online reading linked to family income
Long a cause for alarm, the gap in reading skills between poor students and their more affluent peers is well-established and worsening, researchers say. Now, there is more bad news: The real magnitude of that reading achievement gap may be greater than previously believed, because educators and researchers have not adequately accounted for the different skills that are required to successfully read online, as opposed to in print.

E-rate Funding insufficient, district leadership groups contend
Despite recent changes, the federal E-rate program remains insufficient to help all schools—especially those in rural areas struggling to access affordable, high-speed fiber-optic cable—meet ambitious broadband connectivity goals, according to a new survey released this week. The report, released by the Consortium for School Networking and the AASA (the School Superintendents Association), professional associations serving school technology and school system leaders, identified “affordability and adequate funding” as the main barriers to meeting President Barack Obama’s goal of providing all schools with at least 100 Mbps of connectivity by 2018.

The Oregonian
Portland Public Schools won’t file state-required ‘achievement compacts’ in Common Core-tested subjects
The Portland School Board has voted not to set state-mandated achievement targets in three subject areas linked to the state’s new Common Core-aligned tests. Oregon law requires school districts to file the yearly “achievement compacts” outlining the districts’ goals in areas such as state test success rates, student attendance and graduation rates.

Chalkbeat Indiana
Indiana delays release of A to F school grades
Indiana State Board of Education members shelved the planned release of A to F grades for all state schools after a sharp debate that included questions about the proper screening of data for errors.

New Jersey Advanced Media
N.J. Senate passes five bills to expand vocational education
The New Jersey Senate sent several bills to Gov. Chris Christie that would expand the state’s vocational school programs, in an effort to provide alternative career paths to college.