September 12, 2014

Local News

Coastal Point
Central students get college and financial aid advice
Many high-paying jobs require at least some college or training. That’s one reason Sussex Central High School seniors recently discussed the college and scholarship process with Delaware Department of Education officials and Gov. Jack Markell. Markell remembered a Wilmington student who never thought she could afford college, including the application fees. But the Class of 2015 is the second year benefitting from a Delaware and College Board agreement that “if you come from a family without a lot of money, you can apply to up to eight colleges without paying any application fee,” Markell said.

Sussex Countian
Gov. Markell visits Sussex Central, Sussex Tech
Gov. Jack Markell visited Sussex Central High School and Sussex Technical High School on Monday to speak with seniors about financial resources and other programs available to them after graduation.
Markell told the seniors at both schools that working hard now would yield great success for them in the future. “It’s a two way street. Your teachers and administrators can only do so much,” the governor told students at Sussex Central. “We know that senior year can be a lot of fun, as it should be. But it is also a time to really apply yourself.”

Newark Post
Christina Early Education Center earns 4-star rating from state
The Christina School District’s Early Education Center has been awarded four stars from the Department of Education’s Delaware Stars for Early Success program, putting the Newark preschool on the map as the first public school in the state to achieve the rating. “It was a lot of hard work and to know you’ve been recognized for that hard work is just amazing,” Principal Shannon O’Neill said.

Delaware State News
Project SEARCH helps students build ‘bridge to future’
On Wednesday, Capital School District officials kicked off the first Project SEARCH program in downstate Delaware. Project SEARCH is an international program that prepares people with cognitive disabilities for full-time employment. The program targets young adults, ages 18 to 21, who have finished their academic requirements but may need some help entering the workforce.

The News Journal
UD research an important engine for 21st-century economy
An op-ed by Charlie Riordan, Vice Provost for Research, University of Delaware
As a major research university with $200 million per year in externally sponsored expenditures, UD is growing ever-stronger as an engine for Delaware’s 21st-century economy. We offer expanded entrepreneurship programs, state-of-the-art workspaces, where students and faculty can collaborate on new concepts, and initiatives that affirm the excellence and creativity of faculty with big ideas for the future. Through our Horn Program in Entrepreneurship, students, alumni, faculty and staff can participate in Hen Hatch, the university’s premier startup funding competition. They receive feedback on their ideas while competing for about $50,000 in startup cash and prizes.

National News

eSchool News
How do students feel about going mobile?
Students are optimistic about the role mobile technology can play in their education, according to a recent study. Data show 81 percent of students surveyed believe such technology helps personalize learning.

Seattle Times
Supreme Court finds legislature in contempt on education funding
The Washington state Supreme Court is holding the Legislature in contempt for not making enough progress toward fully funding public education but, for now, is holding off on sanctions.

Inside Higher Ed
Tugged in two directions
A surge in new competency-based degree programs has created challenges for the accreditors tasked with approving them.

New York Times
A simple equation: more education = more income
In the American education system, inequality is winning, gumming up the mobility that broad-based prosperity requires. On Tuesday, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development released its annual collection of education statistics from around the industrialized world showing that the United States trails nearly all other industrialized nations when it comes to educational equality.

Education Week
Duncan looks to Tennessee’s turnaround school district as model for country
Nearly $78 million was pumped into Tennessee turnaround Achievement School District from the state’s $500 million grant from Race to the Top. But Secretary Duncan was quick to point out that none of the improvements could have been made without partnerships with nonprofits and community organizations that can provide wraparound services.

Wall Street Journal
The conservative case for Common Core
An op-ed by William J. Bennett, former U.S. Secretary of Education
As the former Secretary of Education for President Ronald Reagan, I have been following the national debate over Common Core standards. The debate is getting hotter, but not always clearer. It’s time to get clarity on some things that have been badly and sometimes mischievously muddled. The principles behind the Common Core affirm a great intellectual tradition and inheritance. We should not allow them to be hijacked by the federal government or misguided bureaucrats and politicos