September 21, 2016

Delaware News

Delaware 105.9
Georgetown community conversation tonight focuses on education
ESSA, the Every Student Succeeds Act, replaces the federal No Child Left Behind Act. Now, Delaware wants to know how you feel about what the state should be doing as the implementation of the new program will start during the 2017-18 school year.

Delaware Public Media
Future uncertain for Wilmington redistricting, Smarter Balanced under Carney
Congressman John Carney (D) says he won’t commit to redistricting Wilmington schools should he be elected governor.  That was part of a new education agenda his campaign released Tuesday. The controversial plan would shift city students from the Christina School District to the Red Clay School District.

Delaware State News
Carney favors less power for Department of Education
Gubernatorial candidate John Carney unveiled an expanded education plan Tuesday that focuses on giving more support to teachers, more power to individual schools and more resources to under-privileged students. The Democratic nominee for governor and the state’s current representative in the U.S. House, he favors making the Department of Education a support-based agency as opposed to one that dictates policy.

Milford Chronicle
Kindergarten students say ‘hola’ to new program
“That was fun,” blurts out a student in Señor Jorge Moreno’s Kindergarten class. But that was the only English that could be heard Friday morning during a typical math lesson. “Uno, dos, tres… muy bueno. Escribir uno, si, si…,” a teacher could be heard saying during the lesson. The kindergartners learned about their numbers and how they are all shaped, a typical math lesson for the age level.

Newsworks
Delaware students celebrate $10 million grant
Students at Design-Lab High charter school in Newark has been awarded a $10 million grant from the XQ Institute to schools with innovative ideas for changing models of education. On Tuesday The XQ: The Super School Project bus tour made a stop at the Delaware school—one of several school visits in the U.S. over the coming months to encourage the community to change the way they think of the American high school.

The News Journal
Carney avoids hot button issues in education plan
If elected governor, U.S. Rep. John Carney, D-Delaware, says he’ll work to reduce turmoil and heal divisions in the state’s public school system. “The attitude I would like us to see is that we’re all in this together and everybody is rowing in the same direction,” Carney said. “What I hear from teachers is that they are constantly being told to change direction, so I think we need to settle down, find a framework that works, and stick with it.”

Federal grant to pay for AP tests
The federal government is giving low-income students in Delaware $51,000 to help cover the cost of advanced placement exams. The grant is part of a nationwide effort to help historically underserved students get ready for college, according to the U.S. Department of Education, which handed out a total of $28.4 million to 41 states and Washington, D.C. California ended up with the biggest grant, by far – it got a total of $11 million.

Editorial: Carney’s education plan more of the same
John Carney, who many assume will be our next governor, stepped out of the political shadows on Tuesday to unveil his plan for Delaware’s public schools. Unfortunately, Carney’s plan is short on proposing real change and long on lingo and vague concepts. “I think we need to settle down, find a framework that works and stick with it,” Carney said. According to Carney, such a framework would give the state department of education less power to regulate and “create flexibility with state resources so teachers and schools can more effectively address the needs of their students.”

National News

EdSource
California Superior Court rejects efforts to tie teacher evaluations to test scores
In another defeat for Students Matter, an advocacy organization challenging a range of employment laws affecting teachers, a California Superior Court judge has ruled against the group’s efforts to force districts to use student test scores as part of a teacher’s evaluation.

Education Week
Flashpoints emerge as states step up ESSA planning
States are still moving through the gears of preparing their accountability systems and federally mandated plans under the new policy environment created by the Every Student Succeeds Act. Although a few flashpoints have already emerged, they’re not the only issues that highlight the challenges states face.

Fox 4 News
Texas state lawmakers to consider Education Savings Accounts
State lawmakers will soon discuss new legislation that would allow children to leave Texas public schools and take some state dollars with them so parents can choose the best education mix for their child. The program is called Education Savings Accounts. It’s already in place in other states and could soon come to Texas.

NPR
The big move to Improve Head Start
That’s the official name of the newly-revised government standards for running a Head Start program. If the name doesn’t grab you, this should: The Department of Health and Human Services says it’s the first “comprehensive” revision of Head Start rules since they first published them in 1975. And the changes are, in a word, big. Or two words: “incredibly impressive.”

The Atlantic
Don’t blame the teachers
Why has the topic of teacher quality suddenly reached such a crescendo? Education reform has been on the national agenda since 1983, the year of A Nation at Risk, but only in the last few years has the teacher-quality issue risen to the top. I think it may be reform fatigue, possibly desperation.