September 28, 2017

Delaware News

Delaware Business Now
Effort under way to name Newark school in honor of filmmaker Ken Burns
A Christina School District committee will study a proposal tonight on naming a Newark elementary school in honor of filmmaker Ken Burns.The proposal that will go before a committee that studies school name changes would rename West Park Place Elementary School to Ken Burns Elementary School. Burns, who now lives in New Hampshire, attended the school before his father, a University of Delaware faculty member, took another post. Burns, 64, has mentioned the influence of his early years in Newark on his career.

Department of Education
Delaware Report Card seeks feedback to help families access more meaningful education data
The Delaware Department of Education (DDOE) is hosting Community Conversations in October to gain feedback on the elements, priorities, and common terminology it plans to include on its upcoming Report Card website. Delaware’s Report Card will refine how DDOE communicates with families and the community its progress, performance, and programs in Delaware education, and replaces the state’s current School Profiles site for accessing education data.

Sussex County Post
East Millsboro Elementary among National Blue Ribbon School honorees
An Indian River School District elementary school has earned national acclaim for closing the student achievement gap. East Millsboro Elementary is among three Delaware schools and 342 schools that today were recognized by U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos recognized today as National Blue Ribbon Schools for 2017. Recognition is based on a school’s overall academic performance or progress in closing achievement gaps among student subgroups.

The News Journal
How to fight resegregation and inequality in our schools
Leo E. Strine, Jr. is the Chief Justice of the Delaware Supreme Court
In 1996, Delaware obtained relief from the federal court supervision imposed after the state had to be forced to desegregate its schools. In arguing that Delaware could operate its schools consistent with constitutional principles of equality, the state said: “The Four Districts went far beyond constitutional requirements by continually readjusting attendance zones to maintain racial balance [and achieved] … unprecedented and sustained racial balance for seventeen years.”

Adding reading specialists could help fight youth violence
Rachel Blumenfeld teaches special education English in Delaware’s public schools
Two weeks ago; I sat down during my break to work with a student to figure out why she wouldn’t do her work. The first thing I did was ask her to read a line from a worksheet aloud to me. She couldn’t. And when I say that she couldn’t, I don’t mean that she struggled a little bit, or that she went slowly.

$1 million in opportunity grants awarded to Delaware schools
Gov. John Carney on Wednesday announced that nine school districts and charter schools will receive a combined $1 million in Opportunity Grant funding to support programs that help disadvantaged students and English language learners. The relatively small investment stands in contrast to $26 million in education cuts made by the General Assembly this year. It also falls short of the kind of support needs based funding would provide for low-income, special education and English-learner students, making the grants a less-than-favorable alternative in the eyes of education advocates.

Newsworks
Needy Delaware schools get $1 million in ‘opportunity’ grants
Nine Delaware school districts and charter schools will receive a combined $1 million in so-called state Opportunity Grants to benefit low-income students and those learning English, Gov. John Carney’s office announced Wednesday. The money, which is $4 million less than the Wilmington Education Improvement Commission had sought for city schools alone, will be spread across Delaware.

National News

Education Dive
Houston charter finds personalized SEL opportunity in Harvey’s wake
While the new school year brought new 1:1 iPad rollouts, professional development, and teachers for YES Prep Northbrook Middle School, it also brought a new outlook on personalized learning and global citizenship in the wake of Hurricane Harvey, 6th-grade humanities teacher Kristin Cornwell writes for EdSurge.

Education Week
Re-opening Puerto Rico’s schools takes a back seat to island’s basic needs
A week after Hurricane Maria, the strongest storm to hit Puerto Rico in decades, there’s less immediate concern about when schools will reopen and more about when children and families will have access to food, running water, and power. “On the island, there are 700,000 children and this is now a week that they have been without power, food, running water, access to telephones—in really scorching temperatures,” said Negin Janati of the aid group Save the Children.

NPR
U.S. schools brace for an influx of students from Puerto Rico
Nearly a week after Hurricane Maria battered Puerto Rico, students who can’t return to school may need to continue their education on the mainland. Some of the largest school districts in Florida, plus major cities like New York City and Chicago, are preparing for the possibility of an influx of students from the island. In South Florida, Miami-Dade County public schools are already working to accommodate students who need to transfer from Puerto Rico.

The Hechinger Report
STUDENT VOICES: “Challenging” views are considered insubordination
How would you describe your school? My town is roughly 5,000 people. It is not a close-knit community, but once it’s divided up, the divisions are very close knit. You have the west side of the tracks; you have the east side of the tracks. The west side of the tracks is majority people of color. You don’t see a lot of people who are not of color on that side of town unless it’s a main street. That side of the town is very close knit.

The Wall Street Journal
Colleges rethink remedial education to get students on course to graduation
More states are moving away from remedial education, finding the noncredit classes are more of a detour than an on-ramp to a college degree. The classes, typically assigned to first-year students who fail a basic readiness test, are designed to bolster their knowledge base on core academic subjects. The courses cost students and institutions roughly $7 billion a year.