September 3, 2014
Local News
WDDE
Charter school at Delaware State Univ. opens its doors
Students, lawmakers and administrators cut the ribbon on a new and somewhat unique charter school in Dover Tuesday. Run in partnership with Delaware State University, the Early College High School aims to help students to get a head start on college by earning up to two years of college-level credits before they graduate. Similar schools have opened elsewhere in the country, but this is the first in Delaware.
The News Journal
Should the school day start later?
For as long as there has been school, there have been students who complain about how early they have to wake up.”We have to get my daughter up at 5:30 in the morning,” said Dawn Wallace, whose 16-year-old daughter attends Polytech High School in Woodside. “It takes a few alarms to get her out of bed. How do they expect children to be alert and ready to learn when they’re not getting the proper amount of sleep?”
Despite critics, students do need breakfast
A letter to the editor by Anthony Swierzbinski, Wilmington
Richard Lamb is clearly not a teacher. In his letter to the editor on Sunday, his piece, “One more example why education is a disaster,” is nothing more than an incoherent ramble designed to make himself seem smarter than the reader. But in the mix of the scientific jargon, Lamb seems to infer one thing: that feeding students breakfast at school makes them tired.
Parents should be allowed to decide teacher effectiveness
A letter to the editor by Jim Ursomarso, Bob Prybutok, John Moore, Susan Casscells, Rick Levinson, John Darr, and Clint Laird; Caesar Rodney Institute
As reported in The News Journal, less than 28 percent of teachers and administrators approve of the teacher evaluation system. Considering this system just declared that only 1 percent of Delaware’s teachers were rated as “needs improvement,” this system seems flawed if not rigged. Here’s a novel solution – let parents decide teacher effectiveness.
National News
Sacramento Bee
We all have to pitch in to make Common Core work
An op-ed by Dean Vogel, President, California Teachers Association; and Cheryl Scott Williams, Executive Director, Learning First Alliance
The new school year brings one of the biggest transitions our state’s elementary and secondary education system has ever experienced. As students settle into new classrooms, our teachers are adjusting their instruction to help students meet expectations of the new Common Core state standards.
ABC News
Buyer’s Remorse on Common Core for Policymakers?
Millions of students will sit down at computers this year to take new tests rooted in the Common Core standards for math and reading, but policymakers in many states are having buyer’s remorse.
The fight to repeal the standards has heated up in Ohio, with state Rep. Andy Thompson, a Republican, saying it’s kind of “creepy the way this whole thing landed in Ohio with all the things prepackaged.”
It’s playing out in Louisiana, where GOP Gov. Bobby Jindal is in a nasty feud involving his former ally, Education Superintendent John White. Jindal has sued the Obama administration, accusing Washington of illegally manipulating federal grant money and regulations to force states to adopt the Common Core education standards.
Palm Beach Post
Early childhood education boosts economic, social mobility
A commentary by Cressman Bronston, Regional President, PNC Bank of Florida
One of the earliest indicators of a child’s future success is the number of words he or she hears prior to kindergarten. Language development begins with the interplay of words between the parent and child and helps nurture vocabulary, which is considered the building block of education. The frequency and richness of natural conversation in a child’s first years plays a key role in development.
PBS NewsHour
Still little consensus on role of massive, online courses in higher education
Massive, open, online courses could be reshaping the typical college classroom. Tonight, PBS NewsHour Weekend Anchor Hari Sreenivasan looks at how in the third story in his Rethinking College series.
The classes, known as MOOCs, were once hailed as the next big disruption to traditional higher education, opening the door to a college education to anyone, anywhere in the world. But the low percentage of students who complete such classes on their own, and the fact that most people who sign up for MOOCs already have a college degree, have educators rethinking how the new format for college coursework can best be put to use.
Los Angeles Times
Education requirements deter many would-be ‘Dreamers’
TUCSON – Naira Zapata might seem a typical candidate for the Obama administration’s deferred deportation program. Her family smuggled her across the U.S.-Mexican border when she was 12.
But Zapata, now 20, dropped out of high school three years ago after giving birth to her first child. She never received her diploma, hindered by poor finances and having to care for her two young children. She still lives with her parents in Phoenix.
New York Times
Help Families From Day 1
An op-ed by Clare Huntington, Professor, Fordham University School of Law
THE opening of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s universal pre-kindergarten program this week will give 53,000 children access to free, full-day pre-K in New York City, compared with 20,000 enrolled last year. This is well worth celebrating, and other cities and states should follow suit. But this investment in school preparation is not enough. If we want to close the income-based achievement gap, we need to begin much earlier.
Active Role in Class Helps Black and First-Generation College Students, Study Says
The trend away from classes based on reading and listening passively to lectures, and toward a more active role for students, has its most profound effects on black students and those whose parents did not go to college, a new study of college students shows.