Archive for the ‘Vision 2015’ Category

Preparing Our Schools for Digital Natives

Posted by rodel

This guest blog post was written by Ernest “Ernie” Dianastasis, chair of Vision 2015 and managing director of CAI. As part of our blog series on education technology for Digital Learning Day, this post speaks to how technological advances have impacted education globally. To read the first post in this Digital Learning Day blog series, “A New Vision for Education,” click here. To read the second in the series, a post about the role of technology to support personalized learning written by Howard High School of Technology teacher Ashley Sorenson, click here.

The kids entering our schools today are fluent in this new digital world, while many of us are still wondering why we have two clickers for our TV.  Our kindergartners enter a world of touch screens and iPads that didn’t exist when their third grade brothers and sisters were their age.  With a hand-held device, that same child can now access the most current information in the world in seconds.  The challenge and the opportunity with this development is that the other seven billion people across the globe can, too.  This new world opens up possibilities that we are just beginning to understand.

This shift has the potential to melt borders.  Our children are growing up knowing that a tsunami in Japan has an impact on their environment and that a financial meltdown in Greece can impact their pocketbook.  Not only will employers be able to find the best talent in the world, but it suggests what the most successful adults are going to need to be able to navigate this new world.

So how does this shift impact our schools?  We’ve known forever that students learn at different paces and have different strengths. This new set of tools will enable every child to meet the content where they are.  While more than 10 million U.S. college students are taking some or all of their courses online, our K-12 system has been slower to empower teachers and students with the tools and supports necessary to innovate.  Advances in educational technology offer a new vision for education: one in which students become the center of the learning environment.

Working with teachers and technology to support a personalized learning experience both inside and outside the classroom has the power to provide students across the spectrum from high-need to gifted and talented students the opportunity to access a more individualized and rigorous learning experience.  It can be focused on their strengths, skills, and interests. This practice is something that great teachers have been doing for decades, but now we have an opportunity to do so at scale.

Not only will students be able to personalize their learning, but their teachers will be able to expand their toolkits and skillsets via access to online coaching and support.  They can not only watch excellent instruction in real time, they can network with their peers across town or globally.  That said, while we know this transition is starting to happen, we are at the early stages.

Today is Digital Learning Day, a national campaign shining a spotlight on effective uses of technology in classrooms across the country. In recognition of the day, the Delaware Department of Education is hosting its inaugural Online Professional Development Conference this week. Designed for educators (and open to the public), the conference offers sessions such as “Personalized Learning with the iPad,” “Digital Citizenship,” and “Media Literacy in the 21st Century.”  Governor Jack Markell, Delaware Education Secretary Mark Murphy, and education professionals up and down the state are making personalized classrooms of the future a reality for our children–today. As Ashley Sorenson, a science teacher at Howard High School of Technology in Wilmington, wrote in a blog last week, our educators know firsthand how educational technology can empower educators and increase student learning.

As a business executive, the Chair of Vision 2015, and most importantly, as a father, I am encouraged and excited by the work going on in Delaware.  And I know many here are learning from their peers across the state, nation, and world. My hope is that collectively, we take advantage of this unique window in time.  I invite you to join the wave of education champions who seek to engage students, celebrate and empower teachers, and create a personalized learning environment for every Delaware student. Moreover, I encourage you to see what is already going on in your local school and to work with them to build the kinds of partnerships we all need for our children to not only navigate, but thrive in this exciting and complex new world.

Delaware: Positioned to Lead in Early Learning

Posted by Madeleine Bayard

The title of the annual Vision 2015 conference, “Education in The First State: Positioned to Lead,” aptly describes Delaware’s station nationally in the area of early learning.

As we come together annually to reflect on the state’s progress, we should all have a sense of optimism. When the Vision 2015 plan was first released, state leadership was in transition and funding had not been identified to support these recommendations (of which the early learning recommendations alone were estimated to cost $70M).  Today, we have stellar state leaders including Governor Jack Markell who heard from former-Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell that Delaware Office of Early Learning Director Harriet Dichter is “the closest thing to Superwoman he has seen.” Our state leaders have enabled additional state investments ($22M per year when most states were cutting services), which leveraged $50M federal resources for early learning when the state was awarded a Race to the Top – Early Learning Challenge (ELC) grant.

Six years ago, when the Vision 2015 plan was released, a coalition of stakeholders recommended improving (1) state support for high quality early learning programs; (2) professional development for staff; and (3) alignment among data systems, early learning and K-12 programs, and state agencies. Delaware has so much to celebrate: all of these major recommendations have been implemented to some degree and several have been far surpassed or enhanced in a relatively short time.

The panelists in the conference plenary panel were Harriet Dichter; Rena Hallam, Director of Delaware Stars and Associate Professor at the University of Delaware; Cheryl Clendaniel, Early Childhood Administrator at The Learning Center and member of the Provider’s Committee of the Delaware Early Childhood Council; and Superintendent Dan Curry of the Lake Forest School District. Each of the panelists are devoted to implementing the Early Learning Challenge and discussed a number of exciting initiatives are underway. Cheryl Clendaniel called the ELC plan the state’s “map” for success and noted her optimism about our progress, which includes:

  • Greater levels of participation (338 programs participating today, from 178 only a year ago) and increased quality among Stars programs.
  • Enhanced collaboration between early care providers and the K-12 system, which will be strengthened when Delaware Early Learning Teams are be launched in 2013 by community partners to help create linkages between early learning and K-12.
  • Launch of the Early Learning Survey, which will provide a standard measurement for kindergarten readiness to equip kindergarten teachers with data on the overall knowledge and skills their students possess and inform the early childhood community on its strengths and deficits in preparing students for kindergarten. Superintendent Curry spoke to the leadership of kindergarten teachers in his district in implementing these efforts. He also spoke about the promise of the data for teacher collaboration, improved planning and instruction, and ongoing monitoring.

Stakeholders throughout the state including parents, early learning providers, health care providers, policymakers, nonprofit and community organizations, and the K-12 system are aligned and implementing strategies that will ensure our children enter kindergarten equipped to learn. Make no mistake, we have a long way to go: as Dichter noted, only 20% of early learning teachers have bachelor’s degrees, and most children are not in high-quality rated programs. We must stay the course to ensure we secure our position as national leaders in serving our youngest learners.

Daily Education News- 10/22/12

Posted by rodel

Here are several stories in today’s news about Delaware education and from across the nation:

Local News

DFM News
Race to the Top funded early childhood education reform coming into focus
Education reform fueled by Race to the Top funding is well underway in Delaware K-12 classrooms, but now early childhood learning is also getting a fresh look, taking a “whole child” approach. Delaware has been in the front of the line in every phase of the Race to the Top federal grant program, including last December when it was awarded $49.9 million in the Early Learning Challenge phase. The grant came after Gov. Jack Markell set aside $20 million of the state’s budget for early learning programs.

The Smyrna-Clayton Sun Times
Nemours gets two federal grants for healthier communities
Nemours, a children’s health organization, will receive two federal grants totaling nearly $6 million to help build healthier communities. Nemours received a five-year cooperative agreement from the Centers of Disease Control to support healthy lifestyles for young children in child care under the Taking Steps to Healthy Success: Early Care and Education Learning Collaboration program. During the first year of funding, they will receive $4.2 million to help early care and education providers adopt nutrition, breastfeeding support and more.

The News Journal
Delaware schools awarded for healthy initiatives
Alliance for a Healthier Generation, which was founded in 2005 by the American Heart Association and William J. Clinton Foundation, recently awarded six Delaware schools: McKean High, Bayard Middle, Gauger-Cobbs, Morris Early Childhood Center, and Richardson Park.

WDEL
Kirk Middle School turns on the lights
Kirk Middle School celebrated the 13th annual Lights On Afterschool program Thursday evening with students, parents, and community members. The Lights On Afterschool Program is organized by the Afterschool Alliance. This rally was just one of the more than 7,500 events taking place nationwide. The program is not only free, but it keeps children safe, healthy, educated. Lights On Afterschool also relieves the stress of parents and guardians when their children’s school day is over.

National News

Huffington Post
College courses in high school yield students more likely to attend, graduate from college  
A Jobs for the Future report urges policymakers to expand dual-enrollment programs given their success in boosting college completion. The report’s findings show that Texas high school students who completed a college course before graduation were nearly 50% more likely to earn a college degree from a state two- or four-year college within six years than students who had not participated in dual enrollment.

Education Week
IES to seed new methods for studying schools  
The Institute of Education Sciences is crafting a new research program, called “continuous improvement research in education,” to go beyond “what works” and add more context to education findings. The IES would offer grants to researchers to focus on supportive school climates, high school transitions, or access to postsecondary education.

Greenville Daily Reflector
Gov. Perdue moves $20M to expand NC pre-K to 6,300 more  
North Carolina Governor Beverly Perdue announced she is shifting $20 million in projected spare funds to accommodate up to another 6,300 4-year-olds in the state’s pre-kindergarten academic enrichment program. The legislature this summer reversed controversial changes that cut program funding by 20% and limited the number of slots for at-risk 4-year-olds.

Baton Rouge Advocate
BESE OKs new rules for aid  
Louisiana’s school board approved new rules for voucher and other private and parochial schools to qualify for state tax dollars. The new reviews would allow nonpublic schools accredited annually by two national organizations to qualify for a five-year approval from the board. Schools accredited by other third-party groups could qualify for one year of good standing.

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