February 21, 2017
Delaware News
Cape Gazette
Cape middle schools paint for change
Jazzie Lovett wasn’t sure what to do when her Mariner Middle teacher told her to come up with a visual design that shows respect and acceptance. It took the eighth-grader about a week, but in the end, she decided to paint a clock that shows time will not heal everything, but acceptance will. Jazzie was one of about 600 who participated in the Joshua M. Freeman Foundation’s mural project at Mariner Middle School.
Delaware State News
Does Delaware need 19 school districts?
Philadelphia has 199,000 public school students and just one school district. Montgomery County, Maryland, has one countywide district, covering 156,000 students. Delaware? About 137,000 students — and 19 separate school districts, a figure that doesn’t include 25 charter schools around the state. The state’s 19 districts, three of which are vocational range in size from 16,000 students in Red Clay to 1,200 in Polytech.
Newark Post
Christina sells unused building to Del Monte Fresh Produce
Del Monte Fresh Produce has agreed to purchase an unused building in Glasgow from the Christina School District, ending the district’s years-long struggle to unload the property. The $6.5 million deal was reached Jan. 20, and the company is now a month into its due diligence period, Robert Silber, the district’s chief financial officer, announced last week.
The News Journal
App answers age-old question, ‘Where’s my bus?’
A school bus pops up on the cellphone screen opposite a small icon of a house. “1.4 miles away,” it says. The bus should be here any minute, according to a new app being rolled out by Red Clay Consolidated School District. It allows parents to track their children’s school buses and see exactly how far they are from their home and when they can be expected to arrive.
DSEA will hold a runoff election for union president
The state’s largest education union announced Friday that it will hold a runoff election for the role of association president. Last month, Lake Forest’s Karen Crouse, who had been endorsed by outgoing President Frederika Jenner, and Michael Matthews, a teacher in the Red Clay Consolidated School District, unofficially tied for the position. The results were certified at a Delaware State Education Association executive meeting Thursday night, setting the runoff in motion.
Rodel holding conference for educators
The first-ever ECET² conference is coming to Delaware, courtesy of the Rodel Teacher Council. ECET² Delaware: Connecting Innovative Educators is a free conference that brings together teachers from across the state for a day of teacher-led and teacher-focused programming. The event was previously known as the Rodel Teacher Council Personalized Learning Workshop. ECET² stands for Elevating and Celebrating Effective Teaching and Teachers.
A bold solution for education and the budget
Opinion by Ronald R. Russo, senior fellow at the Caesar Rodney Institute, and founding president of the Charter School of Wilmington
In reality, education reform is about economics. If done properly, it will attract/retain businesses, provide jobs, generate tax revenues, increase property values, reduce crime rates, and reduce the single largest item in the state’s budget. This was the direction taken in 1995 by Gov. Carper, State Superintendent Mike Ferguson, and a business consortium (DuPont, Bell Atlantic, Delmarva Power, Hercules, Zeneca, and Christiana Care) when they advocated for change in Delaware’s public education system. To be clear, we must first distinguish between teaching and education.
The Review
Q&A: State’s Chief Justice explains school-wide diversity problem
The university’s NAACP chapter hosted the Chief Justice of the Delaware Supreme Court, Leo E. Strine Jr., on Thursday night to discuss state education policy and efforts to increase diversity on campus. The event covered the university’s issues with diversity, inclusivity and community outreach. “Diversity is an interesting word,” Strine said.
National News
Education Week
Undocumented teachers shielded by DACA in legal and emotional limbo
Jose Gonzalez’s parents brought him to the United States from Mexico just before his second birthday. In the 23 years since, he graduated high school with honors, earned an Ivy League degree, and received recognition from the Obama White House for his work teaching students in immigrant-filled Los Angeles charter schools. Now, Gonzalez faces a potentially cruel twist of fate: he could go from being lauded by the White House to being a target for deportation as part of President Donald Trump’s widespread immigration crackdown.
NPR
The mile high promise, and risk, of school choice
During Betsy DeVos’ bitter confirmation hearing last month for education secretary, U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet pointed to Denver as a potential national model of a big city school district that’s found an innovative, balanced approach to school choice. “Without exception,” the Colorado Democrat told DeVos, “we demanded quality and implemented strong accountability” for the mix of traditional, charter, innovation and magnet schools in the 92,000-student district.
DeVos spars with teachers, Trump on autism and more education stories of the week
With Secretary Betsy DeVos rolling up her sleeves at the Education Department and, at one point this week, joining Donald Trump at the White House to talk with educators and parents, Washington, D.C., is making a lot of education news these days. For those of you struggling to keep up, the NPR Ed Team is trying something new: a weekly recap of the latest national education news.
The Hechinger Report
Make a match: How some schools decide what education technology to buy
School leaders and teachers struggle to find the right education technology to suit their needs. Education technology makers can’t figure out exactly what schools need – or if their products can work as intended. Enter the matchmaker. LEAP Innovations, a Chicago-based nonprofit organization, works on both sides of the equation, providing a pilot network program that links schools and education technology companies.
The Washington Post
Remodeled River Terrace school aims to better serve special-education students
Kiara Jones is learning how to analyze data. But the 8-year-old is not using fancy software on a computer. She has a tactile board in front of her with the names of classmates and information on when they were in class, along with a letter she can touch to find out what data corresponds with each student. Kiara is visually impaired, but her teachers at River Terrace Education Campus in Northeast Washington say she is able to use her strong memory skills to answer math and reading questions.