May 17, 2017
Delaware News
The News Journal
Newark Charter student headed to National Geographic Bee finals
Newark Charter School eighth-grader Rohan Kanchana is the first Delaware student to make it to the finals of the National Geographic Bee. The preliminary round of the 29th annual National Geographic Bee was held Monday. The top 10 finishers — from the field of 54 state-level champions who took part in the prelims — will compete in the final round to be held at the National Geographic Society in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday.
DMA teacher laying out ‘hiphoponomics’
First, think back to “Boyz n the Hood:” Doughboy and the crew cruising round town in a 1963 Chevy Impala. Except, for one thing, Doughboy isn’t driving. Instead, it’s Adam Smith, the 18th-century Scotish political economist, and social philosopher. In the seat next to him is Greg Caskey, a 21st-century economics teacher. In the back seat is a family friend’s son.
HB 143 will take a valuable tool away from new teachers
Opinion by Jenson Dennard, first-year special education teacher in the Christina School District
A new bill has surfaced in the House that would remove current performance assessment requirements for first-year teachers In Delaware. House Bill 143, as it’s known, would make it easier to hire teachers from states that have not yet raised the bar for teacher preparation. As a graduate of Wilmington University’s Master of Special Education program and a first-year teacher who recently took the assessment, I know passing HB 143 would mean getting rid of a valuable tool for first-year teachers preparing for the classroom.
Don’t grade teachers with a bad algorithm
Cathy O’Neil, mathematician who has worked as a professor, hedge-fund analyst, and data scientist
For more than a decade, a glitchy and unaccountable algorithm has been making life difficult for America’s teachers. The good news is that its reign of terror might finally be drawing to a close. I first became acquainted with the Value-Added Model in 2011, when a friend of mine, a high school principal in Brooklyn, told me that a complex mathematical system was being used to assess her teachers — and to help decide such important matters as tenure.
Techincal.ly Delaware
This new, free program at Delaware Tech gets 8th and 9th graders excited about STEM
Stephanie Lewis-Montgomery didn’t set out to work for a STEM program. When she started at Delaware Technical Community College as an adjunct English instructor four years ago, it was an extension of her background in writing. It was there, she says, that “students awakened [her] interest in STEM careers.” Today, she is the program manager for STEM Up Delaware, a youth program based at Delaware Tech’s George Campus in Wilmington.
Cape Gazette
Worcester Prep students celebrate reading with Book Character Day
Worcester Prep Lower School students in pre-kindergarten to fifth grade celebrated National Children’s Book Week May 3 by hosting a Book Character Day. To encourage a love of reading, teachers and students dressed as their favorite book characters for the day. At noon, students were invited outside on the lawn to read their books in support of the Drop Everything and Read program, a national celebration of reading designed to remind families to make reading a priority activity in their lives.
National News
Chalkbeat
Community schools are expanding — but are they working? New study shows mixed results
New York City’s announcement this week that it is doubling down on community schools indicates a firm belief that the program is working. But is this model effective, and by what measures? New research from an initiative in Texas and North Carolina aims to help answer those questions — and finds mixed evidence. The precise details of community schools vary from place to place, but they generally emphasize a holistic model, by addressing factors — poverty, health, behavior — that might impede academic success.
White Mountain Independent
Round Valley School District to implement full-day kindergarten
When school starts again next fall, the youngest students in the Round Valley School District will need to pack a lunch. The Round Valley Board of Education last month approved a plan to bring full-day kindergarten to the school district. Like most school districts in the White Mountains, Round Valley currently offers two sessions of half-day kindergarten.
The Atlantic
Inside a high school training future teachers
One day early in the school year, the pre-K students at P.S. 50 on Staten Island were learning how to write their names. Jeanette Tenantitla Serrano leaned over the tot-sized table to help a little boy navigate the loops and curves of each letter, but the best he could do was fill the page with illegible lines. He had a learning disability and lagged behind his peers. “I felt bad because he wasn’t understanding as quickly as the other students,” Tenantitla remembered.
The 74 Million
Career and technical ed should be ‘plan a,’ Foxx says as House takes up Perkins bill today
The stigma and challenges surrounding career and technical education are personal for U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx. Foxx’s brother, Butch, eight years her junior, didn’t want to go to college but was afraid of disappointing his family, Foxx said during a speech Tuesday at the American Enterprise Institute. She ended up helping set up a training program, and Foxx’s brother, along with a few others, graduated with a journeyman’s license in carpentry, leading to a successful career.
Thomas B. Fordham Institute
Don’t let personalized learning become the processed food of education
Blog post by Michael J. Petrilli, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute
There’s a lot that’s appealing about personalized learning, properly construed. Rather than march a classroom of students through academic material at the exact same pace, regardless of their discordant levels of readiness or their varying degrees of background knowledge, personalized settings allow schools to target instruction to the exact needs of individual children.