Posts Tagged ‘Data Coaches’

Daily Education News – 6/10/13

Posted by rodel

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

Local News

The News Journal
STEM model takes root at Concord High School
As state education and business leaders try to coax more women and minorities into the fields of science, technology, engineering and math, many are pointing to Concord High School’s Advanced Placement program as a model. The school recently received a grant from the College Board and Google that will allow it to offer every AP course in fields commonly called STEM.

Middletown Transcript
Administrative changes announced at 8 Appoquinimink schools
Two of Appoquinimink School District’s 16 schools will have a new principal next year, while six others will begin the 2013-2014 school year with a new assistant principal. Superintendent Matthew Burrows announced the administrative changes Monday, although they will not become official until July 1.

National News

Education Week
Teachers’ data use becoming PD emphasis
While schools and districts now have a wealth of longitudinal student data at their fingertips, teachers are just at the beginning of learning how to use that information effectively, says a New America Foundation report. Despite various challenges, professional development programs in Oregon and Delaware provide valuable models for making data useful to teachers

A ‘neglected’ population gets another chance at a diploma
Educators and researchers who work with at-risk students say there is no way to really achieve the Graduation Nation goal of a 90% graduation rate by 2020 without taking time to find, bring back, and keep the students who already have fallen through the cracks, at a rate of roughly 1 million every year.

Arne Duncan unveils high school grant program details
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan offered more details on the administration’s proposed $300 million high school redesign initiative, which will have a career-related and STEM focus. The program would dole out competitive grants to districts in partnership with postsecondary institutions and other organizations to help high schools emphasize the skills that prepare students for higher education and the workforce.

Education Department puts numbers to ‘preschool for all’ proposal
The Education Department released fact sheets for every state letting them know how much they stand to gain if the Obama administration’s proposal to expand preschool opportunities is adopted. The funding level is based on the state’s population of 4-year-olds in low-income families and assumes that states will expand to 20% of their eligible 4-year-olds in the first year.

The New York Times
Who’s minding the schools?
An opinion by Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus
In April, some 1.2 million New York students took their first Common Core State Standards tests, which are supposed to assess their knowledge and thinking on topics such as “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” and a single matrix equation in a vector variable. Indeed, the first wave of exams was so overwhelming for these young New Yorkers that some parents refused to let their children take the test.

Philadelphia Inquirer
More than 3,700 school employees are being laid off
Philadelphia Superintendent William R. Hite Jr. announced Friday that the School District had begun mailing layoff notices to 3,783 employees, informing them they will lose their jobs July 1 because of the district’s financial crisis.

Casper Tribune
Wyoming legislators seek to coordinate early childhood education
Wyoming legislators agreed to consider new funding sources for early childhood education programs and to study how to improve their coordination across the state. Members of the education and the health and social services committees discussed early learning efforts with officials from four state departments and various professionals. Only 52% of kindergartners in 2009 were prepared to begin school.

Huffington Post
Senate Republicans: No Child Left Behind should give governors more say
Republicans on Congress’ education committees unveiled rewrites to No Child Left Behind that would give governors final responsibility for holding schools accountable and largely limit the Education Department to promoting the importance of learning. States would determine if their schools are succeeding and could ignore previous federal requirements to show they are getting better every year.

Daily Education News – 6/7/13

Posted by rodel

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

Local News

Education Commission of the States
Delaware Receives 2013 ECS Frank Newman Award for State Innovation
The Education Commission of the States (ECS) will honor the state of Delaware with the prestigious Frank Newman Award for State Innovation at the 2013 National Forum on Education Policy in St. Louis, Missouri, on June 26. The award recognizes the state’s bold approach to comprehensive education reform and its successful model of collaboration among a broad range of stakeholders.

The Milford Beacon
Milford Middle School set to close after more than 80 years of history
For many members of the staff and student body, Milford Middle School has all the charm of an old house full of leaks, quirks and lacking air conditioning, but steeped in nostalgia. The building is in desperate need of repairs and is no longer fit to house students and staff.

National News

The New York Times
Obama promises to have high-speed internet in most schools in 5 years
President Obama visited an innovative middle school in central North Carolina on Thursday to demonstrate the Internet-based education programs that he is proposing to make available nationwide. Speaking to an audience of excited teenagers in a steamy gymnasium, Mr. Obama called on the Federal Communications Commission to expand an existing program to provide discounted high-speed Internet service to schools and libraries, even if it meant increasing the fees that for years had been added to consumers’ phone bills. He said the initiative could lead to better technology at 99 percent of schools in five years.

Education News
Data, information collection helps improve MOOC experiences
Massive online open courses are evolving thanks to extensive data collection from the early efforts to offer college-level classes to a worldwide online audience for free. According to MIT Technology Review, as the number of MOOCs offered grows, course designers are already looking at ways to make MOOCs 2.0 better.

The Washington Post
Plans to replace ‘No Child’ law bring dueling visions of federal role in education
Republicans in Congress have rolled out legislation that would sharply limit the power of the executive branch and shrink the role of the federal government in public education in a rebuke to the Obama administration’s influence over education from kindergarten through 12th grade. Meanwhile, Senate Democrats have unveiled their own K-12 plan, which would cede more control to states but still maintain some federal oversight, especially of the worst-performing schools.

MLive
Common Core funding blocked in new Michigan budget after Senate vote
Michigan is poised to became the second state to “pause” implementation of the Common Core standards after the Senate approved a budget barring funding for the guidelines. The omnibus budget measure, which now heads to Gov. Rick Snyder, includes a provision that prevents the education department from spending any money on implementation of the standards. Indiana has passed similar legislation.

The Boston Globe
Jumble of education topics facing Congress
From pre-kindergarten to No Child Left Behind, from broadband-wired schools to college loans, students in every age group are suddenly finding the spotlight on Capitol Hill. After months of relative neglect, education issues are getting the attention of lawmakers—as well as President Barack Obama—just as the school year is ending and, for many college students, the cost of education is about to go up.

Daily Education News- 3/5/13

Posted by rodel

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

Local News

The News Journal
An editorial
Start high-quality learning in preschool
In “Child care is a small-business issue,” Ms. Abrams presented a compelling list of reasons why small businesses should support high-quality preschool programs for young children, noting the benefits not only to the young child but also to the parent(s) who work and to their small-business employers.

National News

Huffington Post

Student database backed by Gates Foundation jazzes tech startups, spooks parents
An education technology conference this week in Austin, Texas, will clang with bells and whistles as startups eagerly show off their latest wares.  But the most influential new product may be the least flashy: a $100 million database built to chart the academic paths of public school students from kindergarten through high school.  In operation just three months, the database already holds files on millions of children identified by name, address and sometimes social security number. Learning disabilities are documented, test scores recorded, attendance noted. In some cases, the database tracks student hobbies, career goals, attitudes toward school – even homework completion.

Inside Higher Ed
Hours in the classroom
Ohio Gov. John Kasich has proposed in his budget bill that boards of colleges and universities be given the ability to unilaterally increase the workloads of faculty members. The increased workload would become the new minimum for faculty members to maintain. The proposed change is the latest in a string proposals that Kasich has argued will save taxpayer funds and make institutions more effective.

Washington Post
Sequester-related education cuts hitting schools on reservations, military bases
The Window Rock School District, in the heart of the Navajo nation in Arizona, is proposing the unthinkable: closing three of its seven schools as a result of the federal sequester. The schools are among 1,600 public schools on Native American reservations and military bases that are feeling the impact of federal cuts now, months before the rest of the country’s classrooms see the effect of reduced dollars from Washington.

Education Next
Do we need a new education policy for Hispanics?
Over the past two decades, the Hispanic population has become the nation’s largest immigrant group and has accounted for 56 percent of total U.S. population growth. In a forum released today by Education Next, Nonie Lesaux of Harvard’s Graduate School of Education and Juan Rangel of a Chicago charter school organization, UNO, discuss whether these changing demographics call for substantial reforms in the current instructional practices designed to address Hispanic students’ needs, or whether improving education practices across the board is the best way to meet the needs of Hispanics.

Education Week
Best and worst teachers can be flagged early, says study
New teachers become much more effective with a few years of classroom experience, but a working paper by a team of researchers suggests the most—and least—effective elementary teachers show their colors at the very start of their careers.  The study tracked the individual effectiveness of more than 7,600 incoming New York City teachers in mathematics and English/language arts. Each of the teachers taught 4th or 5th grade from 2000 to 2006.

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