Posts Tagged ‘School Boards’

Daily Education News – 6/14/13

Posted by rodel

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

Local News

The News Journal
Christina needs to fill board vacancy
Christina School Board member Gina Backus has resigned due to a job-related relocation, leading officials to seek nominees to fill her position. That sets up a possible repeat of a controversy over board appointments that took place last year. The board’s selection will fill the seat until elections next May, with the winner completing Backus’ term that ends in 2016.

WDDE
Teacher preparation bill signed into law
A bill bolstering Delaware’s teacher preparation programs is now law. Gov. Jack Markell (D-Delaware) signed the legislation Wednesday at Wilmington University’s Dover campus. “Teacher quality is the single most important school factor in a student’s academic success,” said Markell.

Delaware Department of Education
Delaware students to show their ‘know & how’ at NTSA Conference
Nearly 90 students and educators from across the state will represent Delaware at the National Technology Student Association Conference because of their outstanding performance at the state TSA conference. At the National TSA Conference, the students will demonstrate their skills in hands-on, minds-on competitions against nearly 5,000 other participants from throughout the United States and world.

National News

The New York Times
Private preschools see more public funds as classes grow
Starting this fall, under an expansion led by Mayor Rahm Emanuel, the number of Catholic schools in the city receiving taxpayer money for preschool will nearly double. Across the country, states and districts are increasingly funneling public funds to religious schools, private nursery schools and a variety of community-based nonprofit organizations that conduct preschool classes.

Study gauges value of technology in schools
With school districts rushing to buy computers, tablets, digital white boards and other technology, a new report questions whether the investment is worth it. In a review of student survey data conducted in conjunction with the federal exams known as the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the nonprofit Center for American Progress found that middle school math students more commonly used computers for basic drills and practice than to develop sophisticated skills.

Kansas City Star
Kansas approves new science standards
The Kansas school board approved new multistate science standards for schools that treat evolution and climate change as key concepts to be taught from kindergarten through the 12th grade. Though the new standards drew some criticism over their treatment of evolution, it wasn’t nearly as vocal or public as in the past. The standards were developed by Kansas, 25 other states, and the National Research Council.

Inside Higher Ed
Mind the gap
The percentage of adults who will hold a college degree in 2025 is projected to hit 48%, far short of Lumina Foundation’s 60% goal for degree- and certificate-holders. To achieve that “big goal,” the foundation’s new report calls for 10 incremental targets to hit by 2016. The targets focus to some extent on black and Hispanic students, as well as working adults.

Daily Education News – 6/4/13

Posted by rodel

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

Local News

The News Journal
School district paraprofessionals fight for their jobs
Paraprofessionals in the Brandywine School District facing layoffs at the end of the year pleaded for their jobs during a school board meeting Monday night in another chapter of the statewide drama over education budget cuts. “These positions are very important to students,” said Karen Kennedy, president of the union that represents Brandywine’s paraprofessionals. “This is a serious loss to this district.” District officials empathized, but said they don’t have an alternative. “I’m not happy in this position, either. This is the worst part of my job,” said Superintendent Mark Holodick. “If these people didn’t bring value to our students, we wouldn’t have hired them. But we simply don’t have a choice.”

Charters focus of House legislation
A bill that would toughen oversight of charter schools would also award more money to charters with proven track records. The bill’s supporters say it will help successful charters grow while holding them more responsible, but some critics worry it could take resources from traditional public schools. They also say some of the oversight measures don’t go far enough. Gov. Jack Markell supports the bill and says it mixes measures to better hold charters accountable with efforts to give them more ability to succeed.

Cape Gazette
Cape school board continues elementary school discussion
Cape Henlopen school board focused on the bigger picture for the district’s future elementary schools after weeks of discussing possibly reconfiguring the Milton schools. “We need to discuss the fifth school that could draw from and thin out our other schools,” said board member Jen Burton during the May 23 board meeting.

WDDE
New law revamps school choice program
Governor Markell was at Newark’s Forest Oak Elementary School Monday to sign a bill streamlining the process students use to apply to a school different than the one they are assigned. The new law standardizes School Choice applications and deadlines statewide. The bill’s primary sponsor State Rep. Kim Williams says complaints from the parents spurred her effort require those changes. “Once I started reviewing the policies of the different districts, I noticed that there was inconsistencies throughout the state,” said Williams. “There is the law, but then each district had their own policy so it’s hard for parents to follow.” In addition to making the program easier to navigate, Williams expect the law to eliminate discrimination in the process by limiting the information the school districts can gather. The law prevents districts from asking for an applicant’s grades or DCAS testing scores.

Colonial School District holds second vote on operating referendum
Residents in the Colonial School District vote again today on a budget referendum. The district’s wants to raise taxes an additional 35 cents per $100 of assessed property value to add $9.6 million to its operating budget. Officials say the district currently faces a $6 million deficit. Colonial superintendent Dorothy Linn previously said if this referendum fails the district will be forced to eliminate 84 jobs, including 59 teachers. Summer school, the Chinese language immersion program and middle school and ninth grade sports would also be on the chopping block. Even if approved, Colonial officials expected to cut 16-27 staff members, including 8-12 teachers.

National News

The New York Times
Trade Schools offer hope for rural migrants in China
When he was 14, Li Yangyang’s prospects were grim. A middle school graduate who moved to Beijing with his parents from the countryside in 2009, he worked long hours in a restaurant for less than 700 renminbi a month. Then a fellow rural migrant, who had also moved to Beijing, introduced him to BN Vocational School, China’s first tuition-free, nonprofit vocational secondary school. For those like Mr. Li, the children of China’s 200 million migrant laborers, vocational schools offer the promise of better-paying, more stable work than their parents had. While China has long had state-run vocational schools, critics say that they are bogged down by bureaucracy and overwhelmed by the huge number of youths who need training.

Education Week
Into the Common Core: one classroom’s journey
As an English/language arts teacher in the common-core era, Ms. McNair-Lee is part of a huge national push to turn millions of students into strong readers and writers. In its second year of K-12 implementation in literacy, the District of Columbia is farther along than many in putting the standards into practice. But it also faces long odds as it works to help its largely disadvantaged student population master them.

Associated Press
Bill allows students to take more online courses
A South Carolina Senate committee advanced S.B 3752, which would remove the limits of three online credit hours per year and 12 toward a high school diploma for 7th-12th graders. The program was designed to help students who have fallen behind to graduate and increase access for students in rural schools. But the current law’s three-credit limit may prevent students from recovering the credits they need to catch up.

Daily Education News – 5/31/13

Posted by rodel

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

Local News

The Cape Gazette
Cape area residents take aim at Common Core
A national program to align public school education across the country is under fire by a group opposed to the latest federal initiative. Locally, the group has set its sights on Cape Henlopen school district. “My hope is that we can defund this thing,” said Karen Gritton of Lincoln. “This conversation should’ve happened three years ago.” Gritton was one of about 30 people – many members of the 9-12 Delaware Patriots – who attended the Cape Henlopen school board meeting May 23 to protest the Common Core State Standards initiative.

Board should go slow before voting to opt out of reform
An opinion by Dan Flood
The newest version is the Common Core State Standards Initiative, which was developed by the Council of Chief State School Officers and the National Governors Association. Forty-five states have signed on, including Delaware, at least partly because the federal government offered financial incentives for doing so. Not everybody’s happy about this, including Cape Henlopen school board member Sandi Minard, who on May 9 presented a blistering anti-Common Core resolution demanding the district opt out of the initiative.

The News Journal
‘Yes’ vote would help Colonial’s students
An opinion by Dorothy Linn
Twenty years ago the Colonial School District passed an operating referendum. Since then, with the exception of 7 cents that was tacked onto a capitol referendum held in 2005 to cover the expense of putting air conditioning in all of our schools, the district has not asked taxpayers for more money to pay for what happens inside our 14 schools every day. On Tuesday, I hope that changes when our district holds a referendum that will impact 10,000 students.

National News

The Seattle Times
Gates foundation funds group to help charter schools
With the opening of Washington’s first charter school likely 15 months away, more dollars from Seattle’s tech economy are flowing toward groups that want to change the way the state thinks about public schools. In November, Washington became the 42nd state to allow the independent public schools. The initiative campaign succeeded in part because of money from Seattle’s tech economy — Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates donated $3 million, outside his charitable foundation, first for the signature-gathering effort and later to promote the initiative. Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen donated $1.5 million. The voter-approved plan would open as many as 40 charter schools over five years.

The New York Times
Colleges show uneven effort to enroll poor
Opponents of race-based affirmative action in college admissions urge that colleges use a different tool to encourage diversity: giving a leg up to poor students. But many educators see real limits to how eager colleges are to enroll more poor students, no matter how qualified — and the reason is money.

Education Week
Common-Core online practice tests unveiled
Students, parents, and teachers who are anxious or merely curious about the coming online assessments matched to the Common Core State Standards will now have the opportunity to go through a test run of sorts. The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, one of two major coalitions of states designing the tests, has released sets of online sample test questions for grades 3-8 and 11 in both English language arts and math, the first two subjects to be tested.

Calif. two-year kindergarten program bridges preschool, K-12
California’s new two-year kindergarten program was designed to better align students’ developmental readiness with state curriculum. But the effort has had an unintended effect: It’s bridging the divide between the early-childhood community and the K-12 system, a scenario other states are interested in replicating.

Inside Higher Ed
State systems go MOOC
Universities from New Mexico to New York will join Coursera in an expansion of the startup’s efforts to provide education through massive open online courses, MOOCs. Together, state systems and flagship universities in nine states will help the company test new business models and teaching methods and potentially put Coursera in competition with some of the education tech industry’s most established players.

Charleston Daily Mail
State rolls out teacher evaluation system
West Virginia lawmakers have singled out a teacher evaluation pilot project for statewide adoption. When the new system is put into place this fall, it will mean that all teachers will be evaluated annually. The system provides for a number of observations and conferences between teachers and principals; it also uses data and test scores to gauge student achievement and, by proxy, teachers’ effectiveness.

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