DELAWARE EDUCATION NEWS
June 2006
Copyright © 2006 Queue, Inc.
IN THIS ISSUE:
HOW DO DELAWARE'S READING STANDARDS MEASURE UP?
No Child Left Behind (NCLB) requires all students to be "proficient" in math and reading by 2014 but allows each state to determine its own level of proficiency. Some states are leaving their citizens with a misleading impression of their accomplishments by grading students against low standards, while those states that have high standards may suffer by comparison.

Education Next editors Paul E. Peterson and Frederick M. Hess first revealed this discrepancy a year ago ("Johnny Can Read . . . in Some States," Education Next, summer 2005) by comparing states' passing percentages on their math and reading tests with their passing percentages on the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP). Now, the Education Next editors have issued a new "report card" for each state.

Education Next is a scholarly journal published by the Hoover Institution that is committed to looking at hard facts about school reform. Other sponsoring institutions are the Harvard Program on Education Policy and Governance and the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation.

"We are not evaluating state tests, nor are we grading states on the performance of their students," explain Peterson and Hess. "We are checking for 'truth in advertising,' investigating whether state-announced proficiency levels mean what they say."

This year, a total of 48 states were assessed, including nine new ones. In the good news category, a handful of states have kept their standards rigorous for a second consecutive year, each assessing their own performance on a particularly tough curve. Massachusetts, South Carolina, Wyoming, Maine, and Missouri once again earned As.

Montana topped all others as the nation's most improved state, and Texas, Arkansas, and Wisconsin significantly boosted their proficiency standards over last year.

The bad news is that some states that had been in good standing are letting their standards slide. The biggest decline was in Arizona, with significant drops (in order of magnitude) in Maryland, Ohio, North Dakota, and Idaho.

In the "cream puff" category, states with already low standards have done nothing to raise them. Oklahoma and Tennessee both earned Fs because their self-reported performance is much higher than can be justified by the NAEP results. States with nearly equally embarrassing D minuses included Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, West Virginia, and North Carolina.

Delaware's scores included a D in 4th Grade Reading and a C in 8th Grade Reading.

To learn more about how grades were calculated, go to http://www.educationnext.org/20063/28.html

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STATE TECHNOLOGY REPORT 2006—DELAWARE

Access to technology: C

Use of technology: D+

Capacity to use technology: C

Overall grade: C-

While the No Child Left Behind Act has touched off a boom in school data collection, much work needs to be done before the vast amounts of student information can be harnessed to improve learning, according to Technology Counts 2006: The Information Edge: Using Data to Accelerate Achievement, a new report from Education Week and the Editorial Projects in Education (EPE) Research Center. The report is based on a systematic analysis by the EPE Research Center of the structure and quality of states' computerized data systems, and how those systems are being used. It comes at a time when states are under tremendous pressure to get technology systems and access to data up and running as genuinely useful tools to accelerate student learning on a broad scale. In a survey of state education officials conducted for the report, the EPE Research Center finds that despite the federal government's push to make data central to instructional decisions, states are still far away from putting their electronic information into a form that local educators can easily use.

Report Cards: Grading the States

For the first time ever, Technology Counts issues letter grades for all 50 states and the District of Columbia, ranking their efforts to improve access to and use of school technology and the ability of teachers to use it more effectively. While the nation earned an overall grade of C-plus, West Virginia, and Virginia earned the highest marks, with grades of A and A-minus, respectively. At the opposite end of the spectrum, a small group of states is lagging behind. Minnesota, Oregon, and Rhode Island all received an overall D grade, while Nevada ranked last in the nation with a D-minus. Grades are based on where states stand in three core areas of state policy and practice, including access to instructional technology, use of technology, and capacity to effectively use technology. They are contained both in the print version of the report and in new online-only State Technology Reports created by the EPE Research Center.

For the complete article, please go to:
http://www.edweek.org/media/ew/tc/2006/TC06_press.pdf

To access individual state reports, please go to:
http://www.edweek.org/ew/toc/2006/05/04/index.html?levelId=1000
 
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WILLIAM PENN HIGH SCHOOL IN NEW CASTLE ONE OF EIGHT WINNERS OF FIRST ANNUAL ALL-AMERICAN SPORTSMANSHIP AWARD

The Institute for International Sport, located at the University of Rhode Island, has announced its first annual All-American Sportsmanship School Award honorees. These eight schools were selected on the basis of their outstanding sportsmanship programs. These programs included strongly worded and successfully enforced codes of conduct, promotional strategies and the dissemination of these strategies, the program's interaction with younger students, the methods of evaluation of effectiveness of the program, as well as other sportsmanship initiatives that the school administers. All of the schools also participate in the Institute for International Sport's National Sportsmanship Day program. The 16th annual National Sportsmanship Day took place on March 7, 2006. This annual award is open to elementary schools, middle schools, and high schools throughout the United States.   

The 2006 awardees are:

William Penn High School in New Castle, Delaware; Chaminade-Julienne Catholic High School in Dayton, Ohio; Cocoa High School in Cocoa, Florida; Jefferson Township High School in Oak Ridge, New Jersey; North Hills Senior High School in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Our Lady of Mount Carmel School in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey; South Brunswick High School in Monmouth Junction, New Jersey.

The Institute for International Sport was founded by Dan Doyle in 1986. Located in Kingston, Rhode Island, on the campus of the University of Rhode Island, the Institute administers more than 10 international programs that reach more than 160 countries on six continents.    

For more information, contact Dave Hurley by phone at 401-874-2375 or by email:  nsd@internationalsport.com

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SCHOOLS AND STUDENTS HONORED

Delaware public schools and students were recently honored at the annual School Improvement Awards Banquet held at the Modern Maturity Center in Dover.

Award recipients were:

National Title I Distinguished Schools:

State Title I Distinguished Schools:

State Blue Ribbon Schools:

State of Delaware Family School Partnership Award:
Advanced Placement Incentive Program Distinguished Senior Students:

Top students from Delaware's 33 public high schools were honored at the annual Secretary of Education's Scholars Dinner held at the Sheraton Inn and Conference Center in Dover.

Listed alphabetically by school district, the scholars are:

Appoquinimink School District:
Nicole Coan, Jamie Gimbus, Susan Murray, Regina Shores, Middletown High School

Brandywine School District:
Rosa Cui and Marianne Nagengast, Brandywine High School; Dori Cross and Chantel Park, Concord High School; and Nyssa Crompton and Sylvia Dee, Mount Pleasant High School

Caesar Rodney School District:
Candace Headen, Andrew Lavenia and Britney Lewis, Caesar Rodney High School

Cape Henlopen School District:
Kevin Bartley and Kelly Carlson, Cape Henlopen High School

Capital School District:
Nicole Johnson, Emily Siegfried and Chanel Thomas, Dover High School

Christina School District:
Rebecca Brown, Bradley Dashnaw and Marissa Spair, Christiana High School; Vi Dan, Leah Fett and Emerson Rana, Glasgow High School; Emily Maclary, Tara Morris and Daniel Strouse, Newark High School

Colonial School District:
Patricia Dean, Bethany Faline, Nadia Shobnam and Lauren Williams, William Penn High School

Delmar School District:
Rebecca Mir, Delmar Middle & Senior High School

Indian River School District:
Kathryn Riley, Indian River High School Timothy Fike and Chelsea Leyh, Sussex Central High School

Lake Forest School District:
Jennifer Crouse and Jessi Messick, Lake Forest High School

Laurel School District:
Ashley Hill, Laurel High School

Milford School District:
Erica Godwin and Matthew Starkey, Milford High School

New Castle County Vocational-Technical School District:
Krystina Hamilton, Jalita Henry and Tara McQueen, Delcastle Technical High School; Daniel Watson and Steven West, Hodgson Vocational Technical High School; Josh Doherty, Velora Branch and LaTrina Bailey, Howard High School of Technology

POLYTECH School District:
Nicholas Johnson and Rosaria Maddalena, POLYTECH High School

Red Clay Consolidated School District:
John LaMedica and Michael O'Day, Cab Calloway School of the Arts; Julianne Lucas and Steven Defroda, John Dickinson High School; Melissa Yu and Aaron Reinicker, Alexis I. duPont High School; Michael Roman and Joshua Schulte, Thomas McKean High School

Seaford School District:
Eric Kimpton and Jennifer Stephens, Seaford High School

Smyrna School District:
Ahmed Siar Baqi and David Everhart, Smyrna High School

Sussex Technical School District:
Benjamin Berg and Lauren Correll, Sussex Technical High School

Woodbridge School District:
Kacie Pinnock, Woodbridge High School

Campus Community Charter School:
Ryan Lloyd

Charter School of Wilmington:
Christopher Carper and Elaine Yang

Delaware Military Academy:
Christina Giovannozzi

Positive Outcomes Charter School:
Jason Boulden

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