OCDE Education in the News

Tuesday, February 13, 2018

OCDE NEWSROOM

Irvine’s Woodbridge High wins Orange County Academic Decathlon — again

In another big win for Woodbridge High School, students from the Irvine school took first place in the Orange County Academic Decathlon. It’s the second year in a row that a Woodbridge team wins a chance to compete in the California Academic Decathlon, which is scheduled for March in Sacramento. Last year, Irvine’s Woodbridge High students took ninth place in the California contest. The seven-member Woodbridge team won a plaque and a $3,000 travel stipend to the state contest, officials announced Friday during an awards ceremony at Santa Ana High School.

https://www.ocregister.com/2018/02/10/irvines-woodbridge-high-wins-orange-county-academic-decathlon-again/

Capistrano Valley students build electric vehicle, let mayor take test drive

Capistrano Valley High students Andrew Melford, Curren Nezak and Charles Lemieux watched as the mayor drove off in the project on which they’d spent the last six months. The three students and their auto shop classmates built the electric vehicle from scratch.

https://www.ocregister.com/2018/02/09/capistrano-valley-students-build-electric-vehicle-let-mayor-take-test-drive/

What’s wrong with this car? High school students tackle automotive bugs in scholarship contest

Fixing cars is no longer simply a job for a grease monkey with the strength to loosen a stubborn lug nut. These days, it takes high-tech skills like the ones on display Saturday at Kia’s Irvine facility, where six pairs of students from Orange County high school auto repair and technology programs got an hour to find and fix as many problems as possible on a car in a competition sponsored by the Orange County Automobile Dealers Association.

https://www.ocregister.com/2018/02/10/whats-wrong-with-this-car-high-school-students-tackle-automotive-bugs-in-scholarship-contest/

This OCSA culinary arts student will compete for a $25,000 prize on Rachael Ray show

Cloyce Martin joins a bevy of Southern California chefs — Amar Santana, Brian Huskey, Shirley Chung and Bruce Kalman — who’ve been tapped to compete in a popular cooking show. But for Martin, there’s one key difference. He’s not a professional chef — yet. He’s in high school. Martin, 16, is junior at the critically acclaimed Orange County School of the Arts in Santa Ana.

https://www.ocregister.com/2018/02/13/this-ocsa-culinary-arts-student-will-compete-for-a-25000-prize-on-rachael-ray-show/

LOS ANGELES TIMES

DAILY PILOT

Ensign Intermediate and Lincoln Elementary educators are named Newport-Mesa's Teachers of the Year

Two Newport-Mesa Unified School District educators were honored as district Teachers of the Year on Thursday evening during an awards banquet presented by the Newport-Mesa Schools Foundation. Amy Tupa from Ensign Intermediate School in Newport Beach and Caryn Broesamle from Lincoln Elementary School in Corona del Mar were awarded a plaque, a monetary gift and flowers.

http://www.latimes.com/socal/daily-pilot/news/tn-dpt-me-district-teachers-20180209-story.html

USA TODAY

Financial education stalls, threatening kids' future economic health

Financial education in schools has come to a halt in recent years. Only 17 states require high school students to take a class in personal finance — a number that hasn't budged in the past four years, according to the newly released 2018 Survey of the States: Economic and Personal Finance Education in Our Nation's Schools. More than half of states still don't require high school students to take an economics course, it found.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/lifestages/2018/02/12/325576002/

EDSOURCE

Creating a 'test kitchen' to come up with a better school accountability plan in California

Four organizations and three California school districts will attempt to create what the State Board of Education and the California Department of Education have struggled with through three iterations: an annual district budget and planning document that is more readable, credible and manageable. Last week, the new partnership announced a “test kitchen” to experiment with new approaches to achieve the aims of the Local Control Funding Formula, the 2013 law that gave districts more flexibility and control over improving schools and budgeting money.

https://edsource.org/2018/3-districts-and-partners-pursue-ambitious-goal-designing-a-better-lcap/593458

Brown appoints 15 to new K-12 computer science panel

Gov. Jerry Brown appointed 15 technology and education experts Friday to a newly created panel charged with overseeing implementation of K-12 computer science standards in California.

https://edsource.org/2018/brown-appoints-15-to-new-k-12-computer-science-panel/593618

SI&A CABINET REPORT

Higher pay would solve special ed teacher shortage

The non-partisan Legislative Analyst has come out strongly against the governor’s plan for increasing the number of special education teachers as part of his January budget. Citing ongoing shortages of properly certified teachers to serve the state’s 700,000 students with disabilities, Gov. Jerry Brown has proposed two $50 million grant programs to help districts and colleges recruit and train new special education teachers.

https://www.cabinetreport.com/special-education/higher-pay-would-solve-special-ed-teacher-shortage

NPR

The Gap Between The Science On Kids And Reading, And How It Is Taught

Mark Seidenberg is not the first researcher to reach the stunning conclusion that only a third of the nation's schoolchildren read at grade level. The reasons are numerous, but one that Seidenberg cites over and over again is this: The way kids are taught to read in school is disconnected from the latest research, namely how language and speech actually develop in a child's brain.

https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2018/02/12/582465905/the-gap-between-the-science-on-kids-and-reading-and-how-it-is-taught

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