Monday, October 31, 2011

Auditor General Jack Wagner: “Whenever you hear an ad on the radio for a charter school, that's your extra taxpayer money at work."

Auditor General Jack Wagner: "Whenever you hear an ad on the radio for a charter school, that's your extra taxpayer money at work."

Follow us on Twitter at @lfeinberg

 

Continued Opinions and Reaction to Passage of Voucher Bill SB1 in the PA Senate 10/28/11

Karen Heller at the Inquirer, Senate Minority Leader Jay Costa's Floor Speech video, PSBA Executive Director Tom Gentzel in the Patriot News, Students First PAC Executive Director Dawn Chavous in the Patriot News, Patti Mengers in the Delco Times, Urban school principal Frank Murphy in City School Stories Blog, Westmont-Hilltop School Board member Phyllis Forman in the Johnstown Tribune-Democrat , Jan Murphy at Patriot News, Joy Pullman of the Heartland Institute at TribLive.com

http://keystonestateeducationcoalition.blogspot.com/2011/10/continued-opinions-and-reaction-to.html

 

"The average cost for a charter school student's education is $5,000," said Wagner. "Districts on average pay about $10,000. Whenever you hear an ad on the radio for a charter school, that's your extra taxpayer money at work."

Pennsylvania Auditor General Calls for Revamping of Charter School Funding

Warminster Patch by James Boyle October 28,2011

Education vouchers and charter school funding were the top issues discussed at Thursday night's roundtable discussion at William Tennent High School.  Pennsylvania school districts pay too much money to send students to charter and cyber charter schools, said Auditor General Jack Wagner to parents and representatives from all 13 Bucks County school districts who gathered Thursday night at William Tennent High School for a forum about public school funding.

http://warminster.patch.com/articles/pennsylvania-auditor-general-calls-for-revamping-of-charter-school-funding

 

Auditor General Jack Wagner and Pennsylvania's Agora Cyber Charter School are noted in this June 2011 article about K12, the largest operator of taxpayer funded online schools.  If you ever use the internet or listen to a radio you may have heard or seen one of their ads.  Charles Zogby, PA's Budget Secretary and Former Secretary of Education under Governor Ridge, served as K12's Senior Vice President of Education and Policy prior to being recruited to serve in the Corbett Administration.  The article is on the longer side but I think you will find it worth reading.  LAF

Education According to Mike Milken

With K12, the largest U.S. operator of taxpayer-funded online schools, the former junk-bond king has figured out how to make money in education. Is that a good thing?

Bloomberg Businessweek By John Hechinger, June 2, 2011
Ten-year-old Asiko Aderin is wearing headphones and staring into a computer screen, looking very much like an underage call center employee. It's a weekday morning—a school day—and this is what school looks like for Asiko and her two brothers, Ayomiro, 11, and Ayodeji, 8. Holed up in the basement of their family's Poconos, Pa., home, they watch lessons on a screen, typing answers to questions as their mother, Sharon Aderin, a former U.S. Army Reserve sergeant, hovers nearby. The children attend Agora Cyber Charter School, managed by K12 (LRN), the largest U.S. operator of taxpayer-funded online schools and part-owned by billionaire Michael Milken.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_24/b4232076996440.htm

 

Here's an Education News Interview with Charles Zogby about privatization from March 6, 2008

An Interview with Charles Zogby: About Privatization

Michael F. Shaughnessy, Senior Columnist EducationNews.org, March 6, 2008

http://www.educationnews.org/articles/an-interview-with-charles-zogby-about-privatization.html

 

Of the 12 cyber charter schools that are independent public schools and deliver instruction over the Internet, only two made AYP this year.

Hearing Regarding Seven New Cyber Charter School Applications Nov. 29th and Dec. 1st

[Pennsylvania Bulletin Saturday, October 29, 2011] DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Notice

The Department of Education (Department) has scheduled two public hearings regarding seven cyber charter school applications that it received on October 3, 2011. The hearings will be held on Tuesday, November 29, 2011, and December 1, 2011, in Heritage Room B on the lobby level at 333 Market Street, Harrisburg, PA at 10 a.m. The hearings pertain to applicants seeking to operate cyber charter schools beginning in the 2012-2013 school year which include: ACT Academy Cyber Charter School, AKOBEN Cyber Charter School, Education Plus Academy Cyber Charter School, Esperanza Cyber Charter School, Innovate U Cyber Charter School, Mercury Online Charter School of Pennsylvania and Solomon World Civilization Cyber Charter School. The purpose of the hearings is to gather information from the applicants about the proposed cyber charter schools as well as receive comments from interested persons regarding the applications. The applications can be viewed on Department's web site at www.education.state.pa.us.

 

"The Governor, the Pennsylvania Department of Education, the State Charter School Appeal Board, and local school districts should place a moratorium on authorizing new charter and cyber charter schools until the flawed funding mechanisms are equitable and reasonable for charter and cyber charter schools, for sending school districts and for Pennsylvania taxpayers."

Auditor General Jack Wagner, Bureau of School Audits

September 2010 Special Report

The Commonwealth Should Revise Its Charter and Cyber Charter School Funding Mechanisms

http://www.auditorgen.state.pa.us/reports/performance/special/speCharterFundingReport100510.pdf

 

 

"…our first priority must be to improve access to books among all children, and especially those who live in poverty, and the most obvious first step is to invest in libraries in high-poverty areas."
Need Children Read 'Proficiently' by Grade Three?
By Stephen Krashen, Language Magazine October 2011
A study by Donald Hernandez, titled "Double Jeopardy: How Third-Grade Reading Skills and Poverty Influence High-School Graduation," has received a great deal of attention in the media, including a notice in Language Magazine (May, 2011). The study, based on an analysis of 4000 children studied over ten years, concluded that those who don't read "proficiently" by third grade are less likely to graduate high school, and those who live in poverty and also do not read "proficiently" by grade three are even less likely to graduate high school.

"But after more than two decades of these New Reforms—more and more testing, higher stakes, charters, and mayoral control—we do know some things for sure:
(a) Test scores have not risen, and the test-score gap hasn't narrowed. 
(b) We have moved further away from building a profession that retains and uses its experienced teachers well. 
(c) We are witnessing unimaginable hours spent on test-prepping and a narrowing of the rest of the curriculum while cheating is being ignored and teachers are being demoralized. Hardly trivial side effects."

There Are No Quick Fixes

 Deborah Meier   
Dear Diane, If we could clone you and send you everywhere at once, with a few follow-ups from others, would it matter? Yes. Because we definitely don't reach as many people with our message as "they" (the Reformers) do with theirs.
Still, as Democrats Abroad France wrote recently in a proposal submitted to the Democratic Party Platform Committee: "We cannot improve education by quick fixes, by handing over our public schools to entrepreneurs, by driving out experienced professionals replacing them with enthusiastic amateurs, or by closing them and firing ... entire staffs. No country in the world follows such strategies."
We hold the world record in the amount of time devoted to testing—even as we also hold the record for spending less on children's health and welfare.

Use Education Voters PA website to contact your PA State Representatives asking them to oppose taxpayer funded vouchers:

For more info/background -  PSBA's Tuition Voucher Issue Page

Making the Grade – Virtual  Town Hall Meeting on November 1st to Discuss New Teacher Evaluation Process
PA Partnerships for Children and the PA Association of Intermediate Units are hosting a Virtual Town Hall Meeting on the new teacher evaluation process which was piloted by the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) earlier this year.   As PDE prepares to commence phase two of the pilot, you might be interested in hearing from the superintendents, principals and teachers who participated in the first phase. The town hall meeting will take place on Tuesday, November 1 at 7:00 pm at one of the Intermediate Units in your area.  The event will be video linked to 28 other locations across the state.
If you are interesting in attending, you can pre-register at the following link http://makingthegrade.paiunet.org/PAIUnet_Reg_Form.asp
The agenda with panelists can be accessed here: http://www.papartnerships.org/publication_files/mtg-nov-1-agenda.pdf

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Continued Opinions and Reaction to Passage of Voucher Bill SB1 in the PA Senate 10/28/11


Continued Opinions and Reaction to Passage of Voucher Bill SB1 in the PA Senate 10/28/11

Karen Heller at the Inquirer, Senate Minority Leader Jay Costa’s Floor Speech video, PSBA Executive Director Tom Gentzel in the Patriot News, Students First PAC Executive Director Dawn Chavous in the Patriot News, Patti Mengers in the Delco Times, Urban school principal Frank Murphy in City School Stories Blog, Westmont-Hilltop School Board member Phyllis Forman in the Johnstown Tribune-Democrat, Jan Murphy at Patriot News, Joy Pullman of the Heartland Institute at TribLive.com


Posted on Sun, Oct. 30, 2011

Karen Heller: Vouchers are not for the kids

By Karen Heller, Inquirer Columnist

The state Senate passed SB 1 last week, the voucher bill that appears to serve our poorest children attending Pennsylvania's worst public schools, the majority in Philadelphia, the very institutions whose funding the GOP-controlled legislature sliced and diced earlier this year.

But appearances can run contrary to the truth.

"This has nothing to do with helping the poor children of Philadelphia," said State Sen. Daylin Leach. "The organizations that are funding the pro-voucher movement are very open that they want to eliminate public schools.

http://www.philly.com/philly/columnists/karen_heller/20111030_Karen_Heller__Vouchers_are_not_for_the_kids.html

 

“Since 2003, PA is the only state in the country, for 9 years in a row, to consistently improve achievement scores…nearly 80% achieving in reading and math….we have considerably narrowed the learning gap…the number of students in the lowest percentile has been considerably reduced…”

PA Senate Minority Leader Jay Costa’s response to Senator Dinniman’s “Titanic” floor speech on SB1

During floor discussion prior to vote on SB1; Video runtime 3:40

http://www.senatorcosta.com/October26-2011release.htm

 

Why do Pa. lawmakers ignore the will of the people on school vouchers?

Published: Friday, October 28, 2011, 5:00 AM
Patriot News OP-ED By Thomas J. Gentzel
With the narrow passage this week of Senate Bill 1 by the Pennsylvania Senate, taxpayers in the commonwealth have been given a trick not a treat when it comes to potentially higher taxes in the future.

After actual statewide test results in Wisconsin this year showed that voucher students in Milwaukee (the nation’s longest running voucher program) were performing no better than students in traditional public schools, voucher advocacy groups began to tune their soundbites, switching from “helping poor students in failing schools” to “helping poor students escape violent schools”.

The “solution” proposed by voucher evangelists like the Students First PAC, The American Federation for Children, the Commonwealth Foundation, the Reach Foundation and the PA Catholic Conference is to give 5 or 10 percent of the kids a ticket out and leave the “violent, failing school” with several hundred thousand dollars less in funding for things like safety officers, counselors, nurses and social workers – leaving the 90% or more of the kids at the school considerably less safe.  If the concern is actually about safety it is a strange way of showing it.  Just my humble opinion…..LAF

School vouchers: For some, it's a concern about safety

Published: Saturday, October 29, 2011, 10:46 AM
  Patriot-News Op-Ed  by Dawn Chavous, Executive Director of Students First PA
Pennsylvania’s public education system needs help. Every day that passes without enacting meaningful school choice legislation that empowers parents and gives them access to more educational options, countless students slip through the cracks from a future full of hope to a future full of despair.

3 of 4 Delco senators backs school voucher bill; passes first test

By PATTI MENGERS, pmengers@delcotimes.com
Three out of four Delaware County state senators voted Wednesday in favor of Gov. Tom Corbett’s bill that would provide vouchers to low-income students in poorly performing public schools and enable them to be educated elsewhere.

School Vouchers: Funding Private Interests with Public Funds
City School Stories Blog: Notes from the Field, Submitted by Frank Murphy on October 27, 2011
Some time ago I wrote a post for the Notebook titled, “If I Were a Rich Man”.  My intention in writing this article was simple.  I wanted to point out how a few wealthy individuals were using their personal fortunes in an attempt to influence the future of public education in our state.
These Bala Cynwyd businessmen had contributed millions of dollars to the failed gubernatorial campaign of State Senator Anthony Williams. They are ardent advocates for the use of school vouchers.
And this one from the Inky June 2010:

Johnstown Tribune-Democrat October 29, 2011

OP/ED: Voucher plan means more fingers in wallet

This past Tuesday, the Pennsylvania Senate passed Senate Bill 1 and sent it on to the House. If passed, SB1 may have a significant impact on you as a taxpayer and parent.
http://tribune-democrat.com/editorials/x717137967/Phyllis-Forman-Voucher-plan-means-more-fingers-in-wallet


 School vouchers Q&A: Pennsylvania Senate Bill 1 is awaiting House action
Published: Sunday, October 30, 2011, 11:04 AM
While the way the voucher program is structured in Senate Bill 1 could change as it makes its way through the legislative process, The Patriot-News wanted to give readers a better understanding of how its architects, Sen. Jeffrey Piccola, R-Dauphin County, and Sen. Anthony Williams, D-Philadelphia, envision their voucher program would work.

Voucher critics are misleading the public
Opinion at TribLive.com By Joy Pullmann. Sunday, October 30, 2011
Joy Pullmann is a research fellow in education and managing editor of School Reform News at The Heartland Institute (heartland.org).
The usual suspects have again begun loudly denouncing Gov. Tom Corbett's push for a second chance at passing education vouchers for poor students in Pennsylvania's worst 5 percent of public schools.




Saturday, October 29, 2011

Lawn Signs: SUPPORT PUBLIC EDUCATION STOP BUDGET CUTS SAY NO TO VOUCHERS

SUPPORT PUBLIC EDUCATION
STOP BUDGET CUTS
SAY NO TO VOUCHERS



After attending our Delco PA PASS Countywide PTO Legislative Forum on October 13th, a school parent from the Springfield SD (Delco) has ordered 200 lawn signs and I asked her to send me the info.  If you are not in SE PA ask your local sign company for something similar.  
Pricing, ordering info and a proof is below. Choice of four colors:



Mr. Feinberg,

Here is the sign information.  Please feel free to share!
Signs read:
SUPPORT PUBLIC EDUCATION
STOP BUDGET CUTS
SAY NO TO VOUCHERS
Ordered from:

Fastsigns of Springfield
164 Baltimore Pike
Springfield, PA 19064
ph: 610-543-7446
Email: 491@fastsigns.com
Choice of 4 colors.  Order info and artwork saved under: Friel
Price is determined by quantity.

For 200 signs the price was $4.84 per sign plus .95 per wire stake, $5.79 each total.  I had a 10% off new customer coupon, so I ended up paying $5.22 per sign and a grand total of $1042.20.  Price for 250 is $4.73 plus .95 for stake.  500 signs is $4.12 plus .95 for stake.  Don't forget to ask for the coupon (if you are a new customer).  Signs take 5-7 days and I think you should plan on it taking 7.  I'm anxiously awaiting my signs!

Thank you.
Karen Friel

Friday, October 28, 2011

Parents make their voices heard at Bucks County education meeting

Keystone State Education Coalition Daily Postings are now viewed by over 1000 Pennsylvania education policymakers, administrators, legislators and members of the press.

Follow us on Twitter at @lfeinberg

 

Parents make their voices heard at Bucks County education meeting

Posted: Friday, October 28, 2011 5:30 am | Updated: 6:46 am, Fri Oct 28, 2011.
Bucks County Courier Times By Manasee Wagh Staff writer 
A spirited exchange of ideas had people clapping, nodding and asking questions at a hearing Thursday evening about solving the challenges facing public education.
Issues ranging from charter schools to school vouchers and funding problems in the state education system raised emotions and spurred two hours of discussion in the William Tennent High School auditorium in Warminster.

Ongoing Coverage and Reaction to Passage of Voucher Bill SB1 in the PA Senate 10/28/11
Mary Levy for AP, Angela Coulombis and Dan Hardy at the Inquirer, Daniel Denvir at Citypaper, Philadelphia Daily News Editorial, Gil Spencer at Delco Times, Democracy Rising

Pennsylvania State Senators Comments Following Passage of Voucher Bill SB1

Posted at 04:00 AM ET, 10/27/2011

A primer on corporate school reform

Washington Post Answer Sheet Blog By Valerie Strauss
This is an edited version of a commentary given by Stan Karp , a teacher of English and journalism in Paterson, N.J., for 30 years. Karp spoke on Oct. 1 at the fourth annual Northwest Teachers for Justice conference in Seattle. He is now the director of the Secondary Reform Project for New Jersey's Education Law Center and an editor of the 25-year-oldRethinking Schools magazine. A video and fuller version of the commentary can be found here.

Use Education Voters PA website to contact your PA State Representatives asking them to oppose taxpayer funded vouchers:

For more info/background -  PSBA's Tuition Voucher Issue Page

Making the Grade – Virtual  Town Hall Meeting on November 1st to Discuss New Teacher Evaluation Process
PA Partnerships for Children and the PA Association of Intermediate Units are hosting a Virtual Town Hall Meeting on the new teacher evaluation process which was piloted by the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) earlier this year.   As PDE prepares to commence phase two of the pilot, you might be interested in hearing from the superintendents, principals and teachers who participated in the first phase. The town hall meeting will take place on Tuesday, November 1 at 7:00 pm at one of the Intermediate Units in your area.  The event will be video linked to 28 other locations across the state.
If you are interesting in attending, you can pre-register at the following link:  http://makingthegrade.paiunet.org/PAIUnet_Reg_Form.asp
The agenda with panelists can be accessed herehttp://www.papartnerships.org/publication_files/mtg-nov-1-agenda.pdf

Education Voters Video Contest - DEADLINE 10/30

Education Voters Institute of Pennsylvania (EVI) is conducting a video project to highlight both the impact of cuts to critical programs that serve kids, and the importance of education to our communities and our economy.