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Education
Voters PA Statewide Call to Action for Public Education Wednesday January 25th
Please consider taking a
few minutes tomorrow and forward this to other public education stakeholders.
On Wednesday, January
25, Education Voters of Pennsylvania will
be sponsoring a Statewide
Call to Action for Public Education. Click here to tell the Governor and your state
legislators that Education is important to you!
By Colby
Itkowitz, Morning Call Washington
8:05 p.m.
EST, January 23,
2012
A Delaware County
elementary school teacher who said this month that she'd continue working
without pay in the face of budget cuts has been invited to sit with First Lady
Michelle Obama during Tuesday night's State of the Union .
Sara
Ferguson, a teacher at Columbus Elementary in the Chester Upland
School District
NSBA to host Twitter chat
on education issues during State of the Union
The National School Boards
Association (NSBA) will
be hosting a Twitter
chat during President Obama’s State of the Union address,
starting at 9 p.m. EST on Tuesday, Jan. 24.
Join the Twitter chat by
using hashtag #EdSOTU and share your thoughts about
the president’s speech and his plans for K-12 education.
By using #EdSOTU in your
tweets, you will become a part of this virtual conversation. To see the entire
conversation stream just go to Twitter and search #EdSOTU.
Ongoing Chester
Upland Financial Situation Updates
Updated Daily
PA Senate Education
Committee to hold a public hearing on fiscally distressed school districts
Tuesday, January 24, 2012 10:00 AM , Hearing Room 1 North Office Bldg.
Media Advisory with agenda here: http://piccola.org/press/2012/0112/012312.htm
PA House Education
Committee to hold informational meeting on cyber charter school funding and
operating issues
Thursday, January 26, 2012 10:00 AM , Room 60 East Wing
Education Policy and Leadership Center
EPLC Education Notebook
Monday, January
23, 2012
Study: Early Education for Poor Students Carries
Long-Term Benefits
Right on the heels of last week's news that some
states are cutting back on prekindergarten programs because of budget woes
comes a new study that proves exposure to quality early childhood education can
transform lives.
The study, published in the journal Developmental
Psychology by
researchers at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, shows that adults
who received high-quality child care starting as babies were still reaping
benefits even 30 years later.
Those benefits include achieving a higher level
of education, having a greater likelihood of being consistently employed and
less likelihood of using public assistance. Study participants also showed a
tendency to delay parenthood.
The new data comes from the long-running Abecedarian
Project led by the
university's FPG Child
Development Institute, which began following 111 infants (who
were mostly African-American) in 1972. The kids were from low-income families
and were considered to be at risk of developmental delays or academic failure.
Staff, kindergarten may
be cut at Shamokin Area School District
Shamokin News Item BY
ERIC SCICCHITANO
(STAFF WRITERERIC_S@NEWSITEM.COM) Published: January 23, 2012
An estimated 25
professional and non-professional positions could also be eliminated, some
through attrition.
Projected revenues for
2012-13 total $27.5 million while expenditures are at $32.1 million, leaving
school board directors the unenviable task of making up the difference
Publics' edge: Districts
can make AYP even if a school fails
By Rachel Weaver, PITTSBURGH
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
When Ron and Tina Gamble's twin daughters, Jessica
and Lauren, considered leaving public school for cyber school after sophomore
year, several factors influenced their decision. The family from Murrysville liked the flexible cyber school schedule and
lack of "busy work."
Standardized test scores and state requirements
did not factor into the decision.
"They don't seem that important to
me," said Lauren Gamble, 17.
Since the charter school movement began in Pennsylvania Western Pennsylvania
keep growing.
More than 90,000 students are enrolled in 142
public charter schools, including 12 cyber charter schools, according to the
Pennsylvania Coalition of Public Charter Schools. An estimated 30,000 students
are on waiting lists.
Data show traditional charters fare better
academically than their virtual counterparts.
In Pennsylvania
Read more: Publics' edge: Districts can make AYP
even if a school fails - Pittsburgh
The facts that school
reformers ignore
This was written by Richard Rothstein, a
research associate at the Economic Policy Institute, a non-profit organization
created to broaden the discussion about economic policy to include the
interests of low- and middle-income workers. From 1999 to 2002 he was the
national education columnist of The New York Times, and he is the author of
several books, including “Grading Education: Getting Accountability Right” and
“Class and Schools: Using Social, Economic and Educational Reform to Close the
Black-White Achievement Gap.” This appeared on the institute’s website.
By Richard Rothstein
Education “reformers”
have a common playbook. First, assert without evidence that regular public
schools are “failing” and that large numbers of regular (unionized) public
school teachers are incompetent. Provide no documentation for this claim other
than that the test score gap between minority and white children remains large.
Then propose so-called reforms to address the unproven problem — charter
schools to escape teacher unionization and the mechanistic use of student
scores on low-quality and corrupted tests to identify teachers who should be
fired.
Thanks to keystone for such wonderful educative post. I am much taught here.
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