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Latest Updates on Chester Upland
John Kopp @ Delco Times, John
Micek @ Morning Call, Dan Hardy@ Inquirer and Post-Gazette, Amy Worden@
Inquirer, Valerie Strauss@ Washington Post
DN
Editorial: Chaput's claims of discrimination are wrong
THE ARCHDIOCESE of Philadelphia 's
announcement last week that it was closing 49 schools sparked intense emotion.
Much of it was from the anguished students, parents and teachers of the
parochial system, but certainly much from the community at large. Given the
events of the last few years, such public sympathy for the Catholic Church is
no small thing. In fact, it seemed we had, for a moment, general public
recognition that educating kids was a task we all need to tackle together,
whether public or private.
Then, yesterday, in a column on
PhillyCatholic.com, Archbishop Charles Chaput uttered the "D" word,
potentially undoing some of that general good will.
The "D" word he
uttered was not a profanity, but the word "discriminate." Chaput
urged parents upset with the blue-ribbon commission's report not to be mad at
the Archdiocese, but at public officials and others who
"discriminate" against Catholic students by not having public monies
support their education.
It harkens to the old argument
of the Archdiocese's "saving" taxpayer dollars by educating kids in
their own system. (An argument rarely made by childless taxpayers who pay
school taxes, or those who never use public services like fire.) Chaput's claim
of discrimination adds a fighting edge - albeit an unfair fight.
Catholic parents choose to send
their kids to Catholic schools; they are not forbidden to send their kids to
public schools. The fact that the public doesn't pay Catholic children for
their religious education is no more discriminatory than the public not paying
Jewish students to attend Hebrew school, or Muslim kids to go to their
madrassa, or Quaker kids to go to Friends' school. And that's the way the
Constitution wants it.
PA School Districts Budget Updates January 14, 2011
Khepera Charter ratifies union contract
THE NOTEBOOK by Will
Treece on Jan
12 2012
The Board of Directors at Khepera Charter School
and the year-old bargaining unit representing its teachers ratified their first
contract Monday. The contract establishes a salary scale and regularizes
procedures for labor-management communications and teacher evaluation.
Khepera is a K-8
African-centered academy in West Mount Airy that opened in 2004.
The teachers voted last June to
be represented by the Alliance
of Charter Schools and Employees, an affiliate of the American Federation
of Teachers Pennsylvania.
Another education candidate
announces…..
Democrat
announces bid for state House seat held by Gillespie
CHRISTINA KAUFFMAN -- The York Dispatch, Updated: 01/12/2012
03:56:32 PM EST
State Rep. Keith Gillespie, R-Springettsbury Township , will have competition this
year.
Democrat Shane Richardson, 27,
of Hellam Township
announced Thursday he plans to run for the 47th House District in northeastern York County .
He has a bachelor's and
master's degrees in education from Millersville
University , he said.
Education, property tax reform
and social programs would be his priority, he said, and he would work to save
libraries and senior centers.
Review Finds Studies of Charter Schools Flawed,
Problematic
Most
studies of charter schools use unsophisticated methods and are flawed in ways
that prevent researchers from accurately gauging those institutions' impact on
student achievement, a new review concludes.
And while researchers have options for
collecting more accurate information about charter school performance, they
also face obstacles along the way—some of them related to the unwillingness
among states and schools to provide crucial data, the analysis finds.
A meta-analysis of charter school studies
revealed that about 75 percent of them do not meet rigorous research standards
because they don't account for the differences in academic background and academic
histories of students attending charters, when comparing them with those
attending traditional public schools, according to the review, published in the renowned journal Science.
Why Is Congress Redlining
Our Schools?
Linda Darling-Hammond January 10, 2012
This article appeared in the January 30, 2012
edition of The Nation.
Redlining was the once-common practice in which
banks would draw a red line on a map—often along a natural barrier like a
highway or river—to designate neighborhoods where they would not invest.
Stigmatized and denied access to loans and other resources, redlined
communities, populated by African-Americans and other people of color, often became
places that lacked businesses, jobs, grocery stores and other services, and
thus could not retain a thriving middle class. Redlining produced and
reinforced a vicious cycle of decline for which residents themselves were
typically blamed.
Today a new form of redlining is emerging. If
passed, the long-awaited Senate bill to reauthorize the Elementary and
Secondary Education Act (ESEA) would build a bigger highway between
low-performing schools serving high-need students—the so-called “bottom 5
percent”—and all other schools. Tragically, the proposed plan would weaken
schools in the most vulnerable communities and further entrench the
problems—concentrated poverty, segregation and lack of human and fiscal
resources—that underlie their failure.
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