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Governor Corbett’s stark naked
school choice: some moving out, some moving in
Some
moving out of troubled Chester
Upland School
District
By Dan Hardy Inquirer Staff
Writer Posted: Tue, Jan.
10, 2012 , 3:01 AM
With Delaware
County 's beleaguered Chester Upland
School District
Ieasa Nichols Harmon, the
mother of three children and until last month a school board member, moved to Wilmington
Since
for-profit management companies that contract to run charter schools in Pennsylvania have virtually no fiscal transparency
requirements, taxpayers have no idea how much they have contributed to the
$28.9 million Palm Beach Chester Community Charter
School , the state’s largest brick and
mortar charter, already enrolls about half of Chester
Upland
On July 21, 2011
Benjamin Herrold reported in the Notebook that the Chester Community Charter
School (CCCS) was
among the 89 school across the state that are to be investigated for
statistical irregularities on the 2009 PSSA.
Almost six months later we are still waiting for the results of that
investigation.
In the August 2011 issue of Philadelphia
Magazine, Jason Fagone reported that “According to Republican State Representative Mike
Vereb, who considers himself a friend of Gureghian, "The language that
Vahan was looking to do (in a pending charter school reform bill) had to do
with vendors of a school … contractors." The effect of such language would
be to hide details of the financial operations of charter schools from public
scrutiny. Presumably, this would make it harder for Gureghian's competitors to
copy his financial "recipe.""
Some moving in: Palm Beach Florida November
3, 2011
There’s finally word about who bought 1071 N. Ocean Blvd. Palm Beach
http://keystonestateeducationcoalition.blogspot.com/2011/06/follow-money-contributions-by-vahan.html
Pottstown Mercury by
Evan Brandt Published: Saturday, January 07, 2012 ebrandt@pottsmerc.com
POTTSTOWN — Closing the projected budget gap
for the 2012-13 school year could cost the average taxpayer more than $113,
according to the preliminary budget presented to the school board Thursday
night.
BTW, Pottstown
could be next…….
"Should that new paradigm involve Gureghian's takeover of
Pottstown's elementary education, it would also have meant, by Lindley's
estimates, a $19.2 million windfall in Pottstown
tax dollars for Gureghian's company."
The Pottstown
Mercury, Published: Sunday, May 29, 2011
By Evan Brandt, ebrandt@pottsmerc.com
Andrew Dinniman, D-19th Dist. told The Mercury
that with Harrisburg battling over school vouchers and a difficult state budget
that it is unlikely any action would be undertaken on the charter school reform
bill before the fall. ...
FYI,
Jeffrey S. Yass,
Managing Director, Susquehanna International Group, LLP who funded the
pro-voucher Student’s First PAC to the tune of $1,727,166.00
is a member of the Board of Directors of the Cato
Institute.
EITC: An Alternate Way
Wall Street Journal Letters By Adam Schaeffer,
Cato Institute, Washington
Your editorial "Republicans for Monopoly" (Dec. 31) lamenting Pennsylvania's
school-choice deadlock misses the real story: The Pennsylvania House passed a
massive expansion of the state's Educational Improvement Tax Credit
program—already the largest private choice program in terms of the number of
students—by 190 votes to seven.
Report
Finds No Accountability in Existing State EITC Program Funneling Tax Credits to
Private Schools
Despite receiving roughly a third of a billion dollars in taxpayer
funds over the past decade, a state program that funds scholarships for
students attending private and religious schools lacks fundamental
accountability measures.
The Keystone
Research Center
The report is designed to help guide a growing debate around a
plan to offer taxpayer-funded vouchers to all low-income school-age children
for tuition at private and religious schools — and what accountability measures
will be put in place in such a voucher program.
"With no educational or financial accountability in EITC
scholarships for private school tuition, the state is simply not ready for a
new voucher program with a price tag to taxpayers that is at least 10-times as
big," said Stephen Herzenberg, PhD, the report's author.
"Policymakers instead should focus on strengthening accountability in the
EITC."
What is Pennsylvania
Lehigh Valley
Published:
Saturday, January
07, 2012 , 4:15 AM
Lehigh Valley Live.com
The Bethlehem school community stepped up when state budget cuts decimated local schools and social services. But local educators warned state legislators Friday that the well is running dry and trouble looms if the state doesn’t step up and fulfill its responsibilities.
Educators shared the ramifications of Gov. Tom Corbett’s budget cuts withLehigh Valley
state Reps. Steve Samuelson and Joe Brennan Friday during a roundtable talk at
the Hispanic Center Lehigh Valley.
The Bethlehem school community stepped up when state budget cuts decimated local schools and social services. But local educators warned state legislators Friday that the well is running dry and trouble looms if the state doesn’t step up and fulfill its responsibilities.
Educators shared the ramifications of Gov. Tom Corbett’s budget cuts with
WHAT WORKS: “The school's success is all the more
remarkable because its pass rate as late as 2008 was just 53 percent.
…."What it all added up to is: We created a culture shift that led to
everything being focused on student achievement," he said.
By Dan Hardy, Inquirer Staff Writer Posted: Mon,
Jan. 9, 2012 ,
12:08 PM
In the region, school districts and schools such
as Lower Merion, Tredyffrin/Easttown, Unionville-Chadds Ford, and Philadelphia 's Masterman
School
In the less-noticed area of career and technical
education, the region can now boast of a school with a comparable ranking.
Alternet.org By Rania Khalek, January 8, 2012
Why Is Public Education
Being Outsourced to Online Charter Schools?
Virtual charter schools are educating kids on
computer screens, instead of in classrooms.
Virtual charter schools, which offer classes
online instead of in a classroom, have become the fastest-growing segment of
the charter school industry. And while data on their effectiveness is scarce,
state legislators across the country are passing laws to expand cyber schools
at the behest of privatization advocates and online education companies at an
alarming rate, with little regulation.
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