Daily postings
from the Keystone State Education Coalition now reach more than 1500
Pennsylvania education policymakers – school directors, administrators,
legislators, members of the press and a broad array of education advocacy
organizations via emails, website, Facebook and Twitter.
These daily
emails are archived at http://keystonestateeducationcoalition.org
Follow us
on Twitter at @lfeinberg
Please note that the Allegheny County
Legislative Forum scheduled for Thursday, April 12th at North Hills
High School
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation pull support from ALEC
Joins Kraft, Coca Cola and PepsiCo in withdrawing
support
This and other updates to our April 5th
ALEC posting
http://keystonestateeducationcoalition.blogspot.com/2012/04/alec-american-legislative-exchange.html
Inadequate
Yinzercation Blog APRIL 9, 2012
A pro-public-education
piece in Harrisburg
http://yinzercation.wordpress.com/2012/04/09/inadequate/
Education Policy and Leadership Center
Friday, April 6, 2012
EPLC Education Notebook – Friday, April 6, 2012
Legislators plan lawsuit to trim aid to shrinking Pa.
By Eleanor Chute / Pittsburgh April 8, 2012 12:00 am
With ever tightening
state money for education and pressure from taxpayers to hold the line on
taxes, education funding is becoming a zero-sum game.
If one school, program
or student gets more money, then something or someone else gets less.
Now legislators in
growing parts of the state are planning a lawsuit in the next few months that,
if successful, would take money from shrinking school districts, such as 24 of
43 school districts in Allegheny
County
The legislators -- 10 so
far have signed on -- plan to file suit in Commonwealth Court
Education
advocates draw attention to state budget issues with cookies
Public Opinion Online BY
MORGAN YOUNG 04/09/2012
04:44:39 PM EDT
SHIPPENSBURG -- Armed
with chocolate chip cookies, concerned Shippensburg area community members
brought attention to Gov. Tom Corbett's proposed budget cuts to public
education at a mock bake sale Monday.
Education Matters in the
Cumberland Valley Capitol Building
in Harrisburg
Fake bake sale protests budget
A group
of parents led by a Democratic candidate for the state House held a mock bake
sale at the Capitol this afternoon to protest Gov. Tom Corbett's proposals for
education funding.
“Consistently with previous school library impact studies,
this analysis found that test scores tend to be significantly higher for
schools that have full-time certified school librarians as well as for those
that have such a librarian with support staff.”
WHAT WORKS: Schools with
full time librarians
First Results from
PA’s IMLS-Funded 21st Century School Library Infrastructure Study
In 2011, school
libraries throughout Pennsylvania Pennsylvania
The results of this
analysis are being released over the next several weeks in a series of
PowerPoint presentations. First up are findings about the relationship
between school library staffing and test scores. Consistently with
previous school library impact studies, this analysis found that test scores
tend to be significantly higher for schools that have full-time certified
school librarians as well as for those that have such a librarian with support
staff.
“…new study from the
Wisconsin Policy Research Institute runs the numbers and finds that on purely
economic grounds, there are huge returns to society on an investment in
kids before they reach kindergarten.”
WHAT WORKS: Pre-K education pays off, $16 to $1
Wausau (Wisconsin 11:00 PM ,
Apr. 5, 2012
Early childhood education is not a particularly
controversial subject, and it might not be an area where advocates are used to
marshaling reams of data to make their case. But a new study from the Wisconsin
Policy Research Institute runs the numbers and finds that on purely economic
grounds, there are huge returns to society on an investment in
kids before they reach kindergarten. There
are lots of reasons to value education of all sorts, and they aren't all
economic. But it is true an overall rise in education levels leads to a higher
standard of living for everyone.
WPRI is a right-leaning think tank but not a
propaganda shop, and its study, "The Economic Power of Early Childhood Education in Wisconsin
Dallas ISD board may join other Texas
Attention, Dallas ISD parents
-- students too. You're not the only ones who hate standardized testing. Matter
of fact, the loudest critic is none other than Texas Education Agency
Commissioner Robert Scott, who, as you may recall, referred to teaching to the
test as nothing less than a "a perversion of its original intent."
The reason: Students
spent most of their days these days either studying for or taking standardized
tests. The district's even offering prep sessions for the STAAR
test.
And while some in the state Lege refuse to budge (hello, Florence Shapiro), districts statewide are
beginning to speak up for themselves. As Valerie Strauss noted on her Washington Post ed blog recently, more than 100 districts
across the state have passed a resolution condemning the state's
"over-reliance on standardized, high stakes testing."
How Finnish schools shine
Teachers are respected, exams are shunned and
league tables simply don't exist – but if the Finnish system is so good why is
it so hard to emulate?
Adam
Lopez
One western country that has
excelled in PISA ratings consistently over the years and is highly
regarded across the globe as a leading education nation is Finland
What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart?
Wall Street Journal
Online By ELLEN
GAMERMAN February
29, 2008
High-school students
here rarely get more than a half-hour of homework a night. They have no school
uniforms, no honor societies, no valedictorians, no tardy bells and no classes
for the gifted. There is little standardized testing, few parents agonize over
college and kids don't start school until age 7.
Yet by one
international measure, Finnish teenagers are among the smartest in the world.
They earned some of the top scores by 15-year-old students who were tested in
57 countries. American teens finished among the world's C students even as U.S. U.S.
Early Results Out From Teacher-Transfer-For-Cash
Study
A cash incentive appears to have helped seven
school districts attract effective teachers to low-income schools, though the
longer-term impact of the transfers on teacher retention and student
achievement results remains to be seen, a recently released analysis concludes.
The results are the first findings from the
Talent Transfer Initiative, a U.S. Department of Education funded project.
There's a short description of the initiative in this Education Week story. The
basic idea is to offer bonuses of $20,000 to teachers with high-value-added
scores to transfer to positions in a low-achieving schools and to study the
results, in up to 10 districts.
La. adopts school charter, voucher, tenure
changes
Thetowntalk (Louisiana 3:28 PM , Apr. 6, 2012
BATON ROUGE -- Gov. Bobby Jindal triumphed
Thursday in his bid to embark on a historic overhaul of public education in Louisiana
Moderate Voice Blog APR
9TH, 2012
A
Tale of Two Crows by Catherine Tanguis
As if the Stand Your Ground law and the current efforts to restrict voter registration hadn’t reminded us that discrimination is alive and well in the 21st century, Senator A.G. Crowe ofSlidell , Louisiana
As if the Stand Your Ground law and the current efforts to restrict voter registration hadn’t reminded us that discrimination is alive and well in the 21st century, Senator A.G. Crowe of
On the surface, Senate Bill 217 almost appears as innocuous as Senator
Crowe would like us to
believe. Supported by the Louisiana Baptist Convention, the Conference of Catholic
Bishops, and the Louisiana Family Forum, SB 217 would require that
all state entries prohibit discrimination based upon race, religion, national
ancestry, age, sex, or disability. To the casual observer, this seems entirely
reasonable and fair. In a series of rhetorical equivocations that would make
the Jesuits proud, Senator Crowe explained
the reason he introduced the bill ” is because public entities throughout the
state have not been following current law.”
As St. Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologica reminds
us, sometimes what it is omitted is what is most heinous. Omitted from SB 217
are the broader anti-discrimination policies as defined by the Department of
Education which protects children from being discriminated against, among other
things, for sexual orientation, athletic ability, ability to speak English and
mental or physical disability. If SB 217 becomes law, those seeking state
contracts, including charter schools (which are supported by tax payer
dollars), would not be bound by the broader Department of Education’s
anti-discrimination policies. This is at the very time when the Louisiana
Legislature has decided
through a series of controversial bills to expand the state’s charter school
program.
MON APR 09, 2012 AT
03:43 AM PDT
Important piece critical of Teach for America
DailyKOS by teacherken
Important piece
critical of Teach for America
A brief explanation. Anthony
has over the past few months put up guest posts by people who have been
critical of Teach for America
STATEWIDE PRESS COVERAGE OF SCHOOL DISTRICT BUDGETS
Here are more than 400 articles since
January 23rd detailing budget cuts, program cuts, staffing cuts and
tax increases being discussed by local school districts
The PA House Democratic Caucus has been tracking daily press coverage on
school district budgets statewide:
http://www.pahouse.com/school_funding_2011cuts.asp?utm_source=Listrak&utm_medium=Email&utm_term=http%3a%2f%2fwww.pahouse.com%2fschool_funding_2011cuts.asp&utm_campaign=Crisis+in+Public+Education
REMEMBER TO VOTE! TUESDAY, APRIL 24th
Tuesday,
April 24 is Primary Election Day
in Pennsylvania
Polls open at 7:00 a.m. and close at 8:00 p.m. Click here to find your polling place. During the Primary, registered members of the
Republican and Democrat parties are eligible to vote to nominate the candidates
that will represent their party on the ballot in the November General Election. ALL
voters will be required to show a photo ID before voting at a polling place in
the November 2012 Election. Click here for
more information on the new Voter ID law.
Stand Up for Public Education!
East Penn Education Forum on April 25th
7:00 – 9:00 pm
What’s at Stake? Discover how high-stakes testing and funding
cuts are impacting our kids and schools.
Hosted by: East Penn Invested Citizens (EPIC), Salisbury Parent Advisory,
Allentown Parent Groups and a coalition of Lehigh Valley Parents
Where: East Penn Administration Building School Board Meeting Room, 800 Pine Street
Stand Up for Public Education!
Wed., April 11, 2012 7:00 pm Town Hall Meeting on Education at Bucknell University
Meeting with legislators from Columbia
Where:
The Forum, Room 272, Elaine
Langone Center
Bucknell University Moore Avenue Lewisburg , PA 17837
7
p.m. – School directors and administrators meet with legislators (PSBA
Legislative Meeting)
7:30
p.m. – Town Hall Meeting on Education – Please invite your PTO/PTA and other
parent/ community groups to join us! The
purpose of the 7 p.m. meeting is for school directors and administrators to
discuss the impact of the governor’s 2011-12 budget proposal on their school
districts. At 7:30 p.m., the meeting will be open to all interested parents and
other members of the community who would like to come out in support of their
public schools and ask their legislators to take their message back to Harrisburg
Please
RSVP By April 4, to Kathy Swope, PSBA Region 6 director, at (570)
523-3336 or email swope@ptd.net
Has your board considered this draft resolution yet?
PSBA Sample Board
Resolution regarding the budget
Please consider bringing this sample resolution to
the members of your board.
http://www.psba.org/issues-advocacy/issues-research/state-budget/Budget_resolution-02212012.doc
PA Partnerships for
Children – Take action on the Governor’s Budget
The governor’s budget plan cuts funding for proven
programs like Child Care Works, Keystone STARS and the T.E.A.C.H. scholarship
program, Pennsylvania Pre-K Counts and the Head Start Supplemental Assistance
Program. These are among the most cost-effective
investments we can make in education. Gov. Corbett’s budget plan also runs counter
to a pledge he made when he ran for governor in 2010. He acknowledged the
benefits of early childhood education and promised to increase funding to
double the number of children who would benefit from early learning
opportunities.
We need your help to tell lawmakers: if you cut
these programs – you close the door to early learning! Click here to tell your state legislators to fund early childhood education programs
at the same level they approved for this year’s budget.
Education Voters PA –
Take action on the Governor’s Budget
The Governor’s proposal starts the process,
but it isn’t all decided: our legislators can play an important role in
standing up for our priorities. Last year, public outcry helped prevent
nearly $300 million in additional cuts. We heard from the Governor, and
we know where he stands. Now,
we need to ask our legislators: what is your position on supporting our
schools?
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