Saturday, June 30, 2012

Early Saturday PA Budget Update: Charter Reform, EITC Voucher expansion still in play....


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

The PA House is scheduled to be back in session at 9:00 am Saturday June 30th

Gov. Tom Corbett expected to sign budget plan today
Published: Saturday, June 30, 2012, 5:00 AM
BY JAN MURPHY AND CHARLES THOMPSON, The Patriot-News
For the second consecutive year, Gov. Tom Corbett is in a position to say he got a state budget done on time.  Barely.
The state Senate approved the $27.7 billion state spending plan 32-17 Friday. The House passed the bill Thursday. Corbett is expected to sign it once he receives the enabling bills that finance the spending plan. The governor is expected to sign the budget today — before the midnight deadline when the state loses authority to pay certain vendors and services.
On Friday night, legislative leaders and administration officials were trying to hammer out the final details and votes for charter school reforms in a broader education bill.
The major stumbling block is a Senate-backed provision through which a majority of parents could petition to convert a public school to a charter school, sources said.
Lawmakers have to reach agreement on that while not shaking off support from Democrats that may be critical to passing the larger bill.
“We’re doing an incredibly large bucket of education reform, and I think it’s perfectly understandable there’s disagreement on some of the pieces,” said Drew Crompton, chief of staff to Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati, R-Jefferson County.

Budget Updates: Senate passes cracker tax credit, teacher evaluations; question remain on charter school reform
PA Independent This is an update from 10:10 p.m.
HARRISBURG – The state Senate sent a series of accompanying budget bills to the House on Friday evening, but there is still no final budget package with a little more than 24 hours before the budget deadline hits.
…..The state House will vote Saturday on that bill and on a proposal to change the way public school teachers are evaluated.
….However, one expected vote did not take place on a bill that would have expanded the existing Educational Improvement Tax Credit, or EITC, program to $100 million and added a new $50 million component aimed at getting poor students out of the state’s worst-performing school districts.
There is also work to be done on a charter school reform package that would change how those schools are authorized at the state level and would implement a series of financial accountability measures.
“A few lingering, ongoing discussions, but nothing that gives us any concern,” said Erik Arneson, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, R-Chester.  “We have an agreement with the House. We’re very confident that agreement will be honored.”

PA School Funding Campaign:
2012-2013 STATE BUDGET REJECTS ADDITIONAL K-12 FUNDING CUTS BUT FAILS TO ADDRESS KEY SCHOOL DISTRICT ISSUES AND PRIOR YEAR CUTS FOR STUDENTS
HARRISBURG (June 29, 2012) Members of the Pennsylvania School Funding Campaign (PSFC) express appreciation today to the General Assembly for sending to the Governor a $27.7 billion state budget which increases by $150 million state support for basic education over the amount proposed in February, 2012.

Posted: Sat, Jun. 30, 2012, 3:01 AM
The Chester Upland School District is headed back to state control
By Dan Hardy Inquirer Staff Writer
Delaware County's Chester Upland School District, under state supervision for 16 of the last 18 years, is heading there again, with passage of distressed-schools legislation that will bring in a state-appointed official to devise a recovery plan for the district.

William Hite tapped to run Philly schools
By Benjamin Herold for the Notebook and WHYY/Newsworks June 29, 2012
Former teacher, principal, and Prince George's County, Md., schools chief William Hite is the new superintendent of Philadelphia schools.  “Philadelphia is one of America’s greatest cities, and I am excited about the opportunities it offers,” said Hite in a statement released late Friday.

Eliminate the pension double-dip reimbursement that taxpayers pay to charter schools

Zero transparency, zero public scrutiny on PA EITC funds given to private and religious schools. Why is that?
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/160641745.html

Critics say Auditor General Jack Wagner's Charter School Funding Special Report on PA charter funding is misguided; what do you think?

PA Charter funding formula is great for CEO whose cyber never made AYP


STATEWIDE PRESS COVERAGE OF SCHOOL DISTRICT BUDGETS
Here are more than 800 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:

Candidates for 2013 PSBA officers
At its May 19 meeting at PSBA Conference Center, the PSBA Nominating Committee interviewed and selected a slate of candidates for officers of the association in 2013.

Absentee ballot procedures for election of PSBA officers
PSBA website 6/1/2012
All school directors and school board secretaries who are eligible to vote and who do not plan to attend the association's annual business meeting during the 2012 PASA-PSBA School Leadership Conference in Hershey, Oct. 16-19, may request an absentee ballot for election purposes.
The absentee ballot must be requested from the PSBA executive director in accordance with the PSBA Bylaws provisions (see PSBA Bylaws, Article IV, Section 4, J-Q.). Specify the name and mailing address of each individual for whom a ballot is requested.
Requests must be in writing, e-mailed or mailed first class and postmarked or marked received at PSBA Headquarters no later than Aug. 15. Mail to Executive Director, P.O. Box 2042, Mechanicsburg, PA 17055 or e-mail administrativerequests@psba.org.

Friday, June 29, 2012

Eliminate the pension double-dip reimbursement that taxpayers pay to charter schools


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

Eliminate the pension double-dip reimbursement that taxpayers pay to charter schools

Zero transparency, zero public scrutiny on PA EITC funds given to private and religious schools. Why is that?
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/160641745.html

Critics say Auditor General Jack Wagner's Charter School Funding Special Report on PA charter funding is misguided; what do you think?

PA Charter funding formula is great for CEO whose cyber never made AYP


State House approves $27.66 billion budget
Facing Saturday deadline, lawmakers still trying to reach agreement on connected issues.
By John L. Micek, Call Harrisburg Bureau 10:05 p.m. EDT, June 28, 2012
HARRISBURG— A $27.66 billion, no-tax increase state budget that provides state colleges, libraries and public schools with the same amount of money they received this year but ends a cash assistance program for the neediest Pennsylvanians is on its way to the state Senate.
With just two days to go before the Saturday deadline to approve a spending plan for the fiscal year that starts Sunday, the House voted 120-81 on Thursday evening to approve the budget, which represents an increase of $370 million over current spending and $500 million more than Gov. Tom Corbett sought when he presented his first spending proposal to lawmakers in February.
A vote by the Senate is expected as soon as Friday.

Pennsylvania House approves $27.7 billion state spending bill
Published: Thursday, June 28, 2012, 5:57 PM
By JAN MURPHY, The Patriot-News 
One chamber down. One chamber and Gov. Tom Corbett’s signature to go.
Then, Pennsylvania will have a state spending plan in place for 2012-’13.
The state Senate is poised to vote today on the nearly $27.7 billion spending plan that the House approved 120-81 on Thursday.  It would increase spending by less than 2 percent, or $471 million, over this year’s budget. And it doesn’t require a tax increase to support it.

Posted: Fri, Jun. 29, 2012, 3:01 AM
Pa. House OKs bill to assess teachers based on student achievement
By Dan Hardy Inquirer Staff Writer
Pennsylvania appears to be headed toward a teacher evaluation system that for the first time would be based in part on student test scores.
Legislation sponsored by Rep. Ryan Aument (R., Lancaster) and approved by the state House on Thursday would count student performance on a wide variety of measures for 50 percent of teacher and principal ratings. The measures include everything from graduation rate and attendance to state and local test scores.The remainder of a teacher's evaluation would be based on classroom observation, the traditional way. That, too, is undergoing an overhaul. A pilot program aimed at making observations more accurate and useful ended its second year this month; Phase Three is scheduled for this fall.

Controversy Over School Voucher Program in Philadelphia
Was Rep. Jim Christiana influenced by pro-voucher donations when advocating bill that would cost Philadelphia public schools $75 million?
Education News Blog by S.D. Lawrence June 27m 2012
The Philadelphia Archdiocese and new Fighting Chance PA PAC, which shares a name with spring’s grassroots campaign launched by the Pennsylvania Catholic Coalition, are both pressing for legislation in Harrisburg which would save many struggling Catholic schools by pumping millions of dollars of scholarship money into them.
Fighting Chance PA PAC has already given out nearly a quarter million dollars to pro-voucher state lawmakers and other political committees in Harrisburg, including $25,000 to Rep. Jim Christiana who a month later introduced a $75 million bill to support scholarships for Catholic schools.  Philly.com writer Will Bunch says the focused lobbying is a sign that new Archbishop Charles Caput is proving to be one of the most politically savvy Catholic leaders. Chaput wrote an Inquirer op-ed in support of Christiana’s bill shortly after it was introduced; titled ‘Pass voucher bill now – or else’

Posted: Fri, Jun. 29, 2012, 3:01 AM
Chester Upland school board passes bare-bones budget
By Dan Hardy Inquirer Staff Writer
Aided by an infusion of $10.7 million in state money that was agreed to this week as part of the state budget deal in Harrisburg, the Chester Upland School District board passed a bare-bones $101 million budget Thursday night.  The board passed the budget before an audience of about 50 people.
….The budget passed Thursday leaves things in the classrooms in the Delaware County district much as they were this school year, except that full-day prekindergarten and full-day kindergarten are being added.
Persing said that the district also would beef up its special-education program, but he had no details. Negotiations with state officials over how to achieve that are also continuing, he said.
The grade configuration of the schools will be changed, but all will remain open, he said. Some security positions have been cut.
The district will continue to have no art or music programs except at one elementary school, and no Advanced Placement or honors classes, Persing said.

Posted at 12:58 AM ET, 06/29/2012

How GERM is infecting schools around the world

Washington Post Answer Sheet Blog By Valerie Strauss
This was written by Pasi Sahlberg, author of “ Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn About Educational Change in Finland? and director general of Finland’s Center for International Mobility and Cooperation. He has served the Finnish government in various positions, worked for the World Bank in Washington D.C. and for the European Training Foundation in Italy as senior education specialist. Sahlberg has also advised governments internationally about education policies and reforms. He is also an adjunct professor of education at the University of Helsinki and University of Oulu. He can be reached at pasi.sahlberg@cimo.fi.
By Pasi Sahlberg
Ten years ago — against all odds — Finland was ranked as the world’s top education nation. It was strange because in Finland education is seen as a public good accessible to all free of charge without standardized testing or competitive private schools. When I look around the world, I see competition, choice, and measuring of students and teachers as the main means to improve education. This market-based global movement has put many public schools at risk in the United States and many other countries, as well. But not in Finland.

On his website, Vollmer offers a Los Angeles Times quote from a Professor Theodore M. Greene of Princeton University: “I know of no college or university in the country that doesn’t have to offer most or all of its freshmen courses in remedial English, beginning mathematics, beginning science and beginning foreign languages. Consequently, we give two or three years of college [courses] and the rest is high school work.”
Before you start nodding your head, you should know that Greene made his statement in March 1946.  Complaining about the caliber of students is one of our national pastimes, but as our population ages fewer Americans have any direct involvement with schools. 
Schools Advocate Takes Aim at 'Nostesia'
South Whitehall Patch By Margie Peterson
Public schools supporter says educators need to do a better job of making their case to an aging taxpaying public.  It was early in Jamie Vollmer’s transformationfrom education critic to public schools advocate that a superintendent invited him to spend a day in her district.
She had Vollmer, then a business executive, do bus duty and work as an aide to a third-grade teacher in the morning. After a 20-minute lunch break, the superintendent took off the kid gloves.
“She put me in an eighth-grade classroom on a warm afternoon,” Vollmer recalls. “I’ve since referred to that as the nuclear option.”

Capitol Ideas Blog by John Micek June 28,2012
Thursday Morning Coffee: Three days and counting.
Good Thursday Morning, Fellow Seekers.
The state House convenes at 9:30 a.m. this morning to finally begin consideration ofthe 2012-13 state budget.
The chamber broke for the night last night without beginning an expected debate on the $27,66 billion spending plan for the new fiscal year that begins Sunday. Legislative leaders and the Corbett administration spent much of the night engaged in shuttle diplomacy trying to lock down the key parts of the spending plan that remain unresolved.
…..SCHOOL REFORM: The debate over charter school reform remained very much in flux last night. The long-standing idea of creating a statewide authorizing panel that would approve all or some new charter applications appears to be a non-starter.  Instead, budget negotiators are weighing a proposal that would vest new powers in the Pennsylvania Charter School Appeals Board. While the panel would not be authorized to approve charter applications, it would have more power on the back end.
The House advanced new teacher evaluation legislation, sponsored by Rep. Ryan Aument, R-Lancaster, positioning it for a vote Thursday or Friday. The proposal would allow local districts to adopt their own evaluation tests from a menu of predetermined benchmarks with the approval of the state Department of Education.
Efforts to expand the Educational Improvement Tax Credit and what's become known as EITC 2.0 appear to be locked down. The former would be increased by $25 million from $75 million now to $100 million next year, while EITC 2.0, advanced by Rep. Jim Christiana, R-Beaver, would receive $50 million to pay for scholarships for kids in the poorest and worst-performing districts.

Posted: Thu, Jun. 28, 2012, 3:00 AM
Pa. taxpayers underwrite Sandusky charity
Philadelphia Daily News By Will Bunch Daily News Staff Writer
PENNSYLVANIA TAXPAYERS have underwritten nearly $1.4 million in contributions to the Second Mile, the disgraced charity founded by convicted pedophile Jerry Sandusky where testimony showed he groomed some of the boys he later molested.
The taxpayer-subsidized donations — which support the Second Mile's summer camp and an annual Leadership Institute — come through a controversial scholarship program called the Educational Improvement Tax Credit, or EITC, that may be dramatically expanded as lawmakers in Harrisburg look to pass a new state budget this weekend.
Critics of EITC — currently a $75 million program that mainly underwrites scholarships for kids to attend religious and private schools — say that the Second Mile is a glaring example of a shocking lack of oversight of what the Pennsylvania tax subsidies actually pay for.
"There really is very minimal accountability," said Stephen Herzenberg, executive director of the Keystone Research Center, a progressive policy think tank. Last year, his center issued a report called "No Accountability" that said that state officials lack basic information on whether EITC scholarships actually improve student performance, even as they mandate extensive testing and evaluation in public schools.
Despite that study and a recent New York Times report tracking political influence in the tax-credit program, lawmakers in Harrisburg — aided by lobbying from the Philadelphia Archdiocese and big-bucks proponents of vouchers — are debating several proposals that would increase EITC funding from the current $75 million to somewhere between $100 million and $200 million.

 

Legislation to help Pennsylvania's fiscally distressed school districts gets no love from Harrisburg and York House members

Published: Thursday, June 28, 2012, 11:55 AM
By JAN MURPHY, The Patriot-News 
The plan to rescue the state's fiscally distressed school districts that is taking shape in the Legislature is concerning to House members representing York and Harrisburg school districts, which would be among those in the plan's immediate crosshairs.
Caught in a hallway, Reps. Ron Buxton, D-Harrisburg, and Eugene DePasquale, D-York, bashed theSenate-passed plan that Senate Education Committee Chairman Jeffrey Piccola, R-Dauphin County, crafted.
It would provide financially struggling school districts with extra funding, but also establishes a process that could lead to the state takeover of them.

Parkland Calls for Changes to 'No Child Left Behind'
South Whitehall Patch By Mary Youtz  June 27, 2012
Parkland School Board passes a resolution that says No Child Left Behind shouldn't just rely on standardized test scores as a measure of schools' effectiveness.
The Parkland School Board approved a resolution Tuesday, calling on Congress to replace the school accountability system in the No Child Left Behind Act with one that doesn’t just rely on standardized test scores.
School boards throughout the state are considering the resolution, provided by the Pennsylvania School Boards Association

Is your State Rep. on the cosponsor list for HB 2364? If not, why not?
If they tell you that we should make it easier to authorize charters or that they are already accountable enough have them read this:

PA Charter Schools: $4 billion taxpayer dollars with no real oversight

More details on HB 2364 from PSBA:

http://www.psba.org/news-publications/headlines/details.asp?id=3469

 

Education Voters PA ‏@EdVotersPA
Please take 2 minutes to send an email to your state reps; ask them to restore public ed funding:

STATEWIDE PRESS COVERAGE OF SCHOOL DISTRICT BUDGETS
Here are more than 800 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:

Candidates for 2013 PSBA officers
At its May 19 meeting at PSBA Conference Center, the PSBA Nominating Committee interviewed and selected a slate of candidates for officers of the association in 2013.

Absentee ballot procedures for election of PSBA officers
PSBA website 6/1/2012
All school directors and school board secretaries who are eligible to vote and who do not plan to attend the association's annual business meeting during the 2012 PASA-PSBA School Leadership Conference in Hershey, Oct. 16-19, may request an absentee ballot for election purposes.
The absentee ballot must be requested from the PSBA executive director in accordance with the PSBA Bylaws provisions (see PSBA Bylaws, Article IV, Section 4, J-Q.). Specify the name and mailing address of each individual for whom a ballot is requested.
Requests must be in writing, e-mailed or mailed first class and postmarked or marked received at PSBA Headquarters no later than Aug. 15. Mail to Executive Director, P.O. Box 2042, Mechanicsburg, PA 17055 or e-mail administrativerequests@psba.org.

Thursday, June 28, 2012

Early Evening Budget Update: House delays #pabudget debate until Thursday.


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


Capitol Ideas Blog by John Micek June 28,2012
Thursday Morning Coffee: Three days and counting.
Good Thursday Morning, Fellow Seekers.
The state House convenes at 9:30 a.m. this morning to finally begin consideration ofthe 2012-13 state budget.
The chamber broke for the night last night without beginning an expected debate on the $27,66 billion spending plan for the new fiscal year that begins Sunday. Legislative leaders and the Corbett administration spent much of the night engaged in shuttle diplomacy trying to lock down the key parts of the spending plan that remain unresolved.
…..SCHOOL REFORM: The debate over charter school reform remained very much in flux last night. The long-standing idea of creating a statewide authorizing panel that would approve all or some new charter applications appears to be a non-starter.  Instead, budget negotiators are weighing a proposal that would vest new powers in the Pennsylvania Charter School Appeals Board. While the panel would not be authorized to approve charter applications, it would have more power on the back end.
The House advanced new teacher evaluation legislation, sponsored by Rep. Ryan Aument, R-Lancaster, positioning it for a vote Thursday or Friday. The proposal would allow local districts to adopt their own evaluation tests from a menu of predetermined benchmarks with the approval of the state Department of Education.
Efforts to expand the Educational Improvement Tax Credit and what's become known as EITC 2.0 appear to be locked down. The former would be increased by $25 million from $75 million now to $100 million next year, while EITC 2.0, advanced by Rep. Jim Christiana, R-Beaver, would receive $50 million to pay for scholarships for kids in the poorest and worst-performing districts.


Posted: Thu, Jun. 28, 2012, 3:00 AM
EITC: Pa. taxpayers underwrite Sandusky charity
Philadelphia Daily News By Will Bunch Daily News Staff Writer
PENNSYLVANIA TAXPAYERS have underwritten nearly $1.4 million in contributions to the Second Mile, the disgraced charity founded by convicted pedophile Jerry Sandusky where testimony showed he groomed some of the boys he later molested.
The taxpayer-subsidized donations — which support the Second Mile's summer camp and an annual Leadership Institute — come through a controversial scholarship program called the Educational Improvement Tax Credit, or EITC, that may be dramatically expanded as lawmakers in Harrisburg look to pass a new state budget this weekend.
Critics of EITC — currently a $75 million program that mainly underwrites scholarships for kids to attend religious and private schools — say that the Second Mile is a glaring example of a shocking lack of oversight of what the Pennsylvania tax subsidies actually pay for.
"There really is very minimal accountability," said Stephen Herzenberg, executive director of the Keystone Research Center, a progressive policy think tank. Last year, his center issued a report called "No Accountability" that said that state officials lack basic information on whether EITC scholarships actually improve student performance, even as they mandate extensive testing and evaluation in public schools.
Despite that study and a recent New York Times report tracking political influence in the tax-credit program, lawmakers in Harrisburg — aided by lobbying from the Philadelphia Archdiocese and big-bucks proponents of vouchers — are debating several proposals that would increase EITC funding from the current $75 million to somewhere between $100 million and $200 million.


Critics say Auditor General Wagner's report on PA charter funding is misguided; what do you think?

PA Charter funding formula is great for CEO whose cyber never made AYP

Auditor General's Charter School Funding Special Report 

Early Evening Budget Update: House delays #pabudget debate until Thursday.
Capitol Ideas Blog by John Micek June 27, 2012
The state House is poised to begin debate as soon as Thursday on a $27.656 billion, no-tax hike budget  plan that spares Pennsylvania’s state colleges and universities the deep cuts sought by Gov. Tom Corbett and provides public schools and public libraries with the same amount of taxpayer support they receive right now.
The proposed 2012-13 spending plan keeps the Accountability Block Grant and basic education subsidy at the same levels as this year for school districts. That means the final budget includes about $139 million more for public education than Corbett had initially proposed.
The decision to level-fund the public schools was similar to leaders in the post-Civil War South deciding to reconstruct at “post-Sherman levels,” Rep. Steve Samuelson, R-Northampton, said, referring to Union Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman’s devastating march across Georgia in 1864.
Legislative leaders and the administration were still working to reach agreement on components of the administration’s school reform agenda, which includes changes in the way the charter schools are authorized and the expansion of a popular tax credit program for businesses that donate to private school scholarship organizations.
The House advanced teacher evaluation legislation, sponsored by Rep. Ryan Aument, R-Lancaster, positioning it for a vote Thursday or Friday. The proposal would allow local districts to adopt their own evaluation tests from a menu of predetermined benchmarks with the approval of the state Department of Education.

Crunch time with Pa. budget deadline near
June 27, 2012|By Angela Couloumbis, INQUIRER HARRISBURG BUREAU
HARRISBURG - This year's state budget process is quickly turning into the Capitol equivalent of an end-of-semester college crunch: a time to cram - with no guarantees that deadlines will be met.  With three days left before the start of the new fiscal year, the House has yet to start debating the state's $27.65 billion budget agreement. The chamber was expected to do so Wednesday but broke shortly after 8 p.m. with no discussion on the plan.

Committee moves $27.7 billion budget to House floor for consideration

Published: Wednesday, June 27, 2012, 11:40 AM
By JAN MURPHY, The Patriot-News 
Following a two-hour debate, the House Appropriations Committee approved by a 24-12 party-line vote a nearly $27.7 billion spending plan that includes no tax increases and grants a $288 million in business tax breaks.  Several Republican lawmakers stepped to the microphone during the committee meeting to hail the proposed spending plan as reasonable and sustainable.
Rep. Mauree Gingrich, R-Cleona, called it a "realistic budget for this time."
Rep. Glen Grell, R-Hampden Twp., said, "I believe this (plan) does a very good job allocating the resources, establishing priorities based on what we have available this year."
Both Republican and Democratic members voiced appreciation for the restorations made by lawmakers to line-items that Gov. Tom Corbett had cut or eliminated in his $27.1 billion February budget proposal.

Posted: Wed, Jun. 27, 2012, 7:43 PM
Three Phila.-area school districts get a funding break
By Dan Hardy INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
School funding in the new Pennsylvania budget will likely be about the same as this year for most area districts, but three - Chester Upland, Coatesville, and Upper Darby - will get millions more, thanks to onetime special allocations added by legislators.
The news was greeted with cheers by the favored districts. Critics said a funding plan that singles out some for extra money while leaving out others in need is unfair.
Philadelphia, for example, which is nearing a financial meltdown, did not get any extra funding under the deal, announced Tuesday by legislative leaders.

Posted: Thu, Jun. 28, 2012, 3:01 AM
4 more cyber charters set to open as lawmakers debate charter funding
By Martha Woodall Inquirer Staff Writer
While debate continues in Harrisburg over a state formula that some say wastes taxpayer money by inflating payments to cyber charter schools, four more schools are set to open in the fall.
After rejecting seven new cyber applications earlier this year, the Pennsylvania Department of Education has given tentative approval to four that reapplied.
The green light for the new cyber charters - which typically provide online instruction to students in their homes - will boost the number of those schools in the state by 30 percent.

City schools take on cyber rivals with Pittsburgh Online Academy 6-12

New online school includes lure of Promise scholarship
June 28, 2012 12:51 am
By Eleanor Chute / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
The Pittsburgh Public Schools board has approved a new school, a full-time online program aimed at competing with cyber charter schools that have been draining students and money from the district.  The board Wednesday voted to open the school -- now known informally as the Pittsburgh Online Academy 6-12 -- this fall with the goal of targeting at least some of the 789 residents who attend cyber charter schools.
The new school was packaged with a series of other resolutions that the board unanimously passed, although board member Mark Brentley Sr. expressed opposition.
Unlike other public schools that have created their own cyber schools, the Pittsburgh district has a significant incentive for students to transfer into its online academy: Students enrolled in the program will qualify for college scholarship funds from the Pittsburgh Promise.

Submitted by thenotebook on Wed, 06/27/2012 - 00:57
by Dale Mezzacappa, Benjamin Herold, and Katie McCabe
If hired as Philadelphia school superintendent, William R. Hite Jr. said, the first thing he would do is travel the city and listen; once, as the principal of a new middle school, he knocked on the doors of 660 of the incoming 800 students.
As he made the rounds in a day-long series of meetings Tuesday, Hite painted a picture of himself as an engaged and focused educator, which got a warm response from parents, teachers and community members.

Submitted by thenotebook on Mon, 06/25/2012 - 23:09
by Dale Mezzacappa, Benjamin Herold and Katie McCabe
Pedro Martinez is on board with the need to “increase quality seats” in Philadelphia schools, endorsing the primary reform strategy of the School Reform Commission that is considering whether to hire him as the next superintendent.

Column: Voters aren't buying school choice snake oil
USA Today June 27,2012 By Walt Gardner
Despite mounting anger and frustration over the glacial pace of school improvement, voters consistently turn thumbs down on plans to give parents wider choice. The results have emboldened reformers to try an end run around their will. In the process, they've made a travesty of the separation of church and state.


Is your State Rep. on the cosponsor list for HB 2364? If not, why not?
If they tell you that we should make it easier to authorize charters or that they are already accountable enough have them read this:

PA Charter Schools: $4 billion taxpayer dollars with no real oversight

More details on HB 2364 from PSBA:

http://www.psba.org/news-publications/headlines/details.asp?id=3469

 

Education Voters PA ‏@EdVotersPA
Please take 2 minutes to send an email to your state reps; ask them to restore public ed funding:

STATEWIDE PRESS COVERAGE OF SCHOOL DISTRICT BUDGETS
Here are more than 800 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:

June 29 is deadline to submit proposals for PSBA’s 2013 Legislative Platform
Your school board is invited to submit proposals for consideration for PSBA’s 2013 Legislative Platform. The association is accepting proposals now until Friday, June 29, 2012.  Guidelines for platform submissions are posted on PSBA’s Web site.  The PSBA Platform Committee will review proposals and rationale submitted for the platform on Aug. 11. The recommendations of the committee will be brought before the Legislative Policy Council for a final vote on Oct. 18.

Absentee ballot procedures for election of PSBA officers
PSBA website 6/1/2012
All school directors and school board secretaries who are eligible to vote and who do not plan to attend the association's annual business meeting during the 2012 PASA-PSBA School Leadership Conference in Hershey, Oct. 16-19, may request an absentee ballot for election purposes.
The absentee ballot must be requested from the PSBA executive director in accordance with the PSBA Bylaws provisions (see PSBA Bylaws, Article IV, Section 4, J-Q.). Specify the name and mailing address of each individual for whom a ballot is requested.
Requests must be in writing, e-mailed or mailed first class and postmarked or marked received at PSBA Headquarters no later than Aug. 15. Mail to Executive Director, P.O. Box 2042, Mechanicsburg, PA 17055 or e-mail administrativerequests@psba.org.