“Only public schools, operated by school
districts with elected school boards are open to all children and fully
accountable to all taxpayers.”
Baruch Kintisch, Director of Policy Advocacy,
Education Law Center, in testimony before the PA House Democratic Policy
Committee, July
17, 2012
Daily postings
from the Keystone State Education Coalition now reach more than 1600
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
Tax-credit program offers new opportunities to families living
near low-achieving schools
Published: Tuesday, July 31, 2012 , 5:00 AM
By JAN MURPHY, The
Patriot-News
Families who live near low-achieving public schools can take advantage of a new state program to help pay for a better education elsewhere. This month, Gov. Tom Corbett signed a law creating the Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit Program.
Families who live near low-achieving public schools can take advantage of a new state program to help pay for a better education elsewhere. This month, Gov. Tom Corbett signed a law creating the Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit Program.
No public budgets, no public check registers, no public meetings, no sunshine laws, no right-to-know laws, no PSSA's. Just public money with virtually no public scrutiny.
How do we find out how much of the $50 million the "scholarship organizations" will get to keep?
How do we find out how much of the $50 million the "scholarship organizations" will get to keep?
The state
or any school district may not:
- Prescribe
the course content or admissions criteria for any religiously affiliated
school;
- Compel
any private school to accept or enroll a student;
- Impose
any additional requirements on any private school that are not otherwise
authorized; or
- Require
any school to accept or retain a student if the school does not offer
programs or is not structured or equipped with the necessary facilities to
meet the special needs of the student or does not offer a particular
program requested.
…students are not required to have attended the underperforming school,
and may qualify for a scholarship even if they are currently attending a
private school.
The commonwealth or any of its agencies or officers or political
subdivisions may not impose any additional requirements on a nonpublic school
which are not otherwise authorized under the law or require the nonpublic
school to enroll a recipient if it does not offer appropriate programs or is
not structured or equipped with the necessary facilities to meet the special
needs of the recipient or does not offer a particular program requested.
Christiana, Vereb's key roles in passage of EITC 2.0
Capitolwire Under the Dome July 30, 2012
Vouchers could not pass the state Legislature — not this past June and likely not in the near future. So with less than two weeks before the budget deadline, a pair of legislators set their sights on a different target. Reps. Jim Christiana, R-Beaver, and Rep. Mike Vereb, R-Montgomery, became the public face of what became “EITC 2.0,” the largest expansion of private school scholarship tax breaks since the original program’s inception in 2001. To read about the roles the two lawmakers played in getting EITC 2.0 to the governor’s desk, CLICK HERE(paywall) for a story from Capitolwire Correspondent Michael Macagnone.
Investigation Shows Rep Jim Christiana’s Ties To School Choice
Groups Could Top $170,000
Published on July 30, 2012 at
8:42 pm
by John Paul - Founder
of BeaverCountian.com
State Representative
Jim Christiana (R-Beaver) has raised over $50,000 so far this year from
political action committees (PACs) promoting “school choice” initiatives, and
an investigation by the Beaver Countian has revealed hidden ties between the
legislator and an additional $120,000 in PAC money.
The funds originated
from two well-financed political action committees: The Fighting Chance PA PAC,
which shares the name of a purported grassroots campaign affiliated with the
Pennsylvania Catholic Coalition, and the Students First PAC, which has spent
millions promoting school choice and voucher initiatives.
OUR VIEW: Education department’s plan for failing students off
target
Sharon Herald Editorial
Everyone is familiar
with the phrase: “Shape up or ship out.” That obviously has been accepted as
the credo of the Pennsylvania Department of Education.
A story in Thursday's
Herald revealed that five schools in Mercer
County
That means that
students whose families meet certain income guidelines can apply for
“scholarships” that will pay tuition to other public or private schools where
they can transfer.
Therefore students can
leave some of the 414 worst-performing schools in the state and attend another
school. There are so many things wrong with this policy.
The Chester Upland
School District
The settlement was presented
before U.S. District Judge Michael Baylson on Friday. A final hearing is set
for Aug. 15.
In a related
settlement, the state agreed to pay Chester
Community Charter
School
School tax bills put on back burner
Legislature uneasy about eliminating property
tax
By Tom Barnes / Pittsburgh
"We have met the
enemy and it is us," state Sen. Jim Ferlo, D-Highland Park
He's a co-sponsor of the
bill, which is risky to lawmakers because it would cost state school districts
at least $9 billion a year, while shifting the job of collecting property taxes
from the 500 local districts to state officials. Opponents wonder if the state
will send back to local districts the full amount they are owed.
Louisiana
From the you-can’t-make-up-this-stuff
department: Louisiana’s governor and schools chief are championing an
“accountability” plan for private schools in the state's voucher program that
doesn’t hold these schools accountable if they have fewer than 40 voucher
students.
Yes, as this Reuters story makes clear, a school can allow
its 39 voucher students to fail to show basic competency in reading, math,
social studies and science and still keep receiving state funds. Most of the
schools in the voucher program this coming year, it turns out, will be covered
by this provision.
For-profit schools labeled 'abject failure'
Federal report blasts costs, tactics, graduation
rates
"The student has debt around his or her neck . . . they don't have a
degree to show for it and they're worse off than when they started," ==
Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa
By Tracie Mauriello / Post-Gazette
Washington
The report came after
a two-year audit by the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and
Pensions. Its chairman, Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, has long been concerned that
companies like EDMC put profits ahead of students.
Issued Monday, the
scathing 5,000-page document blasts the for-profit education industry for
recruiting too aggressively, for spending more on marketing than teaching, for
producing too few graduates, for charging significantly higher tuition than
comparable public schools, for tying salaries to recruitment and for giving
prospective students unrealistic impressions of potential post-graduate
employment and earnings.
"This is a
failure, an abject failure," Mr. Harkin said in releasing the report.
A Dialogue with the Gates Foundation: How Do We Build the Teaching
Profession?
Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation by ANTHONY
CODY , IRVIN SCOTT
This post originally
appears on Anthony Cody's blog, Living in Dialogue. It is the first post in a weekly series
of posts, over the next five weeks, between teacher Anthony Cody, and the Bill
& Melinda Gates Foundation's Irvin Scott, Deputy Director in the College
Ready program.
Two weeks ago I
traveled to Seattle
A Response: How Do We Build the Teaching Profession?
Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation by IRVIN
SCOTT
Tough, complicated
issues like education often don’t get the kind of debate they deserve. People
who disagree don’t see where they have common ground. Each side isn’t willing
to concede that the other has a valid point of view. So it is especially
gratifying that against this often vitriolic backdrop Anthony Cody was willing
to come to the Gates Foundation and participate in a dialogue about our work
and our shared concerns. Like him, we agree that the education debate often
deteriorates to shouting past one another so we welcome the opportunity to
engage in a public dialogue about some of the areas where we have common
ground. Our goal here is to better understand the perspectives of those with
whom we occasionally disagree and to more clearly state where we stand and
where we simply just don’t know the answers.
EPLC’s 2012 Arts and Education Symposium: Save the Date, Thursday, October
11
Education
Policy and Leadership Center
Please mark your
calendars and plan on joining EPLC, our partners, and guests on October 11 in Harrisburg Pennsylvania
http://www.aei-pa.org/
Who’s Failing?
One third
of the 415 schools on Pennsylvania
PSBA has concerns with EITC 2.0 program 7/27/2012
The Pennsylvania
Department of Education yesterday published the list of low-achieving
elementary and secondary schools to be used in determining eligibility for
scholarships through the EITC 2.0 Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit Program
under the new Act 85 of 2012.
This proposal would broaden the current EITC
program to create a school voucher-type system making students who live in the
attendance boundary of one of the schools on the list potentially eligible
for scholarship under the program.
The Pennsylvania School
Boards Association remains concerned of the effects this voucher-lite program
will have on school districts. While PSBA continues to review Act 85 and its
implementation, including the list of low-achieving schools, we raise several
concerns which include:
- Despite being categorized as a low-achieving
schools, several schools on the list, which was prepared using 2010-11
PSSA results, actually reached their student achievement targets and
achieved Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) in 2010-11. Labeling these schools
as low-achieving when they have met the student achievement standards set
by the state and federal government functions to create two separate and
conflicting measurements for student achievement. (Download PSBA's enhanced list of 15% lowest-performing
schools (XL file).)
Details on Act 85 of 2012, PA’s new EITC 2.0 Opportunity
Scholarship Tax Credit “Supervoucher” Program.
Click here for a
detailed report
from PSBA regarding the new EITC 2.0 program.
Here the list of low
achieving schools released by PDE this week
PSBA
2013 Officer Candidates Slated
If you are not planning
to attend the October Leadership Conference and would like to vote for any of
these candidates please see the absentee ballot information below and note the
August 15 deadline for absentee ballot requests
At its May 19 meeting at PSBA Conference
Center
They are:
Marcela Diaz Myers, Lower Dauphin
SD , Dauphin
County
President
(automatically assumes the office of president)
Jody Sperry,Conneaut SD ,
Crawford County
Jody Sperry,
President-Elect
Richard Frerichs, PennManor SD , Lancaster
County
Richard Frerichs, Penn
President-Elect
Mark B. Miller, Centennial SD,Bucks
County
Mark B. Miller, Centennial SD,
First Vice
President
Larry Breech,Millville Area
SD , Columbia
County
Larry Breech,
Second
Vice President
Edward J. Cardow,Chichester SD , Delaware
County
Edward J. Cardow,
Second
Vice President
Absentee
ballot procedures for election of PSBA officers
Absentee
ballot requests must be received no later than August 15
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 home 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
NSBA
Federal Relations Network seeking new members for 2013-14
School directors are invited to
advocate for public education at the federal level through the National School
Boards Association’s Federal Relations Network. The National School Boards Association is
seeking school directors interested in serving on the Federal Relations Network
(FRN), its grass roots advocacy program that brings local board members on the
front line of pending issues before Congress. If you are a school director and
willing to carry the public education message to Washington , D.C.
Click here for more information.