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COMMENTARY:
Shameless; just (expletive deleted) shameless
Forgive
me. I grew up in Philly and learned that
there are times when an expletive provides appropriate emphasis. This is one of those times.
Excerpt
from PA SB1115 as amended:
…charter schools shall be subject to the
following…"(7) THE RIGHT-TO-KNOW LAW, EXCEPT RECORDS OF VENDORS OF
LOCAL AGENCIES SHALL NOT BE ACCESSIBLE."
Last
Saturday, as PA House members worked feverishly to finish their business, Rep. Tom
Killion (R-168, Chester/Delaware counties) dropped a 54 page amendment into
SB1115 containing charter school reform provisions.
It
included a clause that would specifically exclude companies doing business with
charter schools, including management companies, from Pennsylvania
That means
that taxpayers would not have the right to see the budgets, check registers,
payroll records or other financial records for facilities that they are paying
for.
They would
not have the right to know the salaries of teachers, administrators,
superintendents, or, for that matter, CEOs paid by a management company. In contrast, these are all things that
traditional school districts are required to provide by law.
The
bill passed the House with 120 members voting in favor of it but was not
supported by the Senate.
For
over six years the owner of Charter School Management Company, under contract
to run the state’s largest brick and mortar charter school in Chester, has
fought just such a right-to-know request in the courts. The case is now apparently headed to the
state Supreme Court. That
individual just happens to be the largest individual campaign
contributor to Governor Corbett and a major donor to the GOP. He reportedly was recently able to purchase
two beach front lots in Palm Beach
Florida
Charter
schools were supposed to be laboratories for innovation that would share
strategies to help all schools. Remember
– “it’s all about the kids”……
The
excerpt cited above is “the sentence” cited by Governor Corbett below…
From Capitolwire.com Under The Dome™ email Thursday, July
5, 2012
Dinniman
says House GOP proposal lets charters, big GOP donors duck Right To Know law.
One of the Democratic authors of
the Senate charter school reform bill praised Senate Republicans for standing
up to House GOP efforts to conceal currently available records of taxpayer
funds spent by vendors for charter schools and cyber charters. House GOP
officials and staff said no such attempt occurred, but acrimony endured on both
sides after the House and Senate stalled on charter school reform last weekend
over that issue. The Senate version of the legislation, House Bill 1330, did
not have that provision exempting vendors from the Right To Know Law, while the
House's version, amended to Senate Bill 1115, did. After the language was
found, the Senate declined to pass the House bill while House leaders insisted
their amendment was better. “We were within a sentence of getting it done,”
Gov. Tom Corbett said on Tuesday. “A sentence!” To read more about the
situation that led to the scuttling of charter school reform last week,CLICK HERE (paywall) to read a story from Capitolwire
Bureau Chief Peter L. DeCoursey. And CLICK HERE (paywall) to read a Philadelphia Inquirer
story (see that
article below; LAF) about Gov. Corbett’s plan to revisit charter
school reform in the fall.
Corbett
already eyeing bills for the fall session
Topping that list, Corbett said
Tuesday: changes in the way charter schools are regulated.
During budget talks last month,
the governor pushed for a measure giving the state a larger role in regulating
charter schools. He wanted to create a state commission to authorize new
charters, taking that power from school boards.
William
Penn Foundation giving $15M to public, private, and charter schools
By Kristen A. Graham Inquirer
Staff Writer Posted: Fri, Jul. 6, 2012 , 3:01 AM
Jeremy Nowak , president of the
William Penn Foundation, said the aim was "closing the achievement
gap." In a signal of its growing
reach into the city's education sector, the William Penn Foundation will give
$15 million to fund innovations in Philadelphia
William Penn has pledged the money
to the Philadelphia School Partnership, which will award grants to some schools
this month, with other awards coming before the end of the year. It's a major
step forward in the newer nonprofit's goal of raising $100 million in five
years to speed up the pace of educational change. Although William Penn has traditionally given
grants in the "children, youth and families" arena, president Jeremy
Nowak told The Inquirer that going forward, the foundation would focus more
narrowly on "closing the achievement gap" for low-income students,
with an emphasis on global standards.
"This is putting a stake in
the ground about the need for great schools," Nowak said in an interview.
Money
Talks
And
when William Penn Foundation’s Jeremy Nowak is paying, Philly schools have to
listen.
In mid-May, Jeremy Nowak joined
School Reform Commission chairman Pedro Ramos and pro-charter-school activists
at a long meeting to discuss a big problem: They were losing the media war to
opponents of the plan, released three weeks earlier, to dismantle the Philadelphia School District
But while the SRC, Republican Gov.
Tom Corbett and Boston Consulting were all targets of protesters’ ire, Nowak’s
role was discussed by just a few. And then only in whispers.
“I think he’s taking an activist
approach to being president of the foundation, and he has an agenda,” says one
observer of city schools who, like many interviewed for this story, spoke only
on condition of anonymity. “It is a shadow school district that’s being
bankrolled by people who don’t even live in the city.”
Conversations with sources, along
with documents obtained by City Paper, portray an expanding network
of pro-charter-school organizations close to, and in many cases funded by,
William Penn, coordinating with the state-controlled School
District to map out the future of Philly public education. It is
now clear that Nowak, a major charter-school supporter and longtime force in Philadelphia
Posted: Fri, Jul. 6, 2012 , 3:01 AM
Phila.-based
cyber school yields its charter
By Martha Woodall Inquirer
Staff Writer
Rather than fight the Pennsylvania
Department of Education, the beleaguered Frontier Virtual
Charter High
School
Frontier, which has administrative
offices at 3020 Market St.
Education Secretary Ronald Tomalis
filed documents Monday saying he intended to yank the school's charter for
failing to deliver education it promised students, violating the state
charter-school law, spending taxpayer money on nonschool expenses, and failing
to maintain the finances necessary to provide services to students.
‘No Child’ Law Whittled Down by White House
New York Times By MOTOKO RICH
Published: July 6,
2012
On Friday, the Department of Education plans to announce that it has granted
waivers releasing two more states, Washington
and Wisconsin District of Columbia
“The more waivers there
are, the less there really is a law, right?” said Andy Porter, dean of the University of Pennsylvania
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