“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
Posted: Mon, Jul. 23, 2012 , 7:03 AM
Education
firm linked to Fattah's son lays off all its teachers, administrators
By Martha Woodall Inquirer
Staff Writer
Without warning, Delaware Valley
High School
Staffers said lawyer David T.
Shulick, whose company operates the schools, owes them each thousands of
dollars for work during the 2011-12 academic year. They had been expecting back
pay last week but got furlough notices instead.
In late February, the FBI raided
Shulick's Logan Square Delaware Valley
State should fix charter
funding
Federal investigators
said last week that raids by the FBI, IRS and the Department of Education at Beaver County
offices of the Pennsylvania
Cyber Charter
School
Still, the development
should further alert state lawmakers of the need to revise funding formulas for
public charter schools.
Charter schools in Pennsylvania
“….which provides
curriculum, teachers, hardware and tech support for half the cost districts pay
when a student enrolls in one the state’s 13 cyber charter schools.”
Partnership encourages districts to launch their own cyber schools
— In
an effort to help school districts recoup money and keep students in the
district, two local parties have recently teamed up to offer districts the
ability to launch their own cyber schools.
The Learning Lamp and In-Shore Technologies, a Johnstown-based technology support company, are offering Blended Learning Technologies, which provides curriculum, teachers, hardware and tech support for half the cost districts pay when a student enrolls in one the state’s 13 cyber charter schools.
Currently, when parents enroll their child in a cyber charter school, the resident district no longer has any responsibility for the education of that child, but is responsible for paying that child’s tuition. That can range from $10,000 to $18,000 depending on the needs of the child.
The Learning Lamp and In-Shore Technologies, a Johnstown-based technology support company, are offering Blended Learning Technologies, which provides curriculum, teachers, hardware and tech support for half the cost districts pay when a student enrolls in one the state’s 13 cyber charter schools.
Currently, when parents enroll their child in a cyber charter school, the resident district no longer has any responsibility for the education of that child, but is responsible for paying that child’s tuition. That can range from $10,000 to $18,000 depending on the needs of the child.
Pension gap lowers Pennsylvania
By Laura Olson / Post-Gazette Harrisburg
That decision, which
will affect interest rates on the state's future debt, was attributed to what
Moody's Investor Services described as "the expectation that large and
growing pension liabilities and moderate economic growth will challenge [Pennsylvania
Moody's last week
lowered its rating for the state one notch to Aa2 from Aa1, two levels below
its top-grade triple-A rating.
In Philly, William Penn Foundation bankrolling $160,000
communications campaign for District
By Benjamin Herold for the
Notebook/NewsWorks 7/23/2012
The William Penn Foundation has
paid more than $160,000 for work being done by two private communications
firms to support the School Reform Commission’s much-debated “transformation
blueprint.”
It's just one of several efforts
undertaken by the city's civic leaders on behalf of the cash-strapped District
that was revealed by a review of William Penn's recent grants.
The organizations doing the
communications work, Sage
Communicationsand the Bravo Group, are being paid through William Penn funds that
have been passed through the United Way of Southeastern Pennsylvania and the
Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce, respectively. Each grant was
for $82,500, the maximum allowable without the approval of William Penn’s
board, which meets three times a year.
Interview
with Jeremy Nowak
By Benjamin Herrold thenotebook on
Jul 23 2012
This is an edited transcript of
Benjamin Herold's interview
with William Penn president Jerermy Nowak.
So you think you can teach?
Murdoch to
do for education what he’s done for TV, news and publishing…….
On Sunday,
Mr. Murdoch said in a Twitter message: “Only way to restore American dream and
have real meritocracy is fix terrible public K-12 education.”
News Corporation
Forms New Brand for Education Division
New York Times Media Decoder Blog By AMY CHOZICK
News Corporation said
Monday that its education division would operate under a newly formed brand
called Amplify. In partnership with AT&T, the division will offer digital
learning tools to K-12 children, part of the media company’s strategy to tap
into the multibillion public education market.
The announcement is part
of a larger restructuring by News Corporation as it prepares to split into two
separate publicly traded corporations. The education division, led by the
former New York City
Amplify will begin
piloting its digital learning tools in the 2012-2013 school year, News
Corporation said. AT&T will provide 4G tablets, Wi-Fi service and technical
assistance.
“Your local schools are about to start implementing standards
and assessments developed by Washington-based interest groups and pushed by the
federal government. These standards, known as the Common Core, have never been
field-tested, and your local school board has been unable to put them to a
public hearing or vote.
“The national standards provide no process for states or
localities to amend them. They will require students to take four federally
subsidized tests a year, all of them via computer, and the results will be a
factor in evaluating local teachers.”
Obama quietly implements
Common Core
Federal funds buy control of school curriculum
New standards for math
and English called Common Core are poised to hit public schools across the
nation. Some schools will begin implementing them as early as this fall, before
parents have any inkling what has happened to their children’s classroom
instruction. Parents will not know how
or why the nationally prescribed curriculum came about or how to change it if they
don’t like it.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jul/23/obama-quietly-implements-common-core/
No Choice But Success
Educational Leadership, Association for Supervision
and Curriculum Development by Dick Corbett, Bruce Wilson and Belinda Williams,
2005
Great urban teachers share a common belief: It's
their job to make sure that all students achieve.
If we allow students to fail, some will. The only
way to ensure that all students succeed, therefore, is to remove failure as an
option. That's the message we heard from teachers and students in several urban
classrooms in which all students did appear to succeed. The teachers, whom we
met as part of a three-year research project, believed that the responsibility
for student success rested on educators' shoulders. As one explained,
My philosophy is that “All students can learn,” not
“All students can learn, but. . . .” The key is giving them enough time and
support.
http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/mar05/vol62/num06/No-Choice-But-Success.aspx
US
Boston JULY 23, 2012
The Associated Press
surveyed more than a dozen economists, think tanks, and academics, both nonpartisan
and those with known liberal or conservative leanings, and found a broad
consensus: The official poverty rate will rise from 15.1 percent in 2010,
climbing as high as 15.7 percent. Several predicted a more modest gain, but
even a 0.1 percentage point increase would put poverty at the highest level
since 1965.
Poverty is spreading at
record levels across many groups, from underemployed workers and suburban
families to the poorest poor.
30%
of Americans without a high school diploma and 26% of kids from 0 - 5 years old
live in poverty.
Posting from January 2011
http://keystonestateeducationcoalition.blogspot.com/2011/01/january-5th-pisa-poverty-and-policy.html
Enrollment Off in Big Districts, Forcing Layoffs
New
York Times By MOTOKO RICH
Published: July
23, 2012
Enrollment in nearly
half of the nation’s largest school districts has dropped steadily over the
last five years, triggering school closings that have destabilized
neighborhoods, caused layoffs of essential staff and concerns in many cities
that the students who remain are some of the neediest and most difficult to
educate.
While the losses have
been especially steep in long-battered cities like Cleveland
and Detroit , enrollment has also fallen
significantly in places suffering through the recent economic downturn, like Broward County , Fla. , San Bernardino , Calif. ,
and Tucson Philadelphia
and Columbus , Ohio
Sally Ride, first
American woman to fly in space, dies at age 61
According to Sally Ride
Science, her historic flight into space captured the nation's imagination and
made her a household name. She became a symbol of the ability of women to break
barriers and a hero to generations of adventurous young girls.
After retiring from
NASA, Sally used her high profile to champion a cause she believed in
passionately--inspiring young people, especially girls, to stick with their
interest in science, to become scientifically literate, and to consider
pursuing careers in science and engineering.
60+
Top Articles On Blended Learning
Getting Smart Blog July 23, 2012 -
by Jaclyn Norton
Blended learning buzzed at
conferences this year and across the education market. iNACOL, the leader in the blended learning space, created a
new definition for the term. We’ve seen it in classrooms, heard it from
teachers, and talked about it at Getting Smart. Featured in the articles below,
Getting Smart highlights the new ideas and innovations surrounding blended
learning.
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.
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