“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, legislative and congressional staffers, 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
Pa.
By Laura Olson / Post-Gazette Harrisburg August 27, 2012 12:21 am
Also on the list of issues for their
handful of session days: reducing the state's debt load, changing sentencing
for juvenile offenders and possibly blocking the federal health care law.
Democrats have other things on their
to-do list, including finding new dollars to pay for the state's backlog of
road and bridge repairs.
Absent from either list is liquor
store privatization, which the governor suggested in June could be resurrected
this fall. And no action is expected yet on fixing the state's pension funding
crisis, an issue that promises to make next year's budget process another
exercise in mathematical gymnastics. Much
of the GOP list involves wrapping up loose ends, including the new methods for
regulating charter schools and distributing special education dollars.
Weekend Updates/Opinions on
Chester Upland
EITC 2.0: Religious schools
fare best under new state’s ‘voucher lite’ program
Pottstown Mercury By Evan Brandt
ebrandt@pottsmerc.com Posted: 08/26/12
The first of two parts
POTTSTOWN — As the state program which
labeled Pottstown High School an “under-achieving” school gears up for
the new school year, an analysis shows that Christian schools make up vast
majority of those which have signed up to accept the scholarships the program
provides. Called “vouchers lite” by some
and adopted during this year’s budget process in Harrisburg
What Your State
Representatives Said About the 'Vouchers Lite' Law
Digital Notebook blog by Evan Brandt August 26, 2012
Published in today's edition of The Pottstown Mercury
is a story I wrote about the fact that so far, the schools benefiting from the
state's new "vouchers lite" program, seem to be primarily Christian
schools. In writing the story, I sent
identical e-mails to the offices of 11 area state legislators on Tuesday, Aug.
21, seeking their response to this discovery.
How many schools have to
make AYP 'failure' list before we get reform?
Published: Sunday, August 26, 2012 , 12:23
AM
The latest round of Adequately Yearly Progress
listings for schools is out, and it feels a lot like that scene in “Alice
New
cyber charter high school attracting Chester Upland students
Published: Monday, August 27, 2012
Delco Times By JOHN KOPP jkopp@delcotimes.com,
@DT_JohnKopp
A new cyber charter high school emphasizing social justice
is gaining popularity among students living within the Chester Upland
School District
The Achieve
Community Transformation
Academy ACT
Academy
“We found that an additional 198 schools
eliminated or reduced their services from the previous year,” said Kern.
“This amounts to about 100 thousand students with limited access to their
library programs over the previous year.”
Wednesday, 22 August 2012 22:58
Study finds PA’s school
librarians spread thin
School librarians do more than shush students –
they help teachers with reading curricula, encourage kids to read outside of
school, and they’re proven to be linked to high student achievement. If they have the time.
About 73 percent of the commonwealth’s public
schools have taken part in a study that reveals school libraries are hurting
for funding and resources.
CityPaper by Daniel
Denvir FRIDAY, AUGUST 24, 2012
The Philadelphia Schools Partnership (PSP)
yesterday announced that it has raised half of the $100 million goal for its Great Schools Fund. What readers might not glean from
press reports is that PSP is an integral part of a broad and well-funded
campaign to privatize public education in Philadelphia
PSP received $15 million from the William Penn Foundation,
as City Paper first reported, at the same time that the foundation
appears to be cutting off groups like the Philadelphia Student Union that
have been critical of privatization. And PSP's board is loaded with key wealthy
figures in the privatization movement: Real estate developer Michael O’Neill, whose
brother Brian O’Neill, according
to a Daily News investigation, is close to
a major Catholic Church-aligned pro-vouchers PAC; Janine Yass, wife of
conservative Bala Cynwyd hedge-fund manager Jeffrey Yass, is among the
state’s most high-profile voucher supporters who has together with his business
partners spent millions to support pro-voucher candidates.
EITC 2.0: PRIVATE SCHOOLS
ABLE TO PICK AND CHOOSE STUDENTS GETTING OPPORTUNITY
SCHOLARSHIPS
Third and State Blog Posted by Jamar Thrasher on August 24, 2012 10:17 am
Advocates of Pennsylvania
What the Polls Say
Yinzercation Blog — AUGUST 25, 2012
Two polls out in the
past week show some surprising findings for public education with important
implications for our grassroots movement here in Pennsylvania
First, Americans are
now clearly saying that the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) act has made
education worse, not better. [Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup poll,
8-20-12] Overall, 29% of those polled said that the decade old law
signed by President Bush has negatively impacted our schools, compared to 16%
who thought it has improved them. But among those surveyed who said they are
“very familiar” with the law, 48% said NCLB has made things worse, versus only
28% who said education is better.
Video: CNN’s Randi Kaye
speaks to former assistant secretary of education Diane Ravitch on the state of
our schools.
CNN Newsroom Interview August 24th Runtime 7:34
Who Could Be Romney's Education Secretary?
With the Republican National Convention about to
kick off, it's officially time to start speculating about who could be
presumptive GOP Mitt Romney's education secretary if he wins the presidential
election. After all, way back in 2008
(Aug. 8, to be exact), Politics K-12 guessed that
then-Chicago schools chief Arne Duncan could be then-Democratic contender
Barack Obama's pick on Aug. 8. So we're actually late to the dance this year.
The Finnish Alternative: Reclaiming Public
Education From Corporate Reform
Monday, 20 August 2012
In our first two
episodes of "The Disaster Capitalism Curriculum," we took readers to Washington, DC, and post-Katrina New Orleans, tracking how the spread of GERM - the
Global Education Reform Movement - is transforming public education into
private enterprise. Once born of neoconservative economic philosophy, GERM is
now fully bipartisan, and, thus, because there is so little public debate
between Democrats and Republicans, the corporate media portrays competition,
testing and school choice as our only choice for school improvement.
But there is another
way.
Bios of candidates slated for 2013 PSBA offices 8/15/2012
At its May 19 meeting
at PSBA Conference Center
Upcoming PSBA Professional Development Opportunities
To register or to learn
more about PSBA professional development programs please visit: www.psba.org/workshops/
2012 PASA-PSBA
School
Registration is Now Open! Hershey Lodge & Convention Center, Hershey, PA
www.psba.org/workshops/school-leadership-conference/
Registration is Now Open! Hershey Lodge & Convention Center, Hershey, PA
www.psba.org/workshops/school-leadership-conference/
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/
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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