“Middle-class American students who attend
well-funded schools rank at the top of the world on international tests.” Stephen
Krashen, professor emeritus of the Rossier School of
Education at the University of Southern California August 12, 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
Early email blast today –
we’re off to join a group of about 40 PA education leaders invited to a White
House Education forum….
School year in Pittsburgh
By Eleanor Chute / Pittsburgh
Students in Pittsburgh Public Schools will see a
lot of new faces when classes begin this week.
About a third of last year's school-based
workforce in city school district has been furloughed, reassigned to a different
school, retired or resigned. The school
board last week approved the latest changes that call for transferring 611
salaried school-based employees from one position or school to another,
including more than 400 K-12 teachers.
The transfers also include social workers,
counselors, adjunct teachers, secretaries and data specialists,
technical-clerical staff, paraprofessionals, pre-K staff and school-based
administrators. Overall, the transfers
amount to about 1 in 5 of all remaining school-based employees.
Parkland 's Roberta Marcus Feted for Advocacy
The Pennsylvania School Boards Association is honoring Parkland
School Board member Roberta Marcus with the Timothy M. Allwein Advocacy Award.
A fellow
school board member, Robert Bold, announced the news of the award during the
Parkland School Board meeting on Tuesday night. Marcus said she was
“tremendously humbled” to learn that she will be receiving the award.
The Notebook receives a big grant to revamp online publishing
by Dale
Mezzacappa on Aug 29 2012 Posted in Latest news
The Notebook will be revamping
its publishing and implementing new digital strategies for reaching parents and
other core audiences, thanks to a two-year, $202,000 grant just awarded by
the John S. and
James L. Knight Foundation.
The grant, through Knight's Community Information Challenge, will help theNotebook build
its audience by producing more multimedia content, expanding its use of social
media, and making its content more accessible via mobile devices.
The main goal of this project is to do a better
job of informing and serving Philadelphia
Dialogue with the Gates Foundation: What is the
Purpose of K-12 Education?
Follow me on Twitter
at @AnthonyCody
This week, our exchange is focused on these questions: What is the purpose of K-12 education? How do we
think about college and career readiness? How do the Common Core Standards fit
in? This post is a response
to one posted yesterday, authored by Irvin
Scott of the Gates Foundation. This post can also be viewed and commented upon
at theGates Foundation's Impatient Optimists blog.
Irvin Scott of the Gates Foundation has given us some
vivid images of
the students he taught, and sincerely described the fervent desire that
motivates every teacher - that we help those children entrusted to us reach
their fullest potential. That is a drive that transcends this debate. And there
we have common ground as educators.
However, when it comes to the broader strategy
of the Gates Foundation, there remain some tough questions. The thrust of the
Gates Foundation's approach is captured in this paragraph from Irvin Scott:
But
we need all hands on deck when it comes to addressing poverty: we need there to
be efforts laser focused on fixing the root causes of inequality that happen
outside of school and we need efforts to focus on creating opportunity for all
students in the classroom. By focusing on graduating college-ready students, we
are empowering kids to have choices and opportunities that they otherwise would
not have.
Thus far in our dialogue with the Gates
Foundation, I have not seen much evidence of a "laser focus on fixing the
root causes of inequality that happens outside of school." I have seen the
laser focus on improving teacher quality through the use of evaluations that
include test scores. And in this latest post we see their additional focus on
college readiness as an antidote to social inequity.
Published
Online: August
28, 2012
Catholic Schools Feeling Squeeze From Charters
Education Week
By Sean Cavanagh
The nation's Roman Catholic schools have labored
for decades under increasingly adverse economic and demographic conditions,
which have undermined their finances and sapped their enrollment. Today,
researchers and supporters say those schools face one of their most complex
challenges yet: the continued growth of charter schools.
Since they first opened two decades ago, charter
schools have emerged as competitors to Catholic schools for reasons connected
to school systems' missions, their academic models, and the populations they
serve.
New Laws, Programs Expand E-Learning Options
Several states now
require districts to give students more choices
Education Week
By Michelle
R. Davis
August 27, 2012
Premium article access courtesy of Edweek.org.
Lawmakers in Utah Florida Georgia
In recent years, several states have enacted
laws that require more choices for students who want to try taking courses
online, outside the offerings of brick-and-mortar school districts. In some
cases, such legislation—as in Florida and Utah
The new reality of such requirements, however,
means that districts are often facing a significant change in the way they
provide options to students. In some places, the legislation has even
introduced a level of competition among providers—which sometimes are the
districts themselves—in an effort to boost the quality of offerings. At times,
the measures have spawned new methods of cooperation and collaboration.
“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.” Professor
Theodore M. Greene of Princeton
University
Nostesia
Jamie Vollmer’s Blog
Today, one of the hot button issues of the
“back-to-the-past” contingent is the seemingly large number of college freshmen
who require remediation. This subject receives a lot of press, and is offered
as positive proof of failing schools. In this context, I offer the following
quote. It appeared in the Los Angeles Times attributed to 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.
Most people agree that this is a perfect example
of the declining quality of our schools. The problem with the argument,
however, is that Professor Greene uttered this statement about the poor quality
of high school graduates in March 1946.
The Corporate Invasion of Schools
When I warned before that public schools are
succumbing to sales pitches made by corporations, I was taken to task by a
handful of readers for exaggerating the magnitude of the problem ("Be Wary of Corporate Inroads Into Education,"
Dec. 17, 2010 ;
"Are Public Schools Supermarkets?" May 6, 2011 ).
Perhaps the latest evidence will help change their minds ("Pearson's plan to control education,
Report to the B.C. Teachers' Federation," Jun. 30).
If you have received an absentee ballot it must be
postmarked by September 10th
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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