“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
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These daily
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Philly.com by Miriam
Hill WEDNESDAY, AUGUST
8, 2012
Is momentum for public
schools building in Philadelphia
“Unless
state policymakers change direction in a hurry and focus on providing adequate
resources for teaching and learning in every school and for every child, more
cuts are on the way for all our public schools. But students, parents, and
teachers shouldn't be blamed for failing to swim when our leaders have emptied
the pool.”
Posted: Thu, Aug. 9, 2012 , 3:01 AM
City schools' real problem
Philly.com Opinion By Baruch
Kintisch
Baruch Kintisch is director of policy advocacy for the Education Law
Center
Local and state
education officials have been pretending that school results are independent of
school resources - that children can swim in a pool that's been drained.
Policymakers have focused on test scores, restructuring plans, and other
outwardly visible factors. But they don't seem to be asking the more
fundamental questions: What resources do Philadelphia
“Across
the nation, charter schools have struggled to produce results which are
believably better than their Board of Education competitors. Meanwhile,
problems with corruption and fraud are rife. And no wonder. If you put a pot of government money on the
sidewalk, while ordering the government not to oversee its spending, because
government can’t possibly know what it’s doing – then don’t be surprised if a
lot of that money walks off.”
CHARTER SCHOOLS: A School For
Scandal?
Philadelphia
Public Record BY TONY WEST/ Last week the FBI charged one of the pioneers
of the charter-school movement, June Hairston Brown, and four colleagues with
defrauding $6.5 million from three Philadelphia schools she had founded: Agora
Cyber Charter School, Planet Abacus Charter School and Laboratory Charter
School of Communication & Language – all taxpayers’ money.
In
April, the School Reform Commission terminated the charters of three more city
schools – Truebright Science Academy ,
Arise Academy
and Hope Charter School Truebright Science Academy
Trouble
was brewing in other charter schools even earlier – literally, in the case of
the Harambee Institute of Science
& Technology Charter
School
Last
Friday, the School District’s overseer of charter schools Thomas Darden was
forced out after a steamy School Reform Commission meeting — a move the School District kept secret for three days.
The time
has come to start asking hard questions about an educational revolution which
may have gone sour.
“Pennsylvania
Posted: Thu, Aug. 9, 2012 , 3:01 AM
State presses Chesco cyber charter for improvements
By Martha Woodall
Inquirer Staff Writer
In a decision last
week, Secretary Ronald Tomalis criticized the Achievement House
Cyber Charter
School
If the actions are not
taken by the deadline, he said, the Education Department would begin
proceedings to revoke the charter.
“To sum up:
The taxpayers of Pennsylvania are paying for school advertising, lobbying, high
CEO salaries, shareholder profits , Michael Milkin and bad education.”
Cyber charter schools not good for Pennsylvania
Charter schools are
needed in failing school districts. Maybe even in non-failing districts.
Hopefully they will be effective, well run and nonprofits. They give choices.
They can focus on the interests of certain students -- art, sciences, music,
even community participation. They have a real advantage in that the parents
sending their children to these schools have a strong inclination to
participate in their children's education.
But cyber charter
schools present a host of problems and are, I believe, overrepresented in Pennsylvania
“There is no
high stakes testing in Finland
Charter Schools
On this, the 20th anniversary of the opening of the
first charter school, kudzu comes to mind.
In the 1930s the Soil Conservation Service (SCS)
paid farmers $8 per acre to plant this Japanese vine whose deep root structure
helps reduce erosion and enrich a depleted soil. Farmers planted more
than 1.2 million acres. Twenty years
later the SCS declared kudzu a virulent, parasitic weed. Its rapid growth
shades the native flora, blocking their access to life-sustaining light. As
these plants die, nutrients previously used by them become available to kudzu.
“This new law shifts limited
state funds away from public school districts, by siphoning valuable dollars
from the general fund, via tax credits, that could otherwise be used for public
schools. As a result, millions of
dollars will not be available to restore funding levels of important education
programs,”
EITC 2.0: Education tax credit means easy money
PhillyTrib.com by staff writer Damon C. Williams August 7, 2012
Application process to
fund scholarships simple for Pa.
It just got that much
easier for businesses participating in the Opportunity Scholarship Tax Program
to recoup a portion of the $50 million Governor Tom Corbett earmarked for the
initiative. The plan represents an expansion of sorts to the Earned Income Tax
Credit plan, also referred to as “EITC 2.0.”
The front end of the program is designed for parents and caregivers to
easily transfer students from perennially low-performing schools to better
learning institutions, while reimbursing them for the costs related to the
move. On the back end, the program allows for companies to receive tax credits
for donating funds to eligible schools.
A student already enrolled
in private or cyber school could receive scholarships simply by living in that
area. "The first concern I have is
that the language of the bill doesn't say that students are currently attending
the schools that are on the list," said Susan Spicka, who is running for
Kauffman's seat in the House. "The scholarships can go to a student
already attending private schools. That doesn't seem like a good faith effort
to help students in struggling schools."
EITC 2.0 Scholarship
program gets mixed reviews
Chambersburg Public Opion Online By BRIAN HALL, @bkhallPO 8/8/12
Supporters of the state's new scholarship
program for students in underachieving schools say the program gives children a
chance for a better education. Others say it's just a scaled-back version of an
earlier voucher program state legislators have been unable to pass.
The new Opportunity
Scholarship Tax Credit program will provide students who live within the
boundaries of determined "low-achieving" schools a chance to apply
for funding to attend a school approved by Pennsylvania Department of
Education.
EITC 2.0 Few takers for would-be transfer students from
‘low-achieving’ schools
afioriglio@timesherald.com Posted:
08/07/12
05:45 pm
NORRISTOWN — Despite a 
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request by the Pennsylvania Department of Education
for schools not ranked among the bottom 15 percent in the state to “open doors
to students trapped in low-achieving schools,” the majority of local schools
will not be participating in the program and will not be accepting transfer
students from schools designated as “low-achieving.”
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request by the Pennsylvania Department of Education
for schools not ranked among the bottom 15 percent in the state to “open doors
to students trapped in low-achieving schools,” the majority of local schools
will not be participating in the program and will not be accepting transfer
students from schools designated as “low-achieving.”
While a formal list of
districts that are participating in the program has not yet been posted,
representatives from multiple districts in the area have already confirmed the
lack of participation from their districts. The formal list will be posted on
the website of the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic
Development after Aug. 15.
The state House Finance and State Government committees will
hold a joint hearing next week to discuss several proposals to reform the
public pension system.
The 1 p.m. hearing Aug. 14 will be held in Room 140 of the Main Capitol.
In June, Chester County Republican Rep. Warren Kampf introduced twin bills that would move state pensions toward market-driven 401(k) plans. House Bill 2453 would make changes for state employees. HB 2454 would address school district employees.
The bills would most immediately address the expansion of pension plans by requiring all new state and school employees to be enrolled in defined contribution plans, such as 401(k) plans, that shift more burden of paying for it onto the employee.
In June, Chester County Republican Rep. Warren Kampf introduced twin bills that would move state pensions toward market-driven 401(k) plans. House Bill 2453 would make changes for state employees. HB 2454 would address school district employees.
The bills would most immediately address the expansion of pension plans by requiring all new state and school employees to be enrolled in defined contribution plans, such as 401(k) plans, that shift more burden of paying for it onto the employee.
Prior to
her work with the Gates Foundation Vicki Phillips was PA Secretary of Education
under the Rendell administration
The Gates Foundation Writes: How Do We Consider
Evidence of Student Learning in Teacher Evaluation?
Guest post by Vicki Phillips.
This post tackles the second topic in a five
part dialogue with representatives of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It
is also posted over at the Gates Foundation's Impatient Optimist blog.
A response from Anthony Cody will come tomorrow.
Education debates are often characterized wrongly as two warring camps: blame teachers for everything that's not working in our schools or defend all teachers at all costs.
Education debates are often characterized wrongly as two warring camps: blame teachers for everything that's not working in our schools or defend all teachers at all costs.
But there's actually serious work going on in
the middle, where there's a lot of common purpose around helping teachers
improve their practice and students improve their learning. The fundamental
question is how do we reliably measure learning and use a range of quality
feedback to provide great support for teachers to continually improve.
Privatizers Bare Their Faces Without Shame
Diane Ravitch’s Blog August 8, 2012
Last
week we saw a report from Reuters about the conference for equity investors
held at the posh University Club in Manhattan
Here
is another article from the same conference, this one in Education Week,
reporting with a straight face that the equity investors see new opportunities
to make money when the new national tests inevitably produce low scores.
How Online Learning Companies Bought America
The Nation by Lee
Fang November
16, 2011
Standing at the
lectern of Arizona
State University
Moe has worked for
almost fifteen years at converting the K-12 education system into a cash cow
for Wall Street. A veteran of Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch, he now leads
an investment group that specializes in raising money for businesses looking to
tap into more than $1 trillion in taxpayer money spent annually on primary
education. His consortium of wealth management and consulting firms, called
Global Silicon Valley Partners, helped K12 Inc. go public and has advised a
number of other education companies in finding capital.
New school year:
doubling down on failed ed policy
This was
written by Lisa Guisbond, a policy analyst for the National Center
By Lisa Guisbond
Olympic gold medalist Usain Bolt credited his teammate, Jamaican
runner Yohan “The Beast,” Blake, with helping him improve by beating him in
earlier races. The defeats forced Bolt to reflect on what he needed to do
differently to improve. Bolt’s victory modeled a powerful lesson: Always try to
learn from your mistakes, rather than repeat them.
President Obama and
Arne Duncan (AP)As children head back to school after a decade of No Child Left Behind, will they
benefit from lessons learned from this sweeping and expensive failure? Will
schools do anything differently to avoid NCLB’s narrowed curriculum, teaching
to the test and stagnant achievement? Sadly, instead of learning from the
beastly NCLB, the Obama administration is doubling down on a failed policy.
Fairtest: Testing
Reform in the News July 31 - Aug. 7, 2012
The National
Center
Submitted by Fairtest on August 8, 2012 - 12:53pm
Testing Reform Allies:
After reading this week's installment of clips,
remember to take advantage of the many excellent fact sheets, some recently
updated, on all facets of assessment reform available for free at http://www.fairtest.org. They are designed to support your grassroots
public education work, including writing letters to the editor about these
articles, posting on blogs and communicating with policy makers.
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