Friday, October 12, 2012

Hey look – another reported instance of questionable financial dealings by “vendors of local agencies”…using public tax dollars…Let’s just go ahead with SB1115 and exclude them from the state’s right-to-know laws….




Send a Letter to the President on October 17

Diane Ravitch’s Blog October 3, 2012 /
Earlier I posted the draft of a letter to President Obama and asked for your help.
I got some excellent suggestions.
To begin with, this is not an online petition, but an invitation to join together to write your own individual heartfelt letter to the President and to email the White House on the same day.


Daily postings from the Keystone State Education Coalition now reach more than 1650 Pennsylvania education policymakers – school directors, administrators, legislators, legislative and congressional staffers, PTO/PTA officers, teacher leaders, members of the press and a broad array of P-16 education advocacy organizations via emails, website, Facebook and Twitter.

These daily emails are archived at http://keystonestateeducationcoalition.org
Follow us on Twitter at @lfeinberg

Hey look – another reported instance of questionable financial dealings by “vendors of local agencies”…using public tax dollars…Let’s just go ahead with SB1115 and exclude them from the state’s right-to-know laws….

PA Cyber condo deal defies traditional math

$933,000 home sold for $10 now on market for $875,000
By Rich Lord / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette October 12, 2012 12:06 am
A Florida condominium bought last year by the Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School's founder for $933,000, and then sold to a business created by one of the school's former executives for just $10, is back on the market, real estate agents said Thursday.
The four-bedroom, 41/2-bathroom house passed in December from PA Cyber CEO Nick Trombetta to Palatine Development LLC. That Ohio-based firm was created by former PA Cyber technology director Brett Geibel, who left the school in 2007 for a series of positions with direct or indirect vendors of the school.
A Palatine campus in Calcutta, Ohio, was the scene in July of one of several searches by FBI and IRS agents, all part of a federal grand jury investigation believed to focus on former or current executives of PA Cyber.

Should Pennsylvania have a Statewide Authorizer for Charter Schools?
Published: Thursday, October 11, 2012
Delco Times Opinion By Lawrence A. Feinberg, Special to the Times
While there are some great charter schools, sixteen years of charters in Pennsylvania have not shown them to be systematically more effective than traditional public schools.
Next week the Pennsylvania State Legislature is expected to consider charter school reform legislation that, among other things, would give a state appointed body the power to create charter schools without approval by the local communities and school districts that they might be located in. Under present charter school law, only local school boards have that authority.

If You’re Explaining, You’re Losing: PA GOP Education Funding Edition

Keystone Politics Blog Posted on  by Jon
Tom Corbett’s education cuts continue to be a hot issue in a lot of state legislature races, and my advice to Democrats is to keep pushing this as hard as possible. Blame the Republicans for the cuts to school districts, blame them for local property tax hikes and teacher layoffs, blame blame blame. This message is working.
If you want some evidence that it’s working, take this paragraph from Keegan Gibson’s article on Rob Teplitz’s new ad hitting John McNally on the Corbett education cuts:

Biden Hits Ryan for Education Cuts in VP Debate

 Alyson Klein  
Vice President Joe Biden attacked GOP vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan at Thursday night's debate for cuts in Ryan's proposed budget that Biden said would that kick 200,000 children out of the Head Start early childhood program.
The vice president also said at one point that the Ryan budget would cut $450 billion from education—it seems likely that he misspoke and meant to say about $4.5 billion, which is the figure cited in this White House analysis of the cuts. He also criticized Ryan for plans to cut a college tuition tax credit.
Beyond that brief exchange, education barely registered in the 90-minute debate at Centre College in Danville, Ky., which focused heavily on foreign policy.

When It Comes to Kids, America Gets a C-

Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children Blog Posted At : October 11, 2012 4:35 PM
Related Categories: Blogging4Children
America earns mediocre marks when it comes to our collective efforts to improve the well-bring of the nation's children, according to a new national report card from two leading children's advocacy organizations.  America's Report Card 2012: Children in the U.S. gives the nation an average grade of C- for efforts to help kids – a grade based on five equally lackluster grades in these five areas that impact children:

Commentary: PA charter school reform should protect taxpayers, not just K12, Inc. CEO Ron Packard and CSM CEO Vahan Gureghian
Keystone State Education Coalition October 4, 2012
Pennsylvania lawmakers should consider the following principles in any charter school reform legislation:

The PA Legislature is in recess until October 15th
Please contact your state senator and state rep regarding charter school reform during this break
You can bet that the charter school lobbyists are not taking a break

2012 PASA-PSBA School Leadership Conference Oct. 16-19, 2012
Registration is Now Open!  Hershey Lodge & Convention Center, Hershey, PA
www.psba.org/workshops/school-leadership-conference/
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