Daily
postings from the Keystone State Education Coalition now reach more than 1700
Pennsylvania education policymakers – school directors, administrators,
legislators, legislative and congressional staffers, PTO/PTA officers, parent
advocates, 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
What Works: an informal collection of
strategies and programs to inform the public discussion of how to improve
student learning for high poverty populations of students.
Corbett: Pa.
Trib Live By Brad Bumsted and Mike Wereschagin December 5, 2012 , 12:01 a.m.
WithPennsylvania
With
Any changes would start
with new employees but, if he can get lawmakers to agree, could include workers
who haven’t put in the 10 years required to become vested in the system.
Making changes won’t fix
the problem in the short term, but the state cannot afford to postpone action
any longer, Corbett said. As pension costs rise — state payments are due to
increase by $511 million next year — other items in the budget will get
squeezed.
“Everything is being
somewhat driven by what the effect of the pension is,” Corbett said. “People
need to know why this is an issue.”
Philly parents groups,
NAACP to file ethics complaint over school district consultant
Kristen A. Graham and Jeff Gammage, Inquirer Staff Writers
POSTED: Wednesday, December 5, 2012 , 3:01 AM
Members of two parent groups and the city's
NAACP chapter plan to file a city ethics complaint Wednesday alleging that
William Penn Foundation-funded work that a consulting firm did for the Philadelphia School District
For several months, the Boston Consulting Group
studied the district's operations. It came up with an extensive set of
recommendations on how to cut costs and restructure operations in a school
system hundreds of millions of dollars in debt.
Parents United for
Public Education, the Philadelphia Home and School Council, and the Philadelphia
Spencer:
Time to get to work on CUSD’s recovery
Published: Tuesday, December 04, 2012
Delco
Times Opinion By GIL SPENCER gspencer@delcotimes.com
By Friday, the Chester Upland
School District Pennsylvania Delaware County Court
Whenever I hear about someone having a plan, I immediately think of Sonny Liston.
When told that another fighter had a plan to beat him, Liston allegedly replied, “Everybody’s got a plan, till they get hit.”
Whenever I hear about someone having a plan, I immediately think of Sonny Liston.
When told that another fighter had a plan to beat him, Liston allegedly replied, “Everybody’s got a plan, till they get hit.”
PDE PRESS RELEASE December
04, 2012
Jefferson County
Educator Named Pennsylvania ’s 2013 Teacher of
the Year
Hershey – Ryan Devlin, a teacher in theBrockway
Area School
District , Jefferson County , today was named Pennsylvania Pennsylvania
Hershey – Ryan Devlin, a teacher in the
“As a dedicated
professional, Ryan’s commitment to both the teaching profession and his
students demonstrates that Pennsylvania
List: What Common Core
authors suggest high schoolers should read
A Post story by my colleague Lyndsey Layton about
controversy surrounding the Common Core English Language Arts standards — or,
more specifically, the call for reading by high school seniors to be 70 percent
non-fiction — has generated a lot of online interest. A number of the hundreds
of comments on the story mention some of the reading recommendations from
the Common Core authors that Layton mentioned in the story, including “the
Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco (2009) and “Executive Order 13423:
Strengthening Federal Environmental, Energy, and Transportation Management,”
published by the General Services Administration.” Here is the full list of reading “exemplars” for high school.
“School leaders
helping all students become college and career-ready”
Curated by Mel Riddile
New
education standards elbow out literature
Is nonfiction more
rigorous than literature? An important education initiative thinks so
TUESDAY,
DEC 4, 2012
02:41 PM EST
English teachers are
fretting that a set of curriculum guidelines could reduce the teaching of
fiction and poetry in the classroom, the Washington Post reports. The Common Core State Standards, which will be implemented
by more than 40 states by 2014, require that 50 percent of elementary school
reading be nonfiction, climbing to 70 percent by 12th grade. Supporters, the
Post says, believe American students have suffered from “a diet of easy reading
and lack the ability to digest complex nonfiction, including studies, reports
and primary documents,” leaving them unprepared for higher education and the
working world.
Schools face problems
ranging from overcrowded classrooms to crumbling buildings to malnourished
students. But the idea of rigorous common standards in general, if not these
specific guidelines, has support from powerful interests including the Department
of Education, the U.S. Army and numerous reformists. Some of the suggested ideas would
be a notable change from what almost all Americans remember of high school.
Obamacore: The White
House Takes the Schools
National Review Online
By Stanley Kurtz December 3, 2012 12:05 P.M.
President Obama’s bid to control what your
children learn in school is surely one of the most important and disturbing of
his many transformative plans. Not only is Obama’s attempt to devise what is in
effect a national K–12 school curriculum arguably unconstitutional and illegal,
the fact that most Americans have no idea that the new “Common Core” (a.k.a.
Obamacore) even exists may be the most troubling thing about it.
Today’s Washington
Post features an article on the controversy being kicked up by the new English
curriculum that 46 states and the District
of Columbia September 21, 2012
article featured a more revealing headline than the web version: “Education
overhaul largely bypasses Congress.”
Common Core: David
Coleman's letter in NYT is good example of Pynchon's law. All they have to do
is get you asking wrong questions
Tweet from Susan Ohanian @susanoha
“Three federal programs critical to education
-- Title I funds for poor students, state grants for special education and Head
Start -- would lose $2.7 billion over 10 years if sequestration goes forward, according to
a Senate report.”
First Five Years Fund
Urges Lawmakers To Invest In Early Childhood Education (VIDEO)
As Congress seeks to
avoid triggering across-the-board cuts to
education, the nonprofit First
Five Years Fund is
urging legislators to invest in quality early childhood development. According
to a video released by the organization, investing now in
early childhood education would ensure that students are school and
workforce-ready, reducing the achievement gap and boosting graduation rates. In a press statement, Kris Perry, the group's
executive director, spoke to the importance of funding Head Start pre-school programs,
which primarily serve low-income families.
Fiscal Cliff: How Would Federal Spending Cuts
Affect Your District?
If lawmakers don't act to head off a series of
automatic spending cuts, states and districts around the country will feel a
squeeze—but some may be more heavily impacted than others, according to an analysis released today by the American
Association of School Administrators.
AASA, which represents superintendents and other
administrators, took a look at how every state and virtually every school
district around the country would be impacted by automatic spending cuts (known
as sequestration), which are set to hit on Jan. 2. Unless lawmakers and the
administration can reach a long-term deal on deficit reduction, many federal
programs, including most in the U.S. Department of Education would face a cut
of roughly 8 percent. Most districts wouldn't begin to feel the pinch until the
new school year starts in the fall. More here.
AASA Fiscal Cliff Toolkit: Supports Report
Detailing Uneven Impact of Sequester
AASA created this
toolkit in tandem with our recent Economic Impact report, Federal
Public Education Revenues and the Sequester, to help school
districts and education stakeholders raise awareness about the true local
impacts of the looming cuts of the fiscal cliff and sequester.
Includes
excel spreadsheets detailing (one state per page, 10 pages per file) the share
of federal, state and local dollars for every school district in the nation. You can look up your district to see the
role of federal dollars in your operating budget.
Gates’ Grants Back Public-Charter Cooperation
New York Times By MOTOKO RICH
Published: December
5, 2012
In an effort to
encourage collaboration between charter schools and traditional neighborhood
schools, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has awarded $25 million in grants to
seven cities.
The Gates Foundation,
which is one of the largest philanthropic players in public education, was
scheduled to announce the grants on Wednesday to Boston ,
Denver , Hartford ,
New Orleans , New York ,
Philadelphia and Spring Branch, Tex.
Nation's education chief visits NOLA to
monitor school reforms; opposes vouchers
FOX8 WVUE New
Orleans 7:04 PM
EST
"I'm a big
proponent of choice and competition, but I really want to make every single
public school a great school, and so I've never supported vouchers. The
overwhelming majority of children in our country, 90 to 95 percent always have,
and always will attend a public school," Duncan
Education Policy and Leadership Center
"
Continental Breakfast - 8:00 a.m. Program - 8:30 a.m. to 10:00 a.m.
Holiday Inn
SPEAKER: Erica Frankenberg, Ed.D. Assistant Professor, Department of
Registration is free,
but everyone must RSVP at http://www.eplc.org/events-calendar/western-pennsylvania-breakfast-series/.
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