Daily
postings from the Keystone State Education Coalition now reach more than 1750
Pennsylvania education policymakers – school directors, administrators,
legislators, legislative and congressional staffers, PTO/PTA officers, parent
advocates, teacher leaders, education professors, 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
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First Book works through
existing community programs, literacy efforts and schools to provide an ongoing
supply of new books and reading materials – at low or no cost.
Your tax-deductible
donation to First Book will fund new books for children in need and help knock
down the greatest barrier to literacy development in the United States
What’s missing from the “recovery planning” for Chester Upland , Dusquene, Harrisburg , York
If we want to make a difference for kids in high poverty districts,
this is what a solution might look like; things that kids in well funded,
middle class, successful public school districts take for granted:
Top 10 education policy
wishes
Here are
the top 10 items on an education wish list for the holiday season and the New
Year. It was written by Greg Kaufmann, who
reports on poverty for the Nation, and Elaine
Weiss, the national
coordinator for the Broader Bolder Approach to
Education. This appeared on The Nation’s website and was also picked up by
Valerie Strauss on her Answer Sheet blog at the Washington Post.
Pittsburgh Public Schools board passes $521.8 million general fund
budget
By Bill Schackner / Pittsburgh December 19, 2012 8:43 pm
The Pittsburgh Public
Schools board Wednesday night passed a $521.8 million general fund budget for
2013 but will not set a property tax levy until January due to unfinished
county property assessment hearings.
The district's spending
plan for the coming calendar year is $8 million, or 1.5 percent, less than the
2012 budget. It envisions no additional school closings but will require the
district to again tap into its shrinking fund balance to help offset an
operating shortfall that could approach $9.8 million by the end of next year.
York City
David Meckley discussed upcoming work at a school board meeting
Wednesday.
By ANGIE MASON York Daily Record/Sunday News Updated: 12/19/2012
10:35:15 PM EST
An advisory committee
created to help craft a plan for turning around the York City School District
The city district was
recently declared in financial recovery by the state education department, and
David Meckley was appointed as chief recovery officer, tasked with helping the
district create a financial recovery plan. Meckley attended Wednesday's board
meeting and gave those in attendance a glimpse at what the process will entail.
Among the first steps is creating an advisory committee, in accordance with
financial recovery law.
“Whatever your opinion may be of charters, there’s no question the
District has failed to explain its inconsistent approach of allowing
charter expansion without regard to expense or academic quality while insisting
on draconian and widespread sacrifice among District schools. This despite the
fact that many of the District schools targeted for closure outperform some of
the charters the SRC renewed and expanded last spring.”
Philly mass school closings: Why the
numbers don't add up
The notebook Commentary
by Helen Gym on
Dec 20 2012
Like most of the public,
I’ve been baffled by the District’s latest rationale for closing down an
unprecedented number of schools in a single year. In observing the school
hearings this week, I couldn’t help but be reminded of a quote by Maya Angelou:
“There’s a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can obscure the
truth.”
School cheating probe winds down
Daniel Boone School Board
may cut kindergarten, sports, staffing
BIRDSBORO — Daniel Boone
Area School
District
The school board has until June 30 to adopt a
final budget, but district administrators proposed drastic measures to balance
the plan at a Dec. 6 meeting.
To make up for the $5 funding shortfall,
administration propose the maximum property tax hike allowed by the state,
eliminating kindergarten and all extracurricular activities including sports
and marching band, eliminating two school buses, and furloughing 40
professional staff, including 28 full time positions.
State's new PennWATCH website makes tons of information available
By Karen Langley / Post-Gazette Harrisburg December 21, 2012
12:19 am
HARRISBURG -- If you'd
like to know the number of salaried employees for the milk marketing board (23)
or which agency has spent the most this fiscal year (education), you won't need
a right-to-know request. Those facts are
among the reams of information on the business of Pennsylvania
PennWATCH
An open window into YOUR state government
It’s your
money, find out how it is being spent. PennWATCH lets you keep tabs on
the state budget, spending, revenue, employees and performance –
all in one website!
Learn more
about PennWATCH, the agencies that provide data and the types ofinformation
included.
Boehner's Plan B fiscal
cliff bill pulled amid dissension in GOP caucus
From Deirdre Walsh, Dana Bash and Craig
Broffman, CNN
updated 9:10
PM EST, Thu December 20, 2012
Washington (CNN) -- House Speaker John Boehner's proposal to avert the
looming fiscal cliff's automatic tax increases has failed to
get enough Republican support, throwing yet another monkey wrench into the
contentious debate.
Boehner said earlier Thursday that he was confident that his
so-called Plan B -- which would extend tax cuts that are set to expire at
year's end for most people while allowing rates to increase to 1990s levels on
income over $1 million -- would pass the House, and in the process put pressure
on President Barack Obama and the Democratic-controlled Senate. But that gambit
seemed in doubt Thursday, as Republican leaders struggled to get all their
members to sign on, knowing the chamber's Democrats oppose it.
The Year In Research On Market-Based Education
Reform: 2012 Edition
Shanker Blog Posted by Matthew Di Carlo on December 20, 2012
2012 was another busy year for market-based
education reform. The rapid proliferation of charter schools continued, while
states and districts went about the hard work of designing and implementing new teacher evaluations that incorporate student testing data,
and, in many cases, performance pay programs to go along with them.
As in previous years (see our 2010 and 2011 reviews), much of the research on these three “core areas” – merit
pay, charter schools, and the use of value-added and other growth models in
teacher evaluations – appeared rather responsive to the direction of
policy making, but could not always keep up with its breakneck pace.*
"The
concentration on examination and testing can have a deleterious effect in a
couple of ways. First of all there is documented evidence that kids get
stressed out . . . but moreover what we find is that the overemphasis on tests
can dampen down some aspects of creativity, critical thinking, originality,
aesthetic work and a lot of the kind of higher order competences that are
really required for the new economy and for global economies."
Should Singapore
Updated 3 December 2012,
12:56 AEST
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