Daily
postings from the Keystone State Education Coalition now reach more than 1800
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
Follow us
on Twitter at @lfeinberg
“School Choice Week”, a
marketing/media campaign for privatization of a public good, is coming around
again at the end of January. Here are 2
pieces that provide some context for it….
Selling
Schools Out
The Nation by Lee
Fang, November 2011
Under the banner
of high-tech progress, corporate lobbyists have rammed through legislation
privatizing K-12 education across the country.
Education
reform as a business
Did you know that
the education sector now represents nearly 9 percent of the country’s gross
domestic product? That for-profit education is valued at $1.3 trillion, and is
one of the largest U.S.
“When we heard that district representatives themselves reported
that the margin of error for this test is greater than an individual student’s
expected score increase, we were appalled!” … Not a single teacher voted
against the action.”
In perhaps 1st instance in the nation, teachers at a Seattle
“The
current system is also unsustainable for local school districts, which are
looking at cutting things like athletics, music, art and kindergarten in order
to meet their pension obligations. “The taxpayers have reached their maximum
pain point in terms of school cuts,” Zogby said.”
Corbett
targets pension reform in coming budget
Pottstown Mercury By
Evan Brandt ebrandt@pottsmerc.com 01/10/13 08:50 pm
MBIT's tasty lunch makes funding
point
Posted: Thursday, January 10, 2013
5:45 pm | Updated: 12:24 am , Fri Jan 11, 2013 .
By Gary Weckselblatt
Staff Writer Posted on January 10, 2013
If the way to lawmakers’
hearts is through their stomachs, the Middle Bucks Institute of Technology
should count on a hefty helping of funding from Harrisburg
That would only be fair
to repay the heaping helping of quality dining served up Thursday in the
school’s Aspirations Restaurant, which is run by the students.
The event was designed
by Better Choices for Pennsylvania , an arm of
the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy
Center
“Corbett said Wednesday that anyone concerned about cuts to education
funding should breathe a little easier.
"I think they're going to be happy," he said about the
budget.”
6
demonstrate against school funding cuts
BY AMY MARCHIANO STAFF
WRITER AMARCHIANO@REPUBLICANHERALD.COM)
Pottsville January 10, 2013
PINE GROVE - Six women,
some of them retired teachers, stood across from the Pine Grove Area school
buildings Wednesday with signs voicing concern over education funding.
Gov. Tom Corbett was
visiting the school for a presentation about the important role Pennsylvania
Chester Upland
Rita Giordano, Inquirer
Staff Writer January
10, 2013 , 3:01 AM
A former schools
business manager and financial consultant has been hired as chief fiscal
officer of the Chester
Upland School
District Allentown
Philly district to shift
some Head Start classes to private providers
Kristen A. Graham, Inquirer
Staff Writer January 10, 2013 , 5:57 AM
In a cost-cutting move,
the Philadelphia School District
Neshaminy
school board considers pulling offer to teachers union
PhillyBurbs.com By
Christian Menno Staff writer Posted on January 10, 2013
The Neshaminy school
board labor attorney will bring a document to a contract negotiation session
Jan. 17 with the Neshaminy Federation of Teachers that he hopes won’t have to
be removed from his briefcase. “The
state mediator knows that I am going to come to that meeting with 10 copies of
a letter, which I will have already signed, saying we hereby withdraw the offer
of Dec. 18, 2012 ,”
attorney Charles Sweet said during a meeting with the newspaper’s editorial
board Wednesday.
PA Senate Republican
Standing Committee Memberships for the 2013-14 Legislative Session
Senator Scarnati’s website January 10, 2013
Senate President Pro
Tempore Joe Scarnati (R-25) today announced the Republican members for each of
the 22 Senate Standing Committees for the 2013-2014 legislative session.
“Senate Committees are
the cornerstone of the Senate and provide a proven environment for legislation
to be shaped and policies formed,” Scarnati said. “I am pleased that we have
members with a great deal of expertise in numerous areas, who will evaluate and
guide measures that will strengthen our Commonwealth.”
Committee of Seventy
PA
2013 Election Calendar
IMPORTANT PENNSYLVANIA
Gates
Foundation report calls for deeper teacher evaluation
Systemic issues prevent
teaching success, not individual teachers
The publicity given to
the latest Gates Foundation report on teacher evaluation [“Gates: Test scores
not enough for teacher reviews,” seattletimes.com, Jan. 9] adds strength to the
common view that there is something very wrong with American teachers. There
is, for example, no pressing concern about how we should evaluate nurses,
carpenters, doctors, dentists, lawyers, engineers, plumbers, butchers,
newspaper reporters, etc.
Every profession has
some inferior practitioners, but the available evidence says that American
teachers as a group are excellent. When we control for the effects of poverty,
our international test scores are very good, ranking at or near the top of
world.
There are two major
factors preventing teachers from being even more effective:
(1) The high level of child poverty in the
U.S., 23.1 percent, second among high-income countries; children who are
hungry, have poor health care and little access to books will not do well in
school regardless of teacher quality.
(2) The unreasonable demands of the Common
Core: a tight, inflexible curriculum that crushes creativity, designed by
elitists with little idea of what goes on in classrooms, and a massive amount
of testing, more than we have ever seen on this planet.
-- Stephen Krashen,
professor emeritus, University of Southern California , Los Angeles , Calif.
Superfluous grades; StudentsFirst
ranking considers performance last
Center for Public
Education EDfier by Patte Barth January 10, 2013 @ 9:07 am
January so far is
looking like Michelle Rhee month. Last night the self-described education
reformer was the hour-long focus of PBS’s Frontline series.
The day before, her organization StudentsFirst released its report card on the state of
education policy in which Rhee and her colleagues “flunked” most states. The
headlines wrote themselves (see here and here).
But before we
collectively freak out about our own states’ GPA, let’s take a critical look at
what StudentsFirst is grading. First — and I can’t emphasize this enough —
there are no points awarded for education performance. None. Zero. So if you’re
concerned about that ‘F’, Vermont
Meet Adell Cothorne
Taking Note Blog by JOHN MERROW on 09. JAN, 2013
Michelle Rhee is, of
course, the central character in our Frontline film, “The
Education of Michelle Rhee,” but I want to tell you more about Adell
Cothorne, the former DC principal who appears at the end of our film. She was
one of a small handful of DC educators willing to speak on the record about the
widespread
erasures that occurred during Michelle Rhee’s tenure in Washington–and I
think what she has to say is important.
The 2013
RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Presence Rankings
Here are
the 2013 RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Presence rankings. The metrics, as explained here are
designed to recognize those university-based academics who are contributing
most substantially to public debates about K-12 and higher education. The
rankings offer a useful, if imperfect, gauge of the public impact edu-scholars
had in 2012, both due to short-term activity and longer-term contributions. The
rubric reflects both a scholar’s body of academic work — encompassing books,
articles, and the degree to which these are cited — and their 2012 footprint on
the public discourse.
SAVE THE DATE: 2013 Pennsylvania
Budget Summit
Many Pennsylvanians have
sent a clear message to Harrisburg Policy Center
for an in-depth look at the Governor's proposal and an update on the federal
budget -- and what they mean for communities and families across Pennsylvania
2013 Pennsylvania
Budget Summit
Thursday, February 21, 2013 ,
9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
HiltonHarrisburg , 1 North Second Street, Harrisburg , PA
Hilton
EPLC 2013 REGIONAL WORKSHOPS
FOR SCHOOL
The Education Policy and Leadership Center, with the Cooperation
of the Pennsylvania School Boards Association (PSBA) and Pennsylvania
Association of School Business Officials (PASBO), will conduct A Series of Regional Full-Day
Workshops for 2013
Pennsylvania School Board Candidates. Registration is $45 and includes
coffee/donuts, lunch, and materials.
Philadelphia Region Saturday, February 2, 2013
– 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Montgomery County Intermediate Unit, 1605 W. Main Street, Norristown, PA 19403
Montgomery County Intermediate Unit, 1605 W. Main Street, Norristown, PA 19403
Harrisburg Region Saturday, February 9,
2013– 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Pennsylvania School Boards Association Headquarters, 400 Bent Creek Boulevard, Mechanicsburg, PA 17050
Pennsylvania School Boards Association Headquarters, 400 Bent Creek Boulevard, Mechanicsburg, PA 17050
Pittsburgh Region Saturday, February 23, 2013 – 8:30
a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Doubletree Hotel Pittsburgh/Monroeville, 101 Mall Blvd., Monroeville, PA 15146
Doubletree Hotel Pittsburgh/Monroeville, 101 Mall Blvd., Monroeville, PA 15146
2013 PSBA Leadership Symposium on Advocacy
and Issues
April 6, 2013 The Penn Stater Convention Center Hotel; State College, PA
Strategic leadership, school budgeting and advocacy are key issues facing today's school district leaders. For your school district to truly thrive, leaders must maintain a solid understanding of these three functions. Attend the 2013 PSBA Leadership Symposium on Advocacy and Issues to ensure you have the skills you need to take your district to the next level.
April 6, 2013 The Penn Stater Convention Center Hotel; State College, PA
Strategic leadership, school budgeting and advocacy are key issues facing today's school district leaders. For your school district to truly thrive, leaders must maintain a solid understanding of these three functions. Attend the 2013 PSBA Leadership Symposium on Advocacy and Issues to ensure you have the skills you need to take your district to the next level.
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