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
For January
22, 2013
Corbett, lawmakers outline new agendas for Pa.
GoErie.com ASSOCIATED PRESS PUBLISHED:
JANUARY 20, 2013
12:01 AM EST
HARRISBURG --
The governor's annual budget address is traditionally when the state's chief
executive lays out priorities for the coming year, a speech that is scrutinized
closely for what it says about the state's direction.
http://www.goerie.com/article/20130120/NEWS06/301209931/Corbett-lawmakers-outline-new-agendas-for-Pa
If you are
a Pennsylvania
educator, Teachers Lead Philly would like to know what you and your colleagues think
about teacher evaluation (survey)
To what extent should teachers
be involved in determining what an effective teacher is?
OnJun 30, 2012 ,
Pa Governor Corbett signed HB1901 (3885), a law that requires teachers
to be evaluated by multiple measures including student achievement, graduation
rates and locally-designed rubrics.
Teachers Lead Philly would like to know what you think about teacher evaluation. TAKE THE SURVEY, and share it with a friend!
On
Teachers Lead Philly would like to know what you think about teacher evaluation. TAKE THE SURVEY, and share it with a friend!
“What we are having now is private control of
public schools…”
Charter schools now big business nationwide
….Charter schools are public
schools that have their own boards and are chartered by a local school district
in the case of a bricks-and-mortar charter or by the state for a cyber charter.
School districts pay a fee set by the state for their residents to attend.
Increasingly, locally elected
school officials are finding their districts competing against charter schools
allied with big organizations with big money and their own ideas for students.
“It’s had a large impact on the
growth of charter school reform,” said Gary Miron, an education professor at Western Michigan University
who studies charter schools.
Some
school officials say retirement expense is one of biggest challenges for next
year.
By
ANGIE MASON York Daily Record/Sunday News 01/19/2013
A large increase in what school
districts are required to pay in retirement contributions is putting pressure
on school officials as they prepare budgets for the next school year.
School officials locally and
around the state have been talking for years about looming increases in the
required employer contribution to the Public School Employees' Retirement
System (PSERS), caused by years of underfunding and declining investments.
Many Alle-Kiski school districts challenge
private charter, cyber schools
TribLive by R.A. Monti Freelance Reporter
Valley News Dispatch Sunday, January 20, 2013
Many Alle-Kiski school
districts are tired of footing the bill for students who decide to go to
private charter and cyber schools, so they‘re fighting back. During the last few years, many districts
have started their own online schools to try to keep many of their students in
the district and lure back some who left.
Districts are required to pay tuition for students who leave the
district to go to a private charter school, and that can be expensive.
“Sending a kid to a private
charter school costs us between $9,000 and $10,000 a year,” said Matt Connor,
Burrell School District‘s assistant superintendent. “That‘s even higher for a
special education student.
“Salaries will go up $1.7 million while the cost of benefits will be
raised $3.1 million.”
ASD ponders fiscal unknowns
ASD ponders fiscal unknowns
TribLive
By Tim Karan Published: Tuesday,
January 22, 2013 ,
12:01 a.m.
While uncertainty looms over Armstrong School District‘s immediate fiscal future, the board of directors decided not to make any decision regarding its 2013-14 budget or a potential tax increase until later in the year. District business manager John Zenone presented the board with a preliminary budget of $97 million — up $11 million from this year — during a special meeting on Monday night in an effort to decide whether or not ASD foresees a need to exceed the state inflationary tax index before the Jan. 31 deadline.
While uncertainty looms over Armstrong School District‘s immediate fiscal future, the board of directors decided not to make any decision regarding its 2013-14 budget or a potential tax increase until later in the year. District business manager John Zenone presented the board with a preliminary budget of $97 million — up $11 million from this year — during a special meeting on Monday night in an effort to decide whether or not ASD foresees a need to exceed the state inflationary tax index before the Jan. 31 deadline.
Emerging trend toward bookless libraries in
a digital age
Chris
Palmer, Inquirer Staff Writer January 21, 2013
The last time a student at Archbishop Wood High School
borrowed Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finnwas 1997.
Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island has
fared even worse: No student has checked out the adventure novel since 1991.
It could be they are simply
dated and unappealing to today's high school students, or it could be because
they are, well, books in an age of proliferating digital information.
Either way, these titles may
not be on Archbishop Wood's shelves much longer: By the end of the school year,
the number of volumes in the school's library will be whittled from 47,000 to
about 1,000 to make room for a new bank of computers, projection equipment, and
collaborative space.
“Principals are generally considered to be the main factor in the
success or failure of breakfast service, especially in elementary school. If
the principal makes the effort, experts say, more kids eat.”
Study in Philly finds a wide range of
school-breakfast participation
Alfred
Lubrano, Inquirer Staff Writer January 21, 2013 , 6:31 AM
Although school breakfast is
universally considered to be vital for health and learning, there is a wide
disparity in the number of students who get served these meals in Philadelphia schools.
At Moffet
Elementary School in Kensington, for
example, 92 percent of the students eat breakfast, the highest percentage in Philadelphia . But at Pastorius Elementary School
in Germantown ,
just 12 percent of students eat breakfast, the lowest number in the city.
The findings are part of an
analysis released to The Inquirer last week by Public Citizens for Children and
Youth, a Philadelphia
children's advocacy group.
Matching funds open governor's school at CMU
The Pennsylvania
Governor's School for the Sciences will enroll students this summer at Carnegie
Mellon University, three years after state budget cuts prompted the
commonwealth to eliminate it and other governor's schools around the state.
An agreement between the
state and Carnegie Mellon to offer the instruction has been signed, Timothy
Eller, a spokesman for the state Department of Education, said Tuesday.
Obama’s three education
references in inaugural speech
Here are
the three references to education that President Obama made in his inaugural
speech today:
National public high school graduation rate
at a four-decade high
The percentage of students at
public high schools who graduate on time has reached its highest level in
nearly 40 years, according to the most recent federal government
estimates released
Tuesday. Based on data collected
from the states for the Class of 2010, the National Center
for Education Statistics estimated that 78 percent of students across the
country earned a diploma within four years of starting high school. The
graduation rate was last at that level in 1974, officials said.
Leading Educators Support Seattle Teacher Test Boycott
PRESS
RELEASE January
21, 2013
Contact:
Brian Jones, Teacher and
Doctoral Student, bjones2@gc.cuny.edu
Wayne Au, Professor of
Education, wayne@rethinkingschools.org
In a public statement released
today, more than sixty educators and researchers, including some of the most
well-respected figures in the field of education, pledged support for the
boycott of the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) test initiated by the
teachers at Garfield High School in Seattle ,
calling the action a “blow against the overuse and misuse of standardized
tests.”
At the Chalk Face: Seattle Opt Out
blogtalk
radio by Chalk Face Sun, January 20, 2013
runtime: 33:02
We're all over the Seattle Opt
Out. For the next installment, 1.20.13, we'll be talking to Seattle parent Sue Peters about the Garfield
MAP opt out. Sue is a founding member of Parents Across America. For the second
half, Heather Snookal, a Garfield HS teacher, is up.
“We are circumventing our own public policy with public money,” said
State Representative Stacey Abrams, the leader of the Democratic minority in
the House. “In our public schools, we do not disallow a child from attending on
the basis of their sexual orientation.”
“If this were to be happening at any public school,” she said, “the
lawsuit would be great and the settlement extraordinary.”
Backed by
State Money , Georgia Education Tax Credit Scholarships
Go to Schools Barring Gays
New York Times By KIM SEVERSON Published: January 20, 2013
The policies at more than 100
such schools are explicit.
Reading the tea leaves for Newbery, Caldecott winners
Post-Gazette By Karen
MacPherson / Scripps Howard News Service January 22, 2013
It's that time of year,
when lovers of children's literature start betting on which books will win the
prestigious Caldecott Medal and Newbery Medal on Jan. 28.
It's a big deal and not
just for children's literature fans. The Caldecott Medal is given annually by
the American Library Association to the best illustrated children's book
published the previous year. The Newbery Medal is given annually to the best
written children's book.
SAVE THE DATE: 2013 Pennsylvania
Budget Summit Feb.
21st
Many Pennsylvanians have
sent a clear message to Harrisburg
in recent months: The state budget cuts of the past two years were too deep. It
is time to once again invest in classrooms and communities. Next month, Governor Tom Corbett will unveil
his 2013-14 budget proposal. Join the Pennsylvania Budget and 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
BOARD CANDIDATES
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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