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State House passes bill to overhaul special
education funding formula
By Jan Murphy |
jmurphy@pennlive.com on March 11, 2013 at 6:05 PM
The
state House passed legislation today that would establish a 15-member
commission to develop a special
education funding formula to replace the existing one that is decades
old.
The legislation,
which passed 193-0, calls for the formula to factor in costs of providing
services to students with special needs.
PA House Bill 2 (O’Neill) passed the House
193-0; on to the Senate (as SB 470)
House Approves O’Neill Bill to Create Fair
Funding Formula for Special Education
PA
House Republican Caucus 3/11/2013
“Our
state’s archaic formula for funding special education has been in place for 20
years,” said O’Neill. “This unfair distribution method starves areas with
increasing populations of special needs students of the resources they need to
succeed.”
Currently,
state funding for special education is distributed based on an estimate that
special education students make up 16 percent of the overall student population
in each school district.
“Pennsylvania
Advocate group wants Pennsylvania
PA Independent By ERIC
BOEHM March
11, 2013
The Education Law Center, a Philadelphia-based nonprofit that advocates
for more equitable education funding, called for the restoration of a
state-level educational funding formula along the lines of the one discontinued
by the Corbett administration.
The group said Pennsylvania
Report: PA Education Funding Falls
Flat
Public News Service by Tom Joseph March 11, 2013
According to Rhonda Brownstein, executive director of the
Brownstein said
Admission to Pittsburgh
By Anya Sostek / Pittsburgh March
11, 2013 12:11 am
Bathed in light from soaring windows, kindergartners huddle around a
table, engrossed in individualized iPad lessons. Shrugging off 20-degree
temperatures, first-graders bound across Forbes Avenue Frick Park Park Place Environmental
Charter School
Increasingly, it's nearly an impossible one.
Longietti said he supports a bill calling for
reform because he thinks “people would be astounded when they hear how much
charter schools cost districts.”
Local school reps give lawmakers an
earful
Sharon Herald By Sandy Scarmack Herald
Staff Writer March 10, 2013
MERCER — While the final education budget won’t roll out until the
end of June, local legislators and school district officials met Thursday night
to talk about key issues curently affecting public education, specifically
charter schools, pension reform and state funding.
Hosted by Mercer Area School District, Reps. Mark Longietti, Hermitage, D-7th District, Dick Stevenson, Grove City, R-8th District, Michelle Brooks, Jamestown, R-17th District, and Sen. Bob Robbins, Salem Township, R-50th District, talked with Mercer County school directors and superintendents about the pain charter schools are inflicting on public education, by siphoning off millions of dollars in funding while not being held to the same standards as public schools.
Hosted by Mercer Area School District, Reps. Mark Longietti, Hermitage, D-7th District, Dick Stevenson, Grove City, R-8th District, Michelle Brooks, Jamestown, R-17th District, and Sen. Bob Robbins, Salem Township, R-50th District, talked with Mercer County school directors and superintendents about the pain charter schools are inflicting on public education, by siphoning off millions of dollars in funding while not being held to the same standards as public schools.
Morrisville School Board president
addresses Pennsbury School Board on proposed merger talks
By Petra March
10, 2013
PENNSBURY - In an unusual appearance, Damon Miller, president of the
Morrisville School Board, addressed the Pennsbury School Board during public
comment on March 7 regarding proposed merger talks between the two school
districts. Miller, who is requesting a
meeting with Pennsbury officials on the issue, said he would not want to pursue
the talks only with Allan Weisel, the Pennsbury School Board president. He also
would like other Pennsbury officials involved.
TribLive By Tim
Karan Leader Times Published: Friday,
March 8, 2013 ,
12:01 a.m.
It'll be a tale of two schools on Monday evening when the Armstrong School Board is faced with decisions about its soon-to-be built high school inManor Township
and the proposed Everlasting
Elderton Charter
School
It'll be a tale of two schools on Monday evening when the Armstrong School Board is faced with decisions about its soon-to-be built high school in
Pennsylvania Department of Education clears
up confusion over PSSA training test
State admits confusion, says teachers don't
have to pass quiz to give PSSA exams.
By Adam Clark, Of The Morning Call 11:35
p.m. EDT, March 11, 2013
The
Pennsylvania Department of Education sent a statewide notice Monday clearing up
confusion over its new online training module, which many teachers thought
required them to pass a test in order to administer standardized exams this
spring.
The
department clarified that teachers do not have to score an 80 percent or better
on the 10-question quiz, which comes at the end of a new, mandatory 45-minute
training module.
The
state will change the "self-check" assessment before next year and
eliminate all references to passing and failing at the end of the module,
according to the department's emailed statement.
Roxbury News, 8MAR
Dean Kaplan, Managing Director, The PFM Group, presents a power point
presentation on the existing debt of the Harrisburg
Charter Reform Now
Yinzercation Blog March 11, 2013
Charter schools are all over the news today. The Post-Gazette has
not one but two articles, there is new legislation pending in the state House
this week, and a new grassroots movement launched today aimed at reforming the
broken state funding formula. Sounds like time to catch up on what is going on
with our charter schools.
Philly Today, Pittsburgh
Yinzercation Blog March 8, 2013
Massive demonstrations. Eighteen arrests, including students, parents,
and American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten. Tears and
sobbing as entire communities learned they would no longer have a school. What
happened in Philadelphia yesterday could be
happening in Pittsburgh Philadelphia
US Dept. of Education Blog Posted on March 11, 2013 by Guest Blogger
March 14 (3/14), is only a few days away, which means it’s time to
celebrate pi, everybody’s favorite irrational mathematical number (the 14 is
also Albert Einstein’s birthday). Pi is the ratio of a circle’s circumference
to its diameter, and it’s an irrational number, so
it can’t be expressed as a simple fraction of two integers. 3.14 is just the
beginning of pi, which goes on for infinity.
Urban School Leaders Hear Federal
Take on Early Ed., Turnarounds
Education Week District Dissier Blog By Lesli A.
Maxwell on March 11, 2013 5:20
PM
Washington - The nation's
school districts would be the main administrators, and in some states the main
providers, of early-learning services in the expansion
of preschool for 4-year-olds envisioned by the White House, administration
officials told urban school leaders at a conference here on Monday. The White
House also seems to envision a full-day preschool program to serve all low- and
moderate-income families with 4-year-olds.
“The pervasive media mythology tells
us that the fight over the schoolhouse is supposedly a battle between greedy
self-interested teachers who don’t care about children and benevolent
billionaire “reformers” whose political activism is solely focused on the
welfare of kids.”
Getting rich off of schoolchildren
Stop pretending wealthy CEOs pushing for charter schools are altruistic
"reformers." They're raking in billions
Salon.com BY DAVID
SIROTA MONDAY, MAR 11, 2013 11:36
AM EDT
Last week, Los
Angeles provided yet another example
of a cadre of anti-public-school millionaires swooping in to try (and in this
case, fail)
to buy a big-city school-board election. And once again, that sparked a round
of Orwellian newspeak that distorts what’s really happening in education
politics. You know how it goes:
The pervasive media mythology tells
us that the fight over the schoolhouse is supposedly a battle between greedy
self-interested teachers who don’t care about children and benevolent
billionaire “reformers” whose political activism is solely focused on the
welfare of kids. Epitomizing the media narrative, the Wall Street Journal casts
the latter in sanitized terms, reimagining the billionaires as philanthropic
altruists “pushing for big changes they say will improve public schools.”
PSBA discusses pensions on PCN
Call-in Program Tuesday, March 12, 7:00
pm
PSBA 3/7/2013
On Tuesday, March 12, PCN will host a Call-In Program on pension reform
at 7 p.m.
PSBA Interim Executive Director Stuart Knade will be on the program along
with Richard Rowland, Executive Director of the PA Association of School
Retirees. Viewers are invited to call (877) 726-5001 with their comments or
questions. Check your local listings for station information.
“Lessons from the Heartland” Barbara
Miner book signing and discussion Thursday, March 14th, 7:00-8:30 p.m.
Defending Public Schools,
Defending our Democracy
Interviewed by Helen Gym
Hosted by Media Mobilizing Project, TAG-Philly, Philadelphia
Media Mobilizing Project, 4233
Chestnut Street , Philadelphia
Please RSVP to parentsunitedphila@gmail.com.
Children with Specific Learning
Disabilities, Dyslexia and Calls for Reforming Special Education
Session will take place from 12:00-4:00pm on the
listed day at the United
Way Building 1709 Benjamin Franklin
Parkway , Philadelphia , PA 19103
Sessions also available via webinar.
Cost: Pay What You Can! (Minimum
payment of $5 Requested)
This session is designed
to address the legal aspects surrounding the needs of children with dyslexia,
and other learning disabilities (ADHD, non-verbal learning disabilities). An
expert in dyslexia will join Sonja Kerr to explain dyslexia/learning
disabilities, the research and what we can do about it.
ANNOUNCING THE LAUNCH OF THE NETWORK
FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION
The Network for Public
Education is an advocacy group
whose goal is to fight to protect, preserve and strengthen our public school
system, an essential institution in a democratic society. Our mission is to
protect, preserve, promote, and strengthen public schools and the education of
current and future generations of students. We will accomplish this by
networking groups and organizations focused on similar goals in states and districts
throughout the nation, share information about what works and what doesn’t work
in public education, and endorse and rate candidates for office based on our
principles and goals. More specifically, we will support candidates who oppose
high-stakes testing, mass school closures, the privatization of our public
schools and the outsourcing of its core functions to for-profit corporations,
and we will support candidates who work for evidence-based reforms that will
improve our schools and the education of our nation’s children.
Become a member: http://www.networkforpubliceducation.org/network-membership/
Subscribe to our
newsletter: http://www.networkforpubliceducation.org/subscribe/
Spaceweather.com Comet PanSTARRS: Sky map looking west after sunset on Tuesday, March 12
BRIGHT COMET: This weekend, bright Comet Pan-STARRS is making a close
approach to the sun inside the orbit of Mercury where fierce solar heat is
helping the comet reach naked-eye visibility. Observers in the northern
hemisphere are making their first sightings now as the comet emerges from solar
glare low in the western sky after sunset. Soon, the comet could be
widely visible to casual sky watchers--no telescope required. Visit http://spaceweather.com for
images, sky maps and observing tips. Dates
of special interest include March 12th and 13th when the comet passes not far
from the crescent Moon.
Spaceweather.com Comet PanSTARRS:
Sky map looking west after sunset on Wednesday, March 13
Honoring Valor: National History Day
Student Competition
Letters of intent due by April 1, 2013
The Pennsylvania Department of Education, the Army Heritage Center
Foundation, and the Pennsylvania
State Museum
High School to demonstrate how and why societies honor valor. Inspired by
the valor exemplified by Soldiers at Gettysburg September
11, 2001 , and the responses of individuals battling disease or
injustice, the competition will recognize students who demonstrate
excellence in identifying and describing how and why societies honor
their valiant men and women.
PSBA officer applications due April
30
PSBA’s website 2/15/2013
Candidates seeking election to PSBA officer posts in 2014 must file an
expression of interest for the office desired to be interviewed by the PSBA
Leadership Development Committee.
This new committee replaces the former Nominations Committee. Deadline
for filing is April 30. The application shall be marked received at
PSBA headquarters or mailed first class and postmarked by the deadline to be
considered timely filed. Expression of interest forms can be found online
at www.psba.org/about/psba/board-of-directors/officers/electing-officers.asp.
Edcamp Philly 2013 at UPENN
May 18th, 2013
For those of you who have never gone to an
Edcamp before, please make a note of the unusual part of the morning where we
will build the schedule. Edcamp doesn’t believe in paying fancy people to come
and talk at you about teaching! At an Edcamp, the people attending – the participants
- facilitate sessions on teaching and learning! So Edcamp won’t
succeed without a whole bunch of you wanting to run a session of some kind!
What kinds of sessions might you run?
What: Edcamp Philly is an"unconference" devoted
to K-12 Education issues and ideas.
Where:University
of Pennsylvania
Where:
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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