Daily
postings from the Keystone State Education Coalition now reach more than 1875
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 regulatory agencies, professional associations and education
advocacy organizations via emails, website, Facebook and Twitter.
These daily
emails are archived at http://keystonestateeducationcoalition.org
Follow us on Twitter at @lfeinberg
Cyber school funding formula target of
Thursday public hearing
Shippensburg
News Chronicle By DALE HEBERLIG Managing Editor Published: Monday, March 11, 2013 5:36 PM EDT
The Pennsylvania House
Education Committee hosts a hearing Thursday focused on cyber school funding by
school districts throughout the state.
According to the group Education Matters in the Cumberland Valley (EMCV), a grassroots public education advocacy organization, the hearing could be the start of action to fix what the group calls “the broken funding formula the Legislature uses to determine how much our school districts pay cyber charter schools.” Erica Burg, co-founder of EMCV, says, “In 2012, Auditor General Jack Wagner found that Pennsylvanians are paying cyber charter schools far more than it costs them to educate children. This overpayment places an unnecessary burden on taxpayers and school districts and leads to questionable uses of taxpayer dollars.”
According to the group Education Matters in the Cumberland Valley (EMCV), a grassroots public education advocacy organization, the hearing could be the start of action to fix what the group calls “the broken funding formula the Legislature uses to determine how much our school districts pay cyber charter schools.” Erica Burg, co-founder of EMCV, says, “In 2012, Auditor General Jack Wagner found that Pennsylvanians are paying cyber charter schools far more than it costs them to educate children. This overpayment places an unnecessary burden on taxpayers and school districts and leads to questionable uses of taxpayer dollars.”
“Remember that every time you hear or see an
advertisement about charter/cyber charter schools your local property taxes
paid for it.”
As I See
It: A solution to cyber-charter school funding
Patriot-News Op-Ed By Don Bell on March 13, 2013 at 12:00 AM
Don Bell is the superintendent of schools for
the Northern Lebanon School District
Next year, Pennsylvania Pennsylvania
The original charter school law
mandated the Commonwealth would pay up to 30% of the student tuition charged by
charter schools and mandated the rest (70%) to be paid by local school
districts. This law significantly slowed the offerings of student programs in
public school districts.
A few years later the
Legislature saw the error in their funding formula ways. The State could no
longer pay for the annual rising student tuition costs.
Their solution placed the
entire (100 percent) tuition rate upon the local school district and the local
taxpayers. The funding problem for the State was solved; just make the local
school boards raise property taxes to cover state costs.
Cyber school
funding reform urged
The
Sentinel by Christen Croley Sentinel Reporter ccroley@cumberlink.com March 12, 2013
Legislators can save $4.6
million in taxpayer dollars just by fixing the formula school districts use to
fund cyber-charter schools, says a report from Education Matters in the Cumberland Valley
"We can't afford to have
taxpayer dollars being spent wastefully," said Susan Spicka, co-founder of
the grassroots public education advocacy organization.
Chuck Ballard: Pa.
Morning Call Opinion by Chuck
Ballard 5:39 p.m. EDT, March 11, 2013
Chuck Ballard is president of
the East Penn School
As our school districts prepare
their budgets for next school year, we must account for cyber charter school
tuition payments for students who do not attend district schools that divert
significant resources from our budgets. When it comes to cyber charter school
tuition, our school districts and taxpayers are overpaying these schools, and
we must address this issue now.
Then-Auditor General Jack Wagner said in 2012 that Pennsylvania
Like all school districts, the
East Penn School District must abide by a flawed funding formula that allows
charter and cyber charter schools to receive tuition based on a school
district's retirement expenditures and then again under the retirement code to
realize a minimum of 50 percent reimbursement of pension expenses. This
double-dipping of retirement costs allows charters and cyber charters to get
paid twice for retirement costs.
PA Senate Approves Special Education
Funding Reform
PA Senate Republicans website
Press Release 3/12/13
The Senate unanimously approved
legislation providing long overdue reform measures for equitable special
education funding, according to Senator Pat Browne, the bill’s prime sponsor.
“The reforms and the changes
proposed in Senate
Bill 470 are important and they are long overdue. Pennsylvania ’s special education funding formula system
is archaic and is ineffective in ensuring that state money is adequately and
equitability distributed to assist Pennsylvania Pennsylvania
…The legislation does not
establish a new funding formula. It empowers a legislative commission to
develop the formula. The panel will be charged with developing a funding
formula using a few basic parameters.
Corbett's
proposed business tax cuts will shrink state budget pie, coalition says
Patriot News By Jan Murphy | jmurphy@pennlive.com
on March 12, 2013
at 4:56 PM
Lawmakers were treated to a
half of a pie today as a symbolic gesture from a statewide coalition over the
proposed business tax cuts that would shrink the size of the state budget pie
that funds education and human services.
The Better Choices for Pennsylvania coalition
called on lawmakers to hold off on Gov. Tom Corbett's proposed tax breaks for
businesses that would begin in 2015 until loopholes are closed and better
accountability for tax measures is put in place.
Pennsylvania ACLU, Equality Pennsylvania warn Chambersburg
schools: Allow GSA by Friday, or face legal action
PHILADELPHIA - The American
Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania and Equality Pennsylvania sent a letter
today to the Chambersburg Area School District on behalf of a group of
Chambersburg Area Senior High School students whose request to form a
Gay-Straight Alliance club was denied by the school board last month. According to the letter, the school board's
decision to deny the group status as an official club is a violation of federal
law. The letter gives the school district until March 15, 2013 , to reverse its
decision or face legal action.
EPLC
EDUCATION NOTEBOOK for March 11, 2013
Education Policy and Leadership Center
Student Testing Discussion - EPLC
"Focus on Education" TV Program on PCN Wednesday, March 13 at 9:00
p.m.
Tune in tomorrow to the Wednesday,
March 13 episode of EPLC's "Focus on Education" series, which
will cover Student Testing and Assessment and air at 9:00
p.m. on PCN television. EPLC President Ron Cowell and PCN
Host Corinna Vecsey Wilson will be joined by Kristen Lewald, PVAAS Statewide
Project Director with Lancaster-Lebanon IU13 and Stinson Stroup, Education
Services Manager with the Pennsylvania State Education Association.
EPLC and PA Cable Network (PCN) have partnered for a new monthly program focusing oneducation issues inPennsylvania
"Focus on Education" will be broadcast on PCN at 9:00 p.m. on the 2nd Wednesday of every month, now through June, and then again this fall in September through December.
EPLC and PA Cable Network (PCN) have partnered for a new monthly program focusing oneducation issues in
"Focus on Education" will be broadcast on PCN at 9:00 p.m. on the 2nd Wednesday of every month, now through June, and then again this fall in September through December.
To learn more, visit PCN's "Focus on Education" web page.
PSBA encourages reauthorization of mandate
waiver program and expansion to other unfunded mandate
PSBA N E W S R E L E A S E Steve Robinson,
Publications and PR Director 3/12/2013
Dr. Richard L. Frerichs, Penn
Manor school director (Lancaster Co.) and PSBA president-elect, told members of
the House Education Committee reauthorization of a mandate waiver program would
be "a positive step towards ensuring school districts' hands are no longer
tied when it comes to having the resources to provide a quality education and
using taxpayer dollars in the most effective and efficient way."
In his testimony, Frerichs
discussed House Bill 135 and how it would create a new mandate waiver program
and potentially save districts hundreds of thousands of dollars each year. He
also encouraged the committee to consider allowing for additional mandates to
be waived in such a program. Currently, state-required mandates impact every
aspect of schools, including special education, health services, collective
bargaining, personnel management, school construction and renovation,
purchasing, transportation, curriculum and assessments, school financing,
safety and athletic programs.
Herold, Notebook win awards for coverage of
education, broken pipeline to college
by Wendy
Harris on Mar
12 2013 Posted in Latest news
The Notebook has
received two honors from the Education Writers Association's National
Awards for Education Reporting. Education
reporter Benjamin Herold nabbed the top
prize in beat reporting in the medium-sized newsroom category for his
work in 2012 at news partnerWHYY/NewsWorks and the Notebook.
And with an assist from NewsWorks, the Notebook won
second prize in the education news outlets category for best
topical or series coverage for the summer 2012 "College
for a few" package. These wins
mark the third year in a row that the Notebook has been
honored by the national trade association for education writers. The Notebook received
a special
citation for its online coverage of cheating on standardized tests in
2011. For 2010, the Notebook was honored with EWA’s
second-place prize in the category of “community blogging.”
WHYY/NewsWorks schools reporter wins
national honor
WHYY Newsworks By NewsWorks
staff March 12,
2013
"Terrific reporting and
writing — heartening to see this kind of collaboration across news outlets,
too. Some of the best work I've read in this contest. The profile of a mother
searching for school for her son was heartbreaking."
-- Education Writers Association judges in naming Benjamin B. Herold the best schools beat writer in the nation, among mid-sized news operations
-- Education Writers Association judges in naming Benjamin B. Herold the best schools beat writer in the nation, among mid-sized news operations
Benjamin B. Herold, education
reporter for WHYY/NewsWorks, has been honored by the Education Writers
Association as the best schools beat writer in the nation, among mid-sized news
operations. In honors released today,
the EWA cited him for his
body of work covering the Philadelphia
“Those
who believe that business models and market reforms hold the key to solving
educational problems have made great strides in attaching their agenda to the
urgent need of communities who have too often been poorly served by the current
system. But left to its own bottom line logic, the
market will do for education what it is has done for housing, health care and
employment: create fabulous profits and opportunities for a few and unequal
access and outcomes for the many.”
Advancing New Hampshire March 12,
2013
Here is a piece on charters that gets to the root of
some important issues. We have a small number of charters filling an
important niche in New Hampshire New Hampshire
“Neither Pennsylvania nor Wyoming had released
its submitted application to the public as of late last week, despite a federal
requirement that states collaborate with stakeholders on their new proposed
accountability systems.”
Details Trickling Out on Latest NCLB Waiver
Bids: Keystone State
No sure thing seen in leeway on NCLB
Education
Week By Michele
McNeil March
12, 2013
With the addition of three
longtime holdouts to the list of states seeking flexibility under the No Child Left Behind Act, nearly every
state has sought to design its own accountability system to replace the
outdated federal law. But the waiver
applications submitted last month by Pennsylvania ,
Texas , and Wyoming
Neither Pennsylvania
nor Wyoming
“Harkin, who oversees the panel that deals
with K-12 funding, is planning to introduce an amendment to the Senate's
year-long spending bill that would include slight increases for the key
education programs that school districts depend on the most.”
Harkin Hopes to Help Ease Pain of
Automatic Cuts on Schools
Education Week Politics K-12 Blog By Alyson Klein on March
12, 2013 1:42 PM
Congress has a couple chances to reverse those automatic,
across-the-board education cuts, known as sequestration,
and the first would be in the current-year budget, which must be finalized by
March 27 to avoid a government shutdown.
So far it's not looking good for folks who'd like to see the cuts
reversed, although U.S. Senate Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, is hoping to make the cuts a
little easier to cope with.
Fund That Subsidizes Internet for
Schools Should Expand, a Senator Says
New York Times By EDWARD WYATT Published: March 12, 2013
WASHINGTON — The $2.3 billion federal E-Rate program, which subsidizes
basic Internet connections for schools and libraries, should be overhauled and
expanded to provide those community institutions with new, lightning-fast
connections to the Web, the chairman of a Senate committee that oversees
the F.C.C. said
Tuesday. Senator John D. Rockefeller IV,
a West Virginia Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, said
that the fund should be used to create one-gigabit connections to every school
in America — a speed that is 60 to 100 times faster than most schools or homes
now receive — and wireless connections in every school building.
“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.
Teachers Lead Philly Spring
Dinner/Workshop
Thu,Mar 21, 2013 ~ 5pm -7pm Franklin
Register HERE!
Thu,
Register HERE!
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 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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