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
Roebuck Seeking Co-sponsors for
Comprehensive Charter and Cyber Charter School
Saturday, March
2, 2013
Here’s our weekend posting if you missed it…….
PA House Education
Committee Public Hearing:
Cyber Charter Funding
Reform
Thursday, March
14, 2013 10:00 AM
Room 140 Main Capitol
Here’s some background on these two bills:
Charter and Cyber Charter Funding Reforms Proposed
Charter and Cyber Charter Funding Reforms Proposed
House Majority Leader Mike Turzai’s website 1/25/2013
A look at a scary walk by students
To explore worries on
getting to a new school if Peirce is shut, Hite and others walked the route.
Kristen A. Graham, Inquirer
Staff Writer Sunday, March 3, 2013 , 6:48
AM
Sylvia Simms pointed out the drug corners. She noted the halfway houses,
boarded-up buildings, where the registered sex offenders live. She paused
briefly near the schoolyard where, in 2004, a third grader caught in a shootout
between rival gang members was killed.
At one point, a resident spotted a police car slowly cruising down Indiana Street
"This," the newest School Reform Commission member said,
"is my community."
Walking beside Simms, School Superintendent William R. Hite Jr. took it
all in.
“Schwartz is one of several Democrats thinking of taking on Republican
Gov. Corbett in 2014 - among them state Treasurer Rob McCord, Allentown Mayor
Ed Pawlowski, State Sen. Mike Stack 3d of Philadelphia, former Revenue
Secretary Tom Wolf, and former Philadelphia mayoral candidate Tom Knox. Only
the former state environmental secretary, John Hanger, has formally announced a
run.”
U.S. Rep. Schwartz to set up
political panel, a key move in run for governor
Thomas Fitzgerald, Inquirer
Politics Writer Sunday, March 3, 2013 , 10:15 AM
U.S. Rep. Allyson Schwartz (D., Pa.) said Friday that she would establish
a state political committee in the next few weeks, an important procedural
precursor to her expected run for governor of Pennsylvania
School reform finds a home
Philly.com Opinion by Larry Platt Sunday, March 3, 2013 , 3:01 AM
The very day that about 100 angry citizens stormed a meeting of the
School Reform Commission, chanting "SRC, not for me!" in protest of
the plan to close 29 schools, I was wondering just how we define reform in
Philadelphia. Doesn't it feel as if we've seen this movie before? One side predictably talks about downsizing
and closing schools; the other seems intent on defending a clearly failing
status quo. Slogans are shouted, intentions called into question.
Superintendent William R. Hite Jr.'s plan for the city is no doubt necessary,
but where's the innovation? Where are the disrupters with new ways
to improve education?
Three of them, wearing hard hats, were at the corner of Oxford
Time is on their side, pension fund
leaders tell Pa.
WHYY Newsworks By Mary Wilson
March 3, 2013
The heads of Pennsylvania
"Time is probably our greatest ally," Durbin said. "The
reason we came out of the underfunding in the 1980s is not just the investment
program but the compounding nature of time.
Consider those opposing pension
reform
Post-Gazette Letter to the Editor by JAY PAGNI, Harrisburg Governor's
Budget Office March
3, 2013 12:25 am
The Post-Gazette's news report on a joint press conference by state
Treasurer Rob McCord and the Keystone
Research Center
The fact is that the administration has carefully charted out the
prospects for taxpayers with and without a switch from a defined benefit to a
defined contribution plan for new state employees.
Without reform, taxpayers will be on the hook for an exponentially
growing debt that will have to come from the annual general budget while
crowding out the budgets for education, social services and public safety. This
crowding out would likely take place even with hefty tax increases simply to
cover a pension system that has become unsustainable.
Op-ed: Leveraging Marcellus shale to
pay for pension reform
Patriot-News
Op-Ed By Brendan Finucane on March 04, 2013 at 12:00 AM
As discussed
in last week's PennLive editorial, Pennsylvania
PA Constitution, Article 3, Section 14. Public school system.
The General Assembly shall provide for the
maintenance and support of a thorough and efficient system of public education
to serve the needs of the Commonwealth.
PA Constitution, Article 3, Section 15. Public school money not
available to sectarian schools.
No money raised for the support of the public
schools of the Commonwealth shall be appropriated to or used for the support of
any sectarian school.
PA Constitution, Article 3, Section 29. Restrictions on Legislative
Power.
No appropriation shall be made for
charitable, educational or benevolent purposes to any person or community nor
to any denominational and sectarian institution, corporation or association.
EITC: Georgia Religious Schools
Skirt Constitution to Access Taxpayer Funds
Education Week Living in Dialogue Blog By Anthony Cody on March
2, 2013 2:46 PM
The constitution
of the state of Georgia is clear.
"No money shall ever be taken from the public treasury, directly, or
indirectly, in aid of any church, sect, cult, or religious denomination or of
any sectarian institution."
In 2008, state legislators passed the Qualified
Income Tax Credit, which allowed married couples to make deduct from their
state taxes contributions up to $2500 to go into bank accounts managed by what
are called "Student Scholarship Organizations" (SSOs). These SSOs
then distribute these funds to private and parochial schools, many of which
openly discriminate against gays and lesbians.
This is now costing the taxpayers of Georgia
$50 million, and there are proposals in the legislature that could divert an
additional $30 million, at a time when Georgia's
schools are already suffering from budget cuts. It appears that about
70% of these funds are now going to explicitly religious schools.
‘Neovouchers’: A primer on private
school tax credits
Some people, not surprisingly, weren’t thrilled with my
post titled “Welfare for the rich? Private school tax credit programs
expanding.” Here Kevin Welner, director of the National Education
Policy Center
Interactive Map: Voucher Schools
Teaching Creationism
Moyers & Company by John
Light March 1,
2013
This week on Moyers & Company, 19-year-old education
activist Zack Kopplin joins Bill to talk about his campaign to get creationism
out of science classes in publicly funded schools. He discovered that students
attending private and parochial schools in states with school voucher programs
were taught creationism in addition to — or, in some classrooms, instead
of — the theory of evolution. Using
data* compiled by Kopplin, this map shows private schools that accept state
vouchers and teach creationism. Hover over each dot to read Kopplin’s findings
on that school. To zoom in, double click on the map or use the map tools that
appear in the upper left corner.
Teacher standoff stokes debate over
standardized tests
Reuters By Eric M. Johnson SEATTLE Mar 3, 2013
8:37am EST
(Reuters) - A boycott by Seattle Seattle public school teachers and
students elsewhere comes at a time of bitter political wrangling over how best
to reinvigorate a $525 billion public school system that leaves American
children lagging their counterparts in countries like Finland and South Korea.
Obama to nominate Walmart's Burwell
as White House budget chief
Reuters By Steve Holland and Richard Cowan and Jeff Mason
(Reuters) - President Barack Obama plans to nominate Walmart's
philanthropic head Sylvia Mathews Burwell to become director of the White House
budget office on Monday, sources familiar with the matter said on Sunday. Burwell, 47, is a veteran of Bill Clinton's
White House and for the past year has been president of the Walmart Foundation
at the corporation's Bentonville ,
Arkansas
TN VOUCHER DEBATE HEATS UP WITH 800K
AFC AD BUY.
Tennessee Education report by ZACK BARNES MARCH 01, 2013
The voucher debate now looks like campaign season with a huge advertising
purchase by the American Federation for Children, a DC based education group
that promotes vouchers. The Tennessee
National Attention and Cash in Los Angeles School
New York Times by JENNIFER MEDINA Published: March 3, 2013
LOS ANGELES — On Tuesday, voters in Los
Angeles New
York City
Keeping an Eye on Online Test-Takers
New York Times By ANNE EISENBERG Published: March 2, 2013
MILLIONS of students worldwide have signed up in the last year for MOOCs,
short for massive open online courses — those free, Web-based classes available
to one and all and taught by professors at Harvard, Duke, M.I.T. and other
universities. But when those students take the final exam in calculus or genetics, how
will their professors know that the test-takers on their distant laptops are
doing their own work, and not asking Mr. Google for help?
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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