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
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
House bill would shut Pa. liquor
stores, open sales to groceries and pharmacies
Governor's proposal may get makeover
By Karen Langley / Post-Gazette Harrisburg March 6, 2013 12:02 am
“Superintendent
Linda Lane
Pittsburgh Public Schools will still
run out of money in 2015 despite smaller deficit
By Eleanor Chute / Pittsburgh March
5, 2013 9:57 pm
Pittsburgh Public Schools officials estimate that even though 2012 is
estimated to have ended with a significantly smaller deficit than forecast at
the start of the year, the district still will run out of money in 2015. …..Mr. Joseph said federal sequestration
could cause the district to lose between $3.3 million and $4.3 million in
2013-14.
Lehigh Valley Live By Precious
Petty | The Express-Times
onMarch 05, 2013
at 11:50 PM ,
updated March 06, 2013 at 12:22
AM
on
Medical
Academy officials have addressed problems that led Catasauqua
Area's superintendent in January to
question whether the school is operating in compliance with its charter.
School directors did not take formal action on the matter this evening,
but indicated the academy's charter is not in jeopardy. Three board members who
recently visited the school praised its staff and students.
In Philly, the struggle to make high
school work pits sentiment vs. data
WHYY Newsworks By Benjamin Herold March 5, 2013
Graphics by Michelle Schmitt and Todd Vachon Download
Audio File »
For almost an hour, Frank Thorne stood in line, waiting to denounce
Philadelphia Superintendent William Hite.
It was early January. Nearly a thousand angry people were packed into a
school auditorium. Along one wall, looking unhappy, stood a handful of North Philadelphia politicians, including Darrell Clarke,
the president of City Council.
A first grader, then a teacher, then a parade of parents and activists
blasted Hite's unprecedented plan to close 37 city schools, including Strawberry Mansion
By the time Thorne got to the microphone, he could barely contain his
anger.
“While the fiscal crisis will not allow a pain-free path forward, we
urge the District to heed the one clear lesson to be learned from existing
research: Students will do better if they are transferred to schools with
strong academics and support services.”
Inquirer LTE: School closures lack
clear yield
By Kate Shaw, Wednesday, March 6, 2013 , 3:01 AM
Kate Shaw is executive director of Research
for Action, a nonprofit educational research and policy organization.
THE PROPOSED closure of 29 school buildings throughout Philadelphia
The plan is based on two major assumptions. The district argues that
savings from the closures could help fill the looming deficit and that closing
chronically low-performing schools will produce greater academic opportunities.
But a review of the existing research on school closings and the experience of
other districts should temper expectations on both counts.
“My point is merely that those
pursuing school-closure strategies should be mindful that every school, even
the lowest-performing, is woven into the fabric of its neighborhood—and tugging
on that thread affects the entire cloth.”
Can Bad Schools Be Good For
Neighborhoods?
Educationnext By Andy
Smarick 02/22/2013
As a college freshman in an introductory sociology class, I was assigned
the book There
Are No Children Here by Alex Kotlowitz. This story of two young
boys trying to survive one of Chicago
I won’t forget the book’s emotional grip, but equally influential to my
intellectual development was the policy and political back story that explained
how the boys’ toxic surroundings came to be.
Nearly two decades later, I’m still chastened by the book’s central
lesson: A government policy developed by mostly benevolent leaders hoping to
improve the lives of the disadvantaged—in this case, by razing old,
low-income, ostensibly decaying neighborhoods in favor of gigantic
public-housing skyscrapers—did incalculable
harm to those it was designed to help.
This has been on my mind in recent weeks, as the national school-closure
conversation has flared. Much of that conversation is familiar, but one
assertion made by critics, namely that school closures destabilize entire
neighborhoods, raises a question that hasn’t been discussed nearly enough. And
though some might wave it away as irrelevant or worse, the lessons of the
Kotlowitz book force me to take it seriously:
Can a bad school be good for a neighborhood?
Closing Schools 4 Choice (and
Excellence)
Edushyster Blog Posted on March 1, 2013
The best way to enhance the excellence of our public schools is by
closing them.
It is a well-known true fact that the fastest way to improve schools in
order to launch students on a path to 21st century prosperity is to close them.
In fact, nine out of ten advocates of closing schools in order to promote
enhanced choice and excellence have found that choice and excellence are
enhanced when schools are closed. Unfortunately, closing a school while the
students are still inside can prove difficult, especially in this era of
putting students first.
Closing Schools as a
Means for Addressing Budgetary Challenges
Developed by district operators with support form the Broad Foundation
Updated 9/15/09
Education Department Releases New
School-Level Graduation Rate Data to Better Inform Parents, District Leaders
To view the data released today, click here.
Contact: Press Office, (202) 401-1576, press@ed.gov
Today the U.S. Department of Education released provisional school-level
graduation rates for 2010-11 – the first school year for which all states used
a common, rigorous measure for reporting high school graduates. The data
release furthers the Department's efforts to provide transparent information to
parents and students about their schools and ensure all schools are preparing
students for college and careers.
News Corp. Has a Tablet for Schools
New York Times By AMY CHOZICK Published: March 6, 2013
For nearly two years, Joel I. Klein helped Rupert
Murdoch and News Corporation weather a phone-hacking scandal at
the company’s British tabloids with the promise that he would eventually be
able to return to the role the company hired him for: to spearhead News
Corporation’s new venture into the public school market. That day has finally
come.
Jeb Bush Quietly Lays Campaign
Groundwork Through Foundation for Excellence in Education
“The chatter is he's up to something,” says
one Florida
By McKay Coppins
BuzzFeed Staff posted on March 5, 2013 at 3:16pm
EST
If Jeb Bush decides to convert his media tour into a presidential bid in
a couple years, he won't have to look far for a campaign staff: The well-funded
education foundation he runs out his office in a Miami hotel is stacked with
former political operatives, a large communications team, and a rapidly growing
staff whose work stretches into 40 states.
It is common practice for undeclared presidential candidates to build a
campaign infrastructure under the guise of a political action committee, but
Bush appears to be laying the groundwork for a potential campaign through his
foundation, multiple Florida
John Thompson: Texans Debunk
Test-Driven Reform
Education Week Living in Dialogue Blog By Anthony Cody on March
5, 2013 10:54 AM
Guest post by John Thompson.
Addressing the Save
Texas Schools rally in Austin
K12 Inc. Reaches Tentative
Settlement in Investor Lawsuit
Education Week Marketplace K-12 Blog By Sean Cavanagh on March
5, 2013 11:05 AM
The for-profit education provider K12 Inc. has
reached a tentative settlement in a class-action securities lawsuit brought by
investors who said they were misled by the company's business practices and
academic performance. The online schools
provider has agreed to pay $6.75 million to plaintiffs who have brought the
suit, while company officials said they also continue to deny any claims of
wrongdoing.
“The further we progressed through the waiver
process, the more we felt we were being asked to adopt another national,
one-size-fits-all model of education,” Baesler said at her Monday press
conference.
By
HANNAH JOHNSON | Bismarck Tribune March 4, 2013
Superintendent of Public Instruction Kirsten Baesler announced Monday
that she has withdrawn North Dakota
The waiver would have allowed the state to opt out of certain
requirements by meeting specific criteria such as implementing teacher and
administrator evaluations, and creating and testing college preparedness
standards. North Dakota North
Dakota
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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