Daily
postings from the Keystone State Education Coalition now reach more than 1900
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.
The Keystone State Education Coalition is
pleased to be listed among the friends and allies of The Network for Public
Education. Are you a
member?
These daily
emails are archived at http://keystonestateeducationcoalition.org
Follow us on Twitter at @lfeinberg
The Pennsylvania
School Funding Campaign will
hold a press conference in the Capitol Rotunda at 10:00 a.m.
on April 30 to let the legislators and the
Governor know that they should prioritize
support for public education in the 2013-2014 state budget and make a
commitment to restore the nearly $900 million of cuts in state support for K-12
education during the next three years.
PA School Funding Campaign Budget Press Conference April 30 10 am Capitol
Rotunda
EPLC Education
Notebook – Friday, April
26, 2013
Education Policy and Leadership Center
Missed our weekend posting?
Pennsylvania April 27, 2013 :
PA School Funding Campaign seeks commitment to restore student funding
Lawmakers
need to cash out their $140.7 million surplus: Editorial
By Patriot-News Editorial Board on April 26, 2013 at 10:55 AM
What would you do if you were
sitting on hundreds of millions of dollars of someone else’s money? You’d give it back, right? It’s only
commonsense.
But that very basic rule of
conscience does not apply to the Pennsylvania General Assembly.
Already one of the nation’s
largest and most expensive law-making bodies, the 253-member Legislature ended the 2011-2012 fiscal year with an
eye-watering $140.7 million in surplus funds, according to an audit
released this week.
As I See
It: Eliminating prevailing wage will make government more efficient
By Patriot-News Op-Ed By Matthew Rousu on April 28, 2013
Matthew Rousu is an associate professor of economics at
Susquehanna University
In Pennsylvania
“Last April, the programs that had set up these students for musical and
academic success in high school were under siege thanks to statewide budget
cuts against our public schools,” Kennedy wrote. “This, combined with our
country’s obsession with testing above any meaningful learning opportunity,
were a direct harm to students across the commonwealth and the country, and our
community rose up to protect the programs that helped students the most.”
….Kennedy invited citizens to get involved by going to the website, to
view the video and take the SUDA Pledge at www.standupdemandaction.org.
Delco
Times By LINDA REILLY Times Correspondent Published: Sunday, April 28, 2013
UPPER DARBY — Taxpayers were
already told there will be a tax increase from the Upper Darby School District
“This preliminary budget has been developed with the goal of maintaining our current programming,” Smith said at the meeting earlier this year.
“This preliminary budget has been developed with the goal of maintaining our current programming,” Smith said at the meeting earlier this year.
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR: Banging the drum
for music at Upper Darby
By
PHIL HERON editor@delcotimes.com
Published: Monday, April
29, 2013
It was just about this time
last year that all hell was breaking loose in the Upper Darby School District
Tough decisions had to be made. Jobs would be cut. Curriculums would be juggled. Priorities would be adjusted. The administration knew the proposal would not be well-received. They weren’t wrong about that. People went ballistic.
Tough decisions had to be made. Jobs would be cut. Curriculums would be juggled. Priorities would be adjusted. The administration knew the proposal would not be well-received. They weren’t wrong about that. People went ballistic.
Philly District releases detailed budget
proposal
by thenotebook on
Apr 26 2013
Posted in Latest news
As City Council's school
budget hearings approach, the District has released its detailed
financial plan for next year, showing line by line the withered
financial health that the city's schools are in.
How do you fix the District's budget
crisis?
by thenotebook on
Apr 26 2013
Posted in Commentary
Craig Robbins, executive director
of ACTION United
Donna Cooper, executive director of Public
Citizens for Children and Youth
Helen Gym, co-founder of Parents United for
Public Education
State Rep. James Roebuck, Democratic chairman
of the House Education Committee
The School
District is in bleak fiscal straits. Staring at the
possibility of a deficit of $242 million by the end of 2013-14,
District leaders are looking to the city and state to contribute $180
million in aid while also looking to reduce labor costs by 10 percent.
As City Council prepares for
school budget hearings next
week, the Notebook asked prominent folks in Philadelphia
Troy
Graham and Kristen A. Graham, Inquirer
Staff Writers
POSTED: Monday,
April 29, 2013 ,
5:04 AM
That request - or
"ask," in political parlance - could spark bruising negotiations over
school funding for the third year in a row, as Council is already grappling
with taxpayer angst over Mayor Nutter's property-tax reform.
Hearing to probe Philadelphia
Martha
Woodall, Inquirer Staff Writer POSTED: Monday,
April 29, 2013 ,
3:01 AM
LTE: PSSA
pressures
Post Gazette Letter to the
Editor by Joe Tighe April
28, 2013 12:15 am
The writer is a teacher.
Despite what "Practical Tests" (April 14 letters) argues,
the PSSAs are nothing to "lighten up" about. Depending on how a
district preps for and administers them, the PSSAs can take months, not a week,
to complete. Furthermore, the PSSAs determine a school's Adequate Yearly
Progress: how much funding it receives and, potentially, whether its staff will
be retained. The pressure districts feel from these tests is enormous. This
pressure is transferred directly to the students.
Broad school bully?
WILL
BUNCH, Daily News Staff
Writer bunchw@phillynews.com,
215-854-2957
POSTED: Monday,
April 29, 2013 ,
4:55 AM
IN 1939, a 6-year-old boy moved
to Detroit with his working-class parents - Lithuanian Jewish immigrants - and
walked into the remarkable engine that propelled so much of America's
prosperity in the 20th century, his neighborhood public school. That kid, Eli Broad, graduated from Detroit Central High School
Today, the 79-year-old Broad
(it rhymes with "road"), who lives in Los Angeles, is spending a good
chunk of his fortune on education reform - steadfast in his belief that
applying the same data-driven, free-market principles that made him so wealthy
can also make U.S. schools great again. Yet
a small but growing band of critics say his Broad Foundation could actually
destroy the kind of schools he's trying to save - the public schools that once
trained first- and second-generation Americans like him.
“Over the past two years, Science Leadership Academy has
already lost a librarian, a science teacher and a Spanish teacher. Now, the
school is looking at losing a quarter of the staff it has left, its gifted
program, and all of its extracurriculars. Lehmann, who has coached everything
from basketball to Ultimate Frisbee, says that last one would be particularly
painful for his kids.”
Philly principal urges pro sports teams to
save school athletics
WHYY Newsworks By Benjamin
Herold, @BenjaminBHerold April 29, 2013
With the district staring down
a $300 million budget deficit, one high school principal says it's time for
everyone, including the city's four professional sports teams, to chip in.
"We really are at a moment
where there's no fat being cut," said Christopher Lehmann, principal of
the nationally renowned Science Leadership Academy
in Center City
“The district was losing more than $1 million each year because about
150 former Easton
The district paid a one-time fee of $16,750 for professional development
and marketing and now pays about $5,000 per student for its in-house cyber
school. There are 21 students enrolled, Furst said.”
By Peter Panepinto | The Express-Times
on April 28, 2013
at 7:30 AM
District teachers aren't being
employed by the cyber school recently contracted with the districts, union
officials say.Express-Times File Photo
The Easton Area
School District
A court date is scheduled for
10 a.m. Aug. 8. before the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board in Harrisburg
“State Rep. Rick Saccone, R-Elizabeth, attended the final Origins class
to announce his support for such a bill. Afterward, he said legislators are
being recruited to sponsor the bill.”
Is evolution missing link in somePennsylvania
Is evolution missing link in some
Some 20 percent of science
teachers in survey say they believe in creationism
By David Templeton / Pittsburgh April 28, 2013 12:25 am
During an Advanced Placement
biology course in Easton
Area High
School
In those high school years in Northampton County
Seemingly unimportant and even
discredited, evolution fell off her radar. So the Easton
student, who is a Baptist, arrived at Duquesne University
But a college biology course
convinced her that evolution was valid science with overwhelming evidence that
all living things, including humans, evolved most likely from a common ancestor
-- over a period of millions, even billions, of years longer than that
described in Genesis.
PSBA Bylaws amendment proposals due May 15
PSBA
website 2/15/2013
As stated in Article XII,
proposals for amending the PSBA Bylaws must be submitted "in writing,
mailed first class and postmarked or marked received at PSBA headquarters prior
to May 15 of each year." Proposals
should be addressed to the Bylaws Committee Chair or the Executive Director and
sent to PSBA headquarters by the May 15, 2013, deadline.
The procedures for submitting
proposed bylaws changes are outlined in Article XII and can be found online atwww.psba.org/about/psba/2013_psba_bylaws.pdf.
Search underway for PSBA Executive Director
The Pennsylvania School Boards Association (PSBA)
is a nonprofit statewide association of public school boards, pledged to the
highest ideals of local lay leadership for the public schools of the
commonwealth. Founded in 1895, PSBA has a rich history as the first
school boards' association established in the United States Pennsylvania
Search
by Diversified Search, 1990 M St NW, Suite 570Washington , DC
NY Parents File Class Action Lawsuit
Against State Testing
Diane Ravitch’s Blog By dianerav April
28, 2013
Parents in Rochester , New York
Good for them! I would sue too.
No Rich
Child Left Behind
New York Times Opinion By SEAN F. REARDON April 27, 2013 , 6:15 pm
Here’s a fact that may not
surprise you: the children of the rich perform better in school, on average,
than children from middle-class or poor families. Students growing up in richer
families have better grades and higher standardized test scores, on average,
than poorer students; they also have higher rates of participation in
extracurricular activities and school leadership positions, higher graduation
rates and higher rates of college enrollment and completion.
Whether you think it deeply
unjust, lamentable but inevitable, or obvious and unproblematic, this is hardly
news. It is true in most societies and has been true in the United States
What is news is that in the United States
Obama’s big second-term education problem
President Obama has a big
problem in his second term in terms of education policy: his first term.
Obama and his education
secretary, Arne Duncan, pushed hard in their first term to have a major impact on
changing public schools with a larger-than-ever federal role in school
policy issues that affected every single classroom in the country. And they
did, with rare bipartisan support.
State spending per preschooler hits lowest
level in decade, programs face questions on quality
Superintendents, Business Managers, School
Board Members, Union Leaders, Any Others interested in PSERS and wanting to
learn more about Pension Reform . . .
Tuesday, May 14, 2013 Registration:
6:30 p.m. Presentation: 7:00 p.m.
Allegheny Intermediate Unit 475 East Waterfront Drive Homestead , PA 15120
Jeffery B. Clay, Executive
Director for the Pennsylvania Schools Employees’ Retirement System (PSERS)
will present on the topic of pension reform. Mr. Clay’s presentation will
review the increases in retirement contributions and the Governor’s proposal on
pension reform. As one concerned about public education, we are sure that
you will find this meeting enlightening and a valuable investment of your time.
In order to accommodate those
attending and prepare the necessary materials for the meeting, please
register using the following link: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/6252177431 by May 7, 2013 .
If you have any questions
regarding the registration process, please contact Janet Galaski at 412.394.5753 or janet.galaski@aiu3.net.
NAACP 2013
Conference on the State of Education in Pennsylvania
A Call for Equitable and
Adequate Funding for Pennsylvania
Media Area Branch NAACP Saturday, May 11, 2013 9:00 am – 2:30 pm (8:30 am registration)
Marcus Foster Student Union 2nd
floor, Cheyney University of PA, Delaware County Campus
Information and registration
at: http://www.naacpmediabranch.org/2013_conference.html
Sign Up
Today for PILCOP Special Ed CLE Trainings
Spots are filling up for the
final three trainings in our 2012-2013 Know Your Child’s Rights series with
seminars on ADAAA, Pro Se Parents and Settlement Agreements.
For seminar details and
registration: http://pilcop.org/sign-up-today-for-special-ed-cle-trainings/
Turning the Page for Change
celebration, June
11, 2013
Please join us for the Notebook’s annual Turning the Page for
Change celebration on June 11, 2013 , from 4:30 - 7 p.m. at the University of The Arts 320 S. Broad Street
PA Charter Schools: $4 billion taxpayer dollars with no real
oversight
Charter schools - public funding without public scrutiny; Proposed
statewide authorization and direct payment would further diminish
accountability and oversight for public tax dollars
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