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
Accountability: all over PA yesterday local voters had a say in how
their education tax dollars are spent; we did not elect any charter school
officials.
WHAT WORKS - High Quality Early Childhood
Education:
Join the ‘Strong Start for Children’
Campaign
Pennsylvania
Partnerships for Children Posted At : May 21, 2013 12:30 PM
President Obama's call for the nation to make unprecedented investments to increase access to pre-kindergarten programs could be a game-changer in our efforts to ensure every child reaps the benefits of high-quality early learning. In his State of the Union address earlier this year, the president called for investing $75 billion over the next decade to provide preschool for 4-year-olds through a partnership with states. His plan also calls for significant investments in evidence-based home visiting, a new Early Head Start-Child Care partnership and funding to address child care subsidy access and quality.
President Obama's call for the nation to make unprecedented investments to increase access to pre-kindergarten programs could be a game-changer in our efforts to ensure every child reaps the benefits of high-quality early learning. In his State of the Union address earlier this year, the president called for investing $75 billion over the next decade to provide preschool for 4-year-olds through a partnership with states. His plan also calls for significant investments in evidence-based home visiting, a new Early Head Start-Child Care partnership and funding to address child care subsidy access and quality.
Now
that his proposal is on the table, how do we make sure it becomes a reality? By
speaking up and showing support.
Philly.com
by MARC LEVY , THE ASSOCIATED
PRESS May
21, 2013 , 4:23 PM
Imagine the statewide impact if Pennsylvania had enacted
a reasonable extraction fee…..
Marcellus Shale has impact on Delco: Rose
Tree Media receives $50,000 natural gas grant
By
DANIELLE LYNCH dlynch@delcotimes.com
@dmlreporter Tuesday, May 21, 2013
State
officials have awarded the Rose
Tree Media
School District a
$499,994 Natural Gas Vehicle Development Program grant which will go toward an
upgrade of the district’s school bus fleet.
The grant is being administered by the Pennsylvania Department of
Environmental Protection as part of Act 13 known as the Marcellus Shale Impact
Fee legislation. Gov. Tom Corbett, a Republican, signed Act 13 into law last
year which authorized impact fees for natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania .
Nutter, state Republicans to join forces on
school funding?
WHYY
Newsworks By Holly Otterbein @HollyOtterbein May 21, 2013
Philadelphia
Mayor Michael Nutter wants to raise money for the cash-strapped School District , mostly through tax hikes on alcohol and
cigarettes. But he needs Harrisburg
to pass legislation to make that a reality.
At an editorial board meeting with NewsWorks on Tuesday,
Nutter said some Republican state lawmakers have been talking to him about
joining forces. He said they, too, are concerned about funding for their local
schools.
"I
was in a meeting with some House Republicans who were lamenting issues related
to school funding, having nothing to do with Philadelphia ," Nutter said, "and asked
if we would join in a coalition about this particular issue."
Nutter
would not disclose to whom he has been talking yet.
Neither Nutter's nor Sanchez's school ideas
sizzle. But together ...
Daily
News Editorial POSTED: Wednesday, May 22, 2013 , 3:01 AM
THE
MAYOR and City Council agree that the school district needs more money. After
that, they part ways - once again. Mayor
Nutter has proposed three solutions to the district's request for $60 million:
increase delinquent tax collections to raise $28 million; up the across-the-bar
drink tax from 10 percent to 15 percent to raise about $22 million; impose a
$2-a-pack local tax on cigarettes sold in Philadelphia to raise $45 million
this year. Total take: $95 million.
Council
hasn't endorsed any plan, but a proposal by Councilwoman Maria Quinones-Sanchez
to raise a business tax paid by the tenants in commercial buildings has been
reported out of the Finance Committee. As drafted, it would raise $30 million
more from what is known as the Use and Occupancy Tax.
Gates Foundation and Phila. School Partnership
funded NCTQ study….
Nonprofit's study critical of Phila.
teacher policies
KRISTEN
A. GRAHAM, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER Wednesday,
May 22, 2013 ,
3:01 AM
Tenure
and satisfactory evaluations are virtually meaningless for Philadelphia educators, and bad teachers can
linger in the public school system too long.
The Philadelphia
School District shells
out too much for the health care of its teachers, who tend to be absent too
often. Teacher pay ought to be revamped to keep strong performers, and
effectiveness, not start date, should guide layoff decisions.
Those
conclusions come via an analysis of Philadelphia
teacher policies scheduled to be released Wednesday by the National Council on
Teacher Quality (NCTQ), a nonprofit that works to "restructure the
teaching profession."
Musicians' plea to District: Don't take
away our collective soul
by thenotebook on
May 21 2013
Posted in Latest news
Members
of the Philadelphia Orchestra know the vital role music can play in a
young person's development. At the School Reform Commission meeting on May 15,
Don Liuzzi, speaking on behalf of The Philadelphia Orchestra, where he is a
timpanist, submitted a petition imploring the SRC not to let budget cuts
deprive schools of the music and art programs that are so essential
to the development of students' self-expression and creativity as well
as the future of the city's musical community.
Read
the full written text of the testimony below.
Dems Go 2 for 2 in State House Races
PoliticsPA Written by Keegan Gibson, Managing
Editor May 21,
2013
Democrats
won 2 state House special elections Tuesday night in safe districts. Dan
Miller, an attorney, will replace Matt Smith in Allegheny County .
Economic Development official Kevin Schreiber will replace Eugene DePasquale in
York .
Smith
serves in the the state Senate and DePasquale is Pennsylvania ’s new Auditor General. Both
were elected in November 2012.
“The
historical assumption that Pennsylvania ’s
voters are hardcore cultural conservatives is outdated. The Keystone State
simply isn’t your grandfather’s Pennsylvania
anymore.”
It's not your grandfather's Pennsylvania
anymore: Terry Madonna and Michael L. Young
By Patriot-News
Op-Ed on May
20, 2013 at 7:15 AM ,
updated May 20, 2013 at 7:18 AM
When
he was asked to describe Pennsylvania , Washington political consultant James Carville, who
helped elect Pennsylvania Gov. Bob Casey and U.S. Sen. Harris
Wofford, once declared that the state was “Philadelphia
and Pittsburgh with Alabama in between.” On another occasion, he
added: “Pennsylvania is two cities separated
by Alabama .”
Carville’s
now famous maxim succinctly expressed the conventional wisdom--then and
now: Pennsylvania
is a culturally conservative state where tradition is strong, change is slow,
and fundamental beliefs are enduring. In truth, that description of the state
culture was probably fair for much of the 20th century.
But
the past may no longer be prologue for Pennsylvania .
Because we’re not already testing our kids enough…..
Schools Add to Test Load, Just to Assess
the Questions
New
York Times By JAVIER C. HERNÁNDEZ Published:
May 19, 2013 119
Comments
Students
in New York State sweated their way through some of
the toughest exams in state history this spring. Now hundreds of thousands of
them will receive a reward only a stonyhearted statistician could appreciate:
another round of exams. As school
districts across the country rush to draw up tests and lesson plans that
conform to more rigorous standards, they are flocking to field tests — exams
that exist solely to help testing companies fine-tune future questions.
In New York , some 3,300
schools will hold field tests in English and math for nearly 374,000 students
in June. Starting next school year, more than one million students in 22 states
are expected to take the tests, in an effort to help develop a national exam
modeled on the new standards, known as the Common Core.
Has anybody told Obama about the problems
his education policies have caused?
White
House officials say they didn’t tell President Obama about an impending IRS
scandal, and nobody told him the Justice Department secretly
subpoenaed reporters’ phone records, and exactly what he knew when
about the Benghazi
controversy is unclear. This, then, seems like a good time to ask: How much has
the president been told about the unfortunate effects his education reform
policies are having on public schools?
More Foundation Money to Fund Privatization
Diane
Ravitch’s Blog By dianerav May 21, 2013 //
Researchers
Sarah Reckhow of Michigan
State University
and doctoral student Jeffrey Snyder reported
at an AERA session that foundation giving is increasingly concentrated
on a small number of recipients. Foundation
funding is moving away from giving to public schools–attended by 90% of
American students–and is going instead to “challengers” to the system,
especially charter schools–attended by about 5% of American students.
Microsoft will end support for Windows XP on April 8, 2014 .
Windows XP Deadline Puts Pressure on
Schools
Education
Week By Sean
Cavanagh Published Online: May 21, 2013
Microsoft's
plans to end support for Windows XP, believed to be the dominant computer
operating system in K-12 education, could pose big technological and financial
challenges for districts nationwide— issues that many school systems have yet
to confront.
The
giant software company has made it clear for years that it plans to stop
supporting XP next year, and it has been urging districts, as well as
businesses and other customers, to upgrade to Windows 7 or 8.
EPLC Education Policy Fellowship Program –
Apply Now
Applications are
available now for the 2013-2014 Education Policy Fellowship Program (EPFP). The Education Policy
Fellowship Program is sponsored in Pennsylvania
by The Education Policy and Leadership Center (EPLC).
With more than 350
graduates in its first fourteen years, this Program is a premier professional
development opportunity for educators, state and local policymakers, advocates,
and community leaders. State Board of Accountancy (SBA) credits are
available to certified public accountants.
Past participants
include state policymakers, district superintendents and principals, school
business officers, school board members, education deans/chairs, statewide
association leaders, parent leaders, education advocates, and other education
and community leaders. Fellows are typically sponsored by their employer
or another organization.
The Fellowship Program
begins with a two-day retreat on September 12-13, 2013 and
continues to graduation in June 2014.
Navigating School Funding Decisions in Harrisburg |
Webinar for School Boards &
Superintendents Wed, May 22, 2013 3:00 PM - 3:30 PM EDT
This spring marks the third
year that superintendents and school boards are struggling to put together
budgets with deeply reduced state funding levels. So what is Harrisburg doing about it?
Join the Pennsylvania Budget andPolicy
Center on Wednesday, May 22nd at 3pm for a webinar on the latest in
the state budget debate and what it means for education funding in Pennsylvania .
Join the Pennsylvania Budget and
For more info and registration:
https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/3540292551835560192
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 's 4,500 school directors become
members by virtue of election to their local board -- the board joins as a
whole. Membership in PSBA is by school district or other eligible local
education agency such as intermediate unit, vocational school or community
college……..
Search
by Diversified Search, 1990 M St NW, Suite 570 , Washington , DC .
Questions may be directed to PSBA@divsearch.com. Interested
parties should email their resume and cover letter to PSBA@divsearch.com.
Please apply by June 1, 2013 for
best consideration.
Sign Up
Today for PILCOP Special Ed CLE Trainings
Spots are filling up for the
final two 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 , Hamilton Hall, 320 S. Broad Street .
We will be honoring a member of the Notebook community for years of
service to our mission as well as honoring several local high school
journalists. Help us celebrate another year of achievement that included two
awards from the Education Writers Association and coverage of other critical
stories like the budget crisis and the school closing process.
PA Charter Schools: $4 billion taxpayer dollars with no real
oversight Keystone State Education Coalition
(updated May 2,
2013 )
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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