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..some estimates say the Delaware
loophole causes Pennsylvania to
lose as much $450 million a year in tax receipts.
FYI: Thunderstorms knocked out our FIOS
and we were unable to publish yesterday; there are several postings on the CREDO
Charter Study included today.
LAF
PA gives grants, loans to Del.-based corporations
It’s called the “Delaware loophole” and
is used by corporations of all shapes and sizes to avoid taxes
Melissa
Daniels, PA INDEPENDENT LAST UPDATED: Wednesday, June 26, 2013 , 9:03 AM HARRISBURG — Hundreds
of thousands of companies nationwide have found perfectly legal ways to skirt
paying state taxes. But Pennsylvania adds
a little bit of insult to the taxpayer injury: Some companies registered
in Delaware , the East Coast version of
Bermuda when it comes to tax advantages, are getting taxpayer-funded awards,
grants and other incentives to do business in the Keystone State .
It’s called the “Delaware
loophole” and is used by corporations of all shapes and sizes across the county
to avoid taxes.
Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/PA_gives_grants_loans_to_Del-based_corporations.html#Ob1IMM4uB2DV8MrF.99
Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/PA_gives_grants_loans_to_Del-based_corporations.html#Ob1IMM4uB2DV8MrF.99
Contact Senate leadership
today urging them to pass a real loophole closing bill
PA Budget
and Policy Center/Better Choices for PA June 26, 2013
After years
of your efforts, a proposal to close corporate tax loopholes is advancing is
the Senate with support from the Corbett administration. That’s great news. The
problem is there is heavy pressure from certain elements of the business
community to water it down, locking in favored tax loopholes rather than
closing them. What’s more, lawmakers
want to forget about the hundreds of millions in tax breaks they have already
given, and use to money to pay for new tax breaks that benefit favored
industries, like private jet owners and banks.
It’s time
to close the loopholes. For real.
Call (phone numbers below) or send an email to Senate
leaders: Senators Pileggi, Corman and Scarnati. Urge them to pass a real
loophole closing bill.
Send your State
Senator an email today by clicking this link: http://mytinyurl/closeloopholesforreal
As the budget process continues please consider
contacting the legislative leadership listed below regarding the education
budget ; here’s part of their job description:
PA Constitution - Public School System Section 14.
“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 Legislature Republican Leadership 2013
Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi
717-787-4712
Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Jake
Corman
717-787-1377
Senate President Pro Tempore Joseph Scarnati
717-787-7084
House Majority Leader Mike Turzai
717-772-9943
House Appropriation Committee Chairman William
Adolph
717-787-1248
House Speaker Sam Smith
717-787-3845
Governor Tom Corbett
717-787-2500, Fax: 717-772-8284
Email: governor@state.pa.us
Today's budget headline: Hurry up and
wait
Another day has come
and gone without agreement on any of the major policy initiatives in Harrisburg . As the
legislative clock quickly winds down to the June 30 deadline to pass a state
budget, Gov. Corbett and Republicans who control the legislature are struggling
to strike a compromise on what have come to be known as "The Big
Three": privatizing the sale of wine and liquor, reining in the
skyrocketing cost of public employee pensions, and funding roads, bridges and
mass transit.
Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/harrisburg_politics/Todays-budget-headline-Hurry-up-and-wait.html#limYsTQIpy2ZEyAz.99
Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/harrisburg_politics/Todays-budget-headline-Hurry-up-and-wait.html#limYsTQIpy2ZEyAz.99
“Pensions doesn’t die July 1. Liquor doesn’t die
July 1. Transportation doesn’t die July 1,” Corman said. “I’d like to get it
done before that, but, you know, it’s a two year-session. Those bills don’t
end. We can still work on them.”
PA Budget Live Blog: Corman says budget
bill crowded out by other matters
By Melissa Daniels | PA Independent June 26, 2013 | By Eric
Boehm | Posted in WatchBlog
That’s because the “big three” issues proposed by Gov. Tom Corbett are stealing
focus from discussion on the budget bill, Corman said.
PSERS and SERS actuaries say
defined contribution plan will cost taxpayers billions
House GOP awaiting report
on whether Senate pension bill will save dollars.
Capitolwire
Under The Dome June
25, 2013
The House
GOP is awaiting a report commissioned by the Public Employee Retirement
Commission to see whether a proposal to move new employees to a 401(k)-style
plan will save money, said Rep. Glen Grell, R-Cumberland. That report could be
vital to determining if Gov. Tom Corbett achieves his pension reform goal
by June 30. Thus far, there have been competing reports on various pension
change proposals that claim a switch to a 401(k)-style defined contribution
(DC) plan will either save the state money or cost it billions of dollars.
Lawmakers appear to be hoping the much-awaited PERC report will settle the
argument. Grell, a lead voice on pension matters in the state House of
Representatives, wrote in an e-mail: “[The] Governor's actuaries say the
DC-only plan will generate $2-3 billion in savings. PSERS and SERS actuaries
say DC-only will cost billions. If PERC says the creation of a new DC plan will
cost billions, the Senate Bill becomes a very difficult lift. If PERC says
[the] plan will save $2-3 billion, there may be a push to insert a collar
reduction in the bill before moving it, to get some short-term revenues.” For
more about the pension issue, CLICK HERE (paywall) to read Capitolwire Bureau Chief
Peter L. DeCoursey’s report.
CSFT - Unaffordable tax
cut
Tribune-Review Opinion
by Lawrence A. Feinberg Monday, June 24, 2013 , 9:00 p.m.
Time is running out for students acrossPennsylvania .
Little time remains for state lawmakers to begin to undo the damage they have
done with deep funding cuts to schools. A House budget plan leaves nearly 85
percent of those cuts in place, doing little to hire back nurses and counselors
or to restore music, arts and sports programs that districts have been forced
to cut.
Time is running out for students across
Senate
leaders and Gov. Corbett's administration have signaled willingness to delay a
business tax cut next year. That is welcome news. Keeping the tax rate at 2012 levels could
raise $360 million to restore some of the deepest school cuts. Sen. Jake Corman
asks critics: “Is that (tax) phaseout more important than education dollars?”
Protesters urge delay in Capital
Stock and Franchise Tax cut
By JEFF WOLFE jwolfe@delcotimes.com @delcoreporter Saturday, June 22, 2013
MEDIA —
Sister Sandra Lyons has seen a lot in her 25 years of serving the people of Chester in Delaware
County . But Friday, she
didn’t want to see less of something. Lyons,
the director of the Bernadine Center in Chester for the last six years, was
representing one of several organizations in a rally at the Delaware County
Courthouse to urge state legislators to delay a cut to the Capital Stock and
Franchise Tax in 2014, which would keep $360 million in the state budget and
maintain support for several state school districts and other organizations.
Bevy of children, laid off school employees descend
upon capitol to decry Philadelphia
school cuts
By Anna Orso | aorso@pennlive.com
on June 25, 2013
at 5:31 PM
Aamir
Gaskins wants desperately for the state government to better fund public
education in his hometown of Philadelphia and
was enraged Tuesday at the idea that 30 schools in the cash-strapped Philadelphia district will
be closed down come September.
This
perturbed, fearful activist is 10 years old.
“They
shouldn’t be doing this to us,” Aamir said, noting that many of his friends’
schools are closing their doors. “Without good school, the children will become
crooks, and they will steal and they’ll go to jail.”
Aamir, who
was at the rally Tuesday with his great-grandmother, was among about 1,000
demonstrators at the capitol slamming the scheduled layoffs and school closings
in the Philadelphia School District and getting in a last-minute plea to
lawmakers before the Sunday budget deadline.
“That
(PENNCAN) poll - first obtained and published by City Paper - finds that 70
percent of voters statewide believe that Philly's schools crisis is very much
the governor's problem, and that 63 percent disapprove of Corbett's handling of
public education across the commonwealth.”
Patrick Kerkstra: School bailout could hurt city
Philly.com
by Patrick Kerkstra Wednesday, June 26, 2013 , 1:08 AM
Gov.
Corbett has belatedly realized what's been obvious for years: The state's
utterly inadequate funding of K-12 education is a massive political liability
for him, one that could well sink his reelection. The attention is welcome,
even if the deal he is cooking up to bail out the city's schools is an atrocious
one for Philadelphia
taxpayers.
Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/opinion/inquirer/20130626_Patrick_Kerkstra__School_bailout_could_hurt_city.html#qpgVSGgBLYBKbirP.99
Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/opinion/inquirer/20130626_Patrick_Kerkstra__School_bailout_could_hurt_city.html#qpgVSGgBLYBKbirP.99
Philly teachers' union
still reluctant on salary givebacks
WHYY
Newsworks by Holly Otterbein, @hollyotterbein June 25, 2013
The Philadelphia School District has been desperately
seeking help from the city, state and labor unions in order to plug a $304
million budget gap. The city government
is pledging extra money, though part of that still requires state-enabling
legislation. Pennsylvania
officials are also in talks about finding more cash. So what about the other
part of the three-legged stool? It seems
even less certain now than the other two wobbly legs.
CREDO National study: Charter schools getting better,
cybers drag down Pa.
results
Notebook by
Dale Mezzacappa on Jun
26 2013 Posted in Latest news
A new
comprehensive national study has found that, overall, charter school
performance has improved nationwide, but results vary widely by state. In Pennsylvania , students
who attend charters performed worse, on the whole, than their peers in both
reading and math, according to the research.
Pennsylvania
charters' performance, said the study's co-author, was dragged down by the
state's cyber schools. Though there were only eight cyber charters in among the
nearly 100 schools studied, they enrolled 30 percent of the students, said
Devora Davis, one of the study's authors.
The study
was performed by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) at Stanford University . It was a follow-up to an
oft-quoted report from 2009, which found that students in only 17 percent of
charters did better than similar students in traditional schools.
CREDO Study: Pa.
in bottom three for charter school scores
By Mary
Niederberger / Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette June
26, 2013 12:08 am
A national
study on charter school performance shows that academic achievement is on the
rise nationally among charter school students, but Pennsylvania is not sharing
in that success, likely due to students in cyber charter schools.
The
National Charter School Study 2013, released Tuesday, was conducted by the
Center for Research on Education Outcomes, or CREDO, at Stanford University
and is a follow-up to a similar study done in 2009 measuring the academic
achievement of charter school students against those of their peers in
traditional public schools.
CREDO New Multi-state
Charter School
Study Notes Progress, Setbacks
National
Education Writers Association EdMedia Commons Posted by Mikhail Zinshteyn on June 25, 2013 at
9:14am
A
collection of media response/coverage of new Stanford/CREDO charter school
stidy
CREDO Charter schools offer scant edge over
neighborhood schools: study
Reuters By
Stephanie Simon Tue Jun
25, 2013 12:05am
EDT
(Reuters) -
Charter schools across the United
States have improved in recent years, but on
average, they still offer little advantage over traditional public education,
according to a new study released on Tuesday.
Charters not
outperforming nation’s traditional public schools, updated Stanford/CREDO report
says
The
nation’s public charter schools are growing more effective but most don’t
produce better academic results when compared with traditional public schools,
according to a report released Tuesday. Researchers at Stanford University ’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes looked
at test data from charter schools in 26 states and the District and found that
25 percent of charters outperformed traditional public schools in reading
while 29 percent of charters delivered stronger results in math. That marked an
improvement over a similar 2009 study by the same research team.
But
56 percent of the charters produced no significant difference in reading
and 19 percent had worse results than traditional public schools. In math, 40
percent produced no significant difference and 31 percent were significantly
worse than regular public schools.
States that
shuttered at least 10 percent of their charter schools — the worst performers —
had the best overall results, the study found.
“The study reaches the same broad conclusions
as the study four years ago: performance of charter school students is
extremely varied, but on average, students learn at roughly the same rates as
their public school peers.”
By Joy.resmovits@huffingtonpost.com
Posted: 06/24/2013 11:59 pm
EDT
Charter
school students on average slightly outpace comparable public school kids in
reading and tie them in math, according to a large study of academic
performance that shows slow but steady charter school improvement in some
states since 2009.
Charter
students on the whole end the school year with reading skills eight
instructional days ahead of public school kids, and perform at about the same
rate as public school students in math, according to the study released Tuesday
by Stanford University's Center for for Research on Education Outcomes, or
CREDO.
Diane
Ravitch’s Blog By dianerav June
25, 2013 //
The Colorado Virtual Academy ,
one of K12 Inc.’s biggest schools, has
severed its association with the publicly traded corporation. They may
continue to use its curriculum but not its management services, starting in
2014.
10th
Period Blog by Stephen Dyer MONDAY, JUNE 24, 2013
As we reported today
at Innovation Ohio, one of the real concerns with the current state budget,
which is working its way through a joint House-Senate Conference Committee is
this: Republican mega-donors David Brennan (White Hat Management) and William
Lager (ECOT) saw major increases in their funding. Meanwhile, Charter Schools
that actually do a far better job educating children received far less
additional revenue.
Chinese
documents explaining the reason for the reform are remarkable, noting that the
obsession with test scores “severely hamper student development as a whole
person, stunt their healthy growth, and limit opportunities to cultivate social
responsibilities, creative spirit, and practical abilities in students.”
Yong Zhao
is the presidential chair and associate dean for global education at the University of Oregon ’s
College of Education ,
where he also serves as the director of the Center for Advanced Technology in
Education, and is a fellow of the International
Academy for Education.
This appeared on
his blog.
“Congress has shown
little appetite for taking up new spending. Nevertheless, the senator said that
she was planning to introduce a early-childhood education bill, along with
Democratic Senators Tom Harkin of Iowa , Bob Casey Jr. of Pennsylvania, and
Mazie Hirono of Hawaii .”
US Senate Budget Leader
To Introduce Early Childhood Bill
Education
Week Early Years Blog By Christina
Samuels on June 25, 2013 3:51 PM
Speaking
both as an elected official and a former preschool teacher, Washington Sen.
Patty Murray told a crowd of early-education advocates today that expanding
access to quality preschool is a "moral imperative" and that she and
other Senate colleagues plan to introduce a comprehensive bill that would align
with Obama administration priorities.
Murray, a
Democrat, is the chairwoman of the Senate Budget Committee. But her remarks,
which are embedded in the video below, mixed policy discussion with personal
anecdotes. At a meeting in Spokane , Murray said that the local
sheriff, Ozzie Knezovich, spoke of how he was a "Head Start kid." Murray said her own
political career began when she learned her children's preschool program was
going to be shuttered.
Arne Duncan Mounts
Strongest Defense Yet of Common Core Standards
Education
Week Politics K-12 Blog By Michele McNeil on June
25, 2013 3:00 PM UPDATED
In a speech today to the American Society of News
Editors in Washington, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan
mounted his strongest defense yet of the common-standards movement and sought
to beat back claims that the federal government has gone too far to encourage
the standards' adoption. In his remarks,
he tried to draw bright lines in the controversy: That the federal government
encouraged the standards' adoption, but didn't mandate them and that the
standards are just that—standards—and not a set of lesson plans or curricula,
which the federal government is barred under law from getting involved in.
Save the Date:
Diane Ravitch will be speaking at the Main Branch of the Philadelphia Free Library on September 17 at 7:30
pm . Details to come.
Friday June 28th is the
deadline to submit proposals for PSBA’s 2014 Legislative Platform
There is
one week remaining to submit proposals for consideration for PSBA’s 2014
Legislative Platform.The deadline to submit proposals is Friday, June
28. Guidelines for platform submissions and submission forms are
posted on PSBA’s Web site. Boards may submit new proposals as well as revisions
to the current platform and should include a brief statement (about 50 words)
of rationale for each proposal submitted. The rationale should include a
summary of the reasons why your board believes this issue should be addressed
in the platform, any specific problems your district has encountered, and how
your board believes the problem could be resolved. In addition, your
board is encouraged to submit any data related to the issue as it affects your
district, or any draft language that could be crafted into proposed
legislation. This information will be shared with the PSBA Platform Committee.
All submissions should be directed to PSBA’s Office of Governmental and Member
Relations. All items submitted must be verified by the board secretary. The
PSBA Platform Committee under the direction of Chairman Mark B. Miller will review
proposals and rationale submitted for the platform on Aug. 10.
The items
recommended by the Platform Committee will be presented to the new PSBA
Delegate Assembly for final determination by the voting delegates
present. Next week, PSBA will be mailing to all school board
secretaries a memo and response form for the appointment of their voting
delegates to the Delegate Assembly. Selection of voting delegates for
the Delegate Assembly meeting is the same as it was for the Legislative Policy
Council. Each PSBA member entity has the opportunity to participate in
the meeting the debate and vote on all of the agenda items.
October 15-18, 2013 | Hershey Lodge & Convention Center
The
PASA-PSBA School Leadership Conference is the largest gathering of elected
officials in Pennsylvania
and offers an impressive collection of professional development opportunities
for school board members and other education leaders.
Registration:
https://www.psba.org/workshops/?workshop=17
The Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel, State College , PA
The state
conference is PAESSP’s premier professional development event for principals,
assistant principals and other educational leaders. Attending will enable you
to connect with fellow educators while learning from speakers and presenters
who are respected experts in educational leadership.
Featuring
Keynote Speakers: Charlotte Danielson, Dr. Todd Whitaker, Will Richardson &
David Andrews, Esq. (Legal Update).
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.
Building One
America 2013 National Summit July 18-19, 2013 Washington , DC
Brookings Institution to present findings of
their “Confronting Suburban Poverty” report
Building One America’s Second National Summit
for Inclusive Suburbs and Sustainable Regions will involve local leaders and
federal policy makers to seek bipartisan solutions to the unique but common
challenges around housing, schools and infrastructure facing America ’s metropolitan regions and
its diverse middle-class suburbs. Participants will include local elected and
grassroots leaders from America ’s
diverse middle class suburban towns and school districts, scholars and policy
experts, members of the Obama Administration and Congress. The summit
will identify comprehensive solutions and build bipartisan support for
meaningful action to stabilize and support inclusive middle-class communities
and promote sustainable, economically competitive regions.
Lineup of speakers: https://buildingoneamerica.org/summit/speakers
Information and registration: https://buildingoneamerica.org/civicrm/event/info?reset=1&id=1
PA Charter Schools: $4
billion taxpayer dollars with no real oversight
Charter schools - public funding without public scrutiny
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