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
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These daily
emails are archived at http://keystonestateeducationcoalition.org
Follow us on Twitter at @lfeinberg
Finding money for public
education: Q&A with Sen. Vincent Hughes
Education Voters PA Statewide Call to Action for
Public Education
Pennsylvania ’s 1.76 million public school kids
don’t care whether Rendell backfilled or Corbett cut stimulus money; they now
have 20,000 fewer adults trying to maintain their constitutionally mandated
“thorough and efficient system of public education” than they did a couple
years ago.
Mark your calendar
today for Monday, June 10th – remember it just takes 10 minutes to do three
things to make a difference!
Send an email to Harrisburg on school
funding now - actually - send three (in just a few clicks) and then mark your
calendar for Monday June 10th
Education Voters PA
Finding money for public
education: Q&A with Sen. Vincent Hughes
thenotebook by Paul Jablow on Jun 06 2013 Posted in Latest news
Democrats
in the State Senate introduced their own proposed budget on Monday. Their
budget would increase basic education funding by $212 million compared with the
governor's proposal of $90 million and Republican legislative proposals of $10
million more than that.
This
morning, the Notebook sat down with State Sen. Vincent Hughes,
ranking minority member of the Appropriations Committee, to discuss that
budget and education funding under the Corbett administration. Hughes estimated
the Democratic budget would provide $122 million for Philadelphia schools, almost exactly what
District officials say is needed from the state to help close a $304 million
budget shortfall next year. He called the Senate budget proposal the first step
on a path to let the state again fund education "at a level that is
appropriate."
Bleeding Out
School districts
across Pennsylvania
are on life support. After massive defunding of public education by the state
the past two years, schools have made so many cuts there is almost nothing left
to remove. A new study out this week reveals just how big this gaping wound is
where strong public schools ought to be.
The Pennsylvania Association of School Business Officials (PASBO)
and the Pennsylvania Association of School Administrators (PASA) surveyed
all 500 school districts in May, and received responses from 187 (for a
response rate of 37%). The results are sobering (all data from PASBO/PASA School
Finance Report, June 2013):
Protesters rally against
education cuts
Citizen’s Voice BY DAVID SINGLETON AND PETER CAMERON (STAFF WRITERS)
Published: June
6, 2013
"It's
upsetting to me" Sloat said amid a handful of protesters holding signs
reading slogans like "Take a Stand Against the Man" and "Kids
Before Profits." "Everybody should pay their fair share." The group then hand-delivered a petition of
more than 300 signatures to the Wilkes-Barre
Area School
District asking it to "stand up" to the
governor and his cuts to education.
Wissahickon Charter to
get $1.5 million grant to expand
MARTHA WOODALL, INQUIRER
STAFF WRITER POSTED: Friday, June 7, 2013 , 3:01 AM
The
Philadelphia School Partnership will announce Friday that it is awarding a $1.5
million grant to Wissahickon
Charter School
in Nicetown to help it expand. A year ago, the Philadelphia School Reform
Commission gave the charter school, which has an environmental focus,
permission to add a second K-8 campus in 2014.
By Jenna Ebersole Pocono Record Writer June 06, 2013
Editorial: Make charter
schools fully accountable
Charter
schools are publicly funded but, compared with conventional public schools,
they operate off the grid. The charter school funding reform bill passed Monday
by the House Education Committee contains some valuable provisions to improve
that situation, but it is far from the comprehensive reform that is necessary.
State audit slams Chester Upland ,
says it's failing to educate students
By JOHN KOPP jkopp@delcotimes.com,
@DT_JohnKopp Published:
Friday, June 07,
2013
The Chester Upland School District
is failing its primary mission to educate its students, according to a critical
audit released Thursday by Auditor General Eugene DePasquale.
The audit revealed various incidents of noncompliance with state laws and administrative procedures and claimed that ineffective governance has prevented Chester Upland from “effectively educating its students through the judicious use of citizen tax dollars.”
The audit revealed various incidents of noncompliance with state laws and administrative procedures and claimed that ineffective governance has prevented Chester Upland from “effectively educating its students through the judicious use of citizen tax dollars.”
It’s worth keeping an eye
on K12 Inc.’s strategies in NJ……
Mother Crusader Blog Thursday, June 6, 2013
John Mooney
over at NJ Spotlight wrote a great piece yesterday about Commissioner
Cerf's stunning denial of K12 Inc.'s New Jersey
Virtual Academy Charter School
(NJVACS). In the "Related Links" he included NJVACS Board President
Michael Pallante's response letter, which was not only pretty spicy, it was
pretty revealing, too.
Warning: ALEC Wants to
Eliminate School Boards
Diane
Ravitch’s Blog By dianerav June 6,
2013 //
Julie
Underwood, dean of the school of education at the University of Wisconsin ,
has been watching ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, and warns
that their agenda includes the elimination of local school boards. School boards are a basic democratic
institution. Some 95% are elected. They hire and fire superintendents and set
each district’s policy goals. Most people would see them as an expression of
local control, a place where citizens may voice their views. But ALEC has a radical agenda of
privatization, and the school boards get in the way. ALEC would like to see
more vouchers and charters, and the creation of unelected state boards that can
override local decision-making.
Nation's Graduation Rate Nears a Milestone
Education Week By Christopher B.
Swanson and Sterling C. Lloyd Published Online: May 31, 2013 Premium
article access courtesy of Edweek.org.
At the beginning of the last decade, before concerns about
the nation's graduation rate ascended to prominence on the policy agenda, only
about two-thirds of U.S.
public school students were finishing high school with a regular diploma. A new
analysis from the Editorial Projects in Education
Research Center
finds that the graduation rate for America 's public schools stands
just shy of 75 percent for the class of 2010, the most recent year for which
data are available.
The graduation rate, which has risen nearly 2 full
percentage points from the previous year and 8 points in the past decade, has
reached its highest point since 1973. At the current pace of improvement, the
portion of students earning a diploma could surpass the historical high of 77.1
percent within the next few years.
Congress takes first steps toward ESEA reauthorization
NSBA’s School Board News Today by Joetta Sack-Min June 6th,
2013
Democrats in the U.S. Senate introduced their bill to
overhaul the No Child Left Behind Act, and the National School Boards
Association’s advocacy team is hopeful that efforts to reauthorize the massive
K-12 law could progress this summer. “In
conversations with key staff members, it’s clear they are eager to move a bill
through the committee in short order” said Michael A. Resnick, the Associate
Executive Director for Federal Advocacy and Public Policy at NSBA. “But some of
the philosophical divide will need to be resolved.”
A key issue will be the role of the federal government in
education policy, in addition to assessments and other accountability measures.
Dueling visions of the federal role in education
Republicans in Congress have rolled out legislation that
would sharply limit the power of the executive branch and shrink the role of
the federal government in public education in a rebuke to the Obama
administration’s influence over K-12 education.
Meanwhile, Senate Democrats have unveiled their own K-12
plan that would cede more control to states but still maintain some federal
oversight, especially of the worst-performing schools.
NSBA asks Senate leaders to rethink Title I change in new ESEA bill
NSBA’s School Board News Today by Joetta Sack-Min June 6th,
2013
The National School Boards Association (NSBA) has issued
a report
calling on the U.S. Senate to reconsider a provision in its new Elementary and
Secondary Education Act (ESEA) reauthorization bill that seeks to ensure school
districts give equitable support to students in high-poverty schools. The ESEA legislation would change the current
method for determining how school districts allocate comparable resources to
their Title I schools. Based on NSBA’s report, “The Challenges and Unintended
Consequences of Using Expenditures to Determine Title I Comparability,” the
provision in the Senate bill will not achieve its goal.
“NSBA supports the concept of ‘comparability’ and ensuring
that students in Title I schools receive equitable services,” said NSBA
Executive Director Thomas J. Gentzel. “However, the proposal for the Title I
comparability provision would be burdensome for school districts and it could
even unintentionally harm Title I schools and other schools that have high
operational costs or special services.”
Kline and House Republicans Release NCLB
Renewal Bill
Education
Week Politics K-12 Blog By Alyson Klein on June
6, 2013 2:04 PM
UPDATED
And
now there are three bills to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education
Act, a.k.a. No Child Left Behind. Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., the chairman of the
House education committee, dropped his ESEA renewal measure today, just days
after the Senate Democrats, and hours after the Senate Republicans.
House Republican Introduces Education Bill
New
York Times By MOTOKO RICH Published: June 6, 2013
Staking
a claim in the debate over how the federal government should direct public
schooling, Representative John Kline, chairman of the House Education
Committee, introduced legislation on Thursday to replace the decade-old No
Child Left Behind federal education law.
The
bill was the third to emerge from Congress in three days, following both Democratic and Republican versions in the Senate this week.
The Corporate Takeover of Public Education
Huffington
Post by Diann Woodard
President, American Federation of School Administrators
Independent
research in recent months has documented that the nation's wealthiest
philanthropic foundations are steering funding away from public school systems,
attended by 90 percent of American students, and toward "challengers"
to public education, especially charter schools.
Education Week recently reported that at the
start of the decade, less than a quarter of K-12 giving from top foundations
was given to groups supporting charter schools and privatization, about $90
million in all.
By
2010, $540 million -- fully 64 percent of major foundation giving -- was
directed to these private groups, including KIPP, Teach for America , the
NewSchools Venture Fund, the Charter School Growth Fund, and the D.C. Public
Education Fund.
Need to feel good about the Common Core and Keystone Exams?
What would it take for us to see similar events focusing on high quality
early childhood education and community
schools? Generous sponsors?
“The Pennsylvania Education Summit is
co-sponsored by the Pennsylvania Business
Council Education Foundation, Pennsylvania Partnerships for
Children and Team Pennsylvania
Foundation with the support of generous sponsors.”
The Pennsylvania Education Summit : Building a Pathway to College and
Career Success will gather business leaders, teachers, school
superintendents, curriculum specialists, state lawmakers, legislative staff,
executive agency professionals, workforce investment board members and staff,
and other education stakeholders for a civil conversation on the public policy
required to ensure our Commonwealth's young people are "college and career
ready." The Pennsylvania
Education Summit will highlight and support the efforts of the Corbett
Administration and Pennsylvania General Assembly to design and implement
education reforms that increase student achievement and accountability in Pennsylvania 's K-12
education system.
Agenda
and registration here: http://educsummit.eventbrite.com/
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.
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.
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 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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