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Bottom
Line on PA Budget for 1.8 million school kids: Still Fewer Resources for
Student Programs and Services
Policy
Junkies: do we have PA budget reactions from all quarters for you today…….
From EPLC’s Education Notebook Monday July
1
“The
largest increase in the Department of Education section of the budget is an
increase of $160,948,000 for School Employees Retirement.
Some Harrisburg
In addition, as noted above, districts are getting
an increase of $122.5 million for Basic Education, but they have to pay out
almost $160 million more for state-mandated increased pension payments.
The bottom line is still fewer resources for
student programs and services.”
PDE Press Release July 01, 2013
Governor Corbett’s Budget Includes Record $11.63 Billion in State Education Funding, Additional Investments in Pennsylvania’s Children
Harrisburg – Supporting Pennsylvania’s children of all ages, Governor Tom Corbett’s budget provides record education funding and increases funding in early childhood intervention, early learning, childcare subsidies and health insurance enrollment efforts.
Governor Corbett’s Budget Includes Record $11.63 Billion in State Education Funding, Additional Investments in Pennsylvania’s Children
Harrisburg – Supporting Pennsylvania’s children of all ages, Governor Tom Corbett’s budget provides record education funding and increases funding in early childhood intervention, early learning, childcare subsidies and health insurance enrollment efforts.
Most notably, it includes a record $11.63 billion in early, basic and
higher education funding for Pennsylvania ’s
students and $445 million to support and grow the Children’s Health Insurance
Program (CHIP) so that more than 200,000 children in Pennsylvania
FINAL FY 2013-2014 PA General
Fund Budget
As prepared by the staff of the Republican Senate Appropriations Committee.
"My sense is that the state needed to do more," said Sharon
Ward, executive director of the Pennsylvania
Budget and Policy Center , a left-leaning think tank in Harrisburg Philadelphia
Hope, skepticism on Philly school budget deal
Hope, skepticism on Philly school budget deal
Martha Woodall, Bob Warner, and Susan Snyder, Inquirer Staff Writers
LAST UPDATED: Tuesday, July 2, 2013 , 1:07
AM POSTED: Monday, July 1, 2013 , 7:56 PM A day after Gov. Corbett detailed a $140 million
package for Philadelphia
Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20130702_Hope__skepticism_on_school_budget_deal.html#eRJkX1HdTJWCI9XU.99
Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20130702_Hope__skepticism_on_school_budget_deal.html#eRJkX1HdTJWCI9XU.99
Disappointing Budget Shows Need to
Keep Fighting
Commonwealth
Foundation JULY
1, 2013 | by MATTHEW
BROUILLETTE
This past weekend was not for the political faint of heart. Special
interests, led by government union bosses and crony capitalists, prevented real
liquor privatization and effective pension reform from moving forward. They did
so by a slim majority, but they did it nonetheless.
New
State Budget Has Wins for PA Kids
Pennsylvania
Partnerships for Children Posted At : July 1, 2013 4:38 PM
Late Sunday night, less than two hours before the new fiscal year began, Gov. Tom Corbett signed into law a $28.4 billion spending plan for fiscal 2013-14 that begins moving the commonwealth in the right direction when it comes to investments in children.
Late Sunday night, less than two hours before the new fiscal year began, Gov. Tom Corbett signed into law a $28.4 billion spending plan for fiscal 2013-14 that begins moving the commonwealth in the right direction when it comes to investments in children.
Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children President and CEO Joan Benso
called the new budget “a hopeful sign that state policymakers are beginning to
prioritize common-sense investments in our kids.” “This budget invests more in high-quality
early learning programs and child care for working families, increases funding
for basic education and makes a stronger commitment to enroll more children in
health insurance,” Benso said. “Now that we’ve begun boosting our investments
in the commonwealth’s nearly 2.8 million children, the challenge will be to
continue that momentum in future years and not backslide on our commitment to
kids.”
PSBA
Special Report: 2013-14 Budget Finalized
PSBA’s website June 30, 2013
As this report is filed on Sunday evening, June 30, Pennsylvania
PASBO: 2013-14 State Budget Passed
The General Assembly ventured close to the midnight deadline to pass the 2013-14 state budget,
and the House is in session today to
complete some important votes on several bills. Highlights of the action (or
inaction) over the past few days are below...
PASA: Education
Update for July 1,
2013
2013-14 State Budget – Gov. Corbett last
evening signed into law a $28.375 billion state budget for 2013-14 (HB 1437).
The budget increases total state spending by $645 million, or 2.3 percent, over
last year’s budget.
Corbett
Goes 0-for-3 in On-Time Budget
PoliticsPA June 30th,
2013
Written by Carl Feldman, Contributing Writer and Keegan
Gibson, Managing Editor
While members of the legislature would not have turned into pumpkins had
the clock struck midnight, there would be plenty of angry state employees – not
to mention a broken campaign pledge for Gov. Corbett.
CORBETT
SIGNS LARGEST STATE EDUCATION BUDGET IN PENNSYLVANIA
Republican Party of Pennsylvania July 1, 2013
Governor Corbett and Republican legislators pass an on-time budget with
record investments in Pennsylvania
Gov. Corbett signs another bad
budget after his policy priorities fail
Pennsylvania Democratic Party Chairman Jim Burn July 1, 2013
Tom Corbett failed, and his failed leadership will continue to hurt the
people of Pennsylvania
Budget Failure
It’s signed, sealed, and delivered – but it’s nothing to write home
about. The Pennsylvania Pennsylvania
Explaining
Governor Corbett's school funding plan
The Notebook
by Dale Mezzacappa on Jul 01 2013
Posted in Latest news
Following, in question-and-answer format, is an attempt to explain the
components of the School
District's funding package presented Sunday by Gov. Corbett.
Some in
Philly grumble as Pa.
WHYY Newsworks By Holly Otterbein, @HollyOtterbein July 2, 2013
The Pennsylvania House passed key pieces of Gov. Tom Corbett's Philadelphia
The Republican-controlled House approved legislation that gives the
school district a one-time infusion of $45 million in state funds, which were
previously owed to the federal government, but now have apparently been
forgiven.
Philly
schools can't commit to staff rehires yet
By KATHY MATHESON,
Associated Press Updated 2:19 pm, Monday, July 1, 2013
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — It's too early to know whether a tentative state
rescue package will allow the Philadelphia
school system to rehire any of its 3,800 laid-off employees, city and
district officials said Monday.
Lawmakers in Harrisburg
"There remains a good deal of activity in Harrisburg
Ravitch,
Weingarten urge Arne Duncan to intervene in Philadelphia
The Philadelphia Philadelphia
That's funny, I don't remember
electing a Comcast executive as our education czar
Philly Daily News
Attytood Blog by Will Bunch POSTED: Monday, July 1, 2013 , 5:34 PM
Late last night, Gov. Corbett unveiled the details of what he called a
"rescue" plan for Philadelphia Philadelphia Harrisburg
Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/attytood/Thats-funny-I-dont-remember-voting-for-David-L-Cohen-for-education-czar.html#HjeIuSBWlMsO75Jz.99
Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/attytood/Thats-funny-I-dont-remember-voting-for-David-L-Cohen-for-education-czar.html#HjeIuSBWlMsO75Jz.99
Corbett
to Philly: Fix your own schools
City Paper by Daniel Denvir MONDAY, JULY 1, 2013 , 2:27 PM
Corbett's proposed public school "rescue package," currently
making its way through the legislature, is a destructive joke with troubling
long-term implications. The $140 million, pledged just before the governor
signed the state budget last night, falls
far short of the $304 million budget gap and is $40 million short of
the School Reform Commission's combined request from city and state government.
It's also a shell game, so make sure to watch closely: the plan
represents a shifting of the burden for funding city schools onto those who can
least afford it. Much of the funding comes from optimistic projections of
increased collections from city tax delinquents, and from an extension of the
city's "temporary" 1-percent sales tax hike. The latter is simply the
state giving the city the power to further tax its own disproportionately
low-income population. This is patently regressive taxation, meaning that it
takes disproportionately from the poor — in a city that already has a regressive wage tax, and in a state that has one of
the most regressive tax structures in the nation. There is only $47 million in new state
funding for city schools. Critically, $45 million of that is a one-time-only
expenditure — and it actually comes not from Corbett but from the Obama
administration.
Does Tom
Corbett actually care about Philly schools?
WHYY Newsworks
By Dave Davies @DaveDavieswhyy July 1, 2013
So what does Pa. Gov. Tom Corbett get out of helping solve a school
funding crisis in Philadelphia, where Democrats rule and Corbett voters are
about as common as a cheesesteak with melted swiss on it?
I can't rule out the simple answer that it's his job and he actually
cares.
Nutter
suffers in H'burg: Cig tax tabled, AVI measures uncertain
City Paper by Ryan Briggs POSTED: MONDAY, JULY 1, 2013 , 4:25 PM
Mayor Michael Nutter and City Council
don't get along. It's no secret: councilpeople have built a veritablelegislative cemetary of
bills and amendments that originated with the mayor, and legislators have made
little attempt to hide their contempt
for the Mayor in the press.
Pols in the state house have not lined up behind the mayor either. They
failed to support his proposal to fund the cash-strapped school district
through increases in the city's cigarette and liquor-by-the-drink taxes. And
now, the outlook for bills needed to improve tax collections and ease the
impact of the Actual Value Iniative is also uncertain.
The liquor tax didn't even make it out of Council, but the tax on
tobacco, which would have raised $45 million for the district if the state had
approved the increase, stalled out in the legislature's final hours last
night.
Nutter:
Philly school funding still in flux
WHYY Newsworks By Tom MacDonald @tmacdonaldwhyy July 1, 2013
Over the weekend, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett brokered a deal to
generate $127 million more for the Philadelphia schools as part of the state
budget, though state taxpayers would not shoulder much of that burden.
The money would mostly come from Philadelphia
However the mayor of Philadelphia says
"it's not over until it's over" when it comes to the city schools and
the Pennsylvania
Trib Live By Josh Fatzick Published: Monday, July 1, 2013 ,
12:01 a.m.
HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania's opportunity to produce its version of national academic standards for public schools is stuck in bureaucratic limbo for the summer while lawmakers and members of the Education Department and state Board of Education try to iron out details.
HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania's opportunity to produce its version of national academic standards for public schools is stuck in bureaucratic limbo for the summer while lawmakers and members of the Education Department and state Board of Education try to iron out details.
The proposed Pennsylvania Common Core standards would set nationally
standardized goals for each grade level that students need to meet to be
promoted. In May, Gov. Tom Corbett postponed their implementation until the
2014-15 school year because lawmakers objected to the potential cost and to
data collection by the federal government. Some critics worry about loss of
control of curriculum.
Read more: http://triblive.com/state/pennsylvania/4264235-74/standards-common-pennsylvania#ixzz2XnrLcoNj
HARRISBURG — Four Pennsylvania state representatives Friday introduced a
package of bills aimed at combatting the Common Core State Standards Initiative
— a federally-developed set of education standards that could force changes to
school curriculums across the state.
Legislators fear these nationally created standards won’t work for Pennsylvania
Representatives Will Tallman, R-193, Stephen Bloom, R-199, Rob Kauffman,
R-89 and John Lawrence, R-13, wrote and co-sponsored five separate bills that
thwart the effects of Common Core State Standards.
Exit Strategy: State Lawmakers
Consider Dropping Common Core
Education Week Updated: July 1, 2013
Track the development of in various states of legislation seeking withdrawal
from the Common Core State Standards. You can also find a short synopsis and a
timeline of recent actions for each bill below.
In Philadelphia
Education Week By The
Associated Press Published Online: June 27, 2013
Ten thousand unused musical instruments. No sports or art programs. No
assistant principals, counselors, cafeteria aides or secretaries.
That's what the Philadelphia
Top GOP lawmakers and fellow Republican Gov. Tom Corbett continued to
grapple over school aid behind closed doors this week with stubborn
disagreements on major priorities as school employees took center stage,
swarming the Capitol to criticize a political regime that they say has been
callous toward public schoolchildren.
The activity comes in the final days of the state's fiscal year, as
lawmakers scramble to wrap up work before leaving Monday for their traditional
two-month summer break from Harrisburg
Click on the link to see detail on $94K in 2012 contributions to PA
candidates by Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst; $20K to Scarnati; $20K to Sam
Smith
Exclusive: Rhee’s StudentsFirst
14-State 2012 Candidate Spending
Scholastic Administrator by Alexander Russo July 1, 2013
A few months ago it was
being noted that StudentsFirst's candidate endorsements skewed overwhelmingly
Republican, which was surprising to some and disqualifying to others.
But no one seemed to
know about its candidate contributions, which are an even more powerful
indication of the organization's focus (and the state of education reform).
Now, thanks to a source
inside StudentsFirst, I can share some interesting (if self-reported)
information about the organization's 2012 election cycle contributions, which
balance out pretty evenly for 2012 at 42 percent Democratic / 58 percent
Republican.
“The private sector could use all the monies in their war chests that
they currently use for failed experiments like charters and vouchers to
underwrite the program. I am sure Teach for America
Russ on Reading Blog by Russ Walsh Sunday, June 30, 2013
Education reform types like to say that no child’s educational
opportunity should be determined by zip code. Who could not agree with that?
That is why I am surprised that the reformy solutions to so-called “failing
schools” do nothing to change a child’s zip code. Maybe that is why voucher
programs and charter schools have not been successful. You can bend the rules
all you want to try to make charter schools successful, but the evidence shows
that charter schools in general do no better than the public schools in
educating children and some do much worse. You see, the zip code for the
children doesn't change.
Vouchers haven’t worked either. I am not sure why we are surprised.
Giving a poor family 2 – 5 thousand dollars in a voucher is not going to allow
them to find the extra 5K they need to send the child to parochial school, let
alone the extra 20 or 30K they would need to send a child to a private school.
Vouchers probably would help middle class families defray the cost of sending
their children to a school of their choice, say one with fewer children
of color or one that teaches creationism. Perhaps that is why they are so
popular among some politicians. But for poor children, the zip code remains the
same.
So I would like to put forward a modest proposal for educational reform.
Provide poor families in urban areas where the schools are struggling with real
estate vouchers. Real estate vouchers would allow these families to move to
a new zip code, a zip code with a high performing public school district.
Yinzers - Save the
Date: Diane Ravitch will be speaking in Pittsburgh 6:00
pm . Location and details to
come.
Save the Date:
Diane Ravitch will be speaking in Philly at the Main Branch of the Philadelphia 7:30
pm . Details to come.
October 15-18, 2013 | Hershey Lodge & Convention Center
The
PASA-PSBA School Leadership Conference is the largest gathering of elected
officials in Pennsylvania
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
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 America
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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