Daily postings from the Keystone State Education
Coalition now reach more than 3000 Pennsylvania education policymakers – school
directors, administrators, legislators, legislative and congressional staffers,
Governor's staff, 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
These daily emails are archived at http://keystonestateeducationcoalition.org
Follow us on Twitter at @lfeinberg
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?
Pennsylvanians Want a School Funding
Formula
Press Event Monday September 23rd, 11:30 am Capitol Rotunda, Harrisburg
Every child in Pennsylvania
Grassroots Advocacy by
Education Voters PA; Education Matters in the Cumberland
Valley and the Keystone State
Sign up here if you may be able to join us to represent your
schools and community: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/104e0endYpVYcPxSyfG9V_DOIVAB0J3AVI0-20Q8Yylw/viewform
Have you signed this petition for a fair and
equitable funding formula yet? Have your
friends and colleagues?
“Once
again, the problem: The massive cuts sustained by public schools and higher
education during the first year of Corbett’s administration continues to define
him for most voters, Madonna said. The
Republican “lost the narrative” on school funding. “
Summer vacation over, lawmakers settle in for a busy
fall: John L. Micek
By John L. Micek | jmicek@pennlive.com on
September 18,
2013 at 10:00 AM ,
Glen Grell offered
little more than a shrug and a laugh when he was asked what he expected as
state lawmakers wrap up the world’s longest summer vacation and finally return
to voting sessions on Monday. “I guess
we’ll find out,” Grell, a Republican state House member from Cumberland County
It’s not as
if there’s any shortage of work. All three prongs of Gov. Tom Corbett’slegislative agenda
-- liquor privatization, pension reform and transportation funding -- all
successfully eluded solutions as lawmakers broke for beach back in July.
Now, as
then, the same question recurs: Can the squabbling family of Republicans who
control the legislative and executive branches come together and actually make
a deal?
http://blog.pennlive.com/capitol-notebook/2013/09/summer_vacation_over_lawmakers.html#incart_m-rpt-2
"Gov. Corbett's main
focus is to ensure that students in the district have access to the best
education possible," said Timothy Eller, a spokesman for the state
Education Department……..
“Across City Avenue Lower Merion , you'll find
pretty much what you'd expect: a much rosier scene. At the elementary school level, every school
is endowed with a guidance counselor, a school psychologist, a nurse and a
speech/language therapist. The
district's two high schools have one counselor for every 200 high school
students — and that does not include the additional support of school
psychologists, social workers, a full-time team of nurses, and a college access
counselor who focuses solely on helping students navigate the passageways to
higher education.”
In Philly schools, when
students with dreams or traumas seek counseling, the office is often empty
WHYY
Newsworks By Kevin McCorry September 18, 2013
The
American School Counselor Association recommends one counselor
for every 250 students. Counselors on the ground will tell you that 250
would be ideal, but that 500 is the line where services truly start to
diminish. South Philadelphia
High School
That's 16 counselors for 48,000
students. A ratio of 1 to 3,000.
Interested in keeping the “public”
in public education? Sign up for text
grassroots alerts from the Network for Public
Education. Jjoin NPE's NIXLE Group
by texting "4NPE" to 888777.
After sending the initial text, NIXLE will ask for a "zipcode"
- providing a zipcode will limit messages to local interest of each subscriber.
Leave the zipcode blank if you want to receive all grassroot alerts from NPE.
Education scholar Diane
Ravitch critiques charters, standardized tests in Philly
WHYY
Newsworks By Holly Otterbein, @hollyotterbein September 18, 2013
Diane
Ravitch, a New York
University
Ravitch
spoke at Philadelphia 's Free Library Tuesday
night about her new book, "Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization
Movement and the Danger to America
The book
attempts to bust the "myth" that America
In U.S.
Ravitch
said the public has been "sold a bill of goods," including the
federal No Child Left Behind Act, the Obama administration's Race to the Top
initiative, and other policies that have attempted to improve schools through
the "overuse" of test scores, she said.
Diane Ravitch
Launched, Yinzer-Style
On Monday,
Yinzers were the first in the country to see Diane Ravitch’s new book, The
Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to
America’s Public Schools. Released nationally on Tuesday, the book is
already #1 in public policy and has moved up to #104 on the Amazon top-sellers
list. Pittsburgh
An audience
of nearly 1,000 people packed into Temple
Sinai
"Reign of
Error:" Who Should Read It?
Education
Week Teacher in a Strange Land Blog By Nancy Flanagan on September
17, 2013 2:10 PM
As
facilitator of an online graduate course in teacher leadership, I strongly
recommend that participants read lots of education policy blogs, across a range
of political convictions. In the course syllabus, there are a dozen
suggestions, but students--all practicing K-12 educators--are free to find and
share others, posting their thoughts about the discourse they find.
The first
discussion board question: Who is this blog for?
One
teacher-participant compared a widely read policy blog to the "cool kids'
table" in the school cafeteria: a place where other students are
intentionally left behind, where the conversation often centers around a
handful of people, clubs and shifting loyalties--who said what and how
should we spin it?
Teachers
often come away from their tour of Ed Policy World dismayed by the things
policy "experts" are saying. Angry, sometimes. Frustrated at being
left out of a dialogue where their hard-won practice expertise is undervalued,
even scorned.
Good news.
Diane Ravitch has written a book for them. While many of the early reviews
of Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization
Movement and the Danger to America's Public Schools came from
the "cool kids," the audience that will find Reign of
Error indispensible is teachers, school leaders and parents.
Diane Ravitch: Testing
and vouchers hurt our schools. Here’s what works
Education reformers have it all
wrong, Diane Ravitch tells Salon, and keep pushing policies that make schools
worse
Salon.com BY SARA SCRIBNER WEDNESDAY, SEP 18, 2013
07:45 AM EDT
Diane
Ravitch has become one of the fiercest — and most lucid — critics of many
commonly accepted ideas about education in America
Ravitch has
been derided by critics as a tool of the unions, an apologist for failing
educators, and as a reductive thinker who doesn’t capture the complexity of the
charter-school movement. But she is a hero to many teachers, who have not fared
well in the fiery debates about the future of education.
Here, she
describes her change of heart on testing and charter schools and takes on
reform queen Michelle Rhee, Teach for America
Ravitch and Rhee: Two Near-Opposite Views for Fixing
Philadelphia Schools
Next City
by JAKE BLUMGART | NEXT CITY
Philadelphia | 09/18/2013
1:24pm
Two rival visions of education reform clashed this week in Philadelphia, a city whose school district is suffering an acute funding crisis, forcing many students to go without libraries,guidance counselors or a safe way to get to school. Despite sweeping austerity measures, the district still faces a deficit of about $300 million and closed 24 schools this year.
Two rival visions of education reform clashed this week in Philadelphia, a city whose school district is suffering an acute funding crisis, forcing many students to go without libraries,guidance counselors or a safe way to get to school. Despite sweeping austerity measures, the district still faces a deficit of about $300 million and closed 24 schools this year.
There are a
host of reasons for this situation, including a more than $1 billion budget cut
to Pennsylvania Philadelphia
For school
advocates Michelle Rhee and Diane Ravitch — who spoke, respectively, on Monday
and Tuesday — this cataclysm represents very different things. It also offered
both a chance to present their vision of education in a city desperate for
something, anything, to improve its lot.
By Eleanor
Chute / Pittsburgh September
18, 2013 11:59 am
Acting Pennsylvania
The results
will be the first since the state won a waiver from the federal government so Pennsylvania
This means
that schools will be judged not on whether they made "adequate yearly
progress" -- that term is gone -- but on their School Performance
Profiles.
By Jan Murphy | jmurphy@pennlive.com
on September 18,
2013 at 12:52 PM ,
Parents and
taxpayers will have a new tool available to them this year to provide them with
information on how well their public schools are performing.
The
Pennsylvania School Performance Profile, an online report card tool that
provides a myriad of information and performance measures, is scheduled to be
available for public use on Sept. 30. As
part of the school performance profile’s unveiling, the state Department of
Education will make available the results of last year's Pennsylvania System of
School Assessment for third- through eighth-graders and the Keystone Exams for
11th graders. The profiles will reflect
the new accountability system that the department has put in place to comply
with the state’s educator evaluation system and the federal waiver granted to relieve the
state of the No Child Left Behind Act’s requirements.
KATHY
MATHESON, The Associated Press Wednesday, September 18, 2013 , 1:26 PM
Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/education/20130918_ap_0249d46e2f304a079634a02c5daad303.html#ckZHfLbA6jAEzVq3.99
New system to measure
schools' performance available to public Sept. 30
Pittsburgh
Tribune-Review By Megan
Harris Published: Wednesday,
Sept. 18, 2013 ,
12:00 p.m.
Performance profiles forPennsylvania Harrisburg
Performance profiles for
Video: State changes way Pa.
State
changes way Pa.
Radnor Curriculum
Committee mulls data about RSD’s performance
It’s a
whole new ballgame for Pennsylvania
The Daily Review (Towanda, Sayre and Troy , PA
Published: September
18, 2013
During the
last school board meeting, Gordon noted that there is a new state Acting
Secretary of Education, Carolyn Dumaresq. She was appointed by Gov. Tom Corbett
on Aug. 26.
Gordon said
there are some "huge statewide initiatives" related to the No Child
Left Behind waiver. These were "rolled out" to the teachers and staff
during the in-service days.
When asked
for comment by The Daily Review, Timothy Eller, press secretary with the state
Department of Education, said these initiatives will be used to satisfy Pennsylvania
The School
Performance Profile is a web-based system that will provide parents, students,
taxpayers, educators and schools with information on how students are
performing in each public school building, based on multiple measures of
student achievement, Eller said.
He noted
that a new educator evaluation system is being implemented as required by Act
82 of 2012, which puts into place a new educator evaluation system that uses
multiple measures of student achievement as a factor in an educator's
evaluation. The School Performance Profile will be used as one measure in the
educator evaluation system.
Why Pennsylvanians Should Oppose the Keystone Exam
Regulations
ASCD Edge
by Elliot Seif September
18, 2013
(The author of this commentary,
Elliott Seif, is a former social studies teacher, Professor of Education at Temple University ,
and Director of Curriculum-Instruction Services for the Bucks County Philadelphia School District
Introduction
and Overview
The new
Chapter 4 regulations, recently adopted by the Pennsylvania State Board, will
require all Pennsylvania
The purpose
of this commentary is to make a strong case in opposition to the implementation
of these regulations, using the following arguments:
Poll: Philly blames
Corbett and Nutter, not teachers, for schools crisis
Citypaper By Daniel Denvir Published: 09/17/2013
Gov. Tom
Corbett, Mayor Michael Nutter, the School Reform Commission, and myriad
self-described education reform groups have all cited the School District of Philadelphia
But
Philadelphians don't blame teachers, according to a new poll from Pew Charitable Trusts.
The poll,
released today, found that thirty-one percent of residents blame Corbett and
the Republican-controlled state legislature, thirty-one percent blame Nutter
and City Council, and twenty-one percent blamed school administrators and the
state-controlled SRC.
Just 11-percent
blame unions representing teachers and other workers.
Senator Pileggi Appoints
Darren Smith as Chief of Staff
Senator
Pileggi’s website September
17, 2013
Senate
Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi (R-9) announced today that he has appointed
Darren Smith, a native of Lebanon
County Philadelphia
“Darren
brings a great mix of knowledge, experience and energy to this job,” said
Senator Pileggi. “He’ll be a real asset to the Senate as we continue working to
advance an agenda of legislation that focuses on the hard-working citizens of Pennsylvania
The Common Core money war
Politico By STEPHANIE SIMON and NIRVI SHAH | 9/18/13 10:31 AM
One of the
most expensive political fights in America
The
proponents would appear to have all the advantages. The Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation already has pumped more than $160 million into developing and
promoting the Common Core, including $10 million just in the past few months,
and it’s getting set to announce up to $4 million in new grants to keep the
advocacy cranking. Corporate sponsors are pitching in, too. Dozens of the
nation’s top CEOs will meet today to set the plans for a national advertising
blitz that may include TV, radio and print.
Video: Arne Duncan on
Colbert Report
Comedy
Central/Colbert Nation Posted: Sep 18, 2013
Video Runtime 6:06
U.S.
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan discusses Obama's Race to the Top initiative
and Preschool for All program.
Lifelines for Poor Children
New York
Times Commentary By JAMES J. HECKMAN September 14, 2013 ,
6:33 pm
The
Great Divideis a series about inequality.
What’s
missing in the current debate over economic inequality is enough serious
discussion about investing in effective early childhood development from birth to
age 5. This is not a big government boondoggle policy that would require a huge
redistribution of wealth. Acting on it would, however, require us to rethink
long-held notions of how we develop productive people and promote shared
prosperity.
K12 has ‘run amok’ in pursuit of growth: Whitney
Tilson
Wall Street
Journal Marketwatch September
17, 2013 , 5:46 PM
Whitney
Tilson is not a fan of the online-education company K12.
His short
position in K12 LRN -1.38% is
the largest
in his book, he told the audience at the second day of the Value
Investing Congress in New York
And while
shares of K12 have gained 71% in 2013 — performing as well as his other short
positions, he joked — the problem with K12 is that it has “run amok” in pursuit
of growth, he said.
Tilson, who
runs Kase Capital, said online schools can be a good option for certain
students. But K12′s aggressive recruiting practices have led to poor academic
performance and high dropout rates, he said. Particularly of concern is the
company’s emphasis on high-risk students without providing proper support, he
added. His impassioned stance on the online education company was not such a
surprise given his background in education; Tilson helped found the Teach for America
“The $5
million, three-year grant is the largest commitment from a national foundation
to PSP to date. In June 2013, PSP announced a $4.2 million investment in the
Great Schools Fund from the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation, and last
December the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation invested $2.5 million in PSP
to support the Philadelphia Great Schools Compact. Since PSP's inception in
October 2010, more than 40 businesses, individuals and foundations have
committed $65 million toward the fundraising goal of $100 million for the Great
Schools Fund.”
Grant to
the Great Schools Fund is largest national foundation gift to the PSP to date;
more than $12 million committed by national foundations in past 12 months
The
Philadelphia School Partnership (PSP) today announced it will receive a $5
million challenge grant from the Walton Family Foundation to support the Great
Schools Fund. This grant will support the creation and expansion of
high-quality schools for Philadelphia Philadelphia
Follow the Money: Here’s a prior Keystone State
What if the Waltons spent
their $150M per year on programs for poor kids that are actually effective, like
early education and making sure that they are reading on grade level by third
grade?
WALMART: Save More, Live
Better, Eradicate Public Education: 159,049,864 reasons to shop someplace else.
List of
K-12 Education Reform and other education grants given by The Walton Family
Foundation in 2011. Total: $159,049,864
http://keystonestateeducationcoalition.blogspot.com/2012/03/follow-money-walmart-save-more-live.html
NYC Schools Official
Moves to Walton Foundation
Education
Week Marketplace K-12 By Sean Cavanagh on September
18, 2013 8:40 AM
A top
administrator in the New York City
Marc
Sternberg, a senior deputy chancellor in the 1.1 million-student district, will
direct the K-12 education reform focus area for the foundation, which the
philanthropy describes as its largest area of investment.
“But in the big picture,
roughly 60 percent of achievement outcomes is explained by student and family
background characteristics (most are unobserved, but likely pertain to
income/poverty). Observable and unobservable schooling factors explain roughly
20 percent, most of this (10-15 percent) being teacher effects. The rest of the
variation (about 20 percent) is unexplained (error). In other words, though
precise estimates vary, the preponderance of evidence shows that achievement
differences between students are overwhelmingly attributable to factors outside
of schools and classrooms (see Hanushek et al. 1998; Rockoff 2003; Goldhaber
et al. 1999; Rowan
et al. 2002; Nye
et al. 2004).”
Schools Matter @ the
Chalk Face: The Relentless Bully Politics Continues in SC
By P.L. Thomas September 18, 2013
Superintendent
of Education Mick Zais can’t help himself. He is so enamored with his
misinformation-as-talking-points that he is willing to visit
and shame a high-poverty elementary school. This is the other side of the
coin for Zais who has previously visited
a so-called high-flying school in order to shame all the other schools.
In both
cases, however, it is bully
politics pure and simple, and there is no excuse for the
misinformation:
Great Education War being waged on multiple fronts
I have such
conflicted feelings about the war.
No, not Syria Iraq , Afghanistan or even Grenada
The Great
Education War rages all around us. If anything, it seems to be getting more
intense, and cooperation and goodwill seem to be in shorter supply.
The war has
many fronts:
■
Standardized testing, how much should there be, what uses should the results be
put to.
■ Private
school voucher programs (the battle royal, especially in places such as Wisconsin
■ Charter
schools (actually, a hotter fight in many places than around here).
■ Teachers'
collective bargaining powers. Also teachers' pay and pensions. Also funding and
tax issues overall.
■ The
Common Core literacy and math standards.
■
Accountability measures of all kinds — what is effective, what's a waste (or
worse).
■ How to
improve teaching and teacher evaluation systems.
■ Anything
that some people see as "privatization."
War, of
course, is too strong a term, if you take it literally. There is no physical
fighting (thank goodness). But there are passions and intensity, and the stakes
are high and the advocacy is often conducted with bare-knuckled rhetoric and
uncompromising strategy. It sort of has the feeling of war.
It's
difficult for me to give broad labels to the sides — many labels are inherently
partisan. Other labels are bland or meaningless. (For one thing, this sentence
will be the only place in this column where you'll find the phrase education
reform.) It is far from the case that everyone is on the same side in every
battle, nor does every issue break neatly into two sides. But the polar dynamic
shows up a lot, often in contentious, even hateful, forms.
Thursday’s Harvest Moon provides visual feast
WHYY
Skytalk September
16, 2013
Let's
prepare to bid adieu to summer with Derrick Pitts, chief astronomer at the
Franklin Institute. Derrick, even before fall's official arrival, Thursday
marks the Harvest Moon. - See more at: http://whyy.org/cms/skytalk/harvest-moon-provides-visual-feast/#sthash.n46S5w4m.dpuf
Tom Rush - Urge For Going
Youtube
video runtime 6:45
Tom
performing the Joni Mitchell classic live at the Bull Run Restaurant in Shirley
MA on 30-Nov 2007.
PA Special Education Funding Formula Commission
Public Meeting Sept 26th at Alvernia
College in Reading 9:30 am – 3:00 p.
To consider
charter and cyber special education funding
October 15-18, 2013 | Hershey Lodge & Convention Center
Important change this year: Delegate Assembly (replaces the
Legislative Policy Council) will be Tuesday Oct. 15 from 1 – 4:30 p.m.
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).
PASCD Annual
Conference ~ A Whole Child Education Powered by Blendedschools Network
November 3-4, 2013 | Hershey Lodge & Convention Center
We invite
you to join us for the Annual Conference, held at an earlier date this year, on
Sunday, November 3rd, through Monday, November 4th, 2013
at the Hershey Lodge and Convention Center. The Pre-Conference begins on
Saturday with PIL
Academies
Click here for the 2013 Conference Schedule
Click here to register for the conference.
Building
One Pennsylvania
Fourth Annual Fundraiser
and Awards Ceremony
THURSDAY,NOVEMBER 21, 2013
6:00-8:00 PM
THURSDAY,
IBEW Local 380 3900 Ridge Pike Collegeville, PA
19426
Building One Pennsylvania is an emerging
statewide non-partisan organization of leaders from diverse sectors -
municipal, school, faith, business, labor and civic - who are joining together
to stabilize and revitalize their communities, revitalize local economies and
promote regional opportunity and sustainability. BuildingOnePa.org
Join the National School Boards
Action Center
Participate
in a voluntary network to urge your U.S.
Representatives and Senators to support federal legislation on Capitol Hill
that is critical to providing high quality education to America
PSBA members will elect
officers electronically for the first time in 2013
PSBA 7/8/2013
Beginning
in 2013, PSBA members will follow a completely new election process which will
be done electronically during the month of September. The changes will have
several benefits, including greater membership engagement and no more absentee
ballot process.
Below is a
quick Q&A related to the voting process this year, with more details to
come in future issues of School Leader News and at
www.psba.org. More information on the overall governance changes can be found
in the February 2013 issue of the PSBA Bulletin:
Electing PSBA Officers:
2014 PSBA Slate of Candidates
Details on each candidate, including
bios, statements, photos and video are online now
PSBA Website Posted 8/5/2013
The 2014 PSBA Slate of Candidates is being officially published to the
members of the association. Details on each candidate, including bios,
statements, photos and video are online at http://www.psba.org/elections/.
Proposed Amendments to
PSBA Bylaws available online
PSBA website 9/17/2013
A special issue of the School Leader News with the
notice of proposed PSBA Bylaws amendments has been mailed to all school
directors and board secretaries.
This issue also is available online in the Members Only section by clicking here. Voting on PSBA Bylaws changes will take
place at the new Delegate Assembly on Oct. 15, 2013 , at the Hershey Lodge &
Convention Center from 1-4 p.m. All member school entities should have
appointed their voting delegates and submitted names to PSBA. Details on
selecting an entity's voting delegate can be found in previous issues of
the School Leader News.
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