Daily postings from the Keystone State Education
Coalition now reach more than 3050 Pennsylvania education policymakers – school
directors, administrators, legislators, legislative and congressional staffers,
Governor's staff, current/former PA Secretaries of Education, 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 and searchable 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?
It’s not just about Pennsylvania
“The
reforms contained in Senate bill 1085 will do nothing to address the real
problems with charters: lack of rigorous oversight, and a near invisibility of
any useful information that would help parents and allow others to evaluate
their effectiveness, including the taxpayers who support them - to the tune of
nearly $1 billion.”
Did you
catch our weekend postings?
Saturday, November 16, 2013
PA Ed Policy Roundup for November 16, 2013 :
Six new cyber charter school applications before PDE; No cyber charter in PA
made AYP for 2012
Folks, I’ve got to tell
you that I actually missed my exit on the turnpike the other day when I first
heard the Governor’s new re-election education radio spot.
It’s not just about the
basic education subsidy.
For FY2008-09, BEFORE the ARRA/federal stimulus money,
there were several line items in addition to the basic education subsidy that
no longer exist or were significantly reduced:
Charter School Reimbursement $226.9
million eliminated
Accountability Block
Grant
$171.4 million reduction
Tutoring $ 65.1
million eliminated
School Improvement
Grants $ 22.8 million eliminated
Science: It’s
Elementary
$ 13.6 million eliminated
High School
Reform
$ 10.7 million eliminated
Dual
Enrollment
$ 10.0 million eliminated
Total: $520.5 million
Source:
Key Education Subsidies Chart FY2006-07 thru 2012-13
Senator Hughes’
(Democratic Chairman of Senate Appropriations Committee) website
Corbett ads defend his
education record
ANGELA COULOUMBIS, INQUIRER
HARRISBURG November 17, 2013 , 2:01 AM
"Tom
Corbett," the woman intones confidently. "Looking out for Pennsylvania
Hitting the
airwaves statewide earlier this month, the ad is one of the governor's first
campaign messages to voters and is notable as much for its claims as for what
it is trying to refute: the governor's image as the man with a slash-and-burn
approach to public education funding.
The story
of how public schools have fared since Corbett took office in January 2011 is
widely expected to be front and center in next year's governor's race, and is
perhaps the one issue that critics and supporters agree has dogged the
governor.
That is
where any agreement ends.
Keystone
graduation exams don’t make the grade: Andy Dinniman
Patriot-News
Op-Ed By Andy Dinniman on November 15, 2013 at 3:00 PM
Everyone supports higher academic standards and
accountability in education. Though controversial, I believe the new
Pennsylvania Core Standards (Common Core) are a positive step for education. However, in the false name of raising
academic standards and accountability, the Corbett administration is attempting
to assess these new standards through the implementation of the Keystone Graduation
Exams, high-stakes tests that will result in higher property taxes, less
classroom instruction, more teaching to the test, and the potential for a
generation of students to be branded as failures. The Pennsylvania Department of Education and
the Pennsylvania State Board of Education have proposed the Keystone Graduation
Exams to the Pennsylvania Independent Regulatory Review Commission, which is
set to vote on them on Nov. 21.
“The reforms contained in
Senate bill 1085 will do nothing to address the real problems with charters:
lack of rigorous oversight, and a near invisibility of any useful information
that would help parents and allow others to evaluate their effectiveness,
including the taxpayers who support them - to the tune of nearly $1 billion.”
SB1085: DN
Editorial: Unchartered territory
Philly Daily News POSTED: Monday, November 18, 2013 ,
3:01 AM
PARENTS considering sending their kids to charter
schools - or Pennsylvania lawmakers who are considering sending charter-school
bills out of committee for a vote - should answer the following questions:
1.Parents shopping for a charter school can get
detailed information on the founders, boards, philosophy, test scores as well
as any federal probes or indictments a charter may be subject to from which
source?
a) The Pennsylvania
b) Pennsylvania Department of Education
c) Individual charter websites
d) None of the above
2.The number of state charter schools making
Adequate Yearly Progress last year was:
a) 78 percent
b) 50 percent
c) 28 percent
d) Depends on who's keeping score.
Senators in Harrisburg
Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/opinion/20131118_DN_Editorial__Unchartered_territory.html#CID6DShekBxD7d3G.99
SRC remains
leaderless, does most business as usual.
KRISTEN A. GRAHAM, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER November 18, 2013 ,
2:01 AM
"There is no official timetable" for a new
SRC chair, said state Department of Education spokesman Tim Eller. "The
governor's working to make sure that he has an individual who is well qualified
and who can work with the members of the commission to move the district
forward."
“The nonprofit fund
receives corporate support through Pennsylvania
Just to be clear, this
$3.2 million for new scholarships comes from Pennsylvania
Fund offering 2,000 scholarships for low-income city students
Fund offering 2,000 scholarships for low-income city students
MARTHA WOODALL, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER November 18, 2013 , 2:01 AM
PHILADELPHIA The Children's Scholarship Fund
Philadelphia announced Friday that applications are available for 2,000 new
four-year scholarships to help low-income city families send children in
kindergarten through eighth grade to nonpublic schools. The program, established in 1998, currently
aids about 4,500 children who attend 185 private and parochial schools, where
tuition averages $4,200. The average
annual scholarship amount is $1,600 per child.
“Mr. Marshall was the
fifth former board member of a charter founded by Ms. Brown who has testified
of doctored documents related to management contracts with companies Ms. Brown
controlled. Other former board members
testified that they had not attended some meetings at which minutes indicated
they had voted, but Mr. Marshall said he went to monthly board meetings.”
Founder of Agora Cyber
Charter School
Post Gazette By Martha Woodall / The Philadelphia November 18, 2013
12:00 AM
After James D. Marshall Jr. became board president
of the Agora Cyber Charter
School
“In the Penn Hills School District
"If you have kids
who don't have enough to eat or a place to sleep, you can forget about reading
or math scores," Mr. Miller said.
Other districts that
reported their total of homeless students to the HCEF included Wilkinsburg,
with 245 students, making up 24 percent of its population; Clairton with 61
students for 8 percent of its student body; Woodland Hills with 184 students or
5 percent; Deer Lakes with 80 students or 4 percent; and Pittsburgh with 718
students or 3 percent.”
By Mary Niederberger / Pittsburgh November 17, 2013 11:40 PM
Poverty is growing at a faster rate in the suburbs
than in the cities, and the Pittsburgh Allegheny
County , 61 percent of people living in
poverty are in the suburbs, and the number rises to 79 percent when the Pittsburgh
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - The difficult fiscal picture
facing Gov. Tom Corbett when he took office in 2011 was like nothing anyone in
Pennsylvania state government had experienced, and the resulting
budget-balancing cuts in spending are still a sore spot.
Next year, Republicans who control state government
are beginning to warn could be equally or more difficult. If nothing improves, Corbett and the
Legislature will have to navigate an estimated $1.4 billion in higher costs, an
unexpected half-billion-dollar hole in health care dollars and the traditional
resistance to cutting spending in an election year.
"I think, in many respects, this coming budget
is going to be the most difficult budget in four years and I never thought I
would be saying that," Corbett's budget secretary, Charles Zogby, said.
By Jenna Ebersole, Of The Pocono Record 11:18 a.m.
EST, November 17, 2013
The principal of the Pocono Mountain
Charter School
Annette Richardson, who was named principal in the
spring just as court-appointed custodian Alan Price Young arrived, said
officials fired her suddenly Thursday morning.
But Young offered a different account Friday. "It appears that she chose to depart
from the school," Young said without elaboration, noting that he could not
publicly discuss personnel issues. Richardson 's exodus comes after the termination of
previous principal Jeffrey McCreary in March after he pleaded guilty to
misdemeanor theft charges for allegedly stealing almost $90,000 when he served
as a Scranton School District
principal.
N.J. looks at
possibility of requiring full-day kindergarten
WHYY Newsworks BY PHIL GREGORY NOVEMBER 18, 2013
About a hundred school districts in New Jersey
In NY, parents seem to be waking up to the
actual impact that Common Core implementation and test-based teacher
evaluations are having on their students.
At Forums, New York
New York Times By AL BAKER Published: November 17, 2013
He has been shushed, booed, called imperious and
mocked as the incomprehensible teacher who bleated on and on in Charlie Brown’s
classroom.
In a series of public forums across the state, John
B. King Jr., the state education commissioner, has become the sounding board
for crowds of parents, educators and others who equate his name with all they
consider to be broken in schooling today. Some blame him for too quickly
imposing more rigorous academic standards tied to what is known as the Common
Core. Parents call him deaf to the misery of pupils taking standardized
tests and too open to commercial involvement in the system; teachers blame him
for sapping what joy they had left in their craft.
Hey Arne - those suburban schools led the world on the 2009 PISA
http://nasspblogs.org/principaldifference/2010/12/pisa_its_poverty_not_stupid_1.html
http://nasspblogs.org/principaldifference/2010/12/pisa_its_poverty_not_stupid_1.html
Arne Duncan:
‘White suburban moms’ upset that Common Core shows their kids aren’t
‘brilliant’
(Update: Adding more on opposition to Core,
where Duncan
U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan told a group of
state schools superintendents Friday that he found it “fascinating” that some
of the opposition to the Common Core State Standards has come from “white
suburban moms who — all of a sudden — their child isn’t as brilliant as they
thought they were, and their school isn’t quite as good as they thought they
were.”
Yes, he really said that. But he has said similar
things before. What, exactly, is he talking about?
Some Kids
“Aren’t Brilliant”? This Duncan Blunder Is Bigger Than It First Appears
Deutch29 Blog by Mercedes Schneider November 17, 2013
In May 2010, US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan
spoke at the
first annual “Mom Congress” at Georgetown University Duncan
The parental involvement must coincide with the
reform agenda.
Common Core
Standards: Ten Colossal Errors
Education Week Living in Dialogue Blog By Anthony Cody on November
16, 2013 6:18 AM
A recent book described the "Reign
of Errors" we have lived through in the name of education reform.
I am afraid that the Common Core continues many of these errors, and makes some
new ones as well. The Business
Roundtable announced last month that its #1
priority is the full adoption and implementation of the Common Core
standards. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is likewise making a full-court press
to advance
the Common Core. Major corporations have taken out full-page ads to insist
that the Common Core must be adopted. Many leading figures in the Republican
party, like Jeb Bush, have led
the charge for Common Core, as have entrepreneurs like Joel
Klein. And the project has become a centerpiece for President Obama's
Department of Education.
Yet in New
York New York New York
Doris
Lessing, Novelist Who Won 2007 Nobel, Is Dead at 94
New York Times By HELEN T. VERONGOS Published: November 17, 2013
Doris Lessing, the uninhibited and
outspoken novelist who won the 2007 Nobel Prize for a lifetime
of writing that shattered convention, both social and artistic, died on Sunday
at her home in London. She was 94. Her
death was confirmed by her publisher, HarperCollins.
Ms. Lessing produced dozens of novels, short
stories, essays and poems, drawing on a childhood in the Central African bush,
the teachings of Eastern mystics and involvement with grass-roots Communist
groups. She embarked on dizzying and, at times, stultifying literary
experiments.
Congratulations! Getting
elected to the school board was the easy part…..
PSBA New
Board Member Training: Great Governance, Great Schools
November 2013-April 2014
November 2013-April 2014
Announcing School Board
Academy ’s New Board Member Training:
Great Governance, Great
Schools
You will need a wealth of information quickly as you
jump out of the starting block and hit the ground running as a newly elected
member of the board of school directors. New board members, as well as veterans
who might like a refresher, will want to make the most of the opportunity to
attend PSBA's New Board Member Training Program: Great Governance, Great Schools
EPLC is recruiting current undergraduate or graduate students to
serve as part-time interns
EPLC
is recruiting current undergraduate or graduate students to serve as
part-time interns beginning January or May of 2014 in the downtown Harrisburg Pennsylvania School Pennsylvania
Join us as we celebrate their accomplishments!
Tuesday,November
19, 2013 5:30 pm
- 8:30 pm WHYY, 150 North 6th Street , Philadelphia
Invitations coming soon!
Tuesday,
Invitations coming soon!
Register: http://tinyurl.com/m8emc4m
Building
One Pennsylvania November
21, 2013 6:00-8:00 PM
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
Just announced: The Last Waltz Philly benefit for Philadelphia School
WXPN The Key November
5, 2013 | 12:25 PM |
By Bruce
Warren
On
Saturday, November 30th the Trocadero Theatre hosts The Last Waltz Philly, a benefit
for Philadelphia Bryan
Proceeds
will benefit four Philadelphia organizations that focus on education: Parents
United for Public Education, the Passyunk Square Civic Association Education Committee, theFriends of Horatio B. Hackett School and the School
District of Philadelphia’s Music Education Instrument Repair Program.
The National School Boards Association 74th Annual
Conference & Exposition April 5-7, 2014 New Orleans
The
National School Boards Association 74th Annual Conference &
Exposition will be held at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans , LA. New Orleans
General Session speakers include education advocates
Thomas L. Friedman, Sir Ken Robinson, as well as education innovators Nikhil
Goyal and Angela Maiers.
We have
more than 200 sessions planned! Colleagues from across the country will present
workshops on key topics with strategies and ideas to help your district. View
our Conference Brochure for highlights on sessions
and focus presentations.
- Register now! – Register for both the conference
and housing using our online system.
- Conference Information– Visit the NSBA conference
website for up-to-date information
- Hotel List and Map - Official NSBA Housing Block
- Exposition Campus – View new products and
services and interactive trade show floor
Questions? Contact NSBA at 800-950-6722 (NSBA) between
the hours of 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. EST.
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
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