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, 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?
“In all,
Brown is accused of defrauding the four charters she founded of $6.7 million.”
NAEP: Pa.
KEVIN BEGOS, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS November 7, 2013 , 11:57 AM
Read
more at http://www.philly.com/philly/education/20131107_ap_83ee87b2160e4c23a356e867db25854a.html#MrMEJDMizV674dzc.99
NAEP: U.S.
Education Week By Catherine
Gewertz Published Online: November 7, 2013
Premium article access courtesy of Edweek.org.
The reading and mathematics achievement of the
country’s 8th grade students improved in the last two years, but the
performance of 4th graders remains stubbornly mixed, with progress in math, but
not in reading, according to national test data released Thursday.
The results of the 2013
National Assessment of Educational Progress, known as “the nation’s report
card,” show that 8th graders’ average score in math rose 1 point since 2011,
the last time the test was given, and 3 points in reading on NAEP’s 500-point
scale. Fourth graders gained 1 point in math; there was no statistically
significant gain in reading.
National Assessment of
Educational Progress:
Saucon Valley School Board accepts fact
finder's report, but teachers union rejects it
By Sara K. Satullo | The Express-Times
on November 07,
2013 at 9:17 PM
Shortly
after the Saucon Valley School Board agreed
to settle its outstanding teachers contract tonight, teachers said they had
rejected the deal Oct. 31. Details of
the deal should be made public Friday by the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board
in accordance with state law.
The
two sides entered into fact finding earlier this fall at the urging of the
Saucon Valley Education Association. The school board announced Oct. 30 it planned to accept the independent fact finder's
recommendations at its meeting tonight.
Saucon Valley Education Association President
Theresa Andreucci said on Oct. 31 the union had met the night before to review
the findings but had not taken a vote. Just before 1 p.m. Oct. 31, Andreucci
said no vote had yet been taken but the teachers would meet the Nov. 7
deadline.
“The trial is the largest of
six federal fraud cases the U.S.
Charter
school founder's fraud trial gets underway
MARTHA WOODALL, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER POSTED November 7, 2013 , 2:01 AM
PHILADELPHIA
As the $6.7 million fraud trial of Philadelphia
“In all, Brown is accused of
defrauding the four charters she founded of $6.7 million.”
Phantom board members testify in charter founder's trial
Phantom board members testify in charter founder's trial
MARTHA WOODALL, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER Friday, November 8, 2013 , 2:01 AM
Jurors
in the federal wire-fraud trial of charter school founder Dorothy June Brown on
Thursday heard from three phantom board members who purportedly approved
management contracts that enriched companies Brown controlled. Lynn Bull, a reading specialist in Luzerne County Williamsport
Turnover
plagues District's charter office as state considers changes to law
The
Notebook by Dale Mezzacappa on Nov 07 2013
The
School District's charter schools office, faced with the task of
monitoring and managing renewals for more than 80 charter schools, has been
without a permanent executive director since the spring, when Doresah
Ford-Bey left to take a job in Chicago
Meanwhile,
the District has been tussling with charter schools over renewals, and the
General Assembly has been considering an overhaul of the charter school
law.
Deputy
Superintendent Paul Kihn is overseeing the office while the District conducts a
national search. Kihn said that despite the lack of an executive director, he
thinks that, with six people, the office is adequately staffed.
“What of the state constitution’s requirement
of a “thorough and efficient system of public education?” Lower
Merion ’s average class size is 21. Philly’s “target” class size is
30 to 33. Lower Merion ’s student body is 8
percent black, while Philly’s is just 14 percent white. Many Philly high
schools are more than 90 percent black — 99 percent at Strawberry Mansion
Why the new
SRC chair will be more of the same profound disappointment
Citypaper
By Daniel Denvir Published:
11/07/2013
Gov.
Tom Corbett will soon choose a new chairperson of the School Reform
Commission (SRC). Angry teachers, students and parents will likely (and
probably rightfully) eventually find themselves screaming at this person. If
Corbett makes a patently outrageous choice, the screaming will come sooner.
Otherwise, it will come later, when that person assumes management of the
decade-long and state-led dismantling of Philly public schools.
“Unlike many Texas charters,
particularly KIPP and IDEA public schools — which both formed with a mission to
reach economically disadvantaged communities — Basis and Great Hearts tend to
end up with student bodies that are disproportionately affluent and white.”
Debating New Charter Schools
New
York Times/Texas Tribune By MORGAN SMITH Published: November 7, 2013
On
an evening in late October, several hundred parents crowded into a Temple
Beth-El auditorium near downtown San
Antonio
They
were told of a campus culture that makes the cultivation of “wisdom and virtue”
a top priority, instead of standardized test scores, but still sends most
students to top colleges and universities. There would be a strict uniform
policy and an atmosphere in which parents could feel safe dropping off their
children for the day.
Gates
Foundation Places Big Bet on Teacher Agenda
Critics fear outsized
influence of philanthropy
Education Week By Stephen
Sawchuk Published Online: November 5, 2013
When Harvard professor Thomas Kane co-wrote a paper
in 2006 on teacher quality, he did not expect that it would carry an import far
beyond the insular world of Washington
Mr. Kane later got a big surprise: a summons to meet
with one of the richest men in the world to talk about the paper, which showed that
teachers' on-the-job performance varied widely and had little to do
with their credentials. At that 2007 meeting in New York
City 's posh Pierre
Hotel
It would prove a decisive moment for the $38 billion
private philanthropy that bears the Gates name. Six years later, the Bill &
Melinda Gates Foundation has spent nearly $700 million on its teacher-quality
agenda, according to an Education Week analysis.
“In short, if we were
serious about education, then our education discussion wouldn’t be focused on
demonizing teachers and coming up with radical schemes to undermine traditional
public schools. It would instead be focused on mounting a new war on poverty
and thus directly addressing the biggest education problem of all.”
We need a war
on poverty, not teachers
The right loves to
demonize unions, but economic factors are much more important to success in the
classroom
Salon.com by DAVID SIROTA, CREATORS
SYNDICATE NOV 7,
2013 06:58 PM EST
Google the phrase “education crisis” and you’ll be
hit with a glut of articles, blog posts and think tank reports claiming the
entire American school system is facing an emergency. Much of this agitprop
additionally asserts that teachers unions are the primary cause of the alleged
problem. Not surprisingly, the fabulists pushing these narratives are often
backed by anti-public school conservatives and anti-union plutocrats. But a
little-noticed study released last week provides yet more confirmation that
neither the “education crisis” meme nor the “evil teachers union” narrative is
accurate.
Politico By STEPHANIE SIMON |
11/8/13 5:02 AM EST
When major figures in the education world debate
policy, they usually start out with a gauzy declaration that it’s all about the
children.
Then they begin hurling insults.
High-profile activists including union leaders and
at least one member of Congress have tarred one another with choice epithets
including slave master, murderer, bitch, charlatan, roach and bully bound for
hell. And that’s just in the past six months.
Behind the nasty rhetoric are substantive
disagreements over important issues like charter schools, teacher evaluations
and private school vouchers. But the substance tends to get lost in all the
smack talk.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/11/education-debates-rhetoric-99556.html#ixzz2k3LDNnsi
NSBA promotes
new vision statement for future of public schools
School
Board News Today by Joetta Sack-Min November 7, 2013
The
National School Boards Association (NSBA) has unveiled a new vision statement, “elevator speech,” and guiding principles,
important tools that will help public school advocates speak on key topics and
boost NSBA’s presence as a leading advocate for public education and school
board governance. The documents were
written by NSBA’s Board of Directors as part of NSBA’s mission to expand its
legislative, legal, and public advocacy agendas.
These
are an important step to build NSBA’s ‘army of advocates’ and influence key
federal legislative issues, NSBA Executive Director Thomas J. Gentzel said in
a video
showcasing the new documents.
When the IRRC
considered the Keystone Exams in 2009, school districts all over PA passed
resolutions in opposition; was your district one of them?
School
Board Resolutions Opposing Keystone Exams Submitted to IRRC - 2009
Common
Core/Keystone Exams: The PA State Board of Education (Board) has submitted the
final-form regulation entitled “Academic Standards and Assessment."
The Independent Regulatory Review Commission (IRRC) plans to meet
and act on this regulation at our public meeting at 10:00 a.m. on
Thursday, November 21, 2013.
Regulation #6 – 326: Academic Standards
and Assessment
Amends existing regulations to
reflect Pennsylvania
The agenda and any changes to the time or date of
the meeting will be posted on IRRC’s Web site at www.irrc.state.pa.us.
Please note that any comments should be submitted to the Board prior to the
48-hour blackout period, which begins at 10:00 a.m. on Tuesday,November
19, 2013. Please provide IRRC with a copy of any comments submitted, as
well. Please note that all correspondence and documents relating to a
regulation submitted to IRRC are a matter of public record and appear on IRRC’s
Web site.
For a copy of the regulation or if you have any
substantive questions regarding the regulation, please contact the Board
at (717) 787-3787.
You can also download the final-form regulation from IRRC’s Web site using the
following link:
Mark B. Miller to speak
at Nov. 12th conference on school violence
Congratulations to PSBA First Vice President Mark B. Miller for presenting at an upcoming conference related to school violence. Miller will offer a presentation titled “Breaking the Circle of Violence: Bullying, Duty of Care, and Deliberate Indifference” inLinthicum Heights , MD
Congratulations to PSBA First Vice President Mark B. Miller for presenting at an upcoming conference related to school violence. Miller will offer a presentation titled “Breaking the Circle of Violence: Bullying, Duty of Care, and Deliberate Indifference” in
The University
of Pittsburgh School
Pedro A. Noguera, PhD; Friday, November 15, 2013 ;
3:30 – 5:00 p.m.
David
Lawrence Hall, Room 121; 3942
Forbes Avenue , Pittsburgh
The event
is free and open to the public
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
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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