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?
With more than 270 tests at Pittsburgh
Don’t forget
to vote tomorrow, November 5th
EPLC Education
Notebook Friday, November
1, 2013
Education
Policy and Leadership
Center
A broken system: Law governing PA charter
schools needs reworking
By Jenna Ebersole Pocono Record Writer November 03, 2013
The
tension at the meeting reached a peak when one mother got to her feet.
"We
have to accept that what was done was wrong," Gisela Vasquez said with
frustration about the history of Pocono
Mountain Charter
School
Vasquez
said she wants the school to survive, but its troubled past continued to be
divisive even among supporters. But the
contentious history at PMCS is just one example of how, experts say, flawed
state legislation for charter schools has played out in practice.
Officials
say the system, which is borne by taxpayers, needs review to fix problems with
funding, accountability and the unfunded mandate that public school districts
must provide oversight.
Acting Ed
Sec’y Dumaresq: Praise for Hite, SRC and their reform efforts
Philly.com Opinion POSTED: Sunday, November 3, 2013 ,
2:02 AM
Carolyn C. Dumaresq is Pennsylvania
When
Gov. Corbett recently announced the release of $45 million in one-time state
funding to the city for the School
District of Philadelphia Philadelphia
Nowhere
is this more evident than in what Superintendent William R. Hite Jr. and the
School Reform Commission are seeking to achieve in the collective bargaining
process with the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers.
By Jan Murphy | jmurphy@pennlive.com
on November 01,
2013 at 5:14 PM
The
state Department of Revenue's monthly revenue report shows overall
collections for the fourth month of the fiscal year came in $29 million, or 1.4
percent, more than anticipated, to support the state’s $28.4 billion budget bill that
Gov. Tom Corbett signed on June 30.
That
brings the fiscal year-to-date collections to $8.2 billion, which is
$41.8 million, or 0.5 percent, above estimate.
With more than 270 tests at Pittsburgh
By
Eleanor Chute / Pittsburgh November
2, 2013 11:08 PM
Get
those No. 2 pencils ready.
In
the Pittsburgh Public Schools this school year, a total of more than 270 tests
-- required by the state or district -- will be given to students in
kindergarten through 12th grade.
In
fourth grade alone, there are 33 required tests, just shy of one a week on
average and the most of any grade level. That's still about 10 fewer tests than
fourth-graders took last year.
The
district has no choice for some of them; the state mandates them.
By
Moriah Balingit / Pittsburgh November
3, 2013 11:25 PM
In
2004, as part of a raft of legislation to rescue Pittsburgh
Pennsylvania’s Education Funding Formula
Redistributes Wealth
Mediatrackers
By: Jim Panyard | November 01, 2013
The
following numbers are based on figures from the state Department of Education.
About that
$45m..$10m to charters?
Inquirer Philly School Files by Kristen Graham SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2013 ,
10:00 AM
So
how is the Philadelphia
School District
Some
of the money will go for school programming - things like fees for AP exams, IB
programs and credit recovery. Some of
the money guarantees that the district's instrumental music program can run all
school year. Some pays for a full year of sports.
And
some - $10 million - is being set aside for charter schools, a hot button
issue. Many groups fighting for district funds say that all of the $45 million
should go directly into district-run schools, with not a penny spent on
charters.
Read
more at http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/school_files/About-that-45-million.html#qR9xf3wUJ4bGKTXT.99
Phila.
schools rehire 80 laid-off counselors
KRISTEN A. GRAHAM, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER Monday, November 4, 2013 , 2:01 AM
Eighty
counselors laid off in a brutal budget crunch will return to Philadelphia
If enough of
the missing students turn up in charters, District budget worries would grow
The
notebook by Dale Mezzacappa on Nov 01 2013 Posted
in Latest news
The
School District is trying to find 4,000
students that it expected to enroll in September who didn't show up. Many of those may have switched to charter
schools. Superintendent William Hite has said that of the $45 million that the
state released last month, about $10 million has been set aside in anticipation
of higher charter payments, which are mandated based on enrollment.
If
it turns out that more than 1,000 or so of the missing students turn up in
charters, that $10 million figure could go higher and create a new budget hole.
District officials say they still don't have a definitive count of charter
enrollment citywide.
City woman
addresses Philly school crisis by opening her own
KRISTEN A. GRAHAM, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER Monday, November 4, 2013 , 2:01 AM
Katharine
Savage is a devoted city dweller, a believer in public education who joined a
civic group devoted to improving the neighborhood school she imagined her three
children would someday attend. But as
she watched budget battles erode programs in the Philadelphia School
District
PA Governor’s
School for the Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University Accepting Applications
for Summer 2014 Program
PDE Press ReleaseOctober
29, 2013
Harrisburg – The Pennsylvania Governor’s School for the Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University is now accepting applications from talented high school juniors for the summer 2014 program, scheduled for June 29 throughAug. 2, 2014 . With the support of Governor Tom Corbett, the
state Department of Education, Carnegie
Mellon University
and the school’s alumni, the program offers an enrichment experience in
science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and encourages Pennsylvania
PDE Press Release
Harrisburg – The Pennsylvania Governor’s School for the Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University is now accepting applications from talented high school juniors for the summer 2014 program, scheduled for June 29 through
Daily EDition
to replace PSBA School Leader News
PSBA’s website 11/1/2013
Since
1963, PSBA has been informing its members on key legislative items and other
issues affecting public education through its weekly Information Legislative
Service and more recently School Leader News. The last printed issue of School
Leader News will be published Nov. 15. A new School Leader News Daily EDition
will replace the current version and be distributed electronically every day. We are confident that this change from a
printed bimonthly version to a daily version will not only provide a more
timely update, but also address the growing concern among our members about the
constant influx of printed materials we send. In short, SLN Daily EDition means
faster information in a more environmentally friendly format.
The
new School Leader News Daily EDition provides a snapshot on news, professional
development and issues impacting public education and allows members to get on
with their day. Many times the brief information will have links to more
in-depth articles that can be read as time allows or special issues may focus
on topics such as the state budget.
-
See more at: http://www.psba.org/news-publications/headlines/details.asp?id=6510#sthash.v4xR7T0v.dpuf
Can America
Only 36 percent of third
graders on track in cognitive development; low-income and minority children
faring even worse.
Press
Release Annie E. Casey Foundation November 4, 2013
BALTIMORE
— The Annie E. Casey Foundation’s latest KIDS COUNT®
policy report, The
First Eight Years: Giving Kids a Foundation for Lifetime Success,
presents a strong case for investing in the early years of a child's life.
Decades of brain and child development research show that kids who enter
kindergarten with below-average language and cognitive skills can catch up —
but only if they are physically healthy and have strong social and emotional
skills.
“All
children need nurturing and plentiful opportunities to develop during their
crucial first eight years,” said Patrick
McCarthy, president and CEO of the Foundation. “Today's complicated world
can strain families' ability to ensure their children are receiving all the
stimulation and care they need to develop to their full potential.”
Koch group,
unions battle over Colorado
Politico
By STEPHANIE
SIMON | 11/2/13
4:16 PM EST
It
isn’t often that the Koch brothers’ political advocacy group gets involved in a
local school board race. But this fall,
Americans for Prosperity is spending big in the wealthy suburbs south of Denver to influence voters in the Douglas County School District,
which has gone further than any district in the nation to reshape public
education into a competitive, free-market enterprise.
The
conservatives who control the board have neutered the teachers union, prodded
neighborhood elementary schools to compete with one another for market share,
directed tax money to pay for religious education and imposed a novel pay scale
that values teachers by their subjects, so a young man teaching algebra to
eighth graders can make $20,000 a year more than a colleague teaching world
history down the hall.
New
York Times By JACK HEALY Published: November 3, 2013 124
Comments
For
decades, schools like these have struggled to keep pace with their bigger and
wealthier neighbors. On Tuesday, Colorado
Public schools aren't broken. So why are
we trying so hard to break them?
Sensible
Talk Blog By Robert
Niles Published: October 31, 2013 at 9:54
AM (MST)
If
a group of wealthy children of college-education parents — kids who get
homework help at home and tutoring on the weekends — score better on a test
than a group of poor children of non-English speaking immigrants who can't
provide help at home, what does that tell us? Does that tell us anything about
the kids' schools, or their teachers? Or do those scores just tell us something
about those kids themselves? Is a school
attended exclusively by the first group of kids a "better" school
than one attended by the second group? What would happen if both groups
switched schools for a year? Would the first group score worse on tests, and
the second group better? Or would the results look pretty much the same? What
if both groups went to the same school? Would that school be "good,"
or "bad"?
For
too long, politicians and the public have judged schools — and our American
public education system — simplistically, by looking at top-line test scores.
We've looked at where students end up — completely ignoring where they started,
and far they have come to get there. Then we give assign credit or blame to
students, teachers, and schools with no consideration for where those students
began when they first stepped into their schools.
I'm
reminded of the late Molly Ivins' devastating line about George W. Bush:
"He was born on third base, and thought he'd hit a triple."
“He
concluded there are nine important courses for math teachers-to-be to take
(such as observation, analysis and reflection on mathematical teaching and
multivariate calculus, for instance), but only a third of U.S. middle school
teachers who participated in the study had enrolled in at least eight of
them. When Schmidt followed up with
these teachers two years later, he found that they were teaching in
high-poverty schools.”
Research
suggests poor quality of teacher training programs in U.S.
Hechinger
Ed POSTED BY Aisha Asif ON October 30, 2013
The
United States Michigan State University United States
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:
DISTINGUISHED LECTURER SERIES - DR. PEDRO
NOGUERA, NOV 5th
Where:
Abington Senior High School
When
November 5, 2013
8:30 a.m. - 3 p.m.
Contact
Lynn Murphy, Delaware Valley
College
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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