Daily postings from the Keystone State Education
Coalition now reach more than 3060 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?
SB1085 is now listed on the Senate calendar for 3rd
consideration. Have you discussed
charter reform with your state legislators?
Debating charter school reform in Pennsylvania
WHYY Radio Times with Marty Moss-Coane - Audio
runtime 52:01
Activists preparing lawsuit over fair funding of Pa.
If you are unable to listen to this live broadcast today I plan to
include a link to the audio in tomorrow’s posting…..
Radio
Times: Philly public school update today at 10 am
Guests: Kristen Graham, Kevin McCorry, Dale
Mezzacappa
The school year has reached the halfway point,
students and teachers have returned from winter break and the School District
of Philadelphia continues to hobble along with fewer schools, fewer staff, and
much less money. Meanwhile the teacher’s union hasn’t budged, the School
Reform Commission is without a leader and school children have limited access
to school services, counselors, nurses and librarians. We’ll get an
update on the crisis situation in Philadelphia Public Schools from three
reporters who have been closely following the situation. KRISTEN GRAHAM is
the education reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer, DALE MEZZACAPPA is
a contributing editor at The Public School Notebook, and Newsworks.org’s KEVIN McCORRY.
- See more at: http://whyy.org/cms/radiotimes/#sthash.F5SwsBE9.dpuf
The
Top Five Reasons Your State Senator Should Oppose SB 1085–
Reason
#3
The Charter
School
The proposed Charter School Funding Advisory
Commission is heavily stacked in favor of charter schools and is prohibited by
law from considering the fiscal impact of charter school growth on local
communities. (ELC_CharterBillAnalysis_SB1085_10_29_13)
This is an insult to Pennsylvania
Charter schools are not “tuition-free” as
ubiquitous Internet ads proclaim. In fact, Pennsylvania
The
Top Five Reasons Your State Senator Should Oppose SB 1085 Reason #4
Language that charter schools be models of
innovation has been inexplicably stripped from SB 1085
SB 1085 eliminates longstanding requirements
that charter schools be models of innovation for other public schools. Removal of this key language from the
legislation begs the question, If the purpose of charter schools is not
to provide something different and better than the traditional public schools,
what is their purpose? As
Pennsylvanians certainly cannot afford to fund a second, parallel, costly, and
completely duplicative system of public education, it is essential that any
charter school reform legislation retain language that requires charter schools
to be models of innovation for our public schools.
The
Top Five Reasons Your State Senator Should Oppose SB 1085
Reason
#5
Reason #5 to Oppose SB 1085 The Private Authorizer
System
The PA Senate is poised to vote on SB 1085,
the charter school “reform” bill. Now is the time for Pennsylvanians who care
about our public schools to contact our state senators and urge them to oppose
this legislation. Over the next 5 days our blog will detail 5 deeply flawed
policies in SB 1085. Please take a few minutes, contact your senator each day
this week to share your concerns about these flawed policies, urge him/her to
oppose SB 1085, and share this information far and wide! If our senators don’t
hear from voters, they will likely pass this bill.
SB 1085 creates a private authorizer system
for charter schools in PA. More than 100 institutions of higher education,
including institutions with no experience, capacity, or faculty in education,
would be allowed to authorize an unlimited number of charter schools without
input from local communities. Charter schools will be able to set
up shop without community approval, and send us the bill—whether we can afford
it or not.
Activists
preparing lawsuit over fair funding of Pa.
thenotebook by
Jeseamy Muentes on Jan
08 2014
National and state education activists made a
call this week for stronger early childhood education in Pennsylvania Education Law
Center in Pennsylvania
Looking for an exercise in PA school funding? Compare the challenges and concerns in Radnor
with those in Philly……
Full-day
kindergarten gets pushback from Radnor parents
KATHY BOCCELLA, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER Thursday,January
9, 2014 , 2:01 AM
KATHY BOCCELLA, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER Thursday,
RADNOR With new state standards and worries
over America
But in affluent Radnor
Township on the Main
Line , a move to expand to full-day kindergarten this fall has
spurred an unexpected reaction: Opposition from a growing number of parents
complaining about school overcrowding and disruptions, and the end of a half-day
option.
More than 200 parents and others have so far
signed an online petition at Change.org urging the Radnor school board to delay
the plan for at least a year.
Obama
targets poverty in San Antonio, Philadelphia and
other U.S.
Reuters BY ROBERTA RAMPTON WASHINGTON Jan 8, 2014 4:12pm EST
(Reuters) - President Barack Obama is set to
speak on Thursday about how he will target job creation, housing, law
enforcement and education in the poorest U.S.
communities, part of his pledge to narrow the gap between rich and poor in America
City
of Philadelphia
Posted on January 8, 2014 by City of Philadelphia
“Being
selected as a Promise Zone is an important step in the transformation process
for a neighborhood struggling with high poverty, high crime, high vacancy, low
educational attainment and low employment rates,” said Mayor Michael A.
Nutter. “Being a Promise Zone will enable the City to align existing
resources and apply for new federal funding – building on efforts already at
work – through a multi-faceted, focused approach. I want to thank President
Obama and his Administration for this recognition and the opportunities it will
provide.”
The Promise Zones designation provides a
package of tools to help local leaders accelerate efforts to revitalize their
communities.
For
FY2008-09, BEFORE the ARRA/federal stimulus money, there were several line
items in addition to the PA basic education subsidy that no longer exist or
were significantly reduced. The
“Tutoring” line item of $65.1 million was eliminated.
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
Roebuck,
Parker announce bill to restore tutoring funding needed to help students meet
tougher new standards
Rep. Roebuck’s website PHILADELPHIA, Jan. 7 – State Rep. James Roebuck, D-Phila., Democratic chairman of the House
Education Committee; and Rep. Cherelle Parker, D-Phila., chairwoman of the
legislature’s Philadelphia Delegation, today announced legislation to restore
vital tutoring funding for Pennsylvania schools. Roebuck will introduce a bill to re-establish
and fund the Educational Assistance Program, which existed from 2003 to 2011.
Under the bill, EAP would be funded at $67 million for 2014-2015, a level
Roebuck said is based on the needs of students. In addition, the bill would
make recently enacted high school graduation requirements conditional on the
state providing enough funding to help students meet them.
Here's
a guide to help you understand the numbers behind the state's ranking of
schools
Intelligencer Journal Lancaster
Understanding numbers can be overwhelming,
whether you're a student in math class or a parent trying to make sense of the
state's new school ranking system. Last
month, the state released its final batch of School Performance Profiles. The
profiles feature an overall score for each school on a 0-100 scale, and
Lancaster Newspapers published the scores for Lancaster County
Here are five things parents and taxpayers need to know.
Here are five things parents and taxpayers need to know.
Susan Gobreski, Exeucutive Director of
Educations Voters of PA, testifies on funding education before PA House
Democratic Policy Committee
Education Voters PA Wednesday, January 8, 2014
On January, 7, 2014, Education Voters of PA
Executive Director, Susan Gobreski, testified before the PA State House
Democratic Policy Committee about how to approach funding education for the
future. Here is her testimony:
Don’t mess with Bill…..
Gates Foundation
May Pull
Pittsburgh Public
School
KDKA CBS Pittsburgh by
Andy Sheehan Video runtime 3:45
The Gates Foundation may
pull funding because of an ongoing fight between the Pittsburgh Public School
District
District
“At a conference in November organized by the Homeless Children's
Education Fund, the Penn Hills
School District
Majority ofPittsburgh
Majority of
By Anya Sostek / Pittsburgh January 8, 2014 11:59 PM
When Lyndon Johnson wanted to put a face on
his new War on Poverty in 1964, he travelled to Martin
County in rural Kentucky Penn Hills -- to put a face on new suburban poverty.
By some measures, the picture of poverty in America hasn't changed much since Johnson stood
before Congress 50 years ago Wednesday to declare an "unconditional war on
poverty in America
TROY GRAHAM, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER January 8, 2014 , 2:01 AM
The Philadelphia
School District
The district had been seeking offers on the
entire portfolio of 28 shuttered schools, or individual bids for one of the
seven schools listed for "expedited sales." The deadline for submitting proposals was Dec.
17.
“Data collected by the Education Department shows that minorities —
particularly black
boys and students with disabilities —
face the harshest discipline in schools.”
Administration
Urges Restraint in Using Arrest or Expulsion to Discipline Students
New York Times By MOTOKO RICH JAN. 8, 2014
The Obama administration issued guidelines on
Wednesday that recommended public school officials use law enforcement only as
a last resort for disciplining students, a response to a rise in zero-tolerance
policies that have disproportionately increased the number of arrests,
suspensions and expulsions of minority students for even minor, nonviolent
offenses. The secretary of education,
Arne Duncan, and the attorney general, Eric H. Holder Jr., released
a 35-page document that outlined approaches — including counseling for
students, coaching for teachers and disciplinary officers, and sessions to
teach social and emotional skills — that could reduce the time students spend
out of school as punishment. “The
widespread use of suspensions and expulsions has tremendous costs,” Mr. Duncan
wrote in a letter to school officials. “Students who are suspended or expelled
from school may be unsupervised during daytime hours and cannot benefit from
great teaching, positive peer interactions and adult mentorship offered in
class and in school.”
“As a quick reminder, TFA employees do not arrive with a degree in
education or necessarily any training in the content area they are being asked
to teach. Instead, they arrive with a whopping five weeks of “intensive
training” that (Blamo!) has suddenly turned them into a “highly qualified”
teacher on paper, but not in practice.
That’s right. Unlike every undergraduate education major across the
country, the new TFA special education instructor has had zero coursework on
working with students with disabilities. Autistic students will surely understand
that their teacher is learning on the job. Language impaired students will
obviously be able to articulate their pride in attending a classroom led by an
instructor who has only recently heard of such a disability. Yup, looks like
good things are happening in this classroom.”
TFA:
Teachers with Training Wheels
Don’t worry about the swim instructor wearing
floaties around his own arms while he “teaches” students how to swim. Oh, and
ignore the training wheels attached to the cyclist instructor’s bicycle. Such
is the advice given in Teach
For America’s (TFA) response published in Idaho Education News to
an Op-ed
I authored in December critical of the organization. The response, penned by TFA’s “special
education specialist” Dhathri Chunduru, offers a detailed view of how the
organization supports TFAers hired as special education instructors in Georgia
http://idahospromise.org/2014/01/08/teachers-with-training-wheels/
http://idahospromise.org/2014/01/08/teachers-with-training-wheels/
2014
PA Gubernatorial Candidate Plans for Education and Arts/Culture in PA
Education
Policy and Leadership
Center
Below is an alphabetical list of the 2014 Gubernatorial Candidates and
links to information about their plans, if elected, for education and
arts/culture in Pennsylvania
2014 PICASSO PROJECT SCHOOL AWARDS
Representatives
from winning schools and partner organizations are invited to join us for the
grants award ceremony on Monday, January 27, 2014 at the World
Cafe Live, 3025 Walnut
Street 6:00pm . RSVP to
info@pccy.org or call 215-563-5848 x11.
January
24th – 26th, 2014 at The Science
Leadership Academy
in Philadelphia
EduCon is both
a conversation and a conference.
It is an
innovation conference where we can come together, both in person and virtually,
to discuss the future of schools. Every session will be an opportunity to
discuss and debate ideas — from the very practical to the big dreams.
FEBRUARY 1ST, 2014
The DCIU Google Symposium is an opportunity for teachers,
administrators, technology directors, and other school stakeholders to come
together and explore the power of Google Apps for Education. The
Symposium will be held at the Delaware County Intermediate Unit. The
Delaware County Intermediate Unit is one of Pennsylvania
NPE National Conference
2014
The Network for Public Education November 24, 2013
The Network for Public Education is pleased to announce our
first National Conference. The event will take place on March 1 & 2, 2014
(the weekend prior to the world-famous South by Southwest Festival) at The University of Texas
at Austin
In the coming weeks, we
will release more details. In the meantime, make your travel plans and click
this link and submit your email address to receive updates about the NPE
National Conference 2014.
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
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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