Daily postings from the Keystone State
Education Coalition now reach more than 3150 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?
Keystone State Education Coalition
Pennsylvania Education Policy Roundup
for March 21, 2014:
Should we "embrace charter schools" via SB1085?
Congressional
hearings on testing needed now! Please RT to your Senators and Congressmen. #testhearingsnow
Member of Congress joins with The
Network for Public Education and calls for public hearings on the misuse and
abuse of standardized tests.
Massive social networking
campaign to be waged in coming days.
Netwwork
for Public Education Press Release March 19, 2014
On
March 2, 2014, following their highly successful National Conference, The
Network for Public Education (NPE) sent out a call for members of Congress to
hold public hearings on standardized testing. This call came in response to the
onerous testing regime that has enveloped schools across the country and
threatens to create a generation of students who possess less creativity and
problem solving skills than previous generations.
Answering
NPE’s call, Arizona Representative Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ-3), a member of the
House Committee on Education and the Workforce, responded with a sentiment that
has been echoed by parents and educators throughout the United States. The
six-term Representative said, “The need for an impartial and transparent
hearing on mandatory testing and privatization efforts directed at public
education, is critical. We need to have an open discussion about the
dismantling of public education. I hope the leadership of the U.S. Senate and
House of Representatives will hold hearings that allow our public schools and
the families they serve the opportunity to have an open and honest hearing.”
"In researching the story, I compiled a table based on
most-up-to-date state data to illustrate how student demographics differ at the
city's public high school offerings – both district and charter-run. Here I wanted to explore that data in further
detail, first by comparing the differences among the city's highest and lowest
achieving public high schools."
Data dive: How do demographics affect
performance at Philadelphia
WHYY
Newsworks BY KEVIN MCCORRY MARCH 20, 2014
Last
week I wrote a story about Chrislie
Dor, a Philadelphia
School District
SRC approves building sales, ratifies principals' contract
the
notebook by Dale Mezzacappa on Mar 20 2014 Posted
in Latest news
The
School Reform Commission Thursday night approved the sale of six vacant
properties, most of them schools that were closed within the last two years. It also ratified a contract with the
Commonwealth Association of School Administrators, which represents principals
and assistant principals, who will reduce their work year and see
lower salaries. The properties will
be sold for a total of $37 million under the current agreements, but the
District will net $25.8 million after closing and other costs are taken
out, said Fran Burns, the District's operations manager.
Senate measure would change
calculation, allow class on some Saturdays
By Mary
Niederberger / Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette March 20, 2014 11:27 PM
In yet
another indication of how hard winter weather hit this year, the state Senate
has approved legislation that would allow school districts to measure
instructional time by hours rather than days and to use Saturdays for make-up
sessions for days missed due to snow and extreme cold.
The
goal of the bill is to eliminate the need for districts to extend the school
year into late June to make up days missed because of weather. It applies only
to the current school year and is essentially a rewrite of legislation approved
in 1996 after severe flooding in northwestern Pennsylvania forced the closing of schools. The Senate voted unanimously Wednesday to
send Senate Bill 1281, sponsored by state Sen. Jake Corman, R-Centre, to the
House in the hopes that it will get quick approval and provide districts with
options for making up days missed this year because of snow and severe weather.
Embrace charter schools
In his
March 9 op-ed, “Charter school bill gets an F,” David Lapp correctly identifies
the problem, but unfortunately, he proposes the wrong solution. He is correct that some charter schools are
not serving vulnerable populations and others are underperforming when compared
to their public school district counterparts. However, the solution to this
problem is not to double-down on failing neighborhood schools and ignore the
40,000 families on charter school waiting lists. Instead, the solution is to enact policies to
ensure that charter schools are held to high standards of academic performance
and to drastically improve charter school authorizing.
Charter school bill gets an ‘F’
Significant
problems exist with Pennsylvania ’s
current charter school policy, and we agree with state Sen. Lloyd Smucker that
charter school reform is needed in the commonwealth. We recognize the significant effort that has
gone into both SB 1085, which the Senator is sponsoring, and HB 618. But
neither bill addresses the fundamental problems with Pennsylvania ’s current charter school law
and both would do more harm than good. Specifically, the bills would spread
already inadequate state funding even thinner and further damage neighborhood
schools, the very choice depended on by most families in the state. Charters schools, quite simply, have not been
the panacea that many predicted. Some charters are excellent, just like some
traditional public schools are excellent. But the charter sector taken as a
whole is doing no better, and by many measures is doing worse, than school
districts.
"Currently, 12 states permit higher education
authorizers, with the number of active authorizers ranging from one to 11
institutions. If Pennsylvania
RFA Releases Brief on Higher Eds as Charter Authorizers
Research
for Action Posted by Alison Murawski on Jan 28, 2014
in Blog
Debates
on charter school reform are annual occurrences in Harrisburg . This year, amid a number of
proposed changes in charter school regulation and oversight, Senate Bill 1085 adds a new element with especially
far-reaching implications: allowing higher education institutions to authorize
new charter schools. In its latest
Policy Note, Research for Action examines how this provision of Senate Bill
1085 compares with policy and practice in other states. Currently, 12 states
permit higher education authorizers, with the number of active authorizers
ranging from one to 11 institutions. If Pennsylvania
lawmakers adopt Senate Bill 1085 as currently drafted, the Commonwealth could
have as many as 100 higher education authorizers. Research provides no evidence
that this change will result in stronger student outcomes. The attached brief provides a review of
existing research, an overview of higher education charter authorizers
nationwide and in neighboring states, and answers to
frequently-asked-questions.
http://www.researchforaction.org/2014/01/28/rfa-releases-brief-on-higher-eds-as-charter-authorizers/
"There's certainly room for
debate over the effectiveness and quality of cyber and brick-and-mortar charter
schools – though current data show terrible student outcomes for most of Pennsylvania Harrisburg
The state Senate should
reject flawed charter school bill: Susan Spicka
By By Susan Spicka on November 25, 2013 at 2:23 PM
Susan Spicka, of Shippensburg, heads Education Matters for the
Cumberland Valley, an education activist group.
The Pennsylvania Senate
is poised to vote on a bill that would weaken our local public schools and gut
taxpayer control over how our school tax dollars are spent. The
bill sponsored by Sen. Lloyd Smucker, R-Lancaster, would allow for the unfettered expansion
of charter schools into our communities without the approval of local taxpayers
or school boards. This bill proposes to let an institution of higher education
authorize charter schools and send our school districts the bill.
In addition, Smucker's
bill eliminates a school district’s ability to set reasonable enrollment limits
at charter schools in their area. These limits are essential to the well-being
of our school districts because they allow communities to plan and to determine
how tax dollars will be used and how best to meet their community's educational
needs.
If you are concerned
about how this legislation will impact taxpayers and children in your
community, please ... call your senator today.
"What is the purpose of charter reform and who should it
benefit? School boards are publicly accountable to taxpayers within the
communities they serve. Charter schools, which receive the same public dollars,
should operate with the same level of accountability and transparency. Senate
Bill 1085 fails to address this critical issue, and instead, exacerbates the
problem by adding private, unaccountable university authorizers and removing
checks on existing charters to expand at will, regardless of their
quality."
Letters: Charter school bill: A disaster for education in Pennsylvania
Delco
Times Opinion By LAWRENCE
A. FEINBERG Times Guest Columnist POSTED: 12/06/13, 11:51 PM EST |
Has your school board considered a board resolution in
opposition to SB1085? Here are a couple
sample resolutions passed by North Hills and Lower Merion
School
SB1085: North Hills School
North
Hills School District Board of Education members recently approved a resolution
in opposition of Senate Bill 1085 citing the proposed bill’s potential negative
impact on the district as it relates to charter and cyber charter school
funding and approval processes.
Read
More: http://www.nhsd.net/news.cfm?story=135261
Here's the full text of the board resolution:
North Hills SD Resolution in Opposition to Senate Bill 1085 (pdf
file - 689kb)
This posting on Lower Merion 's
webiste includes the full text of their resolution:
LMSD Board approves
resolution in opposition to Senate Bill 1085
LMSD Announcements
Posted: January 13, 2014
The Lower Merion School
District Board of School Directors unanimously approved a resolution to oppose
Senate Bill 1085, a charter school reform bill that will create new and
substantial costs for taxpayers, take control of public schools away from local
communities, and limit the ability of school districts to effectively plan for
student enrollment changes and staffing needs. The resolution, initially
discussed in the Board’s legislative committee, was presented and approved at
the start of the Board’s education meeting on Monday, January 13.
Teachers Lead Philly March Newsletter
What the bill would do: House Bill
2263/Senate Bill 2047 would prevent the State Board of Education from
adopting or promulgating any rule, regulation or policy that grants, renews,
advances or restricts a teacher’s license on the basis of standardized test
scores of students.
Push to reverse teacher licensure
policy picks up steam in Tennessee statehouse
The
Tennessean by Joey Garrison Mar. 17, 2014
A
proposal to prohibit students’ standardized test scores from influencing
Tennessee teacher-licensing decisions has gained momentum as state lawmakers
look to upend a controversial education policy of Gov. Bill Haslam’s administration. A bill proponents have dubbed the “Educator Respect and Accountability Act” has
garnered striking bipartisan support, clearing the Senate Education Committee
by a 7-2 vote last week, one day after the House Education subcommittee voted
8-1 to pass its companion bill. Its
arrival came as a response to the State Board of Education adopting a new
policy last summer — at Education Commissioner Kevin Huffman’s recommendation — that would link license renewal
and advancement to a teacher’s composite evaluation score and student learning
gains, both calculated from
student test results.
gains, both calculated from
student test results.
NY Charter school group spends $3.6m on TV ads attacking de Blasio
For
the last three weeks, Families for Excellent Schools has run ads to blast Mayor
de Blasio over his decision to stop three Success schools from using space
inside public school buildings.
BY ANNIE
KARNI / NEW YORK
DAILY NEWS MARCH 20, 2014, 2:30 AM
Mayor
de Blasio stopped three Success schools from using space inside public school
buildings. As a result, a pro-charter school group has spent $3.6 million on TV
ads to criticize de Blasio.
A
pro-charter school group has spent $3.6 million over the past three weeks on TV
ads attacking Mayor de Blasio, an insider revealed Wednesday. Families for Excellent Schools — founded by a
deep-pocketed group of financiers — has run a series of ads, including a spot
blaming de Blasio for taking away the “hopes and dreams” of 194 students by
blocking Success Academy Harlem Central.
De Blasio stopped three Success schools from co-locating in public
school buildings while allowing five others to go ahead. His allies call the ad
campaign hypocritical.
“They
have parents believing there’s no way they’re going to find space for these 194
students,” said Zakiyah Ansari of the labor-backed lobbying group Alliance for Quality
Education. “Do they tell them they’re spending $3.6 million on these ads in
less than a month? Put that into the building that you say you can’t find.”
Weighted Admissions Lotteries: Will
They Reshape Charter Demographics?
Education
Week By Katie
Ash Published Online: March 20, 2014
New federal
regulatory guidance that now allows charter schools to hold weighted
admission lotteries in favor of disadvantaged students may affect a small
number of charters now, but could have a greater impact in the future, experts
say. Already the guidance has spurred
conversations about the use of weighted lotteries and brought greater attention
to the demographic makeup of charters around the country.
"So, at best, charter schools are a mild corrective to
inequity—even if the procedure of a lottery removes privilege from the process
at one school, it can’t eliminate it from the broader charter sector and does
nothing to address its effects after the fact. In the absence of a school
system that provides access to an excellent education for all students, it’s
understandable that a charter system would be morally appealing. But we
shouldn’t confuse a Band-Aid for a solution."
What Applying to Charter
Schools Showed Me About Inequality
Charters are not a comprehensive solution to public education's
problems.
MAR 20 2014, 11:18
AM ET
By the time we
arrived—five minutes late—the school’s basement was packed. As I turned my eyes
to the lectern, I wondered at the speed of childhood. My son turns three this
summer, and yet, here we were, jammed into this basement to hear one of D.C.’s
best charter schools explain why we ought to send him to them next year. On a
Saturday, no less! Even though it was a
chilly February day, the room was hot; my one-year-old daughter squirmed in my
arms and pulled off her hat. The room’s temperature brought everyone to
fidgeting with our scarves and sweaters—young, old, black, brown, white,
parents, kids, male, and female. As we all peeled off layers, the room’s
impressive diversity came into focus. In a town as racially, residentially,
socially, culturally, and economically segregated
as D.C., it was an encouraging sight. I want my kids to attend a school
that looks like this, I thought.
Nation Falls Far Short on
Educational Equity, Data Show
Education Week By Michele McNeil and Evie Blad
Published Online: March 21, 2014
New federal civil rights data show
persistent and widespread disparities among disadvantaged students from
prekindergarten through high school on key indicators—calling into question
whether the national push for educational equity and college and career
readiness for all students is working. Minorities
and students with limited English proficiency are more likely to be taught by
inexperienced teachers, attend a high school with limited math and science
offerings, and be disciplined at higher rates than their white peers, according
to information from the 2011-12 school year released Friday by the U.S.
Department of Education.
School Data Finds Pattern of Inequality
Along Racial Lines
New
York Times By MOTOKO RICH MARCH 21, 2014
Racial
minorities are more likely than white students to be suspended from school, to
have less access to rigorous math and science classes, and to be taught by
lower-paid teachers with less experience, according to comprehensive data
released Friday by the data released Friday by the Department of Education’s
Office for Civil RightsDepartment of
Education’s Office for Civil Rights.
In the
first analysis in nearly 15 years of information from all of the country’s
97,000 public schools, the Education Department found a pattern of inequality
on a number of fronts, with race as the dividing factor.
So how overblown were No. 1 Shanghai ’s PISA
Washington
Post Answer Sheet Blog BY VALERIE STRAUSS March 20 at 9:50 am
In
December, I wrote a post questioning the No. 1 ranking of Shanghai in the most recent Program for International
Student Assessment, known as PISA .
Shanghai came out with the No. 1 international ranking in the 2012
administration of PISA in math, reading and science, while 15 year olds in
the United States performed no better than average of 65 countries and
education systems (like usual). When the
2012 scores were released late last year, the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development, which sponsors PISA ,
said that the schools that were used in the Shanghai sample represent the city’s
15-year-old population. Tom Loveless of the Brookings Institution and some China experts said that migrant children are
still routinely excluded from schools in Shanghai ,
which is wealthier than the rest of China , but OECD stood by the
results. Earlier this month, however, Andreas Schleicher, OECD deputy director of Education and
Skills, told the British Commons Education Select Committee that PISA
represented 73 percent of Shanghai’s 15 year olds, which is lower than the 79 percent he had said in December, according to TES Connect, a popular British education Web
site. The U.S.
sample, on the other hand, covered 89 percent of 15-year-old students.
In this
post, Leslie Rutkowski and David Rutkowski, both faculty members at
the Indiana University School of Education, look at just how overblown the Shanghai results might
have been.
Pre-K and Early Education in Pennsylvania
The next EPLC "Focus on
Education" show will air this coming Sunday, March 23 at 3:00 p.m.on
PCN television.
This March 23 panel will discuss the issues of quality and access to
early education in Pennsylvania, what research says about the value of early
education, state funding for early education, how Pennsylvania compares to
other states, and other related topics.
The
panel will include:
- Ron Cowell, President of The Education Policy and Leadership Center
and Host of the "Focus on Education" programs;
- Tracey Campanini, Director, Bureau of Early Learning Services, Office of Child
Development & Early Learning, Pennsylvania Department of Education;
- Michelle Figlar, Executive Director, Pittsburgh Association for the Education of
Young Children;
- Blair Hyatt, Executive Director, Pennsylvania Head Start Association;
and
- Philip A. Peterson, FSA, Partner at Aon Hewitt and co-creator of the Aon/United Way of
Southeastern PA Hand-in-Hand Award for quality child care in the business
community, and former co-chair of the Early Learning Investment Commission
PA School Board Members
interested in running for PSBA officer positions must file applications no
Later than April 30th
PSBA's website Electing PSBA Officers
All persons seeking nomination for elected positions of the
Association shall send applications to the attention of the chair of the Leadership
Development Committee during the month of April, an Application for Nomination on a form to be provided by the
Association expressing interest in the office sought. "The
Application for nomination shall be marked received at PSBA Headquarters or
mailed first class and postmarked by April 30 to be considered and timely
filed. If said date falls on a Saturday, Sunday or holiday, then the Application
for Nomination shall be considered timely filed if marked received at PSBA
headquarters or mailed and postmarked on the next business day." (PSBA
Bylaws, Article IV, Section 5.E.).
Details and position descriptions: https://www.psba.org/elections/index.asp
Live Chat with PA's Major Education Leadership Organizations on Twitter
Tuesday March 25th at 8:00 p.m.
PSBA
website 3/11/2014
On Tuesday,
March 25 at 8 p.m., Pennsylvania's major education leadership organizations
will host a live chat on Twitter to share the opinions of school leaders from
throughout the state and invite feedback.
Join the conversation using hashtag #PAEdFunding and
lurk, learn or let us know what you think about the state of support for public
schools. If you've never tweeted before,
join us. It's a simple, free and fast-paced way to communicate and share
information. Here are directions and a few tips:
- See
more at: http://www.psba.org/news-publications/headlines/details.asp?id=7286#sthash.OGonknCO.dpuf
How the Business Community Can Lead on
Early Education
Economy
League of Greater Philadelphia
Join
business and community leaders to learn about how you can help make sure every
child arrives in kindergarten ready to succeed. On April 29th, the Economy
League of Greater Philadelphia and the United Way of Greater Philadelphia and
Southern New Jersey will host a forum featuring business leaders from around
the country talking about why they’re focused on early childhood education and
how they have moved the needle on improving quality and access in their states.
Featured
Speakers
- Jack Brennan, Chairman Emeritus of The
Vanguard Group
- Phil Peterson, Partner, Aon Hewitt and
Co-Chair of America’s Edge/Ready Nation
- And more to be announced!
- Date & Time Tuesday, April
29, 2014 | 5-7 PM
Registration begins at 5 PM;
program from 5:30 to 7:00 PM
- Location Federal Reserve Bank of
Philadelphia
10 North Independence Mall West Philadelphia,
PA 19106
Registration:
http://worldclassgreaterphila.org/worldclasscouncilforum
PILCOP Special Education Seminars 2014
Schedule
Public
Interest Law Center of Philadelphia
Tuesday, March 25th,
12-4 p.m.
Tuesday, April 29th,
12-4 p.m.
Wednesday, May 14th,
1-5 p.m. and 6-8 p.m.
Register Now! EPLC’s 2014 Education Issues
Workshops for Legislative Candidates, Campaign Staff, and Interested Voters
EPLC’s Education
Issue Workshops Register Now! – Space is Limited!
A Non-Partisan One-Day Program forPennsylvania
A Non-Partisan One-Day Program for
Wednesday, March 19, 2014 in Monroeville ,
PA
Thursday, March 27, 2014 inPhiladelphia ,PA
Thursday, March 27, 2014 in
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. This list will be updated, as more information becomes available.
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