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 25, 2014:
Live Chat with PA's Major Education Leadership Organizations
on Twitter
On Tuesday,
March 25 at 8 p.m., Pennsylvania
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:
Inquirer Editorial: Take emphasis off state tests
POSTED: Tuesday,
March 25, 2014, 1:08 AM
Parents
are right to protest the oversize emphasis placed on the Pennsylvania System of
School Assessment exams when so many schools are poorly funded. Robin Roberts says her three children won't
be taking the PSSAs with the rest of the students at Philadelphia 's
C.W. Henry Elementary School Philadelphia School
District Philadelphia ,
but for schools across the state.
March 24-31 Call Congress and Demand
Hearings on Abusive Testing #TESTHearingsNow
The
Network for Public Education
On
March 2, 2014, The Network for Public Education issued a call for congressional
hearings into the overuse and abuse of tests in our schools. Will Your Senator or Representative Join Us?
First,
call your Representatives and Senators during the week of March 24, 2014 and
ask them to hold formal Congressional Hearings into the overuse and abuse of
tests in our schools! You
can find the contact information for your Senators and Representatives here!!
AS I SEE IT: Corbett's budget invests in education
Indiana
Gazette Opinion by Carolyn Dumaresq on March 23, 2014 1:30 AM
Carolyn C. Dumaresq, Ed.D., is Pennsylvania’s
acting secretary of education.
Investing
in Pennsylvania’s children is an investment in their future and the future of
Pennsylvania. Gov. Tom Corbett’s 2014-15 budget dedicates a record $12.01
billion for Pennsylvania ’s
early, basic and postsecondary education system. Of this amount, $10.1 billion is slated to
support Pennsylvania students in pre-kindergarten to grade 12. Since taking
office, Corbett has increased support of public schools by $1.55 billion. Since 2011, Corbett’s Ready to Learn
education agenda has transformed the state’s education system. Through targeted
initiatives, the governor has increased accountability, infused stronger
educational resources into classrooms, focused financial resources into
initiatives that support all students, and created a transparent way for
taxpayers to see how their tax dollars are benefiting students.
The
School Performance Profile, www.paschoolperformance.org, shows that 73 percent
of the state’s 3,000 public schools are preparing our children for a successful
future.
Report: Pennsylvania drilling
taxes among lowest
published mar 21,
2014 at 10:38 pm
PITTSBURGH –
Pennsylvania’s taxes on the natural gas drilling boom are among the lowest in
the nation, according to a new report from a nonpartisan office of the state
Legislature. Pennsylvania is the only
state with significant production that doesn’t impose a severance tax based on
the volume or market value of gas produced, the figures released Thursday by
the Independent Fiscal Office found. Instead, the state imposes an impact fee
for each well drilled, no matter what it produces. The report looked at 11 states and found a
Pennsylvania well that began producing in 2014 will be taxed at an effective
tax rate of at most 1.6 percent. By comparison, a similar well in West Virginia
will be taxed at 7.2 percent, a Texas well at 4.6 percent, a Colorado well at
about 5.6 percent and Ohio at 1.8 percent.
McCord unveils education plan
propped up by 10 percent "drillers' tax"
WITF Written by Mary
Wilson, Capitol Bureau Chief | Mar 24, 2014 3:13 PM
Democratic gubernatorial
candidate Rob McCord says his education plan would be funded largely with a 10
percent natural gas drilling tax. McCord,
the state treasurer, said he wants to boost money for education by $1.3
billion, in a move to replace cuts to education under the Corbett
administration. The governor's office says the reductions were the result of
the end of federal stimulus dollars. McCord said his education spending would
make early education a priority.
"Not just K-12, and
not just full-day kindergarten, and not just pre-K, but we add an extra $220
million dollars to early childhood learning," McCord said in a speech to
the Pennsylvania Press Club in Harrisburg . He said the proposal would be funded in large
part with 10 percent "drillers' tax."
"District officials have said
the school has financial and academic difficulties and has not met the
conditions of its charter. They cited several concerns: recent test scores that
show just 5 percent of students are proficient in math and 10 percent in
reading, unpaid bills, and not a single progress report to the district in four
years."
KATHY BOCCELLA, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER POSTED: Tuesday,
March 25, 2014, 1:08 AM
The founder of a West Chester charter school, during a hearing to revoke
its charter, appealed to the school district for more time to show academic and
financial progress. Lamont McKim, the
CEO and cofounder of Sankofa Academy and a graduate of West Chester School
District
"Under the new staffing
policy, beginning next fall, all school vacancies will be filled through what
is known as a "site-selection process." School committees that
include parents and other teachers make recommendations, but principals have
the final say."
Philadelphia
MARTHA WOODALL, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER LAST UPDATED: Tuesday, March 25, 2014, 1:08 AM
POSTED: Monday, March 24, 2014,
4:43 PM
PHILADELPHIA School
Superintendent William R. Hite Jr. announced Monday that the district will
impose work rules allowing principals to fill teacher vacancies in the fall
without regard to seniority. The district
also asked the state Supreme Court to declare that the School Reform Commission
has the power under the state takeover law to make the changes on its own,
without approval of the teachers' union.
Jerry Jordan, president of the 11,000-member Philadelphia Federation of
Teachers, said the union would file a challenge in the state's top court.
"Other changes being sought by
the district include: eliminating the deadline for issuing layoff notices;
relaxing minimum staffing requirements for counselors, librarians and teachers;
giving principals the authority to determine how teachers use prep time; and
the ability to hire a third-party vendor to manage substitute teachers."
SRC seeks to eliminate seniority, impose other changes on teachers
SRC seeks to eliminate seniority, impose other changes on teachers
SOLOMON LEACH, DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER LEACHS@PHILLYNEWS.COM,
215-854-5903 POSTED: Tuesday, March 25, 2014, 3:01 AM
LOCKED IN A stalemate
with the teachers union, the Philadelphia
School District Jordan said in
a statement. "The members of the PFT are partners in public education, not
indentured servants."
Hite suspending seniority for
September, seeking approval from Supreme Court
notebook by Dale
Mezzacappa on Mar 24 2014
Posted in Latest news
With labor negotiations
stalled, Superintendent William Hite said Monday that he intends to impose a
system for assigning teachers to schools next year that eliminates seniority as
the deciding factor and instead gives principals the power to fill all
vacancies and assemble staff.
“It is our intention to
implement a range of work-rule reforms, and these include teacher assignment
and transfer, layoff and recall, staffing levels, leveling, and the use of prep
time,” Hite said in an interview. The
District filed a 60-page motion asking the state Supreme Court to
issue a "declaratory judgment" to affirm its legal right to make
such changes unilaterally.
Come September, “all
openings ... will be filled through the site selection process,” Hite said.
Now, only about half of open positions are filled that way, Hite said.
District focuses on providing students with the right teachers, with the
right skills for the best possible education
3 'innovative' high schools
coming to N. Phila.
SOLOMON LEACH, DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER LEACHS@PHILLYNEWS.COM,
215-854-5903 POSTED: Tuesday, March 25, 2014, 3:01 AM
DESPITE unprecedented
financial challenges, the Philadelphia
School District
Each school will follow
a new model known as project- or competency-based education, in which students
display proficiency by addressing real-world problems in order to advance.
http://www.philly.com/philly/education/20140325_3__innovative__high_schools_coming_to_N__Phila_.html
Lehigh to host
Governor's School for engineering and technology
Bishop Zubik: No Common Core
in Catholic schools here
Post Gazette Popular
Belief blog Written by Peter Smith on Tuesday,
25 March 2014 6:00 am.
Bishop David Zubik said
that Common Core -- the national educational standards that many public and
Catholic schools have adopted -- won't be coming to Catholic schools in the
Diocese of Pittsburgh. In a March 18 letter, Bishop Zubik weighed in
on a debate that has been roiling in educational circles recently. Common
Core was put together by representatives of various state, educational and
other private organizations, trying to develop standard baselines for what
students should be learning nationwide. In addition to critics who say it
shoehorns a one-size-fits-all approach to public schools, some in Catholic
circles have opposed using standards other than those that start with a
Catholic model. Bishop Zubik wrote that
even if Pennsylvania
were to adopt the Core standards for the public schools, they would not be mandated
for parochial ones.
Huffington
Post AP by SUMMER BALLENTINE and TOM LoBIANCO
Posted: 03/24/2014
5:58 pm EDT Updated: 03/24/2014 6:59 pm EDT
INDIANAPOLIS
(AP) — Indiana
on Monday became the first state to withdraw from the Common Core math and
reading standards that outline what students should be learning, capitalizing
on a conservative backlash but leaving some critics wondering whether the state
is leaving the program in name only. Indiana was among 45
states that adopted Common Core in the last few years, but some conservatives
have since criticized the initiative as a top-down takeover of local schools. In signing legislation Monday to pull Indiana from the
program, Republican Gov. Mike Pence said he believes the state's students are
best served by education decisions made at the state and local level. The
Republican-controlled Legislature had previously approved the measure requiring
the State Board of Education to draft new standards outlining what students
should be learning in each grade.
"The federal government was initially supposed to pick
up 40 percent of the excess cost of educating students with disabilities, but
has continually fallen short of that goal." …Ideally, he'd like to the federal government
to meet its 40 percent commitment sometime in the next three to five years.
"I think we can set it on path," Kline said. "That will be a
good debate to have."
Kline Seeks to Make Special Education Funding a Priority
Education
Week Politics K-12 Blog By Alyson Klein on March
24, 2014 7:20 AM
Rep.
John Kline, R-Minn., the chairman of the House education committee, said today
that he will be pouring new energy into a perennial priority: Bolstering
funding for special education.
Education
advocates, Congress, and the administration, need to put special education
funding first, Kline said in an interview. "It's easy for people to say we
need to fund special education and then get distracted by many, many different
things," Kline said. "We oughta be meeting the federal government's
commitment to funding special education and that oughta be the first
priority." Last week, Kline held a
roundtable in his district on special education. Participants included a
veteran special education teacher; special education parent; school
superintendent; Denise Specht, the president of Education Minnesota, an
affiliate of both the National Education Association and the American
Federation of Teachers; and Mary Kusler, the director of government relations
for the NEA.
Educational Opportunity Network Blog by Jeff Bryant March 19, 2014
For people who like to
think of themselves as being “exceptional,” Americans can sometimes abandon the
very principles their exceptionality is founded on. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the
current debate of education policy. A
feature that has long made America ’s
public school system exceptional for sure is its governance through
democratically elected local school boards. The way this has been working,
according to the National School Boards Association, is that your local
school board “represents the public’s voice in public education, providing
citizen governance for what the public schools need and what the community
wants.” Any power a school board has is
generated through the exercise of democracy. When you don’t agree with
decisions made by your board members, “it is your right as a voter to select
new board members who will see to it that your students and your schools
succeed.” How American is that?
But now, many of the
loudest voices in the nation’s education debate tell us that is completely and
utterly wrong.
"Gallup polls consistently show that nearly half of
American adults believe God created humans in their present form within the
last 10,000 years."
Taxpayers fund creationism in the classroom
Taxpayers fund creationism in the classroom
Politico
By STEPHANIE
SIMON | 3/24/14 5:01 AM EDT
Taxpayers
in 14 states will bankroll nearly $1 billion this year in tuition for private
schools, including hundreds of religious schools that teach Earth is less than
10,000 years old, Adam and Eve strolled the garden with dinosaurs, and much of
modern biology, geology and cosmology is a web of lies. Now a major push to expand these voucher
programs is under way from Alaska to New York, a development that seems certain
to sharply increase the investment.
Public
debate about science education tends to center on bills like one in Missouri, which would allow public school parents to
pull their kids from science class whenever the topic of evolution comes up.
But the more striking shift in public policy has flown largely under the radar,
as a well-funded political campaign has pushed to open the spigot for tax
dollars to flow to private schools. Among them are Bible-based schools that
train students to reject and rebut the cornerstones of modern science.
Network for Public Education's Pennsylvania
@the chalkface http://atthechalkface.com
Angie Villa Art & Education http://www.angievillaartwork.blogspot.com
Keystone State Education Coalition http://keystonestateeducationcoalition.blogspot.com/
Parents United for Public
Education http://www.parentsunitedphila.com
Pennsylvania Alliance for Arts
Education http://www.kennedy-center.org/education/kcaaen/statealliance/home.cfm
Philly Teacherman http://phillyteacherman.blogspot.com/
Raging Chicken Press http://www.ragingchickenpress.org/
Yinzercation http://yinzercation.wordpress.com
The Pennsylvania PTA 105th annual
statewide convention April 4-6, 2014, at the Radisson Valley Forge/King of Prussia
Delegates from local PTA
units, councils, and regions throughout the state will gather to give direction
to the State PTA on issues of resolutions, bylaws, and timely topics being
addressed around education and child advocacy. The convention format will include a Diversity
Leadership Conference, a Town Hall Meeting on Suicide Awareness and Prevention,
twenty (20) workshops on timely issues, networking time with other delegates,
an exhibit hall, a Reflections Gallery showcasing student artwork, and the
opportunity to hear keynote speakers and representatives from the National PTA
and other statewide partnering organizations from Pennsylvania . Complete details for
registration may be obtained at the Pennsylvania PTA website at www.papta.org.
Education Debate - Pittsburgh
by Yinzercation
March 20, 2014
Please mark your calendars now
and plan to be a part of this event:
Tuesday, April 8th atPittsburgh 6-12 515 N. Highland Ave. , Pittsburgh
PA 15206
Tuesday, April 8th at
Sign up for weekly Testing
Resistance & Reform News and Updates!
Fairtest - The National Center for Fair and Open Testing
PSBA
nominations for offices now open!
Deadline April 30th
PSBA Leadership Development Committee seeks strong leaders for the association
Members interested in becoming the next leaders of PSBA are encouraged to complete an Application for Nomination no later than April 30. As a member-driven association, the Leadership Development Committee (LDC) is seeking nominees with strong skills in leadership and communication, and who have vision for PSBA. Complete details on the nomination process, links to the Application for Nomination form, and scheduled dates for nominee interviews can be found online by clicking here.
PSBA Leadership Development Committee seeks strong leaders for the association
Members interested in becoming the next leaders of PSBA are encouraged to complete an Application for Nomination no later than April 30. As a member-driven association, the Leadership Development Committee (LDC) is seeking nominees with strong skills in leadership and communication, and who have vision for PSBA. Complete details on the nomination process, links to the Application for Nomination form, and scheduled dates for nominee interviews can be found online by clicking here.
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
Thursday, March 27, 2014 in Philadelphia ,PA
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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