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?
By Rich Lord / Pittsburgh
Nick Trombetta, founder
of the Pennsylvania
Cyber Charter
School
Survey shows 90 percent of education leaders find predictability of
state funding 'very important'
By Eleanor Chute / Pittsburgh
A survey of nearly 600
education leaders shows most want a predictable funding formula and most
believe state school funding is inadequate.
The survey of school administrators, board members and school business
officials included members of the Pennsylvania Association of School
Administrators, Pennsylvania School Boards Association, Pennsylvania
Association of School Business Officials, Pennsylvania Association of Rural and
Small Schools
Latest poll echoes bad news for Corbett and good news for Wolf
By Robert J. Vickers
| rvickers@pennlive.com on March 06, 2014 at 9:57 AM
A familiar motif of an
unpopular Gov. Tom Corbett and surging Democratic challenger Tom Wolf are
revealed in a new Robert
Morris University
And regardless of their
own voting intentions, just 18.6 percent of poll respondents said they expect
Corbett to be re-elected.
http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2014/03/latest_poll_echoes_bad_news_fo.html
"Today, more — although certainly not all — voters want more
education spending, Medicaid expansion, a higher minimum wage and a governor
who cares about the poor, Madonna said, basing his opinion on state polling. In Madonna's view, Corbett's acting to drop
the work requirement, intervene in the food stamp shortage and ask the state
Legislature to increase education funding by $400 million in 2014-15 reflects
an understanding of what voters want."
Gov. Tom Corbett moving to the political center?
Decisions this week on food stamp
recipients and Medicaid work requirement signal a change for GOP governor.
By Steve Esack, Call Harrisburg
Best and worst SAT scores in Pennsylvania
LancasterOnline Staff Posted: Thursday,
March 6, 2014 1:00 pm
The SAT college entrance
exam is back in the news today. Yes, it's undergoing
a sweeping revision. College Board
officials say the update — the first since 2005 — is
needed to make the exam more representative of what students study in
high school and the skills they need to succeed in college and afterward.
http://lancasteronline.com/news/local/best-and-worst-sat-scores-in-pennsylvania/article_8d2d6d18-a53f-11e3-974e-001a4bcf6878.html
In Harrisburg
PennLive
Op-Ed By Sheila Dow Ford on March 06, 2014 at 9:15 AM
Something isn't right,
and it is important that we identify what and why. The recent announcement by Auditor
General Eugene DePasquale of his intention to immediately undertake a
performance audit of the Harrisburg
School District
http://www.pennlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2014/03/in_harrisburg_how_many_politic.html#incart_river
Mayor proposes $153 million in new funds, less than Hite's request
notebook by Paul
Socolar on Mar 06 2014 Posted in Latest news
The District is turning
to the state and city for a combined $440 million. It is counting on
$120 million of that to replace funds that were promised and raised last year
but were not recurring. And to cover rising costs while taking some
steps toward his aspirational vision for the District, Hite has asked for a
great deal more. The price tag attached to the first year of Action Plan
2.0, as it's called, is $320 million. A quarter of that amount will be
used just to cover unavoidable annual increases in expenses.
http://thenotebook.org/blog/146993/mayor-proposes-new-dollars-less-hite-request
Philly principals hear contract pitch that includes major salary
reductions
WHYY Newsworks BY KEVIN
MCCORRY MARCH 7, 2014
In the Philadelphia School
District
http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/local/item/65612-philly-principals-hear-contract-pitch-that-includes-major-salary-reductions?linktype=hp_topstory
New Logo, Old Principles
Yinzercation
Blog March 6, 2014
Drum
roll please … introducing our new logo! Drawn by local artist Danny Devine, the
Yinzercation school bus shows people taking action. Are those rally signs we
can see peeking out the windows? We are literally on the bus together, ready to
save public education as a public good. Movements move, and this bus is going
places for education justice. Don’t worry, it will stop for you – and there’s
always room for more people. While the
logo might be new, the principles that unite us are not. We are committed to
keeping the focus on students and equity, evidence-based arguments, and saving
public education as a public good. Sometimes it gets complicated since we are a
movement, not an organization, and we may not all agree on everything, all the
time. But as I listen to this growing education justice movement – at rallies,
on the streets, at national conferences, in community meetings, on petitions,
in social media – these are the core principles I hear:
NY - One Charter School Group Sits Out Latest Battle
WNYC By BETH FERTIG Thursday, March 06, 2014 -
04:00 AM
While some charter
operators rallied in Albany Jackson
Heights , Queens .
She's among 34 charter leaders who recently joined a coalition to work with the mayor, by explaining how they
serve diverse communities, including children with special needs. Gaulthier said she accepted the city's
decision to halt three charters from opening this fall because officials
opposed placing elementary schools in the same building as high schools. The
third would have taken space from a special education program. Despite that
decision, she said, she believed the mayor is pro-charter.
"I'm going to hope
that he actually will come out and say that he's pro any school that's serving
kids with a high-quality education," she said.
"Further, the notion that for-profit operators don’t affect
many students is patently false. Hundreds of thousands of children attend
charter schools operated by for-profit companies. There were 463,000 students
in schools operated by for-profit companies, and 95% of those schools were charter
schools."
WHY CHARTER SCHOOLS RUN FOR PROFIT NEED GREATER ACCOUNTABILITY
Cashing In On Kids Blog
March 6, 2014
A blogger at
StudentsFirst (not to be confused with StudentFirst) has written about Cashing in on Kids, complaining that
this website’s focus is on charter schools rather than neighborhood public
schools. The blogger argues that the emphasis on for-profit operators “gives a
false impression of the public charter school landscape.” Fair enough. Let’s address those questions.
First, why do we see an urgent need to improve accountability and oversight of charter schools? For school districts and neighborhood public schools, accountability is already in place. Budgets are available. Meetings are public. All kids who show up are required by law to receive an education. It’s imperfect, like any human endeavor, but there are functioning accountability systems. Such a system is lacking for charter schools, which have now been around for more than 20 years, and taxpayers and kids are paying the price.
Second, is our emphasis on for-profit operators justified? We believe that, in a sector with insufficient oversight and accountability, some operators will put profit ahead of students. It’s a concern in every other sector, and downplaying accountability and the sometimes-corrupting influence of profit-taking has led to huge problems for charter schools, students and taxpayers.
First, why do we see an urgent need to improve accountability and oversight of charter schools? For school districts and neighborhood public schools, accountability is already in place. Budgets are available. Meetings are public. All kids who show up are required by law to receive an education. It’s imperfect, like any human endeavor, but there are functioning accountability systems. Such a system is lacking for charter schools, which have now been around for more than 20 years, and taxpayers and kids are paying the price.
Second, is our emphasis on for-profit operators justified? We believe that, in a sector with insufficient oversight and accountability, some operators will put profit ahead of students. It’s a concern in every other sector, and downplaying accountability and the sometimes-corrupting influence of profit-taking has led to huge problems for charter schools, students and taxpayers.
http://cashinginonkids.com/blogs/charter-schools-run-profit-need-greater-accountability/
“The culminating action from the meeting was a call for
Congressional hearings “to investigate the over-emphasis, misapplication,
costs, and poor implementation of high-stakes standardized testing in the
nation’s K-12 public schools,” according to a press release on the
NPE website.”
Options In The Standoff Over Test-Based Education Policy
Education Opportunity Network Blog by Jeff Bryant March 6, 2014
What happens when people
feel they aren’t being listened to? They raise their voices louder.
For some time
now, teachers, parents, and students have spoken out against the
extraordinary emphasis on standardized testing that has become the bedrock of
the nation’s education policies. Critics have questioned the whole idea that
teaching and learning is a pursuit that can be expressed and judged by numbers
and rankings, which seems to be a forgone conclusion to policy makers and
economists. While leaders of the policy
establishment calling itself “education reform” have noticed the clamor, they
remain unmoved. As operatives atBrookings
Institute recently wrote, “The testing and accountability movement is
in a bit of trouble.”
‘The drive to test, test, and re-test’ leads famous school board member
to quit
Rick Roach,
who is completing his fifth four-year term representing District 3 on
the Board of Education inOrange County, Fla, may well be the most famous local
school board member in the country. In 2011, he made national
news when
he took a test with questions used on standardized tests given to
students in Florida and flunked,
becoming a vocal critic of high-stakes standardized tests. Last year he became
alarmed that the state was forcing severely disabled students to take
alternative versions of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test and helped
publicize the plight of a boy named Michael, who was born with only a brain
stem and not a full brain with cognitive ability. Michael, was also blind and
bound to a wheelchair, was
still required to take a state standardized test last year (and will
have to take another one this year).
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/03/06/the-drive-to-test-test-and-re-test-leads-famous-school-board-member-to-quit/
Then and Now, a Test That Aims to Neutralize Advantages of the
Privileged
New York Times By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA MARCH 6,
2014
When the College Board announced
Wednesday that it was overhauling the SAT in ways that would curb the
advantages enjoyed by affluent students, it sounded a bit like the people who
first designed and popularized the test decades ago. The similarities end there. Across more than
eight decades, the SAT’s backers have held it out as a yardstick, albeit an
imperfect one, for academic merit, but notions of what defines merit have
changed profoundly.
The test began in the
1920s supposedly as a gauge of intelligence, but in recent years has moved
toward measuring whether high school students have learned what they should.
The latest changes give the SAT a hard shove further in that direction, making
it more like its competitor, the ACT, in redefining merit as less about
cleverness, and more about curriculum mastery.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/07/us/then-and-now-a-test-that-aims-to-neutralize-advantages-of-the-privileged.html?ref=education&_r=0
NSBA School Board News
Today by Alexis Rice March 6, 2014
The U.S. Department of Education has
issued new online resource guidelines to help school districts and educators
interpret major laws for protecting student privacy and develop best practices
for using online educational services. The
report, Protecting Student Privacy While Using Educational Services:
Requirements and Best Practices, issued by the department’s
Privacy Technical Assistance Center (PTAC), noted that classrooms are
increasingly employing technological advances such as on-demand delivery of
personalized content, virtual forms of interacting with teachers and other
students, and many other interactive technologies.
http://schoolboardnews.nsba.org/2014/03/u-s-department-of-education-issues-guidelines-on-student-data-privacy/
PILCOP Special Education Seminars 2014 Schedule
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 in Philadelphia ,PA
Thursday,
Auditor
General DePasquale to Hold Public Meetings on Ways to Improve Charter Schools
Seeks
to find ways to improve accountability, effectiveness, transparency
The public meetings will be held:
- NEW:
Time is limited to two hours for each meeting.
Comments can be submitted in writing by Wednesday, Feb. 19, via email to Susan
Woods at: swoods@auditorgen.state.pa.us.
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
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