Daily postings from the Keystone State
Education Coalition now reach more than 3250 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
NCAA No Longer Accepting
Coursework from 24 K12, Inc. High Schools including PA's Agora Cyber Charter
Deadline for PSBA officer nominations is
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.
EPLC Education Notebook – Friday, April 18, 2014
Education
Policy and Leadership
Center
This report reviews the status of pending PA charter
legislation, including SB1085 and HB618; also reviews charter performance and
issues.
Report: Let's learn from the
1 in 6 high-performing Pa. charter schools;
Roebuck plans bill to address $1.8M in overpayments, plus delayed payments
around Pa.
PHILADELPHIA, April 21 – State Rep. James Roebuck,
D-Phila., Democratic chairman of the House Education Committee, today released
a new report showing that about one in six charter schools in Pennsylvania is
high-performing. The report also addresses hot topics such as overpayments,
whether universities should be able to authorize charter schools, greater
scrutiny of cyber charter schools' performance and funding, and a state
commission's recent recommendations on special education funding for charter
schools.
"I
would like the number of high performers among charter schools to be larger,
but it's important to ask what these schools have in common and what we can
learn for use in other tax-funded schools, both traditional public ones and
other charter schools," Roebuck said.
"While
the overall academic performance of charter schools and particularly cyber
charter schools is disappointing and trails the academic performance of
traditional public schools, there are many examples of charter schools that are
successful in terms of academic performance and in being innovative in their
approach to educating students," Roebuck said.
"Twenty-eight
of the 163 charter schools had SPP (School Performance Profile) scores of 80 or
above. When examining the characteristics of these high-performing charter
schools, there are certain common characteristics amongst the 28 charter
schools. What is most common is that they offer innovative education programs,
with most of them focused on a specific approach to education instruction or a
specific academic area of instructional focus."
Pennsylvania's Agora Cyber Charter is one of the 24 schools
affiliated with K12, Inc. listed in this article.
NCAA No Longer Accepting
Coursework from 24 K12, Inc. High Schools
AthleticScholarships.net
Posted on April 17, 2014 by John Infante
Today the NCAA announced
that 24 schools which use a company called K12 Inc. to provide their curriculum were no longer approved. All of the schools are
nontraditional high schools, and their courses were found to not comply with
the NCAA’s nontraditional course requirements.
As a result, the NCAA will stop accepting coursework from these schools
starting with the 2014–15 school year. Coursework
completed from Spring 2013 through Spring 2014 will undergo additional
evaluation on a case-by-case basis when a prospect tries to use it for initial
eligibility purposes. Coursework
completed in Fall 2012 or earlier may be used without additional evaluation. In addition to the 24 schools above, other
schools affiliated with K12 Inc. remain under Extended Evaluation. This means the NCAA will continue to review
coursework coming from those schools to see whether it meets the NCAA’s core
course and nontraditional course requirements. Prospects with coursework from
those schools must submit additional documentation no matter when the
coursework was completed.
When's a $1b cut a $1b cut?
When it's an issue in the Guv's race, that's when: Monday Morning Coffee
By on
April 21, 2014 at 8:20 AM
Good Monday Morning,
Fellow Seekers.
If you've been paying
even cursory attention to the race for the Governor's Office this year, then
you probably already know that Gov.
Tom Corbett's record on public
education funding has emerged as one of the key issues of the campaign. All four Democrats looking to unseat Corbett
-- businessman Tom Wolf, ex-DEP
Secretary Katie McGinty, U.S. Rep. Allyson Schwartz and state Treasurer Rob
McCord -- have sharply criticized
Corbett's schools record. In public
appearances and in commercials, they've accused the Republican governor of
cutting $1 billion from public education since taking office in 2011. In his
own commercials and in public appearances, Corbett has said he's increased state support
for public education to historic levels.
Who's right?
Visiting Corbett stumps for
education budget
Pittsburgh
Tribune-Review By Megan
Harris Published: Monday, April 21, 2014, 11:18 p.m.
Gov. Tom Corbett touted his support for science, technology, engineering and math — or STEM — education programs during a tour on Monday of theNorth
Shore 's Carnegie Science
Center.
Gov. Tom Corbett touted his support for science, technology, engineering and math — or STEM — education programs during a tour on Monday of the
Corbett is confronting
intense criticism over past education cuts from four Democrats seeking their
party's nomination in the May 20 primary to challenge him in November.
Corbett
confronts negative ratings
Governor out to remind voters they supported him before
By
Karen Langley / Post-Gazette Harrisburg
Bureau April 21, 2014 11:45 PM
For Mr.
Corbett, the challenges are real. Federal stimulus money that had been used for
public education ended with Mr. Corbett's first budget, and a fight over
responsibility for school funding cuts has ensnared the Capitol ever since.
Governor promotes education
positions
By
James O'Toole / Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette April 21, 2014 11:49 PM
Gov.
Tom Corbett promoted his education proposals and the need to reinforce science
and technology training Monday as he toured the Carnegie Science
Center
"What
I hear from the Democrats is that they want to spend more and more money,"
he said as he dismissed their critiques of the school spending he's presided
over in the first years of the administration he'd like to extend this
November.
PA cyber charter schools could be funded by state, not districts
By
Maura Pennington | PA Independent April 21, 2014
CHARTERS:
Cyber charter schools could be funded by state instead of school districts.
State Rep. Jim Christiana, R-Beaver, says he
wants to simplify the process of funding the state’s 16 cyber charter schools,
which accept students from all corners of Pennsylvania , regardless of school district. While the General Assembly is still haggling
over a variety of changes to the laws governing charter schools, Christiana has
introduced House Bill 2174 as a stand-alone measure to fund cyber schools out
of the state budget.
For award-winning principal,
education has a high bar
KRISTEN A. GRAHAM, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER Tuesday, April 22, 2014, 1:07 AM
Lynne Millard will tell
you - she's tough. The principal of Crossan School Bingham Street in
the Northeast, runs smoothly is an understatement. And in an era of diminishing
resources and increasing demands, Millard employs every bit of her considerable
skill to make things happen. She is one of seven school leaders being
honored Tuesday as among the best principals in the Philadelphia School
District
West Philly libraries, key to
student success, struggle to exist
With the help of
volunteers, the Lea
School
Daily
Pennsylvanian By LAUREN
FEINER Updated April 21, 2014, 12:19 am
While
Penn students might dread their weekend visits to Van Pelt Library, it is clear
from the crowded cubicles and GSRs that the University would lose a valuable
resource if its doors were closed. This is exactly the situation in which Philadelphia elementary
school students find themselves. Because of extensive budget cuts, students are
locked out of their school libraries without access to books or trained
librarians. The School Reform Commission
passed a “Doomsday Budget” in late May last year, in which $304 million
was cut from Philadelphia
schools for the 2013-14 fiscal year. As a result, about 3,800 school
employees were laid off, 24 schools were closed and money to
extracurricular programs was eliminated.
“We spend millions of dollars in a
broke school district on testing that could and should be prioritized for
providing basic safety in our schools, quality personnel and supplies,
extracurricular activities, art, music; science kits and lab facilities, and
novel cultural projects and programs.”
Time, money, learning: The
PSSAs strike out every time
Parents United for Public Education Posted on April 21, 2014 by
Robin Roberts is a member of the Parents United leadership
collective.
It was an honor to
appear on Radio Times and speak about high-stakes standardized testing. In
preparing for the show, I used a lot of information that had helped me to
decide to opt out of the PSSA (Pennsylvania State Standardized Assessment) test
for my own children. What I realized is that 15 minutes was not enough time to
fully speak to the issue. Here’s what I wanted to say if more time was
permitted.
Allentown's new high school
proposal similar to rejected charters, official says
By Colin McEvoy
| The Express-Times on April 22, 2014 at 5:51 AM
When Bob Lysek listened
to details earlier this month about the Allentown
School District's proposal for a new high school, it sounded awfully
familiar to him. By 2015, the district
is hoping to open a Professional Careers Institute, a career-focused high
school partnering education and business, which supporters call a
step in fundamentally transforming the district's approach to
education. But according to supporters
of two
charter school applications that were rejected in February, the newly
proposed school shares many similarities with those charters, even though
the school
board rejected them for, in part, lacking innovation.
Resistance to the Common Core
Mounts
Critics span the political spectrum, from tea partyers to union
leaders
Education Week By Andrew
Ujifusa Published Online: April 21, 2014
After
more than a year of high-profile and contentious debate over the Common Core
State Standards in Indiana, Gov. Mike Pence signed legislation last month
to formally
reverse the state's adoption of the standards. The legislation set the
state on course to replace those standards with ones "written by Hoosiers,
for Hoosiers," the Republican governor proclaimed.
The
same month, the Democratic-controlled New York Assembly approved a measure
that would
require a two-year delay in using assessments aligned with the common
core for teacher and principal evaluations.
In some sense, the measures in Indiana
and New York
represent two dominant poles of the growing—and evolving—resistance to the
standards. The common core has drawn criticism from both the political left and
right, though much of it seems aimed not so much at what the standards say, but
rather who drove their adoption or the tests and accountability policies
connected with them.
Laws in 11 States Require
Closure of Low-Performing Charters
Education Week Charters
& Choice Blog By on April 21, 2014 12:40 PM
Eleven states have
passed laws that require
charter school authorizers to shut down the schools if they do not reach
certain benchmarks, according to a policy brief released last week by the
Washington-based National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. The 11 states are California ,
Florida , Indiana ,
Louisiana , Michigan ,
Mississippi , Nevada ,
North Carolina , Ohio ,
Texas , and Washington state. Such laws have been
growing in popularity over the past several years, the brief notes.
InBloom Student Data
Repository to Close
In a
setback for the nearly $8 billion prekindergarten through 12th-grade education
technology software market, inBloom,
a non-profit corporation offering to warehouse and manage student data
for public school districts across the country, announced on Monday morning
that it planned to shut its doors. Financed
with $100 million in seed money from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
along with the Carnegie Corporation of New
York , the venture promised to streamline how teachers
and administrators accessed student records. The system was meant to extract
student data from disparate school grading and attendance databases, store it
in the cloud and funnel it to dashboards where teachers might more effectively
track the progress of individual students.
But the project ran into roadblocks in a number of districts and
states over
privacy and security issues
Public Interest Law Center of
Philadelphia
People keep asking us what they can do to
help with the public education funding crisis. Next Thursday, Philadelphia
attorneys can help by simply taking their lunch break at City Hall.
LAWYERS DAY OF ACTION FOR EDUCATION Thursday, April 24th
co-hosted
with the Education
Law Center
Join your fellow attorneys at City Hall on Thursday, April 24 to
tell City Council that Philadelphia cannot function without good public
schools, and high-quality public schools require adequate funding. We will ask
City Council to extend the sales tax to provide $120 million in recurring
annual revenue to Philadelphia's public schools.
We will hold an optional webinar on
Wednesday, April 23 at 4:00 p.m. to prepare you with talking points and more
background information. RSVP for the webinar or day of action here.
Please RSVP, forward this email to your colleagues and
join us on the 24th in sending a unified message to City Council members that
the legal community supports public education.
Public Citizens for Children and Youth
(PCCY) will Host an Education Funding Forum in Delaware County on May 7th
On May
7th, PCCY will host a forum that discusses the state of school
funding in Delaware
County 501 Bywood Avenue ,
Upper Darby PA 19082 from 6:30pm-8pm.
Attendees will get a budget update from Sharon Ward of the Pennsylvania
Budget and Policy Center , hear from School Board members representing
Upper Darby, William Penn, and Haverford
School Districts
Please
RSVP by clicking here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1OjFpJwTHnZwRqh0Q5Tdp0KHYaI1Jg0XNvGpmeYMmIyA/viewform
PSBA Advocacy Forum and Day on the Hill
May 5-6, Mechanicsburg & Harrisburg
Make an impact on the legislative process by attending PSBA’s Advocacy Forum and Day on the Hill, May 5-6. Day one will provide legislative insights on pensions, training on being an effective advocate, and media relations. Dr. G. Terry Madonna, leading Pennsylvania political analyst, will discuss the legislative landscape in his usual lively and informative style. How to Be an Effective Advocate -- Hear from former Allwein Advocacy Award winners Larry Feinberg, Roberta Marcus and Tina Viletto on how to successfully support your issues. At noon, Rep. Dave Reed, Majority Policy Chairman, will address participants.
On day two, participants will start with a breakfast at the Harrisburg Hilton with Lt. Gov. Jim Cawley as guest speaker and then hit the ground running with visits to legislative offices in the State CapitolSpace is limited so register early. Click here for more details and to register online.
May 5-6, Mechanicsburg & Harrisburg
Make an impact on the legislative process by attending PSBA’s Advocacy Forum and Day on the Hill, May 5-6. Day one will provide legislative insights on pensions, training on being an effective advocate, and media relations. Dr. G. Terry Madonna, leading Pennsylvania political analyst, will discuss the legislative landscape in his usual lively and informative style. How to Be an Effective Advocate -- Hear from former Allwein Advocacy Award winners Larry Feinberg, Roberta Marcus and Tina Viletto on how to successfully support your issues. At noon, Rep. Dave Reed, Majority Policy Chairman, will address participants.
On day two, participants will start with a breakfast at the Harrisburg Hilton with Lt. Gov. Jim Cawley as guest speaker and then hit the ground running with visits to legislative offices in the State CapitolSpace is limited so register early. Click here for more details and to register online.
Registration
fee of $50 includes lunch and dinner on May 5 and breakfast on May
6.
Educating the Voter: A Forum on Public
Education featuring Democratic gubernatorial candidates - April 30th 6:00 pm
Phila Central Library
Presented by Committee of Seventy, Congresso and Philadelphia
Education Fund
Wednesday,
April 30, 2014 at 6:00PM
Join Democratic gubernatorial candidates Katie McGinty, Tom Wolf, Allyson Schwartz and Rob McCord for a discussion on public education.
Please
click here to
register.
PSBA members in Bucks, Montgomery, Chester and Delaware
Counties
PSBA Buxmont Region 11 and Penns Grant
Region 15 Combined Region/Legislative Meeting -- Thursday, May 15, at William Tennent High School
- Buffet
dinner/registration, 6 p.m. ($8 charge for dinner) - Program, 7:30 p.m. -- Minority
Senate Education Committee Chair Hon. Andy Dinniman will introduce guest
speaker Diane Ravitch, author and education historian, and former Assistant
Secretary of Education. Retiring House
Education Committee Chairman Paul Clymer will also be honored for his long time
(1981) public service.
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, April 29th,
12-4 p.m.
Wednesday, May 14th,
1-5 p.m. and 6-8 p.m.
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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