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,
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These daily emails are archived and
searchable at http://keystonestateeducationcoalition.org
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SB1085: Haverford School
SB1085: Haverford School
Delco TImes By LOIS
PUGLIONESI, Times Correspondent 04/07/14, 11:27 PM EDT |
HAVERFORD — The board of school directors voted unanimously at
a recent meeting to approve a resolution opposing Senate Bill 1085, also known
as the charter school reform bill. The resolution maintains that SB 1085, as
currently drafted, is flawed and has potential to “negatively impact local
public schools.” Introduced by school
director and legislative liaison Larry Feinberg, the resolution calls upon
legislators to return the bill to the Education Committee for further debate. Sponsored by state Sen. Lloyd Smucker, R-13,
of Lancaster, SB 1085 would amend the Public School Code of 1949 and
“extensively revise charter school provisions.”
PA Senate panel to consider
basic education funding commission bill on Tuesday.
Capitolwire Under the Dome email April 7, 2014
The state Senate Education Committee on Tuesday plans to
consider legislation many hope will produce a new basic education funding
formula for Pennsylvania .
The bill – House Bill 1738 -
would create a 15-member commission to develop a formula to determine the
distribution of education funding to public school districts. According to the
legislation, the commission is to identify factors that will be used to
distribute the funding, such as each school district’s market value/personal
income aid ratio, equalized millage rate, geographic price differences,
enrollment levels, student poverty and local tax support. The committee is
scheduled to meet at 10:30 a.m. in Room 8-EA of the state Capitol’s East Wing.
"Few taxpayers are going to
complain about paying 42 cents a week for better roads and transit systems. The
same should also hold true for better schools.
The state is making the investment necessary to assure a functional and
efficient highway system. Isn't it time to do the same for our children?"
DN Editorial: Paving the way:
Repairs coming for highways, so can schools be next?
Philly Daiy News POSTED: Tuesday, April 8, 2014, 3:01 AM
EXPECT to see a lot of
highway road crews this spring. They
will be out in force for two reasons: Our wicked winter left behind a record
number of potholes, and PennDOT crews and contractors will be repaving and rebuilding
a record number of area roads and bridges.
As the Inquirer reported recently, 52 major highway
projects, worth about $500 million, are getting under way in the region in the
coming weeks. …None of this work comes for free. ACT 89
included provisions to increase fuel taxes and license fees over the next five
years to raise the money needed. This
year, the average driver will pay an additional $22 in taxes and fees to
support highway and mass-transit projects. It works out to 42 cents a week.
Technical schools expanding
to meet new needs
KATHY BOCCELLA, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER April 7, 2014, 1:08 AM
In one of the newest and
fastest-growing secondary schools in Chester
County Technical
College High
School
Draper, Persing, and
thousands of others are opting to learn something beyond biology, geometry, and
Shakespeare: a trade.
No consensus: The politics of reform
April
05, 2014 10:00 pm • By
Daniel Walmer, The Sentinel
Franklin
& Marshall professor and pollster Terry Madonna has seen this drama before
— over and over again, throughout 40 years of covering Pennsylvania politics. Advocates call for
the elimination of property taxes in Pennsylvania ,
bills are introduced in the Pennsylvania
legislature, and bills die without becoming law. It’s made him skeptical that comprehensive
property tax reform will ever be achieved.
“When you look at it like I have through my whole academic career — 40
years — I look at it now and say, ‘What has changed?’” he said. Polls have long showed that most
Pennsylvanians don’t like the property tax, and the reasons haven’t changed, he
said.
“The
fundamental arguments — it’s inequitable, it hurts the seniors on a fixed
income, it hurts young people who are starting out — overall, the basic arguments
are still the same,” he said.
SRC urges Supreme Court to
act soon
MARTHA WOODALL, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER Monday, April 7, 2014, 6:50 PM
The Philadelphia School
Reform Commission told the state Supreme Court on Monday it's important for the
court to rule quickly on whether the commission has the power to impose work
rule changes for teachers next fall. The
SRC's filing is the latest volley in a legal dispute between the SRC and the
Philadelphia Federation of Teachers over the powers granted to the commission
by the law that led to the 2001 state takeover of city schools. Two weeks ago, the commission asked the
state's top court to declare that it has the authority to make unilateral
work-rule changes, including disregarding seniority for teacher assignments,
transfers, layoffs, and recalls.
New arguments in legal battle
over teacher work rules; PDE and SRC press urgency
notebook by Dale
Mezzacappa on Apr 07 2014
Posted in Latest news
The legal battle over whether the School Reform
Commission has the power tounilaterally
impose new workrules on its
teachers is getting more intense with the filings of new arguments urging quick
action by the Supreme Court. In
a friend-of-the-court brief filed on Friday, the Pennsylvania
Department of Education (PDE) maintains that "the collective
bargaining agreement ... has proven a particularly high barrier to the District
effecting reforms essential to providing services in a fiscally responsible and
manageable manner." PDE says that
SRC needs the "extraordinary powers" it is seeking so
it can put the District on sound financial footing and, ultimately,
return it to local control.
By on
April 07, 2014 at 9:04 PM
The Bethlehem
Area School District plans to
modify its elementary school open-enrollment policy so parents don't have to
reapply annually. Currently, the
district allows parents to send their child to a school other than their home
elementary school with principal approval. Parents are responsible for student
transportation to the new school and they must reapply each year. This gives families flexibility to drop a
child with grandparents or a sitter before or after school and send a child to
the school that suits a family best, said Dean Donaher, director of student
services. "We are fairly generous
as long as the principal agrees there is room in the school (and it won't add staff),"
Donaher sad. About 300 of the district's
6,100 elementary school students opt for open enrollment.
In
2013 the Walton Family Foundation provided $1.87 million in grant funding to
the Philadelphia Schools Partnership
The index score is the
number of college-level tests given at a school in the previous calendar year
divided by the number of graduates that year. Also noted are the percentage of
students who come from families that qualify for lunch subsidies (Subs. lunch)
and the percentage of graduates who passed at least one college-level test
during their high school career, called equity and excellence, (E&E). A (P)
next to the school's name denotes a private school.
Uncle Sam Out: Senators
Demand Feds Keep Dollars Away from Standards
Cross-posted from the Politics
K-12 blog by Alyson Klein
Ten Republican senators
don't want to see another dime of federal money going to states in exchange for
adopting certain academic standards. That includes the Common Core State
Standards, now embraced by 45 states and the District of Columbia . The senators also
don't want any more federal funding going to develop assessments that go along
with the common core, or any other set of standards. And they've said so, in a letter sent
April 4 to U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, the chairman of the panel that
oversees K-12 spending, and Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., the top Republican on the
subcommittee. The letter suggests adding language to the bill financing the
U.S. Department of Education that essentially would bar the education secretary
from using any federal funds to bolster a particular set of standards or tests.
"Pedro Noguera, an education professor at New York
University who resigned in 2012 from the state board that grants approval of
charter schools, said the lack of constructive dialogue around charter schools
in New York
Caught in the New York City Charter School
P.S./M.S. 149 and a
Charter Run by the Success Academy Charter Schools Lie at Heart of Battle
Wall Street Journal By MARA GAY April 4, 2014 9:26
p.m. ET
Karen
McLean says she doesn't understand why the school where she sends her twin boys
is struggling, fighting for basic resources while classrooms just steps away
gleam with fresh paint and are filled with new computers and art supplies. Shea Reeder says she put her son's name into
a lottery three years ago because she wanted more for him. Ms. McLean's 8-year-old sons, Micah and
Shawkeem, attend P.S./M.S. 149, a district school on West 117th Street in Harlem
overseen by the New York City Department of Education. Ms. Reeder's 10-year-old
son George attends Harlem Central, a publicly funded charter run by the charter
network Success Academy Charter Schools.
The two Harlem schools lie at the heart of the battle over
charter-school expansion in New York ,
and Ms. Reeder and Ms. McLean said they are caught in the cross hairs.
New York TImes By ANDREA GABOR APRIL 4, 2014
LAST week, the New York State Legislature struck a deal
ensuring thatcharter schools in New York City would have
access to space, either in already crowded public school buildings or in rented
spaces largely paid for by the city. Over the next few years, charters are
expected to serve an increasing proportion of city students — perhaps as much
as 10 percent. Which brings up the question: Is there a point at which
fostering charter schools undermines traditional public schools and the
children they serve? The experience of Harlem , where nearly a quarter of students are enrolled
in charter schools, suggests that the answer is yes. High-quality charters can
be very effective at improving test scores and graduation rates. However, they
often serve fewer poorer students and children with special needs.
The Nation by Peter Rothberg on
April 6, 2014 - 6:35 PM ET
This post requires full disclosure: I could hardly be more
involved in what I'm writing about here. Not only do my two children attend PS
29, one of the main teachers involved in the story teaches my son's class, I've
personally worked with the teachers and parents trying to organize resistance
to high-stakes testing, I know a number of the Teachers Resolution's
signatories and I'm totally biased in their favor.
Now, on to our story: This past week, third through
eighth graders in New York
State New York City , the tests have an unusually
high-stakes dimension absent in most of the rest of the state (and the country)
in that students' scores can play a significant role in their admission to
middle school.
http://www.thenation.com/blog/179193/brooklyn-teachers-push-back-against-high-stakes-testing#
http://www.thenation.com/blog/179193/brooklyn-teachers-push-back-against-high-stakes-testing#
What If We Had a Test and
Nobody Took It?
Huffington Post by John Thompson Posted: 04/06/2014 4:16 pm
EDT Updated: 04/07/2014 9:25 am EDT
In a
rational world, the public school test prep season wouldn't heat up during the
winter and the first of April wouldn't signify the beginning of the high-stakes
test marathon, and the end of learning during the last quarter of the school
year. Before NCLB, testing didn't distort instruction and it was done in the
last couple of weeks of May. Now, for weeks after almost all students and
teachers have completed their roles in the ordeal, testing make-up sessions
disrupt school.
Why? Testing drags on for so long for the same
reason why so test prep is mandated. When stakes are attached to assessments, a
cat and mouse game results. Schools seek quick and easy fixes to make
accountability numbers look better and systems respond by tightening
regulations. So, under-the-gun schools are required to test 95% of students or
face sanctions. That is why teaching, learning, the completion of classroom
projects, field trips, and the celebration of sharing the school year must take
a backseat to rounding up the last test-takers.
GOP Legislators Apparently
Don't Want More Money Going To Poor Schools
Huffington
Post by Rebecca Klein
Posted: 03/27/2014 5:36 pm
Judges,
beware: Your job may be in jeopardy if you try to promote equal education for
all students, according to a Center For American Progress report out Thursday. The provocative new report outlines four
cases -- in New Jersey , Alaska ,
Kansas and Washington -- where Republican legislators tried to or threatened to punish
judges who ordered that the state give more money to disadvantaged
districts. In these cases, lawmakers attempted to halt funding for courts, oust
specific judges or restrict judicial authority to avoid providing districts
with equal financial resources.
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
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
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, 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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