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
Pennsylvania Education Policy Roundup
for May 3, 2014:
"Why can the charter school guarantee my child
art, music and gym when the School District
cannot?"
HELP NEEDED FOR PA SPECIAL ED BILL HB2138. PLEASE CALL YOUR STATE REPRESENTATIVE TODAY!
For the first time in history, Pennsylvania Pennsylvania
We do need a final push, though. Legislators need to hear about the importance
of this bill.
PLEASE CALL YOUR STATE REPRESENTATIVE TODAY.
1. Find the Harrisburg
2. Call their Harrisburg office and leave a
message, asking them to support House Bill 2138.
Education Voters PA Statewide
Call to Action May 6th
A part of the annual rite of spring, it is time to call
Harrisburg and let them know what our priorities are for the Pennsylvania
Budget! On May 6th, plan to take 15 minutes to call your State Representative,
State Senator and the Governor about the education budget. Detailed materials
will be posted here.
Education Voters of PA will be holding a Statewide
Call-to-Action for Public Education!
On May 6th, thousands of people will set aside 5 minutes to
call their state representative and senator and our governor. We will send a
message that Pennsylvanians need a fair budget that gives students the
instruction and support they need to meet state standards and provides funding
that our communities can count on. As
the budget process gets underway, it’s important that our legislators and
governor know we care about our public schools and are paying attention to what
they are doing!
April Revenues and Corporate
Taxes Plummet Below 2012-13 Levels
PA Budget and Policy
Center
Something emerged from April’s revenue results[1]that is troubling –
and has a longer lasting impact on the Commonwealth’s ability to make critical
investments in education, health care, and infrastructure than merely missing
revenue targets. Revenue collections are now $87 million, or 0.4%, less than
they were at this point in 2012-13 – and this shortfall is largely our own
doing. While personal income and sales taxes have grown by $242 million, or
1.4% collectively, from last year (as could be expected in a slowly growing
economy), corporate tax collections have dropped by $292 million compared to
last year.
The reduction in corporate tax collections from last year is
not due to flagging profits or economic conditions, but can be traced back to
tax cuts enacted in recent years.
"Why can the charter school guarantee
my child art, music and gym when the School District
cannot? Where is the equity if a charter school is able to fund multiple
administrators and counselors in each of their buildings, but the School District is barely able to fund one principal? Why
can a charter school bring the promise of fresh paint and new desks, when the School District cannot afford soap for the dispensers in
the bathrooms? "
On Defining Moments, Honesty
and Looking Behind the Curtain: How Philly School Families Are Fighting Back
Huffington
Post by Hillary Linardopoulos, Former teacher at Julia de Burgos Elementary
School; now union activist in Philadelphia ,
PA
Recently, two School
District of Philadelphia
But, no excuses, the School District
tells our children. Failure is failure, and your school is not up to par; a
charter school is the best choice. And
in a bizarre, misguided and certainly ineffective means of claiming to listen
to the parents of the affected school communities, the School
District has declared that the parents will vote on the
conversion.
Steel parents
favor keeping it a district school
KRISTEN A. GRAHAM, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER LAST
UPDATED: Saturday, May 3, 2014, 1:08 AM lPOSTED: Friday, May 2, 2014,
8:49 PM
PHILADELPHIA Parents at a city
public school that has faced possible conversion to a charter have voted
decisively to have their school remain part of the Philadelphia School
District
District officials singled out
Steel Elementary, in Nicetown, for poor academic performance and presented
parents with a choice: Stay with the district or become part of the Mastery
Charter Schools network. According to
results announced by district officials Friday, 121 parents want Steel to
remain a traditional district school and 55 want to align with Mastery.
In a separate vote, nine members
of the school's advisory council chose Mastery and eight wanted a district-led
transformation.
Parents at Steel vote to keep
school under District control; SAC goes for Mastery
the
notebook by Bill Hangley Jr. on May 02 2014 Posted in Latest news
The parents at Steel Elementary
School
About 800 parents and
guardians were eligible to vote, Gallard said.
Steel parents win decisive
vote to keep school public
Posted on May 2, 2014 by 3
Comments
Parents United for Public
Education Statement on Decisive Parent Victory Vote at Steel School
Today the parent
community of Steel
School
The power of parent
voice in this decision cannot be underscored. Parents went up against a District
– and in particular Deputy Supt. Paul Kihn – who had been operating less than
honestly around the establishment of achievement networks run by third-party
providers. Parents refused Paul Kihn’s punishing message of shame and failure.
He used test scores and lack of resources as a battering ram to divest the
District of its central responsibility to educate the children in its care. In
doing so, parents did not just expose the hollow promises of rapidly expanding
charter operators. They demanded a new vision from school leaders who are
altogether wholly lacking in any District public school vision.
Split voting results at Steel
Elementary bring on the spin cycle
WHYY Newsworks BY KEVIN
MCCORRY MAY 2, 2014
The results are in from an unusual election in Philadelphia 's Nicetown
section.
Parents at Steel
Elementary School
In the absence of decisive recommendation, both sides declared
victory.
By on May
02, 2014 at 4:20 PM
The Department of
Education has granted
exceptions to 164 school districts allowing them to raise property taxes more
than the 2.1 percent index for the 2014-2015 school year.
With the exemptions, 81
districts will be able to meet their preliminary budgets without further
taxing, according to the Department of Education. Under Act 1, the
other 83 have a choice of cutting back the preliminary budget they submitted to
the department or asking voters on the May primary ballot for permission to
further increase property taxes.
By Frank Warner, Of The Morning Call
12:02 a.m. EDT, May 3, 2014
Teachers in the Easton Area
School District
By on May
02, 2014 at 9:33 PM
Easton
Area School Districtteachers were willing to take a one-year pay freeze but
balked at the district's call for a two-year freeze, which they say called for
salary rollbacks, according to the teachers union president. Union President Jena Brodhead said in an
email the district administration's proposal called for two years of salary
rollbacks and increased insurance contributions and deductibles. Even if the
union had accepted the proposal, 29 jobs would have been cut through attrition,
she said.
12 Problems
with Charter Schools
Are there good charter schools?
You might be surprised to hear my short answer to this question, which is
“yes.” Many people I talk to these days assume that I am entirely anti-charter.
That’s not true. However, I do have some concerns about the way that charters
currently operate in Pennsylvania and their outcomes for students. Twelve
concerns, to be precise, which we’ll get to in a moment. First, the good news: Southwest Pennsylvania
has several high-quality charter schools, six of which were just named in a
report by Rep. James Roebuck as “high performing.” (Although the study uses the
state’s new School Performance Profile (SPP) scores to make that determination,
which I have argued is a poor way
to understand school quality.) The report separates the high-performing
charter schools into two groups based on how many students they serve who are
living in poverty. [Charter
and Cyber Charter School Reform Update, April 2014]
NY Teachers Question
Pay-for-Performance Element in Proposed Contract
New York Times By AL BAKER
MAY 2, 2014
It is a concept sprung from the
marketplace, and was long a gleam in Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s eye: offering
extra pay for the city’s best public school teachers.
A deal for that sort of citywide
plan was struck by his successor, Mayor Bill de Blasio, and the union
for New York City’s 80,000 public school teachers this week, as part of a
new contract that also offered across-the-board raises of 18 percent
over nine years. But while the idea
seemed, at first glance, not to be controversial, it has left some teachers
clamoring for details and has raised concerns in others about favoritism,
differentiating pay and tipping schools’ collegial climates into
ultracompetitiveness.
Network for Public
Education News Briefs 2 May 2014
Contrary to Kasich’s and
Sawyers’ belief that the 3rd Grade Guarantee will lower the dropout rate, this
blog has covered a mass of expert research demonstrating that repeating a grade
is not only unlikely to improve reading but also very likely to result in
students dropping out later as they become over-age in grade during
adolescence. Expert research,
however, hasn’t stopped the American Legislative Exchange Council from
developing and distributing across the legislatures of the 50 states model
legislation to require that children pass the standardized reading test before
they can be promoted to fourth grade.
Public Citizens for Children and Youth
(PCCY) will Host an Education Funding Forum in Delaware County
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 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.
Just added - Acting Secretary of Education Carolyn Dumaresq
will be the after-dinner speaker on May 5.
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.
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.
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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