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Keystone State Education Coalition
PA Ed Policy Roundup for June
26, 2014:
Are PA cyber charters
overpaid? How about a $120.8 million
budget with a $40.7 million fund balance?
Are PA cyber charters overpaid?
How about a $120.8 million budget with a
$40.7 million fund balance?
BTW, PA Cyber's 2013 PA School Performance
Profile score was 59.4
·
"For regular education students, the district PA Cyber
gets the most from is Lower Merion School District
near Philadelphia
·
The lowest is Hazelton
Area School
District
·
For special education students, Bryn
Athyn School
District in Montgomery
County near Philadelphia
·
The lowest special education rate is St. Mary’s School District , which pays $12,883.93 per student."
PA Cyber trustees approve
$120.82M budget for 2014-15
By Tom Davidson tdavidson@timesonline.com
The difference will be made up using cash from the school's
$40.7 million fund balance.
PA Cyber is reimbursed at a rate of between 70 percent to 80
percent of the per-pupil expenditure of each student’s home district -- a
figure that varies across the state, according to PA Cyber Chief Executive
Officer Michael Conti.
“You see a wide range across the state,” Conti said.
PA Cyber trustees approve
$5.7 million building project
By Tom Davidson tdavidson@timesonline.com
Published: Wednesday, June 25, 2014 4:00 am
"Public schools would see an extra $100 million,
including $70 million for instruction and operations, $20 million for special
education and $10 million for school construction projects. But the new, $340
million "Ready to Learn" block grant program proposed by Corbett in
his February budget plan was jettisoned from the House budget."
Senate prepares for House's
$29.1B GOP budget plan
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A $29.1 billion Republican-penned budget
plan that makes higher payments to public schools, human services and public
pension funds passed late Wednesday but was headed for certain changes in the
Senate as the new fiscal year closed in and Democrats accused Republicans of
assembling an irresponsible budget.
The bill, made public barely two days ago, passed, 110-93, with
every Democrat and one Republican opposing it. Five days are left in the fiscal
year, and senators seemed likely to have their own ideas about where to find
the revenues, particularly because the House plan relies on $380 million from
the unlikely sell-off of the state's wine and liquor operations.
AMY WORDEN, INQUIRER
HARRISBURG
BUREAU LAST UPDATED: Thursday, June 26, 2014, 1:08 AM
POSTED: Wednesday, June 25, 2014, 6:17 PM
The Senate could approve the bill as early as Friday and send
it to the governor's desk. But legislative leaders say negotiations will likely
continue through the weekend.
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/20140626_Pa__House_approves_controversial_budget_and_sends_it_to_the_Senate.html#DxG1tQYc4uRkAEj7.99
By on
June 25, 2014 at 6:12 PM, updated June 25, 2014 at 8:10 PM
In a nearly
straight 110-93 party-line vote, the state House moved a $29.1
billion state general fund budget for
2014-15 to the Senate. The plan serves
as the House's opening position in the final round of budget talks with the
Senate and Corbett administration that will take place over the next few days
as they try to finalize a budget before the July 1 start of the new fiscal
year.
The House-passed budget
represents a 1.9 percent, or $536 million, increase over this year.
It spends $300 million
less than Gov. Tom Corbett budget proposed in February in recognition of the
persistent shortfalls in state tax collections.
The plan provides $10.3 billion for K-12 education including the first
increase in seven years for special education.
"With no new taxes included, the funding plan relies on
$380 million from the sale of the state liquor stores, legislation widely
understood to be dead. Democrats accused
the Republicans of offering a "phony budget" and suggested the liquor
store sales were only a placeholder for a natural gas extraction tax to be
added by the Senate."
Senators discussing mix
of taxes to help close Pennsylvania
Tribune Review By Brad
Bumsted Wednesday, June 25, 2014, 6:45 p.m.
HARRISBURG —
Taxes on natural gas, cigarettes, snuff and cigars, and forgoing a scheduled
business tax reduction are part of the potential budget plan under discussion
by Senate leaders of both parties, Minority Leader Jay Costa said Wednesday. Costa, D-Forest Hills, said lawmakers need to
raise money to fill gaps between tax collections and spending in a
House-passed, $29.1 billion budget that includes $380 million from privatizing
liquor sales, something the Senate isn't likely to embrace. He said the House version isn't a real
budget: “It's built on smoke and mirrors.”
The House approved its plan 110-93.
“It's being held together by tape and rubber bands,” said Rep.
Joe Markosek of Monroeville , ranking Democrat
on the House Appropriations Committee. The
state faces a deficit of at least $1.4 billion. Markosek said the deficit may
be closer to $1.7 billion.
House Majority Leader Mike Turzai, R-Bradford Woods, called it
a “compassionate and prioritized” budget.
“Education will be at its highest level ever — $10.3 billion,” Turzai
said, calling the proposal an “exceptionally responsible budget.”
The Senate is expected to amend the budget and send it back.
The Real Question About the
Budget
Politically
Uncorrected Blog by G. Terry Madonna & Michael L.Young June 25, 2014
People are asking lots of good questions lately about Pennsylvania ’s proposed
2014/2015 budget. But few are raising what may be the most urgent question of
all: why are state revenues down this year--more than a half billion dollars
amid a national economic recovery? Indeed,
Pennsylvania ’s
revenue shortfall contrasts markedly with most other states. Revenues in 80
percent of the other 49 states will meet or beat budget projections this year.
Pennsylvania
is one of only 11 that will not. Pennsylvania ’s revenue
gap, along with projected spending, leaves a budget deficit of at least $1.4
billion. The problem is so severe that Gov. Tom Corbett and his notoriously
tax-averse administration are furiously signaling they might consider new
taxes, including a Marcellus Shale extraction tax.
If Lancaster
County 's Poorest, Most Tax-Strapped
School District
A Lancaster Newspapers Special Report By Jeff Hawkes, Susan Baldrige and Gil Smart
Photography by Casey Kreider, Richard Hertzler, Jeff Ruppenthal and Blaine Shahan
Photography by Casey Kreider, Richard Hertzler, Jeff Ruppenthal and Blaine Shahan
In Columbia
on a frigid February morning, students without a ride to school walked.
On sidewalks between high snow banks, they passed art galleries
and tattoo parlors, Club Good Times and the National Watch
Museum
The kids walked because the compact, 1,310-student district
doesn’t run buses.
It never has, which in these challenging times for all school
districts is a rare financial advantage.
"Michael Rock, a Unionville-Chadds Ford school board
member, said the district needed to push back more often against top-down
policies. "I have thought for a
long time that we are passive recipients of everything that gets imposed on us
from the outside," Rock said at the board's June 16 meeting."
MICHAELLE BOND, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER LAST UPDATED: June 26, 2014, 1:08 AM
Saying stricter federal
nutrition guidelines are too much to swallow, the Unionville-Chadds Ford
School District
The district's middle
school and four elementary schools will still participate.
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/local/20140626_Chester_County_school_district_to_forgo_U_S__lunch_guidelines.html#SUGjDaPkXZ8C7Hmr.99
A+Schools June 2014 Pittsburgh
A+Schools June 24, 2014 2:21 pm
Since the launch of Board Watch in January 2009, A+ Schools
has issued 20 report cards on Pittsburgh
School
Below is the twentieth Board Watch report card based on
volunteer assessments. The current report card reflects assessments from
March through May. Overall, the School Board maintained a B–
average.
Wilkinsburg furloughs 11
teachers, appoints acting superintendent
By Mary Niederberger / Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette June 24, 2014 11:20 PM
The Wilkinsburg school board
swallowed a bitter pill Tuesday when it approved a $27.7 million budget that
furloughs 11 teachers, two guidance counselors, two secretaries and a custodian
to free up funds to make improvements to the curriculum in grades 7-12. The budget further reduces the teaching staff
by not including replacements for five other teachers who are retiring.
….The board also approved the appointment of Linda Hippert,
executive director of the Allegheny Intermediate Unit, as the acting
superintendent effective July 1, to replace Donna Micheaux, who was hired in
March but recently accepted a position as deputy superintendent at Pittsburgh
Public Schools. Mrs. Hippert will
provide her services to the district at no cost while it searches for a
permanent replacement.
"The board also voted at the meeting to furlough three
teachers, including an auto mechanics teacher at the high school, a family and
consumer science teacher at Founders
Hall Middle
School
McKeesport Area school board approves budget, increases taxes
McKeesport Area school board approves budget, increases taxes
Post-Gazette By Deana
Carpenter June
26, 2014 12:41 AM
School directors in McKeesport Area School District
The average property
owner in McKeesport
will see a $25 to $30 increase in school taxes as a result.
AMITY — The Daniel Boone School Board approved a $53,633,344
budget with no tax increase for 2014-15 by a 6-3 vote Monday night. Taxes will remain at 28.9618 mills, meaning
properties assessed at $100,000 will pay $2,896 in property taxes. All programs also remain at all district
buildings next year. The budget was
balanced with the use of $330,000 in bond swap revenue, $100,000 in Title I
grant funds for a basic reading skills teacher salary (and a daytime instead of
after school program), as well as $1.1 million from the district’s $3.4 million
fund balance.
ECS seeks city school board’s
OK to expand
By Eleanor Chute / Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette June 26, 2014 12:12 AM
When the first group of 58 eighth-graders at the Environmental
Charter School at Frick Park graduated last week, they officially were
scattered to a variety of high schools, from Pittsburgh CAPA 6-12 to City
Charter High School to Penn Hills High School, but if the city school board
approves an expansion of the charter, the eighth-grade Class of 2017 will be
able to go to a high school that ECS will operate in the former Letsche
building in the Hill District.
It would start with 75 to 100 ninth-graders and grow to about
400, one grade at a time. Pittsburgh Public Schools no longer owns Letsche. Besides the high school, the charter school,
which has 605 students and hundreds more on its waiting list, seeks to open a
second K-8 school of similar size in fall 2015, starting with 288 students in
K-3.
Sporting chance: The PIAA
passes a sensible mixed-gender rule
Post
Gazette Editorial June 26, 2014 12:00 AM
Among the life lessons
that sports teach, fair play may be the most important. But how fair is it for
a boy with a big physical advantage to play field hockey on a girls’ team? It
isn’t fair — yet it has been a common sight in Western
Pennsylvania and elsewhere in the state, not only for field hockey
but other girls’ sports, too. The
presence of boys on girls’ teams came about because of a well-intentioned Commonwealth Court
ruling in 1975. It held that a Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic
Association bylaw forbidding girls from practicing or competing against boys
was unconstitutional.
Women In Computer Science Day
2014
Each year, the University
of Pennsylvania ’s School of Engineering Philadelphia
area high school girls visited Penn Engineering to learn about the various
academic and career opportunities possible in this vital field. Women are underrepresented in computer
science and engineering majors. Research shows that if girls do not have a
computer scientist or engineer in the family, they often have little access to
information about careers in these fields. The goal of this annual event is to
show girls interested in science or math what computer scientists and engineers
do, and to encourage them to study these disciplines in college.
Standard & Poor’s rates
outlook for charter school sector as ‘negative’
Standard & Poor’s has issued a new report
that extends its “negative” outlook for the charter school sector. Of
214 public charter school ratings done by the agency, 41, or 19 percent, are
negative while only 4 — or 2 percent — are positive. Furthermore, it says,
funding has not generally “returned to pre-recessionary levels, and some
schools are struggling to operate in this “new normal.’”
Here’s the complete report:
"Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Tuesday that his
department for the first time will also consider outcomes: How well
special-education students score on standardized tests, the gap in test scores
between students with and without disabilities, the high school graduation rate
for disabled students and other measures of achievement."
Education Department to weigh outcomes
Post Gazette by Lyndsey Layton / The Washington Post June 24, 2014 11:51 PM
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is tightening its
oversight of the way states educate special-needs students, applying
more-stringent criteria that drop the number of jurisdictions in compliance
with federal law from 38 to 15. Congress
has guaranteed severely disabled students the right to a “free and appropriate”
education since 1975. The 1990 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or
IDEA, requires public schools to meet the educational needs of students with
disabilities, an estimated 7 million students. The federal Education
Department distributes $11.5 billion annually to states to help pay for special
education and monitors their performance.
Until now, the agency considered whether states evaluated
students for special needs in a timely manner, whether they reported
information to the federal government and met other procedural benchmarks.
Converting Catholic Schools
to Charters Draws Scrutiny
Education Week By Arianna Prothero Published Online: June 10,
2014
Leaders at a private Roman Catholic school in St. Louis are preparing for a big change:
They are planning to give up the inner-city institution's religious identity to
become a public charter school, so they can serve more low-income families. The reason is financial. De La Salle Middle
School—which now serves about 70 students and has a focus on getting disadvantaged
students on track for college—will have access to public funding. Although such conversions to charter status
are rare, a number of Roman Catholic schools have done so in recent years.
Often, the move is sparked by a concern that otherwise the school would have to
close.
Join the Notebook!
Become a Member!
The Notebook invites all of our readers
to join
us now, as members by signing up on our "Donate"
page. Our reporting depends on the continued generous support and
contributions from our growing Notebook membership. In 2013,
we reached more than 500 memberships! Thanks to all of our supporters. Don't forget to renew or join for this calendar year. Help us
reach 600+ members in 2014! We're
excited about this program as a way to recognize your support, give you some
extra perks, and support our work and sustainability. Learn more about our work here.
Membership starts at $40 for the 2014 calendar year. Learn
more about the membership
levels here. You can also give the gift of Notebook membership.
Pre-K for PA has supporters
all over the greater Philadelphia
We need your help -- join an upcoming phone bank. Join
a fun gathering of like minds in Philadelphia
and Conshohocken on Wednesday evenings throughout the summer. We are
calling fellow Pre-K for PA supporters to build local volunteer teams.
Call a Pre-K Friend in Philly:
UnitedWay Building 1709 Ben Franklin Parkway
Wed July 9, 5-7 PM
Wed July 30, 5-7 PM
United
Wed July 9, 5-7 PM
Wed July 30, 5-7 PM
Call a Pre-K Friend in Mont Co:
Anne's House242 Barren
Hill Road
Wed July 16, 5-7pm
Wed July 30, 5-7pm
Anne's House
Wed July 16, 5-7pm
Wed July 30, 5-7pm
RSVP: http://salsa3.salsalabs.com/o/51084/c/10476/p/salsa/web/common/public/signup?signup_page_KEY=9390
Monday, June 30 Statewide
Call to Action for Public Education
Education Voters PA
It is hard to imagine, but the PA House advanced a state budget
in Harrisburg
that is far worse for public schools than the budget Governor Corbett
proposed earlier this year.
The PA House is calling to eliminate the $241 million increase
in state funding for proposed Ready to Learn Block grants and replace this with
a paltry $70 million increase in Basic Education Funding.Under the House
budget, PA school districts would lose about 70% of the increases in state
funding they were expecting to receive this year, funding that they were
relying on to balance their budgets.
The House budget is irresponsible and unacceptable. It
does not call for a shale tax or a cigarette tax. Instead, it relies on
the sale of state liquor stores (which the Senate has so far not supported),
gimmicky sources of one-time funding, and the suspension of selected tax
credits to balance the budget.
Budget negotiations are just beginning. While the budget
is still fluid and negotiations are taking place, advocates must speak out
loudly and with one voice in support of responsible funding for public schools
this year. If we don't speak up, public education will likely receive
little more than scraps in the budget this year.
Mark your calendar for Monday, June 30th – and do 3
things in 10 minutes to make a difference!
PA Basic Ed. Funding
Campaign: Building capacity to advocate for adequate, equitable school funding
PSBA website 6/10/2014
The Pennsylvania Basic Education Funding Campaign seeks up to
ten (10) regional "circuit riders" statewide to work with and support
school system leaders to build capacity and advocate for an adequate and
equitable school funding system.
Regional Circuit Riders Contract Employment Announcement
The Pennsylvania Basic Education Funding Campaign seeks up to
ten (10) regional "circuit riders" statewide to work with and support
school system leaders to build capacity and advocate for an adequate and
equitable school funding system. Circuit riders will support school system
leaders by providing education and training about past and current school
funding systems, principles and models of good school funding systems and
effective advocacy strategies using information and materials provided by the
Campaign. School system leaders include school directors, Intermediate Unit
executive directors, district superintendents, business managers and other key
school district leaders. Building
capacity among Pennsylvania school system leaders to advocate for an adequate
and equitable school funding system is one component of a broader multi-year
effort that involves more than 25 organizations across Pennsylvania. This
component is a collaborative effort of the PA Association of School Business
Officials (PASBO), PA Association of School Administrators (PASA), PA School
Boards Association (PSBA), PA Association of Rural and Small Schools (PARSS)
and PA Association of Intermediate Units (PAIU). PASBO serves as the fiscal
agent for the collaborative.
- See more at: http://www.psba.org/news-publications/headlines/details.asp?id=7943#sthash.rYZzUteD.dpuf
EPLC Education Issues
Workshop for Legislative Candidates, Campaign Staff, and Interested Voters -
Harrisburg July 31
Register Now! EPLC will again be hosting
an Education Issues Workshop for Legislative Candidates, Campaign Staff,
and Interested Voters. This nonpartisan, one-day program will take place
on Thursday, July 31 in Harrisburg. Space is limited. Click here to learn more about workshop and
to register.
PSBA opens nominations for
the Timothy M. Allwein Advocacy Award
The nomination process is now open for the Timothy M. Allwein Advocacy Award. This award may be presented annually to the individual school director or entire school board to recognize outstanding leadership in legislative advocacy efforts on behalf of public education and students that are consistent with the positions in PSBA’s Legislative Platform. Applications will be accepted until July 16, 2014. The July 16 date was picked in honor of Timothy M. Allwein's birthday. The award will be presented during the PASA-PSBA School Leadership Conference in October. More details and application are available on PSBA's website.
The nomination process is now open for the Timothy M. Allwein Advocacy Award. This award may be presented annually to the individual school director or entire school board to recognize outstanding leadership in legislative advocacy efforts on behalf of public education and students that are consistent with the positions in PSBA’s Legislative Platform. Applications will be accepted until July 16, 2014. The July 16 date was picked in honor of Timothy M. Allwein's birthday. The award will be presented during the PASA-PSBA School Leadership Conference in October. More details and application are available on PSBA's website.
Education
Policy and Leadership Center
Click
here to read more about EPLC’s Education Policy Fellowship Program, including:
2014-15 Schedule 2014-15 Application Past Speakers Program Alumni And More
Information
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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