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Keystone State Education Coalition
PA Ed Policy Roundup for
August 28, 2014:
Wolf's lead in Pa.
Louisiana Gov.
Bobby Jindal to Sue Ed. Dept., Sec. Duncan
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, a
Republican, plans to file a lawsuit Wednesday against the U.S. Department of
Education and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan for its role in forcing
states to adopt the Common Core State Standards and aligned assessments. The 29-page
lawsuit, to be filed at the U.S. District Court's Middle District of
Louisiana, argues that Race to the Top, the administration's signature
competitive-grant program, used federal money to coerce states into adopting
the common core and herded them toward a national curriculum.
It also charges that the
administration's offer of No Child Left Behind Act waivers similarly forced
states to adopt the standards and aligned assessments, and that the education
secretary has no legal authority to offer waivers on a conditional basis. Taken together, the grant competition and
waivers represent "an attempt by the executive branch to implement
national education reform far beyond the intentions of Congress," the
lawsuit states.
"But Madonna said he has learned over
decades in the business that his polls don't decide elections. Voters do.
"What I will say is he faces an uphill challenge the likes of which
no incumbent governor [in Pennsylvania
With about two
months to go, Tom Wolf's lead in Pa.
By Christina
Kauffman | ckauffman@pennlive.com on August 28, 2014 at 4:00 AM
With 67 days to the gubernatorial
election, a poll released Thursday painted a slightly higher peak on the
hill Gov. Tom
Corbett must climb to overtake Democratic challenger Tom Wolf. Wolf leads the race by 25 points in the poll,
completed by the Center for Opinion Research at Franklin &
Marshall College, for which 520 registered voters were interviewed between
Aug. 18-25. If the election had
been held on the day the voters took the poll, Wolf would've taken 49 percent
of the vote to Corbett's 24 percent, with 25 percent of voters undecided,
according to the poll. View the entire poll at the bottom of this entry.
"This is evidenced by data from the Pennsylvania Association of Rural and Small Schools
State Senator Matt Smith / Let’s reform education funding
State Senator Matt Smith / Let’s reform education funding
The opportunity to come up with a fair formula for
schools must be seized
Post-Gazette Opinion By state Sen.
Matt Smith August 27, 2014 12:00 AM
The back-to-school season is marked
by sales of new backpacks and school supplies. As parents ensure that their
kids are prepared to advance to the next grade and start the school year on the
right foot, districts are also working to make sure they are prepared to meet
the needs of students and help them excel.
That challenge has become increasingly difficult in recent years as
schools grapple with less state funding for basic education, more uncertainty
from the state and in many cases glaring student achievement gaps. These are
issues the Basic Education Funding Commission will be working on in the months
ahead.
Editorial:
Let's address school funding problem now
Chambersburg
Public Opinion UPDATED: 08/27/2014
02:58:27 PM EDT
We applaud — skeptically — the
recent efforts in Harrisburg to build consensus and momentum for changing the
state's broken method of funding public schools. A group of former school executives — dubbed
education circuit riders — plans to travel the state for a year to mobilize
local school officials to advocate in their communities for reform. Meanwhile a
new state commission charged with recommending a new school funding formula by
June 2015 is beginning work. In a
nutshell, the systems of both generating and distributing funds to school
districts no longer work. The new commission is focused on coming up with a
means to distribute state funds fairly and adequately. A legislative effort has
focused on shifting local reliance from property taxes to sales and personal
income taxes.
School leaders
hitting the road to rally support for a new school funding formula
By Jan Murphy |
jmurphy@pennlive.com on August 27, 2014 at 11:56 AM
A group of public school leaders
will begin moving about the state to trumpet a statewide coalition's
push for a fairer and predictable funding formula for school districts.
These leaders connected with the
coalition of more than 40 groups called the Basic Education Funding Campaign
are calling attention to the fact that it has been over two decades since Pennsylvania
"If some students are able to
walk into a classroom that have laptops available to them, why can't all
students in the state walk into a classroom that have laptops available to
them," said Patricia Sanker, a former South Middleton
School District
Kelley named one of 11 "circuit riders"
AM 1160
One of the so-called “regional
circuit riders” who will be traveling across the commonwealth is quite familiar
with the Indiana Williamsport School
District Indiana for Williamsport
The circuit riders are being
deployed by the Pennsylvania Education Leadership Associations, a coalition
ofthe state Association of School Administrators, School Boards Association,
Association of School Business Officials, Association of Rural
and SmallSchools and Association of Intermediate Units.
BY MARY WILSON AUGUST 27, 2014
A report compiled
by the state's largest teachers union is linking education funding cuts to
lower student achievement. The
Pennsylvania State Education Association says standardized test scores dropped
in reading and math for third- through sixth-graders in the school years
2010-11 through 2012-13, according to state data. The examined period includes the year before
Gov. Tom Corbett took office and the first two years of his term.
This is the first report of its
kind, and PSEA researchers said it's being released now because it took a while
for them to get the right data. That said, the organization is a big political
spender, and an unrelenting critic of Corbett.
"We didn't time it this way, it was just, we had the
research," said President Mike Crossey. "The fact that it's coming
out in a political season, you know, I'm certain that it'll be used
politically." Tim Eller, spokesman
for the Department of Education, said the report lacks credibility because of
its source.
Teachers union:
Poor school districts hurt most by funding cuts
By Karen Langley / Post-Gazette Harrisburg
But Democrats and education groups
argue that Mr. Corbett eliminated or reduced other funding streams, such as the
$224 million that partially reimbursed districts for payments made to charter
schools, leaving districts in a hole.
"Wolf pledges to restore overall
education funding to pre-recessionary levels by instituting a higher tax on
natural gas drilling, accepting the federal Medicaid expansion and raising
income taxes."
Wolf gets warm
welcome from Philadelphia
BY KEVIN MCCORRY AUGUST 27, 2014
Under a blazing August sun, Pennsylvania Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tom Wolf
practiced the politics of friendly with red-shirted members of the Philadelphia
Federation of Teachers at Solis-Cohen
Elementary School
"For an ever-growing number of young
people all around the city, this fearlessness is being directed into supporting
their own neighborhood schools. Millennials, it's been said, "think
globally and act locally." They are philosophically committed to public
education and have chosen to raise their children in the city."
The future of
city schools rests with you fearless, bike-pedaling millennials
the notebook By Christine
Carlson on Aug 26, 2014 10:00 AM
Christine Carlson is a
public school parent and the founder of the Greater Center City Neighborhood
Schools Coalition.
Frequent Inquirer contributor
Clark DeLeon recently wrote that he “has given up on the
Philadelphia public schools." He asks why any young person would want to
send their kids to a public school here and wonders where the fearlessness of
“the endless stream of young, hip parents biking their helmeted toddlers
through Center City traffic or adjoining neighborhoods” goes when it comes time
to choose a school. I’m not a millennial
(I was born at the tail end of the baby boom), but I can answer his question.
"William R. Hite Jr., Philadelphia
School District superintendent, hailed the new resource, which he said could
help spur more high-quality early childhood education options. "If we could do only one thing to change
the trajectory of student outcomes, it is this thing," Hite said at a news
conference."
Web tool helps
find high-quality child care, preschools
KRISTEN A. GRAHAM, INQUIRER
STAFF WRITER LAST UPDATED: Thursday, August 28, 2014, 1:09 AM POSTED: Wednesday,
August 27, 2014, 5:43 PM
In a city with more than 2,000
child-care and preschool facilities, just 15 percent are considered "high
quality" by education advocates. And information about them is tough to
come by.
A coalition of local nonprofits on
Wednesday launched a Web tool to attempt to make it easier for parents to find
strong programs in their area.
Read charter
operators' responses to York
York Daily Record UPDATED:
08/27/2014 10:33:08 AM EDT
Community members submitted more
than 350 questions for seven charter operators interested in taking over one or
more York City School District buildings in the future.
The operators made presentations at
a recent Community Education Council meeting, and community members had one day
to email in questions. The operators returned answers within a couple of days,
and those were given to the Community Education Council members, who completed
preliminary evaluations of the operators.
The evaluations put Mosaica Education and Charter Schools USA at the top
of the pack. David Meckley, the district's chief recovery officer, recommended
focusing on those two operators for further investigation.
Below, you can read the questions
and answers from the seven operators. Some questions were aimed at particular
providers, and other questions were more broad.
Charter renewal
process begins for Phoenixville's Renaissance
Academy
By Frank Otto, The Mercury POSTED: 08/27/14, 4:27 PM EDT |
PHOENIXVILLE — Per state law, the
Phoenixville Area School Board will review Renaissance Academy
SD-26:
McGarrigle Announces Support for Severance Tax
PoliticsPA
Written by Nick Field, Managing Editor August 27, 2014
It’s not every day a Republican
supports a tax, let alone a tax on natural gas drilling. Yet Tom McGarrigle is
out to prove the conventional wisdom wrong.
The contest for the State Senate’s 26th
district is one
of the most competitive in the commonwealthand could very well determine
control of the chamber. GOP nominee Tom
McGarrigle sought to illustrate his policy (and moderate) bona fides by calling
for a 4% severance tax on natural gas drilling in an
op-ed for the Delaware County Daily Times.
High-quality
early education is essential for Pa.’s children
Post-Gazette Opinion by FLOYD TITUS
August 27, 2014 12:00 AM
The
writer is CEO/president of J. Feltric Metals, board member of Allies for
Children and board member of the Thelma Lovette YMCA.
As a father, grandfather, businessman and city of Pittsburgh resident, I am elated by U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s announcement regarding the $250 million preschool development grants competition. Mr. Duncan’s visit hit home — literally, since he met with children attending my Hill District neighborhood’s Hug Me Tight Child Life Center (“City Gears Up to Seek Federal Aid to Boost Early Childhood Education,”Aug. 14). The grants confirm this administration’s commitment to early childhood education and our country’s future. It also illustrates challenges many children face when entering kindergarten unprepared to do their best, because they did not attend preschool.
As a father, grandfather, businessman and city of Pittsburgh resident, I am elated by U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s announcement regarding the $250 million preschool development grants competition. Mr. Duncan’s visit hit home — literally, since he met with children attending my Hill District neighborhood’s Hug Me Tight Child Life Center (“City Gears Up to Seek Federal Aid to Boost Early Childhood Education,”Aug. 14). The grants confirm this administration’s commitment to early childhood education and our country’s future. It also illustrates challenges many children face when entering kindergarten unprepared to do their best, because they did not attend preschool.
Michael Rubinkam Associated
Press UPDATED: 08/28/2014
01:50:11 AM EDT
Long seen as a way out of poverty,
higher education eludes most students at Reading High. The public schools here
are plagued by low test scores in reading, math and science; the school
district has one of the highest dropout rates in the state; and, in a city
where almost 60 percent of the population is Hispanic, many students' parents
speak little or no English.
Yet, as another school year gets
underway, Reading's Alvernia University is placing a $10 million bet that it
can help kids in one of the nation's poorest cities get ready to do college
work — and to succeed once they get there.
In Florida , Lee
County
Emily Atteberry, eatteberry@news-press.com10:04 p.m. EDT August 27, 2014
Lee Schools made history Wednesday
night when they voted to become the first school district in the state to opt
out of all statewide, standardized tests.
The motion passed three to two with the support of board members
Armstrong, Tom Scott and Mary Fischer. The decision was received with
overwhelming cheers and applause in the packed auditorium of opt-out supporters
who donned red in an act of solidarity. "Sometimes
it takes an act of civil disobedience to move forward," said board member
Don Armstrong. "We cannot allow the fear to hold us back."
Fischer, who was initially
reluctant to support the vote, served as the vote's tie breaker.
"No matter what else is going
on, teachers go on and they teach the students," she said. "If this
is our window of opportunity, I hope we make the best of it."
While the news was met with
jubilation, Superintendent Nancy Graham said she was deeply concerned about the
board's decision.
America's
public schools remain highly segregated
Urban Institute Metro Trends Blog Author: Reed
Jordan | Posted: August 27th, 2014
Fifty million children will start
school this week as historic changes are under way in the U.S. public school
system. As of 2011 48 percent of all public school students were poor* and
this year, students of color will account for the majority of public school students for the first time in US
history. What is surprising about
these shifts is that they are not leading to more diverse schools. In
fact, the Civil Rights Project has shown that black students
are just as segregated today as they were in in the late 1960s, when serious
enforcement of desegregation plans first began following the passage of the
1964 Civil Rights Act.
Despite our country’s growing
diversity, our public schools provide little contact between white students and students of
color. We’ve mapped data
about the racial composition of US public schools to shed light on
today’s patterns at the county level. These maps show that America’s public
schools are highly segregated by race and income, with the declining
share of white students typically concentrated in schools with other white
students and the growing share of Latino students concentrated into low-income
public schools with other students of color.
The Con
Artistry of Charter Schools
Once an effort to improve public education, the charter
school movement has transformed into a money-making venture.
In These Times BY RUTH CONNIFF August
20,2014
'Instead, they divert public
monies to pay their six-figure salaries; hire uncertified, transient,
non-unionized teachers on the cheap; and do not admit (or fail to appropriately
serve) students who are costly, such as those with disabilities.'
There’s been a flood of local news
stories in recent months about FBI raids on charter schools all over the
country. From Pittsburgh to Baton
Rouge, from Hartford to Cincinnatti to Albuquerque,
FBI agents have been busting into schools, carting off documents and making
arrests leading to high-profile indictments.
Rich Student,
Poor Student
EduShyster Blog Posted on August 26, 2014
Students in Salem, MA learn a
hard lesson about class
Dear [insert name here]:
Welcome back to school,Salem ,
MA
Welcome back to school,
Education Week Curriculum Matters By Catherine
Gewertz on August 26, 2014 2:01 PM
Education officials in Vermont are
pretty fed up with standardized testing.
The state board of education has
released a set
of guiding principles for Vermont's use of standardized tests, but it could
double as an attack on nearly everything about that method of gauging student
learning. "The way in which
standardized tests have been used under federal law as almost the single
measure of school quality has resulted in the frequent misuse of these
instruments across the nation," the board's statement said. It calls on
Congress to amend the No Child Left Behind Act to "reduce testing
mandates, promote multiple forms of evidence of student learning and school
quality, eschew the use of student test scores in evaluating educators, and
allow flexibility that reflects the unique circumstances of all states."
While it is part of a state's
obligation to report to the public on its schools' work, those reports should
be on "a diverse and comprehensive set of school quality indicators in
local school, faculty, and community communications," the board's
principles say.
The Vermont board was sharply
critical of the use of cutoff scores to make judgments about schools or
students.
THE DAILY
BEAST: TOP HIGH SCHOOLS 2014
We used six indicators culled from
school surveys to compare public high schools in the U.S.
PSBA Members -
Register to Join the PSBA, PASA, PASBO Listening Tour as BEF Funding Commission
begins work; Monday, Sept. 8th 4-6 pm in Bethlehem
The bipartisan Basic Education Funding Commission established under Act 51 of 2014 has begun a series of hearings across the state, and you’re invited to join the Listening Tour hosted by PSBA, the PA Association of School Administrators (PASA), and the Pennsylvania Association of School Business Officials (PASBO) as it follows the panel to each location this fall.
The first tour stop will be on Monday, Sept. 8, 2014 from 4-6 p.m., at the Broughal Middle School, 114 W. Morton St, Bethlehem, PA 18015. Click here to register for the free event. Other tour dates will be announced as the BEF Commission finalizes the dates and locations for its hearings. The comments and suggestions from the Listening Tour will be compiled and submitted to the Commission early next year.
The bipartisan Basic Education Funding Commission established under Act 51 of 2014 has begun a series of hearings across the state, and you’re invited to join the Listening Tour hosted by PSBA, the PA Association of School Administrators (PASA), and the Pennsylvania Association of School Business Officials (PASBO) as it follows the panel to each location this fall.
The first tour stop will be on Monday, Sept. 8, 2014 from 4-6 p.m., at the Broughal Middle School, 114 W. Morton St, Bethlehem, PA 18015. Click here to register for the free event. Other tour dates will be announced as the BEF Commission finalizes the dates and locations for its hearings. The comments and suggestions from the Listening Tour will be compiled and submitted to the Commission early next year.
Research
for Action Fall 2014 Internships
Fall internships run from September
– December. Exact start and end dates are based on the needs of the
project and the availability of the student.
Interested applicants should submit a cover letter and resumé
to applicants@researchforaction.org.
In your email, please include the two projects you’d most like to work on
selected from the list below.
Applications will be considered on
a rolling basis until all positions have been filled. Research for Action
qualifies for work study and PHEAA and interns may also be eligible for course
credit.
Education Law
Center Celebrating Education Champions 2014
On September 17, 2014 the Education
Law Center will hold its annual event at the Crystal Tea Room in the Wanamaker
Building to celebrate Pennsylvania’s Education Champions. This year, the event
will honor William P. Fedullo, Chancellor of the Philadelphia Bar Association;
Dr. Joan Duvall-Flynn, Education Committee Chair for the Pennsylvania State
Conference of NAACP Branches; and the Stoneleigh Foundation, a Philadelphia
regional leader on at-risk youth issues.
Pennsylvania Arts Education
Network 2014 Arts and Education Symposium
The 2014 Arts and Education Symposium will be
held on Thursday, October 2 at the State Museum
of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg, PA. Join us for a daylong convening of
arts education policy leaders and practitioners for lively discussions about
the latest news from the field.
The Symposium registration fee is $45 per person.
To register, click
here or follow the prompts at the bottom of the page. The Symposium will include the following:
Register Now – 2014 PAESSP
State Conference – October 19-21, 2014
Please join us for the 2014 PAESSP State Conference, “PRINCIPAL
EFFECTIVENESS: Leading Schools in a New Age of Accountability,” to be
held October 19-21 at the Sheraton Station Square Hotel, Pittsburgh,
Pa. Featuring Keynote Speakers: Alan
November, Michael Fullan & Dr. Ray Jorgensen. This year’s conference will provided PIL
Act 45 hours, numerous workshops, exhibits, multiple resources and an
opportunity to network with fellow principals from across the state.
PASA-PSBA School Leadership
Conference (Oct. 21-24) registration forms now available online
PSBA Website
PSBA Website
Make plans today to attend the most talked about education
conference of the year. This year's PASA-PSBA
School Leadership Conference promises to be one of the best with new
ideas, innovations, networking opportunities and dynamic speakers. More details
are being added every day. Online registration will be available in the
next few weeks. If you just can't wait, registration
forms are available online now. Other important links are available
with more details on:
·
Hotel
registration (reservation deadline extended to Sept. 26)
·
Educational
Publications Contest (deadline Aug. 6)
·
Student
Celebration Showcase (deadline Sept. 19)
·
Poster
and Essay Contest (deadline Sept. 19)
Slate of candidates for PSBA
offices now available online -- bios/videos now live
PSBA Website August 5, 2014
PSBA Website August 5, 2014
The slate of candidates for 2015 PSBA officer and at-large
representatives is now available online.
Photos, bios and videos also have been posted for each candidate.
According to recent PSBA Bylaws changes, each member school entity casts one
vote per office. Voting will again take place online through a secure,
third-party website -- Simply Voting. Voting will openSept. 9 and
closes Oct. 6. One person from the school entity (usually the board
secretary) is authorized to cast the vote on behalf of the member school entity
and each board will need to put on its agenda discussion and voting at one
of its meetings in September. Each person authorized to cast the school
entity's votes will be receiving an email in the coming weeks to verify the
email address and confirm they are the person to cast the vote on behalf of
their school entity.
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