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Keystone State Education Coalition
PA Ed Policy Roundup for
November 11, 2014:
"Thorough
and Efficient" Coverage of PA School Funding Lawsuit
Do Wolf and the Legislature
get the voters' message on education? PennLive editorial
By PennLive Editorial
Board on November 10, 2014 at 1:46 PM, updated November 10, 2014
at 2:20 PM
If there is one clear message from this year's race for
governor in Pennsylvania ,
it's this: The way the state funds K-12 schools is neither fair nor adequate.
From the Delaware River to Lake Erie ,
voters saw class sizes swelling, school programs being slashed, and teachers
getting pink slips, while school districts imposed painful property tax
increases. Education was THE issue in the race and it
cost Republican Tom Corbett his job – all in a year when his party
romped to victories nationwide by running against President Obama and a
disappointing economy. While the state
underfunds schools in general, some districts suffer a lot worse than
others. The key variable driving Pennsylvania 's school
funding decisions is not what students need to get a good education – it's
politics. Communities with a friend in the Legislature or Governor's office do
better. Pennsylvania
is one of only three states that has no set formula for sending money to
schools.
District's recovery officer says all schools should be
run by an outside operator starting July 2015
By Angie Mason amason@ydr.com @angiemason1
on Twitter UPDATED: 11/10/2014 10:39:51 PM EST
The York
City School
District 's state-appointed chief recovery officer
on Monday night directed the school board to vote next week on turning all
district buildings into charter schools, to be operated by an outside company,
starting July 1, 2015. The move comes
less than a month after the board rejected a proposal that would have turned a
few school buildings over to a charter operator next year. The recovery plan adopted by the board in
summer 2013 called for internal reform, but left open the door for charter
operators to run district buildings if that didn't work out. Recovery officer
David Meckley reviewed the plan's progress Monday night and said that the
district hasn't been able to negotiate a new contract with teachers that
reflects the recovery plan, which calls for large employee concessions.
Former PA Cyber attorney says
Trombetta discussions were protected
By J.D. Prose jprose@timesonline.com Posted: Monday, November 10, 2014 11:45
pm
PITTSBURGH — A former attorney for the Pennsylvania Cyber
Charter School testified Monday in school founder Nick Trombetta’s federal
criminal case that a 2012 conversation recorded by investigators fell under
attorney-client privilege. Tim Barry,
who no longer works for the Midland-based school, spent several hours on the
stand as prosecutors and Trombetta’s defense attorneys tussled in the third
installment of an evidentiary hearing that began in September and will last at
least one more day. PA Cyber waived its
attorney-client privilege with Barry, allowing him to testify. The focus of Monday’s 4½-hour hearing, which
did not start in U.S. District Court until 4:30 p.m., was a March 2012,
conversation involving Trombetta, Barry, Beaver County Solicitor Joe Askar, who
also represents the Rochester-based National Network of Digital Schools and has
invoked his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination, two other
attorneys working for NNDS, and Brett Geibel, a Trombetta associate involved in
various cyber school offshoots who became a government informant and secretly
recorded discussions.
Parents and School Districts File Suit against PA State Officials for
Failing to Maintain Fair and Adequate System of Public Education
Nov. 10, 2014 – Today six school districts, seven
parents, the Pennsylvania Association of Rural and Small Schools (PARSS) and
the NAACP Pennsylvania State Conference filed a lawsuit in Commonwealth Court against legislative
leaders, state education officials, and the Governor for failing to uphold the
General Assembly’s constitutional obligation to provide a system of public
education that gives all children in Pennsylvania the resources they need to
meet state-imposed academic standards and thrive in today’s world. The
Education Law Center-PA and the Public Interest Law Center of
Philadelphia are representing the petitioners.
“My child is in classes with too many other students and she
has no access to tutoring services or support from paraprofessionals, but our
elected officials still expect and require her to pass standardized tests,”
said Jamela Millar, parent of 11-year-old K.M., a student in the William Penn
School District. “How are kids supposed to pass the tests required to graduate
high school, find a job and contribute to our economy if their schools are
starving for resources?”
According to the complaint, state officials have adopted an
irrational school funding system that does not deliver the essential resources
students need and discriminates against children based on where they live and
the wealth of their communities.
The plaintiff school districts represent the interests of
children from across the state including those in rural, urban, and suburban
areas. They include the William Penn School District ,
the Panther Valley
School District , the School District of Lancaster ,
the Greater Johnstown School District, the Wilkes-Barre
Area School
District and the Shenandoah
Valley School District .
The seven parent plaintiffs are filing on behalf of their children enrolled in
one of these districts or the School
District of Philadelphia .
The NAACP and PARSS are filing on behalf of their members. PARSS members
include small and rural public school districts and Intermediate Units.
School Funding Lawsuit
On November 10, 2014, we filed a lawsuit in Commonwealth Court
on behalf of six school districts, seven parents, the Pennsylvania Association
of Rural and Small Schools (PARSS) and the NAACP Pennsylvania State Conference
against legislative leaders, state education officials, and the Governor for
failing to uphold the General Assembly’s constitutional obligation to provide a
system of public education that gives all children in Pennsylvania the
resources they need to meet state-imposed academic standards and thrive in
today’s world. We are conducting this litigation in partnership with the
Education Law Center of Pennsylvania and a national, private law firm.
Pa. sued for failing to
provide fair, 'thorough and efficient' school system
the notebook By Paul Socolar on Nov 10, 2014 10:11 AM
A long-anticipated lawsuit was
filed today, charging state officials with failing to provide an adequate
education system as required by the Pennsylvania
constitution. Suing the state
are six school districts, parents from five districts (including Philadelphia ), the
Pennsylvania Association of Rural and Small Schools (PARSS), and the NAACP
Pennsylvania State Conference. They are represented by attorneys from the Education Law Center
and the Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia. In a
statement, they say they are taking legal action because "state
officials have adopted an irrational school funding system that does not
deliver the essential resources students need and discriminates against
children based on where they live and the wealth of their communities."
"Urban, suburban, and rural districts
are all included in the long-anticipated suit. Besides William Penn, the
plaintiffs include the Panther Valley School District in Carbon County, the
School District of Lancaster, the Greater Johnstown School District in Cambria
County, the Wilkes-Barre Area School District in Luzerne County, and the
Shenandoah Valley School District in Schuylkill County. The NAACP and the Pennsylvania Association of Rural and Small Schools
filed on behalf of their members. The
suit alleges that while leaders impose academic standards on children, they do
not give them the resources to meet those standards."
Districts, parents sue Pa. over education
funding
Inquirer by Kristen Graham POSTED: MONDAY,
NOVEMBER 10, 2014, 10:01 AM
School districts, parents, an organization representing small
and rural school systems and the state NAACP on Monday filed a lawsuit against
Gov. Tom Corbett, state education officials and legislative leaders, saying
that Pennsylvania
fails to uphold its constitutional obligation to educate children adequately. Plaintiffs of the suit, filed in Commonwealth Court ,
include two Philadelphia School District parents and the William
Penn School
District in Delaware
County .
State officials have "adopted an irrational school funding
system that does not deliver the essential resources students need and
discriminates against children based on where they live and the wealth of their
communities," say the plaintiffs, who are represented by the Public
Interest Law Center of Philadelphia and the Education Law Center-PA.
"A similar legal action was taken
against the state in the 1990s. The court ruled that there was no judicially
measurable standards to decide exactly what the state constitution means when
it says the legislature must provide a "thorough and efficient"
education.
Plaintiffs argue that view has become
obsolete as the state, in recent years, has developed its own core standards
and built up a standardized-test infrastructure that specifically delineates
academic expectations. "What
differs is that today we have measurable standards of what schools are supposed
to teach and what students are supposed to learn," said PILCOP's
Churchill."
Claiming Pa. shortchanges kids, coalition seeks
funding for 'thorough' education
Statewide coalition
sues Pa. ,
claiming inadequate education funding
WHYY Newsworks BY KEVIN
MCCORRY NOVEMBER 10, 2014
A broad-based coalition of rural, urban and suburban school
districts, parents and advocates has filed a lawsuit against the state of
Pennsylvania, claiming it has failed to ensure that all children receive
"a thorough and efficient" education.
In the Monday filing, plaintiffs asked the Commonwealth Court to compel state
leaders to equitably distribute enough funding for all students to be able to
meet the state's prescribed academic standards.
"The resources that we collect aren't adequate to maintain
the level of education that the state of Pennsylvania
expects from its students," said William Penn School District
Superintendent Joe Bruni. In addition to
William Penn, five other school districts joined in the filing: Panther Valley
(Carbon County ),
Lancaster , Greater Johnstown, Wilkes-Barre
and Shenandoah (Schuylkill
County ). Six sets of parents, as well as The
Pennsylvania Association of Rural and Small schools and the Pennsylvania chapter of the NAACP, signed on
to the case. The Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia and Education Law Center
organized the long-awaited case.
Schools suing PA officials
over education funding
By Adam Clark,Of
The Morning Call November 10, 2014
Six Pennsylvania
school districts and seven parents are suing the state Department of Education
and state officials over what they claim is an "irrational school funding
system."
The schools, including Panther
Valley School
District , filed a lawsuit Monday along with The Pennsylvania
Association of Rural and Small
Schools and the state
NAACP.
The lawsuit claims Pennsylvania
has failed to meet its obligation to "provide for the maintenance and
support of a thorough and efficient system of public education" for all
students as its required by the state's constitution. "Our students aren't given a fair shake
or an opportunity to be as successful as we would like them to be,"
Panther Valley Superintendent Dennis Kergick said.
Six school districts file
suit against Pennsylvania
over school funding
By Karen Langley / Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette November 10, 2014 10:08 AM
The suit complains that Pennsylvania
has adopted “an irrational and inequitable school financing arrangement” that
delivers meager funding to districts across the state and discriminates among
children based on the wealth of their communities. “These underfunded districts are in areas so
poor that, despite their high tax rates, they simply cannot raise enough money
to improve education without more assistance from the state,” the complaint
says.
The proportions of Pennsylvania students passing state
examinations shows that school districts do not have enough resources to
prepare students, the lawsuit claims. And it claims the Pennsylvania
Constitution does not allow the Legislature to make education a matter for
local school districts.
School advocates sue Pennsylvania over
funding system
Penn Live By The Associated
Press on November 10, 2014 at 12:06 PM
The lawsuit asks the court to declare that the current funding
formula violates the constitution and order state officials to devise a funding
system that passes constitutional muster.
"Pennsylvania 's
state constitution tells us that the buck stops with the state Legislature when
it comes to public education. State officials know exactly what needs to be
done, but they refuse to do it," said Jennifer R. Clarke, director of the
Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia.
Three NEPA schools challenge
funding
Hazelton Standard
Speaker BY ROBERT SWIFT, HARRISBURG BUREAU CHIEF Published: November 10, 2014
HARRISBURG — A Wilkes-Barre mother joined school districts and
advocacy groups Monday in a lawsuit calling for an end to sharp inequities in
funding for public education throughout Pennsylvania. Tracey Hughes is a plaintiff in the lawsuit
filed in Commonwealth Court
on behalf of her minor son described by the initials P.M.H., an eighth-grader
at E.L. Meyers
Junior-Senior High
School in Wilkes-Barre
Area School
District . The
lawsuit documents how her son’s academic performance dropped after fourth grade
as class sizes increased to over 30 students and funding cuts necessitated the
sharing of school text books among students. Tutoring options were unavailable
due to lack of resources.
"The complaint says 300,000 of the
875,000 students tested on state standardized tests in 2012-13 failed to meet
proficiency on the exam, and more than half of students are unable to pass the
Keystone Exams, which will be a graduation requirement for high school seniors
by 2017."
Suit claims Corbett failed to provide proper education
Suit claims Corbett failed to provide proper education
SOLOMON LEACH, DAILY
NEWS STAFF WRITER LEACHS@PHILLYNEWS.COM, 215-854-5903 POSTED: Tuesday,
November 11, 2014, 3:01 AM
SIX PENNSYLVANIA
school districts, parents, a group representing rural and small school
districts, and the NAACP filed a lawsuit yesterday accusing Gov. Corbett and
other state officials of failing to provide students with a proper education. The long-anticipated suit, filed in
Commonwealth Court on behalf of the plaintiffs by the Education Law Center and
the Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia, claims that the state's
"irrational and inequitable" funding system is unconstitutional on
two grounds: that it does not provide a "thorough and efficient"
system of public education, as required by the state's Constitution; and that
it discriminates against students who live in poorer communities.
"Pennsylvania is a rarity nationwide, one of
a handful of states that lack a school funding formula. A lack of formula leads
to a heavy reliance on property taxes and wide gaps in per-pupil spending;
depending on where they live, spending per public school student in Pennsylvania ranges from
$9,800 to $28,400. Still, many poor
districts have higher tax rates than wealthy ones. They "simply cannot
raise enough money to improve education without more assistance from the
state," the suit states. William
Penn, for instance, has the highest school-tax rate in the area - much higher
than Lower Merion , for instance, where schools
are much better - and its schools still struggle."
School districts, parents,
activists sue Pennsylvania
over school funding
KRISTEN A. GRAHAM, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER Tuesday, November 11, 2014, 1:08 AM
Alleging that Pennsylvania 's
education-funding system is "irrational and inequitable," a group of
parents, school districts, and organizations on Monday sued the commonwealth,
saying it had failed to provide all students with an appropriate education. Plaintiffs in the long-expected suit, filed
in Commonwealth Court ,
include two Philadelphia School District parents and the William
Penn School
District in Delaware
County . State officials have "adopted an
irrational school funding system that does not deliver the essential resources
students need, and discriminates against children based on where they live and
the wealth of their communities," say the plaintiffs, who are represented
by the Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia and the Education Law Center-PA.
Lawsuit: School Funding in Pennsylvania is
Unconstitutional
Six districts — but
not Philly — sue Corbett and legislative leaders over state’s “irrational and
inequitable” school funding system.
Phillymag.com BY PATRICK KERKSTRA | NOVEMBER
10, 2014 AT 10:05 AM
Seventeen years ago, the city and School
District of Philadelphia
filed suit against Pennsylvania ,
accusing it of failing to provide sufficient education funding in
violation of the state Constitution, which obligates the state
legislature to “provide for the maintenance and support of a thorough and
efficient system of public education.” It
didn’t work. Commonwealth Court rejected the suit, and the state Supreme Court in 1999 refused to hear an appeal. Now school funding advocates are looking for
a rematch. A potentially momentous lawsuit was filed in Commonwealth Court this morning, claiming
that the state has "adopted an irrational and inequitable school
financing arrangement that drastically underfunds school districts across the
Commonwealth and discriminates against children on the basis of the taxable
property and household incomes in their districts." One of many striking elements of this suit is
that the School District
of Philadelphia
— which would be among the greatest beneficiaries of a successful lawsuit
— is not among the plaintiffs.
Read more at http://www.phillymag.com/news/2014/11/10/school-funding-lawsuit-corbett-sued/#jxDMJ74ToxMIa9tF.99
A Willful, Consistent, and
Pervasive Underfunding of Our Public Schools
Parents United for
Public Education website Posted on November 10, 2014 by REBECCAPOYOUROW
Statement in
Support of the Lawsuit against Pennsylvania’s Governor, General Assembly, and
Department of Education for the Willful, Consistent and Pervasive Underfunding
of Public Education
Parents United for Public Education fully supports the lawsuit
filed today in Commonwealth Court
challenging Pennsylvania ’s
system for financing public education. We applaud the individual students,
families, and organizational plaintiffs who have stepped forward to take
necessary action against a state that has violated its own constitutional
guarantee of a “thorough and efficient” system of public education for all
children. The plaintiffs in the suit assert what parents across Pennsylvania have known
for years: that our state has willfully, consistently, and pervasively
underfunded our public schools to levels of deprivation that shock the
conscience and demand remedy from the courts.
Pennsylvania ’s
state contribution to local school district budgets is well below national
norms. While the national average state contribution to district budgets
is 44%, Pennsylvania ’s
contribution is only 34%. Only nine states nationwide contribute a
smaller average percentage to school district budgets. Furthermore, as
one of only three states across the nation without a fair funding formula, Pennsylvania ’s
allocation of its funds favors the politically connected and compounds
inequities among districts. The Education Law Center has found that low-income public schools spend $3,000 less per student than their
wealthier counterparts, amounting to $75,000 less per 25-student classroom, yet low-income districts contain
many more students likely to have higher needs due to poverty, English Language
Learner status, or disability.
Pa. Districts, Parents Sue
Over 'Irrational and Inequitable' School Funding
Education Week District Dossier Blog By Denisa R.
Superville on November 10, 2014 1:57 PM
A coalition of school districts, parents and the Pennsylvania
NAACP sued the state on Monday, alleging that Governor Tom Corbett and the
state's General Assembly have failed to live up to their constitutional
obligation to develop a funding mechanism that will provide a thorough and
efficient system of public education for the state's children.
The plaintiffs, who are represented by the Public Interest Law
Center of Philadelphia and the Education Law Center of Pennsylvania, include
six school districts—the William Penn School District, the Panther Valley
School District, the School District of Lancaster, the Greater Johnstown School
District, the Wilkes-Barre Area School District, and the Shenandoah Valley
School District—seven parents, including some from Philadelphia public schools;
and the Pennsylvania Association for Small and Rural Schools.
"Pennsylvania's state constitution tells us that the
buck stops with the state legislature when it comes to public education,"
Jennifer R. Clarke, the executive director of the Public Interest Law
Center of Philadelphia, said in a press release announcing the lawsuit. "State
officials know exactly what needs to be done, but they refuse to do it. We are
asking the court to step in and solve this problem for the future of our
children and our commonwealth. There is no second chance for children—they
cannot go through school all over again."
Huffington Post Reuters By Daniel Kelley Posted: 11/10/2014
4:35 pm EST Updated: 4 hours ago
PHILADELPHIA, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Six Pennsylvania school
districts and a group of parents sued the state on Monday, charging that
funding for education discriminates against children based on the wealth of
their school districts. The system of
funding violates the state constitution because it mandates high standards for
school districts but starves them of resources to meet those standards, the
lawsuit said. The case was filed in Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court
against the governor, state Department of Education and other state officials.
Pennsylvania
school districts, like those in most states, are heavily funded by local
property taxes. The state contributes on average 34 percent of the districts'
revenue.
The state's contribution to local education budgets is the third-lowest share in the country, the lawsuit says. Some districts are "so poor that, despite their high tax rates, they simply cannot raise enough money to improve education without more assistance from the state," it said.
The state's contribution to local education budgets is the third-lowest share in the country, the lawsuit says. Some districts are "so poor that, despite their high tax rates, they simply cannot raise enough money to improve education without more assistance from the state," it said.
GOP leadership fight
widens in Pennsylvania Senate
WHTM abc27 By MARC LEVY Associated Press Posted: Nov 10, 2014 5:24 PM EST
How Philly's charter schools
stack up on PA's performance measure
WHYY Newsworks BY KEVIN
MCCORRY NOVEMBER 10, 2014
The Pennsylvania Department of Education last week released its
evaluation of the academic progress of the state's public schools. The School Performance Profile index is
composed mainly of standardized test score results, but also takes into account
attendance, graduation rates, and student improvement. Last week, Newsworks published a story that
analyzed overall state trends, as well as those in the Philadelphia School District .
Below is an analysis of Philadelphia 's
86 brick-and-mortar charter schools.
School facing possible
closure receives $1.2 million in three-year grant
the notebook By Connie Langland on Nov 10, 2014 04:54 PM
The School Reform Commission voted
in October 2013 not to renew the school’s charter. The school
appealed, and the case was heard this past Oct. 28 by the state charter appeals
board in Harrisburg .
A decision is expected in early December.
Progressive Magazine By
Jonathan Pelto November 7, 2014 - 1:05 pm CST
Not only is the Common Core Standardized Testing Scheme unfair,
discriminatory and fails to provide teachers and schools with usable
information about individual student performance but the program is
extraordinarily expensive and will leave schools that are already inadequately
funded with even less of the resources needed to provide every child with the
comprehensive, quality education that they need and deserve. The Corporate Education Reform Industry has
been extremely effective in preventing policymakers, teaches, parents and
taxpayers from determining just how much scarce public funds will be wasted on
the absurd standardized testing programs.
According to the public schools advocacy group, Alliance
for Philadelphia Public Schools, the Philadelphia City Council’s
Education Committee will hold a hearing about what standardized testing is
costing Philadelphia and the impact these absurd tests are having on the public
schools The Honorable Councilwoman
Jannie L. Blackwell, Chair of the Philadelphia City Council’s Education
Committee has scheduled the hearing for Wednesday, November 19, 2014, 3-5pm
Philadelphia City Council Chambers, Room 400, 4th Floor City Hall, 1401 JFK
Blvd., Philadelphia, PA 19107 *Enter at the NE Corner, Bring Photo ID
“It’s assessment gone wild,” said Matthew
Malone, the state’s education secretary. “Everywhere we go to talk to teachers,
administrators, and parents the consensus is we test too much. I think we need
to find a better balance.”
A high school English teacher in Boston
likens those behind the testing craze sweeping Massachusetts to the approach of Thomas
Gradgrind, the headmaster in the Charles Dickens novel “Hard Times.” Gradgrind
sternly told faculty to plant nothing but facts in their students’ minds, “and
root out everything else.’’ Teachers
statewide complain that, like the headmaster’s demands for facts and little
else, preparation for the dizzying array of standardized tests can easily
consume about a month of schooling and leave little time for creative projects.
Some schools administer assessments every six weeks to ensure classes are on
track to pass the MCAS, a burden that stresses students to tears and even
nausea.
In response to complaints by teachers, parents, and students,
state education officials have ordered an independent review to gauge the scope
and impact of standardized testing. Such a move would once have seemed
unthinkable for a state that has long been a national leader in standardized
testing, and one of the biggest defenders.
But the proliferation of tests has sparked concern that the
exams may have grown excessive.
New York Times By MOTOKO RICH NOV.
10, 2014
The Obama administration is directing states to show how they
will ensure that all students have equal access to high-quality teachers, with
a sharp focus on schools with a high proportion of the poor and racial
minorities. In a letter to state
superintendents released Monday, Deborah S. Delisle, an assistant secretary at
the Department of Education, said states must develop plans by
next June that make sure that public schools comply with existing federal law
requiring that “poor and minority children are not taught at higher rates than other
children by inexperienced, unqualified or out-of-field teachers.” States last submitted plans to address such
inequities in 2006, but data shows that largedisparities persist.
Trying to get better teachers
into nation’s poor classrooms
The Obama administration on Monday ordered states to devise
plans to get stronger teachers into high-poverty
classrooms, correcting a national imbalance in which students who need the most
help are often taught by the weakest educators.
Officials at the U.S. Department of Education sent a letter to
state education chiefs, giving them until June to analyze whether too many of
their “excellent” educators are absent from struggling schools and to craft a
strategy to spread them more evenly across schools.
The Education Department plans to spend $4.2 million to launch
a new “technical assistance network” to help states and districts develop and
implement their plans. States will be required to identify the root causes of
their “excellent” teacher imbalance, craft a strategy to correct the problem
and publicly report their progress.
In Georgia , fairness of new teacher
evaluation system in question
Teachers in high-poverty schools more likely to get
lowest scores
By Jeff
Ernsthausen - The Atlanta
Journal-Constitution Posted: 12:00 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 8, 2014
Teachers working with lower-income students could be more
likely than their peers to be denied pay raises or to lose their jobs under the
new teacher evaluation system the state is implementing, an Atlanta
Journal-Constitution examination found.
That finding could fuel criticism of a system intended to
provide an even playing field for rating teachers all across Georgia . It is
supposed to accomplish that by relying in large part on a mathematical formula
that scores teachers based on how their students perform on standardized tests
from year to year. Georgia Department of
Education officials said they are aware that their “growth model” tends to
result in lower scores for teachers in higher-poverty schools. But they don’t
know yet whether that is because their approach puts those teachers at a
disadvantage or if the state’s lower-income students actually may get
less-effective teachers.
Philadelphia City Council Hearings
on High-stakes Testing and the Opt-Out Movement, Wednesday, November 19, 2014,
3—5 PM
Education Committee of Philadelphia City Council
Wednesday, November 19, 2014, 3—5 PM, Room 400 City Hall
Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools, Councilman Mark
Squilla and The Opt-Out Committee of the Alliance for Philadelphia Public
Schools urge all who care about the future of education to attend: Parents, students and educators will testify
on the effects of over-testing on students and teaching, including the crisis
of the Keystone Exams as a graduation requirement.
Information: Alison McDowell or Lisa Haver
at: philaapps@gmail.com
DelCo Rising: Winning for
Education Nov18
7:00PM - 9:00PM
601 N. LANSDOWNE AVENUEDREXEL HILL, PA 19026
Delaware County students and taxpayers have sacrificed enough.
The state is not paying its fair share. Rising property taxes and school
budget cuts are not acceptable–help us change that.
Join your neighbors for a community workshop: Delco Rising:
Winning for Education
·
Learn about Pre-K for PA and the Statewide
Campaign for Fair Education Funding and how they can help your community
·
Practice winning strategies to advocate for your
community
·
Create an advocacy plan that works for
you—whether you have 5 minutes or 5 days per month
This non-partisan event is free and open to the public.
Click here to download a PDF flyer to
share.
Webinar: Arts Education - Research Shows Arts Education Boosts
Learning, So Where's the Rush to Teach Arts?
Education Writers Association NOVEMBER 12, 2014
- 1:00PM - 2:00PM
Decades of research suggest that some types of arts education
can lead to academic improvements. But even though No Child Left Behind
designated arts a core subject, student access to dance, theater and visual
arts declined between 2000 and 2010. What are the challenges educators
face in teaching a discipline many researchers say spurs student achievement,
reduces absences and boosts graduation rates? This webinar will look at
state-level arts education policy and student access to arts programs, the arts
education research landscape, and offer a spotlight on city programs that are
galvanizing arts education.
Panelists:
James Catterall, Centers for Research on
Creativity, Professor Emeritus, UCLA
Sandra Ruppert, Director, Arts Education Partnership
Moderator:
Mary Plummer, Southern California
Public Radio
Children with Autism - Who’s Eligible? How to get ABA services?
Wednesday, November 19, 2014 1:00 – 4:00 P.M.
Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia
United Way Building 1709 Benjamin Franklin Parkway,
Philadelphia, 19103
Join us on November 19th, 2014 to discuss eligibility services for children with Autism. This
session will teach parents, teachers, social workers and attorneys how to
obtain Applied Behavioral Analysis services for children on the autism
spectrum. Presenters include Sonja Kerr (Law Center), Rachel Mann
(Disability Rights Network of Pennsylvania), Dr. Lisa Blaskey (The Children's
Hospital of Pennsylvania), and David Gates (PA Health Law Project).
Registration: bit.ly/1sOY6jX
Register Now – 2014 PASCD
Annual Conference – November 23 – 25, 2014
Please join us for the 2014 PASCD Annual Conference, “Leading
an Innovative Culture for Learning – Powered by Blendedschools Network” to
be held November 23-25 at the Hershey Lodge and Convention Center in
Hershey, PA. Featuring Keynote Speakers: David Burgess - - Author
of "Teach Like a Pirate: Increase Student Engagement, Boost Your
Creativity, and Transform Your Life as an Educator", Dr. Bart Rocco,
Bill Sterrett - ASCD author, "Short on Time: How do I Make
Time to Lead and Learn as a Principal?" and Ron Cowell.
This annual conference features small group sessions (focused
on curriculum, instructional, assessment, blended learning and middle level
education) is a great opportunity to stay connected to the latest approaches
for cultural change in your school or district. Join us for PASCD
2014! Online registration is available by visiting www.pascd.org
January 23rd–25th, 2015 at The Science Leadership
Academy , Philadelphia
EduCon is both a conversation and a conference.
It is an innovation conference where we can come together, both
in person and virtually, to discuss the future of schools. Every session will
be an opportunity to discuss and debate ideas — from the very practical to the
big dreams.
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