Daily postings from the Keystone State Education Coalition now
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administrators, legislators, legislative and congressional staffers, Governor's
staff, current/former PA Secretaries of Education, Superintendents, PTO/PTA
officers, parent advocates, teacher leaders, business leaders, education
professors, members of the press and a broad array of P-16 regulatory agencies,
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The Keystone State Education Coalition is an endorsing member of The Campaign for Fair Education Funding
Keystone State Education Coalition
PA Ed Policy Roundup for
November 24, 2014:
Suit calls PA state school
funding arbitrary and irrational
Upcoming PA Basic Education Funding Commission Public
Hearings
Monday,
November 24, 2014 at 10 AM IU#13 Lancaster
Thursday, December 4, 2014 at 10 AM East Stroudsburg
Wednesday, December 10, 2014, 10 AM - 12:00 PM Lancaster
* meeting times and locations subject to change
Wednesday, December 10, 2014, 10 AM - 12:00 PM Lancaster
* meeting times and locations subject to change
Did you catch our weekend postings?
How do Pennsylvania
"Now the plaintiffs have data to back
testimony about how many students are below proficient on state standardized
tests, just how far below adequate their resources are and how many teaching
jobs and academic programs they had to cut as state and federal funding fell.
Now there are Pennsylvania
With state tests and standards, the state
also began holding school districts, teachers, principals and administrators
accountable for students’ meeting those standards."
Suit calls state school
funding arbitrary and irrational
Test scores behind judicial order request
By Eleanor Chute / Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette November 23, 2014 12:00 AM
In 1999, the state Supreme Court ruled that the question of
state school funding was a political issue for the Legislature, not one for the
judiciary. Now, a new lawsuit filed in Commonwealth Court
last week once again seeks a judicial order, this time armed with state test
results showing schools failing to meet state academic standards and a study
commissioned by the Legislature quantifying the disparity in resources. The latest complaint called the current
funding system arbitrary and irrational, saying, “Students in property- and
income-poor districts are not given an opportunity to receive an adequate
education where all students can meet state standards, while their peers in
property- and income-rich districts receive a high-quality education.”
It's on. The York City
David Meckley had given the board an ultimatum — approve the
deal or he would seek a state takeover of the district. The board didn't reject the proposal
outright; it merely tabled the matter after members asked for more details. But if Meckley is going to make good on his
threat, it's now or never. After all,
the clock is ticking down to Democrat Tom Wolf's inauguration, and the incoming
governor does not support a full charter conversion of the York City School District
The board doesn't win the game if it runs down that clock, but
it does avert a total loss — for the time being, at least. The question will be the same for the new
administration:
What do you do about a district that is bleeding money and
failing its students?
Testimony from Opt Out
hearings - Philadelphia
City
On November 19th, the Education Committee of the Philadelphia
City Council held public hearings on the impact of standardized testing on
teaching and learning. These videos are students, parents and teachers who
testified. For transcripts of all
written and oral testimony go to: goo.gl/fQnvGz
On Sunday the Philadelphia Inquirer ran an
opinion piece by Janine Yass (which is posted below), a board member of the
Philadelphia School Partnership and vice chair emeritus of the Center for
Education Reform in Washington. Blog
readers should be aware that her husband, Jeff Yass and his two colleagues at
the Susquehanna International Group in Bala Cynwyd are the funders behind the
Students First PAC which has contributed millions towards school privitization
in Pennsylvania over the past few years.
Here are some of our prior postings:
Follow the Money: Who
gave/received school privatization contributions in Pennsylvania
Six millionaires/billionaires contributed $1,482,604 to
privatize democratically-governed Pennsylvania
FOLLOW THE MONEY:
Contributions to Students First PAC
Not Exactly Grassroots: $6.66 Million from just 19
donors
Follow the
Students First PAC Voucher Money Trail
Here's our previous posting detailing 2010
contributions of just under $6 million:
A
September 15th 2010
Philadelphia Inquirer article described
how a trio of wealthy Bala Cynwyd businessmen with a passion for school choice
gave a combined $5 million to
Two members of the Susquehanna Group, Joel
Greenberg and David Pollard, were
subsequently appointed to Governor-elect Corbett’s Education Transition Team,
with Greenberg appointed as Co-Chairman.
January 3, 2011 Follow the Students First PAC Voucher Money
http://keystonestateeducationcoalition.blogspot.com/2011/01/january-3-2011-follow-voucher-money.html
Janine Yass: The facts on
charter schools
Inquirer Opinion by Janine Yass POSTED: Sunday, November
23, 2014, 1:09 AM
Janine Yass is a board
member of the Philadelphia School Partnership and vice chair emeritus of the
Center for Education Reform in Washington
The 40,000 students on charter school waiting lists in Philadelphia have high
hopes as the School Reform Commission starts to review new applications for the
first time in seven years.
More than 40 nonprofit charters submitted applications on
behalf of tens of thousands of families; many of these families have been kept
at bay for years while demanding better educational opportunities for their
children. They are hoping that their voices will finally be heard.
The discussion about charter schools is filled with politically
charged rhetoric, is rarely about what parents want, and is almost never about
individual schools' results. So as the School District
gears up to review the new charter applications, let's hope they look at the
facts:
Rhodes scholars named for
2015
Jordan Konell, a senior at Yale University and graduate
of Central High School in Philadelphia, spent time at the Public Interest
Law Center
Philly.com by JOE MANDAK , THE ASSOCIATED PRESS November 23, 2014, 11:53 AM
A Philadelphia
man pursuing a degree in African American Studies and Political Science at Yale
has been named one of 32 U.S. Rhodes Scholars.
Jordan Konell will use his scholarship to pursue a master's degree in
Comparative Social Policy at Oxford University in England . Konell is a senior at
Yale. Rhodes Scholarships were created
in 1902 by the will of British philanthropist Cecil Rhodes. Winners are
selected on the basis of high academic achievement, personal integrity,
leadership potential and physical vigor, among other attributes. Konell was editor-in-chief of the Yale
Undergraduate Law Review and has worked at Philadelphia 's Public Interest Law Center and
as a community organizer. He's also a jazz trombonist.
Studying
for the Test by Taking It
New York Times By BENEDICT CAREY NOV.
22, 2014
PROTESTS are flaring up in pockets of the country against the
proliferation of standardized tests. For many parents and teachers, school has
become little more than a series of workout sessions for the assessment du
jour. And that is exactly backward, research
shows. Tests should work for the student, not the other way around. In an experiment published
late last year, two University
of Texas
So, We Should Teach to
the Test?
Academe Magazine Blog November 22, 2014
In an exasperating article on the op-ed page of The
New York Times today, science writer Benedict Carey argues for the
benefit of testing, conflating all types from yearly standardized tests to
weekly quizzes and ignoring the indisputable fact that tests are primarily
regressive (they test what is known, sometimes at the expense of what might be
discovered) and inherently stifling of creativity. He writes, without exploring
the implications of his statement:
"Next month, the Federal
Communications Commission will consider a proposal from its chairman, Tom Wheeler, that
would raise taxes on phone lines by a modest 16 cents a month to make sure that
every public school and library has reliable and fast Internet connections."
Faster Broadband for Schools
and Libraries
New York Times By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
NOV. 22, 2014
Next month, the Federal Communications Commission will consider a proposal from its chairman, Tom Wheeler, that
would raise taxes on phone lines by a modest 16 cents a month to make sure that
every public school and library has reliable and fast Internet connections. The
commissioners should vote yes. Most of
the country’s schools and libraries do not have the high-speed connections they
need to take full advantage of the Internet, the F.C.C. says. Not surprisingly, schools and libraries in poorer and
more rural parts of the country tend to have worse service than those in urban
and affluent areas.
Under a program known as E-Rate, the F.C.C. provides grants to
schools and libraries with money that comes from an average tax of 25 cents per
month on every phone line. The program has a spending cap of $2.4 billion a
year, which hasn’t changed much since 1997 when it was originally set at $2.25
billion a year. That’s because the government did not adjust the cap for
inflation between 1997 and 2010. Mr. Wheeler is proposing to raise the cap to
$3.9 billion.
That additional money would pay for new fiber-optic lines,
Wi-Fi routers and the cost of Internet service. The commission has said it
wants every school to have connections sufficient to transmit one billion bits
of data per second per 1,000 users. About 68 percent of American school
districts say they don’t have a single school that can meet that target now.
The commission has different targets for libraries based on how many people
they serve, but half of all public libraries report connection speeds of less
than 10 megabits per second.
“Circuit Rider” Lawrence
Lower Merion School District Announcements Posted: November 18,
2014
With school funding a hot issue in the Pennsylvania
gubernatorial race, an alliance of state education leaders is engaged in a
campaign to build support for changing the way the state pays its school bills.
During the yearlong campaign, 11 "circuit riders" will attempt to
build support among current superintendents, business managers, and school
board members for a movement for education-funding changes. Please join us on Tuesday, November 25 at
8:30 AM as "circuit rider" Lawrence Feinberg will speak at the District's
Legislative Committee meeting in the District Administration Building Board
Room.
Click here for a recent article on philly.com about the circuit riders.
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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