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PA Ed Policy Roundup for
December 15, 2014:
Funding, Formulas, and
Fairness: What Pennsylvania
Arne Duncan: For schools,
seek justice
Philly.com Opinion By Arne Duncan POSTED: Friday, December
12, 2014, 1:08 AM
As I watch what is happening in Philadelphia's public education
system, I can only conclude that until some glaring funding injustices are
fixed, in Philadelphia and in many school systems around the country, we will
never live up to our nation's aspirational promises of justice. Philadelphia
represents one of the most vivid examples nationally of what happens when
systems fail to fund schools properly. At Lingelbach Elementary
School Philadelphia 's suburbs send their
children to well-funded schools, the district is in such straits that several
nonprofit organizations wrote Gov. Corbett in 2013, saying Pennsylvania has failed in its basic duties
under the state's constitution.
Did you catch our weekend postings?
PA Ed Policy Roundup for Dec 13, 2014:
Head of state charter coalition: Not sure of size of waiting lists
After the Pa Society party,
the pension hangover still awaits: Analysis
Penn Live By John L. Micek | jmicek@pennlive.com on
December 13, 2014 at 3:30 PM
NEW YORK _ The parties and receptions of this year's
annual Pennsylvania Society gala might have provided them some
respite, but for Keystone revelers who flocked to Midtown Manhattan this
weekend, the hangover of pension reform was just a train ride away. Because when their heads clear and their
cocktail dresses are in plastic at the dry cleaners, policy wonks and
policymakers will still have to find a way to pay for exploding public employee
retirement costs.
The can, as they say, has been kicked. But in January, it will
come skittering a stop as it bumps up against the swearing-in of both a new
General Assembly and Gov.-elect Tom Wolf.
"Newly elected governor Tom Wolf will
have a long to-do list when he takes office, and finding more funding solutions
for all schools is one of them. But higher standards of fiscal oversight of
charters doesn't have to wait. He should tackle that immediately."
DN Editorial: Painted into a corner
DN Editorial: Painted into a corner
Philly Daily News POSTED: Thursday, December 11, 2014,
3:01 AM
ANOTHER charter-school scandal may be brewing in the city.
Last week, the Daily News raised a number of
questions about a painting contract by a charter school run by ASPIRA. Lyon
Contracting won a $163,000 job to paint Olney Charter
High School
ASPIRA has not responded to requests for documentation on the
job, and attempts by the Daily News to contact Lyon
Contracting were unsuccessful. Their phone number is no longer in service.
Meanwhile, the district's Office of Inspector General has begun an
investigation. ASPIRA operates five of
the city's 86 charter schools. In July, the school district sent ASPIRA a
letter outlining concerns about a number of other financial practices, and is
still waiting for a written response.
In poll, many Pennsylvanians
predict taxes will rise under Wolf
Trib Live By Bill
Vidonic Saturday, Dec. 13, 2014, 9:00 p.m.
Nearly two-thirds of Pennsylvanians expect to see a boost in
education funding, but they also believe sales and income taxes will rise
because of the election of Democrat Tom Wolf as governor, according to a
survey. Only 42 percent believe that the
business climate is improving, according to the survey by Robert Morris
University Polling Institute, which is sponsored by Trib Total Media, while a
majority think a gas extraction tax is on the way. Many of the poll results were influenced by
November's general election between Wolf and Republican incumbent Tom Corbett,
said Philip Harold, professor of political science at Robert Morris. “More money for education was a theme of the
campaign, and that's clearly created an expectation,” Harold said, with 67
percent of survey respondents saying education will receive more funding.
New Pa.
By Eleanor Chute / Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette December 15, 2014 12:22 AM
If parents want to help out at their child’s holiday party at
school, do they need to undergo a criminal background check first? This question and others about the line
between volunteer and visitor might become more difficult to answer starting
Dec. 31, when a new state child protective services law takes effect. The law, among other things, expands
background checks for school volunteers and requires school employees,
independent school contractors and volunteers in direct contact with children
to update clearances every 36 months. It
also spells out the duties of teachers and other “mandated reporters” in
reporting suspected child abuse and the criminal penalties if they fail to do
so.
Schools, nonprofits prepare
for new child abuse reporting requirements
When a special task force spoke with child protection advocates
about overhauling child protection laws, they heard calls for a new reporting
system. So lawmakers passed legislation.
The new requirements broadened the list of "mandated
reporters" to include child care providers and school personnel at all
levels, religious leaders, doctors and health care professionals, social
workers, librarians, law enforcement and volunteers who work with children.
The changes to mandatory reporting take effect Jan. 1, 2015.
New law proving confusing and
costly to youth leaders
In response to the outrage over the Jerry Sandusky child sex
abuse scandal at Penn State , children and youth experts spent months
researching ways to overhaul Pennsylvania 's
child protection laws. The result was a
comprehensive package of proposals approved overwhelmingly by state lawmakers
in the legislative session that ended last month.
Now, as organizations work to comply with new requirements
designed to ensure child safety, school and nonprofit leaders are raising
concerns about the lack of clarity in one new law addressing background checks
for volunteers.
"The
biggest single issue dominating politics in Philadelphia
Philly’s next mayor: 7 issues
millennials will be watching
Billy Penn By Ryan Briggs December 12, 2014
Philly’s going to elect a new mayor next year. Chances are,
that mayor will be a Democrat.
Why should you care? If
you’re struggling to even name one of the four officially
declared mayoral candidates, you’re not alone. (For the record: Ex-D.A.
and avowed email hater Lynne Abraham; state Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams; Terry
Gillen, a former Redevelopment Authority official and aide to mayors Nutter and
Rendell, and ex-City Solicitor and ex-federal prosecutor Ken Trujillo.)
Don’t fret; more will likely emerge. (Update: On Friday afternoon, ex-judge
Nelson Diaz revealed
he’ll announce his bid in the new year.) But guess what? Young voters could
actually swing this race. (At least that’s according to former Republican
Mayoral candidate-turned-documentarian Sam Katz — who
says voters like you won’t actually vote.) So what issues could motivate
young voters? We looked around.
"The problem with this model is that
it involves abandoning a whole bunch of live human children, throwing up our
hands and warehousing them in what remains of a public system after everything
useful and profitable has been stripped from it."
Curmudgucation Blog by Jeff Bryant Friday, December 12,
2014
Now that we've all had our turns spanking Mike Petrilli for his
bracingly honest take on charter skimming ("It's not a bug. It's a
feature."), it's time to move on to the question that he raised-- what
about the students who are a disruption in their schools?
Define the Problem
First, I want to acknowledge the precise shading of the problem, because it does have a major effect on what we propose as a solution. Most charteristas frame the issue as "allowing students to escape failing schools." As a statement of the problem, this has a major shortcoming for charter promoters. If the problem is that some schools are failing, why oh why would we discuss saving some students and abandoning others instead of discussing how to make the school Not Fail? Reformsters have toyed with the recovery model, where the failing school is taken over by charteristas, but that doesn't seem to be a popular approach. At the very least, it requires reformsters to push straight through local opposition to the takeover of public schools.
If the problem is schools that are failing because they lack resources, support and money, the most obvious solution is to give them resources, support, and money. But there's no growth opportunity for charteristas in that. Petrilli's framing is more elegantly useful. If the problem is Bad Students, then no amount of money or resources is likely to fix the problem. Instead, we must separate the bad seeds from the good, allow the poor but gifted students to depart for more the company of a better class of peers. This is an excellent growth opportunity for the modern charter entrepreneurs.
Define the Problem
First, I want to acknowledge the precise shading of the problem, because it does have a major effect on what we propose as a solution. Most charteristas frame the issue as "allowing students to escape failing schools." As a statement of the problem, this has a major shortcoming for charter promoters. If the problem is that some schools are failing, why oh why would we discuss saving some students and abandoning others instead of discussing how to make the school Not Fail? Reformsters have toyed with the recovery model, where the failing school is taken over by charteristas, but that doesn't seem to be a popular approach. At the very least, it requires reformsters to push straight through local opposition to the takeover of public schools.
If the problem is schools that are failing because they lack resources, support and money, the most obvious solution is to give them resources, support, and money. But there's no growth opportunity for charteristas in that. Petrilli's framing is more elegantly useful. If the problem is Bad Students, then no amount of money or resources is likely to fix the problem. Instead, we must separate the bad seeds from the good, allow the poor but gifted students to depart for more the company of a better class of peers. This is an excellent growth opportunity for the modern charter entrepreneurs.
"This is one of the big insights for
me. I actually am kind of a pro-market kinda girl. But it doesn’t seem to work
in a choice environment for education. I’ve studied competitive markets for
much of my career. That’s my academic focus for my work. And it’s [education]
the only industry/sector where the market mechanism just doesn’t work. I think
it’s not helpful to expect parents to be the agents of quality assurance
throughout the state. I think there are other supports that are needed. Frankly
parents have not been really well educated in the mechanisms of choice.… I
think the policy environment really needs to focus on creating much more
information and transparency about performance than we’ve had for the 20 years
of the charter school movement. I think we need to have a greater degree of
oversight of charter schools, but I also think we have to have some oversight
of the overseers."
Major charter researcher
causes stir with comments about market-based school reform
Margaret Raymond is the founding
director of the Center for Research
on Education Outcomes, known as CREDO, which is part of the Hoover
Institution located at Stanford
University United States . Raymond this week made some remarks about
charter schools that are causing a stir in the education world. First, some background
to put those remarks in context. CREDO’s
unique studies of charter schools around the country – which collectively
conclude that sometimes they perform better than traditional public schools and
sometimes they don’t — are widely cited in the education world by both pro- and
anti-charter activists to support their different points. CREDO’s newest
report is on charter schools in Ohio ,
and it finds that charter school students in the state are learning less than
students in traditional public schools, the equivalent of 36 days of learning
in math and 14 days in reading.
What gets often lost in these discussions is that the studies
are based on reading and math standardized test scores. Even if you think that
high-stakes standardized test scores reveal something about how much a student
knows in the tested subject — and many researchers and educators don’t — it is
a different thing altogether to judge an entire school on the results of narrow
tests in two subject areas, however important they are.
Teach For America
Growing criticism about Teach For
America and a polarized education reform debate is affecting recruitment of new
corps members and the organization “could fall short of our partners’ overall
needs by more than 25 percent” next year, TFA officials say. A note that co-Chief Executive Officers Matt
Kramer and Elisa Villanueva Beard are sending out to the organization’s
partner organizations (see text below) cites several reasons for the decline,
including “polarization around TFA” as well less interest in teaching and
public service by college graduates.
Spending Bill Measure Could
Give States Millions In Extra Dollars To Teach Abstinence-Only Sex Ed
Huffington Post by Dana Liebelson Become
a fandana.liebelson@huffingtonpost.com
Posted: 12/10/2014 6:57 pm
EST Updated: 12/11/2014 6:59 pm EST
The spending package unveiled by Congress this week includes a new measure that allows states to get more federal
funding -- potentially totaling millions of dollars -- if they embrace
abstinence-only education. To get this
money, states must provide programs that teach students that sexual activity outside of
marriage is “likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects,” and
that abstinence is the only certain way to prevent pregnancy and STDs.
Under a provision added in 1996 to the Social Security Act,
Congress allocates $50 million annually in matching funds to
states that provide abstinence-only education. Each year, some states reject
that money, either because they don’t want to match the funds or because they
only want to teach comprehensive sex ed. The leftover money has, until now,
gone back to the U.S. Treasury to be spent on other things. But under the new spending bill, which the
House is expected to vote on Thursday, “remaining unobligated balances” will
roll over and become available to states that “require the implementation of
each element described in ... the definition of abstinence education.”
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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