Daily postings from the Keystone State Education Coalition now
reach more than 3525 Pennsylvania education policymakers – school directors,
administrators, legislators, legislative and congressional staffers, Governor's
staff, current/former PA Secretaries of Education, Wolf education transition
team members, 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, professional associations and
education advocacy organizations via emails, website, Facebook, Twitter and
LinkedIn
These daily emails are archived and searchable at http://keystonestateeducationcoalition.org
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The Keystone State Education Coalition is pleased to be listed
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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
January 17, 2015:
For the first time in at
least 50 years, majority of U.S.
Save the date/heads-up; details/confirmation
on this as they become available...
The next
Basic Education Funding Commission hearing will be held on January
29 in Greenville , Mercer County
Tweet from Circuit Rider Pam
Lenz January 16, 2015
Still no announcement regarding the
appointment of Wolf's Secretary of Education....
Peering into Wolf's cabinet -
a smart mix of fresh faces, a few classics and one past its sell-by date: John
L. Micek
Penn Live By John L. Micek |
jmicek@pennlive.com Email the author | Follow on Twitter on
January 16, 2015 at 10:50 AM, updated January 16, 2015 at 4:28 PM
Depending upon whom you ask, Gov.-elect Tom Wolf has
either cannily hired a team of rivals for the administration that will take
power next Tuesday or he's set the stage for the second (or third) coming
of Ed Rendell. Such are the bleak
extremes of Harrisburg
politics that nuance gets trampled like a hapless tourist on the Farm Show's
main concourse. A closer look
at Wolf's incoming cabinet and circle of senior advisers reveals a
mix of veteran Democrats and Republicans, as well as a handful of outsiders,
who will help him through what is guaranteed to be a rough first semester of
his freshman year. All but a handful require Senate confirmation.
Dinniman to Introduce Bill to
Stop Standardized Tests as Graduation Requirements
Senator Dinniman's website on JANUARY 16, 2015
WEST CHESTER (January 16) – State Senator Andy Dinniman
said the lack of resources in Pennsylvania’s financially distressed public
schools is so stark that the use of the Keystone Exams as graduate requirements
must be stopped before they exacerbate an already dire situation. “It’s clear to me that there are two systems
of public education in Pennsylvania :
separate and unequal,” said Dinniman, who serves as minority chair of the
Senate Education Committee. “Until we resolve that discrepancy, how can we, in
good conscience, stamp ‘failure’ on the backs of kids who lack the teachers,
resources and classes to pass such standardized tests? To continue down this
path without addressing such basic issues is beyond the pale. It’s downright
shameful.” Dinniman announced that he
will introduce legislation to end passage of the Keystone Exams as high school
graduation requirements because they will only widen the growing gap between
financially distressed and more affluent high schools.
Herald-Mail Media by Don Aines
Posted: Thursday, January 15, 2015 11:07 pm | Updated: 11:17 pm, Thu Jan 15, 2015.
CHAMBERSBURG, Pa. — State
funding as a percentage of school district budgets has been trending downward
for two decades, while school populations have increased, causing districts to
cut programs and personnel, according to superintendents from Franklin County Cumberland Valley
"The Pennsylvania system
of funding schools is a failure by any criteria," said Joe Bard, executive
director of the Pennsylvania Association of Rural and Small Schools
Bard told those assembled at First Evangelical
Lutheran Church
DV School
Board hears about Campaign for Fair Education Funding In Pennsylvania from
Circuit Rider Sandra Miller
Pocono News Net January 16, 2015
SHOHOLA - A school board member
from Saucon Valley
School District , explained to the DV
School Board the mission of a campaign to have fair education funding in Pennsylvania Pennsylvania Pennsylvania
Pew report: PA funding
formula not a silver bullet, overall state funding matters too
WHYY Newsworks BY LAURA BENSHOFF JANUARY 16, 2015
The size of the pie matters, not just how you slice it.
So said a new report from the Pew Charitable Trusts'
Philadelphia Research Initiative, which looked at 10 big city school districts
across the country and compared how the states funding formulas of each
affected funding at the district level. A
funding formula, essentially a plan for the state's distribution of its
education dollars between districts, often takes into account factors including
student needs and demographics at the district level. The project director of the Philadelphia
Research Initiative for Pew, Larry Eichel, spelled out two main questions the
report set out to answer. The first is how per-pupil funding in Philadelphia stacks up
against other big city districts. The
second? "Since there's been so much talk about the absence of a state
funding formula in Pennsylvania, how much of a difference do those formulas
make on other big city districts?" said Eichel.
Delco Times Heron's Nest Blog by Editor Phil Heron Friday,
January 16, 2015
Well, what do you know. Someone agrees with us. Hold the
champagne, though. This isn't a cause for celebration. It's a cause for
concern. For years I have taken up the
pulpit on the editorial pages of this paper and harangued anyone who would
listen that Pennsylvania 's
system of education funding is unfair, one that creates an unlevel playing
field that unduly penalizes a lot of kids for no other reason than their zip
code. In other words, the state is
divided into the 'haves' and the 'have-nots' when it comes to education
funding. Too many kids in Delaware County , like the kids and families in the William Penn School District
Cram Session Blog Posted on January 16, 2015 by Angie Mason
Some William Penn Senior High School students are distributing
fliers, urging parents who don’t want their child to attend a charter school to
let the state education department and chief recovery officer David Meckley
know. Ashlee DeSantis, a student who has
been leading a group called the Student Union in protesting proposed
all-charter plans, had bright orange fliers in hand Wednesday at a York City
Community Education Council meeting. “Do
you want your child in a charter school next year?” the top of the flier reads.
The flier urges parents answering no to call provided numbers for the state and
Meckley or to sign an online petition. DeSantis
said students just felt this would be the best way to get the word out. “A lot of parents don’t know what’s going
on,” she said.
ERIN
JAMES / The York Dispatch 505-5439 / @ydcity
POSTED: 01/16/2015 05:03:39 PM EST | UPDATED: ABOUT 15
HOURS AGO0
COMMENTS
Members of the York
City School
District Bethlehem Baptist
Church 474 S. Pershing Ave. ,
will proceed a 6:30 p.m. board meeting Wednesday at the district administration
building, 31 N. Pershing Ave. Margie Orr, president of the school board,
and other members of the board will be there "to show that the York community is united
against a charter takeover of its neighborhood schools," according to a
news release from the Pennsylvania State Education Association. A state-appointed official has advocated a
full conversion of district schools to charter schools operated by a for-profit
company.
PDE: Pa. School
The 2013-14 School Performance Profile scores have been released publicly by the Pennsylvania Department of Education.
The School Performance Profile is based upon many data points. State assessment scores, college readiness tests, industry standards-based assessments, progress in closing achievement gaps, and degree of student growth over time are factored into the scoring, while other identifiers of high-achieving schools are also considered: graduation, promotion and attendance rates as well as evidence of offering rigorous courses factor into the calculation. Schools may also earn extra points beyond the 100-point scoring system for those students who have earned advanced scores on the state, industry, and Advanced Placement/International Baccalaureate exams.
In addition to the scoring aspect of the site, the public can compare schools within their geographical area and across the state. For schools, the site also offers supports to consider as they identify needs associated with the performance measures in the School Performance Profile.
Access to the Pennsylvania School Performance Profile is available at http://paschoolperformance.org.
The 2013-14 School Performance Profile scores have been released publicly by the Pennsylvania Department of Education.
The School Performance Profile is based upon many data points. State assessment scores, college readiness tests, industry standards-based assessments, progress in closing achievement gaps, and degree of student growth over time are factored into the scoring, while other identifiers of high-achieving schools are also considered: graduation, promotion and attendance rates as well as evidence of offering rigorous courses factor into the calculation. Schools may also earn extra points beyond the 100-point scoring system for those students who have earned advanced scores on the state, industry, and Advanced Placement/International Baccalaureate exams.
In addition to the scoring aspect of the site, the public can compare schools within their geographical area and across the state. For schools, the site also offers supports to consider as they identify needs associated with the performance measures in the School Performance Profile.
Access to the Pennsylvania School Performance Profile is available at http://paschoolperformance.org.
By Christy Potter Special
to The Morning Call
The Northampton Area School District could see a budget
increase of 1.23 mills for the 2015-2016 school year, due in part to pension
and benefits costs, and some additional staff needed at the new middle school. During the board of education's regular
meeting on Wednesday — rescheduled from Monday due to inclement weather —
Superintendent Joe Kovalchik and business manager Terry Leh gave the board an
early peek at the budget.
By Amy McConnell Schaarsmith / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette January 16, 2015
11:51 PM
After one year on the job, Mayor Bill Peduto’s point man for
supporting public education and revitalizing Pittsburgh neighborhoods is leaving the
administration — even as the education task force he was responsible for
leading moves forward. “I consider
myself, at heart, to be a creative, intellectual type, and I thought I better
start looking into those venues of success now,” Curtiss Porter, 73, said. Mr. Porter has worked as Mr. Peduto’s chief
education and neighborhood reinvestment officer since January 2014.
Times-Tribune by SARAH
HOFIUS HALL, STAFF WRITER Published: January 17, 2015
The way teachers are hired in Scranton may soon change.
Instead of applicants being interviewed once every three years
and being scored and placed on lists, prospective teachers might be interviewed
only when there are openings. During an
education committee meeting Thursday night, district officials discussed how to
better meet the district’s hiring needs, along with saving time and money. This past summer, the interview process — in
which nearly all applicants are interviewed by panels that include a university
professor, a teacher and an administrator — cost $22,800.
Do
home-schoolers need government oversight?
Nationwide the number of families that home school
their children is on the rise, but some argue that regulations ensuring that a
home-school education matches national standards are still lacking, and could
even open the way to abuse.
Christian Science Monitor By Donald
Bradley, Associated Press JANUARY 12, 2015
KANSAS CITY, MO. — The
number of home-schooled children continues to rise in the country - now up to
an estimated 2.2 million, including thousands in the Kansas City area.
Public oversight of home schooling?
Not so much, The Kansas City Star reports.
In fact, Pennsylvania -
where home-schooling families had to register with the local school district,
submit study plans and follow other rules - recently eased its regulations
under pressure from home-school advocates.
"The shift to a majority poor student
population means that in public schools, more than half of the children start
kindergarten already trailing their more privileged peers and rarely, if ever,
catch up. They are less likely to have support at home to succeed, are less
frequently exposed to enriching activities outside of school and are more
likely to drop out and never attend college.
It also means that education policy,
funding decisions and classroom instruction must adapt to the swelling ranks of
needy children arriving at the schoolhouse door each morning."
Majority of U.S.
For the first time in at least 50 years, a majority of U.S. public
school students come from low-income families, according to a new analysis of
2013 federal data, a statistic that has profound implications for the nation. The Southern Education Foundation reports that
51 percent of students in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade were eligible for
the federal free and reduced-price lunch program in the 2012-2013 school year.
The lunch program is a rough proxy for poverty, but the explosion in the number
of needy children in the nation’s public classrooms is a recent phenomenon that
has been gaining attention among educators, public officials and researchers.
Percentage
of Poor Students in Public Schools Rises
New York Times By MOTOKO RICH JAN. 16, 2015
Just over half of all students attending public schools in the United States
are now eligible for free or reduced-price lunches, according to a new analysis of federal data. In a report released Friday by the Southern
Education Foundation, researchers found that 51 percent of children in
public schools qualified for the lunches in 2013, which means that most of them
come from low-income families. By comparison, 38 percent of public school
students were eligible for free or reduced-price lunches in 2000. According to the report, which analyzed data
from the National
Center for Education Statistics, a majority of students in 21 states are
poor. Close to two-thirds of those states are in the South, which has long had
a high concentration of poor students. In Mississippi , for example, close to
three-fourths of all public school students come from low-income families.
Sen. Alexander's Draft NCLB
Bill: Cheat Sheet
Education Week By Alyson Klein on January
16, 2015 7:08 AM
Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., the chairman of the Senate
education committee, put out his opening
bid for reauthorizing the No Child Left Behind Act earlier this week. And so far, all the interesting discussion
has been about testing,
testing, and more testing. But there's a lot more to the draft. What would it actually do?
The United
States has lost ground among developed
nations in promoting quality education for its students. To counter this
troubling trend, the Council of Chief State School Officers and the National
Governors Association worked to create a state-led program called the Common
Core State Standards. Common Core is intended to ensure that all American
children receive a quality, rigorous education. Although education policy is
becoming increasingly uniform across the county, state school systems are still
far from equal. Clearly, the stakes for
students are high, and the U.S.
still has a way to go to develop an education system that best-serves its
children. Based on this year's edition of Quality Counts, released by Education
Week, the United States
received a score of C for its school systems. Among states, Massachusetts
had the best school systems in the country, with a grade of B, while Mississippi had the
worst with a grade of D.
Testing Resistance &
Reform News: January 7 - 13, 2015
Submitted by fairtest on January 13, 2015 - 1:18pm
As the national fight to end standardized exam overkill
escalates nationally and victories continue to mount, FairTest was saddened to
learn of the death of Mary Barr, a leader of the Learning Record, a pioneering
model for high-quality assessment that does not rely on test scores (http://learningrecord.org/intro.html).
This week's large collection of testing reform stories, commentaries and other
resources is one testament to her legacy.
Education Voters Statewide
Call to Action for Public Education Day, Wed. Jan 21st
Education Voters of PA Facebook page
We want to kick off this legislative session right and make
sure the phones in the Capitol are ringing off the hook all day with calls from
voters throughout the Commonwealth! Join
thousands of Pennsylvanians as we take 5-10 minutes on January 21st to call our
new governor and our legislators to send a message that Harrisburg’s top
priority this year must be implementing a fair and adequate education funding
formula for our public schools that provides all children with an opportunity
to learn.
NPE 2015 Annual Conference –
Chicago April 24 - 26 – Early Bird Special Registration Open!
January 4, 2015 NPE 2015 Annual Conference, NPE National Conference
Early-bird discounted Registration for the Network for
Public Education’s Second Annual Conference is now available at this address:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/network-for-public-education-2015-annual-conference-tickets-15118560020
These low rates will last for the month of January.
The event is being held at the Drake Hotel in downtown
Chicago, and there is a link on the registration page for special hotel
registration rates. Here are some of the event details.
There will be a welcoming social event 7 pm Friday night,
at or near the Drake Hotel — details coming soon. Featured speakers will be:
§
Jitu Brown, National Director – Journey
for Justice, Kenwood Oakland Community Organization, Network for Public
Education Board of Directors
§
Tanaisa Brown, High School Senior, with
the Newark Student Union
§
Yong Zhao, Author, “Who’s Afraid of
the Big Bad Dragon?“
§
Diane Ravitch in conversation with
§
Lily Eskelsen Garcia, NEA President and
§
Randi Weingarten, AFT President
§
Karen Lewis, President, Chicago Teachers
Union
Mark Your Calendars. The next Twitter Chat on PA School Funding is
Tuesday, January 27, 2015 at 8:00 p.m.
Join us #paedfunding
Tweet from Circuit Rider Kathleen Kelley
PILCOP Special Education
Seminar: Dyslexia and Other Learning Disabilities
United Way Building 1709 Benjamin Franklin Parkway,
Philadelphia, 19103
Tickets: Attorneys $200
General Public $100 Webinar
$50
"Pay What You Can" tickets are also
available
Speakers: Sonja Kerr; Kathleen Carlsen (Children’s
Dyslexia Center of Philadelphia)
This session is designed to provide the audience with
information about how to address 1) eligibility issues for children with
learning disabilities, including dyslexia and ADHD, 2) encourage self-advocacy
and 3) write and implement meaningful IEPS (what does Orton-Gillingham really
look like?) This session is
co-sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania School of Policy and Practice.
The University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy & Practice is a
Pre-approved Provider of Continuing Education for Pennsylvania licensed social workers.
Questions? Email jfortenberry@pilcop.org or call 267-546-1316.
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.
PSBA Master School Board
Director Recognition: Applications begin in January
PSBA website December 23, 2014
The Master School Board Director (MSBD) Recognition is for
individuals who have demonstrated significant contributions as members of their
governance teams. It is one way PSBA salutes your hard work and exceptional
dedication to ethics and standards, student success and achievement,
professional development, community engagement, communications, stewardship of
resources, and advocacy for public education.
School directors who are consistently dedicated to the aforementioned
characteristics should apply or be encouraged to apply by fellow school
directors. The MSBD Recognition demonstrates your commitment to excellence and
serves to encourage best practices by all school directors.
The application will be posted Jan. 15, 2015,
with a deadline to apply of June 30. Recipients will be notified by the MSBD
Recognition Committee by Aug. 31 and will be honored at the PASA-PSBA School
Leadership Conference in October.
If you are interested in learning more about the MSBD
Recognition, contact Janel
Biery, conference/events coordinator, at (800) 932-0588, ext. 3332.
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