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Keystone State Education Coalition
PA Ed Policy Roundup for May 23, 2015:
Put down that crappy beach novel; today's
Roundup is hot…..
May 28, 2015 7:00 PM Jefferson Educational Society 3207 State St. Erie , PA 16508
PSBA Special Report: The
Need for a New Basic Education Funding Formula
This week PSBA released a special report on its priority legislative issue calling for a new statewide basic education funding formula with distribution in a manner that is adequate, consistent, fair and equitable and that provides districts with the greatest flexibility to use their resources. The report is being sent to all members of the General Assembly. Click here to read the full report.
This week PSBA released a special report on its priority legislative issue calling for a new statewide basic education funding formula with distribution in a manner that is adequate, consistent, fair and equitable and that provides districts with the greatest flexibility to use their resources. The report is being sent to all members of the General Assembly. Click here to read the full report.
"Last
year, close to $1.3 billion left traditional public schools to go to charters,
and that's tax dollars," said Steve Robinson, senior director of communications
for the school boards association, "and taxpayers have every right to know
how that money is being spent."
School board group seeks charters' data
School board group seeks charters' data
KATHY
BOCCELLA, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER LAST
UPDATED:May 23, 2015, 1:08 AM
For the group
representing Pennsylvania school board members, when it comes to the state's
billion-dollar charter-school industry, there's no such thing as too much
information.
But frivolous is
the word charter-school operators are using to describe the blizzard of
Right-to-Know requests submitted by the Pennsylvania School Boards Association.
They were lodged
with about 180 publicly funded charters in every corner of the state, seeking
data on how those schools spend millions of dollars on such items as salaries,
consultants, rent, ad campaigns, and a long list of other expenditures.
Charter Schools: Tracking
PSBA's May 15th Right-to-Know Requests
PSBA filed a Right-to-Know
request with Pennsylvania charter
and cyber charter schools on May 15, 2015. PSBA is tracking the response from
each charter in the table below and updating it on a weekly basis. According to
Right-to-Know Law, public entities have five days from receipt of an open
records request by the agency’s open records officer to either 1) provide the
requested records (indicated by a green check); 2) deny the request and give
reasons for the denial (indicated by a red X); or 3) invoke a 30-day extension
for specific legal reasons (indicated by an (E)).
Parents tired of being
told to wait for better schools
Philly.com Letter By
Toya Algarin, Renee Brown, Nadiyah Bryant, and Keisha Dandy POSTED: Friday, May 22, 2015, 1:08 AM
The authors are all Philadelphia
As parents, nothing is more important to us than great schools for our kids. We want schools that are safe; schools that value our children as individuals; schools with caring teachers who believe that every one of their students can and will be successful. That shouldn't be too much to ask. Yet year after year, tens of thousands ofPhiladelphia
families are forced to send their kids to schools that are, by any measure,
failing students. And year after year, families in our communities are told to
just wait for the next "fix" that will - no kidding, this time for
real - make these schools great. Wait until we have funding. Wait until we fix
this law or that law. Wait until we have a new plan.
As parents, nothing is more important to us than great schools for our kids. We want schools that are safe; schools that value our children as individuals; schools with caring teachers who believe that every one of their students can and will be successful. That shouldn't be too much to ask. Yet year after year, tens of thousands of
Blogger note: Are tax credit programs the
new WAMs in Pennsylvania
In Pennsylvania
"Let there be no
mistake: The New York Civil Liberties Union does not oppose private schools. We do not oppose
charter schools. And we defend the right of religious groups to educate their
children in accordance with their faith, instead of in the public schools.
But subsidizing private and
parochial schools at the expense of public education is fundamentally at odds
with our democratic values, and using public funds for religious education
breaches the separation of church and state."
Private School Tax Credits
New York Times Letter To the Editor: by DONNA LIEBERMAN, Executive Director, New York
Civil Liberties Union MAY 22, 2015
The right to a
meaningful public education is at the core of our democracy, and educational
opportunity must be available to all children on a fair and equitable basis, no
matter how poor they are, no matter what their educational needs are, and no
matter their race, religion or sexual orientation. Unfortunately, the proposal by Gov. Andrew M.
Cuomo of New York
to divert money from public schools to private and religious schools is not
about improving public education for all children. It is not about choice. It is about allowing hedge funds and
millionaires to siphon money away from public schools to support their narrow
idea of what education should look like.
This includes private
schools for the 1 percent, religious schools that can throw children out and
dismiss teachers for having the wrong faith — or no faith — and privately owned
and operated charter schools that operate without accountability and would turn
our underfunded public schools into a dumping ground for New York’s neediest
and most challenging students.
"Alterations he has in
mind for the law, often referred to as Act 153, could shrink the pool of people
who must obtain criminal history and child abuse clearances; waive the fee for
volunteers to obtain those credentials; and could lessen the frequency of the
need to obtain federal criminal history checks."
Lawmaker pushing to waive
background check fees for volunteers
Penn Live By Jan Murphy | jmurphy@pennlive.com
Email the author | Follow on Twitter
on May 22, 2015 at 7:45 AM, updated May 22, 2015 at 9:42 AM
The state's new background checks
law that was part of the fallout of the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal has
caused so much angst that a rush is on to change it before it is fully in
effect. Rep. Dan Moul, R-Gettysburg,
said on Thursday he is pushing hard for the Legislature to act in the first or
second week of June to amend the law to address complaints that have been
raised about it. In particular, Moul,
who sponsored the original law, said people complain about the cost associated
with obtaining the criminal background checks and child abuse clearance. They
also fear that its application to volunteers will diminish the supply of this
unpaid help.
"On Tuesday, May 19th voters
in Philadelphia sent a message to billionaire
venture philanthropists who were trying to buy the office of mayor of Philadelphia
Common Sense
in Philadelphia
Defend Public
Education Blog By Ken Derstine May 21, 2015
This sacrifice of
common sense is the certain badge which distinguishes slavery from freedom; for
when men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits
the horizon.
Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine
On Tuesday, May 19th voters
in Philadelphia sent a message to billionaire
venture philanthropists who were trying to buy the office of mayor of Philadelphia to promote
their privatization of public schools agenda. By the day of the primary
election for mayor and other offices they
had invested $7 million in advertising for the candidate they thought
would carry out their agenda, State Senator Anthony Williams. Former Councilman Jim Kenney defeated
Williams by a 2-to-1 margin winning
a plurality in all wards in the city.
Exactly How Wasteful Was the Tony
Williams Campaign?
Very. And who got
the biggest bang for his campaign buck? Doug Oliver.
Philly Mag Citified BY PATRICK KERKSTRA | MAY
21, 2015 AT 4:19 PM
The only metric that
really matters in an election is the vote count. But it’s interesting to look
at which candidates got the most value with their campaign spending. One blunt
way to look at that is to see how many votes the candidates get per dollar
spent.
Jim Kenney fared pretty well, as you would expect.
His victory cost him about $12 per vote, and $30 per vote if you factor in his
super PAC support, and you definitely should. Anthony Williams and
his super PAC? A gobstopping $149 per vote won. Wow.
Read more at http://www.phillymag.com/citified/2015/05/21/campaign-funding-waste/#Yp6TCgtxEQEu7Kju.99
"You have to go back to
the late 1990s. The economy was booming. The state was running a surplus, and
the public employee pension funds were flush with cash.
By the summer of 2001, state
lawmakers voted to boost pension benefits, bumping up the pay-out rate and
cutting in half the amount of time it took to become eligible for a pension.
But, then, the bottom fell
out."
Why are teachers pension
plans in trouble?
WHYY Newsworks BY KEVIN MCCORRY MAY 22,
2015 MULTIPLE CHOICES: PART 9
The state runs two
public employee pension plans that share a parallel narrative. One plan is for
teachers and school employees, called PSERS. The other is for other state
workers, called SERS — which, in addition to rank-and-file state employees,
covers state troopers, lawmakers, judges, top executive branch officials and
state university staff members.
Collectively these pension
plans currently have a $53 billion dollar unfunded liability that's causing
major headaches at both the state and local school district level.
ESL educator says state exams hurt kids
By Eleanor Chute / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
May 23, 2015 12:00 AM
As the state
mandatory testing season winds down, the number of students opting out of
taking the Pennsylvania System of State Assessment tests in Pittsburgh Public
Schools stands at 40. And there is one
teacher. Mary King, who teaches English
as a second language at Pittsburgh Colfax K-8, became the first and only
teacher in Pittsburgh to refuse to give the PSSA
tests to her students, a decision that drew national attention this month on the
blog of a New York
University U.S. less than
a year don’t have to take the PSSA in English language arts, but they do have
to take the PSSA in math and science. They can have certain accommodations,
such as use of word-to-word translation dictionaries without definitions and
pictures on some of the exams. Ms. King,
who is in her 26th year and is retiring this school year, said not all students
get upset, but she recalled one student who had to take the math test her first
week. “All she knew was ‘hello,’ ‘good-bye,’ ‘thank you.’ She cried the whole
time.”
Ms. King recalled
another girl who had never been to school before. “Her own language was an oral
language. She didn’t understand the concept.”
SRC approves another
charter school
KRISTEN A.
GRAHAM, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER LAST
UPDATED: Friday, May 22, 2015, 1:08 AM POSTED: Thursday, May 21,
2015, 8:59 PM
The School Reform
Commission approved a new charter school Thursday, bringing to six the number
it has signed off on this year. The SRC
had denied KIPP West Philadelphia Charter's application in February, but the
organization tweaked the proposal, making changes to proposed school
governance, academic certification, location, and opening date. On second pass, the SRC approved the school's
charter, 3-1. But it was not a ringing endorsement. Chairwoman Marjorie Neff
voted against the charter, and Commissioner Feather Houstoun said she felt it
did not rise to the level of other applications, but was approving it because
leaving the board deadlocked put the SRC on shaky ground legally.
Philly school budget
hearings resume
WHYY Newsworks BY TOM MACDONALD MAY 23, 2015
Now that the primary
elections are over, Philadelphia City Council is poised to resume its budget
hearings. And that means the fight for more school funding also resumes. After announcing the good news of an
improving graduation rate in the city, Mayor Michael Nutter urged City Council
to provide the necessary funding for the schools to continue that trend. "I'm glad the election is over, let's
all kind of get re-engaged, if you will, in the No. 1 issue and challenge in
the city, which is educating young people," said Nutter. City Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell, an
advocate for education, said Nutter's plan to achieve that goal -- a
property tax hike of more than 9 percent to raise revenue for the schools --
just isn't possible.
Will Philly ballot
question help get rid of School Reform Commission?
WHYY Newsworks BY TOM MACDONALD MAY 22, 2015
Now that Philadelphia voters have
approved a referendum to abolish the school reform commission, What happens
now? Even though the ballot question was approved
overwhelmingly, the School Reform Commission cannot be abolished without help
from the commission members or the legislature.
Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell says with the will of the people in hand
it's time to go to Harrisburg
and ask for that to happen. "It
legitimizes our contact with the mayor the superintendent and the governor and
says you've got to do things differently and that's what this question
does," she said. Blackwell says
local control of the city school district is key to an education partnership
with an elected school board.
"Why are we laying the
groundwork for a new prison—a prison that could cost up to $500 million—when
Philadelphia's public schools are forecasting an $85 million deficit? The answer seemed obvious. The prison was
being given priority over the schools. And while there seemed to be a rational
explanation—that the prison would be built with capital dollars that could be
borrowed, while the schools needed operating dollars that had to be raised—the
schools and the prisons are not separate issues. In fact, the schools and the
prisons are locked in an intimate embrace.
Failing schools feed what's come to be known as the school to prison
pipeline. Poor and minority children who fail to graduate are statistically
more likely to land in prison. Once they are funneled into prison cells, they
fuel a system that churns out broken lives with frightening efficiency."
The school to prison
pipeline must end here
THE PHILADELPHIA EXPERIMENT A
BLOG BY SOLOMON JONES MAY
22, 2015
Late last week, as
the mayoral primary barreled toward its anticlimactic conclusion, PlanPhilly
published a story about a bill that would allow the city to buy land in order
to lay the groundwork for a new prison. It
initially seemed to be the tale of a sweetheart land deal, in which a company
that paid $100 for the plot would walk away with nearly $7.3 million in
taxpayer dollars. Of course, it was much more nuanced than it seemed. The land
had been foreclosed upon after a multimillion-dollar loan went bad, and the
city was paying fair market value to a company seeking to recoup its
investment. But even as that part of the
story was clarified, another question gnawed at me incessantly.
Can Jim Kenney bring
community schools to Philadelphia
By Laura Benshoff for NewsWorks on May 22,
2015 12:31 PM
On a small plot of
land wedged between South
Philadelphia High
School
Narva works for
Sunrise of Philadelphia Inc., a nonprofit that runs afterschool programing at
two sites in the Philadelphia
School District
Here's how Pennsylvania
By Jacqueline
Palochko Of The Morning Call
May 23, 2015
What would PA school
districts use Gov. Tom Wolf's money for?
Full-day
kindergarten. More teachers. Textbooks aligned with the Pennsylvania Core
Standards.
And the list goes
on. In March, Gov. Tom Wolf proposed
hundreds of millions of dollars more for public education, and his education
chief, Pedro Rivera, gave superintendents until May 15 to say how they'd use
the money to improve student learning. In
a letter supporting Wolf's plan, Rivera wrote: "The 2015-16 budget
[proposal] sets Pennsylvania on a path to fully meet the state's responsibility
for education funding while requiring schools to demonstrate that students are
developing the skill set needed for success in the workforce and that state
funds are used appropriately." Not
everybody was on board. Republican lawmakers and fiscal hawks found the letter
controversial and advised superintendents not to count on the money. The state
has until July 1 to produce a budget, and Wolf, a Democrat, proposed an
ambitious blend of tax increases and decreases to produce money for education
while reducing property taxes at a time of red ink statewide.
Blogger's note: When is the
last time you recall reading an article about a charter school's budget?
Those are your tax dollars too.
News of Delaware County By Lois Puglionesi lpuglionesi@gmail.com
Wednesday, May 20, 2015
HAVERFORD >>
School directors voted unanimously at a recent meeting to adopt a $107 million
proposed final budget for 2015-16 that raises millage 2.8 percent, to 29.4719
mills. The proposed increase will add
$132 to annual taxes on the average residential property assessed at $164,121,
for a total $4,837. This year’s Act 1
Index allows a 1.9 percent increase. However, the district obtained a PSERS
(Public School Employees Retirement System) exception, which raised the ceiling
to 2.95 percent, business manager Rick Henderson said. Preliminary budget drafts called for a 3.57
percent millage increase, based on obtaining a referendum exception for special
education as well as PSERS. However, the
district did not qualify. Really good
cost control and changes in special education services reduced our special
education spending in 2013-14 versus the prior year,” Henderson said. Major increases in expenditures include the
$1 million net impact of PSERS, $1.1 million added labor costs, and a $258,000
prescription drug increase. The beginning and ending fund balance is $7.47
million.
Pollster Terry Madonna Joins the Next #FairFundingPA
chat on Twitter
Terry Madonna will
join the next monthly Twitter chat with Pennsylvania’s major education
leadership organizations on Tuesday, May 26 at 8 p.m. Madonna
is Professor of Public Affairs and Director of the Center for Politics and Public
Affairs at Franklin and Marshall College. He is also the Director of the
Franklin and Marshall
College Poll.
Topics will include,
but not be limited to: Property tax reform, Governor Wolf’s budget proposal,
and of course the need for a fair, predictable basic education funding formula.
Use hashtag #FairFundingPA to participate and follow the
conversation.
On the last Tuesday
of each month at 8 p.m., the following organizations go to Twitter to discuss
timely topics, ask questions and listen to the public’s responses:
- The
- The
- The
- The
- The
Join the
conversation. Share your ideas, lurk, learn and let us know what you think
about the state’s support for public schools. It’s a simple, free and
fast-paced way to communicate and share information. If you’ve never tweeted
before, here are directions and a few tips:
NAACP PA STATE CONFERENCE YOUTH & COLLEGE
DIVISION:
Saturday, May 30, 2015 9:00 am
St. Bernard Hall, Friendship Circle Senior
Center
East Campus of Mercy Fitzgerald
Hospital
Please RSVP to
panaacpyc@gmail.com by May 25
May 28, 2015 7:00 PM Jefferson Educational
Society 3207 State St.
Erie , PA 16508
Panelists
Conneaut School
District
Mr. Jarrin
Sperry, Superintendent, Ms. Jody Sperry, Board President
Corry School
District
Mr. William Nichols,
Superintendent
Fort LeBoeuf
School District
Mr. Richard Emerick,
Assistant Superintendent
Girard School
District
Dr. James Tracy,
Superintendent
Harbor Creek
School District
Ms. Christine
Mitchell, Board President
Millcreek School
District
Mr. William Hall,
Superintendent Mr. Aaron O'Toole, Director of Finance and Accounting
Keynote Speaker
Mr. Jay Himes,
Executive Director, Pennsylvania Association of School Business Officials
PILCOP: Adequately and
Fairly Funding Pennsylvania Schools: What are the Needs and Where Does the
Money Come From? (Live Webinar)
June 8, 2015, 12:00 — 2:00 P.M.
June 8, 2015, 12:00 — 2:00 P.M.
Staff attorney
Michael Churchill will speak about what schools need and where the money comes
from in this Pennsylvania Bar Institute (PBI) webinar on June
8. Click here to register.
Governor Wolf has
proposed $500 million in new funding for public schools starting this July. He
has proposed as shale extraction tax and increases in personal income and sales
taxes to pay for this. This Philadelphia
Bar Association Education Law Section and PBI are hosting a webinar that will
focus on how much public schools need and differing proposals on how state
funds should be distributed this year and in the future. Other focuses will
include the current local tax burdens for public schools and issues concerning
how the state should raise revenues to pay for these programs. The program will also provide information
about the components of a good funding formula and look at the work of the
Basic Education Funding Commission and the state-wide Campaign for Fair
Education Funding, of which we are a leading member.
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