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Keystone State Education Coalition
PA Ed Policy Roundup for May 14, 2015:
Wolf praises Pa.
Education Voters PA: Join our Call to
Action Today, Thursday, May 14th
Join others across Pennsylvania and
take 5-10 minutes on May 14th to call our state legislators to tell them
that Harrisburg
School directors,
superintendents and administrators are encouraged to register and attend this
event.
Bucks / Lehigh / Northampton
Wednesday, May 20, 2015 from 7:00 PM to
9:00 PM Quakertown Community School District , 100
Commerce Drive
Quakertown , PA
18951
Guest Editorial: We must have funding for education
The Sentinel Guest
Column by John Hanger May 13, 2015
John Hanger is
the Secretary of Planning and Policy on Gov. Tom Wolf’s staff.
In order to rebuild Pennsylvania ’s middle class and re-establish Pennsylvania as an economic leader, we must work to
secure the best education possible for Pennsylvania
students. But after the
massive cuts that gutted districts over the last four years, forcing teacher
layoffs and increased class sizes, we have a duty to restore and reinvest in
our education system. It’s a topic that is not up for debate — because it’s
just too important. Gov. Wolf is
committed to not only restoring the full $1 billion in cuts, with a goal of
providing $2 billion over four years, but this year his budget invests an
additional $400 million into basic education.
Pennsylvania lawmakers forward pension, tax overhauls
Items put on table for budget discussions
By Karen Langley /
Post-Gazette Harrisburg
Bureau May 13, 2015 11:10 PM
HARRISBURG —
Legislators on Wednesday passed two major bills — pension overhaul
from the Senate, property-tax overhaul from the House — that are expected to
become part of negotiations on the annual state budget. “We needed to figure out this week whether
two particular items were going to be on the table for budget discussions:
pension reform and property tax reform,” said House Majority Leader Dave Reed,
R-Indiana. “If either one of those would have failed, they were going to be off
the table for the next six weeks and we were going to get the budget done
without them.”
Wolf praises Pa.
WHYY Newsworks BY MARY WILSON MAY 14, 2015
Gov. Tom Wolf is
heaping praise on Pennsylvania 's
House, after the GOP-controlled chamber passed a property tax-overhaul plan
with bipartisan support. Wolf called it "the first substantive property
tax reform bill" in his lifetime. It
anticipates raising more than $4 billion in higher sales and personal income
taxes in order to force property tax bills down. Opponents said Wednesday they
doubt the plan would bring about lasting tax relief. Others said they were
holding out for property tax elimination. Some voiced concerns that the
proposed tax shift would fall more heavily on individuals than on large
businesses.
House vote shows
determination to tackle property tax reform
Penn Live By Jan Murphy | jmurphy@pennlive.com Email
the author | Follow on Twitter
on May 13, 2015 at 6:52 PM
on May 13, 2015 at 6:52 PM
After decades of
tinkering around the edges on school property tax reform, the state House on
Wednesday showed its determination to find a way to deliver substantive
relief to property owners this year. In a bi-partisan vote of 105-86 (see
below how individual lawmakers voted), the chamber sent over to the
Senate a tax-shifting
plan that when fully implemented would raise state income and
sales taxes to lower school property tax bills by $4.2 billion in the first
year of full implementation. Adding in
the $600 million from slots tax revenue already available for property relief,
the plan is estimated to provide between 37 and 70 percent reduction in
residential school property tax bills. Commercial property owners would see
some tax relief as well. The bill by no
means is viewed even by legislators who supported it as a finished product, but
as many of them said it's a state to a long overdue conversation.
Pennsylvania property tax
relief bill passes House; raises sales, income taxes
Lehigh Valley Live By Associated Press Follow on Twitter on May 13, 2015 at 10:23 PM,
updated May 14, 2015 at 1:52 AM
Pennsylvanians would
see billions in lower school property taxes under a proposal that made it out
of the state House on Wednesday and into the hands of the Senate. The House voted 105-86 for what supporters
called the most significant action in decades on relief from the state's widely
reviled property taxes. "Today we
begin a journey that has come 1,000 miles, and we hope to conclude that journey
over the next six weeks," said Majority Leader Dave Reed, R-Indiana. He
said the vote keeps the issue in the mix during the Legislature's most intense
period of the year, ahead of the June 30 budget deadline.
It's on to the Pennsylvania
Penn Live By Charles Thompson |
cthompson@pennlive.com Email the author | Follow on Twitter
on May 13, 2015 at 9:30 PM, updated May 13, 2015 at 9:35 PM
on May 13, 2015 at 9:30 PM, updated May 13, 2015 at 9:35 PM
Sweeping aside
decades of legal precedent and policy-making tradition, Senate Republicans
passed a pension reform bill
Wednesday that, as written, would change benefit formulas
mid-career for more than 360,000 current state workers and school employees. The 28-19 vote was a ringing endorsement for
Senate Majority Leader Jake Corman's insistence that killing Pennsylvania 's tax-eating pension tapeworm
is a must-have for the 30-member Senate GOP caucus in this spring's state
budget talks.
By Charles Thompson | cthompson@pennlive.com
Email the author | Follow on Twitter
on May 13, 2015 at 3:28 PM, updated May 13, 2015 at 5:18 PM
on May 13, 2015 at 3:28 PM, updated May 13, 2015 at 5:18 PM
On a 28-19 vote, the
Senate's Republican majority carried a major public employee pension reform
measure to passage Wednesday afternoon.
All Republicans present voted for the bill except one, Sen. Stewart
Greenleaf of Montgomery
County
Senate pension bill savings of $18 billion iffy
By Steve
Esack Morning Call
Harrisburg Bureau May 13, 2015
HARRISBURG — A Senate bill to overhaul the state's two
debt-ridden pension systems could save taxpayers $18.2 billion over 30 years by
reducing benefits for current and future state workers and school employees. Or maybe not.
Under Pennsylvania
law, legislation that alters public pensions must receive an independent
mathematical review to determine potential taxpayer costs and savings. But the actuarial firm hired by the
Pennsylvania Employee Retirement Commission to review Senate Bill 1 said it was
not given enough time to read the 410-page legislation, which was unveiled
Friday. The alleged savings may not be accurate, the firm cautioned in a report
released Tuesday. "We are
disclosing that the time available for preparing this letter was insufficient
to perform a complete review and thus this letter should be considered
preliminary in nature," Chester County firm Milliman wrote.
Details of public pension
benefits in Pennsylvania
Legislation being
advanced by Pennsylvania Senate Republicans would seek pension concessions from
state government and public school employees hired before 2011. It would ask
them to pay a bigger portion of their paycheck to keep a pension enhancement
authorized in 2001. Those who elect not to pay more would see the pension
benefit calculated on their future earnings reduced to the pre-2001 benefit
level. Also, the traditional pension would end for future employees. Instead,
they would get a 401(k)-style plan — with an approximately 2.6 percent employer
contribution for school employees and a 4 percent contribution for state
government employees — and a cash balance plan that would earn up to 4 percent
interest. Here's how most
pensions are now calculated, what some typical employees are getting and how
much they contributed toward their pensions:
PSBA applauds approval of PlanCon reform bill
PSBA website POSTED
ON MAY 13, 2015
PSBA is encouraged
to see House Bill 210 pass the full House and move onto the Senate. The bill
would create a simplified new process known as the Accountability and Reducing
Costs in Construction Process, or ARCCon. The association applauds Rep. Seth
Grove (R-York) for his work to move this bill forward. House Bill 210 will add much needed
transparency into the process of school construction. While PSBA recognizes
more needs to be done, including providing proper funding for districts to be
reimbursed for construction expenses, this is an important step to reform the
current archaic PlanCon process.
Hold harmless: funding
protection or red herring?
WHYY Newsworks BY CHRIS
SATULLO MAY 14, 2015 MULTIPLE CHOICES: PART 7
Seventh in
an occasional series of podcasts and web "explainers." To
listen to the podcast, click the audio player above.
What does "hold harmless" mean? It's a policy underlying the distribution of state education aid in Pennsylvania . "Hold
harmless" provides that no district will get less money in the new funding
year than it got in the previous year.
What's the
effect? It means school districts that lose
enrollment do not lose state aid as a result. Do the basic arithmetic and you
realize that this results in such districts getting more aid per student than
before. So, in a sense, "hold
harmless" works for a city like Pittsburgh ,
where enrollment is down about 12 percent over the last five years and nearly
60 percent from its peak. As a result, Pittsburgh 's
per-student spending is around $20,000, well above those figures for other
cities such as Philadelphia
($12,570). "Hold harmless" is
sort of good for affluent suburban districts, which may not get a lot of state
aid but are guaranteed by another state rule to always get some. "Hold
harmless" guarantees that their allotment will never shrink, no matter how
tough the overall state education budget gets and how far state aid falls short
of what less affluent districts might need.
Village View: Pa.
By Bonnie Squires For Main Line Times Published: Wednesday, May 13, 2015
The more things
change, the more they remain the same! In the late 1980s and early 1990s, I was
the associate director of PSEA, the Pennsylvania State Education Association,
in charge of media and communications. One of my initiatives was to create a
video which I called, “Equity: The Case for Fairness,” to demonstrate the
unfairness of the state’s funding of public education. Each school district is
left to its own devices, forced to depend on local real estate taxes. So I took a video crew out, starting at Harriton High School, showing how Lower
Merion, with an affluent tax base, offers high quality education. Then we
traveled to Harrisburg, where the city cannot tax most of the buildings because
they are state offices, leaving the Harrisburg School District always behind in
funding. And we ended up in a former coal mining town, where almost every
single citizen there was on welfare because the mines were all closed and
unemployment was the rule. The school we visited and taped was 100 years old,
wood-framed, with the “emergency exit” on the basement level, through the
cafeteria and behind the food cases.
By Christina
Tatu Of The Morning Call May 13, 2015
The Saucon Valley
School Board has rejected the latest contract proposal by the teachers union,
meaning the two sides will now enter nonbinding arbitration, according to
district labor attorney Jeffrey Sultanik.
The school board met in executive session before Tuesday's regular
meeting and reviewed the union's proposal, which was offered during a negotiation
session last Thursday. Details of that
proposal are confidential, but Sultanik said it is based on the union's March
23 offer, which was summarily rejected by the board.
"On accountability, Hite
said that although demanding more results from Philadelphia
He urged the legislators to
provide more funds for the District's turnaround efforts already underway."
'Achievement school
district' bill is an unfunded mandate, says Hite
the notebook By David Limm and Dale
Mezzacappa on May 13, 2015 01:12 PM
Superintendent
William Hite sought Wednesday to dissuade legislators from passing a bill that
would create an "achievement school district" to turn around the
state's struggling schools. Testifying in front
of the Senate's education committee, Hite called the draft of the bill,
sponsored by Sen. Lloyd Smucker, a blow to Philadelphia .
"Senate
Bill 6 would create an unfunded turnaround mandate, resulting in the
stripping out of supports and programs from schools left under local district
control," he said. The creation of
such a district, similar to ones in Lawrence , Mass. , and Tennessee ,
would have an outsize impact on Philadelphia ,
where most of the state's underperforming schools are located.
Hite: Philly would suffer
if state runs low-performing schools
KRISTEN A.
GRAHAM, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER LAST
UPDATED: May 14, 2015, 1:09 AM
Legislation that
would create a state-run system for low-performing Pennsylvania
schools could devastate the Philadelphia
School District , its superintendent
told the Senate Education Committee in Harrisburg
on Wednesday. William R. Hite Jr. said
he favors accountability for additional funds he seeks for Philadelphia .
But as written, a bill that would compel struggling schools across the
state to improve rapidly or face relegation to a new state-administered system
would "create an unfunded turnaround mandate, resulting in the stripping
out of supports and programs from schools left under district control," he
said. Senate Bill 6, introduced by
Education Committee Chairman Lloyd Smucker (R., Lancaster), is modeled after
state-run districts created with mixed success in places like Tennessee,
Massachusetts, and Louisiana. But, Hite noted, additional resources bolstered
those efforts.
KRISTEN A.
GRAHAM, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER LAST
UPDATED: Thursday, May 14, 2015, 1:08 AM POSTED: Wednesday, May 13,
2015, 5:50 PM
The Philadelphia School District
Superintendent
William R. Hite Jr. said the district, rocked by years of brutal budgets, has
to find a way to expand medical services and was exploring bringing in private
providers to do so. "With the
significant cuts that we've made, it's impacted our ability to deliver health
services to all children that need those services," Hite said. Jerry Jordan, president of the Philadelphia
Federation of Teachers, which represents nurses, called any effort to privatize
nurses "a shortsighted, Band-Aid solution."
Some Phila. students opt
out of Keystone exams
KATHY
BOCCELLA, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER LAST
UPDATED: Thursday, May 14, 2015, 1:09 AM POSTED: Wednesday, May 13,
2015, 4:19 PM
On the first day of
the spring Keystone exams, some Philadelphia
high school students walked out while others "opted out" of the tests
that soon will be required to graduate. "It's
important to fight against standardized tests," said Gian Carlos
Rodriguez, 16, a sophomore at Penn
Treaty High
School Kensington
High School
Poll's overall breakdown of
likely voters: 42 percent for Kenney, 15 percent for Abraham, 15 percent for
Williams…
"Daniel Meier, 45, a public-school teacher from WestMount Airy
"Daniel Meier, 45, a public-school teacher from West
"They're essentially
creating a two-tier system," Meier said. "Public schools have to
educate all children; charters can get rid of the behavior problems and the
special-needs kids. They go back to the public schools, and we're the ones that
are left to deal with it with fewer funds because the funds have been sent to
charters.""
A Kenney tsunami coming
next week?
WILLIAM BENDER
& DAVID GAMBACORTA, DAILY
NEWS STAFF WRITERS BENDERW@PHILLYNEWS.COM,
215-854-5255 LAST
UPDATED: Thursday, May 14, 2015, 12:16 AM POSTED: Wednesday, May 13,
2015, 4:13 PM
IS THE 2015 Philadelphia mayor's race
effectively over?
An independent poll
released yesterday contains a staggering amount of good news for former City
Councilman Jim Kenney - he's leading the pack by a whopping 27 points - and a
mountain of migraine-inducing numbers for state Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams. The poll of 600 likely Democratic primary
voters - commissioned by the Daily News, the Inquirer,
Philly.com and NBC10 - shoots to hell most of Williams' strategies for getting
into City Hall and points to a potential landslide for Kenney on Tuesday.
Education Voters Action
Fund endorses Helen Gym for City Council At Large.
Education Voters Action Fund - PA May 13, 2015
By electing Helen to City Council, we will have someone who has been on
the front lines fighting for our students, fighting for equity and access and
resources. Having that same person leading the charge for funding,
accountability, and improvement for our schools inside government will be a
huge step forward for the students of Philadelphia,
Media Branch NAACP hosts
Conference on the State of Education in Pennsylvania Saturday at Cheyney
Delco Times POSTED: 05/14/15,
5:23 AM EDT |
THORNBURY >>
The 2015 Media Branch NAACP Conference on the State of Education
in Pennsylvania
will be held 9 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Saturday in the second floor
auditorium of the Marcus Foster Student Union at Cheyney University of
Pennsylvania. This year’s theme is,
“Adequate and Equitable School Funding for the Children of Pennsylvania.” “Pennsylvania
has the largest funding gap in the United States between well-funded
schools and underfunded schools,” sidd Dr. Joan Duvall-Flynn, president of the
Media Area Unit NAACP. “Some children must attend schools that have no
libraries, no guidance counselors, no art, music or physical education
teachers, and inadequate access to technology, yet they are required to perform
as well on state mandated tests as children who attend schools that offer every
advantage.” Pennsylvania is one of only a few states
that does not use a formula for the distribution of state funds to its public
schools. As a result, the distribution of funds across the districts has been
arbitrary.
State Capacity to Support
School Turnaround
US Dept.
of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance
May 2015
One objective of the
U.S. Department of Education's (ED) School Improvement Grants (SIG) and Race to
the Top (RTT) program is to help states enhance their capacity to support the
turnaround of low-performing schools. This capacity may be important, given how
difficult it is to produce substantial and sustained achievement gains in
low-performing schools. There is limited existing research on the extent to
which states have the capacity to support school turnaround and are pursuing
strategies to enhance that capacity. This brief documents states' capacity to support
school turnaround as of spring 2012 and spring 2013. It examines capacity
issues for all states and for those that reported both prioritizing turnaround
and having significant gaps in expertise to support it. Key findings, based on
interviews with administrators from 49 states and the District of Columbia,
include the following:
- More than 80 percent of states made
turning around low-performing schools a high priority, but at least 50
percent found it very difficult to turn around low-performing schools.
- 38 states (76 percent) reported
significant gaps in expertise for supporting school turnaround in 2012,
and that number increased to 40 (80 percent) in 2013.
- More than 85 percent of states reported
using strategies to enhance their capacity to support school turnaround,
with the use of intermediaries decreasing over time and the use of
organizational or administrative structures increasing over time.
- States that reported both prioritizing
school turnaround and having significant gaps in expertise to support it
were no more likely to report using intermediaries than other states but
all 21 of these states reported having at least one organizational or
administrative structure compared with 86 percent (25 of 29) of all other
states.
John Merrow: Good Stuff
Taking Note Blog;
Thoughts on Education by JOHN MERROW on 13. MAY, 2015
When my wife and I
moved recently, the process forced me to dig through piles of stuff and discard
what I didn’t care enough about to pack and then unpack. In the process I came
across some really good stuff, and that triggered this list of books,
organizations, films, and websites that I value
Atlantic Monthly Now
Funded by Walton
Diane Ravitch's Blog
By dianeravitch May 13, 2015 //
Thanks to reader
Chiara for this disturbing story:
She writes:
Atlantic Monthly now
funded by Walton Family:
“All of which is
important context for spotlighting a grant of $550,000 made last year by the
leading philanthropic proponent of charter schools, the Walton Family
Foundation, to the Atlantic Monthly, a storied magazine that’s been commanding
attention from the nation’s educated elite for a century and a half. The grant
was made as part of Walton’s effort’s to shape public policy, with the
foundation describing its goal in this area as catalyzing a “national movement
demanding choice and accountability.” “That’s
funny because we have been told repeatedly there IS a national movement
“demanding” choice and accountability. Apparently it needs paid cheerleaders to
“catalyze” the public. It’s called “creating demand”.
Let them eat cookies….
The top 25 hedge fund managers earn more than all
kindergarten teachers in U.S.
During his remarks
on poverty at Georgetown University on Tuesday, President Obama noted the
discrepancy in pay between two very different sets of workers. This comparison has been made before in
different ways, but we figured it was worth checking.
High School Graduation
Rates Hit Another All-Time High
The EDifier - Center for Public Education May 12, 2015
With over 81 percent
of students graduating within four-years of entering high school, the Class of
2013 achieved the highest on-time graduation rate in U.S. history according to the 2015 Building a Grad Nation report.
After graduation rates languished in the low 70s for nearly four decades, rates
have accelerated dramatically over the past decade. According to the
report, if this rate of improvement continues the national graduation rate will
reach 90 percent by 2020, a goal of the authors of Grad Nation. While attainment gaps remain, the gap is
narrowing between traditionally disadvantaged students and their more
advantaged peers. This is particularly true for the fastest growing group of
students in our nation’s schools, Hispanics, whose graduation rate increased
from 71 percent to 75 percent between 2011 and 2013. Black students made
significant gains during this period as well, improving their graduation rate
from 67 percent to 71 percent. Despite these gains the graduation rates for
black and Hispanic students are still significantly lower than those of white
students (87 percent).
Education Voters PA: Join our Call to Action on
Thursday, May 14th
Join others across
Pennsylvania and take 5-10 minutes on May 14th to call our state legislators to
tell them that Harrisburg’s top priority this year must be enacting a
new system that provides adequate and fair funding for public schools.
Our
legislators must take politics out of school funding and
distribute state funding to school districts using a formula that is based on
real factors and the real costs of delivering services.
• Support sufficient
funding for public schools that provides every student with the opportunity to
learn, to meet state standards, and to be self-sufficient adults, ready for
college and the workforce. Money
matters when it comes to providing programs and services.
• Drive out state
funding to districts using a formula that is based on real factors and the real
costs of delivering services, including student factors such as the number of
students who live in poverty, who are English language learners, and who are
homeless. It should also take into account district factors such as the
sparsity/size of the district, local tax effort, local wealth, and the number
of students attending charter schools.
• Please support a
long-term, student-driven, and equitable funding formula that provides adequate
resources for every student to be able to meet academic standards.
Want to share this
info? Here is our flyer:May_14_Call_to_Action_Flyer_2015.pdfMay_14_Call_to_Action_Flyer_2015.pdf
School directors, superintendents and
administrators are encouraged to register and attend this event.
Bucks / Lehigh /
Northampton Legislative Council
Wednesday, May 20, 2015
from 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM Quakertown Community School District, 100 Commerce
Drive Quakertown, PA 18951
Welcome by Paul Stepanoff , Board President , QCSD
Introduction of Paul Clymer, State of State Education
Mr. Glenn Grell , PSERS Executive Director
Introduction by Dr. Bill Harner, Superintendent QCSD
Panel of Superintendents and Elected School Directors from Bucks / Lehigh
/ Northampton Counties
Introduction by Mark B. Miller, Board Vice President, Centennial SD
TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION:
1) The status of 2015-16 budget in their district (including proposed tax
increase)
2) PSERS impact on their budget
3) Proposed use of any new funding from Commonwealth
Larry Feinberg and Ron Williams
Benefit and need for County Wide Legislative Council in Delaware and
Montgomery Counties respectively
Dr. Tom Seidenberger (Retired Superintendent ) - Circuit Rider Update
SAVE The DATE: Northwestern PA School Funding Forum
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
CONFERENCE ON THE STATE OF EDUCATION IN PENNSYLVANIA
A CALL FOR ADEQUATE AND EQUITABLE SCHOOL FUNDING
Sponsored by Coatesville and Media Area
NAACPs
9:00 AM – 1:30 PM SATURDAY, MAY 16, 2015
MARCUS FOSTER STUDENT UNION 2ND
FLOOR
CHEYNEY UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA DELAWARE
COUNTY CAMPUS, CHEYNEY, PA
Our children have to
pass the state mandated tests in order to move on with life. SO - it is time
for the PA Assembly to provide adequate and equitable funding to the public
schools of Pennsylvania.
FREE AND OPEN TO THE
PUBLIC. SPACE IS LIMITED.
COME AND ASK YOUR
PERSONAL QUESTIONS AND SHARE YOUR OPINIONS WITH PRESENTERS WHO ARE EXPERTS AND
POLICY MAKERS.
Pre-Registration is
required for meals. Deadline for Pre-registration is May 12, 2015
PRE-REGISTER
ON-LINE: HTTPS://www.surveymonkey.com/S/JTZB9F8
Additional Info: http://www.naacpmediabranch.org/cse.html
Spanish Version: http://www.naacpmediabranch.org/cse-spanish.html
PHILLY DISTRICT TO HOLD
COMMUNITY BUDGET MEETINGS
Thursday,
May 14
Congreso, 216 West Somerset St .
Wednesday,
May 20
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