Daily postings from the Keystone State Education Coalition now
reach more than 3600 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, faith-based organizations, labor organizations,
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
Follow us on Twitter at @lfeinberg
Keystone State Education Coalition
PA Ed Policy Roundup for May 18, 2015:
EPLC's Ron Cowell: “This is the most substantial
(tax reform) proposal I’ve seen in 40 years’’
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
Featured
Guests: Former House Education Committee Chair Paul Clymer and New PSERS Chief
(former Rep) Glenn Grell
The Pennsylvania School
Capitolwire: Charter school group calls Right-to-Know
request ‘a publicity stunt’
PSBA website Reprinted
with permission: Christen Smith, Staff Reporter, Capitolwire
The organization
wants to know how much the schools pay administrators and spend on advertising
and real estate contracts, all for the sake of transparency and education.
PSBA represents the
interests of 4,500 locally-elected school board directors across the state. “Charter school
proponents have criticized public schools claiming they don’t understand how
charters operate or are financed,” said Steve Robinson, spokesman for PSBA.
“Members have suggested the association might want to consider a right-to-know
request, but this was not in response to any specific member directive. The
response from member school entities so far has been very positive and many
look forward to having a better picture of charter school operations as a result.”
Follow this link periodically
to see the status of RTK requests.
Tracking PSBA's Charter Schools 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)).
Did you catch our weekend
postings?
PA Ed Policy Roundup for May 16, 2015:
Tuesday's primary could help determine shape of state
Supreme Court
James P. O'Toole /
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette May 17, 2015 12:00 AM
Tuesday's primary
balloting will kick off an election cycle that will determine the shape of the
state Supreme Court for a generation, test the clout of a new cast of local
leaders and the interest of voters who, recent turnout levels suggest, are
increasingly estranged from the political process. For the
scandal-plagued high court, both parties feature primary races with six
candidates vying for the three nominations at stake on each side. Those
nominations will set the stage for a November election that will determine the
court’s partisan balance for years to come.
Five
of twelve candidates participated in this PCN forum The question on the role of
the court in evaluating the adequacy of a thorough and efficient public
education is covered from minutes 31:55 to 37:58 of this PCN video
What do you believe the
role of the Supreme Court should be in evaluating the adequacy of a thorough
and efficient public education?
PCN: April 8th PA
Supreme Court Candidates Forum
By Rob Krout on
Apr 10, 2015
Philadelphia
Neighborhood Networks election forum with PA Supreme Court candidates David
Wecht (D), Dwayne Woodruff (D), Cheryl Lynn Allen (R), John Forodora (D) and
Anne Lazurus (D). .
"Ron Cowell, president
of the Education Policy and Leadership Center, figures the structural
budget deficit, voters’ clear unhappiness with state education cuts and the
bipartisan support for property tax cuts makes this tax swap possible. Not
that it’s a lock. “If there’s one thing
that has the best chance of winning in Harrisburg
“This is the most substantial
proposal I’ve seen in 40 years,’’ Mr. Cowell said."
Brian O'Neill: Proposed tax swap adds up to complex,
tantalizing effort
By Brian O'Neill /
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette May 17, 2015 12:00 AM
It’s not three-card
monte. It’s three-tax monte. Keep your eye on it because this game has
just begun in Harrisburg. As in the
classic con, the object is to find the money card. In this case, that would
be the tax you’d most prefer to go down, or at least not go up. I’m not saying this is a con, but it is
confusing. The three movable parts are the sales tax, the income tax and
school district property taxes. The first two would go up so the third can
come tumbling down in a multibillion-dollar switcheroo. Homeowners — who tend to vote more often
than their renting brethren — are forever complaining about property
taxes, so slashing them has both popular and political appeal. But we
mustn’t take our eye off the other cards being played.
Yes, Pa., there is a
pension crisis - now what are we going to do about it?: Charlie Gerow
PennLive Op-Ed By Charlie Gerow on May 17, 2015 at
11:15 AM
Yes, Pennsylvania , there is a
pension crisis.
No amount of
political rhetoric can alter the fact that years of hefty benefit increases,
fund losses and negligent underfunding have left the state's two largest
pension funds--covering both teachers and other state workers--in a huge budget
hole. The $27 billion Pennsylvania State
Employees' Retirement System and $51.7 billion Pennsylvania Pubic School
Retirement System are more than $50 billion dollars in the red. A curious footnote in the discussion is the
actual amount of the unfunded liability. Estimates vary widely, in
fact by billions of dollars. A quick look at the week's newspapers showed
estimates ranging from $47 billion to $60.12 billion.
Now it's the House's turn
on pensions - if they can pull it off: Tony May
PennLive Op-Ed By Tony May on May 17, 2015 at 11:00
AM
In Italy , they would call the Senate GOP's
version of pension reform a "patate
bollente" – or "hot potato." The Republican-controlled chamber
couldn't get rid of it fast enough last week. Hard copies of the
400-page bill were delivered to senators on Friday, May 8 and by the
following Wednesday (May 13), the pension reform legislation was on its way to
the Speaker's desk in the House, approved by a
near-party line vote after few hours of desultory debate. It was the Senate
Republicans' response to Gov. Tom Wolf's opening gambit on making the
state's two employee pension systems more solvent (borrow several billion
dollars through low interest bonds to be repaid through increasing state liquor
store profits – thereby nullifying the debate over whether to sell the liquor
monopoly).
Corman defends pension
bill, says Wolf's budget lacks votes
http://www.yorkdispatch.com/breaking/ci_28134216/corman-defends-pension-bill-says-wolfs-budget-lacks
PA Fact Finder: Would the
average homeowner get a more than 50 percent property tax cut under Wolf’s
plan?
Delco Times By Ed Mahon, emahon@ydr.com, @edmahonreporter on
Twitter 05/16/15, 9:43 AM
EDT |
Gov. Tom Wolf has
promised big property tax cuts if lawmakers pass his budget.
In his March
3 budget address, Wolf said his plan would reduce the average homeowner’s
“property taxes by 50 percent, putting more than $1,000 each year into their
pockets.”
His administration
and campaign committee have often repeated a version of that statement,
sometimes promising a property tax cut of more than 50 percent for the average
homeowner. We are fact checking
that statement, looking at the impact in York County
Compensation disparities
vast among Pennsylvania
Trib Live By Natasha
Lindstrom Saturday, May 16, 2015, 10:50 p.m.
Schools in poorer, rural areas ofPennsylvania
pay 30 to 60 percent less annually to teachers than schools in wealthy suburbs
of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh , a Trib Total Media analysis
found. Teachers in Plum
Borough, 20 miles east of Pittsburgh, have the highest average annual salary in
11 counties of Western Pennsylvania — $78,848.
At the opposite end of the scale, teachers in Somerset County Pennsylvania 's teacher compensation, at
least in many of the better-off districts, is quite high,” said Jake Haulk,
president of the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy. “But it's really a mess
when you have such disparity in economic conditions.” Trib Total Media has built a searchable
database and interactive map that enables users to compare educators' salaries.
The database uses 2013-14 data compiled by the state Department of Education. The average teacher salary in Pennsylvania is $57,500,
the data show. But zoom in on school districts and individuals, and stark
geographic disparities in compensation become clear.
Schools in poorer, rural areas of
"According to the
district, the PSERS employer contribution rate increases from 21.40 percent
during the 2014-15 school year to 25.84 percent the following year. That’s a
20.75 percent increase or an extra $903,000 the district will need to pay,
Fegley said."
By Eric Devlin,
The Mercury POSTED: 05/17/15,
6:38 PM EDT |
Phoenixville
>> Residents in the Phoenixville
Area School
District
Homeless students on the
rise in Lancaster County
Lancaster Online By
GIL SMART | Staff Writer
Posted: Sunday, May 17, 2015 6:00 am
They live in hotels,
they’re doubled up with families and friends, they sleep in shelters or their
cars. They’re the homeless students who
attend Lancaster County school districts, and their numbers are rising. Data submitted by school districts to the
Pennsylvania Department of Education shows 1,292 homeless students in Lancaster County
That’s a 30 percent
jump over the 992 students reported the previous year.
Background checks at
schools may discourage parent volunteers
By Rudy Miller | For lehighvalleylive.com Email
the author | Follow on Twitter
on May 18, 2015 at 6:00 AM, updated May 18, 2015 at 6:05 AM
on May 18, 2015 at 6:00 AM, updated May 18, 2015 at 6:05 AM
Requiring criminal
background checks of every parent volunteer will cripple the Easton Area School District Parent
Teacher Association, according to the organization president.
The school board
president, however, said you can't be too careful when it comes to children's
safety. New state laws require parent
volunteers to obtain criminal background checks, child abuse clearances and an
FBI fingerprinting check if they're around children on a routine basis,
according to district solicitor John Freund. The law isn't clear on what constitutes a
volunteer as opposed to an occasional visitor, someone who handles sales at a
book fair for instance.
The Challengers: Helen Gym’s Aim — To Be a Schools
Watchdog With Teeth and Vigilant Eyes
A series of Citified Q&As with the top
Democratic challengers in the at-large City Council race.
Philly Mag Citified BY PATRICK KERKSTRA | MAY
15, 2015 AT 12:38 PM
All week,
Citified is featuring Q&As with leading at-large City Council
Democratic challengers on topics of their choosing. The prompt was simple: if
elected, what’s a problem you would you prioritize, and how would you address
it? To keep the conversation substantive and on-point, we asked the candidates
to focus on a relatively narrow question (i.e., not “schools,” or “crime.”)
Longtime schools
activist Helen Gym is
running an at-large campaign powered by an enthusiastic grassroots network of
supporters, the backing of teacher unions and her own indomitable personality. Her
presence on Council would surely shakeup a a legislative body that is, plainly,
sick and tired of talking about the city’s struggling schools and how to
fund them. Gym would make
schools her central focus if she is elected to Council. In
particular, Gym wants to dramatically change Council's approach to schools
oversight, and that's the subject she chose to discuss with Citified.
Read more at http://www.phillymag.com/citified/2015/05/15/challengers-interview-helen-gym/#voUgLU56rjIpOESP.99
NAACP PA State of Education
Super donors give growing
share of campaign cash
Trib Live By Tom
Fontaine Sunday, May 17, 2015, 11:09 p.m.
A wealthyIndiana County woman's political action committee spent a
quarter-million dollars to help one of her friends win a congressional race in Arizona . “Everyone is in the game now. It's the cool
thing to have your own super PAC,” said Christine T. Toretti, 58, noting the
abundance of such groups made it more challenging for her Women Lead PAC to
raise money for the hotly contested Arizona race. Fortunately for the group's main beneficiary,
freshman U.S. Rep. Martha McSally of Tucson ,
Toretti has deep pockets. Toretti, a
Republican National Committeewoman who formerly ran Indiana-based S.W. Jack
Drilling Co., was Western Pennsylvania 's top
political donor during the 2014 election cycle, giving at least $205,633 to
support Republican candidates, an analysis of data compiled by the
Washington-based Sunlight Foundation and Center for Responsive Politics shows.
A wealthy
"This is concentrated
disadvantage: the children who need the most are concentrated in schools least
likely to have the resources to meet those needs."
The Stark Inequality of U.S.
Who attends America
From The Atlantic Citylab
By TANVI MISRA @Tanvim May 14,
2015
The SEF study
examined concentrated poverty in American public schools by state. Now, the
Urban Institute has taken a deeper dive by
mapping the data by county, illuminating how poverty and race are distributed
in public schools across the country.
The Dawn of a New Era: China
Yong Zhao's Blog 9 MAY 2015
The year 2015 will be remembered as the
beginning of a new era in Chinese education, according to some Chinese press[in Chinese]. It is the first year when a
suite of policies aimed to transform the college entrance exam system or gaokao is to be implemented. The reforms are
not a simple redesign of the exam, but rather a transformation of the entire
college admission system. Because of the life-altering power of gaokao and
the magnitude of the changes, this round of reform will likely bring
transformative changes to education at all levels in China .
The Reform
“Very much applying for foreign
universities,” a first year high school
student said about college
admissions outlined by the reform documents. He is right. In a nutshell, the
reform aims to create an American style college admission system, but
implemented in the Chinese way. The defining characteristics of the admission
process used by most U.S. higher education institutions are multiple measures, multiple choices, and multiple opportunities, in
contrast to the existing Chinese system characterized by limited measures,limited
choices, and limited
opportunities.
Pollster Terry Madonna Joins the Next #FairFundingPA
chat on Twitter
PSBA website May 15,
2015
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 Pennsylvania Association of School
Administrators (PASA);
- The Pennsylvania School Boards
Association (PSBA);
- The Pennsylvania Association of School Business
Officials (PASBO);
- The Pennsylvania Association of
Elementary and Secondary School Principals (PAESSP)
- The Pennsylvania Association of Rural
and Small Schools (PARSS)
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:
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
PHILLY DISTRICT TO HOLD
COMMUNITY BUDGET MEETINGS
Wednesday,
May 20
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