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Keystone State Education Coalition
PA Ed Policy Roundup for June 27, 2015:
Budget Sec'y Albright: after looking at the "fine
print," the GOP budget only adds $8 million to education
Just a heads-up that the PA Ed Policy Roundup may be intermittent
and/or late next week while some of us pretend we're on vacation
" House members were
scheduled to return to the Capitol at 11 a.m. Saturday in an unusual weekend
session with four days left in the state’s fiscal year."
GOP budget
bill facing Wolf’s veto positioned for House vote
HARRISBURG,
Pa. >> An approximately $30 billion Republican budget package is nearing
a House floor vote, although it faces a near-certain veto by Democratic Gov.
Tom Wolf as the Pennsylvania state government's fiscal year is ending. House members were scheduled to return to the
Capitol at 11 a.m. Saturday in an unusual weekend session with four days left
in the state’s fiscal year. The
Republican plan would boost state spending by about $1 billion and hold the
line on taxes. But Democrats say it’s packed with one-time stopgaps of more
than $1.5 billion to balance and Wolf says he’ll veto it. The GOP plan would increase spending on
public schools by $100 million, one-fourth of the record increase being sought
by Wolf. It also offset costs by counting proceeds from the privatization the
state-run liquor and wine store system.
"After the governor
spoke, Budget Sec. Randy Albright and Sec. of Policy and Planning John Hanger
addressed members of the media on specifics of what they don’t like about the
GOP budget proposal. On the Authorities
Rental and Sinking Fund Requirements line item, Sec. Albright said that is
still money that needs to be paid, regardless of it being taken offline. “Those are expenditures we’re obligated to
make unless we come up with a way to meet those authority rental payments, but
we don’t reflect that cost currently in the General Fund budget,” he said,
referring to the proposal as “smoke and mirrors” that will grow the following
year’s deficit. The administration also
contends, after looking at the "fine print," the GOP budget only adds
$8 million to education."
GOP’s budget
plan revealed; Gov. Wolf vows veto
The PLS
Reporter Author: Jason Gottesman/Friday, June 26,
2015
House
and Senate Republican leaders stood united Friday afternoon unveiling the much
anticipated agreed-to budget bill that they promise to have to the governor’s
desk by the end of June 30th.
“In November of 2014, the people of Pennsylvania
sent historic majorities of the Pennsylvania House and the Pennsylvania
Senate—Republicans—to Harrisburg
with a mandate to reign in state government spending and to hold the line on
taxes,” said Senate Majority Leader Jake Corman (R-Centre). He said the budget put together lives up to
that mandate, noting it makes significant new investments in education, grows
at a rate below TABOR, as well as making investments in agriculture, services
for victims of rape and domestic violence, and security for the Pope’s visit in
September.
Wolf to veto
GOP budget plan
ANGELA
COULOUMBIS, INQUIRER HARRISBURG BUREAU LAST
UPDATED: Friday, June 26, 2015, 5:55 PM POSTED: Friday, June 26,
2015, 4:47 PM
"Republicans would add
$100 million to the per-pupil subsidy, the education budget's largest expense,
for a total of $5.6 billion. By comparison, Wolf wants a $400 million increase
for each student for a total of $6.1 billion.
Republicans would spend $20 million more for special education; Wolf
wants $100 million. Wolf also allocates
$306 million for a state program, PlanCon, that partially reimburses districts
for school construction costs. Republicans take all construction money out of
their budget and replace it with proceeds from a future bond. Although the
construction money is out of the budget, Republicans still count it as part of
their total education increase, documents show."
Wolf vows to veto Republican lawmakers'
$30.1 billion budget
Morning Call By Steve
Esack and Sam Janesch Call Harrisburg
Bureau June 26, 2015
"It includes a $100
million increase in funding for basic education subsidies and $20 million more
for special education, clears a backlog in state reimbursements for school
construction, and a 3 percent increase in appropriations to the state's public
universities. Wolf's Budget Secretary
Randy Albright said what the Republicans failed to take into account was their
$112 million underfunding of state contributions toward school district's
Social Security and pension payments, so the net increase in funding to schools
is $8 million."
Wolf vows to
veto GOP-crafted budget that fails to address his priorities
Penn
Live By Jan Murphy | jmurphy@pennlive.com Email
the author | Follow on Twitter on June 26,
2015 at 6:47 PM
Just
before a House-Senate
GOP-crafted budget was about to begin to moving through the
legislative approval process, Gov. Tom Wolf predicted a veto was in its future. He called the $30.1 billion spending plan
nothing more than "smoke and mirrors" that relies on gimmicks to
bring it into balance. While Republicans
maintain it includes no tax increases, top aides to the Democratic
governor said it likely would result in higher school property taxes and higher
college tuition due to the modest increases it provides for school districts
and colleges. "I refuse as governor
to let a few willful people hold our commonwealth hostage to a few narrow
interests and a status quo that has everyday Pennsylvanians struggling with
underfunded schools. We've had numerous credit downgrades in Pennsylvania and an underperforming
economy," Wolf said.
House and
Senate Republicans launch a "majority-approved" budget, without
agreement from Gov. Tom Wolf
By Charles Thompson |
cthompson@pennlive.com Email the author | Follow on Twitter
on June 26, 2015 at 5:05 PM
on June 26, 2015 at 5:05 PM
Leaders
of Pennsylvania 's
Republican House and Senate majorities announced agreement Friday on a $30.1
billion budget that they expect to pass and send to Gov. Tom Wolf in time for
the new fiscal year July 1. The
legislative product is not the result of negotiations with the Democrat
governor, however, and may be vetoed once it reaches his desk. The GOP leaders said they believe
Pennsylvanians can live comfortably with their plan, which they noted includes
spending increases for all levels of public education, meets the state's
scheduled pension payments and does not rely on any new taxes.
GOP lawmakers
to send Wolf their $30.1B budget by Tuesday
Trib
Live By Brad
Bumsted Friday, June 26, 2015, 4:54 p.m.
HARRISBURG — A
House-Senate budget of $30.2 billion crafted by Republicans meets the mandate
voters gave in November to GOP majorities in both chambers by “reining in
spending and holding the line on taxes,” Senate Majority Leader Jake Corman
said Friday. But Democratic Gov. Tom
Wolf said that it isn't a balanced budget and he'll veto it if it arrives on
his desk in its current form. The full
House is expected Saturday to approve the budget that increases overall
spending by 3.6 percent and boosts basic education spending by $100 million.
Voting along party lines by a 21-15 margin, the House Appropriations Committee
on Friday night approved the budget to tee it up for consideration by the full
chamber. With a state spending plan due
by midnight Tuesday, the Senate will begin voting Sunday night and send the
Republican-crafted budget to Wolf by Tuesday, said Corman of Centre County.
What new
funding formula would mean for your school district (based upon a hypothetical
$100 million funding increase)
Penn
Live By Jan Murphy | jmurphy@pennlive.com Email
the author | Follow on Twitter on June 26,
2015 at 12:28 PM
There's
no politics to the proposed school funding formula.
It simply distributes state dollars for basic education based on various
factors that can add to a school district's cost of educating students. Below is a spreadsheet shared with Republican
senators that assumes basic education funding is increased by $100 million.
It's a hypothetical number. The real increase in this bread-and-butter revenue
stream that districts depend on from the state to help fund their operations is
still the subject of negotiations between Gov. Tom Wolf and legislative
leaders. But
Senate Education Committee Chairman Lloyd Smucker, R-Lancaster County
Otto-Eldred’s
Splain campaigns for basic ed funding formula
The Bradford Era By BARB CLOSE Era Correspondent and
ALEX DAVIS Era reporter news@bradfordera.com Posted: Friday, June 26,
2015 10:00 am
Otto-Eldred
School District Superintendent Matt Splain represented rural Pennsylvania at the state capitol on
Tuesday, joining the fight for fair education funding. Splain rallied with hundreds of parents,
students, clergy, community leaders, teachers, other educators and members of
the Campaign for Fair Education Funding to encourage state legislators to
put in place a basic education funding formula unveiled last week. On June 18, the Basic Education Funding
Commission recommended a formula be approved by the state General Assembly.
Under the proposal, several factors would be taken into account in distributing
money to the 500 school districts in the Commonwealth, such as poverty, student
population, English language learners and charter school enrollment. A
“sparsity size adjustment” would also be included, which is designed to adjust
funding due to the “unique challenges” that small, rural school districts face. At the
Tuesday event in Harrisburg , Splain said rural
districts such as his in McKean
County Pennsylvania meets
its obligation to adequately fund opportunities for all students through a
formula,” he said.
Rally In Erie
ErieTVNews.com
By Emily Matson Posted: Jun 26, 2015
5:19 PM EDT
With the
state budget deadline looming in Pennsylvania ,
some people gather for a rally Friday afternoon, to try and encourage
legislators for better school funding. A
statewide bus tour stopped in Erie
Friday for a rally, it's one of 13 stops throughout the Commonwealth. It's all to advocate for lawmakers to
reinvest in Erie
schools. They want them to pass Governor
Tom Wolf's proposed budget, which allots $11 Million dollars in new funding for
local schools. Lawmakers
have until June 30th to pass a budget, that's next Tuesday. And both the governor and legislators say
they're willing to work over the weekend to get a budget passed.
Trib
Live Letter to the Editor by Nathan Mains, PSBA Executive Director June 26,
2015, 8:57 p.m.
The Pennsylvania School Boards Association believes the state Basic Education Funding Commission's proposed formula is a great step forward to adequate, equitable and fair school funding. The commonwealth is one of only three states in the nation without a funding formula for public education. The time is now for a bipartisan effort to move the funding formula across the finish line and pass legislation putting it into place. A formula will go a long way to help school entities develop their annual budgets. It will help with the equitable distribution of funding to alleviate the current disparities in how state dollars are allocated.
The Pennsylvania School Boards Association believes the state Basic Education Funding Commission's proposed formula is a great step forward to adequate, equitable and fair school funding. The commonwealth is one of only three states in the nation without a funding formula for public education. The time is now for a bipartisan effort to move the funding formula across the finish line and pass legislation putting it into place. A formula will go a long way to help school entities develop their annual budgets. It will help with the equitable distribution of funding to alleviate the current disparities in how state dollars are allocated.
"It is therefore
doubtful that a meaningful difference in teacher performance separates the
"needs improvement" educator who scored a 1.49 from the
"proficient" colleague down the hall who scored a 1.5. A very small
difference on any one element of the evaluation could have been the deciding
factor. House Bill 805 ignores all of these concerns and requires that a
district implementing furloughs lay off the 1.49 teacher before the 1.50 teacher
-- even if the building principal has good reason and evidence to believe that
the score is invalid or not a true reflection of differences in skill or
effectiveness. "
Why ending
seniority-based layoffs now is a bad idea
the notebook Commentary By Adam Schott
on Jun 26, 2015 03:25 PM
Adam Schott is a former executive
director of the State Board of Education.
Details of
House pension plan emerge
The PLS
Reporter Author: Jason Gottesman/Friday, June 26,
2015
House
Republicans spent most of Friday morning and early afternoon caucusing on what
is likely to be their version of pension reform, to be adopted as an amendment
to Senate Bill 1 sometime in the next several days. Rep. Mike Tobash (R-Schuylkill), one of the
House GOP’s top pension minds and a member of the Public Employee Retirement
Commission, spoke to The PLS Reporter about the likely
contents of that plan and what was discussed in those caucus discussions. “I think members continue to be interested in
some of the goals we’ve been trying to achieve for the last number of years,
namely, shifting some risk from the taxpayer and out of the hands of a
legislature that has not been able to manage a defined benefit plan and develop
savings and provide some kind of a benefit for new employees coming into the
system,” he said.
Pa. doesn't
need to spend more on schools, it needs to spend more wisely: Scott Wagner
PennLive Op-Ed By Scott Wagner June 26, 2015 at 9:52 AM,
updated June 26, 2015 at 3:24 PM
I am
writing to respond to the June 25 Op-ed from
Frances Wolf, First Lady of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It's unfortunate that nearly a half-year
after his inauguration Gov. Tom Wolf remains in campaign mode, crisscrossing
the state with Mrs. Wolf and others making absurd claims about education
spending. Mrs. Wolf writes that King Elementary school ,
part of the Lancaster
Area School
District
A new
collective bargaining agreement for teachers in School District of Lancaster
In Philly, ISTE
2015: Ed-tech leadership, maker education, and professional learning
By Benjamin Herold for Education
Week on Jun 26, 2015 05:29 PM
The
country's largest educational technology conference kicks off this weekend,
with roughly 18,000 educators, vendors, and advocates set to convene here for
four-plus days of swapping classroom strategies, playing with gadgets, and
diving into the sweeping policy changes that are reshaping digital learning in
K-12 schools. Among the big themes: the
importance of shared responsibility when it comes to effectively integrating
technology into the classroom. "I'm
most excited about the increased conversation around the need to approach this
as a team," said Brian Lewis, the CEO of the conference's host
organization, the Washington-based International Society for Technology in
Education.
New York Times By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS JUNE 26, 2015
A
district court panel in Kansas
ruled on Friday that key parts of a new state law for financing public schools
violated the state constitution. The three-judge panel in Shawnee County
District Court in Topeka
ruled that the law failed to distribute more than $4 billion a year so all
children received a suitable education. The state is expected to appeal the
ruling to the Kansas Supreme Court. The new law scrapped an older per-pupil
distribution formula in favor of predictable grants to the state’s 286 school
districts based on the funds they received before the law changed. The law was
challenged by the Dodge City , Hutchinson ,
Wichita and Kansas City school districts. They argued
that it distributed state funds in ways that harmed programs for poor and
minority students. The four districts sued the state in 2010, and legislators
increased aid to poor school districts last year to meet a Kansas Supreme Court
mandate in the case. But the state justices returned the case to the
lower-court panel to review additional legal issues — including the validity of
the new law.
Report
Criticizes Walton Foundation Support for Charter School
Education
Week District Dossier Blog By Denisa R. Superville on June 24,
2015 2:27 PM
The
American Federation of Teachers and In the Public Interest issued a report on
Tuesday heavily criticizing The Walton Family Foundation's
"market-driven" charter school "ideology" that they say has
rapidly expanded the number of charter schools, without the accompanying
transparency and accountability measures. That "unregulated" growth,
they said, has resulted in fraud and mismanagement in the sector. The report, "Brought to You by Wal-Mart? How the
Walton Family Foundation's Ideological Pursuit is Damaging Charter
Schooling," was
accompanied by an 11-point "accountability agenda" that proposes
specific steps the charter school sector should take to engender "a
renewed commitment to the fundamental democratic principles of transparency,
accountability, equal opportunity and stewardship of public funds." The plan
asks the Arkansas-based foundation—which has given millions to charter school
start-ups and to lobbying efforts on behalf of charter schools and voucher
programs—to ask schools and grantees that receive its funds to commit to
certain ideals in areas of accountability, protecting neighborhood schools,
protecting taxpayer funds, and ensuring high quality education for every child.
(Education Week receives
support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of parent-empowerment
issues.)
Don’t Miss Tuesday, June 30, 8 p.m. #FairFundingPA
chat on Twitter
You are invited to
join the next monthly Twitter chat with Pennsylvania ’s
major education leadership organizations on Tuesday, June 30 at 8
p.m. They will discuss details of the recommendations for a fair,
school funding formula made by the General Assembly’s Basic Education Funding
Commission. 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:
Register Now – PAESSP
State Conference – Oct. 18-20 – State College, PA
Registration is now
open for PAESSP's State Conference to be held October 18-20 at The
Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel in State College, PA! This year's
theme is @EVERYLEADER and features three nationally-known keynote
speakers (Dr. James Stronge, Justin Baeder and Dr. Mike Schmoker), professional
breakout sessions, a legal update, exhibits, Tech Learning Labs and many
opportunities to network with your colleagues (Monday evening event with Jay
Paterno). Once again, in conjunction
with its conference, PAESSP will offer two 30-hour Act 45 PIL-approved
programs, Linking Student Learning to Teacher Supervision and Evaluation
(pre-conference offering on 10/17/15); and Improving Student Learning
Through Research-Based Practices: The Power of an Effective Principal (held
during the conference, 10/18/15 -10/20/15). Register for either or both PIL
programs when you register for the Full Conference!
REGISTER TODAY for
the Conference and Act 45 PIL program/s at:
Apply
now for EPLC’s 2015-2016 PA Education Policy Fellowship Program
Applications are
available now for the 2015-2016
Education Policy Fellowship Program (EPFP).
The Education Policy Fellowship Program is sponsored in Pennsylvania by The
Education Policy and Leadership Center (EPLC).
With more than 400 graduates in its first sixteen years, this
Program is a premier professional development opportunity for educators, state
and local policymakers, advocates, and community leaders. State Board of
Accountancy (SBA) credits are available to certified public accountants. Past participants include state policymakers,
district superintendents and principals, charter school leaders, school
business officers, school board members, education deans/chairs, statewide
association leaders, parent leaders, education advocates, and other education
and community leaders. Fellows are typically sponsored by their employer
or another organization. The Fellowship
Program begins with a two-day retreat on September 17-18, 2015 and
continues to graduation in June 2016.
Click here to read about the Education Policy
Fellowship Program.
Sign up here to receive a weekly
email update on the status of efforts to have Pennsylvania adopt an adequate,
equitable, predictable and sustainable Basic Education Funding Formula by 2016
Sign up to support fair funding »
Campaign for Fair
Education Funding website
Our goal is to
ensure that every student has access to a quality education no matter where
they live. To make that happen, we need to fundamentally change how public
schools are funded. The current system is not fair to students or taxpayers and
our campaign partners – more than 50 organizations from across Pennsylvania -
agree that it has to be changed now. Student performance is stagnating. School
districts are in crisis. Lawmakers have the ability to change this formula but
they need to hear from you. You
can make a difference »
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