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Keystone State Education Coalition
PA Ed Policy Roundup November 27, 2015:
Past Chester
Past Chester
The state's
largest bricks-and-mortar charter is operated for profit by a GOP power broker.
Its test scores plunged in 2012 when security measures were tightened.
the notebook By Dale Mezzacappa and Paul
Socolar on Nov 25, 2015 05:09 PM
A former testing
coordinator at Chester
Community Charter
School Chester Upland School District
"odds that erasure patterns were
random…were between 1 in a quadrillion & 1 in a quintillion”
The state’s
overcautious approach may have been driven by fear. Contracts totaling $750,000
with the law firm Pepper Hamilton, obtained by the Notebook, reveal that lawyers attempted to discern whether the
state had subpoena power, and noted that “some schools may resist PDE’s
investigation, and litigation may ensue.” Most of the legal work appeared to
involve Philadelphia schools and area charters —
including Chester
Community Charter
School
The latter would make for a
fearsome legal opponent. CSMI, a management company to which the school,
according to a 2012 Inquirer article,
pays $16.7 million (more than 41 percent of the charter’s budget), is run by
businessman and political powerhouse Vahan Gureghian, Gov. Tom Corbett’s top
campaign contributor and a member of his education transition team. The charter
enrolls the majority of Chester Upland district’s kindergarten-through-eighth-grade
students. In December, the chronically broke Chester
Upland district was placed under state
control; they had just exited 16 years of state control in 2010.
Gureghian unsuccessfully sued
the Inquirer over a
2008 investigation that examined “whether the school is spending too much of
its budget on administration and too little on teaching.” The next year, he
sued the 18-year-old proprietor of a blog, Homes of the Rich, for posting a photo
of his 10-bedroom, $13.5 million, Main Line
mansion. It is surrounded by a moat. So, it appears, is his school."
Citypaper July 2013: How Pennsylvania
Tainted
scores throw an entire way of running schools into question.
Citypaper By Daniel Denvir Published:
07/18/2013
"The owner is a trust
linked to Philadelphia lawyer and charter-school entrepreneur Vahan Gureghian
and his lawyer wife, Danielle. Three years ago, she told town officials the
house was the couple’s dream home, but their plans appear to have
changed."
March 2015: North End Palm Beach
By Darrell
Hofheinz Daily News Real Estate Writer Posted: 5:03 p.m. Monday, March 30,
2015
Priced at $84.5
million, a direct-oceanfront mansion under construction on the North End has
entered the market as the island’s most expensive property, according to the
local multiple listing service. Sporting
its own bowling alley, the French-style house is rising on the double lot –
expansive even by Palm Beach
standards – that measures about 2 acres with 242 feet of beachfront at 1071 N. Ocean Blvd.
- See more at: http://www.palmbeachdailynews.com/news/news/local/north-end-mansion-listed-at-845m/nkhyf/#sthash.XyziqArE.sOq57bZ0.dpuf
A backlash against
pervasive testing
As
parents and students statewide forgo high-stakes exams, a broader movement
grows.
the notebook By Bill Hangley Jr. on
Nov 25, 2015 04:29 PM
Janet Zheng, a Northeast High School China ,
Janet Zheng got used to taking tests. But she also got used to getting the
preparation she needed from her classes, which is why the American system makes
no sense to her. “You take this much
test,” she said, holding her hands apart, “with this little knowledge,” pulling
them together. Zheng is a junior at Northeast High School
“You didn’t pass the
Biology Keystone, now you can’t go to college?” she said, shaking her head with
smile. “That’s crazy!”
"In short, it’s time to
rethink our testing system from top to bottom."
End of a nightmare?
Opinion By the
Notebook on Nov 25, 2015 12:01 PM
High-stakes
standardized tests are falling out of favor. From President Obama and Congress
to School District leaders, we are finally
hearing recognition of the unintended consequences of over-testing and
overemphasizing test results. Philadelphia schools have
lived through 20 years of test-based accountability. At first, it involved
rewards and some punishments for schools based on standardized test scores. Over time, the stakes for schools, staff, and
students were steadily raised. Punishments for low-scoring schools have
included curtailing autonomy in decision-making and imposing a highly
regimented, dumbed-down, remedial curriculum. Lately, the threat has been
charter conversion or outright closing. Some
key architects of test-based accountability – from former Superintendent David
Hornbeck in Philadelphia
to Sen. Ted Kennedy in Congress – saw it as a way to enforce higher learning
standards in schools that chronically underserved their students. Test-based
rewards and sanctions were supposed to force schools once and for all to
address deep-seated race and class inequities. Measuring the disparities and
racial gaps in outcomes would go hand-in-hand with providing equal inputs. But resources were seldom delivered where
they were needed. Instead, schools were labeled as “failing” wherever teachers,
parents, and students couldn’t achieve at high levels.
Editorial: Turn the tables
on Harrisburg
Delco Times
Editorial POSTED: 11/26/15, 10:00 PM EST
Two can play this
game. That’s the message being delivered
to Harrisburg from officials in Bucks County Harrisburg ’s own version of “Let’s Make a
Deal” – for more than four months. The state constitution mandates that Pennsylvania ’s elected
officials have a new spending plan in place by July 1. It’s one of the few things even his fiercest
critics could agree on about former Gov. Tom Corbett. For four years he
delivered a spending blueprint on time. No
one expected the same thing when voters send him packing and threw their lot
behind York
businessman Wolf. But no one
realistically predicted this – Thanksgiving Day has come and gone and still no
spending plan in place.
News Release: Survey shows schools’ growing fiscal
insecurity due to budget impasse
PSBA News Release
November 25, 2015
Pennsylvania School
Boards Association (PSBA) released a Budget Impasse Impact report this week
based on a survey of public school leaders in Pennsylvania . At this time, districts are
without 30% of anticipated state subsidies and largely dependent on tax
revenue, fund balance and borrowing options to continue day-to-day operations
in schools. The survey shows, as expected, that districts most heavily reliant
on state aid are quickly approaching a very perilous precipice. PSBA’s report analyzes data collected from a
survey of Pennsylvania
school leaders that was conducted in October and again in November for the
purpose of gauging how deeply the lack of state funding has impacted school
districts. The November survey update was distributed statewide, generating
responses from school leaders in 225 (45%) of Pennsylvania ’s public school districts. More
than a quarter of those surveyed indicated that non-receipt of state subsidies
has had a direct, negative impact on programs and services within their
districts.
Councilwoman-elect vows to
work for education, 'quality life' for all Philadelphians
WHYY Newsworks BY TOM MACDONALD NOVEMBER 26, 2015
One of the newly
elected members of Philadelphia City Council says she will have a "laser
focus" on several priorities, not just the one she's known for. Education activist Helen Gym, who will take office
in January, said she will continue to crusade for the issues she cares about as
an at-large member of Philadelphia City Council. "A quality life for every Philadelphia
resident," she said. "Including, and most importantly, for
schoolchildren in the city, for workers and for people who are really
struggling. I think that's a very important aspect of why I ran and
something I hope to bring some energy to on City Council." Combating poverty, hunger and a lack of
housing are all near the top of the list, she said. She is one of five new members who will join
Council in January. Most, like Gym, are Democrats, but one is Republican.
"It's a bad bill for a
number of reasons. For one thing, it does not raise enough money to cover the
entire bill of eliminating property taxes - in fact, it falls several billion
dollars short. No one is saying where that money will come from.
For another, it gives a
windfall tax break to businesses, who do pay property taxes but not income and
sales tax. At the same time, the sales tax is regressive, increasing the tax
burden on middle- and low-income people.
Finally, it cements the
inequity in the way school subsidy money is doled out in the state - using a
discredited formula that favors rich districts at the expense of poor ones."
SB76: DN Editorial:
Diversionary taxes
Philly Daily News Editorial Updated on NOVEMBER 23, 2015 — 3:01 AM EST
STORM CLOUDS are
gathering in Harrisburg
over the deal to settle the long state budget impasse. While one group of legislators is still
working with Gov. Wolf on hammering out the details of the $30.6 billion plan,
another group has launched a maneuver that could kill the whole deal. If that happens it will mean no state budget
for the foreseeable future and almost certainly a shutdown of schools and
social-service agencies across the state beginning in January - which is when
they run out of time and money. Instead
of hashing out their problems with the existing budget, several conservative
Republicans in the state Senate, along with a few Democrats, have taken a
different tack and are pushing a bill that would eliminate local school
property taxes.
"As soon as we are
convinced that we have the extra two votes that we need, we'll find another
bill to amend (the proposal into)," said Sen. David G. Argall, a
Schuylkill County
Republican
SB76: Lawmakers, advocates
vow to continue fight to eliminate school property taxes
Reading Eagle By Liam
Migdail-Smith Wednesday
November 25, 2015 12:01 AM
Activists who want
to see the end of school property taxes say they're not viewing the plan's
razor-thin defeat in the state Senate as the pinnacle of their work. Supporters said Tuesday they're hoping the
exposure generated by the vote and supporters' frustration that it didn't pass
will buoy their efforts to finish the job.
Past attempts to advance the proposal failed to gain traction or met
overwhelming defeat. On Monday, senators reached a 24-24 tie on a bill which
would shift school funding to higher sales and income taxes. Lt. Gov. Mike Stack
cast a deciding no vote. "I don't
think we're ready to just pack up and go away over a tie vote in the
Senate," said Ron Boltz, an organizer with the Pennsylvania Coalition of
Taxpayer Associations. "Because really, this is forward progress for
us." The proposal has attracted
friends and foes of both parties and has long been a top issue for Berks
lawmakers. Lawmakers behind the effort said they won't ease up.
Incentive to finish the
#PABudget? Trump set to headline Pa. Society Event: Friday Morning Coffee
Penn Live By John L. Micek |
jmicek@pennlive.com Email the author | Follow on Twitter on
November 27, 2015 at 8:25 AM
Good Friday Morning, Fellow Seekers.
Gov. Tom Wolf and legislative Republicans were making encouraging noises earlier this week about having a budget finished sometime in the first week in December. But did a billionaire presidential candidate just hand the GOP some extra incentive to move things to an expeditious finish? Maybe ...One-man Quote Machine and GOP hopeful Donald Trump is set to headline this year's Commonwealth Club Luncheon at the swank Park Plaza Hotel onCentral Park .
Gov. Tom Wolf and legislative Republicans were making encouraging noises earlier this week about having a budget finished sometime in the first week in December. But did a billionaire presidential candidate just hand the GOP some extra incentive to move things to an expeditious finish? Maybe ...One-man Quote Machine and GOP hopeful Donald Trump is set to headline this year's Commonwealth Club Luncheon at the swank Park Plaza Hotel on
Districts feel substitute
shortage
York Daily Record by Angie Mason, amason@ydr.com2:31 p.m. EST
November 24, 2015
Being a substitute
teacher can have its challenges, Richard Muldrow III acknowledges.
It can take a while
for students to get used to you, said Muldrow, who substitutes each day at
Ferguson K-8 School in York
City Ferguson
every day, and he fills in wherever needed, from the library to the gymnasium.
And while there are challenges, he said, there's good, too. "It's a blessing because you get to work
with kids where you're from," he said.
Muldrow, 26, who has a degree in history and emergency
certification, wants to follow in the footsteps of his grandmother, the
late Julia Hines-Harris, a longtime, well-respected city educator. He plans to
study more to become a full-time educator and says substituting is a good way
to get a feel for the role.
Midstate students affected
by closing of cyberschool's learning centers
Education Plus Academy, a Delaware
County-based cyberschool, announced this week it was closing its learning and
tutoring centers and is reported as attributing the state budget impasse as a
factor behind that decision.
By Jan Murphy |
jmurphy@pennlive.com Email the author | Follow on Twitter on
November 25, 2015 at 5:22 PM, updated November 25, 2015 at 5:52 PM
Students from
several midstate school districts who attend the Philadelphia
area-based Education
Plus Academy cyber charter school learned this week the school's
learning and tutoring centers were closing.
A letter sent out to parents cited the state budget impasse as a factor
behind that decision although a story in the Philadelphia Inquirer suggested the school,
based in Wayne , Delaware
Peters teachers, students return to school today after
month-long strike
School lunch group hopes
to revise rules it calls impractical, too restrictive
Trib Live By Mary
Pickels Thursday, Nov. 26, 2015, 11:30 p.m. Updated 10 hours ago
On a recent school
day, Belle Vernon Area
High School
For the last five
years, the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 has strictly mandated the
levels of sodium, calories and whole-grain foods American students consume in
school lunches. “School lunch is
truly the most regulated meal in America ,”
said Amy Keeler, food service director with the Brownsville Area
School District
The Gift of Reading
New York Times Opinion by Frank Bruni NOV. 25, 2015
The list of what a
child needs in order to flourish is short but nonnegotiable. Food. Shelter. Play. Love. Something else, too, and it’s meted out in
even less equal measure.
Words. A child needs
a forest of words to wander through, a sea of words to splash in. A child needs
to be read to, and a child needs to read.
Reading
fuels the fires of intelligence and imagination, and if they don’t blaze well
before elementary school, a child’s education — a child’s life —may
be an endless game of catch-up. That’s a
truth at the core of the indispensable organization Reading Is Fundamental, a
nonprofit group that provides hundreds of thousands of free books annually to
children age 8 or younger, in particular those from economically disadvantaged
homes, where books are a greater luxury and in shorter supply. I shine a light on Reading Is Fundamental, or R.I.F., for several
reasons. We’re in the midst of giving
thanks, and this group deserves plenty. It has distributed more than 410
million books to more than 40 million American children.
Days Could Be Numbered for
No Child Left Behind
Education Week By Alyson Klein Published Online: November 25, 2015
After more than a
decade, Congress appears to be on the verge of leaving the almost universally
unpopular No Child Left Behind Act ... well, behind. Lawmakers have spent months behind the scenes crafting
a deal that would scale back the federal role under the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act—the 14-year-old NCLB law is the latest
iteration—for the first time since the early 1980s. The compromise, the Every
Student Succeeds Act, sailed through a conference committee this month, with
just one dissenting vote, from Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who is running for
president. It's expected to be on the floor of the U.S. House of
Representatives next week. The measure's prospects in the Senate are rosy, but
it could run into trouble with House conservatives. The bipartisan agreement seeks to give states
miles of new running room on accountability, school turnarounds, teacher
evaluation, and more, while maintaining No Child Left Behind's signature
transparency provisions, such as annual testing in reading and math in grades
3-8 and once in high school.
Project to recognize ‘high schools of opportunity’ for
all students goes national
Last
year, a project called Schools of
Opportunity was launched as a pilot effort to honor high schools that
work hard to offer all students a chance to succeed. Spearheaded by two veteran
educators, it was different from other efforts to rate and rank schools through
the use of student standardized test scores and data points. Instead, the Schools
of Opportunity project sought to identify and recognize public high schools
that seek to close opportunity gaps through practices “that build on students’
strengths” — not by inundating them with tests and obsessing on the scores.
Seventeen schools were selected, and this blog spotlighted each winner. Now, the pilot project that was concentrated
in Colorado and New York is going national for the 2015-16
school year. Applications are welcome from public high schools in every state;
you can find out how to submit one at
the website, here, and in the post below.
The people behind the project are
Carol Burris and Kevin Welner. Burris is a former New York high school principal who is now
executive director of the non-profit Network for Public Education Fund. A
frequent contributor to The Answer Sheet, she was named the 2010 Educator of
the Year by the School Administrators Association of New York State, and in
2013, the same organization named her the New York State High School Principal
of the Year. Welner is a professor at the University
of Colorado Boulder ’s School of Education
"More than two dozen
other candidates and lawmakers across the political spectrum received
Gülen-linked donations that appear questionable, including Clinton and Jeb
Bush. The movement runs more than 100 charter schools and dozens of Turkish
cultural centers and "intercultural dialogue" groups around the
country. Employees move around among the schools and among the non-profit
groups, so it is hard to keep track of who is working where at any given time.
This feature of
the Gülen movement has been called "strategic ambiguity" by
Joshua Hendrick, a professor at Loyola
University Maryland
Paul Singer,
USA
TODAY10:13
a.m. EST November 23, 2015
Diane Ravitch's Blog
by dianeravitch November 25, 2015
I am not sure why
one of the largest charter chains in the U.S. is run by foreign nationals.
But the Gulen chain has over 100 schools, which operate in many states under
different names. One way to tell a Gulen school is that every member of the
board is a Turkish man. How did they
proliferate? The old-fashioned way: By making friends in key places. USA Today reports that Turkish men with
modest incomes working for the Gulen chain made donations to members of
Congress and Presidential candidates. If USA Today digs deeper, it will find
contributions to state legislators as well as free trips to Turkey , all expenses paid.
PSBA New School Director
Training
School boards who will welcome new directors after the election should
plan to attend PSBA training to help everyone feel more confident right from
the start. This one-day event is targeted to help members learn the basics of
their new roles and responsibilities. Meet the friendly, knowledgeable PSBA
team and bring everyone on your “team of 10” to get on the same page fast.
- $150 per
registrant (No charge if your district has a LEARN Pass. Note: All-Access
members also have LEARN Pass.)
- One-hour lunch
on your own — bring your lunch, go to lunch, or we’ll bring a box lunch to
you; coffee/tea provided all day
- Course
materials available online or we’ll bring a printed copy to you for an
additional $25
- Registrants
receive one month of 100-level online courses for each registrant, after
the live class
Nine locations
for your convenience:
- Philadelphia
area — Nov. 21 William Tennent HS, Warminster (note: location changed from
IU23 Norristown)
- Pittsburgh
area — Dec. 5 Allegheny IU3, Homestead
- South Central
PA and Erie areas (joint program)— Dec. 12 Northwest Tri-County IU5,
Edinboro and PSBA, Mechanicsburg
- Butler area —
Jan. 9 Midwestern IU 4, Grove City (note: location changed from Penn State
New Kensington)
- Allentown area
— Jan. 16 Lehigh Career & Technical Institute, Schnecksville
- Central PA —
Jan. 30 Nittany Lion Inn, State College
- Scranton area
— Feb. 6 Abington Heights SD, Clarks Summit
- North Central
area —Feb. 13 Mansfield University, Mansfield
Register here: https://www.psba.org/2015/09/new-school-director-training/
NSBA Advocacy
Institute 2016; January 24 - 26 in Washington ,
D.C.
Housing and meeting registration is open for Advocacy Institute 2016. The theme, “Election Year Politics & Public Schools,” celebrates the exciting year ahead for school board advocacy. Strong legislative programming will be paramount at this year’s conference in January. Visit www.nsba.org/advocacyinstitute for more information.
Housing and meeting registration is open for Advocacy Institute 2016. The theme, “Election Year Politics & Public Schools,” celebrates the exciting year ahead for school board advocacy. Strong legislative programming will be paramount at this year’s conference in January. Visit www.nsba.org/advocacyinstitute for more information.
PASBO 61st Annual
Conference and Exhibits March 8 - 11, 2016
Hershey Lodge and Convention Center, Hershey, Pennsylvania
Hershey Lodge and Convention Center, Hershey, Pennsylvania
The Network for Public Education 3rd
Annual National Conference April 16-17, 2016 Raleigh , North Carolina
The
Network for Public Education is thrilled to announce the location for our 3rd
Annual National Conference. On April 16 and 17, 2016 public education advocates
from across the country will gather in Raleigh, North Carolina. We chose Raleigh to highlight the tremendous
activist movement that is flourishing in North Carolina. No one exemplifies
that movement better than the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, who will be the
conference keynote speaker. Rev. Barber is the current president of
the North Carolina State Conference of the NAACP, the National NAACP chair of
the Legislative Political Action Committee, and the founder of Moral Mondays.
Interested in letting our
elected leadership know your thoughts on education funding, a severance tax,
property taxes and the budget?
Governor Tom Wolf,
(717) 787-2500
Speaker of the
House Rep. Mike Turzai, (717) 772-9943
House Majority Leader Rep. Dave Reed, (717) 705-7173
Senate President Pro Tempore Sen. Joe Scarnati, (717) 787-7084
Senate Majority Leader Sen. Jake Corman, (717) 787-1377
House Majority Leader Rep. Dave Reed, (717) 705-7173
Senate President Pro Tempore Sen. Joe Scarnati, (717) 787-7084
Senate Majority Leader Sen. Jake Corman, (717) 787-1377
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