Monday, August 31, 2015

PA Ed Policy Roundup Aug 31: Any connection between $86 million Palm Beach mansion and one of Pa.'s poorest school districts that can't make payroll?

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Keystone State Education Coalition
PA Ed Policy Roundup for August 31, 2015:
Any connection between $86 million Palm Beach mansion and one of Pa.'s poorest school districts that can't make payroll?



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



"The problem is that some school districts are wealthy and others are not. That is why we have schools rich in resources in suburban districts with malls or major industries, while neighboring districts can't pay for a sufficient number of teachers despite high tax rates. According to state figures, school taxes on a house worth $100,000 can vary from $900 to $3,600 depending on location."
There is a consensus in Pa. for property-tax relief
Philly.com Opinion By Michael Churchill POSTED: Monday, August 31, 2015, 1:08 AM
Michael Churchill is an attorney at the Public Interest Law Center.
The difficult thing about government policy is how often one value runs head on into an equally important value. That is especially true in the area of tax policy. Fairness, stimulation of private-sector growth, sufficiency of revenues, encouragement of private effort, and simplicity are all goals supported by much of the public. Unfortunately, maximizing any one of these threatens the realization of the others.  Pennsylvania is a textbook example. Historically, the legislature has been loath to raise necessary revenues to conduct state business, including fulfilling the constitutional mandate to maintain a thorough and efficient system of public education, based on the theory that lower taxes spur economic growth. As a consequence, Pennsylvania contributes less funding for public schools than almost every other state in the country. The commonwealth's share is about 35 percent, compared with an average of 50 percent around the country. The cost of funding schools is therefore pushed upon local property-tax payers.

“I’ve been fighting for fair funding because your kids are everybody’s kids, your kids are the state’s kids, your kids are the country’s kids, and if we don’t give them all we have, it’s too late,” Feinberg said. “They’re going to be our future co-workers, employees, neighbors, and it’s unconscionable.  “Pennsylvania has the dubious distinction of being the state that has the greatest disparity in the country throughout its districts,” he added. “It’s 12 miles from Radnor to Chester Upland, but it might as well be 4,000 miles.”
Chairman of Delco School Board Legislative Council addresses William Penn School Board members
Delco Times By Nick Tricome, Times Correspondent POSTED: 08/30/15, 8:14 PM EDT
LANSDOWNE >> Larry Feinberg, chairman of the Delaware County School Board Legislative Council, was in attendance during the William Penn School District’s business meeting last Monday night, offering a status update on the push for a fair funding formula for basic education from the state.  “As I’m sure you know from news reports, there is not a whole lot going on,” Feinberg said to those in the board room.  The state is coming up on two months without passing a budget for 2015-16. Talks between Gov. Tom Wolf and Republican-led Legislature have been moving slowly, with the key sticking points being a new funding formula and a $400 million increase for education, after former governor Tom Corbett cut $900 million from it in his last term.

Spring-Ford School Board to lead Sept. 21 march on Harrisburg
West Chester Daily Local By Eric Devlin, edevlin@21st-centurymedia.com@Eric_Devlin on Twitter POSTED: 08/28/15, 4:16 PM EDT
Royersford >> With support coming from across the state, the Spring-Ford Area School Board will lead a march on Harrisburg next month.  At the Aug. 17 meeting, board member Joe Ciresi called for the march on the state capitol after venting his frustration with the lawmakers inability to pass a budget. Now with the backing of the Pennsylvania School Boards Association, Ciresi announced Monday the date has changed to Sept. 21 inside the capitol rotunda.  “The objective is to show a united front of 500 school districts from around the state,” he said. “To say what’s happening that we don’t have a budget? Legislators have dropped a ball. To see that we are a governing entity here in the state and we’re not being heard and how it’s affecting our children and our education.”

In a bankrupt Pa. school district, teachers plan to work for free
Washington Post By Lyndsey Layton August 28 at 5:18 PM  
Employees of the Chester Upland School District in Pennsylvania will show up for work on the first day of school next Wednesday, but they don’t expect to get paid.  The district, which has been struggling with financial and academic problems for decades, is on the edge of insolvency and cannot make payroll, state and local officials have said.  So on Thursday, about 200 members of the local teachers union voted unanimously to work without pay as the new school year opens. They were joined by secretaries, school bus drivers, janitors and administrators.  “The thought of it is very scary,” said John Shelton, 60, dean of students at the district’s only middle school and a 23-year employee. “It’s mind-boggling because there’s truly uncertainty. But we are all in agreement that we will come to work, so that the children can get an education.”

Chester Upland teachers plan to work without pay so schools will open on time
By Vince Sullivan, Delaware County Daily Times POSTED: 08/29/15, 12:51 AM EDT
CHESTER >> Entering the last weekend before 3,500 students return to class in the Chester Upland School District, the members of the Chester Upland Education Association face uncertainty about their own financial futures as they plan to work with pay.  Members of the teachers’ union, as well as members of the support professionals’ union, voted Thursday to continue working even though the district won’t be able to make payroll after Sept. 9. Students begin the school year on Sept. 2.  The district has been mired in one financial crisis after another for the past two decades, all of which came to a head this week when the receiver proposed a dramatic plan to alter the way charter schools are funded in a last ditch effort to erase a budget deficit of more than $20 million.

"Chester Upland, which is under state oversight, served about 3,400 students last year, and another 3,800 attended charter schools, according to state data. Its approved budget for the year is about $133 million, about half of which ends up going to charter schools. Most of the district's revenue comes from the state government, largely because of the district's poverty.  The district's average household income was just under $27,000 in 2012, according to state data, putting it in Pennsylvania's bottom 10 out of 500 school districts.  The district is required to pay charter schools about $40,000 per year for each special-education student they enroll, according to the Wolf administration. That is more than twice the amount the district spends on its special-education students and more than any other district in the state, the administration said."
One of Pa.'s poorest school districts can't make payroll amid budget stalemate
Penn Live By Marc Levy | The Associated Press on August 28, 2015 at 9:19 PM, updated August 28, 2015 at 9:25 PM
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — One of Pennsylvania's poorest school districts says it cannot afford to pay its staff amid an entrenched state budget stalemate, and district and state officials had no immediate answers Friday about where they will find the money to keep the schools operating.  Chester Upland School District, just south of Philadelphia, said it cannot meet a scheduled payroll on Sept. 9. Teachers and support staff, including bus drivers and secretaries, voted Thursday to continue working if they are not paid. The fall semester is scheduled to start next week.  "We've always put our students first, and we always will," said Michele Paulick, president of the Chester Upland Education Association, the district teacher's union.  Gov. Tom Wolf's office said drastic action will be necessary to ensure the deficit-ridden school district can operate through the entire school year, even if the district is able to open its doors on schedule. State officials said they are considering their options on how to deal with it.

Chester Upland can't pay its teachers — but they're working anyway
WHYY Newsworks BY LAURA BENSHOFF AUGUST 28, 2015
Teachers union president Michele Paulick said she received some unwelcome news at the Chester Upland School District teacher convocation this week.  "Our superintendent, Gregory Shannon, read a letter from our receiver, Francis Barnes, that informed the teachers that there are no funds," said Paulick, who described feeling "shock, frustration and anger" at the news.   However, in a Thursday evening vote, the 200-member union decided unanimously to work without pay for as long as individual members are able, Paulick said. The Chester Upland School District educates about 3,500 students, with nearly the same number attending area charter schools.  "We arrived at the decision to continue working because we have to put our children first," she said. "It's not their fault we're in this situation."

Faculty, staff at Chester Upland schools agree to work without pay
PhillyVoice Staff BY CHRISTINA LOBRUTTO  AUGUST 28, 2015
Faculty members and staff of the Chester Upland School District voted Thursday to work without pay if necessary after receiving news of insufficient funds, The Delaware County Daily Times reports.  At a morning convocation, Superintendent Gregory Shannon reportedly read a letter from Francis Barnes, the state-appointed receiver for the school district, stating that the district currently does not have the funds to make payroll for Sept. 9. Classes are scheduled to begin Sept. 2.  "We knew that the district was in financial straits but we didn’t know it was so immediate so, yes, we were very shocked," Chester Upland Education Association President Michele Paulick told the Delaware County Daily Times.
Following the announcement from the superintendent, the approximately 200 teachers represented by the Chester Upland Education Association and more than 120 secretaries, teaching assistants, licensed practical nurses and other staff represented by the Chester Upland Education Support Personnel Association passed a joint resolution stating their members “will work as long as they are individually able, even with delayed compensation, and even with the failure of the school district to meet its payroll obligations, in order to continue to serve the students who learn in the Chester Upland School District.”

Does the taxpaying public have the right to know how much profit is being taken out of the Chester Upland School District?
"Let’s look at Chester Upland’s special education enrollment, while considering that, in general, special education students diagnosed with autism, emotional disturbance and intellectual disability require the highest expenditures, while those with speech and language impairments require the lowest expenditures."
So what exactly is in that Chester Upland Charter Special Sauce?
Keystone State Education Coalition August 25, 2015
Here's the bottom line on Chester Upland charter school special education funding.  Would this have been allowed to go on for years if charter schools were "public" in more than name only and were subject to taxpayer scrutiny on a regular basis?    Right-to-know requests for financial information regarding the operations of Charter School Management Company have been blatantly ignored for years.

Wanna get serious about budget negotiations? Close the door and stay until you're done: Tony May
PennLive Op-Ed  By Tony May on August 30, 2015 at 11:00 AM
Last week was a big one for Pennsylvania's budget stalemate, mostly for what didn't happen.
Tony May 
  • House Republicansfailed to deliver on their promise to override significant portions of the governor's budget veto on a line-by-line basis.
  • The state reported it will be missing a $1 billion installment to school districts.
  • House Democrats asked the state treasurer for a loan to meet September payrolls for its 650 employees.
  • The city of Harrisburg said it will run out of money by November if it doesn't soon get the $5 million appropriation promised in the budget for emergency services rendered by the city to the seat of state government.
  • A statewide poll showed that a majority of Pennsylvania voters blame the GOP for the state's budget crisis.
  • The governor (What? Was he piqued by the attempted veto overrides?) canceled a scheduled meeting of budget negotiators.
  • And the state Senate stayed home.
Any fair-minded person would be forced to conclude that things are not going well. What to do?

"Instead, Sheridan said, the governor is focused on a comprehensive budget that restores the Republicans' cuts to education through a severance tax, provides property tax relief to middle-class families and seniors and fixes the state deficit without gimmicks.  "Gov. Wolf has worked hard to compromise with Republicans on issues ranging from pensions to the severance tax," Sheridan said, "but he has been met with obstruction culminating in this week's unconstitutional attempt to override his veto that simply wasted time and effort."  Throughout budget negotiations, Sheridan said, Republican leaders have refused to discuss a commonsense severance tax to fund education and they have resisted any discussions about investment in education at all levels – early childhood education through higher education."
GOP lawmakers consider stop-gap state budget proposal, but Gov. Tom Wolf is not
Penn Live By Christian Alexandersen | calexandersen@pennlive.com Email the author | Follow on Twitter on August 28, 2015 at 4:17 PM, updated August 28, 2015 at 6:23 PM
While Republican lawmakers are considering a stop-gap budget proposal that would temporarily fund state operations in the midst of a 58-day budget impasse, Gov. Tom Wolf is not.  Rep. Gene DiGirolamo, R-Bucks, plans to introduce a stop-gap budget next week that would temporarily fund all state functions from July 1 until Oct. 31. The funding level, DiGirolamo said, would be the same as the state budget for fiscal year 2014/15, for those four months.  The budget impasse stems from core disagreements between the Democratic governor and GOP legislators.

Pa. lawmaker proposes stop-gap state budget after 58-day impasse
Penn Live By Christian Alexandersen | calexandersen@pennlive.com Email the author | Follow on Twitter on August 28, 2015 at 1:36 PM, updated August 28, 2015 at 1:37 PM
Following a two-month long budget impasse, Rep. Gene DiGirolamo has decided that enough is enough and will introduce a stop-gap budget to temporarily fund state operations.  In a co-sponsorship memo sent to members of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives Friday, DiGirolamo, R-Bucks, said he plans to introduce the stop-gap budget early next week. The temporary measure will fund all state functions from July 1 until Oct. 31.  The funding level, DiGirolamo said, will be the same as the state budget for fiscal year 2014/15, for those four months.  DiGirolamo said he believes it is imperative that lawmakers immediately provide the necessary funding for the education, human services and all the other services that state government supports.  "My goal is to neither advantage nor disadvantage anyone's negotiating position," DiGirolamo said. "My goal is to assure the funding of state government is sustained during these negotiations."

Early education providers urge Pa. budget passage, funding boost
By Evan Brandt, The Mercury POSTED: 08/28/15, 7:22 PM EDT | UPDATED: 2 HRS AGO
UPPER PROVIDENCE >> Harrisburg’s inability to adopt a budget on time is having an extreme impact on day care and pre-kindergarten providers and creating uncertainty for their employees and the families they serve as they get ready for the start of school, advocates said Friday.  “We have this beautiful new classroom to educate our children, but without additional state funding, it will sit empty,” said Melanie Godhania, program director for Play and Learn, which hosted a press conference calling on Gov. Tom Wolf and the Legislature to agree on a budget — one which includes Wolf’s proposal for enough funding to add 14,000 more toddlers to Pennsylvania’s pre-K roles.  Play and Learn operates facilities in Collegeville, Lansdale, Green Lane and Norristown, in addition to its Upper Providence location.  “As affluent as Spring-Ford is, we have families who are not being served in this community who are eligible for Pre-K Counts,” Spring-Ford Area School District Superintendent David Goodin said in reference to the state funding stream that helps pay early childhood education costs.

IU9 waits word on state grant money
Bradford Era By ALEX DAVIS Era Reporter a.davis@bradfordera.com  August 28, 2015 10:00 am
Whether the state would fund more preschool opportunities across McKean and Potter counties remains in question as the state budget impasse enters its third month next week.  Officials at the Seneca Highlands Intermediate Unit 9 are hoping for grant money to pay for the expansion of Pennsylvania Pre-K Counts programs at four school districts and to bring programs to two other districts, said Janice Vicini, director of early intervention program at the IU9. The money is being requested from the state Department of Education.  “In the near term, without a state budget in place, state Pre-K Counts and Head Start Supplemental grants did not go out to pre-K providers across the Commonwealth, forcing them to make the hard decision to either solicit private bridge financing, operate off reserves or other funding sources or close state-funded classrooms altogether,” said Mission: Readiness Pennsylvania State director Steve Doster, who is a partner in the Pre-K for PA Campaign effort in advocating for high-quality preschool access for all children.

"School districts have more flexibility in spending, but officials said they were still feeling the stress from the state budget gridlock. PASBO said that it surveyed 171 districts across the state about the impasse, and most - 83 percent - have already or are likely to dip into reserve funds, while 40 percent either have or are weighing borrowing money to open up classes.  A few districts cited harsher measures, according to PASBO, with 29 percent saying that not filling vacant positions is either taking place or a possibility, and 60 percent face a similar dilemma with vendor payments."
Schools cut back as budget standoff continues
KATHY BOCCELLA, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER LAST UPDATED:  August 30, 2015, 1:08 AM
Amanda Darr, a 31-year-old working single mom in Langhorne, opened a letter recently that led her to believe her chronic child-care problems for her 4-year-daughter had finally been solved.  She thought that for a few seconds anyway.  "I got the letter of acceptance, and I was screaming on top of the world, 'I got a break!' " Darr said of the communication from the Radcliffe Learning Center in nearby Bristol. "The front page said your child has been accepted. Then reading on, I'm like, 'No, no, no, no, no, no, no!' "  The bad news on Page 2 was that the Bucks County early learning center won't start taking children in the state-subsidized Pa. Pre-K Counts program until Oct. 16 - about a month and a half later than normal - because the state budget standoff in Harrisburg has forced the center to scramble to find money for the program.

"Beginning this school year, all employees — from cafeteria workers to the principal — in 22 city schools will put into action techniques taught by the International Institute for Restorative Practices under a $3 million grant from the U.S. Justice Department. Part of the money will pay for a Rand Corp. study of how well the program works. Training takes place this school year and the next."
Restorative Practices: 22 Pittsburgh schools to use discipline aimed more at understanding than punishment
By Eleanor Chute / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette August 31, 2015 12:00 AM
With classes starting today in Pittsburgh Public Schools, teachers at Spring Hill K-5 say they’ve been looking forward to meeting new students, getting the children’s reaction to new lessons, feeling the joy — and introducing a restorative practices approach.  The comments came as teachers in small groups on Friday practiced participating in discussions in restorative circles, one of the strategies used by the International Institute for Restorative Practices to address student behavior by building relationships, seeking the root cause of problems and helping students find ways to make things right when incidents take place.  The whole-school approach is designed to improve student behavior, enhance school climate and reduce punishments, including out-of-school suspensions. 

Bringing it home: How two Lancaster County schools are connecting with families in their own neighborhoods
Lancaster Online by KARA NEWHOUSE | Staff Writer August 30, 2015
Brecht teachers arrive on a bus to pass out school supplies to school families in the area of Golden Triangle Apartments. Miykha Murray was one of the first students to greet them.
Sporting a red Brecht Bobcats T-shirt on Wednesday, Yenyia Terry, 9, greeted her principal with a hug. A school bus was parked a few yards away, but the fourth-grader wasn't the one who'd been on it.  Brecht Elementary School's staff rode the bus to Yenyia's apartment complex near Lititz Pike. It was the first of four stops as they traveled through Brecht neighborhoods to distribute school supplies and connect with families ahead of the first day of school, which is Monday.  When the teachers descended from the bus, they were met by children on foot and on bikes. The kids embraced former teachers, met their new ones and picked out notebooks as their parents ticked off supply lists.  Principal Sharon Schaefer chatted with Yenyia's mom, Ladon Johnson, while Yenyia selected a purple pencil sharpener, then swapped it for a pink one.  “We went school shopping and she wanted everything pink," said Johnson. "It's a nightmare,”  Schaefer laughed. “She loves it!” she replied before asking Johnson how work was going.  The conversation was simple, but important, according to the principal. Years of education research confirm that home-school connections have positive impacts on student learning, but most of the time, says Schaefer, schools expect parents to come to them.  She's one of two Lancaster County principals who are turning that expectation on its head.

School districts face challenges with negotiating contracts
Scranton Times Tribune BY SARAH HOFIUS HALL AND KATHLEEN BOLUS Published: August 30, 2015
As Scranton teachers plan to strike this week, other districts may not be far behind.  With districts feeling the strain of increased financial obligations and no clear picture of state funding, area teachers’ contracts are taking longer to negotiate.  In Lackawanna County, teachers in five of 10 school districts are either working under expired contracts or have contracts that expire Monday. Scranton teachers are scheduled to strike on the first day of school, Thursday, if an agreement is not reached before then. Teachers in two other districts — Old Forge and Riverside — have already gone on strike since their last agreements expired.  Teachers in Mid Valley and Valley View in Lackawanna County, Western Wayne in Wayne County and Blue Ridge, Forest City Regional, Montrose and Susquehanna Community in Susquehanna County are also in negotiations. Those union members teach a combined 23,000 students in Northeast Pennsylvania.  Across the state, there is a widening gap between what school boards and unions want, said Jay Himes, executive director of the Pennsylvania Association of School Business Officials.  “When your expectations start in opposite directions, it’s hard to find a compromise,” he said.  Statewide, the northeast region of the state has a large number of unsettled contracts, compared to other regions, said Wythe Keever, spokesman for the Pennsylvania State Education Association, which represents 180,000 teachers and support personnel.  While experts are not sure why this region leads the state, all teachers, administrators and school board members said they hope to have agreements soon.

Opinion: Put kids first, not gas companies
Pocono Record Opinion by PA Budget and Policy Center Posted  Aug. 27, 2015 at 5:51 PM
Thaddeus Stevens is spinning in his grave.
The venerable Pennsylvania Republican, portrayed so vividly in the movie “Lincoln” by Tommy Lee Jones, was a man ahead of his time. He helped establish tax-financed public education in our commonwealth — a massive expansion of government at a time when many believed government had no obligation to educate its citizenry.  Mr. Stevens’ stern visage still looks down on our legislators in Harrisburg, where the Republican Party holds a solid majority. He can’t be happy with what he sees.  Back on June 1, state Sens. John Eichelberger, R-Blair, and Gene Yaw, R-Lycoming, conducted a hearing on Gov. Tom Wolf’s severance-tax proposal, which would impose a modest tax on the revenues of shale drillers in Pennsylvania. At a time when the state’s finances are in perilous shape and public education is still reeling from savage cuts instituted by our former governor in 2011, this is a matter of vital importance.  You might expect that our leaders would seek the input of authentic experts who could offer dispassionate, objective analysis of the issues, including from Pennsylvania’s great universities. Sadly, none were invited to Harrisburg, despite the efforts of members of the Democratic minority to include them. Instead, Sens. Eichelberger and Yaw primarily sought the advice and counsel of shale-gas and business-association lobbyists who are paid to protect their members’ bottom lines, not to worry about what is best for Pennsylvania. And that was only hearing the Senate has conducted this summer.
To its credit, the Eichelberger-Yaw committee did call upon the state’s Independent Fiscal Office to offer its analysis of the governor’s tax proposal.

Thanks Alexander Russo for the twitter heads-up on Mr. Rad's Neighborhood

"If you care about kids, if you care about teaching, there is nothing that will make you less of a teacher to me.  If you teach, if you care about teachers, if you care about students and schools, however you care about them, you are not my enemy.  Let’s go to work."
No Enemies
Mr. Rad's Neighborhood, Blog by Tom Rademacher August 26, 2015
Tom Rademacher (Mr. Rad to his students) is an English teacher in Minneapolis, MN, and in May of 2014 was named Minnesota Teacher of the Year. He teaches writing. He writes about teaching
Last year, a guy moved in across the hall from me to teach physics (everyone’s favorite).  He didn’t have a license.  He had been rejected from Teach for America years before.  He came in on a community expert license, but really, he came in at the last minute because we needed someone, anyone, to fill space.  The year before, we had resorted to having a sub with an english license sit in the room while the kids did online physics (because the only thing that could make physics more awesome was making sure you could only do computer-simulation labs).  Shortly after meeting that guy, I met another teacher, a guy who was in his fiftieth year of teaching.  Seriously.  Fifty.  He teaches Latin (everyone’s other favorite), and has been doing so since 1965.  He is fully licensed (in a few different subjects, actually), and widely recognized as one of the best teachers in his state.  He is a master of master teachers.    Aside from both staying up way later than I do, these two guys have very very little in common.  But you know what?  Both of these teachers are awesome.  

Looking for a few thousand substitute teachers
KRISTEN A. GRAHAM, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER LAST UPDATED: August 31, 2015, 1:08 AM
The firm hired to staff Philadelphia School District substitute-teaching jobs has a pressing need: hiring 5,000 qualified people, as soon as possible.  To achieve that goal, prepare for an onslaught of advertising - billboards on I-95, posters in train stations and other high-visibility areas - trolling for people looking for "flexible and fulfilling part-time work in education."  When a Cherry Hill-based firm recently hired by the district won the $34 million contract to fill sub jobs, it promised it would staff 90 percent of all openings by January. Previously, the district had run substitute services, and managed only a 60 percent "fill rate."

‘The Teacher Shortage’ Is No Accident—It’s the Result of Corporate Education Reform Policies
In These Times BY KEVIN PROSEN TUESDAY, AUG 25, 2015, 10:28 AM
Like much else in the national education debate, panics about teacher shortages seem to be a perennial event.  In a widely discussed article for the New York Times earlier this month, Motoko Rich called attention to sharp drops in enrollment in teacher training programs in California and documented that many districts are relaxing licensure requirements as a result, pushing more and more people into the classroom without full certification or proper training.  “It’s a sad, alarming state of affairs, and it proves that for all our lip service about improving the education of America’s children, we’ve failed to make teaching the draw that it should be, the honor that it must be,” mused Times columnist Frank Bruni.  That Bruni would bemoan such a state of affairs is ironic, as he has used his column over the years to repeatedly argue that teaching is too easy a profession to enter and too easy to keep, and amplified the voice of reformers who want to want to make the profession more precarious. But the reality is that speaking of a “shortage” at all is a kind of ideological dodge; the word calls to mind some accident of nature or the market, when what is actually happening is the logical (if not necessarily intended) result of education reform policies.
“This is an old narrative, the idea that we aren’t producing enough teachers,” says Richard Ingersoll, an educational sociologist at University of Pennsylvania who has written extensively on the subject of teacher shortages. “As soon as you disaggregate the data, you find out claims of shortage are always overgeneralized and exaggerated. It’s always been a minority of schools, and the real factor is turnover in hard to staff schools. It may be true enrollment went down in these programs nationally, but there are so many former teachers in the reserve pool.” In other words, the problem isn’t that too few people entering the profession, but rather that too many are leaving it.

"When districts began to fire highly regarded teachers whose students did not perform well on standardized tests, teachers were furious.  From their point of view, the public was blaming teachers for problems caused by rapidly rising poverty among children, growing inequality of incomes, appalling rates of violence and incarceration in urban communities—problems over which they had no control. They began to give up, move on or retire in ever-larger numbers."
Teacher Shortages: Catastrophe or Opportunity?
By Marc Tucker on August 27, 2015 11:40 AM
The news now is full of stories about teacher shortages.  States and districts are putting up giant billboards, and granting emergency certificates so that people who have not even finished their teacher education program can teach school and teachers certified to teach one subject can teach another subject they are wholly unqualified to teach. 
How did we get to this point?
The trail is not hard to follow.  When college-educated women had few choices other than being a nurse, a secretary or a teacher, we were able to get great teachers for next to nothing. Young women were urged by their parents to become teachers as a form of insurance policy, in case they became widowed or divorced.  Teaching jobs were seen as recession-proof.  Teachers were highly respected because they were seen as having a "vocation," not just a job, and because they were typically among the most educated people in their community.   Then each link in this chain broke. No longer confined to nursing, secretarial work and teaching, college-educated women started going into higher-status, higher-paying professions in great numbers. As time went on, teachers were less likely to have more education than the parents in their community.  Teachers colleges became a fallback destination. Teachers' salaries declined relative to the salaries of other professionals. In response, teachers unionized, changing public perception of teaching as no longer a vocation but an occupation like any other in which the occupants were in it for themselves, not the children.

U.S. Education Department bars states from offering alternative tests to most students with disabilities
Washington Post Answer Sheet Blog By Valerie Strauss August 27  
A new rule issued by the U.S. Education Department requires all states to stop offering alternative standards and aligned standardized tests to nearly all students with disabilities after the 2015-16 school year.   As published in the Federal Rule, the rule is called “Improving the Academic Achievement of the Disadvantaged; Assistance to States for the Education of Children With Disabilities,” and it requires states to give the same assessments to students without disabilities as to the vast majority of those with disabilities under the premise that nearly all students can “make academic progress when provided with challenging instruction and appropriate supports.”

238 days, 247 mass shootings in America - still think they're 'isolated' incidents?
Penn Live By John L. Micek | jmicek@pennlive.com Email the author | Follow on Twitter
on August 27, 2015 at 10:00 AM, updated August 27, 2015 at 10:41 AM
Wednesday was the 238th day of 2015, and there have so far been 247 mass shootings nationwide, according to an analysis prepared by GunsAreCool, a snarkily named subreddit that tracks gun violence nationwide.  As The Washington Post's Christopher Ingraham reports, the group's definition has been criticized because it defines "mass shooting" as any incident in which four people are shot. That's broader than the FBI's definition, "which requires three or more people to be killed by gunfire," The Post reported.


Save the Date: Make your voice heard at Education Action Day, Sept. 21
School directors and administrators from across the state will be converging at the State Capitol on Monday, Sept. 21 for Education Action Day — your opportunity to push for a state budget and pension reform. Join PSBA in the Main Capitol-East Wing under the escalators at 10 a.m. A news conference will be held from 11 a.m.-noon, and then plan to meet with your elected officials from 1-3 p.m., scheduled by PSBA . There is no charge for participation, but for planning purposes, members are asked to register their attendance online, which will be available in the next few days. We look forward to a big crowd to impress upon legislators and the governor the need for a state budget and pension reform now!

The John Stoops Lecture Series: Dr. Pasi Sahlberg "Education Around the World: Past, Present & Future" Lehigh University October 8, 2015 6:00 p.m.
Baker Hall | Zoellner Arts Center | 420 E. Packer Avenue | Bethlehem, PA 18015
Free and open to the public!  Ticketing is general admission - no preseating will be assigned. Arrive early for the best seats.  Please plan to stay post-lecture for an open reception where you will have an opportunity to meet with students from all of our programs to learn about the latest innovations in education and human services.

Register now for the 2015 PASCD 65th Annual Conference, Leading and Achieving in an Interconnected World, to be held November 15-17, 2015 at Pittsburgh Monroeville Convention Center.
The Conference will Feature Keynote Speakers: Meenoo Rami – Teacher and Author “Thrive: 5 Ways to (Re)Invigorate Your Teaching,”  Mr. Pedro Rivera, Pennsylvania Secretary of Education, Heidi Hayes-Jacobs – Founder and President of Curriculum Design, Inc. and David Griffith – ASCD Senior Director of Public Policy.  This annual conference features small group sessions focused on: Curriculum and Supervision, Personalized and Individualized Learning, Innovation, and Blended and Online Learning. The PASCD Conference is a great opportunity to stay connected to the latest approaches for innovative change in your school or district.  Join us forPASCD 2015!  Online registration is available by visiting www.pascd.org <http://www.pascd.org/>

Slate of candidates for PSBA offices now available online
PSBA website July 31, 2015
The slate of candidates for 2016 PSBA officer and at-large representatives is now available online, including bios, photos and videos. According to recent PSBA Bylaws changes, each member school entity casts one vote per office. Voting will again take place online through a secure, third-party website -- Simply Voting. Voting will open Aug. 17 and closes Sept. 28. One person from the school entity (usually the board secretary) is authorized to register the vote on behalf of the member school entity and each board will need to put on its agenda discussion and voting at one of its meetings in August or September. Each person authorized to register the school entity's votes has received an email on July 16 to verify the email address and confirm they are the person to register the vote on behalf of their school entity. 

Register Now for PASA-PSBA School Leadership Conference Oct. 14-16, 2015 Hershey Lodge & Convention Center
Save the date for the professional development event of the year. Be inspired at more than four exciting venues and invest in professional development for top administrators and school board members. Online registration is live at:

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.

Friday, August 28, 2015

PA Ed Policy Roundup Aug 28: As budget impasse drags on, school districts miss $1 billion state subsidy payment

Daily postings from the Keystone State Education Coalition now reach more than 3750 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 August 28, 2015:
As budget impasse drags on, school districts miss $1 billion state subsidy payment



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



As budget impasse drags on, school districts miss $1 billion state subsidy payment
The PLS Reporter Author: Jason Gottesman/Thursday, August 27, 2015
As Pennsylvania’s budget impasse nears the two-month mark, a recent report by the Pennsylvania Association of School Business Officials noted school districts Thursday did not receive a scheduled $1.18 billion state subsidy payment as a result of the stalemate.  Of the 171 respondents to the PASBO survey, 83 percent said they are using fund balances to make ends meet in the absence of state funding while half said they have used or have considered using borrowing to ensure continued cash flow.  Additionally, 60 percent of respondents said they have or may delay vendor payments, 53 percent of respondents have delayed or may delay facility maintenance, and 29 percent may delay filling positions.  “With a state subsidy payment expected each month, more school districts will incur additional borrowing costs for loans if the budget impasse continues,” said Jay Himes, PASBO executive director.

Gov. Wolf: Changing GOP pension plan savings numbers throw entire plan into doubt
The PLS Reporter Author: Jason Gottesman/Thursday, August 27, 2015
Gov. Tom Wolf Thursday said he is likely to have an answer next week for legislative Republican leadership with regard to their offer of $400 million for basic education funding in exchange for the governor’s agreement on a defined contribution pension plan for new employees.  However, he said the changing savings numbers discussed by Republicans at the last negotiating session earlier this week left him with doubts concerning whether the plan is the right way to go.  “I’m using [the additional time] to find out what their proposal actually was in that room,” he told reporters. “The number on the savings of their pension plan changed twice; there were three different numbers…so I just want to make sure what that real number is.”  He said Republicans kept revising the number downward, which he said opened up “other questions that we had fundamental disagreement over.”  “There were differences, changes, as I was watching the numbers come down,” he stated. “It suggested that maybe the other things that went into the design of this plan are not as tight as they should be.”  Speaking to the governor's comments, Senate Republican spokesperson Jenn Kocher said the savings numbers were revised downward in an attempt to compromise.

Budget talks paused as Wolf mulls offer
WITF Written by Mary Wilson, Capitol Bureau Chief | Aug 27, 2015 3:33 PM
State budget negotiations are on ice as Governor Tom Wolf considers the most significant offer from Republicans since talks stalled in June.  The proposal would let Wolf spend more money on schools, one of his campaign promises. But it would also scale back future pension benefits, delivering a kick in the pants to public sector labor unions, who have panned the deal.  Wolf said Thursday he needs more time - and more information -- to consider the offer.  "The number on the savings of their pension plan for example changed three times or, what, it changed twice," said Wolf. "There were three different numbers. So I just want to make sure that I know what that number is."  Republicans disputed Wolf's version of events. The administration has received an actuarial analysis of the cost of the proposed pension changes from the state's two retirement systems.  Wolf has twice postponed making a final decision on the offer, leading to grousing among Republican legislative leaders.  "The frustration is, just, we need an answer," said GOP House Majority Leader Dave Reed on Wednesday. "If it's yes, that's great, we'll move on to the rest of the budget, get this thing done relatively quickly. If it's no, that's OK, we've got to figure out another direction to take collectively."

Pa. House Democrats ask Treasury for loan; spending authorization for minority caucus may run out by mid-September
Penn Live By Charles Thompson | cthompson@pennlive.com Email the author | Follow on Twitter on August 27, 2015 at 5:50 PM, updated August 27, 2015 at 9:36 PM
Pennsylvania's House Democratic Caucus is on the cusp of a dubious distinction: it may be the first of the four legislative caucuses to run out of money due to this year's state budget stalemate.  And caucus leaders are now scrambling to avoid the prospect of payless paydays for its 652 employees.  In a letter dated Aug. 13, Caucus Leader Frank Dermody, D-Allegheny County, asked the Pennsylvania Treasury for "a loan, from whatever source you deem appropriate and in such amount as may be necessary, to be used during the balance of the current budget impasse to help us fulfill our obligation to pay timely salaries and related costs."  Democratic spokesman Bill Patton confirmed the letter this week, and said the caucus's conversations with Treasury are "ongoing.   "House Democrats won't exhaust our reserve funds until September," Patton wrote in an email to PennLive.  "In planning for what to do at that point... our preferred alternative is to work with Treasury and avoid incurring substantial unneeded interest costs on a private loan," he continued.  The caucus is apparently good to meet its first payroll in the first week of September, sources familiar with the situation said, but it may not be able to meet payroll for the 568 non-House member employees on Sept. 15.  (Elected House members are paid on a monthly cycle, so the first check the 84 Democratic members would miss would be Oct. 1.)

New poll finds more Pennsylvanians blame Legislature than governor for budget stalemate
By Kate Giammarise / Post-Gazette Harrisburg Bureau August 27, 2015 10:46 PM
HARRISBURG — More voters blame the state Legislature than the governor for the state’s ongoing budget impasse, a poll released Thursday found.  The Franklin & Marshall College poll found that 54 percent of voters consider the Republican-controlled Legislature responsible for the stalemate and 29 percent blame Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat. Not surprisingly, responses to this question are influenced by party affiliation, the poll noted, with more Democrats blaming the Legislature than Republicans.  Whom the voters blame would likely shift “if there’s a serious disruption of services,” predicted Terry Madonna, director of the poll and professor of public affairs at the college. Mr. Madonna’s prediction was based on budget standoffs under previous governors.  The Legislature’s Republican majorities passed a budget that was vetoed by Mr. Wolf on June 30. The two sides appear to have made little progress since then on a state spending plan. Speaking to reporters Thursday, Mr. Wolf said he was still weighing a potential compromise offered recently by Republican leaders that would tie increased school funding to pension changes.

Read the Franklin & Marshall Poll here:

"On Tuesday, the district lost a bid to severely reduce its payments for special education students attending charter schools and for cyber schools.
After a two-day hearing, Judge Chad F. Kenney agreed that reducing certain charter payments would solve some of the district's problems, but did not approve the reduction request because it left unresolved how the district would pay its accumulated debt.  The ruling was a setback for Gov. Wolf, who had backed the plan, and for the district, which now pays charter schools $64 million - more than it gets in state aid - to educate about half the students in the district.
Wolf said Thursday that no decision had been made on whether to appeal the ruling."
No paychecks? Chester teachers keep working
KATHY BOCCELLA, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER LAST UPDATED: Friday, August 28, 2015, 1:08 AM POSTED: Thursday, August 27, 2015, 7:06 PM
Chester Upland teachers and support staff voted Thursday to keep working despite learning that the district might not have money to pay them next month.  Two days after a Delaware County judge rejected a new financial recovery plan submitted by Chester Upland and state officials, its 223 teachers and support staff were told the district could not make its Sept. 9 payroll.  Michele Paulick, president of the Chester Upland Education Association, which represents the teachers, called the announcement from Superintendent Gregory Shannon and receiver Francis Barnes "horrible news." But she said staffers decided to keep coming back, to keep schools open for about 3,800 students.  "We have no idea when that first paycheck is coming, but we're going to stay here as long as we're financially able," she said.

Palmyra School District's PSSA scores drop, reflecting more rigorous tests
Penn Live By Monica Von Dobeneck | Special to PennLive  on August 27, 2015 at 8:56 PM, updated August 27, 2015 at 9:04 PM
Palmyra Area School District PSSA math scores in seventh and eighth grades fell by nearly half from the prior year, but that does not mean students are less smart or teachers less proficient, according to superintendent Lisa Brown.  The scores reflect the drop in scores in most area school districts because of a new test that is more rigorous, has a different format and uses the Pennsylvania Core.  "This raises the bar," assistant superintendent Bernie Kepler said at Thursday's board meeting. "We have our work to do."  Brown said it appears that what used to be fifth grade skills are now tested in fourth grade, and fourth grade skills tested in third.  Kepler said his colleagues around the state are in the same boat.  "From talking to my colleagues, we have held our own with everyone," he said.

"The shift from a personal observation-based system to an onerous VAM-structured policy will ultimately affect how and what our children learn, and it will not have a good effect."
We're going the wrong way in trying to get teacher evaluations right: Lloyd E. Sheaffer
PennLive Op-Ed  By Lloyd E. Sheaffer  on August 27, 2015 at 4:00 PM, updated August 27, 2015 at 4:02 PM
Lloyd Sheaffer, a retired English teacher,is a PennLive/Patriot-News community columnist. His work appears monthly on PennLive.
Imagine yourself as a premier widget fabricator. You take pride in your work; you serve as an example for those who work the line with you; you receive laudable evaluations for your work. Then one Monday morning you come to work and are told by your supervisor that a new entity, one that has little experience in making widgets, has taken control of the business and has dictated new policies, one of which involves how fabricators are assessed.  Now rather than being judged on the merits of your own skills and output, your personal assessment will also be determined by the effectiveness of other widget workers, the proficiency of the research and development engineers, and the number of widgets sold annually by the company. Therefore, if 50 retirees are replaced by a bevy inexperienced first-timers or the R&D tablet-toters fail to improve the widget design or the widget peddlers botch too many sales calls, your annual review might plummet from the customary "distinguished" to "needs improvement" or worse.
Most likely you would grab the nearest box of the product and tell your bosses to shove those widgets "where the sun don't shine." Right?

"This is a major victory for school choice in Philadelphia and for charter schools," said Pennsylvania Coalition of Public Charter Schools Executive Director Bob Fayfich in a statement Thursday. "This decision is likely to have a ripple effect across the state because it means local school boards and districts cannot override school law for financial reasons."
Commonwealth Court hands major victory to charter schools
KRISTEN A. GRAHAM, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER LAST UPDATED: Friday, August 28, 2015, 1:08 AM POSTED: Thursday, August 27, 2015, 5:58 PM
In a decision that could prove far-reaching, Commonwealth Court ruled Thursday that the Philadelphia School District does not have the power to override state law and limit charter-school enrollment.  The School Reform Commission moved in 2010 to cap enrollment in - and therefore payments to - some city charters that had previously agreed to limits, but it declined to do so under new charters.  Those schools, Richard Allen Preparatory and Delaware Valley, were ultimately joined by Folk-Arts Cultural Treasures Charter School, Walter D. Palmer Leadership Learning Partners Charter School, and Wakisha Charter School in a suit claiming the caps were illegal.  Two of the schools that sued, Walter Palmer and Wakisha, have closed.  The court, in a majority decision written by Judge Mary Hannah Leavitt, noted that the district's central claim was that the School Reform Commission had the authority to suspend part of the state law "which specifically forbids it from imposing enrollment caps on any charter school."
Upholding a lower-court ruling, Commonwealth Court judges ruled that the SRC lacks that power.

Commonwealth Court rules District can't force charters to cap enrollment
the notebook By Dale Mezzacappa on Aug 27, 2015 07:06 PM
Comonwealth Court ruled Thursday that the School Reform Commission lacks the power to impose enrollment caps on charter schools, a decision that hands a big victory to charters seeking to limit school districts' control of them.  The ruling throws another wrinkle into the School District of Philadelphia's ongoing effort to remain solvent. The District has maintained that unrestrained charter growth depletes its own limited funding and doesn't allow it to plan for its own schools..  The case involves five charter schools – including Richard Allen Preparatory, Delaware Valley, and Folk Arts-Cultural Treasures charters – that had agreed to caps in 2005 but objected to the caps when their agreements came up for renewal in 2010 and refused to sign new charter agreements to abide by the caps. That prompted the School Reform Commission to pass resolutions suspending the charter school law and allowing it to limit enrollment at the schools.  The case hinges on whether the law establishing the SRC and giving it broad powers to restore the District to financial health allows it to ignore another state law prohibiting enrollment caps on charters. A lower court ruled that it doesn't have that authority; in a 4-1 decision, the Commonwealth Court agreed with the lower court that the District cannot cap enrollment at charters.  The court's majority ruled that the state takeover law "does not give the School Reform Commission carte blanche to rewrite the terms of public school education in Philadelphia for schools it operates and for charter schools operated by a board of trustees."

Is trouble brewing between City Council and the schools?
KRISTEN A. GRAHAM, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER LAST UPDATED: Friday, August 28, 2015, 1:07 AM POSTED: Thursday, August 27, 2015, 5:47 PM
City Council is not happy with the Philadelphia School District - again.
This spring, Council publicly blasted Superintendent William R. Hite Jr. and other officials for what it said was a lack of transparency and information, but finally agreed to parcel out $70 million in new money for the district.  But recently, and in private, Council President Darrell L. Clarke launched another salvo at Hite, ordering more information on a recent series of administrative hires the superintendent has made, and reminding him that $25 million of the district's money has strings attached - with final approval still to come from Council.  In asking Council for $100 million this year, Hite said the money would go "directly to classroom support," Clarke reminded the superintendent in a letter obtained by The Inquirer. "It is on the basis of your testimony that Council approved" the money.  "Let me be clear about my concern with this announcement," Clarke wrote: How will hiring several top administrators "enhance the educational experience of Philadelphia's children?"

Arbitrator reverses firing of two Philly principals in cheating probe
KRISTEN A. GRAHAM, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER LAST UPDATED: Thursday, August 27, 2015, 1:08 AM POSTED: Wednesday, August 26, 2015, 4:51 PM
Two city principals fired in connection with a state-test cheating scandal have won arbitration rulings and may be rehired by the Philadelphia School District.  According to the arbitrator, the district conclusively proved in both cases that cheating happened at Tilden Middle School and Lamberton Elementary School. But it did not prove that Michelle Burns and Marla Travis-Curtis participated directly in the improprieties.  Burns, who led Tilden in 2009-10 but moved on to run Kensington Urban Education Academy, won reinstatement as a principal and is due back pay minus wages from a 60-day suspension, plus reimbursement of any expenses paid because of lost benefits.  Travis-Curtis, Lamberton's principal, was ordered returned to the district, but demoted to assistant principal. She would get back pay minus wages from a 30-day suspension, and also be owed expenses she incurred on benefits.

Blogger's note:  While these two Philly principals may be rehired by the school district, two years on nothing has been done to follow-up on what appeared to be overwhelming evidence of cheating at the state's largest charter school, which has been back in the news lately….

"In Chester, standardized-test scores dropped precipitously at that Chester Community Charter School after an investigation of possible past cheating brought new scrutiny to the school’s testing practices. Results for 2012 state tests show that, schoolwide, scores fell about 30 percentage points in math and reading, with double-digit drops in every grade. Some fell more than 40 percentage points. The odds that erasure patterns were random on the reading portion of Chester Community Charter School seventh-graders’ 2009 PSSAs were one in a quadrillion but somehow the state left the charter to investigate itself."
2012 - Letters: Charter school bill: A disaster for education in Pennsylvania
Delco Times By LAWRENCE A. FEINBERG Times Guest Columnist 12/06/13, 11:51 PM
Lawrence Feinberg is a 14 year school director in the School District of Haverford Township. He is also the founder and co-chair of the Keystone State Education Coalition, a statewide, grassroots, non-partisan public education advocacy group.
Pennsylvania’s 20-year experiment with charter schools has had mixed academic results at best for our kids but has been a veritable bonanza for some adults and politicians.
Senate Bill 1085, the latest attempt at “charter school reform,” includes multiple provisions that would strip local control over tax dollars from school boards elected by their taxpaying neighbors, and permit colleges, universities and the state to spend local tax dollars with no authorization or oversight by local officials. SB 1085 also strips language from the law requiring charter schools to be models of innovation for public schools. That begs the question: What, then, is the purpose of charter schools?

Statement From Vahan Gureghian, Founder and CEO, CSMI
Chester Community Charter School's Management Company
SYS-CON Media Press Release CHESTER, PA--(Marketwired - August 26, 2015) -
We're, of course, pleased with Judge Kenney's decision. The ruling ensures that Chester's children will be able to return to their classrooms, next month, at the same time that the rest of the students across the Commonwealth will.  As far as we were concerned, the hearings and the public debate were never about charter public schools versus traditional public schools. In fact, we know that about 40 percent of Chester Community Charter School's parents also have at least one other child in a traditional public school. This effort was simply about ensuring continued, improving educational and economic access for all of Chester's students and families.  CCCS looks forward to having opportunities to work together with the Wolf Administration, on behalf of those students and families, in the months and years to come.


Presidential Contenders' Websites Skimpy on K-12 Policy
Education Week Politics K-12 Blog By Alyson Klein on August 27, 2015 8:47 AM
Want to know where the major presidential candidates stand on K-12 education? Don't go to their campaign websites.  A quick review of the websites of every major 2016 contender wasn't very revealing of their K-12 policy platforms when it comes to either their past record or their plans for the future. In fact, candidates of both parties—especially Democrats—were more likely to emphasize the other ends of the education spectrum, pre-school and college readiness, not elementary and secondary policy.  Only about half of the Republican contenders mentioned education on their sites at all, and sometimes it was only a passing reference. (Like Florida Sen. Marco Rubio's plan to create a system that "graduates more students from high school ready to work.)

ACT Alarmed by U.S. Student Test Results
Campus Technology By Dian Schaffhauser 08/26/15
This year's ACT results show 31 percent of students still unready for college in English, math, reading or science — every subject tested by the assessment organization. That's a figure that has not changed since 2012, when it was slightly higher. Fewer than a fifth of those students can be expected to go on to earn a college degree within six years.  The data comes from the 1.9 million tests taken by students who use the results either to graduate from high school (in 13 states) or to apply to college. And the results should serve as a "wake-up call for our nation." Those were the words from ACT CEO Jon Whitmore in a prepared statement. Whitmore noted that "The needle is barely moving on college and career readiness, and that means far too many young people will continue to struggle after they graduate from high school."

Is Teach for America Flunking Out?
The Daily Beast by Samantha Allen 08.27.151:00 AM ET
Among a divided community of alumni, a plethora of blog posts and think pieces, and a controversial business model, Teach for America has reached its moment of truth.
As students head back to school in the coming days, the lowest number of new Teach for America (TFA) teachers since the start of the decade will go with them—just 4,100 new “corps members,” down from an incoming group of 6,000 in 2013.  For the past 25 years, the nonprofit organization has been recruiting young college graduates to spend two years teaching in low-income school districts after participating in a five-week summer training program. TFA’s growth over that period of time has been steady, increasing its operating budget straight through the Great Recession.  Key to its success has been substantial private and public funding. Wells Fargo is one of the group’s corporate partners and the Wal-Mart founders’ Walton Family Foundation has donated at least $5 million. TFA has also relied on “tens of millions” of public funds and, in 2010, the U.S. Department of Education gave the organization a $50 million Investing in Innovation grant.  But now, as TFA’s applicant pool shrinks and recruitment dips, its critics are claiming that alumni horror stories and ideological critiques of the organization are finally starting to take their toll. TFA, on the other hand, maintains that ongoing economic recovery is impacting their recruitment by driving top-tier applicants away from teaching. Whatever the case may be, this is the first major sign of faltering the organization has shown in over a decade.


Save the Date: Make your voice heard at Education Action Day, Sept. 21
School directors and administrators from across the state will be converging at the State Capitol on Monday, Sept. 21 for Education Action Day — your opportunity to push for a state budget and pension reform. Join PSBA in the Main Capitol-East Wing under the escalators at 10 a.m. A news conference will be held from 11 a.m.-noon, and then plan to meet with your elected officials from 1-3 p.m., scheduled by PSBA . There is no charge for participation, but for planning purposes, members are asked to register their attendance online, which will be available in the next few days. We look forward to a big crowd to impress upon legislators and the governor the need for a state budget and pension reform now!


The John Stoops Lecture Series: Dr. Pasi Sahlberg "Education Around the World: Past, Present & Future" Lehigh University October 8, 2015 6:00 p.m.
Baker Hall | Zoellner Arts Center | 420 E. Packer Avenue | Bethlehem, PA 18015
Free and open to the public!  Ticketing is general admission - no preseating will be assigned. Arrive early for the best seats.  Please plan to stay post-lecture for an open reception where you will have an opportunity to meet with students from all of our programs to learn about the latest innovations in education and human services.

Register now for the 2015 PASCD 65th Annual Conference, Leading and Achieving in an Interconnected World, to be held November 15-17, 2015 at Pittsburgh Monroeville Convention Center.
The Conference will Feature Keynote Speakers: Meenoo Rami – Teacher and Author “Thrive: 5 Ways to (Re)Invigorate Your Teaching,”  Mr. Pedro Rivera, Pennsylvania Secretary of Education, Heidi Hayes-Jacobs – Founder and President of Curriculum Design, Inc. and David Griffith – ASCD Senior Director of Public Policy.  This annual conference features small group sessions focused on: Curriculum and Supervision, Personalized and Individualized Learning, Innovation, and Blended and Online Learning. The PASCD Conference is a great opportunity to stay connected to the latest approaches for innovative change in your school or district.  Join us forPASCD 2015!  Online registration is available by visiting www.pascd.org <http://www.pascd.org/>

Slate of candidates for PSBA offices now available online
PSBA website July 31, 2015
The slate of candidates for 2016 PSBA officer and at-large representatives is now available online, including bios, photos and videos. According to recent PSBA Bylaws changes, each member school entity casts one vote per office. Voting will again take place online through a secure, third-party website -- Simply Voting. Voting will openAug. 17 and closes Sept. 28. One person from the school entity (usually the board secretary) is authorized to register the vote on behalf of the member school entity and each board will need to put on its agenda discussion and voting at one of its meetings in August or September. Each person authorized to register the school entity's votes has received an email on July 16 to verify the email address and confirm they are the person to register the vote on behalf of their school entity. 

Register Now for PASA-PSBA School Leadership Conference Oct. 14-16, 2015 Hershey Lodge & Convention Center
Save the date for the professional development event of the year. Be inspired at more than four exciting venues and invest in professional development for top administrators and school board members. Online registration is live at:

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.