Daily postings from the Keystone State Education Coalition now
reach more than 3800 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 January 11 2016:
Pennsylvania
School Boards Association sues Wolf, Legislature over budget impasse
"Primary election season
is now imminent for 228 of the Legislature's 253 seats.
The deadline to file
petitions to get on the ballot is Feb. 16, an important date for sitting
lawmakers who are thinking about voting for a tax increase, and the potential
that a tax increase fresh in the minds of voters would doom them to a
successful challenge from the right. With
the immediate pressure off schools to borrow more or close, some in the Capitol
now wonder if passage of a bipartisan budget deal will inevitably slide until
the next pressure point."
Pressure off, Pennsylvania
AP State
Wire By MARC LEVY Published: January 9, 2016
"What we are witnessing
is a complete failure of our state government to fulfill its constitutional
duty to ensure that the education of our children is not interrupted,"
Mains said in a statement."
Pennsylvania
School Boards Association sues Wolf, Legislature over budget impasse
Penn
Live By The
Associated Press on January 08, 2016 at 7:24 PM
HARRISBURG,
Pa. (AP) — The Pennsylvania School Boards Association sued Democratic Gov. Tom
Wolf and the Republican-controlled state House and Senate on Friday,
saying it is illegal and unconstitutional to withhold state and federal school
aid during
a budget impasse. The
lawsuit, which also names Secretary of Education Pedro Rivera and state
Treasurer Timothy Reese, asked Commonwealth
Court to prevent the state from withholding the
dollars. It also seeks damages for the loss of investment income and borrowing
costs while school districts went six months without aid. The organization's executive director, Nathan
Mains, said schools have borrowed nearly $1 billion to cover costs during the
impasse.
"We expect, no matter
what is going on with the state budget, that there is fire protection. We
expect that the police are there. We expect that the prisons are secure,"
said PSBA director Nathan Mains. "I think that we should expect that
children aren't stuck in the middle of a budget crisis and that our public
schools are going to not only be able to remain open, but to be
effective."
WHYY
Newsworks BY MARY WILSON
JANUARY 8, 2016
Gov. Tom
Wolf's administration and the Legislature are facing a lawsuit from Pennsylvania schools
over the budget impasse's freeze of education funding. The Pennsylvania School Boards Association,
which represents each of the state's 500 school districts, filed the legal
challenge Friday in Commonwealth
Court . The
suit claims it's illegal and unconstitutional to cut off commonwealth schools
from their funding when there's no final budget, especially when other programs
and state employees continue to be paid.
By Marc
Levy, Associated Press | Posted Jan 8th, 2016 @
9:40am
School leaders
file suit over Pa.
PSBA
claims school districts and students have been 'made to suffer'
Central
Penn Business Journal By David O'Connor, January 8,
2016 at 11:14 AM
The
Pennsylvania School Boards Association plans to file a lawsuit in Commonwealth Court
today, seeking to compel the “continued timely release of federal and state
funds owed to school districts” across the state, its officials said. PSBA leaders said state officials are
violating the state constitution, and are asking the court to award damages to
school districts to compensate them for all interest and expenses incurred as a
result of schools borrowing nearly $1 billion since the start of the budget
deadlock. “It is absolutely shameful
that the state’s failure to pass a budget for the last six months has forced us
to seek a remedy before the court,” declared PSBA Executive Director Nathan
Mains. “While our elected officials have
continued to play politics with our state budget, school districts and all Pennsylvania students
have been made to suffer,” Mains said. “We will not sit idly by and wait for
numerous school districts to run out of money and close their doors.” The lawsuit claims, among other things, that
districts have lost “significant” investment income, which by law they must
budget for, and which is used to offset taxes and expenses.
Pennsylvania school group sues Wolf,
legislature over budget impasse
Lawsuit seeks
release of funding and payment for borrowed money
BY DANIEL CRAIG PhillyVoice Staff JANUARY 10, 2016
An
education organization is suing Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf and state lawmakers
over a still absent budget in an effort to release funds owed to districts. The Pennsylvania School Boards Association
(PSBA) filed the lawsuit Friday against Wolf, the GOP-controlled House
and Senate, Secretary of Education Pedro Rivera and state Treasurer Timothy
Reese, saying lawmakers were violating a section of the state's constitution that
says the General Assembly "shall provide for the maintenance and support
of a thorough and efficient system of public education to serve the needs of
the Commonwealth." In addition to
asking the Commonwealth Court
to release the funds, the PSBA is seeking compensation for the $1 billion
borrowed by districts since the budget impasse began this past summer.
Editorial: No
budget should equal no pay for Pennsylvania
Delco
Times Editorial POSTED: 01/09/16,
8:03 PM EST | UPDATED: 2 HRS AGO
The kids
are back in school. Their harried parents have gone back to work — so they can
start to dig out of that mountain of holiday debt. In other words, life goes back to normal. Unless, of course, you toil in Harrisburg . In the state
Capitol, “normal” takes on a meaning all its own. Oh, they
know all about debt. This week, our fearless state leaders decided to borrow a
tidy $2 billion to tide them over to the spring. Welcome to the Harrisburg version of “normal.” The commonwealth still does not have a budget
in place. Nothing new there. It’s been that way now for more than six months,
when that midnight July 1 deadline came and went and no one in Harrisburg turned into a pumpkin.
"The reason I did this
is Governor Wolf is just insistent on more taxes and I'm an operations person.
I run businesses where the last thing you do is raise prices," Wagner
said. "My goal is to not have tax increases for the whole time Governor
Wolf is in office."
Sen. Scott
Wagner is asking for ideas to cut costs to avoid tax hikes
Penn
Live By Jan
Murphy | jmurphy@pennlive.com Email the author | Follow on Twitter on
January 09, 2016 at 8:30 AM
Have
some ideas about ways to cut spending in state government? Sen. Scott Wagner wants to hear about them. Sen. Scott Wagner, R-York County
“We are concerned that
without federal oversight that the schools in Pennsylvania
can overlook the needs of educationally vulnerable students,” said Cheryl
Kleiman, staff attorney in the Pittsburgh office
of the Education Law Center
Concerns raised about law replacing No
Child Left Behind
By Mary
Niederberger and Clarece Polke / Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette January 10, 2016 12:00 AM
One
month after Congress approved legislation shifting oversight of student
accountability standards from federal to state control, state officials,
including those in Pennsylvania ,
are planning how to establish and measure those new standards. The end of No Child Left Behind, passed by
Congress in 2001 and put into effect in 2002, was welcomed by many who objected
to its focus on testing and to the complex reporting requirements. The program
also did not come close to its goal for 100 percent proficiency by 2014. But some civil rights and education advocacy
groups are concerned that the Every Student Succeeds Act, which replaces the
former federal statute known as No Child Left Behind, will create an
environment that will not require some under-achieving schools to improve.
Governor,
lawmakers to renew fray over Pa.
Trib
Live By David
Conti Sunday, Jan. 10, 2016, 9:00 p.m.
Pennsylvania 's natural gas industry and
lawmakers in Harrisburg
are preparing for another battle over a severance tax on production, even
before the current state budget is settled.
“It's going to return in a big way as the budget situation remains
completely unresolved,” Muhlenberg College political scientist Christopher
Borick said about the debate that has lingered since Gov. Tom Wolf campaigned
on the promise of a tax in 2014. “It's a
sore point out there for the governor. It's a complicated issue for some of the
Republicans in the state. It's not going away.”
Wolf intends to take another shot at imposing the tax when he introduces
his next budget package in a speech Feb. 9, said his spokesman, Jeffrey
Sheridan.
Other views:
State savings seem to be a no-brainer
Daily
Local/Citizens Voice POSTED: 01/10/16, 11:37 PM EST | UPDATED: 2
HRS AGO
Since
the state Legislature is paralyzed over the pressing issue of finding enough
money to fund school districts, a new study by one of its own committees should
be greeted as a no-brainer. A report
commissioned by the Legislative Budget and Finance Committee, which includes
members from both houses, has found that a statewide health insurance plan
covering employees in all 500 school districts would save $209 million a year
by 2020. It also reported that a statewide prescription drug plan alone would save
between $100 and $160 a year per covered employee — $72 million a year. All of that has been obvious for a long time
but the Legislature has ignored the savings potential even while abandoning a
plan it passed a decade ago to fully and fairly fund public schools. Employee
health care costs are among the biggest expenses facing school districts. This
school year, coverage will cost more than $2.7 billion for 190,000 school
employees and their families, or about 450,000 people.
Sticking point on Pa.
State
Rep. Steven Mentzer is a Republican lawmaker representing Lititz, all of Warwick Township
and most of Manheim
Township
On Dec.
28, Gov. Tom Wolf executed a line-item veto that allowed money to flow to
social service agencies and school districts.
He could have used his line-item veto when first presented with the
budget June 30. I believe this would have provided for a much better
negotiating environment, resulting in the Legislature and governor likely having
passed a full-year budget by now. So,
now that Wolf has vetoed 77 of 401 line items, we can focus on coming to
agreement on those items. Talks will begin to determine how to find the revenue
to support increased spending on the items. And in coming weeks, negotiations
will focus on whether taxes should rise to support additional state spending. Every year the Legislature passes
approximately a dozen bills that make up the Pennsylvania budget. The two most
significant bills are the General Appropriations Bill, or the spending bill;
and the Tax Code Bill, or the income bill. Just as with your household
budget, income must support all spending.
"Philadelphia's new
mayor, Jim Kenney, hopes Wolf will achieve his goals.
At an event this week, he
attributed the protracted budget battle, in part, to his belief that many state
lawmakers don't understand the nature and depth of the challenges faced by
urban public schools. Kenney has pledged
to visit a Philadelphia public school each week of his tenure, and says he can
help break the logjam in the Capitol by inviting Republican leaders to join
him. "I would love to see a number
of our leadership in Harrisburg come down, without the press, and just go with
me ... go into these schools and see these teachers and talk to these kids and
see what potential is there," said Kenney. Republican leaders are
"human beings. They're decent people, and I think they'll understand that."
Miskin said House Majority
Leader Dave Reed has talked with Superintendent William Hite about touring
district schools."
Wolf's
half-year school spending plan begins to restore cuts to Philadelphia
the
notebook by Kevin
McCorry January 8 — 5:05pm
In the
first 15 years that charter schools have operated in Pennsylvania , the state acknowledged that
these alternatives to traditional public schools pose a financial burden for
school districts. During
former Gov. Tom Corbett's first year in office, the aid to cover those added
costs was eliminated – wreaking havoc on districts with many charters, namely Philadelphia . Corbett's
successor, Gov. Wolf, took steps this week to change that. As the larger budget battle continues in the
state Capitol, Wolf has agreed to release half a year's worth of state aid to
schools. Within that allocation, Wolf
has partially brought back the charter reimbursement funding that was cut in
2011. Statewide, $2.8 billion has been
released. The School District of Philadelphia has received $518 million –
representing 45 percent of its projected basic education funding for the year
and doubling last year's "Ready to Learn" block grant funds. With the
rationale that districts disproportionately hurt by cuts need to be made whole,
Wolf steered an additional $28.3 million to Philadelphia through the block grant as
charter reimbursement cash, bringing its total allotment to $62 million. "We need to restore the severe cuts that
were enacted under the previous governor and Republican-controlled
legislature," said Wolf's spokesman Jeffrey Sheridan. Some Republicans have criticized Wolf for
favoring the state's largest city.
Schools get
some money, await final numbers
York Daily Record by Angie Mason,
amason@ydr.com4:46 p.m. EST January 8, 2016
Local
public school officials say payments from the state -- catching them up on
funds they should have received over the past six months -- have begun
rolling in. And while that relieves immediate financial pressure, some said
schools still need a full state budget resolution sooner rather than later. At the end of December, Gov. Tom Wolf
line-item vetoed the budget sent to him by the Legislature, agreeing to release
only about six months worth of basic education funding for schools. The
distribution assumes a $100 million increase in basic education funding for the
year, though Wolf wants more. The
Pennsylvania Department of Education began sending out those funds this
week. And while school districts will receive only part of the
year's basic education funding, the entire year's allocation was approved
for some items like Ready to Learn Block grants and special education payments. It's temporary relief, but it's still only
six months worth of the biggest line of funding schools receive from the
state, said Hannah Barrick, director of advocacy for the Pennsylvania
Association of School Business Officials.
"There's still a significant concern, a significant financial
challenge for a lot of districts," she said.
Philly
district's school quality metric spotlights successes, raises questions
WHYY
Newsworks BY KEVIN MCCORRY
JANUARY 8, 2016
One of
the toughest questions in education is: How do you rate and rank school
quality?
Going
only by raw test scores often ends up simply ranking schools by rates of
poverty, special education disability and English fluency. The School District of Philadelphia Northeast
Philadelphia Thursday, Superintendent William Hite praised the
district and charter schools that ranked highest this year on the School
Progress Report. "What we're
doing is celebrating ... the top performers, those schools that are
leading the way," said Hite. The
SPR metric ranks schools two ways. First, against every public school serving
the same age bracket. And second, against peer schools that share similar
demographics in poverty, special education disability, race, and English
fluency. City leaders were no surprise: Central High School ,
Julia Masterman Middle School
The
"peer leader" grouping showcased those that aren't as often heralded.
"Crawford
said she has been challenged as a student and as an employee for Philadelphia
Futures, which starts with ninth-grade students who are first in their family
to attend college and live in low-income households. Nationally, statistics
show 9 percent of teens, who meet both criteria, complete a college or
university degree in six years."
Philly Tribune Staff Report Posted: Friday, January 8,
2016 12:00 am
Crystal
Crawford didn’t let absentee parents stop her from pursuing an education,
graduating from Samuel
Fels High
School Northeast Philadelphia , found a
surrogate at Philadelphia Futures, a nonprofit organization that has been
helping young adults attend college and graduate with a degree since 1989. She and her 5-year-old daughter Syrah have
been an inspiration to each other, with Syrah cheering on her mother at
commencement exercises at Penn
State University
"Years of budget cuts
and working conditions that wouldn't be acceptable anywhere else, she said, have
worn people down. "The new normal
is, 'You don't have it, whatever it is,'
" MacDonald said. "I don't remember the last time we got textbooks.
We don't have enough books for the kids, and forget workbooks - you're lucky if
you have one to make copies from." MacDonald,
whose smallest class is 35 students - still over the contractually mandated
class maximum of 33 - has had it. "I'm
taking early retirement," she said. "I'm going to take a penalty, and
I'm going to work at Costco."
Teacher
vacancies lead to overstuffed classrooms, burnout
Philly.com
by Kristen A. Graham, Staff
Writer. Updated: JANUARY
11, 2016 1:07 AM EST
Nearly
halfway into the school year, Harding
Middle School Philadelphia
School District
Where are the millenials in Pa.
By Kate
Giammarise/ Post-Gazette Harrisburg
Bureau January 10, 2016 12:00 AM
There
are a lot of gray-haired legislators on the floor in both chambers. In Pennsylvania ,
the average age of a state legislator is 54, according to a recent examination
of legislatures by the Pew Charitable Trusts and the National Conference of
State Legislatures. The study found New
Hampshire had the oldest legislature nationally, with
an average legislator age of 66. “Legislators
from the baby-boomer generation [those born between 1946 and 1964] have a
disproportionate influence in America’s legislatures, with nearly twice as many
members as their overall share of the U.S. population would warrant,” according
to the National Conference of State Legislatures. “The millennial generation
[those born from 1981-1997] is seriously underrepresented in both state
legislatures and Congress.” Pollster
Terry Madonna attributes the dearth of young Pennsylvania legislators to several factors.
Letter: CITY
SCHOOLS MUST CHANGE
Philly.com
Letter by JEROME KING &
TERRELL PRICE . Updated: JANUARY
11, 2016
Jerome King (rome542009@yahoo.com) and Terrell Price (tpricepsu2016@gmail.com) are current college students and
graduates of Mastery Charter Schools - Simon Gratz.
ONLY ONE out of 10 ninth-graders in theSchool
District of Philadelphia Simon Gratz High School ,
a neighborhood school in North Philadelphia . But when we were rising seniors, we got
lucky: The school was selected to undergo a charter turnaround as part of the
Renaissance initiative. Today, we're both enrolled in college and on track to
graduate. Let us be clear: We would not
be where we are today without Renaissance. We hope the district goes ahead with
the program this year and in the future to give more students in struggling
schools the opportunity for a great education that we received.
ONLY ONE out of 10 ninth-graders in the
Evaluation of
the BVIU Regional Choice Initiative
Rand
Corporation by Andrea Phillips, Kun Yuan, Shannah
Tharp-Gilliam Janaury 2016
School
districts in Beaver County ,
Pennsylvania RAND
to conduct a formative and a summative evaluation of the RCI programs.
Daily Local By Eric Devlin, edevlin@21st-centurymedia.com, @Eric_Devlin on Twitter POSTED: 01/08/16, 3:05 PM
EST
Phoenixville
>> Forced to make a number of assumptions about the future thanks to
Harrisburg’s failure to pass a budget, Phoenixville School District officials
did their best Wednesday to present a budget for next school year. The administration unveiled the proposed
2016-17 preliminary budget, which calls for a 2.4 percent tax increase. That’s
the limit, under the Act 1 index, the district can raise taxes without holding
a voter referendum. With a proposed
budget of $89.29 million and millage rate of 29.58 mils, the owner of a home
assessed at the median average $133,540 would pay an additional $92 a year, for
a total of $3,950 in real estate taxes, according to District Finance Director
Chris Gehris. A mill is equal to $1 for each $1,000 of assessed property value.
The school board is expected to adopt the preliminary budget at its Jan. 21
meeting and a final budget May 26.
“This budget year is going to
be unprecedented,” said Jay Himes, executive director of the Pennsylvania
Trib
Live By Brian
C. Rittmeyer Saturday, Jan. 9, 2016, 9:51 p.m.
Alle-Kiski Valley
Haverford
school taxes to rise
Delco Times By Lois Puglionesi, Times Correspondent
POSTED: 01/09/16,
8:05 PM EST
HAVERFORD
>> School district officials began the annual budgeting process with
review at a recent meeting of budget assumptions for 2016-17. Although officials stressed that it’s early
in the year, Business Manager Rick Henderson estimated that a 3.29 percent
millage increase would be required to close the gap between revenues and
expenditures, as well as a $345,000 draw down from the district’s $8.4 million
ending fund balance. The proposed
increase would raise rates from 29.4719 to 30.4413 mills, equal to an
approximately $160 hike on an average residential property assessment of
$164,929, bringing total taxes to $5,021.
Reviewing changes in revenue, Henderson
said this year’s Act 1 index will yield approximately $2.4 million in taxes.
Also anticipated are referendum exceptions for special education and Public
School Employees’ Retirement System (PSERS) costs that will allow the district
to raise $780,000 more. Henderson estimated an additional $150,000 in
transfer taxes, as well. Local taxes
will contribute about 92 million, with $18.6 million from state sources and
$1.2 million from Federal, for $111.9 million anticipated total revenue. Major
cost drivers affecting expenditures include a 3 percent wage increase,
requiring an additional $1.51 million. Rising pension costs and Social Security
will have a net impact of about $1.5 million, Henderson said.
There’s a shift
in state power with change in Delaware
County
By Kathleen E. Carey,
Delaware County Daily
At one
time, Delaware County
was home to Pennsylvania ’s Speaker of the
House, Senate Majority Leader and House Appropriations Committee Chairman and
there was no questioning the power that originated in this concentrated Philadelphia suburb. However, just like time, things change and
shifts are made and the once-powerful Delaware County Delaware (County) was a huge factor,” Terry
Madonna said of the delegation’s political prowess, dating it back to the
county’s War Board. “The political bosses exerted tremendous power.”
Checking
grades, finding out about snow days and adding money to a lunch account just
got easier for parents and students in Manheim Township Lancaster County Conestoga Valley ,
Elizabethtown , Hempfield, Lancaster Catholic,
Penn Manor, Pequea Valley , School
District of Lancaster Manheim
Township
How to Fix the Country’s Failing Schools.
And How Not To.
New York
Times Opinion by David L. Kirp JAN. 9, 2016
A
QUARTER-CENTURY ago, Newark and nearby Union City epitomized the
failure of American urban school systems. Students, mostly poor minority and
immigrant children, were performing abysmally. Graduation rates were low.
Plagued by corruption and cronyism, both districts had a revolving door of
superintendents. New Jersey officials
threatened to take over Union City ’s
schools in 1989 but gave them a one-year reprieve instead. Six years later,
state education officials, decrying the gross mismanagement of the Newark schools, seized
control there. In 2009,
the political odd couple of Chris Christie, the Republican governor-elect,
and Cory Booker, Newark’s charismatic mayor, joined forces, convinced that
the Newark system could be reinvented in just five years, in part by closing
underperforming schools, encouraging charter schools and weakening teacher
tenure. In 2010 they persuaded Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, to
invest $100 million in their grand experiment. “We can flip a whole city!” the
mayor enthused, “and create a national model.”
No one expected a national model out of Union City . Without the resources given to Newark , the school
district there, led by a middle-level bureaucrat named Fred Carrigg, was
confronted with two huge challenges: How could English learners, three-quarters
of the students, become fluent in English? And how could youngsters, many of
whom came from homes where books were rarities, be turned into adept readers?
Today Union City , which opted
for homegrown gradualism, is regarded as a poster child for good urban
education. Newark ,
despite huge infusions of money and outside talent, has struggled by
comparison. In 2014, Union City ’s graduation
rate was 81 percent, exceeding the national average; Newark ’s was 69 percent.
"So, if you are a philanthropist from the tech or
finance sectors and your goal is truly to fix education in this country, you
would do well to apply your generosity, innovative spirit and funds toward
addressing the problem of income inequality. Your wealth and position as
prominent business leaders put you in a particularly influential position to
help close the gap between the wealthy and the poor. Rebuilding the middle
class—not expanding charter schools—is the most effective path to increasing
access to quality education and to giving more students the opportunity to
achieve their dreams."
To the 1
percent pouring millions into charter schools: How about improving the schools
that the vast majority of students actually attend?
If we really want to improve
education for all, we must address income inequality. Charter schools are no
cure-all
Salon.com
by GARY M.
SASSO THURSDAY, JAN 7, 2016 07:58 AM EST
Gary M. Sasso, Ph.D.,
is the dean of the College of Education at Lehigh University
Obscured
by the rancor of the school reform debate is this fact: Socio-economic status
is the most relevant determinant of student success in school. It is not a coincidence that the so-called
decline of the American public school system has coincided with the
ever-widening gap between the rich and the poor. According to
a 2014 Pew Research Center report, the wealth disparity
between upper-income and middle-income families is at a record high.
Upper-income families are nearly seven times wealthier than middle-income ones,
compared to 3.4 times richer in 1983. Upper-income family wealth is nearly 70
times that of the country’s lower-income families, also the widest wealth gap
between these families in 30 years. As
the income disparity has increased, so has the educational achievement
gap. According
to Sean F. Reardon, professor of education and sociology at Stanford
University, the gap for
children from high- and low-income families is at an all-time high—roughly 30
to 40 percent larger among children born in 2001 than among those born
25 years earlier. With 22 percent of children in the U.S. living in
poverty, this country’s 27th-place PISA ranking—the worldwide study that
measures K-12 academic performance—simply cannot be compared to a country
like Finland, which ranks 12th and, at 5.3 percent, has the
second-lowest child poverty rate in the world.
So, why are wealthy school reform funders so squarely focused on
identifying teachers and their unions as the cause of public education’s
decline and advancing charter schools as the best solution?
"It shows that things
like good, steady, stable leadership makes a huge difference; focusing on the
culture of the schools as a place where kids feel supported and want to be;
supporting the teachers, so they want to stay and work hard. It's about having
a comprehensive vision that includes things like social supports while
providing a high-quality education."
There’s a Way to Help Inner-City Schools.
Obama's New Education Law Isn’t It.
UCLA
education expert Pedro Noguera on No Child Left Behind's replacement and how to
really reach black kids.
Mother Jones Interview By Kristina Rizga | Fri Jan. 8, 2016 6:00 AM EST
"If
the streets shackled my left leg, the schools shackled my right." That's
how author Ta-Nehisi Coates described growing up in Baltimore in last year's influentialBetween the World and Me, his treatise on the
history of racism in America .
Instead of fighting to eliminate racist patterns in American society, Coates
wrote, the country's public schools often replicate them: "I was a curious
little boy, but the schools were not concerned with curiosity. They were
concerned with compliance." Coates'
poignant classroom narratives add to at least three decades of research documenting similar experiences by African
American students. At the forefront of this work is sociologist Pedro
Noguera, a distinguished professor of education at the University of California -Los Angeles and a
director of its Center for the Study of School Transformation who also taught
in urban classrooms for five years before entering academia. In his 2008
book, The Trouble With Black Boys, Noguera discovered a
jarring discrepancy in his research that echoed Coates' experiences almost two
decades earlier. Although nearly 90 percent of black male high school students
in California schools said they agreed with the statements that "education
is important" and "I want to go to college," less than a quarter
said their teachers treated them fairly or that they trusted them or that they
worked hard to achieve good grades. It's no wonder then, Noguera wrote, that
racial achievement gaps remain stubbornly large.
In the
past five years, Noguera has emerged as one of the most vocal critics of our country's mainstream approach to school
reforms. Now that the new Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) has been signed into law to replace No Child Left Behind
(NCLB), many parents, teachers, and educational advocates are wondering: Will
the new law finally help students in the most underserved schools and
communities?Mother Jones caught up with Noguera to get his take.
High court
dispute over union fees could curb labor's clout
Inquirer
by SAM HANANEL, The
Associated Press. Updated: JANUARY
8, 2016 10:52 AM EST
WASHINGTON
(AP) - The largest teachers union in Michigan
still represents Jason LaPorte at the bargaining table, but he no longer pays
anything to support the union. LaPorte
and thousands of other public school teachers stopped contributing to the union
after the state's new right-to-work law took effect in 2013. Membership in the
Michigan Education Association has since dropped by 19 percent. A similar fate could soon be in store for
public-employee unions around the country as the Supreme Court considers
whether government workers who choose not to join a union can be required to
nevertheless pay fees that cover collective bargaining. The high
court hears arguments Monday in a California
case brought by a group of public school teachers who claim such mandatory fees
violate the First Amendment rights of workers who disagree with the union's
positions. Unions fear the potential
loss of tens of millions of dollars in fees could reduce their power to bargain
for higher wages and benefits for teachers, firefighters, sanitation workers
and other government employees.
Better-looking students get better grades
— but not in online classes
Two economists knew that appearance matters: Studies had shown all
sorts of benefits linked to attractiveness, everything from dating to salaries
to ratings of how well professors teach classes. But they weren’t sure whether
better-looking people earn more
money and are more
likely to be considered smart just because they’re easy on the eyes.
Maybe factors, such as confidence or greater effort, were the real reason for
the differences studies had found. Rey
Hernández-Julián and Christina Peters set out to test that at Metropolitan
State University of Denver. What they found surprised them. Students who were rated as attractive
got better grades than those who were not. But when the researchers looked at
courses that were online-only, they didn’t find the same benefit for either men
or women. The better-looking the
students are, the greater the difference in grades between online and
traditional classes, Hernández-Julián explained, with the students getting
better grades in classes where they could be seen.
Education
Bloggers Daily Highlights 1-11-16
Astronaut Chris Hadfield Space Oddity song
HD, HQ, Major Tom, David Bowie
Published
on May 13, 2013 Youtube runtime 5:30
Chris
Hadfield Space Oddity song HD, HQ Major Tom Astronaut.
Remaining Locations:
- Allentown area —
Jan. 16 Lehigh Career & Technical Institute, Schnecksville
- Central PA — Jan.
30 Nittany Lion Inn, State College
- Delaware Co. IU 25
— Feb. 1
- Scranton area —
Feb. 6 Abington Heights SD, Clarks Summit
- North Central area
—Feb. 13 Mansfield University, Mansfield
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
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.
Save
the Dates for These 2016 Annual EPLC Regional State Budget Education
Policy Forums
Sponsored
by The Education Policy and Leadership
Center
Thursday, February
11 - 8:30-11:00 a.m. - Harrisburg
Wednesday, February 17 - 10:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m. -Philadelphia (University of Pennsylvania )
Thursday, February 25 - 8:30-11:00 a.m. -Pittsburgh
Wednesday, February 17 - 10:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m. -
Thursday, February 25 - 8:30-11:00 a.m. -
Invitation
and more details in January
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.
2016 PA Educational Leadership Summit July 24-26 State
College
Summit Sponsors: PA Principals Association
- PA Association of School Administrators - PA Association of Middle
Level Educators - PA Association of Supervision and Curriculum
Development
The 2016
Educational Leadership Summit, co-sponsored by four leading Pennsylvania education associations,
provides an excellent opportunity for school district administrative teams and
instructional leaders to learn, share and plan together at a quality venue in
"Happy Valley."
Featuring Grant
Lichtman, author of EdJourney: A Roadmap to the Future of Education,
Secretary of Education Pedro Rivera (invited), and Dana
Lightman, author of POWER Optimism: Enjoy the Life You Have...
Create the Success You Want, keynote speakers, high quality breakout
sessions, table talks on hot topics and district team planning and job alike
sessions provides practical ideas that can be immediately reviewed and
discussed at the summit before returning back to your district. Register and pay by April 30, 2016 for the
discounted "early bird" registration rate:
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
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.