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Keystone State Education Coalition
PA Ed Policy Roundup January 5 2016:
PDE #PABudget Distribution Restores $58 million
of Corbett's $224 million in Charter Reimbursement Cuts via RTL Grants
Blogger note: Charter
reimbursement line item cuts during the Corbett administration reportedly
amounted to $224 million; $110 million of that was cut from the Philadelphia School District
PDE Excel Spreadsheet: Basic Education Funding and Ready to Learn
Block Grant Distribution Details by School District
"Ready to Learn Block Grant: The first $192 million was distributed to
districts in the same amount they received in 2014-15. The remaining
($58 million) appropriation was used to restore the charter reimbursement
program that was eliminated under the previous administration."
PDE EDUCATION
BUDGET: Basic Education Funding and Ready to Learn Block Grant Distribution
Details
PA
Department of Education Website January 4, 2015
Upon
enactment of House Bill 1460 as accepted by the Governor, we began the fair
restoration of the most essential and significant components of severe
education funding cuts under the previous administration. These
components are consistent with the proposed formula in the 2015-16 Executive
Budget, and are part of the agreed-to hybrid funding formula that would have
been fully enacted as part of the bipartisan framework budget agreement.
Basic
Education Funding: While the Governor only accepted the first six months of the
appropriation, the distribution assumes a restoration of the vetoed
amount. As a base, each district received the same amount it
received in 2014-15. The $100 million remaining in the appropriation
was used as follows: nearly $50 million was distributed to restore Education
Assistance Program funding eliminated under the previous administration; $12
million was directed to the Chester-Upland School District to comply with the
Financial Recovery Plan and settlement agreement as approved by the Delaware
County Court of Common Pleas; $3 million was directed to Wilkinsburg Borough
School District as required for their transition of high school students to
Pittsburgh School District; and the balance was distributed as a pro-rata
restoration of the Basic Education Funding cuts under the previous
administration.
$3.3 Billion
in Payments to Schools, Counties and Human Service Organizations Will Be
Available Beginning Tomorrow
PA Direct News Service PA Treasury January 4, 2015
The
Pennsylvania Treasury today announced it has completed sending out all of the
16,400 expedited payments totaling nearly $3.3 billion and that school
districts, counties and human service organizations could begin to receive
their delayed state payments as soon as tomorrow. Treasury worked with
governor’s Office of the Budget to expedite these payments and completed processing
them in approximately half the usual time.
Treasury staff also worked over the holiday weekend to begin processing
an additional 35,000 payment requests and expects those to begin to be
available at the end of this week. All delayed payments should be available
within two weeks.
The check is
(literally) in the mail to Pa.
Penn
Live By Charles
Thompson | cthompson@pennlive.com Email the author | Follow on Twitter on
January 04, 2016 at 7:52 PM, updated January 04, 2016 at 9:58 PM
Know
that feeling you get when a tax refund lands in your bank account? Accountants for schools, non-profits and
businesses that supply or do work for the state relate are about to experience
something like it. Pennsylvania
Treasurer Timothy Reese said school districts, contractors and suppliers and
other state aid recipients will begin receiving payments tied up by the
protracted budget stalemate as early as Tuesday. Reese, in a release issued Monday, said his
staff has worked with Gov. Tom Wolf's budget office to identify and pre-audit
thousands of individual payments so they could hit the ground with
disbursements as soon as possible.
"The Department of
Education said that money from an increase in the main K-12 education line
would be used to restore the Education Assistance Program, which provided money
for tutoring; to help Chester-Upland School District in Delaware County comply
with a financial recovery plan; and to assist the Wilkinsburg School District
in the transition of high school students to Pittsburgh Public Schools."
School districts starting to get state’s
long-delayed funding
The Wolf
administration announced Monday how education money from the new partial state
budget would be distributed, and school districts could begin receiving it as
early as today.
By Karen
Langley and Mary Niederberger / Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette January 4, 2016 4:25 PM
Money to flow to Pennsylvania
Steve Esack Contact Reporter
Of The Morning Call January 4, 2016 10:20 pm
PA
schools, counties and nonprofits to get tax money again while businesses get a
tax break
State
and federal tax money should start flowing as early as Tuesday to the
cash-strapped school districts, counties and human services organizations that
suffered the brunt of the protracted budget fight between Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf and the
Republican-controlled Legislature. The
unlocked money equals an estimated $3.3 billion in 16,400 payments that had not
been processed since July 1, according to the state Treasury.
Out of
those back payments, $117 million will start flowing to the 16 school districts
in Lehigh and Northampton
counties.
Here's the
payout your school district gets from the partial 2015-16 state budget
Penn
Live By Jan
Murphy | jmurphy@pennlive.com Email the author | Follow on Twitter on
January 04, 2016 at 5:04 PM
Gov. Tom Wolf's signing last week of a partial state budget brought
sighs of relief from school district officials on the verge of closing schools
or having to borrow money to keep them open. His
enactment of the $23.4 billion budget allows nearly $2.8 billion to flow out in
direct state aid to school districts as well as block grant funds to pay for
educational initiatives. While
this will help districts through the immediate crisis, failure to provide
additional funding within a couple months is expected to give rise to another
round of financial woes for schools. How much
more they receive will be part of the ongoing budget negotiations between Wolf
and state lawmakers along with when to begin applying a new formula for distributing new basic
education dollars.
General
Assembly continues wait-and-see approach as leaders look for a budget solution
The PLS
Reporter Author: Jason Gottesman/Monday, January 4,
2016
While
both chambers are expected in ceremonial non-voting session tomorrow—the first
Tuesday in January—as required by the Pennsylvania Constitution, neither the
House nor the Senate is scheduled to return to voting session in the current
week. Despite both chambers remaining on
six-hour call, the House could convene as early as next week - though that was
not set in stone Monday - and the Senate has no plans to return to voting
session on budget-related matters as they await action from the House on the
so-called Code bills that reside in that chamber.
Penn
Live By Jan
Murphy | jmurphy@pennlive.com Email the author | Follow on Twitter on
January 04, 2016 at 5:50 PM, updated January 04, 2016 at 5:51 PM
WHYY
Newsworks BY KEVIN MCCORRY
JANUARY 4, 2016
Pennsylvania
Gov. Tom Wolf's top priority in his first year in office has been to secure a
historic funding boost for public education.
Six months past the state budget deadline, there still doesn't seem to
be a clear path to an agreement with the Republican-held House and Senate that
would deliver on the governor's pledge. And
the prospect may dim even more in 2016. Right
before Christmas, after close to half a year without state aid, schools and
human service agencies across the state were getting desperate, and some school
districts warned they might not be able to reopen after the holiday. That prospect built a political
pressure-cooker that seemed ready to force a compromise, giving Wolf a major
victory — allocating a boost of more than $400 million for public schools. But some key tenets of the larger
"framework" plan were still shaky, and on the eve of the Christmas
holiday, the prospect of resolution once again dissipated when House Republican
leaders refused to bring it to a vote.
Blogger note: Governor Wolf
is slated to present his 2016-2017 budget on February 9th.
Partial state
budget raises odds of work on 2 plans at once
Trib
Live By Brad
Bumsted Monday, Jan. 4, 2016, 11:18 p.m.
HARRISBURG —
Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf faces the prospect in February of introducing his
budget plan for next year with this year's budget still unresolved, analysts
said Monday.
After a
six-month standoff with the Republican-controlled Legislature, Wolf last week
signed a partial $23.4 billion 2015-16 budget with differences remaining over
about $8 billion for state prisons, basic education and state-related
universities, including Penn State University and the University of Pittsburgh.
There's no agreement on new revenue he sought for public schools. “It
seems now there's less leverage to get a compromise on this, particularly with
some of the pressure off,” said J. Wesley Leckrone, a political science
professor at Widener University in Chester .
Area school
boards have until Thursday to make taxing decision
Bucks County Courier Times by Joan Hellyer, staff
writer Posted:
January 4, 2016 5:45 am
A
handful of local school boards, including those in Bristol and Morrisville in
Bucks County, and Souderton in Eastern Montgomery County, will decide this week
whether they want to promise to not raise property taxes for next school year
above their respective district's Act 1 index rate. The
state's property tax relief law known as Act 1 requires school boards to make
that decision by Thursday. It has to be made a few weeks sooner than usual this
year because Pennsylvania 's
Primary Election is in April instead of May. The primary was moved up so voters
can have more of a say in the 2016 presidential election, officials said. That has put pressure on the governing bodies
of districts across the state to determine how much of a tax increase might be
needed to help cover 2016-2017 operating expenses. The Act 1 rate is the
maximum percentage of a property tax hike that a district can impose without seeking
state education department approval for various exceptions or asking for voter
permission during the primary to raise taxes above the index, officials said.
Schools,
counties get funding, but state budget stalemate continues
Reading Eagle By Liam
Migdail-Smith
Monday January 4, 2016 12:01 AM
Hammering the
obvious - lawmakers pass budgets faster if there are consequences, report:
Monday Morning Coffee
By John L. Micek |
jmicek@pennlive.com Email the author | Follow on Twitter on
January 04, 2016 at 8:21 AM
Good
Monday Morning, Fellow Seekers.
Welcome to the start of the first, full working week of 2016. We hope your holiday was a good one, spent among family and friends. But much like the mob, state politics is inescapable. So let's dive right into it shall we? We begin this morning with a reminder that actions have consequences. For instance, touch a hot stove, you'll get burned. Play for the Eagles, and you live with the knowledge that you may never wear a Super Bowl ring. Most of us learn from these lessons and move on. The same holds true, it seems, for 49 other General Assemblies across this great land of ours. There, lawmakers have learned, state budgets tend to pass faster if there are consequences for inaction. That's the result of a study by the Greater Pittsburgh Nonprofit Partnership, one of innumerable nonprofits affected byPennsylvania 's
1,345-day-long budget impasse.
Welcome to the start of the first, full working week of 2016. We hope your holiday was a good one, spent among family and friends. But much like the mob, state politics is inescapable. So let's dive right into it shall we? We begin this morning with a reminder that actions have consequences. For instance, touch a hot stove, you'll get burned. Play for the Eagles, and you live with the knowledge that you may never wear a Super Bowl ring. Most of us learn from these lessons and move on. The same holds true, it seems, for 49 other General Assemblies across this great land of ours. There, lawmakers have learned, state budgets tend to pass faster if there are consequences for inaction. That's the result of a study by the Greater Pittsburgh Nonprofit Partnership, one of innumerable nonprofits affected by
Brian O'Neill / Harrisburg's harrowing
budget mess: You'll laugh, you'll cry
Opinion By
Brian O'Neill / Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette January 3, 2016 12:00 AM
What’s
funnier? That Pennsylvania ’s
attorney general is no longer an attorney or that the state budget isn’t ready
for serving, even after 253 legislative chefs and one governor added and
subtracted ingredients for more than six months? Let’s go with the latter.
As I
write on the last dreary afternoon of 2015, the budget seems no closer to
completion than it did last summer. There is no shortage of people to blame,
and your choice of villains may depend as much on party affiliation as the
facts at hand. But it seems as if our state leaders (pause for laughter) are
jealous of all the attention Donald Trump has been getting and are saying,
“Hey, look over here in little ol’ Harrisburg! We can be outrageous, too!” Gov. Tom Wolf wrote to the Republican
legislative leaders Tuesday, after using his line-item veto on some budget
items that morning, saying “there is no reason why the House and Senate
shouldn’t be called back to session to get back to work and implement the
bipartisan budget agreement.”
Kenney highlights pre-K,
community schools in inauguration speech
the notebook January
4, 2016
Mayor Jim Kenney
prepared the following speech for his inauguration Monday as the 99th
mayor of Philadelphia
“First, thank you to my parents and my children
for their support today and on all days.
Thank you also to
the Council president and City Council for having me -- and a special
congratulations to our new members. I look forward to working together in the
years to come. And, finally, thank
you to Gov. Rendell, Mayor
Street , Mayor Green, Mayor Goode, Mayor Nutter,
Justice Dougherty and all our tremendous city workers. The collective decades
of service to Philadelphia
in this room today is truly awesome. So, please, everyone, join me in giving
our city’s leaders and workers a round of applause
Clarke: Neighborhood
schools can be focal point for communities again
Read the City Council
president's prepared inauguration day remarks.
the notebook January
4, 2016
Following are
City Council President Darrell Clarke's prepared remarks for the inauguration
of Mayor Jim Kenney and Philadelphia Cincinnati
Good morning,
everyone. I would like to thank you for taking the time to be here today to
watch your democracy in action. I hope it is a memorable, enlightening, and
enjoyable experience. Thank you. To my
colleagues – some old friends and some new friends – it is my honor
to continue serving the people of Philadelphia
as president of City Council. Thank you for trusting me with this privilege.
New Chester
Delco Times POSTED: 01/04/16,
2:42 PM EST
"That unconventional
approach has had big results. When Anderson Jennings Anderson
The Superintendent Who Turned Around A School District
NPR.org by NPR STAFF
Updated January 4, 201610:12 AM ET Published January 3, 20164:30 PM ET
We often hear about
school districts that struggle with high poverty, low test scores and budget
problems. But one district has faced all of these and achieved remarkable
results. In just over three years,
Superintendent Tiffany Anderson, who oversees the Jennings
School District in Jennings ,
a small city just outside St. Louis , has led a
dramatic turnaround in one of the worst-performing systems in Missouri .
Anderson
has embraced a holistic approach to solving the problems of low-performing
students by focusing on poverty above all else, and using the tools of the
school district to alleviate the barriers poverty creates. "We serve the whole child," Anderson tells NPR's
Michel Martin. "The leverage point for me is the school system." The school district
of 3,000 students has taken unprecedented steps, like opening a food pantry to
give away food, a shelter for homeless students and a health clinic. "My purpose is to remove the challenges
that poverty creates," she says. "You cannot expect children to learn
at a high level if they come in hungry and tired."
http://www.npr.org/2016/01/03/461205086/the-superintendent-who-turned-around-a-school-district?sc=tw
Are charter schools the new subprime loans? (Think
‘The Big Short’)
With
“The Big Short” doing well in theaters — a film about the near collapse of the
financial system because of the bursting of a housing and credit bubble —
here’s a piece that asks the simple question: “Are charter schools the new
subprime loans?” The post by Jennifer Berkshire refers to a new
study by four academics titled, “Are We Heading Toward a Charter
School ‘Bubble’?: Lessons From the Subprime Mortgage Crisis.” This is a Q &
A with Preston C. Green III, the lead author of the report and the John and
Carla Klein Professor of Urban Education at the University of Connecticut Massachusetts . She writes the EduShyster blog, where this firstappeared.
(The other three authors of the report are Bruce Baker of Rutgers, The State
University of New Jersey; Joseph Oluwole of Montclair
State University ;
and Julie F. Mead of the University of
Wisconsin at Madison
Jennifer
Berkshire: It’s unusual to
see the words “hair-raising” and “academic study” in tandem, but your new
study merits that marriage. You and your co-authors make the case
that, just as with subprime mortgages, the federal government is encouraging
the expansion of charter schools with little oversight, and the result could be
a charter school “bubble” that blows up in urban communities. Do I have it
right?
"Let’s state a simple
fact: there is NO EVIDENCE that Common Core will improve education or test
scores. It was launched in 2010. It has been tested in many states, and test
scores have collapsed. Why the stubborn insistence that it will raise American
test scores compared to the rest of the world or prepare all students for
college and career? There is no evidence for this stubborn belief."
Fortune: Proof
That Business Leaders Know Nothing about Public Education
Diane
Ravitch's Blog By dianeravitch January
4, 2016
While I
was supposedly taking a break from blogging, the biggest story of the Christmas
break appeared in Fortune and reverberated in blogs and on Twitter. It
demonstrates how little business leaders know about public education and why
they should spend their time creating jobs in this country and sticking to what
they know. The Fortune article is
a fascinating
account that begins with a dinner in 2014 between Bill Gates and
Charles Koch of the infamous Koch brothers. Gates thought he could persuade
Koch to drop his opposition to the Common Core standards. Koch was not
interested. He told Bill to call someone in his office. Fail! Only a
billionaire could tell off another billionaire like that. The article shows something that it doesn’t
mean to show. Businessmen know nothing about education. Neither does the
writer. The article repeats every well-worn cliché about our “failing” schools
and about how the Common Core standards will raise our test scores to the top
of the world.
New York Times By KATE TAYLOR JAN. 4, 2016
The
principal at a Success Academy charter school who
created a “Got to Go” list of difficult students is
taking a personal leave of absence, a Success Academy spokeswoman said on
Monday. Critics of Success
Academy , the high-performing New York City charter school network,
have said its high test scores are partly a result of weeding out
underperforming and disruptive students. The existence of the list, reported by
The New York Times in October, appeared to support the accusations. At a news conference that month, Success Academy Brooklyn . In December, four parents whose children were
on the list filed suit in federal court in Brooklyn
against the school.
Common Core
Keeps Getting Bashed on the Campaign Trail
Education
Week Politics K-12 By Andrew Ujifusa on January
4, 2016 7:50 AM
If you
thought the recent lull in K-12 talk on
the presidential campaign trail meant candidates had forgotten how to throw
shade when it comes to the Common Core State Standards, think again. In a
speech last Tuesday in Waterloo ,
Iowa
Stargazing: Venus, Saturn and crescent
moon
Post
Gazette By Dan Malerbo, Buhl Planetarium & Observatory January 5, 2016
12:00 AM
During
the past few weeks, the moon has waxed from a thin right-hand crescent, visible
in the western evening sky on Dec. 14, to a full moon on Dec. 25. The moon has
now waned to a thin left-hand crescent that can be seen passing Venus and
Saturn Wednesday and Thursday morning in the southeastern sky. Look for the crescent moon Wednesday morning,
one hour before sunrise, 7 degrees above dazzling bright Venus. Fainter Saturn
will sit about 3 degrees to the lower left of Venus. By Thursday morning, the
moon will have sunk closer to the horizon, passing Venus and sitting about 6
degrees to the left of Saturn. Saturn
will continue to rise higher in the morning sky this week, as Venus continues
to sink toward the horizon. This will set up an extremely close conjunction
between Saturn and Venus on Saturday morning when the duo of “morning stars”
sit within a half degree of each other, 15 degrees above the southeastern
horizon.
Remaining Locations:
- Butler area — Jan.
9 Midwestern IU 4,
- Allentown area —
Jan. 16 Lehigh Career & Technical Institute, Schnecksville
- Central PA — Jan.
30 Nittany Lion Inn,
- Delaware Co. IU 25
— Feb. 1
- Scranton area —
Feb. 6 Abington Heights SD, Clarks
- North Central area
—Feb. 13
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
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
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