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Keystone
State Education Coalition
PA
Ed Policy Roundup May 10, 2016:
Charter, Alternative,
Virtual Schools Account for Most Low-Grad-Rate Schools, Study Finds
Pennsylvania
has the widest funding gap between wealthy and poor schools in the country
Campaign for Fair Education
Funding Website
Make the new funding formula permanent; pass a budget for 2016-17 that
increases funding for public schools by at least $400 million
Charter, Alternative,
Virtual Schools Account for Most Low-Grad-Rate Schools, Study Finds
Education Week By Catherine Gewertz on May
9, 2016 6:00 AM
CORRECTED Charter, virtual, and
alternative schools account for a disproportionate share of U.S. high schools
with low graduation rates, according to a study released Monday. Even though
they enroll only a small slice of students, they account for more than half of the
U.S. high schools that graduate 67 percent or less of their students in four
years. "Building a Grad Nation," the seventh in an
annual series of reports on U.S. graduation rates, concluded that regular
district high schools make up 41 percent of those that didn't surpass the
67-percent threshold in 2013-14. Charter, virtual, and alternative schools—a
small sector, representing only 14 percent of the country's high schools and 8
percent of its high school students—account for 52 percent of the schools that
fell short of that mark. (The remaining 7 percent are vocational and
special-education schools.) The findings
offer a challenge to a country that's renewing its focus on graduation rates
through the newly revised Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Known now as
the Every Student Succeeds Act, the law requires states to report four-year
graduation rates for schools that enroll 100 students or more, and districts to
provide research-based help for schools that graduate fewer than 67 percent in
four years.
Joint public hearing on Every Student Succeeds Act.
PA House and PA
Senate Education Committees
Harrisburg Wednesday
May 18th 9:00 AM Hearing Room #1 North Office Building
COLUMN: State must adopt fair funding formula for
education
Meadville Tribune
Opinion By Jody Sperry May 9, 2016
Jody Sperry is president of the
Conneaut School District Board of Education. This is the text of a speech
she gave May 2 at the Campaign for Fair Education Funding rally in the State
Capital rotunda.
Imagine if you
started every year not knowing what your salary was going to be for the year.
You know you have fixed costs such as your mortgage and your car payment. You
know you have some variable costs such as your heating bill, your electric bill
and your grocery bill. You know you can make some adjustments to those by
turning down the thermostat, turning unnecessary lights off and by putting
everyone on a diet. But if there is an increase in any of those beyond your control,
you really save nothing. Will your paycheck cover any unforeseen increases? Is
there anywhere else you can trim your expenses? What happens in an emergency? This is the struggle
in every school district in Pennsylvania, including the Conneaut School
District where I serve. We know we have fixed costs due to contractual
obligations. These control over 70 percent of our budget. With the remaining 30
percent there is not much trimming that can be done before we start taking away
classes and extracurriculars that are as much a part of the educational
experience as reading, writing and arithmetic. We could estimate what we may
get from the state budget but what happens if we experience another budget
impasse? What happens if we lose funding we had counted on when we pass our
budget as constitutionally required by June 30th? Cutting and trimming small
budget items with minimal costs do not fix a $2 million deficit.
Editorial: Pa. schools
fair funding debate picks up support
Delco Times POSTED: 05/09/16,
10:14 PM EDT | UPDATED: 4 HRS AGO
The cause of fairly
funding public schools in Pennsylvania has been simmering for decades.
At its most basic,
the issue is that money available to schools is skewed because education is
funded largely on the backs of homeowners via the local property tax. The higher the value of real estate in a
district, the more local revenue is collected to fund schools. The poorer the
district in property values, the less money available for education and the
higher the tax burden per property owner.
That disparity is what has led to the phrase “education by zip code,”
referring to the resources available to schools based on the affluence of
neighborhoods. Thus, the call to
eliminate the property tax in Pennsylvania goes hand-in-hand with the call for
fair funding.
http://www.delcotimes.com/opinion/20160509/editorial-pa-schools-fair-funding-debate-picks-up-support
Bill to end seniority in
teacher layoffs heads to Wolf
Inquirer by Angela Couloumbis and Karen Langley,
HARRISBURG BUREAU Updated: MAY
10, 2016 — 1:08 AM EDT
HARRISBURG -
Republicans who control the state legislature have pushed through a hotly
contested bill to allow public schools to circumvent seniority when laying off
teachers. The bill passed the Senate by
a 26-22 vote Monday that fell largely along party lines. It now goes to Gov.
Wolf, a Democrat, who pledged to veto it. Through a spokesman, he said the
state's focus should not be on mass layoffs but rather on "how to invest in
our schools, which already have the tools to evaluate underperforming
teachers." The measure, dubbed the
"Protecting Excellent Teachers Act," hones in on a long-standing and
contentious issue in public education: the protection of teachers based solely
on tenure. It would eliminate
seniority-based furloughs and instead base those decisions on teacher
performance ratings. It would also allow layoffs for economic reasons.
Currently, school districts can furlough employees only because of a decrease
in enrollment, a change in educational programs, or consolidation of schools.
Senate sends Wolf bill
that moves Pa. to allowing performance-based teacher layoffs
Penn Live By Jan Murphy | jmurphy@pennlive.com Email the author | Follow on Twitter
on May 09, 2016 at 6:28 PM, updated May 09, 2016 at 7:05 PM
Legislation that
would allow school districts to base furloughs on teacher
performance rather than seniority alone won state Senate
passage on Monday, sending it to Gov. Tom Wolf for enactment. But despite the
Senate's 26-22 approval of this controversial
education reform bill, it stands a dim chance of becoming law. Gov. Tom Wolf intends to veto it when it
reaches his desk, his spokesman said. "The
governor believes this is a local matter to be decided by districts," said
Wolf spokesman Jeff Sheridan. "He doesn't believe this is a matter for the
state to decide. The focus of our policies at the state level should not be on
how to conduct mass layoffs – it should be about how to invest in our schools,
which already have the tools to evaluate underperforming teachers." The bill, sponsored by Rep. Steve Bloom,
R-North Middleton Twp., also would add economic reasons as a permitted cause to
suspend teachers. Currently, districts can only layoff teachers because of
declining enrollment, program curtailment and school or school district
consolidations. "Obviously,
I'm very pleased that the Senate is willing to stand up for children in the
classroom over the interests of the state teachers union," Bloom said.
"This is a momentous step toward reforming education for the benefit of
students in Pennsylvania."
Bloom urges Wolf to
"consider this opportunity he now has to make an historic change to keep
the best teachers in Pennsylvania classrooms" before getting out his veto
pen.
The House passed the bill in June by
a 100-91 vote with no Democrats voting in support of it. In the Senate, only
one Democrat voted for it: Sen. Anthony Williams of Philadelphia.
|
Corman: "We have to
get a much more reasonable spend number"
|
|
The PLS Reporter
May 10, 2016 (paywall)
While other
legislative business might take center stage as the Senate returns to voting
session this week, inquiring minds are continually curious about the progress
being made on the FY 2016-2017 state budget, due in just over 50 days. While the House left Harrisburg for a
week’s recess last Tuesday with only procedural moves made on the coming
fiscal year’s spending plan, sources report that some level of meetings have
been taking place as Republicans and Democrats try to come to a consensus on
what the spending plan should look like.
Leaders in the Senate told The PLS Reporter Monday that
the groundwork for discussions already underway will continue this week.
Read more
from The PLS Reporter HERE.
|
“Despite Gov. Tom Wolf's threats of electoral retribution,
lawmakers did not pay a political price for engaging in the budget
battle. The first clue that the
fiscal free-for-all was not impacting the electorate came in February when
there was no wave of candidates filing to oppose incumbent legislators. Looking at the primary election results it
would be difficult if not impossible to point to a single lawmaker who lost his
or her seat because of the sustained budget stand-off.”
The 2015-16 budget fight
was an electoral dud: Lowman S. Henry
PennLive Op-Ed By
Lowman S. Henry on May 09, 2016 at 12:30 PM
The final pieces of
legislation ending Pennsylvania's longest budget stalemate fell into place just
days before the April primary election. And
the story that dominated state news for over nine months had no apparent impact
on voters who meted out no electoral punishment for the fiscal fray that had
school districts on the cusp of closing, nonprofits cutting services, and
politicians at each other's throats. This
budget stand-off was different from those that took place during the Rendell
era notably due to the lack of public pressure placed on Governor Wolf and the
legislature. There were no daily
protests on the capitol steps. State employees did not go without pay. When the battle commenced last summer Wolf's
first salvo was an attack ad campaign. It fell flat. Outside the halls of
state government and the few remaining news media that cover it, the budget
battle went largely unnoticed.
“In June, she said three large expenses in the 2015-2016
school year budget would be an increase of roughly $800,000 in one year to the
Pennsylvania State Employees Retirement System for district pensions; $2.3
million in tuition for district students attending charter schools; and about
$1.6 million in transportation costs.”
Property tax in East Allegheny school district to rise
Post Gazatte By Anne
Cloonan May 10, 2016 12:01 AM
The East Allegheny
school board voted 5-4 tonight to approve a $32.5 million budget for the
2016-2017 school year. In April,
the district received state approval to raise taxes by 1.17 mills. The district
had to request permission to raise taxes above the state’s Act 1 inflation
index for the 2016-2017 school year. Last
year, East Allegheny business manager Toni Valicenti said the district’s
deficit increased from $1,158,236 on July 1, 2013, to $2,433,696 by June 30,
2014.
“The major budget cost drivers are charter school tuition
payments and employee pension contributions. Come next year, Bethlehem
taxpayers will spend $26 million on charter schools and almost $30 million on
pension contributions.”
Bethlehem taxpayers face
likely school tax hike
By Sara K. Satullo | For lehighvalleylive.com Email the
author | Follow on Twitter on May 09, 2016 at 7:01 PM, updated May
09, 2016 at 11:39 PM
A tax hike is
looking likely for Bethlehem Area School District taxpayers. The Bethlehem school board approved a tentative budget in
an 8-1 vote Monday night. (lehighvalleylive.com file photo)
Monday night the
school board voted 8-1 to pass a 2016-17 tentative spending plan that hikes
taxes by 3.9 percent. Director Tom Thomasik voted against the budget. The final budget vote is scheduled for June
13. The $261.6 million budget does not
cut jobs or increase class size, two things considered earlier in the budget
process. The district began the 2016-17
budget season with a $15.2 million deficit. Bethlehem plans to close it by
raising taxes, using $2.9 million in savings and through budget cuts.
313 water tests show
Bethlehem schools' water safe, district says
By Sara K. Satullo | For lehighvalleylive.com Email the
author | Follow on Twitter on May 09, 2016 at 8:37 PM, updated May
09, 2016 at 11:43 PM
The Bethlehem school district says its drinking water is
lead free after 313 water tests only turned up lead above federal standards 13
times on sinks not used for drinking water.
The district is replacing all of the plumbing fixtures in any of those
areas and then the the water will be retested to ensure it is within acceptable
limits. The district decided to
voluntarily test the water in all of its buildings after a report on WFMZ-TV 69 asserted water
samples from two Allentown schools and Northeast Middle School in Bethlehem showed lead levels above federally set
acceptable levels. Both districts independently tested their water and found lead levels below EPA action levels. But it
prompted the districts to commit to voluntary water testingof their school buildings.
Norwin
schools budget proposal could signal property tax hike, staff cuts
Trib Live BY JOE NAPSHA | Monday, May 9, 2016,
11:00 p.m.
The Norwin School
Board Monday was presented with a draft of a preliminary budget that projects a
$2.1 million deficit for 2016-2017 school year, which could result in another
property tax hike, a tapping of the district's financial reserves and possibly
a reduction in staff, school officials said.
The proposed preliminary budget projects expenditures at $68.3 million,
a 3.9 percent increase from the current school year, but only $66.1 million in
projected revenue, a $1.15 million increase from the current school year. Norwin levies a real estate tax of 72.95
mills, which includes 1.2 mills for the annual library tax. Norwin would be allowed to raise property
taxes by 2.26 mills, the maximum under the state index that limits tax
increases to no more than 3.1 percent of the prior year's budget, said Jude
Abraham, the district's interim director of business affairs. Norwin could
generate about $1.2 million if it raises taxes to the maximum level, Abraham
said. The school board could cover the
$2.1 million deficit currently projected by tapping into the district's $3.58
million financial reserve, which would reduce its fund balance to $1.44
million.
Ligonier
Valley School Board OKs budget with deficit, leaves tax hike possible
Trib Live BY JEFF HIMLER | Monday, May 9, 2016,
11:00 p.m.
Ligonier Valley
School Board on Monday approved a tentative $29.9 million budget for the
2016-17 school year that projects $634,930 in deficit spending and a possible
1.8-mill property tax increase. District
Business Administrator Michelle Krebs explained that Ligonier Valley would have
had to tap its reserve fund for about $1.2 million to cover the expected
revenue shortfall. Instead, some of
that gap will be reduced by: $69,300 in reimbursements the district expects to
receive through federal reimbursements for telecommunications and information
services; and $245,960 the district has set aside to help cover its
contribution to the state teachers' pension fund, set to increase by $548,275.
Highlands
School District budget balances on board actions
Trib Live BY TOM YERACE | Monday, May 9, 2016, 11:10 p.m.
Highlands School
District could go from a negative $2.6 million on its preliminary budget to a
positive $530,000. That is what Business
Manager Jon Rupert told the school board Monday night, but he said it all
depends on how many changes the board wants to implement. He said the district
is looking at a 2016-17 budget where expenditures are about $2.6 million more
than revenues. Rupert said among the
changes he gave the board to ponder are about $1.9 million in budget cuts.
'Teachers on welfare':
Harrisburg teachers flood meeting outlining district's academic, financial plan
Penn Live By Julianne Mattera | jmattera@pennlive.com Email the
author | Follow on Twitter on May 09, 2016 at 10:46 PM, updated May
10, 2016 at 12:24 AM
Harrisburg School
District's chief recovery officer on Monday night presented a proposed road map
for the district's academic and financial future to a sea of protesting teachers demanding a new contract
and wage increases. Whereas
public school board meetings usually attract a handful of people at best, as
many as 400 Harrisburg teachers — who rallied before the meeting in blue shirts
bearing their union's name and holding high picket signs calling for
"healthy schools," "smaller class sizes" and
"materials and supplies" — lined the perimeter of the large school
board room at the district's Lincoln Administration Building in Harrisburg.
McDevitt student invited
to William Penn prom
York Daily Record Angie Mason, amason@ydr.com8:53 p.m. EDT May
9, 2016
A high school
student who wasn't allowed into her own prom because she wore a suit is
welcome at William Penn Senior High School's prom — whatever she's
wearing, according to school officials. Brandon
Carter, principal at William Penn, said social studies teacher Maggie Mafnas
brought him the idea of inviting Bishop McDevitt High School student Aniya
Wolf to the prom at the York school. According
to the Associated Press, Aniya said she was thrown out of the prom because she
defied a last-minute email saying girls must wear dresses and instead wore
a suit to her prom. The school, in Harrisburg, said the dress code, including
that girls must wear dresses, was sent out months ago, according to the AP. Carter said that when Mafnas asked if William
Penn could invite Wolf, he said absolutely. It's a great gesture, he
said, and shows what William Penn is all about.
Student leaders outline
gaps at Philly schools
Inquirer by Martha Woodall, Staff Writer Updated: MAY 10, 2016 — 1:08 AM
EDT
At the first
citywide roundtable on schools, students outlined a litany of problems: a lack
of resources, cuts to art and music programs, violence inside and outside some
schools, and a systemwide lack of access to clean, safe drinking water. "We come from different schools, but we
share the same issues," Morgan Bacon, a student at Masterman High School,
told city officials and School Reform Commission Chair Marjorie Neff during the
session in City Hall. The event, which
was organized by several City Council members and Mayor Kenney's Office of
Education, drew dozens of students from individual schools, as well as those
involved with activist organizations such as the Philadelphia Student Union and
Youth United for Change.
Millions
more pledged to promoting education innovation
Trib Live BY NATASHA LINDSTROM | Monday, May 9, 2016,
6:00 p.m.
A foundation-backed
education network of Western Pennsylvania schools, companies and nonprofits
said Monday it is pumping $25 million into innovative learning projects across
the region. The hefty cash infusion —
hailed by White House officials during the announcement inside Google's offices
in East Liberty — signals the rapidly growing momentum of the Remake Learning
network, a local blueprint for cross-sector collaboration that is drawing
national recognition. “You really are a
model for the country,” Thomas Kalil, deputy director of policy for the White
House Office of Science and Technology Policy, told a private audience of local
dignitaries, philanthropists and educators kicking off the start of Remake
Learning Days, a week-long celebration showcasing projects throughout the
region.
FINANCIAL DATA ELEMENTS
PA Department of
Education Website
This page contains
various school district financial data elements (Aid Ratios, Avg. Daily
Membership, Personal Income, Real Estate Tax Rates) calculated by or reported
to the Department of Education. Other data elements not listed below are
available as part of the files on the Summaries of AFR Data pages.
“This new model essentially splits the difference: The
schools will keep the flexibility and autonomy, particularly over hiring and
teaching, that have made charters most unlike traditional public schools. But
the board becomes manager and regulator, making sure schools abide by policies
meant to ensure equity and provide broad services, like managing the cost of
particularly expensive special education students, that individual schools
might not have the capacity or desire to do.
Cities from Boston to Los Angeles are locked in fierce fights over
charter schools, which critics say siphon off money and the most engaged
families from local districts, while skimming the best students and steering
away the most challenging — not always with better results. Families in districts
with majorities of poor black and Latino children are increasingly pushing back
against educator recruitment groups like Teach for America, scorning their
efforts as education tourism for privileged Ivy Leaguers.”
New
Orleans Plan: Charter Schools, With a Return to Local Control
New York Times By KATE ZERNIKE MAY 9, 2016
NEW ORLEANS —
Nothing has defined and even driven the fractious national debate over
education quite like this city and the transformation of its school system in
the decade since Hurricane Katrina. Reformers
say its successes as an almost all-charter, state-controlled
district make it a model for other failing urban school systems. Charter school opponents and unions point to what has
happened here as proof that the reformers’ goal is just to privatize education
and strip families of their voice in local schools across the country. Now comes another big moment in the New
Orleans story: The governor is expected soon to sign legislation returning the
city’s schools to the locally elected school board for the first time since Hurricane Katrina in
2005. Strikingly, that return is being
driven by someone squarely in the pro-charter camp, the state superintendent, John White. He is a veteran of touchstone organizations
behind the efforts to remake public schools —Teach for America and
the Eli and Edythe Broad
Foundation and its superintendent training program — as well as
the hard-charging charter school efforts
in New York City. He represents the wave of largely white, young idealists who
rushed to this city post-Katrina to be part of the Big Thing in education.
“Wiggins credits a little-known provision in the federal
child-nutrition bill for boosting participation and feeding more of Detroit’s
students at school. But those nutritional benefits are now at risk, as Congress
moves to reauthorize the 2010 Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act. A proposed rule
change to the Community Eligibility
Provision (CEP)—widely praised by budget experts and school
officials—would effectively leave thousands of impoverished Detroit students,
who now eat breakfast and lunch at school, unfed.”
When All Kids Eat for Free
Congress is considering a rule
change to the school-nutrition law that would bar thousands of schools from
offering complimentary lunch to all students.
The Atlantic by
Melinda D. Anderson May 9, 2016
Much has been made
recently of Detroit’s resurgence and growth. In January, President Obama made a
swing through the Motor City, touting “something special happening in Detroit.” Yet the comeback has
not been evenly felt across the city. The Michigan League for Public Policy’s 2016 Kids Count Data Profilerevealed a major fault line
earlier this year. From 2006 to 2014, child poverty in Detroit increased by 29
percent, to about 94,000 children or well more than half (57 percent) of the
city’s population under the age of 18.* The unavoidable conclusion: Many of Detroit’s youngest
residents remain mired in hardship and hunger. During the
school day, the job of filling children’s empty stomachs rests with Betti J.
Wiggins, the executive director of Detroit Public Schools office of school
nutrition. The district enrolls about 46,000 students, and advertises free breakfast
and lunch for every child—not just those who qualify and apply
for the benefit.
“Nine out of every 10 school-age children attend our
nation’s public schools - more than 50
million nationwide. While pundits debate America’s future, short
shrift around public education risks leaving America’s K-12 students, teachers
and schools without public champions.”
Make Public Education Part
of Our National Dialogue
Huffington Post by David A. Pickler
03/22/2016 03:25 pm ET | Updated Mar 22, 2016
David A. Pickler,
J.D., is president of the American Public Education Foundation, a past
president of the National School Boards Association, and Vice-Chair of a new
Standards Recommendation Committee for Mathematics and English Language Arts
formed by Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam and other state officials.
Many Americans view
our nation’s best days as behind us. About one-fourth of Americans - only 26% -
feel that the country is headed in the right direction, based on a recent Rasmussen survey of 2,500
likely U.S. voters. Across both sides of
the aisle, Presidential hopefuls argue that their platforms will restore hope,
promise and opportunity - but other than taking aim at Common Core or
mislabeling “choice” as a proven reform solution, informed dialogue on K-12
public education remains in short supply.
It is time to take America’s greatest promise for the future - its
public education system - off the back burner and prioritize it within our
national dialogue.
America is only as
strong as its citizens, with America’s most important citizens our children.
Yes, the feds could pull North Carolina’s education
funding for violating transgender civil rights
Washington Post By Emma Brown May
9 at 2:36 PM
North
Carolina receives more than $4 billion in federal education funding each year.
Now the federal government is considering withholding that money because, the
Justice Department says, the state has passed a law that violates the civil
rights of transgender individuals by forcing them to use bathrooms that
correspond to the sex on their birth certificates instead of their gender
identity. But would federal officials
really withhold billions of dollars meant to help educate poor children,
children with disabilities, and college students who can’t afford to go to
school without federal aid? They’ve done
it before. The federal
government withheld funds in the 1960s from more than 100 school districts
in the south that refused desegregation, according to Gary
Orfield, an education scholar and co-director of the Civil Rights Project
at the University of California-Los Angeles.
“That was the first time in American history that there had been a
massive cutoff of federal aid funds,” Orfield said. “And it worked
dramatically.” School districts adopted
plans to integrate to turn the federal-funds spigot back on.
Why Dark Money Is Bad Business
New York Times Opinion By KATHLEEN M. DONOVAN-MAHER and STEVEN
L. GROOPMAN MAY 10, 2016
Boston — IT’S only
May, but this presidential election is on track to be one of the most expensive
ever. So far two-thirds of election dollars have largely come from anonymous
corporate donations, funneled through what have been referred to as “dark
money” nonprofit groups that freely engage in electoral and legislative
politics, but don’t have to disclose their donors, expenditures or even their
members. One of the most promising
strategies to stem the tide of corporate dark money is a proposed rule at the Securities and Exchange Commission that would require
public companies to report the amounts and recipients of their political
spending. The rule has received a groundswell of support from a bipartisan
group of former S.E.C. commissioners, state treasurers and law professors, and
has generated more than one million public comments.
Defenders of the
status quo argue the companies are simply exercising their right to free speech;
critics contend that such speech, when anonymous, does immense harm to the
democratic process.
Join the Pennsylvania Principals Association at 9 a.m. on Tuesday, June 21, 2016, at The
Capitol in Harrisburg, PA, for its second annual Principals' Lobby Day.
Pennsylvania
Principals Association Monday, March 21, 2016 9:31 AM
To register, contact Dr. Joseph Clapper at clapper@paprincipals.org by
Tuesday, June 14, 2016. If you need assistance, we will provide
information about how to contact your legislators to schedule meetings. Click here for the informational flyer, which includes
important issues to discuss with your legislators.
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:
“NATIONAL ANTHEM “SING-A-LONG”
When: September 9, 2016, 10:00 am PST/1:00pm EST
Where: Schools across America
Sponsor: American Public Education Foundation (APEF)
The National Anthem “Sing-A-Long” is a movement to teach K-12 students the
words, meaning,
music and history of the Star-Spangled Banner. This annual event is held
each year on the
second week of September to honor 9/11 families, victims and heroes and
celebrate the historic
birthday of the National Anthem on September 14. Those who join the
“Sing-A-Long” are singing in unison at the exact same time at multiple sites
across the U.S. The APEF has also created a robust, companion curriculum
recognized by numerous State Departments of Education, available online
at www.theapef.org (see the “Educate”
tab) for free download.
The Foundation hopes to have the support of the Alabama Department of
Education as we
commemorate the 15th Anniversary of 9/11 this year. Teachers are encouraged
to sign up
before the end of the school year at www.theapef.org.
Also online is a "how-to" guide on
holding an event at your school and sample press release. If you do not
wish to hold a full
ceremony at the school, your students can simply stand up and sing
at 10 am PST/1:00pm EST.
The Star-Spangled Banner Movement is a simple, elegant way to honor 9/11
while also teaching students how the world came together in the days, weeks and
months after the September 2001 terrorist strikes. The APEF also offers a host
of other free educational material on its website, including polls, contests
and grant information.
Pennsylvania
Partnerships for Children (PPC), a statewide children's advocacy organization
located in Harrisburg, PA has an immediate full-time opening for an Early
Learning and K-12 Education Policy Manager.
PPC's vision is to be one of the top ten states in which to be a child
and raise a child. Today, Pennsylvania ranks 17th in the nation for child
well-being. Our early learning and K-12 education policy work is focused on
ensuring all children enter school ready to learn and that all children have
access to high-quality public education. Current initiatives include increasing
the number of children served in publicly funded pre-k and implementing a fair
basic education formula along with sustained, significant investments in
education funding.
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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