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Keystone
State Education Coalition
PA
Ed Policy Weekend Roundup July 17, 2016:
120
American Charter Schools and One Secretive Turkish Cleric
Apply Now for EPLC's
2016-2017 PA Education Policy Fellowship Program!
U.S. Secretary John King wants to hear how
Pa. intends to fix its education inequities
Penn Live By Jan Murphy |
jmurphy@pennlive.com Email the author | Follow on Twitter on
July 15, 2016 at 4:07 PM, updated July 15, 2016 at 10:28 PM
U.S. Secretary John King Jr.
finds Pennsylvania's 30- to 40-point achievement gap between white students and
minority groups National Assessment of Educational Progress scores to be
disturbing and wants to know what the state plans to do to narrow it. The nation's top education official made a
rare visit to Harrisburg on Friday to learn where closing the achievement gap
fits into the ongoing discussion involving dozens of education stakeholders
that began in late April around developing a state plan to implement the
federal Every Student Succeeds Act, the successor to the 2001
No Child Left Behind. "The law's
success will be in closing those gaps," King told a group of education
stakeholders gathered in a large meeting room in Harrisburg Area Community
College Midtown. "There are too many students who get to places like
Harrisburg Area Community College that ... come and have to take remedial
courses."
Wolf secures budget peace,
for now, if not campaign promises
The Progress News By MARC LEVY July
15, 2016
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — The House
of Representatives had just finished voting the final pieces into place for
Pennsylvania's 2016-17 budget package, and Majority Leader Dave Reed walked
next door in the Capitol to share congratulations with Gov. Tom Wolf. "So this really can work," a
smiling Wolf told Reed when they met Wednesday evening. A budget package achieved after numerous
concessions by Wolf is perhaps the best the Democratic governor can do with
Pennsylvania's Republican-controlled Legislature. It also marked a sharp
turnaround from the record-setting and damaging partisan budget stalemate of
the previous year. There was no change
in strategy or philosophy by Wolf, his spokesman Jeff Sheridan said. Instead,
Sheridan characterized the governor's first and second budgets as one continued
fight toward the same goal.
Budget
a win for schools across state
Centre Daily Times BY PEDRO A.
RIVERA, PA Secretary of Education July 15, 2016
The 2016-17 budget provides a
significant step forward for Pennsylvania schools. It will help promote student
success and improve access to a high-quality education — regardless of a
child’s zip code. Working with our partners in the legislature, we are moving
Pennsylvania forward by investing in our children. During the past two years, Gov. Tom Wolf has
championed our schools and fought for increased education funding. As a result
of his advocacy, this budget provides an additional $200 million in basic education
funding, as well as a $30 million increase for early childhood education to
preserve the number of slots in proven early learning programs like Pre-K
Counts and Head Start, a $20 million increase for special education and a more
than $10 million increase for early intervention. This funding will help
restore even more districts from the deep funding reductions of 2011. The new education funding included in this
budget will be distributed using the bipartisan fair funding formula, which was
signed into law in early June. Prior to the passing of this bill, Pennsylvania
was one of only three states that did not have such a formula in place,
contributing to massive inequities in schools and hitting the most vulnerable
students the hardest.
By Molly Born / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette July 16, 2016 12:00 AM
Schools across Pennsylvania will
get millions in new dollars under a 2016-17 state spending plan that aims to
hand out education money more fairly. But
some observers say that while districts are relieved to have avoided a
prolonged stalemate this fiscal year — last year, legislators went months past
the June 30 deadline to pass a budget — the money still isn’t enough to keep up
with the increased costs of running a school system. “We’re certainly relieved that we have a
budget and grateful that they did provide an increase for schools. But we are
still falling behind,” said Jim Buckheit, executive director of the
Pennsylvania Association of School Administrators. This week Gov. Tom Wolf let the
budget, which includes increases of $200 million in basic education funding,
$20 million in special education funding and nearly $40 million in higher
education funding, become law without his signature. Pittsburgh Public Schools
will receive $3 million more in its main pot of education money and more than
$263,000 in special education dollars over what it received last year.
The pension loophole: How charters can
exploit the state’s “bizarre” payment structure
When charters fail to pay into
retirement system, districts are on the hook
WHYY Newsworks by Avi Wolfman-Arent and Dale
Mezzacappa July 15, 2016 — 3:23pm
Charters that participate in the
state’s teacher pension system are supposed to make quarterly contributions to
the Pennsylvania Public School Employees’ Retirement System (PSERS). Typically they do--on time and in
full. But in Philadelphia, seemingly
every quarter, a handful of charters come up short or fail to make required
payments altogether. What happens afterward is an example of the disjointed
relationship among the state, its traditional school districts, and its charter
schools--a relationship that has come under increasing scrutiny. “It’s a very odd system,” says Uri Monson,
the School District of Philadelphia’s chief financial officer. “Essentially you
have what should be a direct transaction between the charter school -- which
owes the money -- and the state, through PSERS, which is supposed to collect
the money. This bizarre system puts us in the middle of a transaction we have
nothing to do with, and forces us to ultimately sort of become the collection
agency for the state.”
Trib Live BY BRAD
BUMSTED | Saturday, July 16, 2016, 9:00 p.m.
There was a time not so long ago
when the Pennsylvania General Assembly was a virtual fortress that guarded
sensitive information. Getting figures on lawmakers' expenses was like dealing
with the Kremlin. Votes on tax hikes and pay raises were held in the middle of
the night. In the 1980s and '90s,
lawmakers were sometimes kept up all night. Leadership tried to break them.
Rank-and-file legislators often took on a resemblance to zombies. Under the
strain of sleep deprivation, some would vote for anything. A lot has changed since the old days. A lot
hasn't. When a $1.3 billion revenue bill
chock full of tax hikes, won approval in the House and Senate last week, it was
daylight. Both votes occurred in late afternoon. The roll call votes were
immediately available online. The General Assembly's web site ( www.legis.state.pa.us)
actually is pretty good. You can search for past bills, track the history of
legislation and look at co-sponsorship memos.
But problems with transparency persist. That's the buzz word state pols
use to pat themselves on their back for being open with taxpayers.
Inquirer editorial: What made this Pa.
budget better
Inquirer Editorial Updated: JULY 15, 2016 — 3:01 AM EDT
The Pennsylvania budget passed a
mere 13 days late this week. That's a lot better than nine months overdue, a
record that Gov. Wolf and the legislature seared into the books in vitriol
earlier this year. This time, the
Democratic governor and Republican-controlled legislature beat low expectations
by working together to pass a budget that, though defective, qualifies as both
a spending and a revenue plan. For the
revenue, they tapped a few untested and even dubious sources, including a loan
from the state malpractice-insurance fund. They also extended the income tax to
state lottery winners, authorized a tax amnesty program, guessed that allowing
consumers to buy wine in supermarkets would generate additional revenue, and
banked on unreliable proceeds from expanded gambling.
DN editorial: Pennsylvania budget deal
offers only short-term solutions
Philly Daily News Editorial Updated: JULY 15, 2016 — 3:00 AM EDT
THE AGREEMENT on the $31.5
billion state budget nearly met the July 1 deadline, nine months earlier than
last year. That must come as a tremendous relief to school districts and local
governments across the state that had to go through 2015 without regular
payments of state aid. Now, they know what they are
getting from the state and can plan accordingly. The Philadelphia School
District, for instance, will get about $50 million in new money, which it had
already penciled in to its budget for the 2016-17 school year. Passage of the budget and the tax package
also restores some of the luster to the political reputations of Gov. Wolf and
the Republican-controlled Legislature.
Beaver County Times By Katherine
Schaeffer kschaeffer@timesonline.com
Jul 14, 2016
HARRISBURG -- The Pennsylvania
Department of Education’s SchoolWATCH
database, launched in January 2015, allows parents, students and taxpayers
for the first time to easily track and compare school district and charter
school spending. Gov. Tom Wolf
approved House Bill 1606 Thursday, making that database a permanent fixture in
the Public School Code. SchoolWATCH and
its predecessor,
searchable government spending database PennWATCH, provide the public with
access to information on about $60 billion in state spending each year, bill
author Rep. Jim Christiana, R-15, Brighton Township said. The state’s public schools spend almost $30
billion in federal, state and local dollars each year, about the equivalent of
Pennsylvania's general fund budget.
“The citizens paying the bills deserve to know where their money is
being spent,” Christiana said. “Giving the public and the media access to this
information is a commonsense transparency booster that will support better
decision making.” SchoolWATCH is modeled after
PennWATCH, a publicly accessible database of Pennsylvania’s state
government spending and employee salaries the state launched in 2012.
State
funding increases keep Erie school cuts at bay
By Valerie Myers 814-878-1913 etnmyers Erie Times-News July
17, 2016 07:38 AM
ERIE, Pa. -- Erie high schools
will remain open, and Erie students will be able to study art and music, play
sports and borrow books from the school library, at least this coming school
year. A $3.3 million increase in state
basic education funding for the Erie School District and a $4 million emergency
allocation from the state will balance the district's 2016-17 budget. And that
means no more school closings or program cuts, district Chief Financial Officer
Brian Polito said. But it's a one-time reprieve. The
district will be in dire financial straits again next year. "It will balance our budget
this year without any further cuts," Polito said of the additional
funding. "Next year, at the start of the year, before any increased
revenue or expenses, there will be a $4 million hole to fill. And there will be
additional expenses in addition to that $4 million gap. In another year, we'll
be looking at another $8 to $10 million deficit."
“Mandated expenses including salaries
and benefits were almost always cited as biggest cost drivers across the
county, but none more than contributions to the Public School Employees’
Retirement System (PSERS), a cost that has more than doubled for school
districts in five years (from a 12.36 percent contribution in 2012-13 to 30
percent for 2016-17).”
Almost all Delco school districts raising
taxes for 2016-17
Delco
Times By Kevin Tustin, ktustin@21st-centurymedia.com, @KevinTustin on Twitter POSTED: 07/17/16, 4:56 AM
EDT | UPDATED: 2 HRS AGO
In an early June report on school
district budgets the Pennsylvania Association of School Administrators and
Pennsylvania Association of School Business Officials reported that 85 percent
of school districts across the state planned toe raise their property taxes for
the 2016-17 school year. This is the
approximate percentage of Delaware County school districts that have approved
tax increases with the adoption of their budgets by the mandatory deadline of
June 30. Twelve of 14 districts in the
county have approved a tax increase anywhere from one to 3.62 percent,
averaging out to 2.1 percent across the county.
Marple Newtown and Upper Darby opted to hold the line in their budgets. In addition to a tax increase, 12 districts
have also agreed to use some portion of their fund balance to supplement their
budgets, collectively totaling $25.85 million. Fund balance use expenditures
total two percent of the $1.29 billion operating budgets approved across the
county. Marple Newtown and Haverford
will not use any fund balance money. Here
is a look at county school districts’ approved budgets for the new school year,
including their tax percent increases:
“Gulen lives in self-imposed exile and
gained his green card by convincing a federal judge in Philadelphia that he was
an influential educational figure in the United States - a claim further
bolstered by 150 charter schools that his following of Turkish
scientists, engineers and businessmen now operate in 27 states,
including Pennsylvania and New Jersey.”
Turkey's president blames Fethullah Gülen,
a Muslim cleric in the Poconos, for coup
Inquirer by Jeremy Roebuck and Martha Woodall,
STAFF WRITERS Updated: JULY
15, 2016 — 9:36 PM EDT
Facing a military
coup, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erodgan pointed the finger of blame
Friday at a former political ally living 5,000 miles away in a gated compound
in the Poconos.
Fethullah Gülen, a reclusive
Muslim cleric in his 70s and head
of a movement based on 26 acres in Saylorsburg, Pa., has been frequent
target of the Turkish president, who blames him and his multitude of followers
for fomenting revolution in their native country. “Turkey will not be run from a house in
Pennsylvania,” Erdogan said in an apparent reference to Gulen during an
interview broadcast Friday on CNN Turk. But
Gulen's followers have long called Erdogan's claims baseless and accused the
Turkish president of turning him into a boogeyman for Turkey's problems. In a statement early Saturday, Gulen denied
any involvement in the coup. “I condemn, in the strongest
terms, the attempted military coup in Turkey,” he said, adding later:
“Government should be won through a process of free and fair elections, not
force … As someone who suffered under multiple military coups during the past
five decades, it is especially insulting to be accused of having any link to
such an attempt.”
“His followers have also opened many
private schools around the globe, including more than 160 science, math and
technology-focused public charter schools with different names in numerous
states around this country.”
Fethullah Gulen: The Islamic scholar
Turkey blames for the failed coup
Washington Post Answer Sheet
Blog By Valerie
Strauss July 16 at 10:17 AM
The man
that Turkey’s leaders have blamed for a failed coup attempt by a group of army
officers is an Islamic scholar named Fethullah Gulen, who lives in
self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania and who has inspired a network said to
include more than 160 charter schools in the United States. Turkish President Recep Tayyip
Erdogan says that the coup attempt on Friday was the work of army officers
who are followers of Gulen, who had once been an ally but whose movement has
become critical of the increasingly authoritarian regime. The Gulen movement denied involvement in the
coup, but Secretary of State John F. Kerry on Saturday was quoted as saying the
United States would support investigations to determine who instigated
the attempted coup and where its support originates. He said he
anticipates questions will be raised about Gulen.
August 2014: 120 American Charter Schools
and One Secretive Turkish Cleric
The FBI is investigating a group
of educators who are followers of a mysterious Islamic movement. But the
problems seem less related to faith than to the oversight of charter schools.
The Atlantic by SCOTT BEAUCHAMP
AUG 12, 2014
It reads like something out of a
John Le Carre novel: The charismatic Sunni imam Fethullah Gülen, leader of a
politically powerful Turkish religious movementlikened by The Guardian to an “Islamic
Opus Dei,” occasionally webcasts sermons from self-imposed exile in the Poconos
while his organization quickly grows to head the largest chain of charter
schools in America. It might sound quite foreboding—and it should, but not for
the reasons you might think. You can be
excused if you’ve never heard of Fethullah Gülen or his eponymous movement. He
isn’t known for his openness, despite the size of his organization, which is
rumored to have between 1 and 8 million adherents. It’s difficult to estimate
the depth of its bench, however, without an official roster of membership.
Known informally in Turkey as Hizmet, or “the service”, the Gülen
movement prides itself on being a pacifist, internationalist, modern, and
moderate alternative to more extreme derivations of Sunni Islam. The group does
emphasize the importance of interfaith dialogue, education, and a kind of
cosmopolitanism. One prominent sociologist described it as “the world’s most
global movement.”
Diane Ravitch’s Blog By dianeravitch July 15, 2016 //
The news channels report that
there is a military coup underway in Turkey.
The prime minister accuses
Fetullah Gulen of staging the coup “from Pennsylvania.
Gulen sponsors one of the biggest
charter chains in the U.S. and is one of the biggest recipients of HB-1 visas
for Turkish teachers to staff his charter schools.
Blogger note: Sharon Higgins is a
blogger who tracks Gulen schools closely.
Her list shows four Gulen charters in Pennsylvania:
Vision Academy Charter SchoolYoung Scholars of Central Pennsylvania Charter School
Young Scholars of McKeesport
Young Scholars of Western Pennsylvania
Charter School
Gulen charter school lists
Charter Schools Scandals Blog by
Sharon Higgins
Temple University Institute for
Public Affairs July 15, 2016
COMMONWEALTH, published by TU Press, presents a special
issue on education policy in Pennsylvania with articles and essays on:
·
Contrasting views on abolishing the property tax to fund schools
by a PA Senator (pro) and a Dartmouth College economist (con)
·
What a student-based allocation system for education spending
would mean in PA
·
An evaluation of the effectiveness and demographic trends for
performance on the Keystone Exams
·
The implications of an aging PA population and PA’s tax structure
on public education finance
·
An examination of special education funding in PA
Penn GSE’s John DeFlaminis brings
distributed leadership to a struggling district
June 14, 2016
In 2014, the York City School
District was in crisis. Its budget was busted, and student performance had
bottomed out. A proposal to convert the district to all charter schools
fizzled, but the glaring problems remained.
Seeking to dramatically change the district from within, administrators
and the teachers' union partnered to have Penn GSE’s John DeFlaminis introduce
distributed leadership to York schools and help overhaul their curriculum.
DeFlaminis has been called the “gold-standard” of distributed leadership, based
on his academic research and his experiences implementing the principles when
he was the superintendent of the Randnor Township School District. For the last year, DeFlaminis — executive
director of Penn GSE’s Penn
Center for Educational Leadership (PCEL) — has been at work in this
city of 44,000 people two hours west of Philadelphia. “For the first time,
teachers are being treated as lifelong learners,” one York principal said. Distributed leadership has worked in other
tough situations. In the decade since Philadelphia’s Northeast High School
adopted its principles, only one teacher has requested a transfer, a turnover
rate almost unheard of in the district.
Many ECOT students spend just one hour
online for classes each day, state lawyers say
By Patrick O'Donnell,
The Plain Dealer Email the author | Follow on Twitter on
July 14, 2016 at 9:40 AM
COLUMBUS, Ohio - Many students at
the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT)
online charter school spend just an hour a day online taking their classes,
state lawyers said this week, all while the state pays the school as if they
were full-time students. That detail was
included in a filing by the state in Franklin County Common Pleas Court Monday
as the Ohio Department of Education audits
the giant charter school's records. The state wants to see if ECOT's 15,000
students spent enough time on coursework this past school year to merit the
$108 million the state paid the school. Unlike
a traditional school, where teachers can take attendance every day, students at
online schools like ECOT take classes at home by computer. That makes it hard
to measure whether they are actively taking classes, an issue that is becoming
increasingly contentious between Ohio's e-schools and the state. Since charter schools are paid on a
per-student basis by the state, there are millions of dollars at stake in
determining which kids qualify as attending a school.
“But Pence has a robust record on the
issue. As governor, he pushed through the most significant increase in charter
school funding in years, according to Chalkbeat Indiana.
Pence worked with the legislature to create a $10 million grant fund
that would offer an extra $500 per student to charters that post better
outcomes than traditional public schools. And if Pence had his way, the funding
would have been even more robust—he initially pitched a $1,500 per charter
school student increase. Pence also gave
charter schools access to a $50 million fund to help cover the cost of
loans for school construction or the purchase of educational technology. And he
successfully called for lawmakers to raise the $4,800 cap on vouchers for
elementary school students. (Now the cap will be dependent on family income and
local school spending, as high school vouchers already were.) Pence also
persuaded lawmakers to approve bonus pay for highly effective teachers. Jeanne Allen, the founder of the Center for
Education Reform, which supports choice, called Pence, an "outspoken
supporter of the critical right of parents to choose the school that is best
for their children," in a statement Thursday. “
Indiana's Pence, Trump VP Pick: Pro-School
Choice, Anti-Common Core
Education Week Politics K12 Blog By Alyson Klein on July 15,
2016 9:43 AM
UPDATED
Presumptive Republican
presidential nominee Donald Trump has picked Indiana Gov. Mike Pence
as his vice-presidential running mate, Trump announced on Twitter Friday. So
what's Pence's record on education? It's clear the Republican governor has
quite a bit in common with the man at the top of the ticket, at least when it
comes to school choice and academic standards, in particular.
Common Standards
For instance, Trump campaigned
vehemently against the Common Core State Standards. Indiana, under Pence, was
the very first state to ditch them. And before that, the state backed out of
federally-funded PARCC tests aligned to the standards.
School Choice Support
Trump has also voiced support for
school choice, without getting into specifics about exactly how he'd expand it.
Education Bloggers Daily Highlights
7/15/2016
Education Policy and Leadership Center
Applications are available now for the 2016-2017 Education Policy Fellowship Program (EPFP). The Education Policy Fellowship Program is sponsored in Pennsylvania by The Education Policy and Leadership Center (EPLC). Click here for the program calendar of sessions. With nearly 500 graduates in its first seventeen years, this Program is a premier professional development opportunity for educators, state and local policymakers, advocates, and community leaders. State Board of Accountancy (SBA) credits are available to certified public accountants. Past participants include state policymakers, district superintendents and principals, school business officers, school board members, education deans/chairs, statewide association leaders, parent leaders, education advocates, and other education and community leaders. Fellows are typically sponsored by their employer or another organization.
The Fellowship Program begins with a two-day retreat on September 15-16, 2016 and continues to graduation in June 2017. Click here to read more about the Education Policy Fellowship Program, or here to see the 2016-2017 program calendar.
Applications are being accepted now.
Appointment
of Voting Delegates for the October 15th PSBA Delegate Assembly
Meeting
PSBA Website June 27, 2016
The governing body boards of all
member school entities are entitled to appoint voting delegates to participate
in the PSBA Delegate Assembly to be held on Saturday,
Oct. 15, 2016. It is important that school boards act soon to appoint
its delegate or delegates, and to notify PSBA of the appointment.
Voting members of the Delegate
Assembly will:
1. Consider and act upon proposed
changes to the PSBA Bylaws.
2. Receive reports from the PSBA
president, executive director and treasurer.
3. Receive the results of the
election for officers and at-large representatives. (Voting upon
candidates by school boards and electronic submission of each board’s votes
will occur during the month of September 2016.)
4. Consider proposals recommended by
the PSBA Platform Committee and adopt the legislative platform for the coming
year.
5. Conduct
other Association business as required or permitted in the Bylaws, policies or
a duly adopted order of business.
The 2016 Delegate Assembly will meet on Saturday,
Oct. 15, at the conclusion of the regularly scheduled events of the
main PASA-PSBA School Leadership Conference.
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:
PA Supreme Court sets Sept. 13 argument
date for fair education funding lawsuit in Philly
Thorough
and Efficient Blog JUNE 16, 2016 BARBGRIMALDI LEAVE A COMMENT
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