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Keystone
State Education Coalition
PA
Ed Policy Roundup August 15, 2016:
"democracy has a responsibility of thinking about
all children, not merely franchising opportunity for some children"
"Certainly the advocates and
opponents of public education and advocates and opponents of charter schools
fundamentally have in mind the well-being of our children and students,"
he says. "It's not an easy conversation to have. But going back to the
days of John Dewey, if a purpose of education is to create not merely scholars
but citizens, democracy has a responsibility of thinking about all children,
not merely franchising opportunity for some children."
A House Divided
Calls to curb charter school
growth are placing would-be allies at odds.
US News By Lauren Camera |
Education Reporter Aug. 12, 2016, at 6:00 a.m.
At the NAACP's national
convention last month in Cincinnati, the gathering of more than 2,000 delegates
approved a resolution calling for a moratorium on charter schools, equating
them with "the privatization" of the traditional public education
system. Days later, more than 50
African-American and social justice advocacy groups, including the Black
Lives Matter network, unveiled a new policy agenda that also called
for a moratorium on charter schools, arguing they represent a "systematic
attack" on communities of color. Charter
schools have always represented a flashpoint in the education space. But the
demands from the NAACP and the Black Lives Matter-affiliated groups highlight a
new wrinkle: After years benefiting from a reform-friendly K-12 agenda that
allowed its schools to flourish through the elimination of caps and increased
funding at the state and federal levels, the charter sector now finds itself in
the crosshairs of a burgeoning and wide-scale debate over who truly holds
communities of color in their best interest.
"The issue of charter schools has become a very complicated one,
especially for our community, the black community," says Hiram Rivera,
executive director of the Philadelphia Student Union, one of the dozens of
groups that helped craft the second policy agenda.
“In 2016-17, districts must contribute
30 percent of payroll to pensions; five years ago, it was 9 percent. Yes,
pensions again. You know, the issue the Pennsylvania Legislature has treated
like a grenade with the pin pulled. Toss it back and forth as much as you want,
eventually it’s going to explode. Taxes
rise so you can fund the state’s broken pension system, and what do you get for
your hard-earned money at the local level?
As LNP reported, in Warwick for example, two retiring language arts
teachers will not be replaced. In the School District of Lancaster, four vacant
high school teaching positions have been eliminated. This is what Pennsylvania’s underfunded
liability — its $50 billion pension debt — and the Legislature’s failure
to do much of anything about it means in real-people, real-money terms. (By the
way, according to the National Association of State Retirement Administrators,
Pennsylvania has the second-most-underfunded pension plan in the nation. Thank
you, New Jersey.)”
Editorial: A taxing issue
for Lancaster County residents
Lancaster Online Editorial by The
LNP Editorial Board Aug 14, 2016
THE ISSUE - All but one of
Lancaster County’s school districts raised taxes in 2016-17. In some cases, tax
increases were accompanied by cuts in staff and services. Pensions remain a big
reason for school district budget issues. In the fall, the Pennsylvania Legislature
will, once again, attempt to address the longstanding pension problem.
In the hierarchy of unwelcome
mail, your school tax bill stands alone, high above your dental reminder card,
credit card statements and electric bill, and perhaps only a tick below an
envelope full of scorpions. As much as
you hate your tax bill, at least it’s predictable. In 15 of 16 Lancaster County public school
districts this year, school tax bills are higher than they were a year ago.
Cocalico was the only local district that did not raise taxes. Penn Manor had the biggest increase of a robust 7
percent, though a significant portion of that will help pay for an $87 million
high school renovation. Even taking Penn
Manor out of the mix, increases ranged from 1.9 percent in Lampeter-Strasburg
to 4.7 percent in Conestoga Valley. Over
the last decade, local districts have raised taxes about 33 percent. Do
yourself a favor and don’t do the math, not if you want to sleep at night. Worse, ask yourself this question: For what
exactly are we paying?
The answer is likely to infuriate
you.
Long past time for Pa. to act on pensions
Inquirer Opinion by Dan White Updated: AUGUST 14, 2016 — 3:01 AM EDT
Dan White is a senior economist at Moody's Analytics in West
Chester and an adviser on pensions to the National League of Cities
In the back-and-forth drama of
Pennsylvania's budget woes, nothing has been more ever-present than pension
reform. The compromises involved in true reform have put the concept out of
reach for several years, but now the legislature and Gov. Wolf have put an
ambitious emphasis on reform for the fall. This is laudable, long overdue, and
essential for getting us back on a more sustainable budget track. However necessary, it won't be painless, and
voters should be prepared for the possible economic implications of reform. The
bottom line is that the commonwealth has made promises to the tune of roughly
$60 billion over the next 30 years that it cannot keep under current law. The good news is that the solution is
undeniably simple from a fiscal standpoint. We need to come up with at least
$60 billion, almost double our current annual budget, over the next 30 years.
The bad news is the solution is extremely complex from a political standpoint.
Where does that money come from?
“Trump got a lot of attention last week
for his ill-considered remark about "2nd Amendment People." I saw,
over this weekend of media madness, somebody made a joke about "1st
Amendment People" -- but is that really such a joke? We need an army of
people who are just as alarmed at the eroding rights and stature of those who
write and report as the "2nd Amendment People" are about their notion
the government is taking their guns. (Especially considering which of two
things is actually happening.) We don't have an NJA spending millions to elect
and woo politicians like the NRA does for the 2nd Amendment. We just have
People Like You. It's clear that America's leaders won't respect a free press
-- unless you demand it of them. To paraphrase Trump, 1st Amendment
People...who knows?”
When a right-wing radio host reveals the
truth
Philly Daily News
Attytood by Will Bunch, Daily News Columnist @will_bunch Updated: AUGUST 14, 2016 — 9:46
PM EDT
I've always felt you can't write
about American politics in the 21st Century without writing about the media. We
live in a media age -- how else to explain a reality-show star with no
political experience (or expertise, it would seem) getting to within one giant
step of the Oval Office? But this weekend, it felt different. Never in modern
times has the nation have two general election candidates who've pinned so much
of their hopes on hostility, if not outright hatred, for the work of a free
press.
“The eye-popping sum reflects the
escalating arms race in political spending, much of it fueled by super-PACs and
nonprofits that have thrived since a 2010 Supreme Court ruling paved the way
for them to accept donations of any size.
Six- and sometimes seven-figure checks
to such outfits now blow away the $5,400 maximum an individual can give
directly to a candidate. So independent
groups account for at least $27 million spent in Pennsylvania on this election
- more than the total spent by candidates.
Only Ohio's Senate race has seen more outside spending, $33 million.”
Money talks loudly in attack ads for
Pennsylvania's Senate campaign.
Inquirer by Jonathan Tamari, Washington Bureau @JonathanTamari Updated: AUGUST 15, 2016 — 3:01
AM EDT
WASHINGTON - Big money is pouring
into the Pennsylvania race for U.S. Senate.
The conservative Freedom Partners
Action Fund early last week launched a new television ad, backed by $2 million,
accusing Democrat Katie McGinty of enriching herself at the public's expense
and amplifying a key talking point from her Republican opponent, Sen. Pat
Toomey. The Democratic Senate Majority
PAC hit back Thursday, announcing $1 million worth of ads painting Toomey as a
friend of the National Rifle Association. And then the American Federation of
State, County and Municipal Employees, a major labor union, launched a costly
TV spot, assailing Toomey's ties to Wall Street - echoing McGinty's attacks. It will all add to the most expensive Senate
race in America. It's only August, but more than $52 million has already been
spent on the general and primary election, according to the nonpartisan Center
for Responsive Politics.
Watchdog targets McGinty’s tactics
Post Gazette By Tracie Mauriello / Post-Gazette Washington Bureau August 15, 2016 12:00 AM
WASHINGTON — As Senate candidate
Katie McGinty pulled ahead of Pennsylvania Republican incumbent Pat Toomey in
several recent polls, a right-leaning watchdog group filed a complaint alleging
she broke federal election law by using her campaign website to cue super-PACs
on what political messages to send. McGinty
aides shot back that Mr. Toomey’s campaign — which they claim is behind the
allegation — does the same thing. The
complaint from the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust alleges that
“through obscure postings on her website, McGinty is instructing organizations,
with which she is not permitted to coordinate, to run advertisements beneficial
to her campaign.” The complaint sheds
light on ambiguity created when the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United
decision opened the doors to unlimited spending by independent groups so long
as they don’t coordinate their messages with campaigns.
Education advocates call for investigation
of Philly charter schools
City and State PA By: RYAN BRIGGS AUG 12, 2016 AT 6:31 AM
The Alliance for Philadelphia
Public Schools, an educational advocacy group, has called for the city’s
Inspector General and Chief Integrity Officer, Board of Ethics and the Mayor’s
office to investigate the relationship between School Reform Commission members
and the troubled ASPIRA charter school organization. The charter operator has been flagged by the
School District of Philadelphia’s charter office for repeated academic and
financial failings, but has remained in operation for more than a year due to
the repeated postponement of a charter renewal vote. The letter accuses School Reform Commission
members of engaging in a “private appeals process” to benefit the charter at
the public’s expense. APPS
President Lisa Haver accused SRC members Bill Green and Sylvia Simms in
particular of colluding with school operators to keep the school in
operation through “ex parte” negotiations held outside of SRC meetings
“Cyber schools have been under increased
scrutiny following a national study published last year that found students
taking classes online through cyber charter schools do not perform as well as
students in traditional bricks-and-mortar schools. The study was released jointly by the
National Study of Online Charter Schools, the Center for Research on Education
Outcomes at Stanford
University, the Center on Reinventing Public Education and
Mathematica Policy Research. It used
data from online students in 17 states, including Pennsylvania, plus
Washington, D.C. The report found 88 percent of cyber charter schools had
weaker academic growth than similar traditional schools.”
East
Penn seeks to improve performance of cyber students with new vendor
Margie
Peterson Special to
The Morning Call August 14, 2016
Hoping to improve the performance
of its cyber school students, East Penn School District is planning to change
vendors and offer in-school tutoring to those who are struggling. Since 2010, the district has been part of the
Lehigh Valley Cyber Consortium with other local school districts, including
Parkland and Whitehall-Coplay, that use VLN Partners of Pittsburgh. VLN
Partners helps school districts transform their own curriculum into online
classes for cyber school students. East Penn administrators last
week told the school board they think their cyber students could be more
successful through a program called eLearn21 that uses three vendors,
EdisonLearning, Accelerate Education and Apex Learning. The new program was
created through the Carbon Lehigh Intermediate Unit 21 for use by the member
districts.
Trib Live BY ELIZABETH
BEHRMAN | Sunday, Aug. 14, 2016, 10:20 p.m.
A consultant conducting his first
search for a school district superintendent billed Pittsburgh Public Schools
for more than $91,000 but did not provide the district with details about how
the money was spent, records obtained by the Tribune-Review show. Five invoices dating from Dec. 31 to April 30
list 18 charges totaling $91,690, below the $100,000 maximum the board set in
his contract. Brian Perkins, the New
Haven, Conn.-based principal of Perkins Consulting Group, charged either $1,990
or exactly twice that amount — $3,980 — for every task he performed except two.
He charged exactly $15,000 for both of those, according to the documents,
obtained with a Right To Know request. No
receipts or descriptions of the charges accompanied the invoices; the district
has no information about how much of the money was for search-related expenses
or how much of it paid for Perkins' consulting services.
“Better known as YEA! Philadelphia, it
is one of more than 100 chapters nationwide, but Pennsylvania's first. It is
the only one serving the Greater Philadelphia market, including South Jersey
and Delaware. Its mission is to teach entrepreneurial skills to students in
grades six through 12 with an after-school program rare in its scope and
structure. The new economy demands it, Fisher says.”
At YEA! Philadelphia, kids are on a
mission to be entrepreneurs
by Diane Mastrull, Staff Writer @dmastrull Updated: AUGUST 14, 2016 — 3:01
AM EDT
Just two years ago, Shreyas Parab
was such a shy, unassuming teenager that it pained him to make eye contact. Now
the 15-year-old from Aston, Delaware County, wears ties declaring himself a
chick magnet and a stud muffin. And he's
running a company that has sold nearly 600 of those novelty ties for close to
$17,000 in its first 14 months of business, tapping into a market where whimsy
is popular. Parab also makes pitches to
investor panels, and has met with Sam's Club executives in Bentonville, Ark.,
hoping to get his Novel Tie line in their stores. A decision is pending.
In Philadelphia, teaching entrepreneurship
through hip-hop
WHYY Newsworks BY MARIELLE SEGARRA, WHYY AUGUST 15,
2016The program, called the Institute of Hip-Hop Entrepreneurship, won nearly $309,000in the 2016 Knight Cities Challenge. The man behind the project is Tayyib Smith, founder of the creative agency Little Giant Creative. Smith, 45, is a third-generation Philadelphian and serial entrepreneur who used to manage artists for Axis Music Group. "I feel really fortunate that I escaped poverty and I've been able to be a serial entrepreneur," Smith said. "I want to offer people an opportunity to gain fiscal literacy or financial independence." He's using hip-hop as a means to that end. He says he knows many successful entrepreneurs who used hip-hop as a gateway to opportunity. "If you look at the ethos of hip-hop, it's usually someone trying to take what they have, take their own narrative, their own life experience, and make it into something larger," Smith said.
Ohio
Auditor Dave Yost wants Ohio to reform how online charter schools are paid
By Catherine
CandiskyThe Columbus
Dispatch • Friday August 12, 2016 12:14 AM
Ohio’s e-schools should be funded
based on what their students learn rather than attendance or time spent online,
Auditor Dave Yost proposed Thursday. Opening
the state’s first statewide charter-school summit, the Republican contended
that there is too much ambiguity in current law. “Learning-based funding — course
completion — would mean schools get paid when they deliver a piece of
education,” Yost said at the event hosted by his office. “The unit could be as large as a year’s work
or as little as an approved unit — believe me, I understand the pressures of
cash flow, and smaller goals may well be better.”
National Alliance Commends Ohio State
Auditor David Yost’s Full-Time Virtual Charter School “Learning Based” Funding
Proposal
National Alliance for Public Charter Schools 8/11/2016Washington, D.C. – The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools president and CEO Nina Rees released the following statement today in response to Ohio State Auditor David Yost’s proposal to fund the state’s full-time virtual charter schools based upon performance:
“We commend Ohio State Auditor
David Yost for recommending that Ohio change how it funds full-time virtual
charter schools. His proposed move to a ‘learning-based’ funding model, aligned
to the unique environments represented by the full-time virtual model, would
help promote quality and accountability, and ensure the students of such
schools are receiving the high-quality education they deserve. “While recognizing that some full-time
virtual charter schools are providing an effective and innovative education to
students with specialized needs, the National Alliance believes that changing
to a learning-based funding model is appropriate given the unique problems that
have emerged among too many full-time virtual charter schools. We urge Ohio
lawmakers to work with Auditor Yost and the state’s charter school community to
design and implement learning-based funding for full-time virtual charter
schools in a way that leads to improved results in these schools
“The paper is the latest in a series of
reports over years that have urged caution in the use of standardized test
scores to make high-stakes decisions about students, teachers, principals and
schools — but policymakers at the federal and state levels have for years
ignored the warnings.”
Student test scores: How they are actually
calculated and why you should care
Washington Post Answer Sheet
Blog By Valerie
Strauss August 12
If you think
that determining scores on standardized tests is a simple matter of figuring
out how many answers each student got right, you are wrong. In fact, scores are
derived through statistical models and scaling practices that can be misleading
about student achievement — and this can have an effect on education policy,
according to a newly released paper. The study,
titled “Student Test Scores: How the Sausage Is Made and Why You Should Care,” was
written by Brian A. Jacob, a professor at the University of Michigan and a
nonresident senior fellow at the nonprofit Brookings Institution in D.C. Jacob
explains the sophisticated and complex way test scores are determined and then
details why they are misleading to people — which includes pretty much
everybody except psychometricians. This
includes those federal and state policymakers who don’t understand how the
scores are achieved and/or their limitations but still have elevated
standardized tests to an all-important measure of how much students have
learned in school and how well their teachers are doing their jobs.
Blogger note: Jamie Casap is the
PSBA/PASA School Leadership Conference Keynote Speaker · Sat., Oct. 15, 9:30
a.m.
Jaime
Casap: From Tough Childhood to Google's Global Education Evangelist
NBC News by ESTHER
J. CEPEDA August 11, 2016
NAME: Jaime Casap; AGE: 48
HERITAGE: My mother is from
Argentina and my father is from Syria
HOMETOWN: Hell's Kitchen, NY now
living in Phoenix, AZ
OCCUPATION/TITLE: Global
Education Evangelist at Google, Inc.
At Google, Casap evangelizes the
power and potential of the web, technology, and Google tools. During his eight
years at Google, Casap has been part of the original team that launched Google
Apps for universities, launched Google Apps into K through 12 schools, and
helped get Chromebooks off the ground and into schools. Today Casap is
responsible for working across all internal teams that impact education, and he
works with educational organizations around the world, helping them find ways
to improve the quality of education through the use of technology.
American Public Education Foundation Website
The Star-Spangled Banner will be sung by school children nationwide on Friday, September 9, 2016 at 10:00am PST and 1:00pm EST. Students will learn about the words and meaning of the flag and sing the first stanza. This will be the third annual simultaneous sing-a-long event created by the APEF-9/12 Generation Project. The project aims to bring students together – as the world came together – on September 12, 2001.
Registration
for the PASA-PSBA School Leadership Conference Oct. 13-15 is now open
The conference
is your opportunity to learn, network and be inspired by peers and
experts.
TO REGISTER: See https://www.psba.org/members-area/store-registration/
(you must be logged in to the Members Area to register). You can read more
on How
to Register for a PSBA Event here. CONFERENCE WEBSITE: For all other program
details, schedules, exhibits, etc., see the conference website:www.paschoolleaders.org.
PSBA
Officer Elections Aug. 15-Oct. 3, 2016: Slate of Candidates
PSBA members seeking election to
office for the association were required to submit a nomination form no later
than April 30, 2016, to be considered. All candidates who properly completed
applications by the deadline are included on the slate of candidates below. In
addition, the Leadership Development Committee met on June 24 at PSBA
headquarters in Mechanicsburg to interview candidates. According to bylaws, the
Leadership Development Committee may determine candidates highly qualified for
the office they seek. This is noted next to each person’s name with an asterisk
(*). Each school entity will have one
vote for each officer. This will require boards of the various school entities
to come to a consensus on each candidate and cast their vote electronically
during the open voting period (Aug. 15-Oct. 3, 2016). Voting will be
accomplished through a secure third-party, web-based voting site that will
require a password login. One person from each member school entity will be
authorized as the official person to cast the vote on behalf of his or her
school entity. In the case of school districts, it will be the board secretary
who will cast votes on behalf of the school board.
Special note: Boards should be
sure to include discussion and voting on candidates to its agenda during one of
its meetings in September.
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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