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Keystone
State Education Coalition
PA
Ed Policy Roundup August 22, 2016:
Charter Report: Big money,
little oversight
The Fair Funding Lawsuit is moving forward! Join us Sep. 13th at Philly City Hall. Info & RSVP: http://ow.ly/s6sg303hLDm
Tweet from Education Law Center @edlawcenterpa August 17, 2016
Wolf administration seeks to move Pa.
graduation requirements away from standardized tests
WHYY Newsworks BY KEVIN MCCORRY AUGUST 19, 2016
Pennsylvania continues to wrestle
with an essential question for the future of its people and its economy: What
should a high school diploma mean, and what should it take to earn one?
In the past decade, the state has
moved towards prioritizing standardized testing as a graduation requirement. But the pendulum now seems to be swinging in
the opposite direction. A quick history lesson - In the mid 2000s, Democratic
Governor Ed Rendell's administration pushed to create new standardized tests
that students would need to pass in order to graduate high school. By 2010, the measure became law, and it was
decided that there would be 10 end-of-subject "Keystone" exams. Only three of these were developed — algebra,
literature and biology. Students began
taking the tests in 2012, and performance was supposed to affect graduation for
the class of 2017. But then, many
more students than expected weren't passing the exams. Annual pass rates have been below 60 percent
for more than half of all district and charter schools, with lower pass rates
for low-income students and students of color. The state offered no
additional resources to help students remediate or complete alternate
project-based assessments — a nightmare for districts and parents.
“Pennsylvania had planned to use the
end-of-course Keystone exams as a graduation requirement beginning with the
class of 2017, but legislators and the governor postponed that until 2019. The
same legislation instructed the department to develop alternative ways to
ensure students are ready to graduate.”
Keystone test no longer an exit exam
Inquirer by Karen Langley, HARRISBURG BUREAU Updated: AUGUST 22, 2016 1:08 AM
EDT
HARRISBURG - With use of Keystone
exams as a high school graduation requirement on hold, the state Department of
Education is recommending that Pennsylvania allow students several ways to
demonstrate they merit a diploma. In a
report published this month, the department says that barely half of 2015
graduates achieved a score of proficient on the three required Keystone exams,
in algebra 1, biology and literature. The department concluded that exit exams
are not the only valid way to measure a student's mastery of a subject or
readiness for success after high school.
New Jersey and 14 other states are requiring students in the class of
2017 to pass exit exams to graduate from high school, according to the
Education Commission of the States, but it also noted that since 2011 a number
of states have dropped exit exam requirements.
Report: Charter administration costs
double those of other public schools
Inquirer by Caitlin McCabe, Staff Writer Updated: AUGUST 19, 2016 — 1:08
AM EDT
Charter-school administrative
expenditures are nearly double those of conventional public schools, and their
highest-ranking officials are paid far more.
They spend less on instruction than school districts, but more on
support services and facilities. And
while charter-school enrollment has jumped significantly over time, payments to
the schools are far outpacing their actual rates of growth in admission. All that is according to a report on
Pennsylvania's charter schools issued Thursday by the Pennsylvania School
Boards Association, made up of nearly 4,500 school board members. In a 35-page study that came after rounds of
records requests during the last 15 months, the conclusions present a broad
picture of Pennsylvania's 173 charter schools, which have become part of an
ongoing national debate about what effect the charter-school movement is having
on traditional public schools.
Bucks County Courier Times August
20, 2016
It's not an exaggeration to say
that public school administrators are paid rather handsomely these days, what
with at least a few superintendents here in Bucks County having surpassed the
$200,000-a-year mark and some school building principals not far behind. So a recent report noting that charter school
administrators are paid even more than their school district counterparts was a
bit of a shock. Of course, that was the
intention of the report, which was compiled by the Pennsylvania School Boards
Association. Among school boards' pet peeves statewide are the funds their
districts have to hand off to charter schools.
Public school officials have long argued that charters get too much
money and get away with too little accountability for how they spend that
money. Now, they have documentation to support their complaints. The 35-page study released
Thursday was compiled with records collected over the past 15 months —
though not without some difficulty. The school boards association had to file
records requests to obtain the data and said 15 percent of those requests were
not met.
“Of the 134 of 173 charter schools that
did respond, the report indicates they spent over $4.3 million on advertising
and promotional activities in 2014-15. Some $3.7 million of that was spent by
five cyber charter schools alone.”
Charter school spending practices come
under fire by school boards
Penn Live By Jan Murphy |
jmurphy@pennlive.com Email the author | Follow on Twitter on
August 18, 2016 at 4:40 PM
Charter schools received $100
million more in special education funding than they spent on providing those
services to students with special needs in 2014-15, and on average that year,
outspent school districts on chief administrator salaries by $87 on a
per-student basis, according to a report released on Thursday. Those were some of the findings highlighted
by Pennsylvania School Boards Association officials during a conference call
about the report it pulled together based on charter school responses received
to requests for information sought through the state's Right to Know Law and
federal tax forms. Andrew Christ,
education policy analyst for the organization, pointed out during the call that
not all charters responded to the Right to Know requests readily or at all and
not all of them completed the federal tax forms. That response prompted PSBA to
call for the same accountability and transparency rules that are applied to
school districts to apply to charters.
PSBA
report shows need for greater charter school transparency and accountability
PSBA Press Release August 18,
2016
The Pennsylvania School Boards
Association (PSBA) has released a report examining Pennsylvania charter school
revenues, expenditures and transparency. The findings highlight the need for
reform and suggest the need for further study into how charter schools are
operated. “Financial integrity and
operational transparency must be demanded of publicly funded charter schools,
just as it is of traditional schools,” said PSBA Executive Director Nathan
Mains. “Taxpayers have an expectation that public dollars are guarded the same
way no matter which schools they fund.” Data
for this report was obtained in three ways: a Right-to-Know (RtK) request sent
to each charter school; accessing publicly available data from the Pennsylvania
Department of Education (PDE); and analyzing organizational tax returns (IRS
990 form) for each charter school where a return could be found. In May 2015, PSBA
sent requests under the Pennsylvania Right-to-Know Law to all 173
charter schools then in existence. As local agencies under the law, charter
schools are required to allow access to public records in accordance with the
law. The requests sought information related to salaries of administrators
(including contractors), real estate transactions, and marketing/advertising
expenditures.
The compliance, or lack thereof,
tells a story itself outside of the data that was actually gathered.
Examining Pennsylvania charter school
revenues, expenditures and transparency
PSBA
website August 18, 2016
Charter schools were created with
the intent of allowing communities to establish public schools independent from
existing traditional public schools as a means to improve student performance,
increase learning opportunities, encourage innovation, create professional
development opportunities for teachers, and to provide expanded school choice,
particularly to provide opportunities for children that were being underserved. Under current Charter School Law, school
districts are responsible for authorizing the creation of, assessing the performance
of, and periodically reauthorizing brick-and-mortar charter schools located
within their boundaries. Charter schools receive the bulk of their funding via
payments from the school district where the charter school student resides.
Many of the laws, regulations and other mandates that dictate what school
districts are required to do, how they must do it and, ultimately, how much
will be spent to get it done do not apply to charter schools. PSBA’s report takes a closer look at how
charter schools and school districts are spending public funds and highlights
some of the issues encountered by PSBA in obtaining information from charter
schools under the Pennsylvania Right-to-Know Law. The
full report is available here.
The records submitted by
charter schools as part of the RTK request can be accessed
here: https://www.psba.org/charter-rtk-docs.
“In fact, not one of Pennsylvania’s
cyber charters has achieved a passing SPP score of 70 in any of the three years
that the SPP has been in effect.”
How can we improve the performance and
accountability of Pennsylvania cyber charters?
The notebook Commentary by
Lawrence A. Feinberg August 18, 2016 — 10:04am
If it sometimes seems as
if “tuition-free” cyber charter ads are running non-stop, consider that in
just one year, tax dollars paid for 19,298 local TV commercials for Agora Cyber
Charter, just one of Pennsylvania’s 13 cyber charters. And far from being
tuition-free, total cyber tuition paid by Pennsylvania taxpayers from 500
school districts for 2013, 2014 and 2015 was $393.5 million, $398.8 million and
$436.1 million respectively. Those
commercials were very effective, especially if you were an executive at
K12 Inc., a for-profit company contracted to manage the cyber
school. According to Agora’s 2013 IRS tax filing, it paid $69.5 million
that year to K12 Inc. According to Morningstar, total executive compensation at
K12 in 2013 was $21.37 million. What
the ads don’t tell you is, first, that they are paid for with your school
tax dollars instead of that money being spent in classrooms and,
second, that academic performance at every one of Pennsylvania’s cyber charters
has been consistently dismal. The Pennsylvania Department of
Education considers a score of 70 to be passing on its School Performance
Profile (SPP). Agora’s score for 2013 was 48.3, for 2014, it
was 42.4, and the 2015 score was 46.4.
LastWeekTonight Published on Aug 21, 2016 Video Runtime 18:12
Charter schools are privately run, publicly funded, and irregularly regulated. John Oliver explores why they aren’t at all like pizzerias.
The Legislature has put more money
toward education in recent years, however, a lot of that new money has paid for
pensions.
By
Eric Holmberg | PublicSource | Aug. 18, 2016
Pennsylvania legislators about a
decade ago passed a law to protect homeowners by limiting property tax hikes to
the rate of inflation. Has the law, known as Act 1, worked? Not for some homeowners. Exceptions were
built into the law so school districts could raise property taxes as much as
they needed only to cover certain rising costs, like pensions. As a result, school districts have increased
property taxes $465 million above the rate of inflation in the past decade and
requested raising property taxes much higher.
What has been driving tax increases? Pensions. A 2010 pension reform law
increased how much school districts and the state paid into the underfunded
school pension system. That helped the pension fund, but increased the burden
on schools. The result? The state’s
contribution to school pensions doubled from roughly $500 million to $1 billion
from 2010 to 2012. It doubled again to $2 billion by 2014. And doubled again to
$4 billion this year. Over the next two years, pension costs are expected to
slow and only increase about 15 percent.
Tweet from Sen. Pat Browne @SenatorBrowne August 21, 2016
Trib Live BY MICHAEL DIVITTORIO | Friday,
Aug. 19, 2016, 10:30 p.m.
From new transportation and the
addition of more online educational options to adjustments in the dress code
and programming cuts, Penn Hills School District parents and students can
expect to see a lot of changes this school year. “It's an exciting time in the district as we
continue to implement many positive changes,” Superintendent Nancy Hines said.
Aug. 24 was the first day of classes. Starting
this fall, C.H.I.E.F.S. Academy — Cyber High Quality Interactive Education
Fostering Student Success — will be open to kindergarten through 12th-grade
students with drop-in centers at all schools.
The district's cyber school program in its first year — 2015-16 —
enrolled 50 students starting in third grade. It is unclear how many will
participate this year. Academy students
will use district-issued equipment, which they will return at the end of the
year, including 60 Chromebooks and 25 other laptops. Penn Hills leaders are trying to keep
students in district schools rather than lose them to charter schools, which
are publicly funded but privately operated. When students leave their home
district to attend a charter school, the state subsidy goes with them in the
form of “tuition.” About 3,800 students
are enrolled in Penn Hills School District. Of the roughly 720 students living
in the district who attend charter schools, 117 attend cyber schools.
Trib Live BY NATASHA LINDSTROM
AND MIKE DIVITTORIO | Saturday, Aug. 20, 2016, 10:50 p.m.
Tension is high inside the
administrative offices of Penn Hills School District as investigators dig for
clues about how the three-school system fell into a self-inflicted financial
debacle rife with allegations of poor business decisions, missing internal
controls and possible criminal conduct. Two days or so a week, officials
with the Allegheny County District Attorney's Office have been arriving
unannounced and asked district staff to sift through boxes of files in storage
and scour former computer software systems to comply with demands they turn
over thousands of pages of documents. At
least once weekly, Superintendent Nancy Hines has been phoning newly installed
business manager Robert Geletko to ask, “How much money do we have?” “It's been daunting, and it continues, and we
have no idea when it's going to be over,” Hines said this week at a finance
committee meeting.
SRC curtails suspensions for
kindergartners and dress code violators
Inquirer by Mensah M. Dean, Staff Writer Updated: AUGUST 19, 2016 — 1:08
AM EDT
The Philadelphia School Reform
Commission drew praise Thursday from education advocates by banning most
suspensions for kindergartners and ending suspensions for students who violate
the dress code. "We can't educate
children who are not in school, and the fact that kindergartners are being
suspended for things that are not considered violent behavior, that's something
that we need to address," School Superintendent William R. Hite Jr. said
after the SRC meeting. "We have not
seen zero tolerance be very effective, particularly for younger students,"
said SRC Chair Marjorie Neff. The
changes are "not saying there can't be consequences for not wearing your
uniform," she added. "It's saying we're not excluding students from
school." The Student Code of
Conduct was amended to read, "Kindergartners shall not be suspended unless
their actions result in serious bodily injury, and those suspensions shall not
be more than three days without an assistant superintendent's approval."
“Perhaps most significantly, Read by 4th
took a big leap in reaching more of Philadelphia's students this summer. The
coalition expanded by partnering with more than 140 summer camps that are
infusing reading into daily activities or focused entirely on increasing
literacy skills. Students at camps of all kinds throughout the city took part
in read-alouds, literacy games, and a host of other programs. Through this
outreach, we brought summer literacy to more than 4,000 additional children.”
Commentary: New chapter for literacy in
Philly
Inquirer Commentary By
Siobhan A. Reardon and Jenny Bogoni Updated: AUGUST
18, 2016 — 3:01 AM EDT
With the Democratic National
Convention in Philadelphia last month and the presidential debates around the
corner, many of the country's most important issues are at the forefront of our
public consciousness. In Philadelphia,
where more than one in three children are living below the federal poverty
level, and more than half of third graders cannot read on grade level, the
issues surrounding childhood literacy and creating opportunities for our youth
have never been more important. This summer, our city has worked harder than
ever to keep our children academically engaged to prevent summer learning loss.
But with summer programming winding down in the gap before school starts, there
is still work to be done to prevent the summer slide. That's why we're calling on all
Philadelphians to maintain the reading momentum we've built this summer.
Op-ed: Rethinking school turnaround: A
familiar story takes a new turn
WHYY Newsworks COMMENTARY BY HELEN GYM AUGUST 19, 2016 SPEAK EASY
In May, Scholar Academies — a
charter management organization — suddenly announced it was abandoning its
contract to manage Kenderton Elementary, a struggling school in North
Philadelphia. The charter company was expanding in Memphis, Tennessee, and said
it could no longer afford its financial commitments here, such as legally
mandated special education services. “They
were full of excuses,” an
outraged Kenderton parent told WHYY/NewsWorks. “The children are going to
be devastated.” Earlier in the year, I
had called for a moratorium on the Renaissance schools program. In what had
become an all-too-familiar story, a charter company bailed on or failed a
public school under its control, leaving students, parents, and school
communities in the lurch. This
time, though, rather than expose Kenderton families to the mercy of the charter
market — where charters effectively pick and choose what schools they want to
manage — the Philadelphia School District took the unusual step of bringing the
school back under District control.
“Altogether, 10 of the 17 districts in
Lehigh and Northampton counties, includingBethlehem Area and
Nazareth Area, have abandoned the half-day approach to teaching their youngest
students. Five districts will be offering full-day or extended stay programs to
some but not all students, while two offer half-days only.”
More
Lehigh Valley districts adding full-day kindergarten
Michelle Merlin Contact Reporter
Of The Morning Call
SAUCON VALLEY — Thirteen years
ago, Saucon Valley asked teacher Jennifer Campbell to spend a year teaching a
full-day kindergarten class instead of her usual half-day classes.
Campbell was quickly sold on the
idea. "That year we were able to take more time, go more in-depth and make
sure every child could go at their own pace. Everybody had more time," she
said. But parents didn't like having
their kids in school all day, the pilot program ended with the district
offering an extended day for students who needed help. What a difference a decade makes. Later this
month, Saucon Valley will offer full-day kindergarten to all
students. It's not the only one making the switch. Allentown and Parkland also will be converting to universal full-day
kindergarten this school year.
Outrage over charter school ad that
portrays Liberty High kids as druggies
By Sara K.
Satullo | For lehighvalleylive.com Email the author | Follow on Twitter on
August 21, 2016 at 4:12 PM, updated August 21, 2016 at 4:35 PM
A promotional mailer claiming to
be from a new Catasauqua charter school paints Liberty
High School students as drug users, sparking outrage among manyBethlehem residents.
Innovative Arts Academy Charter
School denies it had anything to do with sending out the promotional mailer,
which lists the school's return address.
The postcard references the September
2015 drug arrest of a 17-year-old Liberty student and asks "Why
worry about this type of student at school? Come visit Arts Academy Charter
School. Now enrolling grades 6-12." It shows a stock image of a
teenager holding their head in their hands and reprints a Morning Call
headline: "Teen busted by Liberty HS officials with more than $3,000
of heroin, cocaine."
"The real issue is a failed
Pennsylvania charter school law that uses the mantra of 'school choice' to
undermine the integrity of public schools. The mission of public education is
corrupted when the profit motive replaces the public good as the primary driver
of our community's schools," Roy wrote on Sunday. "Hopefully,
this outrageous mailer incident will fuel a desire on the part of our state
legislators to lead the charge in Harrisburg for legislation that fixes the
state's failed charter policy."
Unauthorized
mailer claims Liberty High School has a drug problem, urges parents to enroll
in charter school
Christina Tatu and Jacqueline Palochko Contact Reporters
Of The Morning Call August 22, 2016
CATASAUQUA — A mailer claiming to
be from a new Catasauqua charter school and referencing the arrest of a Liberty
High School student for possession of heroin and cocaine hit the mailboxes of
Bethlehem area residents this weekend. Officials
from Innovative Arts Academy Charter School took to social media over the
weekend to speak out about the promotional mailer, which they said was never
authorized. The mailer is the second unauthorized
ad purporting to be from the charter school. A full-page, color advertisement
from an un-named individual appeared in The Morning Call earlier this month.
The latest ad stirred outrage on social media over the weekend.
Condemnation
of Charter Schools Exposes a Rift Over Black Students
New York Times By KATE ZERNIKE
AUGUST 20, 2016
With charter schools educating
as many as half the students in some American cities, they have been championed
as a lifeline for poor black children stuck in failing traditional public
schools. But now the nation’s oldest and
newest black civil rights organizations are calling for a moratorium on charter
schools. Their demands, and the outcry
that has ensued, expose a divide among blacks that goes well beyond the
now-familiar complaints about charters’ diverting money and attention from
traditional public schools. In separate
conventions over the past month, the N.A.A.C.P. and
the Movement
for Black Lives, a group of 50 organizations assembled by Black Lives
Matter, passed resolutions declaring that charter schools have exacerbated
segregation, especially in the way they select and discipline students. They portray charters as the pet project of
foundations financed by white billionaires, and argue that the closing of
traditional schools as students migrate to charters has disproportionately
disrupted black communities. Black
leaders of groups that support charter schools have denounced the resolutions,
saying they contradict both the N.A.A.C.P.’s mission of expanding opportunity
and polls showing support for charters among black parents. The desire for
integration, the charter school proponents say, cannot outweigh the urgent need
to give some of the country’s poorest students a way out of underperforming
schools.
By
Lily Altavena, Rose Velazquez and Natalie Griffin | News21. Published Aug. 20,
2016.
HIGHLAND PARK, Mich. — In at
least 20 states, lawmakers have stripped locally elected school board members
of their power in impoverished, mostly minority communities, leaving parents
without a voice — or a vote — in their children’s education, according to a
News21 state-by-state analysis of school takeovers. More than 5.6 million people live in places
where state officials took over entire districts or individual schools in the
past six years, according to News21 data collected from state government
agencies. About 43 percent are African-American and around 20 percent are
Hispanic. On average 29.2 percent of people in those areas are living below the
poverty level. The U.S. average is 15.5 percent. In Highland Park, Michigan, where grass grows
knee-high around decaying, long-abandoned schools, the state turned the
troubled suburban district over to a private company and shut down the city’s
only high school. “As a voter, what do
you do when they stole your vote?” said Danielle Floyd, a mother in Highland
Park. “I can’t say that we can go out and vote. Because we’ve done that. And it
didn’t work.” In the Delta town of Drew,
Mississippi, education advocates say there aren’t enough books to go around
four years after state legislators consolidated the small school system into a
countywide district. In Little Rock,
Arkansas — a historic symbol of school desegregation — black parents worry that
the city’s schools once again are becoming segregated. They say their concerns
have fallen on the deaf ears of the state, which removed the city’s school
board more than a year ago. And in New
Orleans, the majority of the public schools are under the jurisdiction of the
state, but charter companies make most of the educational decisions, a trend
that was further accelerated after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Charter schools
are tuition-free, independently operated public schools.
Donors
behind Massachusetts charter push keep to the shadows
Boston
Globe By Michael Levenson GLOBE STAFF AUGUST
20, 2016
A new $2.3 million ad boosting the expansion of charter
schools in Massachusetts lists the campaign’s top five donors on screen, in
accordance with state law. But the singularly bland names, including Strong
Economy for Growth and Education Reform Now Advocacy, give no hint of who is
writing the checks. Four of the five
donors to the procharter committee are nonprofit groups that do not, under
state law, have to disclose their funders, allowing the individuals backing the
effort to remain anonymous. The cloak of
secrecy surrounding the financing of what could be the most expensive ballot
campaign in state history has frustrated election officials and underscored the
proliferation of untraceable money in political races across the country. “Would we like to see every donor disclosed?
Absolutely,” said Michael J. Sullivan, the director of the state Office of
Campaign and Political Finance. “But the statute does not provide for it at
this point. This dark money issue is a puzzle that every state is facing right
now.” The ballot campaign known as
Question 2 — which would allow for the creation or expansion of up to 12 charter
schools per year in low-performing districts — is expected to smash the $15.5
million that was spent, mostly by gambling interests, to defeat a 2014
ballot question that would have repealed the state’s casino law.EWA Radio: Episode 85
Education Writers Association AUGUST 16, 2016
For more than two decades, “Savage Inequalities” — a close look at school funding disparities nationwide — has been required reading at many colleges and universities. And with a growing number of states facing legal challenges to how they fund their local schools, author Jonathan Kozol’s work has fresh relevance. Education journalists Lauren Camera (US News & World Report) and Christine Sampson (East Hampton Star) talk with EWA public editor Emily Richmond about how Kozol’s book has influenced their own reporting.
http://www.ewa.org/ewa-radio/revisiting-savage-inequalities-school-funding
The U.S. Olympians Who Won Gold—But Not in Rio
An American team triumphed at the International Math Olympiad for the second-straight year, despite concerns of student diversity in STEM.
The Atlantic by EMILY RICHMOND AUG 19, 2016
After learning of their gold-medal victory in the world’s most prestigious high-school mathematics competition—held recently in Hong Kong—six American teenagers engaged in a celebratory ritual familiar to many of their peers back home: They went to McDonald’s. But the victors weren’t quite ready to leave the math behind. They ordered 99 Chicken McNuggets, a tribute to a popular brain teaser based on the fast-food chain selling boxes of six, 12, or 20 pieces. This is the second consecutive year that U.S. students have finished on top in the International Mathematics Olympiad, although there have been impressively strong showings by American teams for much longer than that. While these wins obviously don’t negate the very real problems facing the nation’s public schools when it comes to teaching and learning of math fundamentals, the Olympiad victories are certainly worth celebrating.
http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/08/the-us-olympians-who-won-goldbut-not-in-rio/496529/
Donald Trump and School Choice: An Increasing Focus?
Education Week Politics K12 Blog By Andrew Ujifusa on August 18, 2016 7:59 AM
In a Tuesday speech in West Bend, Wisc. tailored for the African-American community, GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump expanded on his brief mention of K-12 at the Republican National Convention by mentioning a few teacher-related policies and his thoughts on charter schools. In fact, since the convention, he seems to be putting a little more emphasis on school choice policy in particular. Trump first criticized the performance of schools in Milwaukee, which is about 40 miles from West Bend, saying the city has only a 60 percent graduation rate and that 55 city schools are rated as failing. Despite Trump's record of stretching facts, these two particular claims are based on data. Politifact Wisconsin reported in May that 61 percent of Milwaukee students graduated after four years in 2014. And the state did rate 55 Milwaukee schools as "fails to meet expectations"on the state report card, based on data from the 2013-14 school year. He then pivoted to K-12 policy questions, which he has largely neglected during the 2016 race. "On education, it is time to have school choice, merit pay for teachers, and to end the tenure policies that hurt good teachers and reward bad teachers. We are going to put students and parents first," Trump told the audience.
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2016/08/donald_trump_and_school_choice_focus.html
Editorial: States have power to curtail ‘dark money’ in politics
Chicago Sun-Times Editorial Board EDITORIALS 08/17/2016, 06:54pm
If your congressman has been bought, at the very least you have a right to know who bought him. Wouldn’t you agree? With that in mind, we’re cheering for an effort in South Dakota — conservative, sparsely populated South Dakota — to put a measure on the November ballot there that would require people and groups who throw big money into elections to put their names on their donations for all to see — no more secret or “dark” money. If South Dakota can pull this off, despite an enormously expensive campaign against the measure by the very same people who should be pulled out of the shadows, we figure Illinois could be next. Which would be great. Nobody has ever called Illinois a model of open and transparent democracy.
http://chicago.suntimes.com/opinion/editorial-states-have-power-to-curtail-dark-money-in-politics/
REGISTER NOW for the 2016 PA Principals Association State Conference, October 30 - November 1, at The Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel in State College.
The Early Bird Discount Deadline has been Extended to Wednesday, August 31, 2016!
PA Principals Association website Tuesday, August 2, 2016 10:43 AM
To receive the Early Bird Discount, you must be registered by August 31, 2016:
Members: $300 Non-Members: $400
Featuring Three National Keynote Speakers: Eric Sheninger, Jill Jackson & Salome Thomas-EL
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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