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Keystone
State Education Coalition
PA
Ed Policy Roundup August 2, 2016:
Cyber
Schools Slammed by Charters (Again)
Commentary: Let's get serious about paying
for quality pre-K
Inquirer Opinion by Della Jenkins and Kate Shaw Updated: AUGUST
1, 2016 — 8:20 PM EDT
Della Jenkins is a policy analyst
and Kate Shaw is executive director of Research for Action, a
Philadelphia-based nonprofit education research organization. Read RFA's latest
policy brief on early-childhood education, and learn more about the
organization at www.researchforaction.org.
IF YOU LIVE in Philadelphia and
watch the news, you've probably heard about the newly approved sugary-drink
tax, and you likely heard that most of this new revenue will go to fund more
slots for children to attend public prekindergarten programs. While there was much debate in Council and
the press about the benefits and costs of the tax for consumers and the
economy, there was little, if any, debate over the worthiness of this cause.
Even at the national level, political figures ranging from Ivanka Trump to Hillary
Clinton espouse the value of pre-K. In part, that's because no other
topic in education has been studied as extensively, or as rigorously, as pre-K.
Beginning with the Perry Preschool project in the 1970s, we have amassed
decades of evidence that unequivocally points to the importance of access to
early childhood education. Studies have shown that high-quality pre-K closes
nearly half the achievement gap that exists in children up to age 5.
Long-lasting effects on social skills, health outcomes and later school success
also have been documented. Research is
equally clear that not all early-education programs are created equal. So, as
the city embarks on this effort to expand access to pre-K, it is essential that
policymakers focus on supporting strong implementation and quality improvement.
Curmuducation Blog by Peter
Greene Tuesday, August 2, 2016
The Thomas Fordham Foundation
releases a report today looking
at cyber charters in Ohio, and the cover of the report signals pretty
clearly where we're headed. Ouchies!
Stock Photo Lad is clearly not prepared to sing the joyous praises of his
virtual school, and that bored and contemptuous face pretty much sets the tone
for the report (presumably he is a cyber charter student, and not someone who
has just tried to read the report).
We should note right up front that Fordham has skin in this game; they have several
bricks-and-mortar charters of their own in Ohio. And the
bricks-and-mortar wing of the charter school industryhas
been getting pretty rough with their cyber-siblings lately. So, let's
see how they made out this time. The report strikes a pair of notes over and over again-- e-learning can be
awesome, but cyber schools, not so much. Right off the bat, in the foreword, we
get this: To be certain, the Internet has opened a new frontier of
possibilities for America’s K–12 students. Much less sure, however, is whether
these new opportunities are actually improving achievement, especially for the
types of students who enroll in virtual schools.
Pottstown School Board calls for less
standardized testing
By Evan Brandt,
The Mercury POSTED: 08/01/16,
2:00 AM EDT | UPDATED: 10 HRS AGO
POTTSTOWN >> Weary of the
time, expense and energy consumed by high-stakes standardized testing in public
education, the Pottstown School Board Thursday voted unanimously in support of
measures which would reduce it. Signed
into law in December by President Obama, and replacing the No Child Left Behind
law, the bipartisan Every Student
Succeeds Act gives states the right “to diminish the overuse of
high-stakes standardized resting to evaluate students, educators and schools,”
according to the resolution the school board adopted. Recognizing that “standardized testing is
only one measure of student learning” and that such testing “may have the
greatest negative impact on students with special needs who often demonstrate
proficiency through alternative forms of assessment,” the resolution calls on
the state legislature minimize standardized testing and “develop an
accountability system that is not ‘one size fits all.’” More specifically, the board
resolution also calls on Harrisburg to “permanently separate Keystone exams
from high school graduation requirements.”
Currently, Keystones are set to become graduation requirements in the
2018-19 school year.
In Erie, the school integration plan that
could fast-track equity
Keystone Crossroads/WHYY
Newsworks BY KEVIN MCCORRY
JULY 22, 2016
In the waning days of the school
year, a group of students at Strong Vincent High School in the city of Erie sat
around a large wooden table in the library, discussing how they feel their
school is perceived out in the suburbs. Nathan
Stevens, a white junior, was one of the first to chime in. "We're a city school and the
surrounding districts are higher income and they always think that they're
better than us," he said. "That's just how it works around
here." Whitney Henderson, an
African-American sophomore, spoke next. "Everybody
thinks it's a ghetto school, or that the people that go here are dumb, or
bad," she said. Based on what? "Stereotypes," said Henderson. This conversation has become especially
pertinent. In the face of systemically
inequitable state funding, the superintendent of Erie Public Schools has
proposed the possibility of shutting down all city high schools and busing
students to the better-resourced suburban districts. Superintendent Jay Badams has floated this
idea as a way to ensure that the kids get a fair education in the midst of
chronic budget shortfalls.
As grading system changes, an A is less of
a stretch
Inquirer by Kathy Boccella, Staff Writer Updated: AUGUST 1, 2016 — 8:11
AM EDT
High school students in the Lower
Merion School District will be catching a bit of a break this coming year: It
will be easier to ace tests, and not as easy to flunk them. Under a new grading policy, a score of 90 will
be enough for an A, down from the traditional cutoff of 92. At the other end of
the measuring stick, a failing grade now will be 59 and under, instead of 64. What's behind the grade-point pick-me-up? Some Lower Merion parents complained that the
decades-old system of eight points per letter grade - falling out of favor
nationwide as districts adopt the more forgiving 10-point scale - could cast
their children in an unfair comparative light when they apply for colleges and
merit scholarships. Despite little solid
evidence that it made a difference, and the assurance of college officials that
it didn't, the change was approved in June for the district's two high schools,
Harriton and Lower Merion.
In dueling campaign swings, Clinton, Trump
make very different plays for Pa. voters:
Penn Live By John L. Micek |
jmicek@pennlive.com Email the author | Follow on Twitter on
August 01, 2016 at 9:41 PM, updated August 01, 2016 at 11:21 PM
(*This post has been updated to
clarify crowd estimates and the source of the data.)
MECHANCISBURG -- What plays better in the Rust
Belt - hope or despair? Republican
presidential nominee Donald J. Trump bet on the latter during a stop
at a suburban high school here Monday, painting a picture of a Pennsylvania
economy decimated by the collapse of its manufacturing sector and the death of
coal mining. In a fiery, hour-long
speech that conjured up the Pennsylvania of years past, the Manhattan real
estate mogul told a capacity crowd at Cumberland Valley High School that
"the Harrisburg area is not doing too good." "We're going to get it back. The
destruction of manufacturing in Pennsylvania was caused by Hillary Clinton's
policies," he said, pointing to President Bill Clinton's support for the
North American Free Trade Agreement in the 1990s. Over the last 20 years, manufacturing jobs in
Pennsylvania dropped from about 950,000 to about 565,000 statewide, David Taylor,
the president of the Pennsylvania Manufacturers Association, said. "Of course, job losses were/are due to
gains in productivity, new technology, jobs moving to other states and
international competition," Taylor said Monday. "Not just a single
factor." But whatever the reason,
the Manhattan real estate mogul kept up his drumbeat, highlighting the potency
of the issue in a state proud of its lunchpail past. Trump's campaign swing through one central
Pennsylvania's richest and fastest-growing counties was also intended to
counter one by Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, who barnstormed the state
over the weekend.
PA Charter Schools: $4 billion taxpayer
dollars with no real oversight
Not much has changed since we published
this post in May of 2012
A Fifth of New York Students Opted Out of
This Year's Common Core State Exams
Education Week State Ed Watch By Daarel
Burnette II on August 1, 2016 3:36 PM
Earlier this year, weeks before
students were to take the state's standardized test, New York Commissioner of
Education MaryEllen Elia traveled around touting the state's exams as a
reliable way to measure students' progress on New York's learning standards,
gave teachers a chance to vet the questions, and then tossed out time limits on
the test. It was all an effort to tamper down on the number of students who
opted out of the state's exams. In the end, more students—
21 percent— in grades 3-8 ended up opting out of the Empire State's common
core-aligned standardized test in the spring, according to the department and local media, up from the 20
percent, or 900,000 students who opted out last year. The state's rowdy
opt-out movement has caused several problems for the department which has
wrapped the exam's results up with its teacher evaluations and school
accountability system. So many
students not taking the exam has the potential to delegitimize to many parents
the state's accountability system, which punishes schools with test scores that
languish at or near the bottom.
Why some billionaires are trying to defeat
a state Supreme Court chief justice
Washington Post Answer Sheet Blog
By Valerie
Strauss August 1 at 2:30 PM
Why
would wealthy charter school supporters be spending big bucks to defeat the
chief justice of the Washington state Supreme Court? In September, the court ruled that charter
schools are unconstitutional because they are governed by appointed — rather
than elected — boards and therefore are not “common schools” eligible for state
education funds. The chief justice, Barbara Madsen, wrote that “money that is
dedicated to common schools is unconstitutionally diverted to charter schools.” Now, charter supporters, including some who
don’t even live in Washington, are backing a candidate who is trying to oust
her.
Sen. Patty Murray, ESSA Architect, on
Clinton, Trump, and Sanders
Education Week Politics K12 Blog By Alyson Klein on August
1, 2016 9:37 AM
Philadelphia Sen. Patty Murray D-Wash, is "just
ecstatic" about the prospect of working with a possible President Hillary
Clinton on expanding access to early-childhood education, she said in an
interview here during the Democratic National Convention. The two share a passion for the policy.
Murray, a former preschool teacher and the top Democrat on the Senate education
committee, pushed hard for the inclusion of the Preschool Development Grant program in
the Every Student Succeeds Act. But it sounds like she's optimistic that she
might be able to go even further, or get more money for the program, in a
potential Clinton administration. "I
just say the words to her, 'early childhood education.' And she says,
'What do we need to do?' This is a passion for her." Murray said the differences between
Republican nominee Donald Trump and Clinton on education policy
couldn't be more stark. "They're night and day," she said.
"Throughout her career Secretary Clinton has made this a top priority. She
knows the policies inside and out. ... Donald Trump would roll back
all the progress we've made." Murray
served on the Senate education committee with Clinton, and from the sounds of
it, Clinton's reputation as a policy wonk is earned. "She showed up
for work every day," Murray said. "She did the back work to
understand the policies."
Where Clinton and Trump Stand on Education
The convention dust has settled,
and it’s back to the chalkboard.
The Atlantic by EMILY
RICHMOND JUL 30, 2016
When compared to Donald
Trump’s single education policy-related sentence in his acceptance speech at
the Republican convention, Hillary Clinton’s remarks on the subject
Thursday night were certainly more extensive, as she sought to emphasize a
track record of making schools, teachers, families, and students her
political—and personal—priorities. In
accepting the Democratic Party’s nomination for president, Clinton touched
repeatedly on education, from her work years ago supporting legislation on
educating students with disabilities to her recently announced plans to make
college “tuition-free” for low- and middle-income families at public
universities. She also vowed to work toward a future where “you can get a good
job and send your kids to a good school no matter what zip code you live in.” Trump said much less much about education in
his Cleveland address, although he did manage to fit a handful of buzzwords into one sentence: “We will rescue kids from failing
schools by helping their parents send them to a safe school of their choice,”
he said. How the Republican presidential
nominee will accomplish this, or what he would use as the barometer for a
failing school, isn’t clear. His campaign, so far, has been very short on
policy details. (In the meantime, the Obama administration continues to work on
regulations and guidance to flesh out the Every Student Succeeds Act, the
legislative successor to No Child Left Behind.)
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.
“EdPAC empowers education advocates
to strengthen public education in the commonwealth through its dedication to
supporting the election of pro-public education leaders to the Pennsylvania
General Assembly.”
EdPAC: Imagine the impact of a pro-public
education legislature!
EdPAC is a newly formed
political action committee whose membership is comprised of school directors,
school administrators, parents and public education advocates who want to
support state- level candidates that do what’s right for our students and
schools. Pennsylvania school districts
are directly impacted by the actions of our elected officials. Every year, the
state legislature spends months considering proposed legislation that affects
how public schools in the commonwealth are funded and the rules by which they
must operate. EdPAC supports those elected officials who promote local control
in education, oppose mandates, and support the work of our school
districts. EdPAC is organizing the efforts of individual and school
district advocates across Pennsylvania, to raise funds for more effective
political action, and to make contributions from those funds for the benefit of
the candidates that help our students the most.
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.
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.
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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