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Keystone
State Education Coalition
PA
Ed Policy Roundup September 20, 2016
Over
$1.2 billion in cyber charter tuition 2013 thru 2015; not one school had a
passing SPP score of 70 in any year
Southeastern
PA Regional 2016 Legislative Roundtable: William Tennent High School (Bucks
Co.) SEP 22, 2016 • 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Auditor
General DePasquale slated to be Keynote Speaker
School Leaders from Northampton,
Lehigh, Bucks, Montco, Chesco, Delco and Philadelphia Counties encouraged to
attend.
More info & Registration: https://www.psba.org/event/2016-legislative-roundtable/
Total cyber charter tuition paid by PA taxpayers from 500 school districts for 2013, 2014 and 2015 was over $1.2 billion; $393.5 million, $398.8 million and $436.1 million respectively.
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.
“Trombetta pleaded guilty Aug. 24 to
diverting about $8 million in public money from the Pennsylvania Cyber Charter
School in Midland, Beaver County, to several other businesses he created or
controlled. He faces up to five years in prison at his scheduled sentencing
Dec. 20.”
Accountant postpones expected guilty plea in cyber school funds
diversion
Trib Live BY BRIAN
BOWLING | Monday, Sept. 19, 2016, 12:24 p.m.
The accountant for former
Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School CEO Nick Trombetta apparently decided not to
plead guilty Monday as expected to helping Trombetta divert $8 million in
public money. Neal Prence of Koppel and
his attorney showed up for the hearing before U.S. District Judge Joy Flowers
Conti but, following a private conference between Prence and his lawyer,
Stanton Levenson, the hearing was canceled.
“We need additional time to consider,” Levenson said afterward. He
declined further comment. Conti rescheduled the hearing for Sept. 28.
Prence is charged with aiding
Trombetta in a tax conspiracy.
Philadelphia Education Fund receives $3
million grant to support college readiness
The notebook by Darryl Murphy September
16, 2016 — 12:19pm
The Philadelphia Education Fund
announced this week that it received a $3 million grant from the U.S.
Department of Education to support the fund’s College Access Program in five
District high schools. PEF is one of 459 nonprofit
organizations across the nation sharing a $144 million pot committed to
improving college readiness for disadvantaged youth. The TRIO Talent Search
grant, as it is called, will help create a college-going culture at the
schools and provide resources to prepare students for post-secondary
education. "This funding will open
new doors for our high school students, as they dream big,” said Farah Jimenez,
PEF's president and CEO. Jimenez is also a member of the School Reform
Commission. “And now [they] have
the opportunity to realize those dreams. The College Access
Program is a strong supplement to the good work of our teachers and
administrators in this city.” The
College Access Program will continue to help more than 1,200
students at Kensington Creative & Performing Arts (Kensington CAPA),
John Bartram, ASPIRA Olney Charter, Roxborough, and Strawberry Mansion High
Schools. The program has been funded by the U.S. Department of Education since
1990, helping more than 75,000 students graduate from high school and
enroll in college.
“Since the formula as enacted applies
only to funding increases, leaders of some of the lowest-income communities in
the state have estimated it will take several decades before their districts
reach the levels of funding deemed equitable by the BEFC.”
Pennsylvania
School Tax Burden
Policy Brief September 2016 by Gregory
J. Collins, Penn Graduate School of Education Consortium for Policy Research in
Education
After operating without a
systematic school district funding mechanism for most of the past twenty-five
years, Pennsylvania recently enacted a state funding formula. Act 35 of 2016
codified the formula recommended by the state’s bipartisan Basic Education
Funding Commission (BEFC), directing future state spending increases to be
allocated according to district needs and ability to pay. Since the formula as
enacted applies only to funding increases, leaders of some of the lowest-income
communities in the state have estimated it will take several decades before
their districts reach the levels of funding deemed equitable by the BEFC. This
has sparked calls to expedite the implementation of the formula. Advocates of
accelerating the formula claim it would serve two main purposes— increase
access to resources in districts with low per-pupil spending levels and ease
inequitable local school tax burdens in the state. This policy brief examines
the second of these purposes, specifically the claim that differences exist in
local school tax burdens across Pennsylvania’s 500 districts.
Bucks County Courier Times By
Chris English, staff writer September 19, 2016
Pennsbury will have labor peace
with its teachers for half a decade if a proposed new five-year contract is
approved by the school board at a special meeting Wednesday night. The teachers union, called the Pennsbury
Education Association, ratified the deal Monday afternoon. Details of the
proposed contract were presented to the public at a special board meeting
Monday night. The deal would be retroactive to
July 1 and run through June 30, 2021. It would give teachers and other
professionals in their union who are at the top step either $1,000 or $2,000
raises this school year, depending on what instructor classification they are
in. All PEA members would get $1,000
raises in each of the last four years of the deal, plus column and step
movement in years two through five. There would be no step movement in year two
of the proposed deal. Employee
contributions to their health insurance premiums would stay at 12 percent this
year and next, increase to 13 percent the next two years and increase again to
14 percent in the last year of the contract. Contributions are capped at $2,250
in the first two years, $2,350 in the third year and $2,450 in the final two
years.
Trib Live BY BRIAN
C. RITTMEYER | Monday, Sept. 19, 2016, 10:57 p.m.
An outstanding issue didn't get
in the way of the Allegheny Valley School District and its teachers union
coming to early agreement on a new five-year contract. The school board unanimously approved the
agreement Monday. Its vote followed the 87-member union accepting it on Friday. About 80 percent of union members
voted, approving it by a vote of 65 to 4, said Jennifer Novich, president of
the Allegheny Valley Education Association.
Teachers will get an average annual pay increase of 3.1 percent under
the contract running from July 1, 2017 through June 30, 2022. The average salary for all
teachers will increase from $64,896 now to $75,883 in the new contract's final
year, an almost 17 percent increase, according to the district. Teachers will pay more toward health care
premiums. The contribution will increase by 1 percent in the first year of the
contract, to 8 percent. It will then go up by one-half percent each year after,
reaching 10 percent in the fifth and final year.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette September 19, 2016 10:48 PM
A transgender student urged
Norwin school board members Monday night to allow students to use the
bathroom of the gender with which they identify. Student Liam Lindsay said he was told not to
use either the boys’ or girls’ restrooms, but to use a private restroom in the
nurse’s office. He said it would be “right” for him to be allowed to use the
boys’ restroom, because that is the gender he identifies with. Liam said he doesn’t have a gym class this
year, so the issue of which locker room to use has not come up. Superintendent William Kerr said district
solicitor Alfred Maiello has advised administrators not to pass a policy on
bathroom use by transgender students, because the courts have not ruled on the
issue. Mr. Maiello spoke at the school board’s workshop meeting last week. Mr. Kerr said the district has been working
on a transgender policy since last September.
Opioid epidemic encourages states to open
recovery high schools
Washington Post By Teresa
Wiltz September 19 at 11:09 AM
This summer, Melvin Matos did
something that he once thought he would never do: graduate from high school. He’d started drinking at 14 and quickly moved
on to pills and pot. By the time he turned 16, Matos could see where his life
was heading: Some of his buddies already had died because of drugs and drink. After a stint in rehab, Matos enrolled at the
William J. Ostiguy High School in Boston, one of five public “recovery high
schools” in Massachusetts. There, in addition to his academic classes, he
participated in group therapy and 12-step meetings, submitted to regular drug
tests and formed friendships with kids facing struggles similar to his.
Frustration.
Burnout. Attrition. It's Time To Address The National Teacher Shortage
NPR by ERIC WESTERVELT September
15, 20169:38 AM ET
The good news: There's an uptick
in the hiring of new teachers since the pink-slip frenzy in the wake of the
Great Recession. The bad news: The new
hiring hasn't made up for the teacher shortfall. Attrition is high, and
enrollment in teacher preparation programs has fallen some 35 percent over the
past five years — a decrease of nearly 240,000 teachers in all. Parts of most every state in America face
troubling teacher shortages: the most frequent shortage areas are math,
science, bilingual education and special education. We've covered many sides of the shortage
issue, including the disconnect
between training and districts' needs; how the accountability obsession and
paperwork aredriving
some good veteran teachers away; what factors help
teachers stick around; as well as efforts to improve
training for special-ed teachers to stem that field's attrition and
chronic shortage.
Chron by John Hanna, AP Political Writer Updated 10:16 am, Saturday, September 17, 2016
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Four local school districts are asking the Kansas Supreme Court to order the state to spend hundreds of millions of dollars more per year on public schools, in a legal dispute that is shaping state politics and threatening Republican Gov. Sam Brownback's tax-cutting legacy. The justices plan to hear arguments Wednesday from attorneys on whether the Legislature is fulfilling a duty under the state constitution to finance a suitable education for every child. The districts' attorneys argue that Kansas could afford to boost its aid if lawmakers reversed big income tax cuts enacted in 2012 and 2013 at Brownback's urging as an economic stimulus.
Previous high court rulings against the state have been strongly criticized by conservative GOP legislators and have helped fuel an effort to oust four of the seven justices in November. The high court's decision on school funding isn't expected until after the election.
What to know about school funding in Kansas:
Atlanta Journal Constitution by Maureen Downey 12:00 a.m. Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016
At least seven commissions have
attempted to remedy school funding inequities in Georgia without success, a
record not atypical for school finance reform across the country. In most states, school funding relies on
property taxes, which hinge on local will — how much a local community is
willing to tax itself for education — and local capacity — how much those taxes
will raise — rather than how much it actually costs to educate a child. As imperfect as the approach may be,
Americans seem reluctant to break with it, likely because it works for
higher-income communities. Those communities contend they should be able to
provide greater resources for their schools if their taxpayers are willing to
do so. States attempt to equalize disparities in high- and low-wealth areas,
but a gap remains.
See Who's Been Tapped to Lead Trump's
Transition Team for Education
Education Wekk Politics K12 Blog By Andrew Ujifusa on September 19, 2016 7:21 AM
Republican presidential nominee Donald
Trump has picked Williamson M. Evers, a research fellow at the Hoover
Institution at Stanford University, and Gerard Robinson, a resident fellow at
the American Enterprise Institute, to be on his presidential transition team
for education, according to multiple sources.
Evers served as an assistant secretary for policy at the U.S.
Department of Education from 2007 to 2009, and also was an adviser to
former U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings in 2007 under President
George W. Bush. Robinson served as Florida's education commissioner from
2011 to 2012, and has also served as Virginia's education secretary and as the
president of the Black Alliance for Educational Options.
Half
of "Top 100" National Liberal Arts Colleges Do Not Require ACT/SAT
FairTest Press Release September
19, 2016 - 7:40 am
MORE THAN 240 “TOP TIER” SCHOOLS IN 2017 U.S. NEWS GUIDE
NOW HAVE TEST-OPTIONAL OR TEST-FLEXIBLE ADMISSIONS POLICIES
A record number of colleges and
universities now have test-optional admissions policies. Half of the national
liberal arts schools ranked in the “Top 100” by the recently published U.S.
News “Best Colleges” guide do not require all or many applicants to submit ACT
or SAT scores. The National Center for Fair & Open Testing (FairTest)
released the new tally. “Top 100”
liberal arts colleges with test-optional policies include Bowdoin, Smith,
Wesleyan, Bates, Bryn Mawr, Holy Cross and Pitzer. Test-flexible policies,
which allow applicants to submit scores from exams other than the ACT or SAT,
such as Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate results, are in place
at Middlebury, Colby, Hamilton and Colorado College. U.S. News lists more than test-optional and
test-flexible 240 colleges and universities in the top tiers of their
respective categories, according to FairTest. For example, the top three
regional universities in the north, Providence College, Fairfield University,
and Loyola University, are test-optional. So is the number two university in
the south, Rollins, the third ranked school in the Midwest, Drake, and Mills
College, fifth ranked among western regional universities.
“The pharmaceutical industry in general
has been tremendously greedy in recent years,” he said. “Many congresspeople
are looking for someone to hold up as an example, and Mylan is it.” The best move for Mylan and its image would
be for Ms. Bresch to come to the hearing and announce that executives were
rolling back their “excessive” salaries, Mr. Haley said. Ms. Bresch alone was
paid some $19 million last year. “I
can’t think of anything else they could do that would have an effect on the
perceptions of Mylan or the pharmaceutical industry,” he said.”
Mylan CEO to face grilling on Capitol HillBy Patricia Sabatini / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette September 20, 2016 12:00 AM
A marketing professor has some
advice for Mylan CEO Heather Bresch when she appears on Capitol Hill Wednesday
to explain the skyrocketing cost of the EpiPen: Get out of the room as quickly
as possible. Ms. Bresch is set to
testify before the House Oversight Committee amid a firestorm of criticism and
accusations of price-gouging by the drugmaker, which has raised the price of
the potentially life-saving allergy treatment more than 500 percent in recent
years.
Such hearings generally are
viewed as an opportunity for lawmakers to vent. And participants will be primed
to do so on Wednesday, said George Haley, a pharmaceutical industry expert and
professor of marketing at the University of New Haven in Connecticut, who has
been following the EpiPen furor.
“Washington was euphoric. In a barren time
for bi-partisan cooperation late in 2015, both Democrats and Republicans were
happy to get rid of No Child Left Behind (NCLB). The K-12 education law
was almost universally excoriated as being a failure — particularly in that
most important goal of closing the achievement gap. Looking at long-term trends
from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, gains were seen in some
areas but the achievement gap was stuck. NCLB provided no upward blips on
the charts. Thus, it is stunning that
the successor law, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) passed by Congress
last December, is basically an extension of NCLB. Fundamentally, ESSA
maintains the same philosophy and direction. It is still a standardized
test-driven system that is punitive in nature.”
School reform: What went wrong, what went
right, and what we should do in the future
Washington Post Answer
Sheet Blog by Valerie
Strauss September 19 at 11:35 AM
For
years the United States has embarked on an effort to reform its public
education system, a civic institution, that has been based on market principles
and the belief that standardized testing is the best way to assess students,
teachers, principals, schools, districts and states. The results? Not exactly
what market reformers had hoped. A new
book edited by William J. Mathis and Tina M. Trujillo takes a look at, as they
write in the post below, “what went wrong, what went right, and what we should
do in the future.” The book is titled “Learning from the Federal Market-Based
Reforms: Lessons for the Every Student Succeeds Act,” and was published by the
National Education Policy Center, a think tank at the University of Colorado at
Boulder. Mathis and Trujillo asked a number of scholars to assess key aspects
of the reform agenda and they assembled the work in a smart, wide-ranging book.
In the end, it's about profits.
Esquire BY CHARLES P. PIERCE SEP 19, 2016
The people seeking to blow up the
cap on the number of charter schools here in the Commonwealth (God save it!)
have turned on the afterburners in recent weeks, as we get closer to balloting
in which a referendum on lifting the cap will be placed before the voters. The
airwaves are thick with commercials about how lifting the cap on charter
schools will provide more money to public schools, which is a dodge, because
charter schools are not in any important sense public schools. There is no public oversight. There is little
public input. They are privately run and funded with public money. This is the
same principle that has worked out so well with prison food.
In New York on
Monday, Jonathan Chait jumps into the issue with both feet. (To his credit, Chait
is quite clear that his wife works for a charter company.) He argues no less a
case than that the referendum is "one of the most important tests
of social justice and economic mobility of any election in America this
fall." Glorioski! And, of course, he characterizes the opposition
to lifting the charter cap as wholly influenced by the all-powerful teachers
union, which he casts as a thoroughgoing villain, and which he comes
dangerously close to accusing of enabling racism—or, at the very least, as
heedless to the concerns of the poor and disadvantaged.
Education Bloggers Daily Highlights
9/19/2016
Southeastern
PA Regional 2016 Legislative Roundtable: William Tennent High School (Bucks
Co.) SEP 22, 2016 • 7:00
PM - 9:00 PM
PSBA website August 25, 2016
Take a more active role in public
education advocacy by joining our Legislative Roundtable
This is your opportunity for a
seat at the table (literally) with fellow public education advocates to take an
active role in educating each other and policymakers. Auditor General Eugene DePasquale, along with
regional legislators, will be in attendance to work with you to support public
education in Pennsylvania. Use the
form below to send your registration information!
Thursday, September 29, 2016 at 5:30 PM
The Crystal Tea Room, The Wanamaker Building
100 Penn Square East, Philadelphia, PA
Honoring: Pepper Hamilton LLP, Signe Wilkinson, Dr. Monique W. Morris
And presenting the ELC PRO BONO AWARD to Paul Saint-Antoine & Chanda Miller
of Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP
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.
The 2016 Arts and Education Symposium will be held on October 27 at the Radisson Hotel Harrisburg Convention Center. Sponsored by the Pennsylvania Arts Education network and EPLC, the Symposium is a Unique Networking and Learning Opportunity for:
·
Arts Educators
·
School Leaders
·
Artists
·
Arts and Culture Community Leaders
·
Arts-related Business Leaders
·
Arts Education Faculty and Administrators in Higher Education
·
Advocates
·
State and Local Policy Leaders
Act 48 Credit is
available.Program and registration information are available here.
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
SAVE THE DATE LWVPA Convention 2017 June
1-4, 2017
Join the
League of Women Voters of PA for our 2017 Biennial Convention at the beautiful
Inn at Pocono Manor!
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