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Keystone
State Education Coalition
PA
Ed Policy Roundup October 13, 2016
“There
is a growing frustration that charters are unaccountable.”
Blogger note: PA Ed Policy Roundup may
be offline until Monday, attending PSBA/PASA School Leadership Conference
How would your school district fare if
lawmakers ramped up the new Pa. funding formula?
WHYY Newsworks BY KEVIN MCCORRY OCTOBER 13, 2016The interactive map above allows you to see how each of Pennsylvania's 500 school districts would be affected if lawmakers chose to implement the state's new funding formula more rapidly. The new formula has been lauded for bringing a measure of rationality and fairness to the state's funding scheme. For more than two decades, lawmakers divided up education dollars without a student-based method that took into account actual enrollment, poverty, and language fluency. By now taking these and other factors into account, education advocates favor the new formula for systematically recognizing that districts face different burdens that require varying levels of financial support.
“It has become abundantly clear that
systemic changes are needed in how brick and mortar and cyber charters operate
in Pennsylvania,” Brewster says. “There is a growing frustration that
charters are unaccountable.” …”The
legislature tried to pass a charter school reform bill (House
Bill 530 ) this summer but it had
been rewritten into more giveaways to the industry than regulations. For
instance, it would
have allowed charters to open almost anywhere in the state without
approval from local school districts. As such, it lost support.”
State Senator Brewster To Propose
Rewriting PA Charter School Law To Hold the Industry Accountable
Gadfly on the Wall Blog October
12, 2016 stevenmsinger
Pennsylvania’s charter school law
is a national disgrace.
It allows charters to defraud the
public and provide a substandard education to our children.
Charter
school managers pay themselves with taxpayer money for leases on
properties they already own. They funnel
money through shell companies into their own pockets. Academic
achievement at many charters is far below par.
And it’s all legal. That’s why
state Auditor General Eugene DePasquale has long called it the “worst
charter school law” in the country. But his call for sweeping reforms
from the legislature has fallen on mostly deaf ears. Until now.
State
Sen. Jim Brewster is in the early stages of proposing legislation that
would ensure charter schools are held as accountable as other public schools. Specifically it would require these types of
schools, which are ostensibly public but privately managed, to be transparent,
fiscally solvent and responsible to taxpayers.
"I don't think the public
understands that every penny of this tax credit money is money that never makes
it into the general fund, and is therefore not available when [lawmakers] sit
down to talk about the budget," he said.
Pennsylvania's revenue collections are behind $218.5 million through the
first quarter of the current budget year, according to the state Department of
Revenue. Sources in the Democratic wing
of the House especially questioned Turzai's push to forgo an additional $75
million in revenue, in this context.”…
“Sixteen other states offer these sorts
of credits. More than half require the private schools to take standardized
tests in order to provide accountability to taxpayers. Pennsylvania does not.”
“The law in Pennsylvania also allows the
scholarship organizations that act as intermediaries to keep 20 percent of the
money as an administration fee. In most
other states, it's 10 percent. In Florida, it's 3 percent.”
Top Pa. House Republican touts
expanding private school tax credits in visit to PhillyWHYY Newsworks BY KEVIN MCCORRY OCTOBER 12, 2016 Audio runtime 3:20
Thomas Short loves that his two
sons attend St. Thomas Aquinas Elementary school in South Philadelphia. He says it makes a world of difference for
his boys — fearing they would falter in a less structured environment. Short's perception of the nearby neighborhood
public schools is low. "They're not
trying to develop the person as much as just trying to get them through to the
next grade," he said. "I don't know why I'm saying that. It's just my
opinion. Maybe that's how the public schools used to be back in the day when I
went." Short's family lives on his
$1,000 a month disability check. The only way he's able to afford Catholic
school tuition is because he takes advantage of a scholarship program that's
funded by state tax credits. Tuition for two children normally runs north of
$9,000 per year. With the scholarship,
he pays just $1,500. "Without this, [they're] not
going here," he said. It's these
tax credit programs that brought Pennsylvania Speaker of the House Mike Turzai,
R-Allegheny, to South Philadelphia Wednesday. "It's really been an
important part of allowing school choice in the Commonwealth of
Pennsylvania," said Turzai.
PA Constitution Article III, Section
15: Public School Money Not Available to Sectarian Schools:
“No money raised for the support of the public schools of the Commonwealth shall be appropriated to or used for the support of any sectarian school.”
“No money raised for the support of the public schools of the Commonwealth shall be appropriated to or used for the support of any sectarian school.”
PA
Ed Policy Roundup Oct 10: PA's “successful EITC program” is successful at
circumventing the PA Constitution
Keystone State Education Coalition Monday, October 10, 2016
Turzai wants more tax-credit scholarships
for nonpublic schools
Inquirer by Martha Woodall, Staff Writer Updated: OCTOBER 12, 2016 —
10:58 PM EDT
After touring St. Thomas Aquinas
Catholic School in Point Breeze on Wednesday, House Speaker Mike Turzai
announced a proposal to expand state scholarship programs that help low-income
families afford such schools. Turzai
(R., Allegheny) wants to boost the total corporate tax credits businesses can
receive for contributing to scholarship and educational-improvement programs to
$250 million in the 2017-18 budget - $75 million more than the current cap. "It really has been an
important part of allowing school choice in the commonwealth of
Pennsylvania," Turzai said. His
proposed legislation, which he said would be introduced this year, would
increase the tax credits that businesses can take for contributions to the Educational
Improvement Tax Credit (EITC) program by $50 million and the Opportunity
Scholarship Tax Credits (OSTC) by $25 million.
The proposed EITC increase would be twice the size of the boost the
legislature approved in the current budget.
DN letters: Charters offer students a
quality education
Philly Daily News Letter by Tim Eller executive director, Keystone Alliance for Public Charter
Schools Updated: OCTOBER 12, 2016 — 7:58 PM EDT
LISA HAVER'S Oct. 3 opinion
column, "Charters not really a good choice for parents and kids," is
a classic example of teachers' unions and traditional public education
establishment organizations fighting to maintain the status quo and protecting
the adults in the public education system at the expense of students, who have
been forced to attend failing traditional public schools for too long. If public charter schools are "not
really a good choice for parents and kids," as Haver suggests, then why do
nearly one-third of Philadelphia's students attend public charter schools, with
tens of thousands of students remaining on waiting lists?
Intelligencer Opinion By Julian
Vasquez Heilig October 12, 2016
Julian Vasquez Heilig is a professor at California State University Sacramento. He
wrote this for Progressive Media Project, a source of liberal commentary on
domestic and international issues.
Make no mistake: There is a civil war going on in the black
community.
On one side are charter school
operators, foundations run by billionaires and school choice movement leaders
who support the private control of public schools as envisioned by economist
Milton Friedman in the 1950s. On the other side are parents, students and
community members who are demanding true equity and democracy in our public
schools. National civil rights
organizations are divided over this issue. The National Urban League, United
Negro College Fund and other civil rights groups have aligned themselves with
market-based school choice proponents. On the other side, the NAACP has passed
three national resolutions critical of charter schools over the past six years.
The Black Lives Matter coalition, our nation's newest national civil rights
umbrella group, released a platform of policy demands critical of charter
schools this past summer. Both sides
claim to be representing the interests of black children who have been left
behind. In September, charter school owners and their supporters released a
letter saying they represent the interests of tens of thousands of black
students and bemoaning the NAACP's most recent resolution criticizing charter
schools.
Softening
the blow of paying your school tax bill: How'd that work out
Jan Murphy |
jmurphy@pennlive.com October 12, 2016
Chesco district hears from HS students who
want to sleep in
A growing number of districts,
including Owen J. Roberts in Chester County, are looking at later high school
start timesInquirer by Mari A. Schaefer, Staff Writer @MariSchaefer Updated: OCTOBER 12, 2016 — 1:13 PM EDT
A Chester County school district
that is looking at changing its schedules to let high school students sleep in
has heard from an area student group that has been studying the
issue.
The student forum from
the Chester County Intermediate Unit "strongly
recommended" that the Owen J. Roberts School District officials adopt a
later start time, The
Pottstown Mercury reports. The presentation came on the
heels of Superintendent Michael Christian's announcement last month that the
district is forming a task force to study the issue. The student group cited the American Academy
of Pediatrics recommendation that high schools start no earlier than 8:30 a.m.
They also noted a survey by the Centers for Disease Control has shown high
schools on average start at 7:59 a.m.
They suggested changing to a later start.
OJR School Board urged to consider later
school start times
Daily
Local By Nancy March, For Digital First Media POSTED: 10/12/16, 2:26 PM EDT
SOUTH COVENTRY >> A study
group from the Chester County Intermediate Unit student forum Monday night
“strongly recommended” that the Owen J. Roberts School District change its
scheduling to join a growing movement of later high school start times. Four students representing the forum’s task
force which studied start times in high schools concluded a presentation at the
school board committee-of-the-whole meeting with a recommendation to the board
to consider changing the high school start time, currently 7:30 a.m., to a
later time. The students cited the American
Academy of Pediatrics recommendation that high schools start no earlier than
8:30 a.m. They also noted a survey by the Centers for Disease Control has shown
high schools on average start at 7:59 a.m.
The representatives recited the start times in their schools including
Phoenixville, 7:20 a.m.; Coatesville Area, 7:30; West Chester, 7:35, and
Unionville-Chadds Ford, which this year created a later start time of 7:45. Monday night’s presentation came on the heels
of OJR Superintendent Michael Christian’s announcement last month that the
district is forming a task force to study the issue. Staff, students and
parents have been invited to join a discussion regarding the student forum
findings and local parent appeals.
Legal battles between Philly school
district, teachers union a lesson in excess
WHYY Newsworks BY AVI WOLFMAN-ARENT OCTOBER 12, 2016
The front-page story of the
Philadelphia school district’s bitter fight with its teachers union has been
couched in raucous rallies, caustic signs, and sideswiping comments at public
meetings. But there is another fight, a
legal battle, between the two sides that shows just how bitter and expensive
the clash between the district and the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers has
become. As the contract stalemate
between the district of Philadelphia and its teachers union drags into year
four, the sides find themselves locked in a host of pricey courtroom clashes. The number of cases and the
ferocity with which they are being fought surpass anything in recent memory.
And these clashes come with a cost. In cases involving the union, the district
has spent $1.2 million on outside attorneys, according to numbers released
through a right-to-know request.
All over the map
More than 1 in 10 students in
Philadelphia public schools is learning English. But the District struggles to
find a clear vision on how best to educate them.
The notebook by Dale Mezzacappa October
12, 2016 — 10:44am
Jim Hardy (standing) has taught
for almost a decade at Kensington Health Sciences Academy, where 18 percent of
the students are classified as English learners. Read about the difference
Hardy has made in the classroom and with immigrant students at thenotebook.org. The number of English learners,
including immigrants, has grown over the last decade to be 12 percent of the
enrollment in Philadelphia District schools – more than 1 in 10 students. They
and their families speak about 100 languages.
Many are refugees, from countries such as Syria, Sudan, Burma, and El
Salvador. More unaccompanied minors arrived in the city this year than two
years ago, when the flood of refugee children, mostly from Central America, was
in the news, according to agencies that work with them. Their circumstances and their needs are all
over the map. Some are born here into non-English-speaking households. Some are
migrant workers who move from place to place. Some are fleeing wars and
persecution. Some have spent their entire lives in camps. Some are
well-educated in their home country. Some have barely any schooling. Some are
immigrants who come here voluntarily, searching for the American dream.
‘Kensington stories’ stick with teacher
Behind Jim Hardy’s anecdotes are
students he cares about. Soccer, Spanish, and living in the neighborhood help
Hardy reach them.
The notebook by Paul Jablow October
12, 2016 — 11:05am
Kensington Health Sciences
Academy teacher Jim Hardy says, "There’s something about the role of a
teacher that has great potential to have an impact that goes far beyond the
classroom.” As the “Kensington stories” fill
Jim Hardy’s mind and memories, joy, sorrow, frustration, and
satisfaction bump up against each other. For example, he remembers the
Arabic-speaking Moroccan high school student who broke down in tears when he
couldn’t understand the English instructions to the required PSSA test. And the
shy kids, many from other countries, who opened up when Hardy’s soccer leagues
offered them a chance to play the game that they knew well as a path into the
country they didn’t. And the spike of happiness when a former
student, ecstatic at his summer school grades, saw Hardy three blocks away and
sprinted toward him, screaming “Mr. Hardy! Mr. Hardy! I passed! I passed!” And
the recent sick feeling he got when he learned that one of his former students
had been shot to death. For Hardy, the boundaries have long disappeared between
Kensington Health Sciences Academy, where he has taught for almost a decade,
and the struggling neighborhood of Kensington where has chosen to live, work,
and do what he can to make a difference. “I always wanted to combine teaching
and organizing,” said Hardy, as students filtered out of his last-period
Spanish class.
Are
charter schools truly innovative? The answer can depend on your definition
Boston
Globe By James Vaznis GLOBE STAFF OCTOBER
12, 2016
For decades, charter schools have
been billed as “laboratories of innovation,” conjuring up images of teachers
and administrators brainstorming and testing cutting-edge instruction that — if
proven successful — could deliver salvation to urban education. But the track record of Massachusetts
charter schools on innovation is mixed. While some charters are innovative,
others simply strive to build high-quality schools using existing methods and
do not necessarily invent new practices.
In the end, charter school practices have been adopted only sporadically
in other schools, and many educators in traditional districts say the
innovations touted by charters are not really very innovative. Consequently,
opponents argue that voters should reject Question 2 on the November ballot,
which would authorize up to 12 new charter schools or enrollment expansions in
existing charter schools.
Test Scores Get Less Emphasis in Final
Federal Teacher-Preparation Rules
Education Week Politics K12 Blog By Andrew Ujifusa on October 12, 2016 11:44 AM Cross-posted from the Teacher Beat blog By Brenda
Iasevoli
The U.S. Department of Education
today released its long-awaited final rules on teacher preparation.
The rules, first proposed in 2014, aim to
hold teacher-training programs accountable for the performance of their
graduates, and they make it mandatory for states to provide aspiring teachers a
way of pre-evaluating programs. Under
the rules, states will be required each year to rate all of its traditional,
alternative and distance prep programs as either effective, at-risk, or as
low-performing. They will have to provide additional support to programs rated
as low-performing. The annual ratings are to be
based on several metrics, such as the number of graduates who get jobs in
high-needs schools, how long these graduates stay in the teaching profession,
and how effective they are as teachers, judging from classroom observations as
well as their students' academic performance. In a major change from the proposed
rules—which were subject to heavy criticism from the field—student
learning will not have to be based on test scores or the proxy of teacher
evaluations based on student performance; rather, states will have the
flexibility to use other measures deemed "relevant to student
outcomes" and determine how various components of their systems are
weighed.
Obama administration releases long-delayed
regulations for teacher-preparation programs
Washington Post By Emma Brown October
12 at 3:11 PM The U.S. Education Department published regulations Wednesday governing programs that prepare new K-12 teachers, a long-delayed effort meant to ensure that graduates emerge ready for the nation’s classrooms. The new regulations, at least five years in the making, require each state to issue annual ratings for teacher-prep programs within their borders. The ratings aim to serve as a snapshot of how novice educators perform after graduation, offering prospective teachers and school district recruiters a more accurate picture of which programs are successful at producing strong educators and which are not. Obama administration officials and reform-minded advocacy groups also hope the ratings prod training programs — long criticized as cash cows for universities that produce ill-prepared candidates — to improve.
Shortchanging Our Children, Our Schools, and Our Future
Voices4Kids by Bruce Lesley, President of @First_Focus & @Campaign4Kids. Child advocate, husband & father of 4. Basketball fanatic. Views expressed are mine alone. #InvestInKids Oct 7
In a new report by the Urban Institute entitled Kids’ Share 2016, the authors found that state and local spending on education declined dramatically during the Great Recession. Co-author Julia Issacs writes, “As the economy turned downward in late 2008, local revenues fell with the drop in property values, and state revenues fell with declines in earning and income.” In response to the recession, safety net programs like Medicaid provided additional support to a growing number of people living in poverty, including children. However, states cut other areas of their budgets, such as education in order to balance their budgets. According to Isaacs, state and local spending on education dropped by $36 billion from 2008 to 2011 or “by more than $400 per child between 2008 and 2010.”
https://medium.com/voices4kids/shortchanging-our-children-our-schools-and-our-future-672078d8fa7e#.fmmp4jy9d
“You have someone who is contributing
millions and millions of dollars to local and statewide political races and who
was the former president of the state school board whose stated goal is to end
democracy in education. That is deeply disturbing.”
The Battle of Hastings: What’s
Behind the Netflix CEO’s Fight to Charterize Public Schools?
Capital
and Main Blog by Joel Warner October 12, 2016
Brett Bymaster, a
Silicon Valley electrical engineer, was optimistic when Rocketship Education, a
non-profit charter school chain, began building its flagship Mateo Sheedy
elementary school next to his San Jose home in 2007. He and his family lived in
a lower-income community, so he figured the new approach could help local kids.
“I didn’t know anything about charter schools, so I thought it was a good
thing,” he says. But the more he learned
about Rocketship and charter schools, which receive government funding but
operate independently of local school boards, the more concerned he became. He
was struck by the school’s cramped quarters: over 600 students on a 1-acre
campus, compared to the 9.2
acres per 450 students recommended for elementary schools by the
California Department of Education. All those students meant big classes; last
year Mateo Sheedy had one teacher for every 34 students, more than themaximum
allowed for traditional elementary schools under state law. The teacher deficit seemed to be compensated
for with screen time: Thanks to its so-called “blended learning” approach,
Rocketship kindergarteners were spending 80 to 90 minutes a day in front of computers in a
school learning lab, nearly the daily maximum screen time recommended by the American
Academy of Pediatrics. And when the kids weren’t in front of computers, they
seemed to be getting disciplined throughout their extra-long school days. Bymaster
says he’d constantly see teachers yelling at students. “It’s a military-style
environment,” notes Bymaster, who spearheaded a 2013 lawsuit that caused Rocketship to scrap one of
its planned San Jose schools. “It’s really a kill-and-drill kind of school.”Post Gazette By the Editorial Board October 13, 2016 12:00 AM
President Barack Obama’s call for
a greater public/private partnership for space exploration in general and a
Mars expedition in particular is just beginning to yield the kinds of
technological breakthroughs necessary to convince ordinary people that this
thing is possible by 2030. Today, Mr. Obama will be
attending the Frontiers Conference held jointly by Carnegie Mellon University
and the University of Pittsburgh. Of course, future missions to Mars and the
development of the technology and international cooperation necessary to get
humans there and back is high on the agenda, but isn’t the only subject of the
conference. The conference will also look
at community development, the potential of artificial intelligence in our civic
and commercial life, the challenge of climate change and the burgeoning promise
of precision health. This is a fundamentally optimistic gathering of some of
the greatest minds in academia and the tech field and should generate even more
cooperation across institutional lines. This is an exciting time to be a
scientist contemplating big, world-changing moves in the coming decades.
Storm forces delay until 8:03 p.m. Sunday of
rocket launch that might be visible along the East Coast
Penn
Live By Matt
Miller | mmiller@pennlive.com Email the author | Follow on Twitter on
October 12, 2016 at 10:04 AM
A
tropical storm in the Atlantic Ocean has forced at least a two-day delay in a
rocket launch that might be visible to millions of people on the East Coast,
including the midstate. According
to nasa.gov, the postponement of the launch of the private cargo ship from
Wallops Island, Va., was prompted by Tropical Storm Nicole. The launch had been
scheduled for Friday night. The
storm will interfere with a tracking station in Bermuda, so the new tentative
time for the launch of the Orbital ATK Cygnus craft is 8:03 p.m. Sunday. If the
weather is clear, the rocket should be visible on the southern horizon moments
after liftoff as it boosts supplies to the International Space Station. NASA TV will
broadcast the launch live starting at 7 p.m. Sunday.
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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
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School Leaders
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Artists
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Arts and Culture Community Leaders
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Arts-related Business Leaders
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Arts Education Faculty and Administrators in Higher Education
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Advocates
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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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