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Keystone
State Education Coalition
PA
Ed Policy Roundup October 28, 2016
PA
needs to update charter laws to ensure that entities that get public $$ also
get public supervision & oversight on how they use that money
Note: The House will be in voting
session Thursday. The House and Senate then return to reorganize after the
election-- the House on November 14, 15 and the Senate November 16. [Unless
they change the schedule of course.] All bills then have to start over in
January.
Thursday
PA Capitol Digest Crisci Associates OCTOBER
27, 2016
“Nicholas Trombetta recently pled guilty to federal charges
that he stole $8 million in public funds through his manipulations of PA Cyber,
NNDS/LLS, and the for-profit entities he founded. Trombetta is an extreme
example of what can happen in the absence of rigorous oversight but unfortunately
he is not as much of an outlier as we might like to think. Some Pennsylvania
CMOs have successfully argued that they are private entities who are not
covered by the Right to Know laws. Pennsylvania needs to update its charter
laws to ensure that entities that get public money also get public supervision
and oversight on how they use that money.”
Charter Management Organizations and the Need for ReformVoices @ Temple Law by Susan L. DeJarnatt Professor of Law Published on October 26, 2016
Two recent audits and a guilty
plea show strong evidence of the need for reform of Pennsylvania’s charter law
to provide for more effective oversight of the substantial public money going
to the charter sector. The Inspector General of the US Department of
Education and the Pennsylvania Auditor General have both recently concluded
that Pennsylvania’s charter law does not provide sufficient oversight or
control over charter management organizations. CMOs are organizations that
manage charter schools. Although charter schools in Pennsylvania must be
organized as non-profits, CMOs can be and often are for-profit organizations.
The Pennsylvania charter law doesn’t mention them because the legislature
apparently did not envision such entities in the late 1990s when it wrote
the law. But they have become an increasingly important part of the
charter sector. The two audits highlight challenges that the growth and
operation of CMOs present to effective oversight of public funds going to
charter schools.
Diane Ravitch’s Blog By dianeravitch October 27, 2016 //
A few days ago, I posted warnings about the stealth effort to expand charter schools in Pennsylvania, embedded in a bill called HB530. Exposed to daylight and to the righteous wrath of parents and school boards, the bill failed. Good work by the Pennsylvania School Boards Association (PSBA), teachers, and people who understand the importance of public schools managed to kill HB530, which was a sugarplum for the rapacious charter industry.
Just when it looked like the pension plan
was dead, the House may have revived it
Penn Live By Jan Murphy |
jmurphy@pennlive.com Email the author | Follow on Twitter on
October 27, 2016 at 4:26 PM
Three votes. That's how close House Majority Leader Dave
Reed said the General Assembly came on Wednesday to passing a historic pension reform bill that would have
changed the retirement savings plans for future state government and public
school employees. The measure would have
created three new pension options from which new hires would choose, but
its failure to see any legislative action on Wednesday most
likely pushed it off to the next legislative session that starts in January. However, the House voted on Thursday to send
the legislation back to a House-Senate conference committee that reported it
out on Tuesday, raising the remote possibility that this plan may have life
left in it. That procedural move by the
House keeps the bill in play until Nov. 30 when the two-year legislative
session ends. The Senate would also have to vote to send it to the conference
committee for it to reconvene and try to work out a compromise that might
garner the votes to pass both chambers.
The sound of a pension can being kicked
... again ... rings hollow: John L. Micek
Penn Live By John L. Micek |
jmicek@pennlive.com on October 27, 2016 at 11:14 AM,
updated October 27, 2016 at 12:57 PM
There is some justice, I suppose,
in the Legislature sending Gov. Tom Wolf a bill that finally allows beer
distributors to sell six-packs. It's now
that much easier for the rest of us to drink away our sorrows over the
Legislature's abject failure (again) to clean up their own mess and pass a bill
fixing Pennsylvania's financially disastrous public employee pension system. Yes, that public pension system, the one that
two governors and counting, along with scores of legislators, have
declared a fiscal comet on a collision course with the state Treasury. That's the one they've repeatedly declared an
extinction-level event and an issue so vexing and so serious that Something
Must Be Done, lest we all go the way of early man, doomed to wander a
financial ice age, with only the glow of our fading actuarial statements
to guide us.
Error corrected in school report cards,
changing scores of 625 schools
Penn Live By Jan Murphy |
jmurphy@pennlive.com Email the author | Follow on Twitter on
October 27, 2016 at 6:20 PM
A scoring error in the 2016 school report cards has been
corrected and this information that helps parents and taxpayers track the
performance of their local schools is once again accessible on the state
Department of Education's school performance website.
On Thursday, the department announced that errors were found in a
contractor's calculation of the academic performance scores of 625 of the
approximate 1,200 schools that served 11th graders who took the
Keystone Exams. That prompted the
department to remove the academic performance page from that part of schools'
report card last week. Most of the
erroneous scores were within two points of the corrected scores, said
department spokeswoman Nicole Reigleman. The largest was a 3.5 point change.
The error did not impact the scores of schools that took the Pennsylvania
System of School Assessment administered to students in grades three through
eight.
Beaver County Times By Katherine
Schaeffer kschaeffer@timesonline.com
October 27, 2016
The state Department of Education
posted updated state report cards for almost every high school in the Times’
coverage area Thursday after a data-reporting error rendered the original
scores inaccurate. The 2015-16
building-level School Performance Profiles, initially
released Oct. 13, are calculated based on a variety of metrics, with state
standardized tests -- the Keystones for high school students and the
Pennsylvania System of School Assessment tests for grades 3-8 -- weighed most
heavily. The data-reporting error
affected ratings for 625 buildings where the high school Keystone exam was
administered. Locally, this caused slight changes -- usually less than one
point -- in overall scores for 15 high schools.
Times Tribune BY SARAH HOFIUS
HALL / PUBLISHED: OCTOBER 28, 2016
HARRISBURG — The state released
updated School Performance Profile scores for 625 of 2,900 schools across the
state on Thursday. Updates were required due to an inaccurate data element
provided by a contractor and used for the original scores released earlier this
month. Most affected schools only had
slight changes to their scores in the system that looks at achievement and
growth. Student test scores did not change. Only schools where students take
the Keystone Exams — end-of-course exams in algebra I, literature and biology —
were affected.
As
PSSA scores improve, educators still work to improve results
Centre Daily Times BY BRITNEY
MILAZZO bmilazzo@centredaily.com
OCTOBER 27, 2016 8:24 PM
The Pennsylvania System of School
Assessment scores were released earlier this month.
And the local trend is a similar
one to the state as a whole. The 2016 PSSA data indicates more students scored
proficient or advanced than in the previous year, in almost all categories.
Those statistics, however, didn’t take into consideration factors such as
changing school population. While Centre County schools also
are primarily seeing growth — largely with those students who tested at the
advanced levels — many school administrators said there is still room for
improvement. “It is our intent to grow each student every
day through quality interactions with our teachers,” State College Area School
District Superintendent Bob O’Donnell said. “As students grow in terms of
skills and achievement, scores on items such as standardized tests will also
improve as a result. Our expectation is that our teachers get to know their students
as learners and deliver our curriculum on a daily basis through the use of
effective instructional strategies.”
National Math and Science Initiative On October 27, 2016 in General, NMSI in the News by Anna Gruber
Program Improving Student Preparedness
Will Expand to Approximately 40 Schools and 60,000 Students
Today, the National Math and
Science Initiative (NMSI) announced a major expansion of its College Readiness
Program in western Pennsylvania schools with an investment of
$26 million from ExxonMobil, made on behalf of its XTO Energy Inc. subsidiary.
The three-year program empowers school communities to improve participation and
success in rigorous coursework to better prepare students for college and the
STEM-intensive careers of the 21st century. NMSI will partner with
approximately 40 schools across the region over the next several years to
enhance teacher effectiveness and student performance in the core subjects of
math, science and English. At the announcement event,
hosted by West Allegheny High School near Pittsburgh, officials recognized the
hard work of local educators and highlighted the need for community leaders to
raise matching funds to reach every high school across the state in future
years. “Access to a high-quality
education can be critical to a student’s academic growth and their future
success,” said Pennsylvania Secretary of Education Pedro A. Rivera. “As the
commonwealth works together to invest in students and Schools that Teach, the
College Readiness Program is a standout model of how public schools, innovative
educational organizations and committed businesses can partner to ensure that
the next generation of scientific, business and civic leaders are prepared to
succeed.”
“Mr. Regal said about a dozen of
the 42 school districts in Allegheny County are eligible to offer kids free
lunch and breakfast, but that the House bill would make it more difficult for
schools to participate in that provision. He called directly on the
congressmen from Allegheny County — Republicans Keith Rothfus and Tim
Murphy and Democrat Mike Doyle — to forego that version
and “come up with something much better.”
Advocates seek changes in school lunch programsBy Molly Born / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette October 28, 2016 12:00 AM
A trio of child hunger advocates
called on Congress Wednesday to make all school lunches and
breakfasts free, challenging them to pass a law that, as one put it,
“takes the issue of children nutrition more seriously than it has taken it in
many years.” Ken Regal, executive
director of Just Harvest, a South Side-based poverty- and hunger-fighting
nonprofit, criticized the “ongoing failure” of legislators to
reauthorize the federal legislation that governs the meal programs and other
similar initiatives. “These are
essential parts of the safety net that protects American children from hunger,
and it’s long past time that Congress takes action to make sure that children
are well-fed in this country as a matter of right and not a matter of
privilege,” he said at a press conference at the Kingsley Association in East
Liberty. The Healthy Hunger-Free Kids
Act of 2010 expired last year. The House and Senate child nutrition bills have
both move out of committee and are currently awaiting floor action.
York
Dispatch by Alyssa
Pressler , 505-5438/@AlyssaPressYD11:06 a.m. EDT October 27, 2016
Kindergarten sure isn't what it
used to be. As young as the students
are, they are already working to develop skills for Common Core standards,
which is one reason why York Suburban School District is looking into changing
its half-day kindergarten program to a full-day program.On Tuesday night, the district
held a public meeting to discuss research with the community and hear feedback
on the idea before making its final recommendation to the school board in
November. Currently, students in kindergarten attend school for 2½ hours
each day. One group of students goes in the morning while another group
attends in the afternoon.
Pottstown School Board adds more than
$300,000 to payroll with 4% raises
By Evan Brandt, The Mercury POSTED: 10/26/16, 6:19 PM
EDT | UPDATED: 17 HRS AGO
POTTSTOWN >> With a quiet
5-2 vote Monday night, the Pottstown School Board added more than $300,000 to
the district’s payroll, The Mercury has learned. Before voting Monday, school board member
Kurt Heidel was at least willing to inform the public that most of the raises
work out to about 4 percent. He expanded
upon the information available to the public Tuesday in apost on The
Mercury’s Facebook page where he wrote, in part: “The raise is an
across the board 4 percent increase, for one year, retroactive to July 1 2016.
The reason the raises were not given until now was due to first completing the
negotiations with the Federation of Teachers. All of the raises are paid for as
part of the district’s 2016-17 budget. This is the same budget that raised
taxes 0% for the districts taxpayers.”
Here's a novel way to fund education in
Pa: Colin McNickle
PennLive Op-Ed By Colin McNickle on October 27,
2016 at 11:00 AM
Colin McNickle, the former Editorial Page Editor of The
Tribune-Review, is a senior fellow and media specialist at the Allegheny
Institute for Public Policy
"Men are entitled to equal
rights -- but to equal rights to unequal things," said 18th- and
early 19th-century British statesman Charles James Fox. Might a form of that counterintuitive sentiment
be the key to resolving Pennsylvania's long-running debate over "equitable
funding" for the Keystone State's system of public education? Two researchers at the Allegheny Institute
for Public Policy see it as a possibility.
Richer school districts, because of their more robust tax bases, can
spend more per pupil. Poorer districts, with more anemic tax bases, spend less.
They rely on the state to close the gap. But it is seldom, if ever,
"equalized." Poorer districts
long have complained that the commonwealth has failed to abide by the state
Constitution's mandate to see to "the maintenance and support of a
thorough and efficient system of public education to serve the needs of the
Commonwealth."
Finding common ground against Common Core
City & State Pennsylvania By: DORIAN GEIGER
In
2012, Amy Roat was
teaching a class of English language learners in Philadelphia. It was spring –
better known in the halls of Pennsylvania’s public schools as test season.
For months, Roat had worked
tirelessly to boost her students’ English proficiency in preparation for the
Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA), the state’s version of Common
Core applied to students from third through eighth grade. But on exam day, Roat saw her efforts fall
drastically short. One of her students, a seventh-grader from the Dominican
Republic who had recently arrived in the United States, was visibly struggling
with the PSSA. He kept calling over to Roat and her assistant for help “The questions were too complex – it was too
long, you know,” Roat recalled. “He just couldn’t wrap his brain around it.” But Roat was helpless to assist – PSSA rules
prohibited her from offering any type of structural support.
Black Boys in Crisis: How to Get Them to
Read
Education Week Education Futures
Blog By Matthew Lynch on October 26, 2016 6:38 AM
The statistics point to a
startling, yet simple, truth: black boys who cannot read are already in
trouble. So if we know that black boys aren't reading the level they should,
what can we do to improve that? It starts with awareness and extends to: Customized
reading plans
A large part of improving the
reading rates of black boys is to provide curriculum plans that are a little
less rigid and a little more nuanced. As adults, the reading materials we pick
up for the pure joy of reading are as varied as we are and it's acceptable for
individuals to prefer certain genres over others. Kids don't have the same
freedom. In fairness, before kids can determine what reading materials they
will love, they must first have exposure to a wide variety. Still. When reading
is uninteresting, it's hard. That's something that doesn't change into
adulthood. Early learning teachers, from preschool through the rest of
elementary school, must have a diverse knowledge of the reading materials
available for their age groups and try, try, and try again until a certain
subject or genre clicks.
International Business Times BY DAVID SIROTA @DAVIDSIROTA AND AVI ASHER-SCHAPIRO AND ANDREW PEREZ (MAPLIGHT) ON10/26/16 AT 10:49 PM
When Massachusetts public school
teachers pay into their pension fund each month, they may not realize where the
money goes. Wall Street titans are using some of the profits from managing
that money to finance an education ballot initiative that many teachers say
will harm traditional public schools. An
International Business Times/MapLight investigation has found that executives
at eight financial firms with contracts to manage Massachusetts state
pension assets have bypassed anti-corruption rules and funneled at least
$778,000 to groups backing Question 2, which would expand the number of
charter schools in the state. Millions more dollars have flowed from the
executives to nonprofit groups supporting the charter school movement in the
lead-up to the November vote. Republican Gov. Charlie Baker, himself a former
financial executive, is leading the fight to increase the number of publicly
funded, privately run charter schools in Massachusetts — and he appoints
trustees to the board that directs state pension investments. “This is a morally bankrupt situation,” said
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, which
opposes the ballot measure. “These managers are using money they’ve earned from
teacher pensions to try to destroy the same public education system that
teachers have worked in mightily to help children.”
The Privatization of Public Education is
Failing Our Kids
The Progressive by Mark Pocan Posted:
October 25, 2016Having served fourteen years in the Wisconsin state legislature before coming to Congress, I had a front-row seat to witness the growth of the nation’s first and largest taxpayer-funded voucher experiment. Our state was an unfortunate leader in the current march toward corporations and wealthy individuals privatizing our public education system. Wisconsin now has more than 32,000 students statewide enrolled in its voucher plan, even though approximately three-quarters of the new students receiving that public money werealready attending private schools. Now they are just doing so on the taxpayer’s dime. States across the country are draining funds from public schools that educate the vast majority of our children and diverting it to a few students in private schools. And while state governments are spending millions of taxpayer dollars on these schools, there is virtually no proof that voucher programs are effectively educating our kids. These schools have far less accountability and lower standards than public schools.
Where The Money Comes From In The Fight Over MA Charter Schools
WBUR By Max Larkin October 27, 2016
Both sides in the ballot fight
over the charter cap are out knocking on doors in the run-up to Election Day.
The public faces of each campaign are students, parents and teachers, pleading
for fairness and excellence in every child’s education. Behind the scenes, though, an unprecedented
clash of titans is taking place. Supporters
of Question 2 — the ballot measure that would raise the cap on the number of
charter schools allowed to operate in Massachusetts — have contributed $19.5
million to the campaign; opponents have kicked in $13.4 million, according
to filing data kept
by the state Office of Campaign & Political Finance. Together that makes almost $33 million — more
than twice the $15 million spent, mostly by gaming interests, in the 2014
casino debate, which had been the state’s most expensive campaign on a ballot
question.
And very little of that money
comes from small, Bernie Sanders-sized donations.
BBC by Sean Coughlan Education correspondent 27 October 2016
How do Finnish youngsters spend less time in school, get less homework and still come out with some of the best results in the world?
The question gets to the heart of a lot of parental angst about hard work and too much pressure on children in school. Parents facing all those kitchen table arguments over homework might wonder about its value if the Finns are getting on just fine without burning the midnight oil.
As the OECD think tank says: "One of the most striking facts about Finnish schools is that their students have fewer hours of instruction than students in any other OECD country."
Divide,
then rule: How the weird science of U.S. gerrymandering works
Employing voter algorithms and
modern mapping software, writes Marcus Gee, American politicians have made
gerrymandering planned and preciseMARCUS GEE ASHEVILLE, N.C. The Globe and Mail Last updated: Friday, Oct. 21, 2016 2:14PM EDT
A year after governor Elbridge Gerry’s radical (and self-serving) redrawing of the Massachusetts political landscape inspired the Boston Gazette cartoonist’s ‘Gerry-Mander,’ this version appeared in the April 2, 1813, edition of the Salem Gazette. Here’s the original page; you can also read the accompanying editorial below. Donald Trump says the election is rigged. His enemies are trying to steal it from him. That’s nonsense, of course. Out-and-out cheating at the ballot box is vanishingly rare in the United States, thanks to a host of safeguards. But he’s right in one sense.
American politics is rigged. Both
parties do the rigging, and they do it in plain sight, shamelessly and legally
and even democratically. They draw
the boundaries of the country’s electoral districts to their own advantage,
grouping voters in a way that gives their party the greatest number of wins in
Congress and in state legislatures.
Instead of the voters choosing the politicians, the politicians, in
effect, choose the voters. The
process is called gerrymandering and it’s as old as the United States. Patrick
Henry, a hero of the American Revolution, is said to have colluded in redrawing
a Virginia district in an attempt to thwart his rival, James Madison.
Daily KOS By Stephen Wolf Thursday Oct 27, 2016 · 9:01 AM EDT
North Carolina is perhaps the
ultimate swing state in 2016: It’s the only one with truly competitive races
for president, Senate, and governor. Remarkably, though, not a single seat is expected to change hands in the
state’s House delegation, where Republicans hold a lopsided 10-to-three
advantage over Democrats. While there are many reasons for this, gerrymandering
is one of the most important. In this post, we’ll examine why, using the three
different maps shown above to demonstrate how wildly divergent outcomes are
possible for congressional elections in the very same state. American congressional and legislative
elections almost all take place under a system of single-member districts,
where only one candidate can win. That requires breaking up a state into
smaller parts to create a redistricting plan. However, voters from each party
aren’t equally distributed throughout a state. Although North Carolina is
roughly evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans as a whole, big cities
vote heavily Democratic while many rural areas lean strongly Republican.
Consequently, many districts naturally will favor one party or the other even
if we didn’t intend to draw them that way.
Education Bloggers Daily Highlights
10/27/2016
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