Monday, March 13, 2017

PA Ed Policy Roundup March 13: #OpposeHB250: Private/religious schools that receive EITC/OSTC funding may discriminate against & refuse to enroll any student for any reason, including disability, race, socioeconomic status, religious affiliation & sexual orientation.

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Keystone State Education Coalition
PA Ed Policy Roundup March 13, 2017:
#OpposeHB250: Private/religious schools that receive EITC/OSTC funding may discriminate against & refuse to enroll any student for any reason, including disability, race, socioeconomic status, religious affiliation & sexual orientation.



Winter Storm Warning from 8pm 3/13 until 4pm 3/14. Heavy snow expected. Travel is strongly discouraged. Great opportunity for you to TAKE ACTION on PA’s HB250 and on the possible loss of over $140 million in Medicaid reimbursement for special education services. Stay safe and read on….



“Then he gets down to it: The state Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit Program “provides voucher-like grants for students residing within the boundaries of a public school that ranks in the bottom 15 percent of schools statewide. The reason that virtually no quality private schools participate in the program is because it requires them to relinquish control of who’s admitted. If a student qualifies based on living in a poor-performing district, a private school is compelled to enroll that student without consideration of the school’s normal admissions requirements.”  Bingo. Give us your huddled masses, but not all; just the good ones. There’s a joke about an apocryphal college professor who strolls through a deserted campus during spring break and muses, “This education stuff would be pretty sweet if it weren’t for the students.”
OSTC: The public is being sold a bill of goods about school vouchers
Post Gazette Opinion by DANIEL MORROW March 12, 2017 12:00 AM
We should thank Kiski School headmaster Chris Brueningsen for “Vouching for Vouchers” (Forum, March 5). This nakedly elitist commentary hauls into the light the reason why vouchers are not intended to offer struggling students and their families choice.  He softens us up with this sleight of hand: “Vouchers cost taxpayers just over $6,000 per child each year, compared to public school per-pupil spending, which exceeded $11,000 on average.” The differential here is this: That $6,000 is not the real cost of educating a child in a private school, while that $11,000 is the real cost of educating a child in a public school. Never doubt that the real cost of the former is comparable to the latter, with the cost of the voucher representing a public subsidy of a private enterprise. This is known in some conservative circles as picking winners and losers.

EITC/OSTC Pennsylvania’s $125 million voucher program:
Private/religious schools that receive EITC/OSTC funding may discriminate against and refuse to enroll any student for any reason, including disability, race, socioeconomic status, religious affiliation, and sexual orientation.
Myth busting the $125 million private and religious school scholarship tax credits in the EITC/OSTC programs: Lots of $$$ with no fiscal or academic performance accountability
Education Voters PA website March 12, 2017
The Educational Improvement Tax Credit (EITC) program allows businesses to receive a 75%-90% credit on their state income tax for contributions they make to any of the following three organizations: approved scholarship organizations that provide scholarships to students to attend private/religious schools, educational improvement organizations, and pre-k scholarship organizations. The Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit (OSTC) program grants a 75%-90% state tax credit to businesses that make contributions to approved scholarship organizations that provide scholarships to students who live in the attendance boundaries of a low-achieving school, as determined by the Pennsylvania Department of Education, to attend private/religious schools.

EITC/OSTC -Take Action on HB250: Lawmakers are trying to hijack millions more for private school scholarships--tell them to fund our PUBLIC SCHOOLS and OPPOSE additional funding for private school scholarships
Education Voters PA March 12, 2017
On Monday, March 13th the PA House is scheduled to vote on HB 250, a bill that proposes to increase funding for private school scholarships to $180 MILLION/year by providing $55 million in NEW corporate tax breaks for businesses that contribute to private school scholarship organizations through the Educational Improvement Tax Credit (EITC) and Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit (OSTC) programs.   The EITC and OSTC programs already divert $125 million from the PA general fund  budget and funnel this money into private schools.  This leaves less money to fund PUBLIC schools and other important programs that benefit Pennsylvanians.  Fill in your information below for your state lawmakers' contact information. Please call your state representative and senator NOW and then send a follow-up email with one click. You will also email House Speaker Mike Turzai, the prime sponsor of HB 250

Reprise Oct 2016: PA's “successful EITC program” is successful at circumventing the Pennsylvania Constitution
PA Ed Policy Roundup Sunday, October 9, 2016

PA’s School-Based ACCESS Program is jeopardized under proposed federal cuts to Medicaid
Pennsylvania public schools are currently at risk of losing millions of dollars in federal funding to help pay for mandated services for students with special needs.
A PSBA Closer Look March 2017
https://www.psba.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/ACL_ACCESS-program-jeopardized.pdf

Call your Congressman’s office today to let them know that Pennsylvania could lose over $140 million in reimbursement for services that school districts provide to special education students

Editorial: For school choice to work in Pennsylvania, charter school law needs an overhaul
Lancaster Online The LNP Editorial Board March 12, 2017
THE ISSUE - Lancaster County officials are calling for an overhaul of the state’s charter school law. County public schools paid nearly $19 million to charter schools last year, up about $6 million from six years ago. Charter school enrollments in the county have gone up to 1,570 from 1,265 in 2010. Pennsylvania State Auditor General Eugene DePasquale has said that the commonwealth has “the worst charter school law in the country.” U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is a charter school advocate who has promised to make it easier for parents to choose an alternative to public school education.
In most cases, “choice” is a valued, and very American, principle. But the word takes on a radioactive glow when it appears anywhere in the general vicinity of issues such as abortion and education.  Advocates of school choice argue that parents should be able to choose their children’s school and that school choice opens up a vast array of opportunities, especially for low-income children stuck in underperforming public schools. Critics say an expansion of school choice will siphon money from traditional public schools and degrade the quality of education for most American children.  Regardless of where you come down ideologically on the issue, one thing we know is that President Donald Trump and his new education secretary want to extend school choice to millions more American children. Trump wants to spend $20 billion to expand school choice, mostly in the form of tax-credit scholarships.  What does that mean for Lancaster County and Pennsylvania? It means that if choice and charter schools are to become a reality for more students, Pennsylvania needs to do something about its antiquated charter school law.

Pennsylvania GOP lawmaker on budget: 'We know we have to come up with some revenue'
Morning Call by Marc Levy Of The Associated Press March 13, 2017
With three weeks of budget hearings behind them, Pennsylvania's big Republican legislative majorities now have months of budget-making ahead of them, and perhaps more than ever, a willingness to increase taxes to deal with the state's persistent post-recession deficit.  For now, top Republicans are saying what they said last year — a tax increase is a last resort — before they approved a tax package anchored by an additional $1 per-pack excise tax on cigarettes. But this year, many rank-and-file Republicans seem more resigned to a reality that the deficit — nearly $3 billion through next summer, according to the state's nonpartisan Independent Fiscal Office — cannot be swept away easily.  "Our solution is always to cut spending, but we know we're at a pretty bare point right now," said Rep. Jeff Pyle, R-Armstrong. "So we know we have to come up with some revenue."

Analysis shows hidden snags in school property tax elimination bill
Daily Local By Evan Brandt, ebrandt@21st-centurymedia.com@PottstownNews on Twitter POSTED: 03/11/17, 6:12 PM EST | UPDATED: 1 DAY AGO
LOWER POTTSGROVE >> Most polls show voters in favor of any effort in Harrisburg to enact property tax reform, or eliminate them completely.   With legislators once again raising the hope it will be adopted this session, Pottsgrove School District officials putting together another budget took the time to see what that would look like had last year’s school tax elimination bill been adopted. And what they found is that there are indeed lots of devils in those details.  “A lot of people hear ‘property tax elimination’ and they think ‘boom,’ their bill goes away, they save a lot of money and that’s it,” Pottsgrove Business Manager David Nester told the board Tuesday.  “But it’s not that simple,” he said.

Cameron County School Board opposes school property tax elimination
The Bradford Era By AMANDA JONES Era Correspondent amandajonesera@yahoo.com March 10, 2017
EMPORIUM — Members of the Cameron County School Board voted unanimously Thursday to adopt a resolution which opposes current legislation to eliminate school property taxes. Board member Robert Lininger said members are not opposed to the elimination of property taxes, but the suggested funding formula would end up costing local taxpayers more in the long run than current funding mechanisms.  According to a fact sheet compiled and approved by a number of organizations, including the Pennsylvania State Education Association (PSEA), the Pennsylvania School Boards Association and the Pennsylvania Association of Rural and Small Schools, “reducing school property taxes means the state must fill in the funding gaps for local school districts with $14 billion in higher personal and income taxes.”  In addition, 59 percent of school districts will send more money to Harrisburg than they get back in property tax relief. In the 25th Senatorial District, it has been determined that taxpayers will contribute more than $51 million in additional funding through the proposed bill.

Our view: Help shape future of Erie schools
Go Erie By the Editorial Board March 13, 2017
An anxious question has hung over the Erie School District since the district's financial crisis first caused schools Superintendent Jay Badams in May to announce one possible response — the closure of Erie's four public high schools.  What will the future of public education in Erie be? With the district's $31.8 million financial recovery plan rejected out of hand by the state Department of Education, the time to decide is now.  The call is yours to help make.  The district, under Badams' leadership, is to be credited for maintaining painstaking transparency as it worked the past seven years to overcome budget shortfalls that were created in part by an ill-timed, lucrative teachers contract in 2008 that predated Badams and worsened by a state school funding formula that put cities like Erie — with a shrinking population and high rates of tax-exempt property, poverty and students with special needs — at an ever-worsening disadvantage. The district has already shuttered three elementary schools, cut staff by 21 percent and instituted other austerity measures.  Starting at a 6 p.m. meeting Monday at the Booker T. Washington Center, 1720 Holland St., district leaders need your ideas about what to do next.

Gerrymandering: Redistricting reform part of a two-act play in Pa. | Editorial
Express-Times opinion staff  on March 12, 2017 at 6:30 AM, updated March 12, 2017 at 8:27 AM
An important two-act play is in dress rehearsal at the moment in Harrisburg. It's important that voters take their seats -- and prepare to make some government-reform demands of their elected representatives.  Hold off on the rotten fruit, for now. How this drama plays out will affect how we elect our state legislators, and it could reshuffle the stacked deck known as gerrymandering. The big surprise that both Republicans and Democrats are showing signs that they're ready to embrace a fairer way of redrawing legislative districts.
·         Act one: The Legislature has already approved a proposal to shrink the size of the House of Representatives, from 203 to 150 members. (The Senate would remain at 50.) Because this requires a constitutional amendment, the House and Senate must  approve the identical bill again, in the 2017-18 session; then it would go to voters in a statewide referendum.
·         Act two: The move to defang gerrymandering is picking up steam. State Sen. Lisa Boscola, a Bethlehem Democrat, and Sen. Mario Scavello, a Republican who represents Monroe and Northampton counties, are sponsoring Senate Bill 22, the leading reform measure on this.
SB 22 would take the process of redrawing legislative districts out of the hands of a five-member panel dominated by House and Senate leaders and replace it with a group of 11 citizens.

Gerrymandering - Inquirer Editorial: Politicians shouldn't get to draw their district's lines
Inquirer Editorial Updated: MARCH 13, 2017 — 3:01 AM EDT
Ever wish you had a job where you didn't have to listen to the boss, where once hired you never have to worry about evaluations or about being replaced? If you have a job like that you must be either a state legislator or member of Congress.  Pennsylvania legislators so tightly control the boundaries of their districts that when voters show signs of being attracted to someone else, the politicians simply change the district lines to include a more hospitable electorate. Once ensconced, their hand-picked constituents robotically return them to office year after year, providing little incentive to ever compromise with opponents across the aisle.  Both Democrats and Republicans over the years have exerted ruthless power over drawing legislative and congressional district lines when their party was in the majority in the legislature.  Republicans currently control the legislature and get to draw both the legislative and congressional district lines. That helps explain why the GOP holds 13 House seats in Congress to the Democrats' five, even though the 4.2 million registered Democrats in the state outnumber the 3.3 million Republicans. The legislature is lopsided too. Republicans outnumber Democrats 122-80 in the House and 34-16 in the Senate.  History shows Democrats do the same thing to ensure their political survival when they are in charge in Harrisburg, which is why neither party should control drawing district boundaries.

The Gerrymandering problem: Radio Times with Marty Moss-Coane
10-11 am on 90.9 FM Rebroadcast at 10 PM MONDAY, MARCH 13
Audio for this story will be available at approximately 1 p.m.
Guests: Carol Kuniholm, Jowei Chen
Donald Duck kicking Goofy.  That’s how many have described the ridiculous shape of Pennsylvania’s 7thCongressional District; the most gerrymandered district in one of the country’s most gerrymandered states. Drawing congressional district lines, known as redistricting, has been a hotly contested issue for a long time.  The process is opaque and very political with incumbent parties aiming to retain their seats in the legislature. But reformers are hard at work trying to change the process to more accurately reflect the demographics of the states. In Pennsylvania, CAROL KUNIHOLM, founder of Fair Districts PA has been working with local organizations to end gerrymandering. She joins us on the show along with JOWEI CHEN, professor of political science at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, who studies the process of redistricting and its effects.

Gerrymandering: Fair Districts PA - Working to Ensure Fair Districts & Fair Elections for Every PA Voter
Pennsylvania is one of the most gerrymandered states in the union. Behind closed doors, despite the conflict of interest, lawmakers draw the borders of their own voting districts. Politicians are picking their voters, not the other way around. Many districts are no longer competitive. A growing number of candidates run unopposed. Voters feel their votes don’t count, and the gridlock in Harrisburg gets worse.

Legal experts say Pine-Richland transgender ruling will impact national cases
By Elizabeth Behrman / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette March 13, 2017 12:00 AM
The U.S. Supreme Court last week decided it wasn’t ready to weigh in on the issue of transgender students’ rights in public schools.  But attorneys said a federal judge in Pittsburgh, who in February granted an injunction allowing three transgender students in the Pine-Richland School District to use the restrooms they want, has offered up an opinion that will likely be used as a reference in similar cases all across the country.  Jose Gonzalez-Pagan, staff attorney with Lambda Legal, the Washington, D.C.-based group representing the Pine-Richland students, called the Feb. 27 ruling the most detailed legal opinion yet about the argument that transgender students are protected by the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.  “We all look to what other courts have said and precedent,” Mr. Gonzalez-Pagan said. “This is an important precedent to have been set for schools in Pennsylvania and, more broadly, nationally. It’s a very extensive ruling, one that I think will be helpful.”

Philadelphia's school district finds creative ways to ensure kids eat breakfast
WHYY Newsworks BY AVI WOLFMAN-ARENT MARCH 12, 2017
At 6:30 a.m. every school day, a crew consisting of two cafeteria workers and one community volunteer begin the process of cooking and sorting breakfast for each of the 525 students at H.A. Brown School in Philadelphia's Kensington section.  About two hours later a crate arrives in each of the school's home rooms stocked with the meal of the morning.  There's no cafeteria line. And no requirement to arrive early.  As soon as students sit down in the morning they've got a worksheet and a bite in front of them.  This "in-class feeding" model, as Principal Connie Carnivale calls it, has made Brown one of 40 public schools in Philadelphia where more than 70 percent of students eat the free breakfast provided by the school district. When Carnivale arrived at Brown five years ago, breakfast was served before the school day began and only about 30 percent of students participated, she said.

With soda tax money, pre-K centers see rapid growth
Inquirer by Julia Terruso, Staff Writer  @JuliaTerruso |  jterruso@phillynews.com Updated: MARCH 10, 2017 — 5:28 PM EST
Outside of Amazing Kidz Academy on Erie Avenue, Coca Cola trucks went by, going to and from the bottling plant across the street. Inside the pre-K center, 3- and 4-year-olds played in a newly set up classroom, funded through a tax paid by their neighbors.  Amazing Kidz doubled the number of children it served in January thanks to the controversial 1.5 cent-per-ounce sweetened beverage tax, which is funding expansion of early-childhood education in Philadelphia.  The city’s drive to improve pre-K opportunities started the same week the tax went into effect. The debate over the tax continues to rage, with Pepsi having announced planned layoffs and retailers steep losses as a result of the levy. Mayor Kenney, meanwhile, points to the children the tax is helping. Amazing Kidz Academy is one of 88 child-care providers that benefited from the tax, adding, almost overnight, staff, space, and in some cases opportunities for the kids and parents they serve. Despite a slow start, the program is now up to nearly 1,800 children added to pre-K rolls citywide.

"And pre-K and Head Start and mentoring, it's about how do we keep kids in school and how do we make them successful?"  Wetzel said half the state prison population has no high school diploma.  "The best indication of someone who is going to stay out of the prison system is if they are reading on grade level," he said.”
Pennsylvania secretary of corrections focuses on kids, early childhood education
Lancaster Online SUSAN BALDRIGE | Staff Writer March 12, 2017
The state secretary of corrections has a lot of ideas about keeping people out of prison.
But surprisingly, very few of them actually have to do with prison.  "If I could fund one single program," John Wetzel said, "it would be early childhood education."  Wetzel has overseen a decrease in the overall state prison population during his six years in that office, and is asking for fewer state funds for his budget this year than last.  Wetzel was in Lancaster this week to speak about children of incarcerated parents. There are more than 81,000 such children in Pennsylvania.  He also was promoting The First Chance Act, which will be proposed as legislation this year. The proposal centers on funding early childhood education programs through public charitable trusts.  The lecture at the Ware Center was sponsored by Ambassadors for Hope and was filled to standing room. Wetzel ticked off elements of the First Chance Act that he believes are ways that future state prison populations can be reduced.  "The Nurse Family Partnership, which goes into homes to teach parenting from 20 weeks into the pregnancy until the child is 2 years old, is a great return on investment," said Wetzel.

“Hopewell is one of 26 school districts across western Pennsylvania -- and four in Beaver County -- that have bolstered its science, technology, engineering, arts and math, or STEAM, initiatives through grant funding from the Grable Foundation, the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation and the Chevron Corp.”
Hopewell High School dives deeper into robotics
Beaver County Times By Katherine Schaeffer kschaeffer@timesonline.com
HOPEWELL TWP. -- Hopewell High School junior J.J. Yost’s study hall periods aren’t usually spent studying.  Yost, whose post-graduate ambitions include studying robotics at Carnegie Mellon University or the University of Pittsburgh, typically spends the period in the school’s new Maker Workshop tinkering with programmable robots.  On Wednesday, Yost used a controller to navigate a small submarine through the room’s 900-gallon water tank. With a flip of a toggle switch and a push of a button, he directed the robot to scoop up a cube constructed from PVC pipe and gently push it onto a plastic pipe.  Yost is one of more than a dozen students who have spent the last several months building and testing underwater robots in their free time as part of Hopewell’s SeaPerch team.  SeaPerch, sponsored by the U.S. Office of Naval Research, gives students the opportunity to design, build and navigate a robotic submarine through a series of underwater tasks. The program also gives teams the opportunity to face off against other groups during regional and national competitions.

After five years with no raise, Chester Upland teachers approve new contract
Inquirer by Kathy Boccella, Staff Writer  @Kathy_Boccella |  kboccella@phillynews.com Updated: MARCH 10, 2017 — 2:43 PM EST
Chester Upland School District teachers have narrowly approved a three-year contract after rejecting an offer in January and working without a pact for more than three years.  The 234-member Chester Upland Education Association voted, 78-65, in favor of the agreement. It allows some teachers to move up a salary step -- an incremental, experience-based pay raise built into most teacher contracts -- in each of the three years, with a $472 hike in the overall scale in the second year. Those at the top of the 13-step scale, or 18 percent of the staff, will get a $1,000 bonus in the first year and $500 in the second year of the contract.  School district receiver Peter R. Barz said he planned to approve the deal at the next school board meeting, on Thursday. “Every teacher is getting an acceptable increase,” he said.  However, union president Michele Paulick said that after working five years without a raise, teachers are not happy.  “It’s not what we want, it’s not what we deserve,” she said of the contract, approved March 2. “People are tired and they’re frustrated.”   For the first time, teachers will have to pay a portion of their health care premiums: 6 percent the first year, then 7 percent in the following two years. The cost to those with a family plan who are the top of the pay scale would be as high as $1,300 annually, essentially wiping out bonuses, she said.  The average salary is about $75,000.

Monroe County schools get grants for propane buses
By Stacy M. Brown For the Pocono Record Posted Mar 12, 2017 at 8:30 PMUpdated Mar 12, 2017 at 8:50 PM
With 168 school buses in its fleet that travel more than 3.3 million miles combined each year, the Pocono Mountain School District received welcomed news — and some cash — this week from the state Department of Environmental Protection.  The district has been awarded a $100,000 grant to help purchase 25 Propane Bluebird Vision 78-passenger school buses to replace its conventional diesel vehicles.  The purchase will require the installation of new infrastructure for fuel supply. It's estimated that the district will save more than 70,000 gas gallons equivalent each year.  It could also prolong the life of the bus, which district officials say currently last an average of seven to 10 years.  "We are thrilled to receive this grant. Pocono Mountain School District purchased its first 25 propane buses this past summer to begin replacing our aging diesel bus fleet with the more environmentally-friendly and cost-effective propane buses," said District Superintendent Dr. Elizabeth Robison.  "We are the first school district in Monroe County to purchase propane buses, so we are trying to lead the way in the county when it comes to environmentally conscious student transportation operations," Robison said.  The grant is part of the $1.9 million awarded by DEP to state schools and businesses for projects using alternative fuels and infrastructure.


Key Democrats Press Betsy DeVos on Direction of ESSA Implementation
Education Week Politics K12 Blog By Alyson Klein on March 12, 2017 8:50 PM
Two Democrats who played a key role in crafting the Every Student Succeeds Act—Sen. Patty Murray D-Wash., and Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va.—sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos Friday asking what her plans are for giving states guidance on implementing the law, now that Congress has scrapped a key set of regulations written by the Obama administration.  Among a lot of other things, those regulations, which dealt with the accountability portion of the law, included a "template" or application form for states to use in developing their plans. A number of states have already gotten started using the old template, posting the form on their websites for feedback. But now that Congress has scrapped the regs, that form doesn't apply.  DeVos said earlier this year that she planned to stick to the Obama administration's timetable for implementing the law. That means states can begin turning in their applications on April 3. And she said she'd develop a new template—essentially, a long federal form—for those applications, releasing it on March 13. (That's Monday).  Her new form, she said, would ask states only for information that was "absolutely necessary" for implementing the law.  DeVos said under the new federal template states could also opt to use a template developed with the help of the Council of Chief State School Officers, instead of the department's.  Scott and Murray clearly aren't wild about the notion of multiple application forms. And they have other questions, too.

GOP lawmakers refuse to protect LGBT students and those with disabilities in school voucher bill
Washington Post Answer Sheet Blog By Valerie Strauss March 12 at 11:49 AM 
There was something buried in the news that a U.S. House committee had just advanced a bill renewing federally funded school vouchers in Washington — the only such program in the country — and it is highly revealing about Republican priorities when it comes to protecting the civil rights of students.  A bill to extend the Scholarships for Opportunity and Results Reauthorization Act, known as SOAR, through 2022 was approved Friday by the House Oversight Committee, which is chaired by Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), who spends a lot of time trying to tell D.C. residents what to do, even though he was elected by people in Utah. But the panel’s Republicans voted down Democratic efforts to add amendments that would protect the civil rights of students with disabilities and LGBT students.


Briefing: Public Education Funding in Pennsylvania March 15, from 5:30-7:00 p.m., in Philly
On March 15, from 5:30-7:00 p.m., join attorneys Michael Churchill, Jennifer Clarke and Dan Urevick-Ackelsberg for a briefing on public education.
Topics include:
·         the basics of education funding
·         the school funding lawsuit
·         the property tax elimination bill and how it would affect school funding
1.5 CLE credits available to PA licensed attorneys.

Ron Cowell at EPLC always does a great job with these policy forums.
RSVP Today for a Forum In Your Area! EPLC is Holding Five Education Policy Forums on Governor Wolf’s 2017-2018 State Budget Proposal
Forum #4 – Indiana University of Pennsylvania Tuesday, March 14, 2017 – 1011 South Drive (Stouffer Hall), Indiana, PA 15705
Forum #5 – Lehigh Valley Tuesday, March 28, 2017 – Carbon Lehigh Intermediate Unit #21, 4210 Independence Drive, Schnecksville, PA 18078
Governor Wolf will deliver his 2017-2018 state budget proposal to the General Assembly on February 7. These policy forums will be early opportunities to get up-to-date information about what is in the proposed education budget, the budget’s relative strengths and weaknesses, and key issues.  Each of the forums will take following basic format (please see below for regional presenter details at each of the three events). Ron Cowell of EPLC will provide an overview of the Governor’s proposed budget for early education, K-12 and higher education.  A representative of The Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center will provide an overview of the state’s fiscal situation and key issues that will affect this year’s budget discussion. The overviews will be followed by remarks from a panel representing statewide and regional perspectives concerning state funding for education and education related items. These speakers will discuss the impact of the Governor’s proposals and identify the key issues that will likely be considered during this year’s budget debate.
Although there is no registration fee, seating is limited and an RSVP is required.
Offered in partnership with PASA and the PA Department of Education March 29-30, 2017 at the Radisson Hotel Harrisburg - Camp Hill, PA .    Approved for 40 PIL/Act 48 (Act 45) hours for school administrators.  Register online at http://www.pasa-net.org/ev_calendar_day.asp?date=3/29/2017&eventid=63

PASBO 62nd Annual Conference, March 21-24, David L. Lawrence Convention Center, Pittsburgh.
Register now for the 2017 NSBA Annual Conference March 25-27 Denver
Plan to join public education leaders for networking and learning at the 2017 NSBA Annual Conference, March 25-27 in Denver, CO. General registration is now open at https://www.nsba.org/conference/registration. A conference schedule, including pre-conference workshops, is available on the NSBA website.

Register for the 2017 PASA Education Congress, “Delving Deeper into the Every Student Succeeds Act.” March 29-30

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!

Save the Date 2017 PA Principals Association State Conference October 14. 15, 16, 2017
Doubletree Hotel Cranberry Township,  PA


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