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Keystone
State Education Coalition
PA
Ed Policy Roundup March 22, 2017:
Fifty Education Groups Tell
Congress: Reject GOP Health Care Bill
Vote
expected tomorrow: 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; let them know how this
would impact your students, district and taxpayers
Contact info: http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/
Letter to Congress from 50
Education Groups:
Fifty Education Groups Tell Congress: Reject the GOP Health
Care Bill
Education Week Politics K12 Blog By Alyson Klein on March
22, 2017 6:36 AM
Some fifty education groups are urging lawmakers to vote
against the American Health Care Act, better known as the GOP alternative to
the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare to the haters.
The reason? The bill, which is being pushed by both
President Donald Trump and Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., the speaker
of the House, would make changes to the way that Medicaid is funded. It would
base state allocations in part on how many people they have from a particular
population. Proponents say this will help states be more creative with their
Medicaid dollars, but the education groups argue that it will lead to
significant cuts, to the tune of $880 billion over time.
Why do education groups care about Medicaid? Schools receive about $4
billion a year from the program, or more than a quarter of what they current
get in Title I money for disadvantaged students. That makes Medicaid the third
largest federal program for K-12 schools.
The dollars are generally used to help cover the cost of providing
services to Medicaid eligible students in special education. That can mean
anything from wheelchairs to speech therapy. Districts will need to make up for
the cuts to Medicaid by either raising taxes, cutting services for general
education students, or both, the groups who signed the letter contend. What's
more, school districts may be forced to cut mental health services and lay-off
employees (including school nurses), the groups write.
PP4C: What’s at stake for kids if ACA is repealed?
How Medicaid, CHIP, and the ACA Cover Pennsylvania’s Children
“Forgive us, Sen. Argall, if we distrust
leaders in a state Capitol that sold us a state lottery in the 1970s as a means
to eliminate poverty among the elderly (ha!), casino gambling that promised
massive property tax relief (haha!) and a $2.3 billion transportation bill that
produced one of the highest gasoline taxes in the nation from a Republican
governor who promised he’d never raise taxes.”
MULLANE: With schools, you pay for what you get
Intelligencer by JD Mullane March
21, 2017
Are your school property taxes
too high?
When I asked several colleagues
and friends, the response was generally, “Have you lost your marbles? Of
course, they’re too high.” Which might
be why a proposal reshaping how Pennsylvania funds school districts by
significantly limiting property taxes seems like a good idea. Property tax relief? Who doesn’t
want to pay lower taxes? But under the
proposal, the only thing lowered on taxpayers would be the boom. It doesn’t
lower the $14 billion annual cost of public education in Pennsylvania. It just
shifts the costs, like a shell game. That
the plan maintains the status quo on education costs is probably why its
sponsor, state Sen. David Argali, R-29, of Berks and Schuylkill counties, has
bi-partisan support to shift funding away from property taxes. Instead of taxing your
quarter-acre lot in the suburbs, Pennsylvania would get the money by hiking the
state income tax from 3.07 percent to a whopping 4.95 percent, and raising the
state sales tax from 6 percent to 7 percent.
The sales tax would be expanded to items now exempted, such as
groceries, beer and death. So if you eat, drink or die in the commonwealth, you
will be taxed. But wait! There’s more! The dough formerly raised through local
property taxes, instead of staying in your school district, would go to
Harrisburg. What if H-burg is stingy and shortchanges your school district,
what to do? Why, under the new arrangement, the school board can dig deeper
into your pockets by hiking the earned-income tax, if it’s approved by voters
in a referendum.
“The NAACP Pa. holds the position that
schools do not underperform, children do. Many of Pennsylvania’s children score
low on state mandated tests (underperform) because the Pennsylvania legislature
does not provide sufficient funds for their schools to have resources such as
libraries, guidance counselors, programs and essential curricula offerings -
all needed for students to meet performance scores mandated by the State Board
of Education. Schools that “under-serve” students are forced into these
situations of despair by our senators and state representatives through the
budgets they pass and how state funds are distributed across the school
districts.”
Letter to the Editor: NAACP seeks clarity
on senator’s remarks
Delco Times Letter by
Joan Duvall Flynn POSTED: 03/21/17, 9:00 PM EDT
Joan Duvall-Flynn is President, NAACP Pa.
To the Times:
The NAACP State Conference of
Branches has scheduled an appointment with Sen. Eichelberger, Chairman of the
Senate Education Committee to discuss reactions to his West Pennsboro town hall
remarks as well as his overall vision for education in Pennsylvania.
NAACP Pa. expects that the
senator could be genuinely imperceptive as to the cause for outrage at the
thoughts he shared with his Cumberland County constituents. We know that the
senator is elected by a district population that is over 95 percent white, with
the exception of Blair County at 77 percent. We know as well that although they
tend to serve children who are over 50 percent poor, the schools in his
legislative district have populations that are over 90 percent white. Whether or not it should, these
demographics cause people to question the integrity of the senator’s
intentions. Why were minority, “inner-city” school children the topic of any of
the senator’s remarks in such a venue? It was of no apparent service to the
constituents present. However, it certainly, thoughtlessly or by goal, planted
a perspective about “underperforming schools,” where they are, who attends
them, and what it cost to fund them, in the minds of the voters who attended
that town hall.
Post Gazette by THE EDITORIAL BOARD MAR 22, 2017
Democrats have used redistricting
to their advantage. Republicans have, too. For a change, why not draw the
state’s congressional and legislative districts in a way that benefits the
people of Pennsylvania instead of one major political party or the other? That’s the vision of Fair Districts PA, an
effort supported by the League of Women Voters, the government watchdog group
Common Cause and other civic and political organizations. Fair District PA’s
recipe for change is a state constitutional amendment that would put the
redrawing of congressional and legislative boundaries in the hands of
an “independent citizens commission.”
Leading an appropriately bipartisan charge on this issue in the General
Assembly are Sens. Lisa Boscola, D-Lehigh, and Mario Scavello, R-Monroe, who
have sponsored legislation for an 11-citizen panel to be made up of
Republicans, Democrats and citizens registered with neither party. Under the
bill, commission members could not be elected officials or party officials or
work for officeholders. Unsurprisingly, the pair’s colleagues aren’t
rushing to support the legislation.
Pittsburgh board to designate community
schools, but which one is a mystery
By MOLLY BORN Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette mborn@post-gazette.com
MAR 21, 2017
The board of the Pittsburgh
Public Schools will not vote Tuesday night on whether to designate at least one
district building as a “community school,” after the issue was withdrawn from
the agenda. A spokeswoman for the district said late Tuesday afternoon that the
issue was off the board’s agenda. She later said the committee reviewing the
applications from schools interested in the designation wanted more time to
consider the pitches. Before the latest
development, the agenda still did not identify which school or schools
could be chosen as district buildings that house social service and other
programs for students and the neighborhood, a concept lauded by Superintendent
Anthony Hamlet and the board majority. A
26-member committee made up of foundation, government, union and community
representatives received 21 applications from schools. That committee reviewed
the applications and was to recommend which schools deserved the designation as
a community school.
“That’s roughly a third of the
legislature’s annual budget.”
Your legislature's big, fat slush fund
Philly Daily News by John Baer, Political Columnist baerj@phillynews.com Updated: MARCH 21, 2017 4:28 PM
I bet it won’t surprise you to
know that even as your legislature gets set to trim state government costs in
the face of a $3 billion budget deficit, it continues harboring its own big,
fat slush fund. A laughable (or cry-worthy)
legislative “audit” released Monday shows $118 million sitting in legislative
reserve funds as of the end of fiscal 2016.
That’s roughly a third of the legislature’s annual budget. It’s also $18
million more than the previous year’s reserves. And the legislature’s on track
to get a further $313 million-plus in the coming year. For comparative purposes, the state’s entire
$32 billion general fund has a “rainy day” reserve totaling $245,000.
Think something’s askew here?
Read on.
Times Tribune BY THE EDITORIAL BOARD / PUBLISHED: MARCH 22, 2017
You have to hand it to the state
Legislature for innovative budgeting. Or, perhaps it’s that members don’t
understand the definition of budgetary “balance.” Even though the Pennsylvania
Constitution requires a balanced budget, the Legislature has managed to concoct
a deficit and a surplus at the same time.
The Wolf administration has shrunk the prison system and proposed the
consolidation of six state agencies into two as a means of reducing expenses,
while advocating tax reform and a long overdue tax on gas extraction to
increase revenue. Those proposals aim to use both sides of the ledger to reduce
the yawning, state-accumulated budget deficit of about $3 billion. Meanwhile, incredibly, the state Legislature
has accumulated a $118 million surplus in its own operating accounts as of June
30, the end of the 2016-2017 fiscal year. The total includes $56 million for
the 203-member House, or more than $275,000 per member; $23 million for the
50-member Senate, or $460,000 per member, and $39 million for legislative
agencies. The Legislature’s operating
budget for the fiscal year was $321 million.
Pa. is home to some of the most generous
people in the world - lobbyists: PennLive Letters
Penn Live Letters to the
Editor by DON SHERIDAN, Cresson Township, Cambria County on March 21, 2017 at 9:45 AM, updated March
21, 2017 at 10:21 AM
Pennsylvania legislators would
never be influenced by campaign contributions. Their votes are not for sale no
matter how much money greases the rails to re-election or goes secretly into
private coffers. As an example, I submit
the fact that Pennsylvania is the only gas producing state that does not tax
the industry. A cynic might think this
is because the gas industry has "donated" millions and millions of
dollars to our politicians. You fools. We cherish this distinction of being the only
state not to enforce a tax, and we want to keep this prominence. It is Pennsylvania's one true claim to fame.
After all, we are only about number five (although we are trying to climb here)
in corruption so we need something that sets us apart from the other states. It follows then that Pennsylvania
is home to some of the most generous and giving people in the world. Yes. I am talking about lobbyists and special
interest people who cheerfully give these millions and millions of dollars year
after year to our legislators knowing that this money will not influence or
sway any votes in Harrisburg. Such charity should not go un-noted.
Beaver County Times By J.D. Prose
jprose@calkins.com March 21, 2017
Pennsylvania’s secretary of
education has asked his federal counterpart to “reverse course” on proposed
cuts and reiterated that Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration remains “steadfast in
its opposition” to the budget reductions suggested by President Donald Trump. “Here in Pennsylvania we have seen firsthand
the consequences of budgets that indiscriminately reduce or eliminate education
programs,” state Secretary of Education Pedro Rivera told U.S. Secretary of
Education Betsy DeVos in a March 17 letter. “Our schools are still recovering
from the state-level cuts made under the previous gubernatorial
administration.” Besides opposing
education funding cuts, Rivera told DeVos that the Wolf administration “rejects
the notion of shifting funds from already under-resourced public schools to
fund vouchers for private education.” In
a statement last week, Wolf warned of the impact Trump’s budget would have on
Pennsylvania and asked the state’s congressional delegation “to carefully
review the devastating cuts in this proposal and help stop them.”
Conservative groups sue school district
over transgender student
Inquirer by Kathy Boccella, Staff Writer @Kathy_Boccella | kboccella@phillynews.com Updated: MARCH 21, 2017 — 3:45 PM EDT
The Boyertown Area School
District was sued Tuesday by a high school student and his parents who say his
“bodily privacy” was violated when he saw a transgender student -- identified
as female in the filing -- undressing in the locker room as he also was changing. Two conservative faith-based organizations,
Alliance Defending Freedom and Independence Law Center, filed the lawsuit in
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. It claims the
Berks County school district did not notify parents or students that it was
allowing transgender students at Boyertown Area High School to use restrooms
and locker rooms matching their chosen gender identity. Rather, the suit
charges, the district “secretly opened” its sex-specific restrooms and locker rooms
to students of the opposite sex. According
to the filing, the student complained to school officials, who informed him
that students who “subjectively identify themselves as the opposite sex” can
choose which locker room they use. When the student twice asked school
officials to protect his privacy, he was told he must “tolerate” it and make
changing with students of the opposite sex as “natural” as can be, the suit
said.
WITF Written by MARIA DANILOVA/Associated Press | Mar 21, 2017 3:46 PM
(Washington) -- A high school student on Tuesday sued his school district, which covers parts of Berks and Montgomery counties, saying its transgender-friendly policy constitutes sexual harassment and a violation of privacy. The action, filed Tuesday with the Eastern District of Pennsylvania federal court, comes a few weeks after the Trump administration rescinded Obama-era regulations that had instructed schools to allow students to use bathrooms and locker rooms in line with their expressed gender identity as opposed to their sex assigned at birth. In October, the plaintiff, a high-school junior identified as Joel Doe, was changing into gym clothes in the boys' locker room before the mandatory PE class when he saw a student, wearing shorts and a bra, according to the lawsuit. The second student had recently begun transitioning from female to male, said Kellie Fiedorek of the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative group representing the student who brought the suit.
WHYY Newsworks BY AVI WOLFMAN-ARENT MARCH 21, 2017
An 11th-grader is suing his
Pennsylvania school district after it allowed a transgender student to change
in the boys' locker room. It is the
first case in Pennsylvania where the student filing the complaint is not
himself transgender, but rather is responding to the presence of a transgender
student in a sex-segregated space, according to the plaintiff's attorneys. The plaintiff, who chose to remain anonymous,
is alleging that the school district violated his constitutional right to
privacy and broke sexual harassment law enshrined in Title IX when it permitted
a transgender male to use the boys' locker room. "Students from all walks of life find it
deeply humiliating and offensive to be forced to share these facilities with
members of the opposite sex," said Kellie Fiedorik, an attorney with the
conservative group Alliance Defending Freedom and co-counsel for the plaintiff.
"These voices must be heard. And today we stand for them."
How Pa. teachers' pension fund beat the
markets in 2016
Inquirer by Joseph N. DiStefano , Staff
Writer @PhillyJoeD | JoeD@phillynews.com Updated: MARCH 20, 2017 — 12:31 PM
EDT
The $50 billion-plus Pennsylvania
Public School Employees Retirement System brought in more money than it paid
out last year. That is news, considering
how much it costs: State and local taxpayers paid $4.2 billion last year,
including a 30 percent surcharge on public-school payrolls, to keep the plan
solvent into the far future. But for
calendar year 2016, PSERS also made more than expected from its investment
portfolio, the largest in the state -- $4.8 billion in net investment
profits. PSERS scored big on U.S. and foreign stocks, energy and
utility-builder funds, gold and other commodities, even bonds. "All the buckets did well," says
James H. Grossman Jr., chief investment officer for the Harrisburg-based
system. Unlike the complex state workers
(SERS) and Philadelphia City pension portfolios, with their mixes of public and
private investments -- or the Montgomery County plan, which consists
mostly of Vanguard index funds -- PSERS in 2016 significantly beat its
long-term annual benchmark, with returns topping 10.7 percent (the PSERS
long-term target is 7.25 percent a year.)
Our sharp readers might not think those results so impressive. Didn't
the Standard & Poor's 500 return 12 percent last year? PSERS has its own $3 billion portfolio
focused on the S&P 500 stocks. It returned 14 percent in 2016, beating the
index, and Vanguard's big 500 fund.
Key Democratic senator outlines a case
against school vouchers
Washington Post By Emma Brown March
22 at 7:00 AM Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, a key Democratic leader on education policy, made her case against private-school vouchers in a 20-page memo to her Senate colleagues Wednesday, arguing that “school choice” sounds good in theory but falls short in practice. President Trump has promised to pour billions of dollars into expanding choice initiatives, including taxpayer-funded vouchers for private and religious schools. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is a longtime advocate for such efforts, arguing that they provide poor children with life-changing opportunities. But voucher programs too often fail to hold private schools accountable for their students’ performance, fail to serve children in rural areas, and fail to protect the rights of students with disabilities and other vulnerable young people, wrote Murray, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. School choice is a “false choice,” she wrote, arguing that the way to provide children with a better education is to invest in public schools instead of private alternatives. “The only true student and family agenda is one that delivers on the idea that every child, parent, and family should have the choice to attend a high-quality public school.”
City Connects Blog March
2, 2017 by Alyssa
Haywoode
We’ve known that
students who participate in City Connects during elementary school do well on middle school assessments of academic
achievement. However, we know less about why that’s true. What leads to the academic gains that City
Connects provides? New research is
shedding light on this question by looking at the impact of three things: how
elementary school academic skills, elementary school thriving skills, and the
amount of time spent in City Connects affect academic achievement. These research findings will be presented
tomorrow at the Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness. One of the research papers that will be
presented asks whether an additional year of City Connects boosts students’
academic outcomes. This paper will be presented by Diego Luna Bazaldua, a
post-doctoral researcher who is part of an independent evaluation team of
faculty and researchers within the Center for
Optimized Student Support at Boston College’s Lynch School of
Education.PSBA Advocacy Forum and Day on the Hill APR 24, 2017 • 8:30 AM - 5:00 PM
Join PSBA and your fellow school directors for the fourth annual Advocacy Forum on April 24, 2017, at the State Capitol in Harrisburg. Hear from legislators on how advocacy makes a difference in the legislative process and the importance of public education advocacy. Government Affairs will take a deeper dive into the legislative priorities and will provide tips on how to be an effective public education advocate. There will be dedicated time for you and your fellow advocates to hit the halls to meet with your legislators on public education. This is your chance to share the importance of policy supporting public education and make your voice heard on the Hill.
“Nothing has more impact for legislators than hearing directly from constituents through events like PSBA’s Advocacy Forum.”
— Sen. Pat Browne (R-Lehigh), Senate Appropriations Committee chair
Registration:
Visit the Members Area of PSBA’s website under Store/Registration tab to register.
Education Roundup: Recruitment fair for Black male educators March 25
Philly Trib by Ryanne Persinger
Tribune Staff Writer Mar 13, 2017
The annual Career Fair for Black Male Educators for Social Justice
will take place from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., Saturday, March 25, at Mastery Charter
School’s Shoemaker Campus, 5301 Media St.
For more information, visit: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/purpose-annual-career-fair-for-black-male-educators-tickets-31754173588
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 #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
Register
for the 2017 PASA Education
Congress, “Delving Deeper into
the Every Student Succeeds Act.” March 29-30
Join PenSPRA Friday, April 7, 2017 in Shippensburg, PA 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. with evening social events on Thursday, April 6th from 5 - 8 p.m. at the Shippensburg University Conference Center
The agenda is as follows: Supporting transgender students in our schools (9 am), Evaluating School Communications to Inform Your Effectiveness (10:30 am), and Cool Graphics Tools Hands-on Workshop (1:15 pm).
The $150 registration fee also
includes breakfast, lunch and Thursday’s social! You can
find more details on the agenda and register for the Symposium here:
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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