Friday, August 25, 2017

PA Ed Policy Roundup Aug 25: PublicSource In Depth Series on Charters’ 20th Anniversary in PA

Daily postings from the Keystone State Education Coalition now reach more than 4050 Pennsylvania education policymakers – school directors, administrators, legislators, legislative and congressional staffers, Governor's staff, current/former PA Secretaries of Education, Wolf education transition team members, superintendents, school solicitors, principals, PTO/PTA officers, parent advocates, teacher leaders, business leaders, faith-based organizations, labor organizations, education professors, members of the press and a broad array of P-16 regulatory agencies, professional associations and education advocacy organizations via emails, website, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn

These daily emails are archived and searchable at http://keystonestateeducationcoalition.org
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Keystone State Education Coalition
PA Ed Policy Roundup Aug 25, 2017:


PublicSource In Depth Series: THE CHARTER EFFECT
A PublicSource Special Project Summer 2017
Traditionally, the 20th anniversary is celebrated with china but we are marking the 20th anniversary of Pennsylvania’s charter school law with transparency and depth. While other local media outlets have reported on the sweeping change charter school choice has had on students and traditional school districts, our series will expand on that by teasing out the root of the tension between charters and other public schools: money and what appears to be differing standards of accountability. This series will expose and explain the data and records behind the charter schools operating in Allegheny County.

“But they didn't take the creative penmanship sitting down. Both are now plaintiffs in lawsuits challenging the lines, which gave Republicans 13 of Pennsylvania's 18 congressional districts and Democrats seven out of eight in Maryland.  As the Supreme Court prepares to hear a landmark challenge to Wisconsin's partisan gerrymandering in October, opponents of the process in other states aren't just waiting for the justices' verdict. They're waging legal and constitutional battles of their own that also could reach the nation's highest court.”
Gerrymandering: Political maps under fire as Supreme Court case on tailor-made districts looms
Richard Wolf, USA Today Published 3:25 p.m. ET Aug. 24, 2017 | Updated 5:02 p.m. ET Aug. 24
CHESTER, Pa. — Beth Lawn's neighborhood of modest duplexes has more in common with the rest of this struggling, crime-ridden city on the Delaware River next to Philadelphia than it does with the Amish farms of Lancaster County 50 miles away. But the 71-year-old grandmother awoke one morning to find she had been moved from Pennsylvania's 1st congressional district to the 7th, a labyrinthine monstrosity that winds its way through five counties and has been likened to a caricature of Goofy kicking Donald Duck. "I'm pretty sure I'm in Goofy's thumb," Lawn says. "I have a vote, but it really doesn't count for anything." Jerry DeWolf had a similar experience across the border in Maryland when his largely rural 6th congressional district, home to 40 miles of the Appalachian Trail, was stretched to include wealthy suburbs of Washington. He wasn't moved out, but a new congressman was moved in. Both Lawn and DeWolf were victims of partisan gerrymandering — purposeful line-drawing by state lawmakers to maximize their political party's strength in Congress and state legislatures and weaken their opponents. In Lawn's case, Pennsylvania Republicans drew the maps. In DeWolf's, it was Maryland Democrats.

Here's how state lawmakers hid $65m worth of earmarks in 2017-18 budget | Thursday Morning Coffee
Penn Live By John L. Micek jmicek@pennlive.com Updated on August 24, 2017 at 9:54 AM Posted on August 24, 2017 at 8:06 AM
Good Thursday Morning, Fellow Seekers.
As we noted Wednesday, Republicans who control the General Assembly and the Democratic Wolf administration are a long way from an agreement on how to pay for the $32 billion 2017-2018 state budget that went into effect on July 1. But even if they couldn't figure out a way to pay for it, one of the nation's largest and most expensive legislatures was incredibly efficient at tucking some $65 million in pet projects into the thicket of language in a piece of budget-enabling legislation known as the Fiscal Code. Our friends at the Commonwealth Foundation were kind enough to cull through the document (so we didn't have to), extracting the pearls that your soon-to-be raised taxes will pay for in counties in every corner of the Commonwealth. But if you're trying to figure out exactly what those projects are, good luck. You have to be fluent in Legislativese to divine lawmakers' intent. 


Serving up Pa. earmarks ... and hiding them, too
Editorial by TRIBUNE-REVIEW | Thursday, Aug. 24, 2017, 11:00 p.m.
As Pennsylvania lawmakers target more things to tax to close a $2.2 billion gap in a still-incomplete state budget, they've carved out more than $65 million in earmarks in the Senate-approved fiscal code. Even worse, they obscured their various procurements by wording them so vaguely as to render them nearly incomprehensible. But the folks at the Commonwealth Foundation have a decoder ring, and here's just a sample of what they found:
• $5 million “shall be distributed to a hospital in a city of the third class in a home rule county that was formerly a county of the second class A.” Commonwealth's translation: This probably meant Crozer-Keystone Health System in Chester City.
• “$850,000 shall be allocated to a special rehabilitation facility in Peer Group Number 13 in a city of the third class with a population between 115,000 and 120,000 based upon 2010 census data.” Commonwealth's translation: This likely will go to a facility in Allentown.
It's beyond the pale that millions of dollars in spending are shielded from public scrutiny — in part, by stuffing them in the fiscal code. And this, when a Senate-passed revenue package (still without House approval) jacks up taxes on natural gas, along with telephone and electric utilities.
What's exposed is Pennsylvania's chronic spending problem. Rather than penning new and higher taxes, what lawmakers need is a good eraser.

House Republicans are working to protect taxpayers
Post Gazette Opinion by REP. JASON ORTITAY South Fayette AUG 25, 2017
The writer, a Republican, represents the 46th Legislative District, which includes part of Allegheny County and part of Washington County.
The Post-Gazette has it wrong with its depiction of Pennsylvania’s Speaker of the House Mike Turzai and state House Republicans in recent editorials and the Aug. 21 editorial cartoon. In April, the House passed a balanced budget that reduced spending, cut bureaucracy and funded our schools — without increasing taxes. The Senate took until late June to begin considering the budget, and once it and the Wolf administration got involved, the cost to taxpayers went up. Meanwhile, the governor himself has been basically disengaged since his February budget address, choosing instead to go into campaign mode. Where was the Post-Gazette reporting — and indignation — about how we got in this deficit situation in the first place? Why did the governor go on a $1.5 billion deficit spending spree last year, instead of placing money in budgetary reserve like the four prior governors? Why did he spend $1.8 million in taxpayer dollars on a consulting firm to develop “his” last budget proposal? Does that sound like someone with vision, leadership and passion for this great commonwealth? What has Gov. Tom Wolf specifically done to build consensus about a revenue plan? As I talk with my constituents, it’s clear they don’t support the Senate-passed utility taxes, and that was evident at the hearing I hosted recently in Bridgeville. Thanks to the efforts of the House Republican leadership team, including Mr. Turzai, members have gotten more involved than ever, and we are poised to roll out a new revenue plan in the very near future.

OPED: Costs of standardized testing continue to grow
York Dispatch Opinion by State Sen. Andy Dinniman, Senate Education Committee Published 8:15 a.m. ET Aug. 24, 2017 | Updated 10:09 a.m. ET Aug. 24, 2017
I know that when one challenges the policy of an administration, especially of one’s own party, you risk entering the danger zone. But for 12 years in the Senate, I have fought tooth and nail against standardized testing regardless of whether the administration has been Republican or Democratic. And I’m not about to stop now. It’s just too important of an issue. Harrisburg always revolves around spin and this month’s announcement of Pennsylvania’s Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) Plan was spin at its finest. Gov. Tom Woolf and Secretary of Education Pedro A. Rivera only focused on one part of the ESSA plan and patted themselves on the back for ending the “test culture.” Here are a few questions about the whole ESSA plan that reveal the lack of candor in their claims:
·         Does subjecting students as young as 8 and 9 years old to six-and-a-half days of testing, instead of eight days, really end test culture?
·         Does making eighth-grade students take both the PSSA and the Keystone Exam end test culture?
·         Does continuing the Keystones as a high school graduation requirement and forcing students to take the equivalent of 10 days of testing end test culture?
·         Does maintaining a policy of teacher evaluation and school performance that still depends on test scores end the emphasis on teaching to the test?
·         The answer to these questions is obviously no, despite any attempts at political spin. And, as is often the case, what wasn’t said is much more telling than what was.
What the governor and the secretary of education didn’t want to talk about is the problematic continuation of the Keystone Exams and their graduation requirement in Pennsylvania’s ESSA plan.

Wissahickon’s KIDS program improves students’ school readiness
Times Herald By Rob Heyman, For Digital First Media POSTED: 08/24/17, 3:51 PM EDT
LOWER GWYNEDD >> Efforts to close an achievement gap in the Wissahickon School District by focusing specifically on students before they enter elementary school is yielding some payoff, school district officials said Aug. 21. Dr. Matthew Walsh and Toby Albanese, who are the district’s director of elementary education and Shady Grove Elementary School principal, respectively, gave the school board an update on their team’s yearlong work addressing elementary school readiness. Wissahickon has a 10-year “attack plan” to address and remedy identified disparities in academic achievement between students of different demographic and income groups in the district. The district broke this achievement gap into individual sub-gaps based on those factors that the district feels contribute to the overall gap. Separate teams then were assigned to study each sub-gap and report their work to the board. For example, teams were assigned to look at components like special education, student behavior and wellness, among other areas where achievement disparities can occur. Walsh and Albanese’s team was charged with looking at the “entrance” gap — or what can done to identify and help at-risk students before they enter elementary school. Albanese said that fundamental to the district’s work as it relates to this entrance study is closing any achievement gaps as early as possible in a child’s education by building relationships with each student and tailoring instruction to their individual needs.

CenClear gets $6 million grant for Head Start, Early Head Start programs
Centre Daily Times BY BRITNEY MILAZZO bmilazzo@centredaily.com AUGUST 24, 2017
A grant through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is helping to boost early childhood programs at CenClear Child Services in Centre and Clearfield counties.
“Without this grant, 877 preschool children in Clearfield and Centre counties would not have the opportunity to embark on the journey of life-long learning successfully,” Executive Director Pauline Raab said in an email. Rep. Glenn Thompson, R-Howard Township, recently announced that the Bigler-based child care provider was given a $6,157,353 federal grant to specifically benefit Head Start and Early Head Start programs. “These funds will be instrumental in delivering early childhood education programs,” Thompson said in a statement. “CenClear can continue to provide quality, comprehensive early childhood education, health, nutrition and parent-involvement services for the region.”

“Pre-K Counts is a federally funded program designed for children who are considered “at risk of school failure,” according to the Pennsylvania Department of Education website. Eligibility requirements include falling within 300 percent of the federal poverty guidelines, which is a family of four earning up to $72,900. English language learners and students with special needs are also considered at heightened risk.”
Class of 2031 starts school in Beaver Falls
Beaver County Times By Kate Malongowski kmalongowski@timesonline.com August 24, 2017
BEAVER FALLS -- Future graduates of the class of 2031 entered Central Elementary School for the first time as prekindergarten pupils Wednesday morning. Jessica Hammer, who also began her first day as a full-time teacher, was there to greet her new pupils. Everyone involved had nervous, first-day jitters. "When those kids came in this morning, we had tears, we had crying. But the one thing you just have to do is make them feel safe here. That's it," Hammer said. "They're leaving mommy, daddy, whoever brought them, for the first time. So it is like the worst feeling for them, like it's the end of the world, but somehow, I managed to get everyone into the room, safe, sound and with smiles." Classes at several Beaver County school districts resumed this week. Ambridge schools began on Monday; Western Beaver, Blackhawk, Freedom and Rochester schools started on Tuesday; Beaver, Beaver Falls, Ellwood City and New Brighton students began classes on Wednesday. Aliquippa, Hopewell and Riverside students resumed classes on Thursday.

In Philly, an academic approach to school repairs [photos]
WHYY Newsworks BY AVI WOLFMAN-ARENT AUGUST 25, 2017
The majority of the Allen M. Stearne School in Frankford, built in 1966, looks every bit it's age. But step into one of the school's kindergarten, first, or second-grade classrooms and you'll feel transported to the 21st century. There's new smart panel boards, motion-sensitive lights, tabletops that double as whiteboards, and a gaggle of learning toys too numerous to list here. "I thought maybe a new bookshelf, new rugs," said kindergarten teacher Kelly Kaczmarek, recipient of a refurbished room. "But all this? [I had] no idea." Stearne was one of eight Philly schools to receive a facelift this summer, but not because they were in dire need of repairs. Or at least not on the surface. Stearne and the seven other schools all posted low reading scores, and the fixes are designed specifically to address that problem. Under Superintendent William Hite, the School District of Philadelphia has placed extra emphasis on early literacy. Since teaching literacy in small groups is all the rage, every detail in these new classrooms pushes teachers toward that model. The desks, for instance, contain detachable bins so students can easily move from station to station. Parts of the room are color coded so a teacher could easily instruct students to join the yellow group or the red group. All this represents a pivot in how the district thinks about capital projects. Instead of solely using money to fix schools in dire need of repair or expansion, officials want at least some of their limited dollars funneled toward projects with an overt academic focus.

“Pre-K through second-grade classrooms at the schools — Stearne as well as Pennell, Locke, Lea, Duckrey, Gideon, Meade, and Haverford Learning Center — have gotten complete makeovers, with everything from flexible seating and new paint to cutting-edge technology and materials selected to help students learn better. The schools were chosen based on low literacy scores.”
Philly district spending $5m to spruce up classrooms
Inquirer by Kristen A. Graham, Staff Writer  @newskag |  kgraham@phillynews.com Updated: AUGUST 24, 2017 — 4:22 PM EDT
Teacher Kelly Kaczmarek hardly recognizes her kindergarten classroom. For years, Room 210 at Stearne Elementary in Frankford featured dim lighting, old desks and chairs, and the sorts of materials that were standard issue in Philadelphia rooms for decades. Now, 210 is transformed: new paint, bright lights, a colorful rug, handmade cubbies, boxes and boxes of new hands-on learning materials for students to explore, and extensive technology, including six iPads and a huge smartboard. Kaczmarek was astonished that she would not have to make her usual back-to-school runs to Walmart to shop sales, stocking up on supplies so her students would have new materials for the year. She said she was used to a different kind of classroom — “old tile floors, old materials, books that might have drawings in them, might have rips and tears.” On Thursday, the Philadelphia School District unveiled a $5 million initiative to modernize select classrooms at eight city schools in an effort to boost achievement there.

South Park High School to open cafe run by special needs students
Post Gazette by MARGARET SMYKLA 1:25 PM AUG 24, 2017
A new student-run cafe in the South Park High School cafeteria aims to provide more than coffee and pastries. The cafe will be staffed and operated by students with special needs as part of their vocational programming. “We are preparing them for real-world experiences,” said Kathy Wooddell, director of special education for the district. “It is preparing them to transition to the work world.”  Special needs students in grades 9-12 will work in the cafe as part of their instruction. Their tasks will include conducting inventory, stocking items and operating the cash register. A contest to name the cafe will be open to all high school students at the start of the school year. The school board Aug. 10 approved the creation of the cafe. The idea was a collaboration among the special education department, food service and the high school administration.

Waiting for DeVos: The plot to eradicate and replace public education
South Philly Review By Gloria C. Endres Aug 23
Back in the fall of 2010, a sensational documentary film was released titled “Waiting for Superman.” It promoted the oversimplified notion that American public education has been a gross failure that can be saved only by a free market reform model. Of course the major blame for this exaggerated failure was placed squarely and solely on teachers and their union. Whenever Randi Weingarten, the head of the national teachers’ union, spoke, sinister music was heard. All she needed was a scary cackle to complete the portrait of evil. Administrators, parents and the students themselves were spared any responsibility for failure. Special needs or disabilities did not matter. If only those villainous, incompetent educators could be brought to submission and lose their union protections, defined benefit pensions, seniority rights and tenure, the free market would descend like Superman and magically take care of everything. The star of the film was former chancellor of the District of Columbia School District Michelle Rhee, who had formed a PAC called Students First. She shared the same name with another PAC affiliated with billionaire theocrat Betsy DeVos who had her own school choice organization called American Federation for Children, formerly the Alliance for School Choice. Together, Michelle and Betsy worked hard but failed to get Pennsylvania state Sen. Anthony Williams elected governor of Pennsylvania with his platform of school vouchers.

Philly school principals OK contract worth $25 million
Inquirer by Kristen A. Graham, Staff Writer  @newskag |  kgraham@phillynews.com Updated: AUGUST 24, 2017 — 9:18 PM EDT
Philadelphia School District administrators Thursday night overwhelmingly approved a new five-year contract that will give them pay raises and bonuses, and restore principals as 12-month employees. Ninety percent of the voting membership of Teamsters Local 502, Commonwealth Association of School Administrators, approved the deal, union president Robin Pleshette Cooper said. The deal, which is retroactive to 2016 and runs through Aug. 31, 2021, will cost the School District $25.6 million. Officials said they had budgeted for that amount in the school system’s five-year plan. “I believe it’s the best offer that we could have received to get us on the road to recovery,” Cooper said. All employees — the union represents a range of administrative employees, from building principals to food service managers — will receive raises that total 2 percent over the life of the contract, plus bonuses and “step” increases, which give members pay for years of experience. A deal roundly rejected last year would have given CASA members raises totaling 1.5 percent over the contract, Cooper said.

End of public education in Pa.
Daily Item Letter by David L. Faust, Selinsgrove August 24, 2017
If voters in November approve a proposed Pennsylvania Constitutional amendment allowing the General Assembly to pass a law that would allow property owners to exclude 100 percent of the assessed value of a homestead from local taxing authorities, it could signal the end of public education in Pennsylvania in the very near future. Despite state responsibility for providing public education, Pennsylvania’s public schools aren’t funded anywhere near the 50 percent level; and the local school districts, especially in rural areas, depend on real estate taxes to fund most of that difference in their costs. In 2011, the Corbett administration cut millions of dollars in state funding to rural public districts that closed more than 200 neighborhood schools, furloughed more than 20,000 teachers and thousands more support staff, caused employee pay freezes and increased school real estate taxes; and it was those taxes that kept the rural schools from closing. What do you think would happen if Scott Wagner wins the gubernatorial election in 2018?
The private schools for the rich will flourish; and if the proposed constitutional amendment is approved, it could be the end of public education in Pennsylvania.


Closing Failing Schools Doesn't Help Most Students, Study Finds
Education Week By Denisa R. Superville August 24, 2017 | Updated: August 24, 2017
Black students and low-income children are more likely to attend schools that get shut down for poor performance, and the majority of students who are displaced by closures do not end up in better schools. But for those students who landed in better schools, their academic progress outpaced that of students in low-performing schools that remained open, according to new research released Thursday by the Center for Research and Education Outcomes, CREDO, at Stanford University. And the academic gains on test scores were particularly significant for black and Latino students who ended up in better schools. Most striking was the finding for Hispanic students: Those who ended up higher-performing schools gained the equivalent of 74 additional days of learning in math. Those findings—from one of the largest studies to date on how shuttering schools affects student achievement—back up smaller, more localized research on the fraught and controversial practice of closing schools.

How Many Schools Offer Online-Only Classes? New Data Provide an Answer
Education Week By Catherine Gewertz Aug. 23, 2017
Twenty-one percent of U.S. schools offer courses that are entirely online, without any brick-and-mortar activities, and charter schools are much more likely than traditional schools to offer such courses, according to new federal data. The Teacher and Principal Survey, released earlier this week by the National Center for Education Statistics, reports that in 2015-16, 20 percent of the country's 83,500 traditional public schools and 29 percent of its 6,900 charter schools offered courses that took place exclusively in cyberspace. Charter schools have waded in more deeply than have traditional schools, too. Fourteen percent of charter schools offer all their courses in an online-only format, compared to 5 percent of traditional public schools, the survey found. The report marks the first time the NCES has collected data on the use of online-only courses. "We recognized that schools were leveraging new technologies and wanted to be sure that [the teacher and principal survey] could capture their use," Maura Spiegelman, who oversaw the latest survey for the NCES, said in an email to Education Week. Unsurprisingly, online-only courses—also known as distance learning—are far more prevalent in high schools, and in combined middle/high schools, than in elementary schools. More than half of all high schools offer such courses, and nearly two-thirds of schools that span both middle and high school do so.
The use of online-only classes also tilts heavily toward large and small schools. About 44 percent of schools that enroll fewer than 100 students, or more than 1,000 students, offer such courses. In-between-sized schools varied: 13 percent of those enrolling 500 to 749 students, for instance, used online-only courses, and 29 percent of those with 100 to 199 students offered them. Since the NCES hasn't tracked the use of online-only courses before, there's no way to quantify the change in recent years.

Here's What States Are Doing With Their ESSA Block Grant Money
Education Week Politics K12 Blog By Alyson Klein on August 24, 2017 8:41 AM
UPDATED For decades, district leaders have been clamoring for more say over how they spend their federal money. And when the Every Student Succeeds Act passed back in 2015, it looked like they had finally gotten their wish: a brand-new $1.6 billion block grant that could be used for computer science initiatives, suicide prevention, new band instruments, and almost anything else that could improve students' well-being or provide them with a well-rounded education. But, for now at least, it looks like most district officials will only get a small sliver of the funding they had hoped for, putting the block grants' effectiveness and future in doubt. The Student Support and Academic Enrichment Grants—or Title IV of ESSA—only received about a quarter of the funding the law recommends, $400 million for the 2017-18 school year, when ESSA will be fully in place for the first time. To help get bigger bang for the fund's considerably reduced buck, Congress gave states the option, for one year only, to give the money out through a competitive process, allowing for fewer, but more-ambitious projects. Most states, though, still opted to pump the money out through a formula that assures each district at least some of the pie, an Education Week survey found. Only seven states have said for sure that they will run a competition. (More specifics below.) That means most districts will get a relatively small sum—as little as the required minimum of $10,000 for many districts—instead of larger grants to a fortunate few. In fact, the program will receive so little funding that many districts could decide to take another option in ESSA: directing Title IV funding to another federal program, including Title II grants for teacher quality, which weathered at a least a $200 million cut in the most recent budget.


CONSIDER IT: SCHOOL CHOICE AND THE CASES FOR TRADITIONAL PUBLIC EDUCATION AND CHARTER SCHOOLS
September 19 @ 5:00 PM - 8:00 PM Hilton Reading
Berks County Community Foundation
Panelists:
Carol Corbett Burris: Executive Director of the Network for Public Education
Alyson Miles: Deputy Director of Government Affairs for the American Federation for Children
James Paul: Senior Policy Analyst at the Commonwealth Foundation
Dr. Julian Vasquez Heilig: Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies and the Director of the Doctorate in Educational Leadership at California State University Sacramento
Karin Mallett: The WFMZ TV anchor and reporter returns as the moderator
School choice has been a hot topic in Berks County, in part due to a lengthy and costly dispute between the Reading School District and I-LEAD Charter School. The topic has also been in the national spotlight as President Trump and U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos have focused on expanding education choice.  With this in mind, a discussion on school choice is being organized as part of Berks County Community Foundation’s Consider It initiative. State Sen. Judy Schwank and Berks County Commissioners Chairman Christian Leinbach are co-chairs of this nonpartisan program, which is designed to promote thoughtful discussion of divisive local and national issues while maintaining a level of civility among participants.  The next Consider It Dinner will take place Tuesday, September 19, 2017, at 5 p.m. at the DoubleTree by Hilton Reading, 701 Penn St., Reading, Pa. Tickets are available here.  For $10 each, tickets include dinner, the panel discussion, reading material, and an opportunity to participate in the conversation.


Apply Now for EPLC's 2017-2018 PA Education Policy Fellowship Program!
Education Policy and Leadership Center
Applications are available now for the 2017-2018 Education Policy Fellowship Program (EPFP).  The Education Policy Fellowship Program is sponsored in Pennsylvania by The Education Policy and Leadership Center (EPLC). Click here for the program calendar of sessions.  With more than 500 graduates in its first eighteen years, this Program is a premier professional development opportunity for educators, state and local policymakers, advocates, and community leaders.  State Board of Accountancy (SBA) credits are available to certified public accountants. Past participants include state policymakers, district superintendents and principals, school business officers, school board members, education deans/chairs, statewide association leaders, parent leaders, education advocates, and other education and community leaders. Fellows are typically sponsored by their employer or another organization.  The Fellowship Program begins with a two-day retreat on September 14-15, 2017 and continues to graduation in June 2018.

Using Minecraft to Imagine a Better World and Build It Together.
Saturday, September 16, 2017 or Sunday, September 17, 2017 at the University of the Sciences, 43rd & Woodland Avenue, Philadelphia
PCCY, the region’s most influential advocacy organization for children, leverages the world’s greatest video game for the year’s most engaging fundraising event for kids. Join us on Saturday, September 16, 2017 or Sunday, September 17, 2017 at the University of the Sciences, 43rd & Woodland Avenue for a fun, creative and unique gaming opportunity.

Education Law Center’s 2017 Annual Celebration
ELC invites you to join us for our Annual Celebration on September 27 in Philadelphia.
The Annual Celebration will take place this year on September 27, 2017 at The Crystal Tea Room in Philadelphia. The event begins at 5:30 PM. We anticipate more than 300 legal, corporate, and community supporters joining us for a cocktail reception, silent auction, and dinner presentation.  Our annual celebrations honor outstanding champions of public education. This proud tradition continues at this year’s event, when together we will salute these deserving honorees:
·         PNC Bank: for the signature philanthropic cause of the PNC Foundation, PNC Grow Up Great, a bilingual $350 million, multi-year early education initiative to help prepare children from birth to age 5 for success in school and life; and its support of the Equal Justice Works Fellowship, which enables new lawyers to pursue careers in public interest law;
·         Joan Mazzotti: for her 16 years of outstanding leadership as the Executive Director of Philadelphia Futures, a college access and success program serving Philadelphia’s low-income, first-generation-to-college students;
·         Dr. Bruce Campbell Jr., PhD: for his invaluable service to ELC, as he rotates out of the chairman position on our Board of Directors. Dr. Campbell is an Arcadia University Associate Professor in the School of Education; and
·         ELC Pro Bono Awardee Richard Shephard of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP: for his exceptional work as pro bono counsel, making lasting contributions to the lives of many vulnerable families.Questions? Contact Tracy Callahan tcallahan@elc-pa.org or 215-238-6970 ext. 308.

STAY WOKE: THE INAUGURAL NATIONAL BLACK MALE EDUCATORS CONVENING; Philadelphia Fri, Oct 13, 2017 4:00 pm Sun, Oct 15, 2017 7:00pm
TEACHER DIVERSITY WORKS. Increasing the number of Black male educators in our nation’s teacher corps will improve education for all our students, especially for African-American boys.  Today Black men represent only two percent of teachers nationwide. This is a national problem that demands a national response.  Come participate in the inaugural National Black Male Educators Convening to advance policy solutions, learn from one another, and fight for social justice. All are welcome.

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

Save the Date: PASA-PSBA School Leadership Conference October 18-20, Hershey PA

Registration now open for the 67th Annual PASCD Conference  Nov. 12-13 Harrisburg: Sparking Innovation: Personalized Learning, STEM, 4C's
This year's conference will begin on Sunday, November 12th and end on Monday, November 13th. There will also be a free pre-conference on Saturday, November 11th.  You can register for this year's conference online with a credit card payment or have an invoice sent to you.  Click here to register for the conference.
http://myemail.constantcontact.com/PASCD-Conference-Registration-is-Now-Open.html?soid=1101415141682&aid=5F-ceLtbZDs

Save the Date! NSBA 2018 Advocacy Institute February 4-6, 2018 Marriott Marquis, Washington D.C.
Registration Opens Tuesday, September 26, 2017


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