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Keystone
State Education Coalition
PA
Ed Policy Roundup Nov. 22, 2017: Chester Community Charter School at bottom in
Delco on state safe-school reports;
Ask for Palm Beach mansion drops $5M to
$64.9M
Contact your member of Congress here to urge them to
support net neutrality: https://www.battleforthenet.com/
“This has led Fight for the Future to
focus on getting people to reach out to Congress. The organization set up www.battleforthenet.com as
a place where people can easily call their representatives and encourage them
to slow the FCC's efforts. “
The U.S.
government is using Thanksgiving to hide its plans to destroy net neutrality
Mashable BY JASON ABBRUZZESE 3 DAYS AGO
There's a simple art to releasing bad news — do
it when the fewest people are looking.
That's the game plan the U.S. government's media
regulator is reportedly following to release its plan to destroy net neutrality
rules. The Federal Communications Commission is expected to drop its new plan on Wednesday, the day before
Thanksgiving. The rules could be voted on by mid-December, leaving the door
open for internet providers to begin manipulating traffic. It's a devilishly
brilliant plan by the FCC and its chairman, Ajit Pai, who has made no secret of
his wish to undo the benchmark rules put in place during Barack Obama's
presidency. There will inevitably be plenty of people already enjoying their
holiday break, and any major coverage on Wednesday will then be lost to a day
of turkey, gravy, football, and indigestion, followed by three more days in
which people won't be looking at the news. This is the challenge that net
neutrality advocates are facing, and they know it. Evan Greer, campaign
director at Fight for the Future, posted on Reddit a month ago to start
drumming up support. "There's a reason that Pai is releasing a plan
that he knows will be overwhelmingly unpopular with voters from across the
political spectrum on one of the busiest travel days of the year when many
journalists are out of the office," Greer wrote in an email.
F.C.C. Plans Net Neutrality Repeal in a Victory for Telecoms
New York Times By CECILIA KANG NOV. 21, 2017
The Federal Communications Commission released a
plan on Tuesday to dismantle landmark regulations that ensure equal access to
the internet, clearing the way for internet service companies to charge users
more to see certain content and to curb access to some websites. The proposal, made by the F.C.C. chairman, Ajit Pai,
is a sweeping repeal of rules put in place by the Obama administration. The
rules prohibit high-speed internet service providers, or I.S.P.s, from stopping
or slowing down the delivery of websites. They also prevent the companies from
charging customers extra fees for high-quality streaming and other services. The
announcement set off a fight over free speech and the control of the internet,
pitting telecom titans like AT&T and Verizon against internet giants like
Google and Amazon. The internet companies warned that rolling back the rules
could make the telecom companies powerful gatekeepers to information and
entertainment. The telecom companies say that the existing rules prevent them
from offering customers a wider selection of services at higher and lower price
points.
Pennsylvania
House leaves Marcellus Shale tax up in the air
Delco Times By The
Associated Press POSTED: 11/21/17,
5:55 PM EST
HARRISBURG >> Legislation in the Pennsylvania
House of Representatives to impose a long-sought tax on Marcellus Shale natural
gas production is up in the air until December.
The Republican-controlled House adjourned until Dec. 4, after spending
parts of Monday and Tuesday debating proposed amendments by Republicans who
oppose a tax in the nation’s No. 2 gas state. Dozens of proposed amendments are
still lined up, and House Republican leadership opposes the bill. Supporters of
a tax include most Democrats and Republicans from southeastern Pennsylvania,
but some say industry-friendly amendments to the bill may change their minds. The Republican-penned proposal raises less money
than the 6.5 percent tax proposed by Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf. The bill’s
volume tax rises with the price of natural gas and would raise about $100
million in a full year, using 2016 production and current prices.
Pa.
lawmakers getting a boost in their salary, starting in December
Penn Live By Jan Murphy jmurphy@pennlive.com November 21, 2017
Updated 5:21 PM
Pennsylvania lawmakers will have a little extra
money in their December paychecks as a result of the automatic cost-of-living
salary adjustment they receive. The statutorily provided .81 percent increase
in salary will raise the rank-and-file legislator's annual salary to $87,180, a
$702 increase over this year's pay. The increase for
legislative leaders will raise their salaries between $99,410 and $136,094,
depending on the position they hold. Because of a law that passed in 1995, the
pay raises do not require a vote. However, because of the public backlash over
the automatic pay raises, some lawmakers choose not to accept their pay raise
and give it back to the state Treasury or donate it to charities or community
organizations.
Why
Harrisburg’s silence on demise of Philly’s School Reform Commission speaks
volumes
WHYY By Avi Wolfman-Arent November 22, 2017
Sixteen years ago,
Pennsylvania’s state leaders did something dramatic and unprecedented. They dismantled Philadelphia’s local school
board and replaced it with the School Reform Commission — a five-member panel
made up of three gubernatorial appointees and two mayoral appointees. This
wasn’t just any governance shake up. It was a bet that state government could
and should help fix struggling school districts. The SRC
voted to disband last week, and Philly’s mayoral-appointed
local school board will soon be back in power. The news prompted speeches and
celebrations in Philadelphia, particularly among those who see the SRC as a
hostile intrusion on local control. In Harrisburg, however, there’s barely been
a blip.
Our view:
Erie schools get back to basics
GoErie By the
Editorial Board Posted November 22, 2017 at 2:00 AM
Reading is fundamental. That is a truth so
universally recognized that the nation’s largest children’s literacy nonprofit,
RIF, adopted it as its name. The Erie School District has long recognized the
importance of building strong reading skills in its students, especially by the
third-grade level. But for too many years, the district had to worry about its
own foundation, its bottom line. As Superintendent Brian Polito told the Erie
School Board recently, the district’s financial crisis caused the district to
strip “supports out of our system that really helped some of these struggling
kids.” As examples, he pointed to after-school programming that offered
one-on-one help children struggling in reading and math. “Those are all gone
because we had no option but to cut those in order to balance the budget,”
Polito said, as detailed by Erie Times-News reporter Ed Palattella. So it is
welcome news that now that the district is on the path to financial stability,
Polito and others are wasting no time in shifting their focus to improving
academic achievement. The recently passed state budget legislation
includes a recurring $14 million in additional funding. The badly needed money
will help cover a $8.6 million deficit and create a fund balance of $3 million.
But the money will not be enough to hire a bevy of new teachers and other
support staff to target students who struggle with reading and math. Instead,
Polito said he and the staff will assess and pursue strategies that promise the
greatest impact as they draft a new strategic plan for the district in keeping
with the new funding levels.
Chester Community Charter School at bottom in Delco on state safe-school reports
Delco Times By Kevin
Tustin, ktustin@21st-centurymedia.com, @KevinTustin on Twitter POSTED: 11/21/17,
9:00 PM
Among all public schools in the county no school,
let alone a whole district, has had more safety incidents among its populace
than Chester Community Charter School, the not-for-profit education provider
that teaches grades kindergarten through eight at three campuses in the city of
Chester, Chester Township and Upland Borough, according to state findings. There
were 1,032 incidents in the 2016-17 school year among the school’s
approximately 3,600 students, according to safe school reports released last
week by the Pennsylvania Department of Education. This is the third consecutive
year more than 1,000 incidents have been reported at the school after 1,168 in
2015-16 and 1,173 in 2014-15. Chester Community Charter School’s incident count
for last school year is more than the district with the most incidents in the
same time frame, Southeast Delco School District at 917. Disorderly conduct was
the most reported violation at the three-building school with 239 occurrences,
followed up with 81 fights, 51 simple assaults on students and theft with 39
counts. All but 31 incidents took place during school hours.
Reprise June
2016: Chester Upland: Exhibit A for broken charter law
The district’s situation highlights statewide
issues: Special ed, a lack of transparency, and financial challenges linked to
charter payments.
The notebook by Dale Mezzacappa and Bill Hangley June
3, 2016 — 11:45am
To put some noteworthy flaws of Pennsylvania’s
charter law in stark relief, one need look no further than the Chester-Upland
School District, a desperately poor enclave in generally well-off Delaware
County. As the state’s most distressed district, it is so unable to meet its
students’ needs that it is under the control of a receiver. Nearly half of the
students in Chester Upland attend charter schools, and 46 percent of its budget
goes to charter payments. Most charter students there are enrolled in the
Chester Community Charter School (CCCS). The K-8 school has 2,900
students, nearly as many as the 3,300 K-12 students in the district. The
state’s largest brick-and-mortar charter by far, CCCS was founded and is
operated for profit by a company owned by businessman Vahan Gureghian, a major
supporter of former Gov. Tom Corbett and other Republican candidates and
causes.
Reprise May 2017: Ask for Palm
Beach mansion drops $5M to $64.9M
The
asking price for the 35,993-square-foot property has fallen almost $20M since
early 2015
The Real Deal – South Florida Real Estate News May
13, 2017 11:00AM
The owners of a never-occupied, eight-bedroom
mansion in Palm Beach cut their asking price by $5 million to $64.9 million. The
new $64.9 million asking price for the French Chateau-style mansion is almost
$20 million below the original asking price when it was listed for sale more
than two years ago. The 35,993-square-foot residence at 1071 North Ocean
Boulevard is still the most expensive home listed in the Palm Beach Board of
Realtors Multiple Listing Service.
60 years
after Brown v. Board of Education, how racially balanced are America’s public
schools?
Brookings Report by Grover
J. “Russ” Whitehurst, Richard
V. Reeves, Nathan Joo, and Edward
Rodrigue Monday, November 20, 2017It’s been more than 60 years since the Supreme Court, in Brown v. Board of Education, ruled “separate but equal” schools unconstitutional. In that time, school populations have diversified, thanks in large part to an increase in the numbers of Hispanic and Asian students attending U.S. schools. But how closely do America’s traditional public and charter schools look like the communities they serve? And if schools’ student bodies don’t reflect their neighborhoods’ racial makeup, how come? In “Balancing Act: Schools, Neighborhoods, and Racial Imbalance” (PDF), Grover J. “Russ” Whitehurst, Richard V. Reeves, Nathan Joo, and Pete Rodrigue examine the share of white, black, and Hispanic students at 86,109 public schools—both traditional and charters—across the country and identify schools whose racial imbalance with respect to their surrounding neighborhoods makes them ‘outliers’ within their states.
Segregation
in Steel Valley: How these Pittsburgh-area elementary students are separated by
race and academic performance
Public
Source by Mary Niederberger | 2 hours ago November 21, 2017
The Steel Valley School District operates two
elementary schools in a shoulder of the Monongahela River. One school enrolls
mostly black students. The other, 2 miles away, is majority white. When
Terrance Frey learned that his son’s school, Barrett Elementary, is 78 percent
black and Park Elementary is 84 percent white, he was shocked. “It was kind of
insulting. It was like reading one of those books on civil rights. You know,
like you have to sit in the back of the bus,” said Frey, who is black. Such
segregation was not what he and his wife, Bianka Cable, expected when they
purchased a home on 21st Avenue in Munhall three years ago. They sought out a
racially diverse community and school district for their son, 8-year-old
Terrance. Cable didn’t want him to have the same experience she had as one of a
handful of black students attending her Ohio high school, but she didn’t expect
the polar opposite either.
School
district contracts should go to Philadelphians of color and other demands for
the new school board | Solomon Jones
Inquirer by Solomon Jones @SolomonJones1 | sj@solomonjones.com Updated: NOVEMBER
21, 2017 — 10:01 AM EST
With the dissolution of the School Reform
Commission, Mayor Kenney will soon take over the $2.9
billion-a-year School District of Philadelphia. As a black Philadelphian, and a
taxpayer whose children attend our city’s public schools, I am the typical
school district parent. So let me speak bluntly. We are the majority of the
city’s population, our children make up 86 percent of those who
attend our public schools, and before anyone takes over the schools, we have
some demands. We want the majority of school district contracts to go to
companies owned by Philadelphians who are people of color. We want school
district jobs to go to parents whose children attend neighborhood schools. We
want a process in which school district parents will have a voice in deciding
who sits on the nine-member school board. And we want a yearly audit of the
money — our money — and how it is spent on our schools.
District
says Feltonville School of Arts & Sciences needs an intervention
Its School Progress Report average has
remained in the lowest category for three years in a row, but parents say they
are happy with the staff and principal.
The notebook by Darryl C. Murphy November 21, 2017
— 10:05am
Changes may be coming to Feltonville School of Arts
& Sciences.
As part of the District's Great Schools
initiative, officials held a meeting Monday night at the school with
students and families to announce the findings of a “school quality review.”
The school is one of six “focus schools” set to receive possible interventions
from the District to help it improve performance, but details of those
interventions have not yet been revealed. Three criteria are
used to determine which schools are “focus schools.” Under the District’s
School Progress Report, the school has remained at the lowest level,
"intervene," for three years in a row. The SPR average is at or
less than 15 percent, and the school isn’t receiving any major
intervention, such as School Redesign, or being added to the Turnaround
Network. School closures or charter conversions are not options for these
schools, but interventions can include significant overhauls in faculty and
staff.
Trib Live by GEORGE
GUIDO | Tuesday, Nov. 21, 2017,
10:24 p.m.
The Deer Lakes School District and its teachers are
reported to be close to getting a new contract. But it might take three new
board members to bring the negotiations over the finish line. Things got testy at times toward the end of
Tuesday's school board meeting regarding talks on a new contract. The final
contract negotiation with the current school board Tuesday afternoon reportedly
broke down. No new negotiations are scheduled until at least the time when the
new school board is reorganized Dec. 5. Two school directors said that salary
isn't the sticking point of the negotiations — but length of the class day is. Outgoing
school board member Lisa Merlo said the district's teachers have a 7 hour, 15
minute instructional day, which she said is the second shortest in Allegheny
County. The board wanted the class day extended by 30 minutes; the teachers
union agrees with a nonbinding fact-finders report of extending it by 20
minutes.
For
Haverford’s Gallagher, UD’s Gentile, a tradition worth fighting for
By Jack
McCaffery, Delaware County Daily
Times POSTED: 11/21/17,
10:17 PM EST
UPPER DARBY >> The two thoughts will come on
schedule, which is as soon as Joe Gallagher wakes up on Thanksgiving morning.
One, then the other. In an instant. Guaranteed. The first: It would be nice if
St. James and Chester would still be playing a holiday football game. The
other: At least Haverford is Haverford and Upper Darby is Upper Darby and some
things are eternal. Gallagher is the football coach at Haverford, and that
means he will have something to do Thursday. That’s because Haverford and Upper
Darby coaches have had something to do every Thanksgiving since 1921.
“In the three years leading up to the
passing of the pilot program, K12 Inc. recruited a handful of well-connected
current and former state policymakers to make the case for a virtual school
law. The company spent nearly half a million dollars on retaining lobbyists,
according to lobbying expenditures examined by Education Week. (To
read K12 Inc.'s response to Education Week's investigation, which includes
details about North Carolina, click here.)
The pilot program was passed as part of
the state's budget bill. The new law required the board of education to
authorize two online charter schools. The only two applicants were for schools
backed by K12 Inc. and Connections Education, the second largest online school
operator which is owned by education giant, Pearson. Both were approved.”
Online
Charter Schools in North Carolina Petition to Go From Pilot to Permanent
Education Week Charters and Choice Blog By Arianna
Prothero on November 21, 2017 1:53 PM
One of North Carolina's two full-time online charter
schools—which opened as part of a temporary pilot program—is asking state
lawmakers to make the schools permanent.
Officials with North Carolina Connections Academy also
requested more money from the state at a Joint Legislative
Education Oversight Committee meeting earlier this month, according to WRAL, an
NBC affiliate. That's in spite of the fact that the schools have earned
poor marks from the state's accountability system in the three years they've
been operating. Lawmakers in the meeting indicated that they want the schools
to present more information on their performance at a follow-up meeting. The
schools, which are run by the nation's two largest, for-profit virtual school
companies, got the green light to open in 2014 as part of a four-year pilot. It
was the culmination of a long lobbying campaign by K12 Inc., the bigger of the
two companies, as I reported in a 2016 Education Week investigation that looked at these lobbying efforts nationwide.
Researchers
find early signs that Seattle’s $58 million preschool program may be paying off
More than two years into the city’s four-year
pilot preschool program, a new study suggests it is helping more children get
ready for kindergarten.
By Neal Morton Seattle Times staff reporter Originally
published November 21, 2017 at 9:00 am Updated November 20, 2017 at 8:34
pm
When voters
in 2014 approved a $58 million property-tax levy to pay for
city-subsidized preschool, elected officials largely sold the idea as a way to
help erase the gaps in achievement among ethnic groups that show up even before
children enter school. And now, more than halfway through the program’s
four-year trial period, a new study of its results to date suggests it
is preparing more children for kindergarten, with the greatest gains among
students of color and those from low-income households or families that don’t
speak English. “The results are very encouraging,” said Seattle Mayor Tim
Burgess, who as a city council member campaigned heavily for the 2014 measure.
Education Week By Sarah D. Sparks November 16, 2017
Long before there was an independent federal education department—before many states had school systems, in fact—there was a federal education statistics agency. Today, the National Center for Education Statistics celebrates its 150th anniversary (albeit without a permanent commissioner in place). Though the agency remains independent of the Education Department, its work has laid a bedrock for education policy in the United States in areas from large-scale testing, to tracking students over time, to using surveys and local administrative data to understand changes in schools. “NCES, even if people aren’t aware of it, has played a huge role in shaping education research,” said Sean P. “Jack” Buckley, a former commissioner of NCES. “The idea of standardized assessments in longitudinal studies … really all grew out of NCES and IES [the Institute of Education Sciences], and it drives so much research now that probably more than half of researchers aren’t aware of where that came from.”
Tom on
Point: Not an island
American School Board Journal December 2017 by Tom
Gentzel
Thomas J. Gentzel (tgentzel@nsba.org(link sends e-mail)) is NSBA’s
executive director and CEO. Follow Gentzel on Twitter @Tom_NSBA.
Public schools are where most children learn. They
are major employers, they are reference points (“turn left at the middle
school”), and they are gathering places. They are a community asset, whose
continued success is entrusted to the citizens themselves and led by their
representatives on school boards. We value all this, yet we also can take it
for granted. Of course, public schools exist everywhere. They educated
generations of our families, and they will serve our grandchildren and their
grandchildren. They are as firmly embedded in our society as any enterprise
possibly could be. Yet, while a publicly funded and operated education is a
right in this country, its future is not guaranteed without the active
commitment and support of the people it serves. When I drive past a public
school, I often think about the decisions that put it in that spot and designed
it to look that way. How many school board meetings were held to answer those
questions, let alone to determine how to pay for the building, to staff it, and
to ensure that it meets current and projected instructional needs? How was the
public engaged in the process? And, how well did it meet expectations? What
lessons were learned, and how are they being applied to future decisions about
school facilities, programs, and related services?
Register
for New School Director Training in December and January
PSBA Website October 2017
You’ve started a challenging and
exciting new role as a school director. Let us help you narrow the learning
curve! PSBA’s New School Director Training provides school directors with
foundational knowledge about their role, responsibilities and ethical
obligations. At this live workshop, participants will learn about key laws,
policies, and processes that guide school board governance and leadership, and
develop skills for becoming strong advocates in their community. Get the tools
you need from experts during this visually engaging and interactive event.
Choose from any of these 10
locations and dates (note: all sessions are held 8 a.m.-4 p.m., unless
specified otherwise.):
·
Dec. 8, Bedford CTC
·
Dec. 8, Montoursville Area High School
·
Dec. 9, Upper St. Clair High School
·
Dec. 9, West Side CTC
·
Dec. 15, Crawford County CTC
·
Dec. 15, Upper Merion MS (8:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m)
·
Dec. 16, PSBA Mechanicsburg
·
Dec. 16, Seneca Highlands IU 9
·
Jan. 6, Haverford Middle School
·
Jan. 13, A W Beattie Career Center
·
Jan. 13, Parkland HS
Fees: Complimentary to All-Access
members or $170 per person for standard membership. All registrations will be
billed to the listed district, IU or CTC. To request billing to
an individual, please contact Michelle Kunkel at michelle.kunkel@psba.org. Registration also includes a
box lunch on site and printed resources.
NSBA 2018
Advocacy Institute February 4 - 6, 2018 Marriott Marquis, Washington D.C.
Register
Now
Come a day early and attend the Equity Symposium!
Join hundreds of public education advocates
on Capitol Hill and help shape the decisions made in Washington D.C. that
directly impact our students. At the 2018 Advocacy Institute, you’ll gain
insight into the most critical issues affecting public education, sharpen your
advocacy skills, and prepare for effective meetings with your representatives. Whether
you are an expert advocator or a novice, attend and experience inspirational
keynote speakers and education sessions featuring policymakers, legal experts
and policy influencers. All designed to help you advocate for your students and
communities.
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