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Keystone
State Education Coalition
SB2: Committee
shuffle could make difference for Pa. school choice billTell your state senator to vote NO on Senate Bill 2
Take Action here to Say No to Next Generation School Vouchers in PA
Action Network December 8, 2017
Under the bill, parents of students in low-achieving schools can receive funds in the form of Education Savings Accounts (ESA) to attend a participating nonpublic school and for other expenses. Low-achieving is defined as the lowest performing 15% of elementary and secondary public schools, based on PSSA and Keystone Exam scores. (This does not include charter schools or CTCs.) Those school districts would see their basic and special education subsidies reduced by the amount calculated for each participating student, with that money put into an ESA account for parents to use for “qualified education expenses.” Senate Bill 2 creates a program targeted to the same schools targeted by the existing EITC and OSTC scholarships that already can be used at private schools. ESA proposals have been introduced in various states across the country, and have been dubbed by the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) as “the next generation of vouchers.”
https://actionnetwork.org/letters/say-no-to-next-generation-school-vouchers-in-pa?clear_id=true&source=direct_link
SB2: Committee shuffle could make difference for Pa. school choice bill
By Katie Meyer, WITF December 12, 2017
A contentious proposal to let students use Pennsylvania funds to pay for private school is getting another chance to make it onto the Senate floor.
Senate Bill 2 would create education savings accounts — a similar concept to private school vouchers — that would let students in the lowest-performing public schools use the money the state would have spent on their education for alternative school options, as well as textbooks and other related expenses. It failed to pass the Senate Education Committee in a tie vote in late October, and is now scheduled to be reconsidered in the same committee Tuesday. However, Sen. Dan Laughlin, R-Erie, one of the only GOP lawmakers to vote against the bill in October, may be moving off the panel. That could change the outcome of the vote, though Laughlin said his likely departure is unrelated to the bill. “I can see why it looks the way it does,” he said. “It had nothing to do with my decision, no.”
https://whyy.org/articles/committee-shuffle-make-difference-pa-school-choice-bill/
PA Senate Ed Committee to consider “Education Savings Account” Voucher bill SB2 on Tuesday, Room 8E-A East Wing 10:30 am
http://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/cteeInfo/Index.cfm?CteeBody=S&Code=23
“The trial is expected to last through
the week, and Brobson has been tasked with issuing conclusions by the end of
the year, which the state Supreme Court will then use to make its decision. That
decision is expected early in January. A successful challenge could reshape the
2018 elections; lawyers for the state said in the federal trial that to
maintain the current primary schedule they would need to know by Jan. 23
whether a new map would be used.”
Pa.'s map
is so gerrymandered that random computer maps are fairer, expert says
Inquirer by Jonathan Lai, Staff
Writer @Elaijuh | jlai@phillynews.com Updated: DECEMBER
11, 2017 — 12:24 PM EST
HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania’s congressional map
is so skewed toward Republicans that computer software tasked with randomly
drawing maps produced hundreds of drawings that were more politically neutral,
according to testimony Monday on the opening day of a state gerrymandering
trial. “Partisan intent predominated the drawing” of the current congressional
map, said University of Michigan political science professor Jowei Chen,
an expert witness testifying for the group of Pennsylvania voters bringing the
challenge. Republicans have won 13 of the state’s 18 seats in the House of
Representatives since the map was adopted in 2011, even as votes in statewide
and national elections have been roughly split between Democrats and
Republicans. Chen said his software had generated 500 maps on what he called
“traditional redistricting principles,” which included keeping populations
equal across districts and avoiding splitting up counties and towns. The
majority of the maps drawn had nine Republican districts and nine Democratic
districts, he said, calling the 13-5 GOP margin under the current mapping an
“extreme statistical outlier.” Republicans credit other factors for their
successes, including the fact that Democratic voters tend to cluster in the
state’s urban areas.
Report: 13
Republican Congressmen from Pennsylvania exceeds 1,000 simulations
Penn Live By Charles Thompson cthompson@pennlive.com Updated 12:51
AM; Posted Dec 11, 7:55 PM
An expert in political geography ran 1,000 computer
simulations of Pennsylvania's 18 Congressional districts based on what he
called traditional redistricting principles. Dr. Jowei Chen never once came up
with a map that, based on actual precinct-by-precinct election returns between
2008 and 2016, would have predicted Pennsylvania's present reality - 13
Republican-held seats. Even controlling for factors that would skew results
toward Republican candidates - protecting the maximum number of incumbents when
the state had to eliminate a House seat due to population shifts; and working
to create a majority African-American district - makes no difference.
Lawsuit
challenging Pa.’s congressional map begins state court
WHYY By Emily Previti, WITF December 11, 2017
Testimony in a
fast-tracked lawsuit alleging gerrymandering got underway in Pa.
Commonwealth Court Monday. The case could force a new state congressional map
before the 2018 midterm election. Eighteen registered Democrats — one from each
congressional district — claim Pennsylvania’s map was drawn unfairly by state
GOP leaders to advantage Republicans. Congressional maps have to follow certain
rules, such as distributing equal numbers of voters between districts.
Advocates for fairer congressional maps say it’s also a best practice to avoid
dividing counties and municipalities when drawing district boundary lines. The
plaintiffs’ first witness, political
scientist Jowei Chen, testified that this clearly wasn’t adhered to in
Pennsylvania.
https://whyy.org/articles/lawsuit-challenging-pa-s-congressional-map-begins-state-court/
Will
congressional districts ever be drawn fairly?
JULIAN ROUTH Pittsburgh Post-Gazette jrouth@post-gazette.com 5:00 PM DEC 11,
2017
Gerrymandering conjures up images of power brokers
sitting around a table, drawing lines on an oversize map to divvy up the vote
and keep their political party in office. A quick look at the
Pennsylvania’s district map — with districts that romp over county and
municipal lines and twist and turn to pack or split groups of voters — suggests
some politics was a work in the drawing. So it’s not surprising that there are
three lawsuits challenging the map, as well as numerous reports that it
reflects political maneuvering. What would it take to strip the politics out of
the process? Judging from California’s experience, finding people
so wonky and willing to put politics aside that they got picked from a pool of
30,000 applicants, survived a lengthy vetting process, wrote essays about
redistricting, then won a lottery to become the drawers of districts.
Panel pans
Pennsylvania's ESSA education roadmap as not strong enough in key areas
An independent panel's review
of Pennsylvania's plan for complying with the federal Every Student Succeeds
Act cites more weaknesses than strengths.Penn Live By Jan Murphy jmurphy@pennlive.com Updated 12:50 AM; Posted 12:01 AM
Pennsylvania's roadmap for where it wants to take K-12 education over the next 13 years is comprehensive but lacks enough rigor or detail in key areas, earning a lackluster review from an independent panel of school accountability experts. In a report released on Tuesday [see below], the group of bipartisan education policy experts convened by Bellwether Education Partners and Collaborative for Student Success , cited a couple of strengths in the state's plan to comply with the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) but they were outnumbered by the weaknesses that were noted. It gave the plan its highest marks in the areas of standards and assessments and in academic progress for its use of both student proficiency scores as well as year-over-year academic growth scores to measure students' preparedness for career success. But it was critical of the low performance goals, particularly for certain subgroups of students, "which is a troubling approach given the [13 years] it plans to allow for the attainment of those goals," the report states.
“Wolf praised the General Assembly for
passing the reauthorization bill and called on the U.S. Congress to follow
suit. "I applaud the Pennsylvania General Assembly for voting to
reauthorize Pennsylvania's CHIP program but in order to provide benefits to the
more than 175,000 children enrolled, Congress must take action
immediately," Wolf said in a statement.”
Senate
votes to reauthorize CHIP without changes to transgender service coverage
Penn Live By Jan Murphy jmurphy@pennlive.com Updated Dec
11, 6:34 PM
The state Senate passed a bill to reauthorize the Children's Health
Insurance Program through 2019 despite opposition from social
conservatives to its inclusion of coverage for gender reassignment surgery. The
measure, approved on Monday by a 43-6 vote, now goes to Gov.
Tom Wolf for enactment. CHIP provides health insurance to children in low- and
moderate-income families whose income is too high to qualify for standard
Medicaid programs. It is scheduled to sunset at year's end in Pennsylvania,
which if not reauthorized would have left 175,000 children currently served by
the program without coverage.
It's
official: East Penn approves full-day kindergarten
Carol
Thompson Contact
Reporter Of The Morning Call December 11, 2017
Full-day kindergarten will become the standard in
East Penn School District, an about-face from a recent decision to maintain one
of the few remaining half-day programs in the Lehigh Valley. School board directors on Monday voted 6-3 to
eliminate the district’s half-day kindergarten program and replace it with a
full-day one starting in the 2018 school year. Directors Alan Earnshaw, Ken
Bacher, Ziad Munson, Paul Champagne, Adam Smith and Alisa Bowman
supported the measure. Directors Carol Allen, Chuck Ballard and Chris Donatelli
voted against. Monday night’s three dissenters, along with former
directors Waldemar Vinovskis and Rebecca Heid, also voted against the
district’s original full-day proposal in October, striking downadministrators’
first attempt to implement a full-day program. Their decision left East Penn
one of only four districts in the Lehigh
Valley not to offer full-day kindergarten to all students.
Protecting Our Children: Controversy lingers at Capitol over arming teachers in schools
Sharon Herald By
John FINNERTY CNHI Harrisburg Correspondent Dec 11, 2017
HARRISBURG – As schools grapple with the challenge
of ensuring that their students are as safe as possible, the push to clarify
whether schools can allow educators to carry firearms will likely carry over
into 2018. The state Senate approved Senate Bill 383, a measure that would
allow schools to give the OK for staff to carry firearms, in a 28-22 vote in
June. The bill is currently under consideration by the House Education
Committee. As the debate rages, one school district — Blue Mountain in
Schuylkill County — has taken initial steps forward while another — Indiana
Area School District — is considering allowing staff members to be armed. Joe
Eaton, the program director for the FASTER program – Faculty/Administrator
Safety Training and Emergency Response – run by the Buckeye Firearms Foundation
in Ohio, said Pennsylvania is one of the dozen states from which educators have
taken his classes.
SRC: Our
opinion: It’s about time
The notebook Commentary December 11, 2017
— 12:02pm
In a fractious dispute with the School District of
Philadelphia over funding, equity, and race, the state government assumed
control of Philadelphia schools in 2001. At the time, it was the largest school
district in the country to be subject to such a takeover. What also made it
unusual was that while the District had trouble meeting its
expenses and the threat of massive cutbacks and even bankruptcy loomed,
there were no charges of mismanagement or scandal. Instead, an
activist superintendent repeatedly charged that the Commonwealth wasn’t meeting
its obligation to adequately fund Philadelphia schools to meet the needs of its
mostly poor students of color. This, he said, was evidence of systemic
racism. The governor and legislative leaders responded with the takeover. What
was the result? The change ousted a locally appointed nine-member board that
had no power to raise its own revenue and replaced it with a state-dominated
five-member board that also didn’t have such power.
Q & A:
Temple professor discusses book on education and grassroots organizing
The notebook by Greg Windle December 11, 2017
— 2:36pm
Temple University professor Barbara Ferman
has edited the new book The Fight for America’s Schools:
Grassroots Organizing in Education. She co-wrote the book’s final
chapter, "Preserving Education as a Collective Good," with Temple law
professor Susan Dejarnatt. The chapter deals with what Ferman
calls “market-based reforms” and the belief that “choice promotes
competition, which in turn weeds out poor performers.” But Ferman argues that
these reforms have resulted in expanding charter school networks, turning
this philosophy of choice into a rhetoric of illusion. Competition is actually
producing less choice, she writes, and gradually
resegregating schools.
Want To Start School Later? Avoid These 10 Common
Traps
Some
these could save years of wasted time, effort and resources.
Huffington Post by Terra
Ziporyn, PhD,
Contributor Executive Director
and Co-Founder, Start School Later, Inc.; medical writer and historian,
novelist, playwright 12/10/2017 06:59 pm ET Updated 18 hours ago
It’s no secret that most middle and high schools start
too early in the morning. Researchhas been clear on
this for decades. Major health groups like the American Academy of Pediatrics
and American Medical Association have issued calls to start
middle and high schools no earlier than 8:30 a.m. Schools following their
advice find that more students get more sleep—and less substance use,
depression, absenteeism, truancy and even car crashes. School leaders and
community advocates all over the U.S. are trying to delay bell times,
and many
are succeeding. But too many others keep falling into common traps
that waste time, energy and resources ― often for years.
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 11
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.
Registration is now open for the 2018 PASA Education Congress! State College, PA, March 19-20, 2018
Don't miss this marquee event for Pennsylvania school leaders at the Nittany Lion Inn, State College, PA, March 19-20, 2018.
Learn more by visiting http://www.pasa-net.org/2018edcongress
Any comments contained herein are my comments, alone, and
do not necessarily reflect the opinions of any other person or organization
that I may be affiliated with.
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