Wednesday, January 24, 2018

PA Ed Policy Roundup Jan. 24: Education Savings Accounts, the Latest Form of Private-School Vouchers

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, charter school leaders, 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


Brief Examines the Research on Education Savings Accounts, the Latest Form of Private-School Vouchers
Despite poor performance of conventional vouchers and no evidence about ESAs, policymakers are adopting and expanding these new voucher programs.
National Education Policy Center January 23, 2018
BOULDER, CO (January 23, 2018) – Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) are a new form of government subsidy for private education, and they are arguably the most strongly promoted approach by voucher advocates. Parents are provided a set sum, often in the form of a debit account, which they can use for a variety of educational services including private school tuition and fees, online courses, extracurricular activities and private tutoring. Students enrolled in an ESA program are not allowed to concurrently attend a public school. A new brief released today by the National Education Policy Center examines this emerging policy, considering similarities and differences with conventional voucher approaches, and examining the legal issues that the policy raises.

Blogger note: this letter, signed by over 20 statewide organizations, was delivered to all members of the General Assembly last week.
SB2: Pennsylvanians Opposed to Vouchers Letter to All Members of the PA General Assembly
TO: The Honorable Members of the Pennsylvania General Assembly
FROM: Education Stakeholders and Interested Parties
DATE: January 19, 2018
SUBJECT: Senate Bill 2 – Education Savings Accounts, i.e. school vouchers
Education Savings Accounts (ESAs), a new and worse iteration of school vouchers proposed in SB 2, siphon precious taxpayer resources from already financially struggling public schools to private schools and other private educational service organizations that are not accountable to the public for their decisions and results. Whereas traditional public education entities have strict requirements for public meetings, transparency, governance, academic achievement, testing/reporting and financial accountability, such requirements don’t exist and wouldn’t exist for entities receiving tax dollars from ESA vouchers.

Editorial: Pa. High court strikes blow for basic democratic rights
Delco Times POSTED: 01/23/18, 8:58 PM EST | UPDATED: 56 SECS AGO
It’s been a pretty good couple of days for underdogs. No, we’re not talking about the Eagles.
We’re talking about those who took one look at the Pennsylvania Congressional map, noticed how it was contorted and twisted into bizarre shapes in a blatant display of partisanship, and cried foul. Monday the state Supreme Court agreed with them. Not only that, but the justices ordered the maps – a result of the redistricting done back in 2011 based on the results of the 2010 census – be thrown out. They ordered the state Legislature to take another shot at it, redraw the maps, and submit the plan to Gov. Tom Wolf by Feb. 15 – in time for the new boundaries to be in place for the May Primary. If they fail to get the job done, the justices said they would take up the job themselves. Who says you can’t fight City Hall? Don’t tell that to the League of Women Voters, which took one look at the state’s reconfigured Congressional districts after the 2010 census and smelled a rat. Actually, what they smelled was politics. It’s called gerrymandering. And in Pennsylvania it’s something of an art form. The state Legislature performs the redistricting process every 10 years after the latest census. Not surprisingly, the party that controls the Legislature often uses that political clout to bend the new boundaries in ways that help their candidates.

Pa. Republicans ask state Supreme Court to stay its own gerrymandering order
Inquirer by Jonathan Lai & Liz Navratil, STAFF WRITERS Updated: JANUARY 23, 2018 — 6:35 PM EST
A day after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that the state’s congressional map is an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander and ordered legislators to draw a new map, Republican leaders on Tuesday asked the court to halt its order. In their application for a stay, State Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati and House Speaker Mike Turzai said the ruling “throws the 2018 Congressional elections into chaos” and “raises a profoundly important question under federal law” that should be resolved by the U.S. Supreme Court. Their filing contends the current map has been used for so long, and the order comes so late in the election timeline, that a change would confuse voters and candidates. “The Court’s decision poses a profound threat to the integrity of Pennsylvania’s upcoming Congressional elections,” it says. Asking the court to stay its own order is a necessary step before Republicans can ask the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene, said Michael Li, a redistricting expert at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University. He said the state court was almost sure to deny the request.

Can Pennsylvania's policy-makers really build a better Congressional map in 17 days?
Penn Live By Charles Thompson cthompson@pennlive.com Updated 6:06 AM; January 24, 2018
Rightly or wrongly, it is often said around the Pennsylvania Capitol that legislators do their best work when facing a deadline. That maxim will be put to a stern test this winter if, as the state Supreme Court ruled Monday, the General Assembly is tasked with building a new map of Congressional districts by Feb. 9. Leaders of the legislature's Republican majorities' first goal, of course, remains getting a stay that would postpone the whole exercise until at least after the fast-approaching 2018 campaign cycle. Legislative leaders formally filed their application for a stay with the state Supreme Court late Tuesday. A second appeal to federal courts is also expected later this week, asserting in part that the state Supreme Court has no authority to redraw federal legislative districts. Outside the courtroom, meanwhile, behind-the-scenes efforts to develop a new map - the case at hand only applies to the state's 18 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives - were tentatively starting to crank up.

House Majority Leader Dave Reed announces congressional run as lawmakers prepare to redraw district maps
Inquirer by Liz Navratil, HARRISBURG BUREAU Updated: JANUARY 23, 2018 — 12:04 PM EST
HARRISBURG — House Majority Leader Dave Reed, a Republican from Indiana County, announced Tuesday morning that he is running for an open congressional seat. The announcement comes while the Republican-controlled state legislature is deciding how to redraw the state’s congressional maps following a state Supreme Court order Monday that declared them unconstitutional, putting Reed in a potentially sticky spot. Reed, who has been majority leader for three years, said he thinks it’s fine for him to participate in the map-making process if it occurs. “For the congressional maps, it’s the entire legislative body with the governor that actually physically works on the maps,” he said Tuesday afternoon, following a meeting of the state House Rules committee, which he chairs. “There is no added interest from the majority leader’s perspective…and, quite frankly, I think we’re probably going to end up with maps drawn by the Supreme Court.”

About that court ruling that could change the face of Pennsylvania politics | John Baer
Is the political face of Pennsylvania about to change? Or not.
Philly Daily News by John Baer, STAFF COLUMNIST  baerj@phillynews.com Updated: JANUARY 23, 2018 — 4:33 PM EST
The thing about change? Especially in places not used to it? If it comes, it comes quickly. Like a lightning bolt. Like the state Supreme Court ruling this week that Pennsylvania’s congressional districts are overly partisan, unconstitutional and need redrawn right now. Boom. Zap. Just like that. Staid, old Pa. politics might never be the same. New congressional district maps replacing Republican-drawn 2011 maps that are ranked among America’s most-gerrymandered would mean actual political reform. Imagine. And likely a big win for Democrats. Ever since the 2011 maps, they’ve held just five of the state’s 18 U.S. House seats. If the ruling stands, and Dems don’t do what they’re prone to do, namely screw up opportunities, they stand to gain. Less-partisan maps could mean Democrats grab, by some estimates, up to four, even five new seats — even without a 2018 Democrat wave.

Top Pa. Republicans give Pat Meehan benefit of the doubt
Inquirer by Jonathan Tamari & Andrew Seidman - Staff Writers Updated: JANUARY 23, 2018 — 11:12 AM EST
Top Pennsylvania Republicans are giving U.S. Rep. Pat Meehan the benefit of the doubt as he tries to chart a path forward in the face of a report that he used thousands of taxpayer dollars to quietly settle a sexual harassment claim. While a number of Democrats have called on the Delaware County Republican to step down, key GOP leaders acknowledge the report is troubling, while arguing in the next breath that there may be more to the story, if only it could be revealed. Republican leaders’ responses give Meehan space to consider his next move and decide whether he can ride out the political furor as he faces what was already expected to be a difficult reelection campaign in a battleground suburban district.

Democrat Austin Davis wins Pa. House's 35th District to fill Gergely's seat
PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE JAN 23, 2018 9:39 PM
Democrat Austin Davis appeared to have secured a win Tuesday in the special election to replace Marc Gergely in the 35th State House District. “I think the people are sending a resounding message: that they want a representative that will deliver results,” said Mr. Davis, 28, of McKeesport, who maintained a roughly 3-to-1 lead over Republican Fawn Walker-Montgomery. He pledged to focus on the same issues he’d campaigned on -- improving education, transit and safety, and public safety. “We’re united here in the Mon Valley. … We’re united and we’re going to move this valley forward and we’re going to deliver results to the people in this district,” Mr. Davis told a crowd of more than 100 supporters at McKeesport’s Palisades ballroom.

Christiana finishes distant second to Barletta in caucus vote
Beaver County Times By J.D. Prose Posted Jan 23, 2018 at 3:12 PM Updated Jan 23, 2018 at 4:29 PM
U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta has overwhelmingly won another regional Republican committee straw poll for Senate primary candidates, with Beaver County state Rep. Jim Christiana again coming in a distant second. The Republican State Committee’s Southeast Caucus on Saturday gave Barletta, R-11, Hazleton, 62 of the 78 votes while Christiana, R-15, Brighton Township, received 14 votes and Bobby Lawrence of Waynesboro, Franklin County, collected two. Besides Christiana, Barletta and Lawrence, the GOP primary race includes Robinson Township resident Joe Vodvarka and Gettysburg resident Cynthia Ayers. Barletta, who leads the field in fundraising and has close ties to President Donald Trump, is considered the favorite to win the May 15 primary and challenge U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Scranton, in the general election. Barletta’s successful showing comes after he dominated the three other Republican regional caucuses (Central, Northeast and Northeast-Central) earlier this month, winning 127 of 144 votes. Christiana received the other 17 votes on Jan. 6.

Reducing size of Pa. House by a quarter seen as 'a foot in the door' leading to more reforms
Penn Live By Jan Murphy jmurphy@pennlive.com Updated 1:39 PM; Posted 1:29 PM
Hard as it is to imagine voting to support possibly giving yourself and 51 of your colleagues a pink slip, that is exactly what a majority of the House State Government Committee did on Tuesday. By approving a proposed constitutional amendment to shrink the size of the 203-member state House of Representatives to 151 members, the committee advanced this government reform measure to a point in the lengthy state constitutional amendment process that it is believed it has never reached before. Some see this measure, which passed the committee by a 14-10 vote, as a way to save money and make government more efficient. Some simply want to let the voters decide if this is a reform they want to see occur. Yet, others see it as making House districts too expansive and the wrong direction for state government to head.  Regardless, the proposed constitutional amendment to shrink the nation's second largest Legislature - and the largest full-time Legislature - now goes to the full House for consideration possibly as soon as early next month.

Without transparency, it's hard to be enthusiastic about Philly's new school board | Opinion
by Lisa Haver, For the Philadelphia Inquirer Updated: JANUARY 23, 2018 — 12:29 PM EST
The nominating panel convened under the rules of the Philadelphia Home Rule Charter for the purpose of selecting candidates for the new school board held its first meeting last week. That should have been cause for rejoicing, an event to usher in a new day for the city. After a 17-year reign, the state-imposed School Reform Commission voted last November to dissolve itself. A nine-person local school board, nominated by the panel and appointed by Mayor Kenney, will be seated July 1. But the manner in which the panel has conducted its business so far, including its announcement that it will conduct deliberations in private, left advocates wondering why we fought so hard to bring back local control of our public schools. The panel turned its back to the public. No remarks were addressed to the public, and there were no introductions of the 13 panel members chosen by the mayor. The agenda included no time for public speakers. Chair Wendell Pritchett announced that there would be only one more public meeting, when the panel would vote on the final 27 names to be sent to the mayor, from which he would choose the final nine.

The city needs a transformation to improve education, not just a new school board
A former teacher, now a social impact strategist, shares a bold vision for Philadelphia's future.
The notebook Commentary by Paul Perry January 23, 2018 — 3:14pm
The first thing I did every day as a teacher in Philly was kick a trash can.
I was checking for mice in my classroom. So instead of helping Angela boost her reading level, my first daily act as a middle school teacher in this city was pest control. Why do we allow working and learning conditions like these in our schools? Imagine if employees at CHOP, Vanguard, or even City Hall had to deal with these sorts of working conditions. Yet this is the reality in many Philadelphia schools today. And it’s unlikely our soon-to-be appointed school board will find ways to resolve this. Even though much good can come from local control, urban school boards are basically set up for failure. Though we ultimately spend more per student than many of our peers in OECD countries, we still get lackluster results because of how we spend. The federal government gives too little to schools compared to peer countries, while states consistently reduce their contributions to schools, meaning localities must inevitably ratchet up property taxes, further deepening inequities among districts. Most countries that outperform us have nothing like our over 15,000 school boards. For example, the Canadian province of Ontario (which is similar in size to dozens of our states) saved millions when it halved the number of school districts across the province. The money saved went more directly to schools and students, while increases in student achievement followed. We’ve got one or two layers of governance too many, and dissolving the SRC doesn’t single-handedly change that context.

Black male educators make up 31 percent of Bethune Elementary staff
Philly Trib by Samaria Bailey Tribune Correspondent Jan 23, 2018
Top of Form
Bottom of Form
While the national rate of Black male educators stands at two percent, Bethune Elementary School in North Philadelphia has managed to produce a team of which the percentage of Black male educators dwarfs the local and national average. Eighty percent of Bethune’s 700 plus students are Black. And the 13 Black male educators including classroom teachers, a dean and an intervention specialist, make up 31 percent of its staff. That is nearly 10 times the School District of Philadelphia’s 2016-2017 average of four percent and more than 10 times the national average of two percent as reported by the U.S. Department of Education. “Last year, we made a conscious effort to increase the number of Black male educators in our building. We didn’t shy away from other qualified candidates but we were focused in our recruitment efforts to find qualified Black Male Educators who believe in the vision that we have for our school,” said Bethune principal Jamina Dingle. “I’ve always felt that it just makes sense for the teaching staff of a school to be reflective of the students that are being taught.

Thackston Charter's audits, still unfinished, due next week
York Dispatch by Junior Gonzalez, 505-5439/@EducationYD Published 2:39 p.m. ET Jan. 23, 2018 | Updated 6:23 p.m. ET Jan. 23, 2018
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
·         Thackston agreed to complete and approve audits for the 2013-14, 2014-15 and 2015-16 school years in an agreement.
·         With about a week to go before the deadline, all three years were incomplete as of Jan. 16.
·         If the audits are not approved by Jan. 31, Thackston must close by the end of the current school year.
Helen Thackston Charter School is racing to complete three years of financial audits by Wednesday, Jan. 31, under a deal with the York City school board that would allow the charter to remain open through the 2018-19 school year. If the audits are not completed and approved by next week's deadline, Thackston could close at the end of the current school year. The school boards for Thackston and the district each unanimously approved a dissolution agreement last October to avoid lengthy revocation hearings focusing on Thackston's performance. The deal calls for the charter school to close its doors for good in 2019 — as long as the board can produce the missing audits.

Parents need to do their homework on school choice options | Opinion
Penn Live Guest Editorial by Natasha Shane Updated Jan 22; Posted Jan 22
This week marks the start of National School Choice Week. While Pennsylvania lawmakers have yet to legalize school vouchers (the most common form of choice), Keystone State parents still have no shortage of options for their children. In the video below, Natasha Shane, of Commonwealth Charter Academy, a K-12 cyber-school, offers pointers to parents who might be considering other education options for their children.

Saucon Valley School Board offered a choice of tax increases
Charles Malinchak Special to The Morning Call January 23, 2018
The Saucon Valley School District’s preliminary 2018-2019 budget made its first appearance Monday night and it showed two spending plans that both call for a tax increase. District Superintendent Craig Butler presented the board with the two proposals, calling the first one a “rollover’’ budget and the second a plan that includes spending on technology and rewriting academic curriculums. The first plan would cost $46.6 million and includes no new spending on anything except meeting expenses that routinely go up every year such as retirement and health insurance costs, salaries and utilities. “This includes the normal yearly increases,’’ said district Business Manager David Bonenberger. But even without spending on new programs or projects, Bonenberger said just to meet those normal yearly increases the plan needs $669,104 to bring a balanced budget.

Parkland limits possible tax hike to 2.4 percent
Margie Peterson Special to The Morning Call January 23, 2018
Parkland School Board voted Tuesday to contain any tax increase for its 2018-2019 budget to no more than the Act I Index of 2.4 percent. That won’t be easy because the cost of benefits — including pensions and health coverage — is expected to rise 4.45 percent from $50.4 million to $52.7 million, according to John Vignone, Parkland’s director of business administration. Vignone gave the board an overview of budget projections before school directors voted unanimously with Board President David M. Kennedy absent to keep any tax hike to 2.4 percent or less. Vignone is projecting the school district will spend nearly $1 million more next year for services such as tuition for students who attend charter schools and cybercharter schools — or about 9 percent more than this year. Rodney Troutman, assistant superintendent, said Parkland pays about $11,000 for a typical child in the district to attend charter and cybercharters and about $22,000 for a child in special education.


‘The commission points to Pennsylvania, where high-poverty districts spend around 30 percent less than wealthier districts on average. Districts and parents have long advocated for change in Pennsylvania, pushing for change in its legislature makeup.”
LOW-INCOME BLACK AND LATINO STUDENTS HIT HARDEST IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Newsweek BY TRACY LEE ON 1/11/18 AT 6:23 PM
Poverty and segregation drive the gap between public schools across the United States, hitting low-income black and Latino students the hardest, according to a study released Thursday.
“Vast funding inequities in our state public education systems render the education available to millions of American public school students profoundly unequal,” says a report by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. Schools are mostly funded with money generated through local property taxes, which means that poorer communities are not able to rake in funds to adequately fund their schools. As a result, funding disparities among school districts occur, the report highlights. While the report notes that an average of $11,066 is spent on each student annually by school districts, that amount "fluctuates dramatically from district to district."

Eight governors join coalition to expand computer science education
With these new additions, the total membership of the Governors' Partnership for K-12 Computer Science has doubled.
Edscoop By Emily Tate JANUARY 23, 2018 5:49 PM
Eight more governors have signed on to the Governors’ Partnership for K-12 Computer Science, a coalition of state leaders committed to advancing computer science education. These recent additions bring the total membership to 16 governors, meaning that the Partnership, which launched in 2016 with the help of Code.org, has doubled since last month. The new members include Republicans Doug Burgum of North Dakota, Eric Holcomb of Indiana, Kay Ivey of Alabama, Matt Mead of Wyoming and Democrats Steve Bullock of Montana, David Ige of Hawaii, Ralph Northam of Virginia and Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania. In joining the partnership, the governors pledge to prioritize policy, standards and funding around computer science education. And it’s not just beneficial to the students. Nationwide, there are over 500,000 openings for computing jobs, according to Code.org, and that’s only expected to grow. States also report increasing shortages of skilled workers in the fields of STEM, computer science, IT and cybersecurity.

School Shooting in Kentucky Is Nation’s 11th of Year. It’s Jan. 23.
New York Times By ALAN BLINDER and DANIEL VICTOR JAN. 23, 2018
ATLANTA — On Tuesday, it was a high school in small-town Kentucky. On Monday, a school cafeteria outside Dallas and a charter school parking lot in New Orleans. And before that, a school bus in Iowa, a college campus in Southern California, a high school in Seattle. Gunfire ringing out in American schools used to be rare, and shocking. Now it seems to happen all the time. The scene in Benton, Ky., on Tuesday was the worst so far in 2018: Two 15-year-old students were killed and 18 more people were injured. But it was one of at least 11 shootings on school property recorded since Jan. 1, and roughly the 50th of the academic year. Researchers and gun control advocates say that since 2013, they have logged school shootings at a rate of about one a week. “We have absolutely become numb to these kinds of shootings, and I think that will continue,” said Katherine W. Schweit, a former senior F.B.I. official and the co-author of a study of 160 active shooting incidents in the United States.

Obituary: Ursula K. Le Guin / acclaimed for her science fiction, dead at 88
GERALD JONAS The New York Times JAN 23, 2018 7:04 PM
Ursula K. Le Guin, the immensely popular author who brought literary depth and a tough-minded feminist sensibility to science fiction and fantasy with books like “The Left Hand of Darkness” and the Earthsea series, died Monday at her home in Portland, Oregon. She was 88. Her son, Theo Downes-Le Guin, confirmed the death. He did not specify a cause but said she had been in poor health for several months. Le Guin embraced the standard themes of her chosen genres: sorcery and dragons, spaceships and planetary conflict. But even when her protagonists are male, they avoid the macho posturing of so many science fiction and fantasy heroes. The conflicts they face are typically rooted in a clash of cultures and resolved more by conciliation and self-sacrifice than by swordplay or space battles. Her books have been translated into more than 40 languages and have sold millions of copies worldwide. Several, including “The Left Hand of Darkness” — set on a planet where the customary gender distinctions do not apply — have been in print for almost 50 years. Critic Harold Bloom lauded Le Guin as “a superbly imaginative creator and major stylist” who “has raised fantasy into high literature for our time.” In addition to her more than 20 novels, she was the author of a dozen books of poetry, more than 100 short stories (collected in multiple volumes), seven collections of essays, 13 books for children and five volumes of translation, including the Tao Te Ching of Lao Tzu and selected poems by Chilean Nobel Prize winner Gabriela Mistral. She also wrote a guide for writers.

Testing Resistance & Reform News: January 17-23, 2018
FairTest Submitted by fairtest on January 23, 2018 - 1:06pm 
The drumbeat of evidence documenting the damage to educational quality and equity from high-stakes exams is forcing policymakers to reconsider their commitment to testing overuse and misuse. Look for many more assessment reform victories as 2018 state legislative sessions move into high gear.



Register now for PSBA Board Presidents Panel 
PSBA Website January 2018

School board leaders, this one's for you! Join your colleagues at an evening of networking and learning in 10 convenient locations around the state at the end of January. Share your experience and leadership through a panel discussion moderated by PSBA Member Services team. Participate in roundtable conversations focused on the most pressing challenges and current issues affecting PA school districts. Bring your specific challenges and scenarios for small group discussion. Register online.

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.

REGISTER TODAY! ELECTED. ENGAGED. EMPOWERED:
Local School Board Members to Advocate on Capitol Hill in 2018     
NSBA's Advocacy Institute 2018 entitled, "Elected. Engaged. Empowered: Representing the Voice in Public Education," will be held on February 4-6, 2018 at the Marriott Marquis in Washington, D.C. This conference will convene Members of Congress, national thought-leaders, state association executives and well-known political pundits to provide local school board members with an update on key policy and legal issues impacting public education, and tactics and strategies to enhance their ability to influence the policy-making process and national education debate during their year-round advocacy efforts.
WHAT'S NEW - ADVOCACY INSTITUTE '18?
·         Confirmed National Speaker: Cokie Roberts, Political Commentator for NPR and ABC News
·         NSBA will convene first ever National School Board Town Hall on School Choice
·         Includes General Sessions featuring national policy experts, Members of Congress, "DC Insiders" and local school board members
·         Offers conference attendees "Beginner" and "Advanced" Advocacy breakout sessions
·         NSBA will host a Hill Day Wrap-Up Reception
Click here to register for the Advocacy Institute.  The hotel block will close on Monday, January 15

PSBA Closer Look Series Public Briefings
The Closer Look Series Public Briefings will take a deeper dive into concepts contained in the proposed Pennsylvania State Budget and the State of Education Report. Sessions will harness the expertise of local business leaders, education advocates, government and local school leaders from across the state. Learn more about the fiscal health of schools, how workforce development and early education can be improved and what local schools are doing to improve the State of Education in Pennsylvania. All sessions are free and open to the public.

Connecting Student Success to Employment
Doubletree by Hilton Hotel – Pittsburgh Green Tree Feb. 27, 2018, 7-8:45 a.m.
More than eight out of 10 students taking one or more industry-specific assessments are achieving either at the competent or advanced level. How do we connect student success to jobs in the community? What does the connection between schools and the business community look like and how can it be improved? How do we increase public awareness of the growing demand for workers in the skilled trades and other employment trends in the commonwealth? Hear John Callahan, PSBA assistant executive director, and Matt Smith, president of the Greater Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce, give a free, public presentation on these topics followed by a Q&A period.


A Deeper Dive into the State of Education
Crowne Plaza Philadelphia – King of Prussia March 6, 2018, 7-8:45 a.m.
In the State of Education Report, 40% of schools stated that 16% to 30% of students joining schools at kindergarten or first grade are below the expected level of school readiness. Learn more about the impact of early education and what local schools are doing to improve the State of Education in Pennsylvania. A free, public presentation by local and legislative experts will be followed by a Q&A period.


Public Education Under Extreme Pressure
Hilton Harrisburg March 12, 2018, 7-8:45 a.m.
According to the State of Education Report, 84% of all school districts viewed budget pressures as the most difficult area to manage over the past year. With so many choices and pressures, school districts must make decisions to invest in priorities while managing their locally diverse budgets. How does the state budget impact these decisions? What investments does the business community need for the future growth of the economy and how do we improve the health, education and well-being of students who attend public schools in the commonwealth in this extreme environment? Hear local and legislative leaders in a free, public presentation on these topics followed by a Q&A period.

Registration for these public briefings: https://www.psba.org/2018/01/closer-look-series-public-briefings/

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 

SAVE THE DATE for the 2018 PA Educational Leadership Summit - July 29-31 - State College, PA sponsored by the PA Principals Association, PASA, PAMLE and PASCD.  
This year's Summit will be held from July 29-31, 2018 at the Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel, State College, PA.

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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