Tuesday, January 30, 2018

PA Ed Policy Roundup Jan. 30: US Supreme Court signals it might block PA’s ruling against partisan gerrymandering

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
US Supreme Court signals it might block PA’s ruling against partisan gerrymandering


PCCY Report: Expanding High Quality Charter School Options
PCCY Report January 2018
Since 2012, 23 states have amended their laws to improve the quality of charter schools.  Pennsylvania is not one of those states. The legislature has not revised the charter school law to include best practices for access, autonomy or accountability since it was passed in 1997.  This report by PCCY details why strong charter school legislation matters.

NAPCS Report: MEASURING UP TO THE MODEL: A RANKING OF STATE PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOL LAWS, 2018
The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools January 29, 2018
Author Todd Ziebarth Louann Bierlein Palmer
The National Alliance developed a model state law to help states create laws that support the growth of high-quality charter schools and each year we rank states based on how well their charter school laws align to this model.

Are charter schools ruining the public education system?
Penn Live By The Tylt Updated Jan 26; Posted Jan 26
For years, some have hailed charter schools as the solution to public school dysfunction. Proponents of charter schools, like U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, have been celebrating National School Choice Week which aims to "raise public awareness of the different K-12 education options available to children and families.. including traditional public schools, public charter schools, public magnet schools, private schools, online academies, and homeschooling." But critics believe charter schools have been detrimental to the public education system. Michelle Chen of The Nation argues charter schools -- publicly funded independent schools run by private companies or organizations -- have actually disrupted the public school system for the worst. Charter schools are unique in that they are able to evade many regulations, such as teachers unions, while still receiving public funds.

Governor Wolf Celebrates Schools Demonstrating Career and Technical Education Excellence
Governor Wolf’s Website January 29, 2018
Harrisburg, PA – Governor Tom Wolf today applauded 12 Pennsylvania schools for their demonstrated excellence in career and technical education (CTE), and congratulated them on earning a Career and Technical Education Excellence Award from the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE). “My administration is focused on ensuring that students graduate from high school with the skills they need to get a good job, and career and technical education provides critical hands-on experience to prepare our young people,” said Governor Wolf. “Not every student wants to go to college, but there are many job openings in Pennsylvania that require training and skills, and career and technical education is helping to close that skills gap.” To qualify for a CTE Excellence Award, 75 percent of students at a school must score advanced on an end-of-program technical assessment. Advanced level achievement scores reflect the student’s ability to comprehend technical skills and the ability required to successfully perform the duties of an entry level job in a safe and effective manner.

SB2 Vouchers: Proposed school choice bill stirs debate in Pennsylvania
By Gerry Weiss | Watchdog.org Jan 26, 2018
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Fewer school districts in Pennsylvania have been wracked with financial woes like Erie's public schools. The district, home to more than 11,000 students – most who live in low-income households or neighborhoods teeming with high poverty – needed an injection of $14 million in additional annual state funding earlier this year just to stay afloat. Its money perils forced the district to merge schools and shutter buildings. In one example, Erie, prior to 2017, had four high schools. Today it has two. The fourth-largest city in Pennsylvania – which recently jumped past Illinois to become the fifth most populous state in America – has only two high schools. And now comes Pennsylvania Senate Bill 2, which includes a hotly debated piece of school choice legislation similar to vouchers. If passed, the bill will allow students who attend public schools and live within the bottom 15 percent of the state's lowest academically performing districts to use public money for private school tuition. According to the Pennsylvania State Education Association, Senate Bill 2 could siphon more than $500 million in state funding from public school districts.

Editorial: Too late to bed, too early to rise: District officials need to seriously consider later school start times for teens
Lancaster Online Editorial by the LNP Editorial Board January 30, 2018
THE ISSUE - In a national study published in December, Penn State researchers found that starting high school after 8:30 a.m. increased the likelihood of teens getting the recommended amount of sleep and improved their overall health and well-being, LNP’s Alex Geli reported last week. Researchers studied the daily routines of 413 teenagers for an entire year and found that teens who started school after 8:30 a.m. had 27 to 57 minutes of more sleep than those who started school earlier. Geli found that Lancaster County school districts still start school as early as 7:22 a.m., and there is little local discussion about changing school start times. But, he reported, hundreds of schools in at least 45 states have done so, including the Mechanicsburg Area School District in Cumberland County. Last week, that district’s board approved a plan to move its high school start time 25 minutes later to 8:20 a.m. This was part of a set of changes spurred primarily by increased enrollment, though the district’s superintendent said the research on adolescent sleep patterns also was a factor. Penn State researchers are far from the only ones who have found that later high school start times would better serve the adolescent internal clock. This isn’t a matter of “babying the future generations,” as one commenter on LancasterOnline put it. It’s a matter of biology. We know what many of you are thinking, because we’ve had the same thoughts ourselves: “Our kids learned to go to bed earlier, other kids can, too — parents just need to set household rules.” “Farm kids get up before dawn and somehow, they survive.” And so on. But we believe in research rather than anecdote. Individual stories are interesting but not conclusive. And the research is clear on this.

 “Alito, who reviews emergency appeals from Pennsylvania and two other states, could have denied the appeal if he thought it had no chance of being granted. But late in day Monday, he asked for a response by Feb. 4 from the League of Women Voters. His action suggests that he believes there is some prospect that a majority of his colleagues may grant the appeal.”
The Supreme Court may have signaled that it might block Pennsylvania’s ruling against partisan gerrymandering
Post-Gazette by DAVID G. SAVAGE Los Angeles Times JAN 30, 2018 2:00 AM
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court was seen as signaling Monday it may be open to blocking a state ruling on partisan gerrymandering at the behest of Pennsylvania’s Republican leaders. Last week, Pennsylvania’s high court struck down the state’s election districts on the grounds they were drawn to give the GOP a 13-5 majority of its seats in the House of Representatives. Unlike other recent rulings, the state justices said they based their ruling solely on the state’s constitution. Usually, the U.S. Supreme Court has no grounds for reviewing a state court ruling that is based on state law. The Pennsylvania decision, if it stands, could be significant in November when Democrats hope for big gains in Congress. The state justices ordered a new election map to be drawn in the month ahead, and legal experts predicted it could shift two or three seats toward the Democrats.

Red states, incumbent GOP Congressmen all take rooting interest in Pa. redistricting case
Penn Live By Charles Thompson cthompson@pennlive.com Updated 1:45 AM; Posted Jan 29, 7:30 PM
Talk about your power plays. Officials from six Republican-controlled states, most of Pennsylvania's current GOP Congressmen and the Republican State Committee all weighed in Monday in a big show of support for state legislative leaders' request for the U.S. Supreme Court to delay a pending state court order for new Congressional maps. The mounting pile of briefs - funded by groups like the National Republican Congressional Committee and the National Republican Redistricting Trust - showed just how important Pennsylvania is likely to be in what is expected to a pitched battle for majority control of the U.S. House of Representatives this fall.
No decision on the stay request is expected until at least Friday.

Drawing new congressional districts gets off to slow start
AP State Wire By MARK SCOLFORO Published: Yesterday
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - There are a few signs of progress, a week into the three-week period established by the state Supreme Court for lawmakers to produce a replacement congressional district map. Senate Republican leaders introduced a bill Monday that could become legislation to replace the 18-district map ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court last week, but they say a lack of guidance from the justices is a problem. The high court threw out the existing maps but has not issued a full opinion laying out the reasoning in detail. The court majority said in its brief order that the replacement districts must be "composed of compact and contiguous territory, as nearly equal in population as possible" and that they should only split counties, cities and other municipal lines if needed to equalize population. "It's sort of hard to draw map lines when you don't know what the opinion is," Senate Majority Leader Jake Corman, R-Centre, told reporters. "I mean, we can guess, but what if we guess wrong?"

How Supreme Court ruling on Pennsylvania's congressional map will turn into game of dominoes
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court decided the state's congressional map illegally favors Republicans and must be redrawn. Here's the background on the case.
Morning Call by Laura Olson Contact Reporter Call Washington Bureau January 29, 2018
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Pennsylvania’s congressional candidates find themselves amid dominoes after Monday’s state Supreme Court order tossing the current congressional district maps and ordering new ones. Those dominoes will start tipping this way or that as a new map takes shape, shifting the political makeup of each region — perhaps even putting a candidate outside a new boundary line. So far, the state Supreme Court, which ruled the current maps unfairly favor one party, has offered minimal directions on how to make more equitable districts. Should the mapmakers design politically competitive districts? Geographically compact ones? Some combination, or other criteria altogether?

The 8 hottest races in 2018 Pennsylvania elections
Penn Live By Charles Thompson | cthompson@pennlive.com Posted January 29, 2018 at 06:10 AM | Updated January 29, 2018 at 12:43 PM
Gov. Tom Wolf is seeking a second term, and four Republicans - Laura Ellsworth, Paul Mango, Mike Turzai and Scott Wagner - are gunning for him in what is expected to be a highly contested primary. The stakes? Nothing less than whether Pennsylvania, with unassailable Republican majorities in the state legislature - goes all in on this conservative moment, or whether the state reclaims it's purple policy shades for another four years. 

Former union head becomes Pa.'s labor & industry secretary in unprecedented way
Jerry Oleksiak becomes Pennsylvania's Labor & Industry secretary on Tuesday in an unusual way. The state Senate refused to act on his nomination in the allotted 25-day timeframe due to their misgivings about his qualifications for the post, which allows him to automatically assume the Cabinet post.
Penn Live By Jan Murphy jmurphy@pennlive.com Updated 6:38 AM; Posted Jan 29, 6:45 PM
Jerry Oleksiak will start to work this week as Gov. Tom Wolf's labor & industry secretary without having the word "acting" in front of his title. He becomes the secretary automatically as a result of the state Senate's refusal to act on his nomination - which is said to the first time a Cabinet secretary has taken office without Senate approval. Wolf nominated Oleksiak to the post after the Aug. 1 resignation of Kathy Manderino, who left to take a position on the state's Gaming Control Board. Oleksiak, a former Upper Merion Area School District special education teacher for more than three decades, resigned as president of the Pennsylvania State Education Association to take the executive branch post.  Senate Republican leaders had asked Wolf to recall Oleksiak's nomination after expressing serious reservations about his qualifications and abilities. Wolf refused.

Editorial: Meehan should resign 7th seat now
Delco Times POSTED: 01/29/18, 8:31 PM EST | UPDATED: 28 SECS AGO
Pat Meehan got one thing right last week. The incumbent Republican 7th District congressman announced he would not seek re-election. It was the right call. But it only gets him a third of the way home. Now he needs to finish the job. Meehan found himself the latest focus of the #MeToo revolution amid a blockbuster story first reported by The New York Times that he used taxpayer dollars to settle a sexual harassment complaint filed against him by a former staffer. Meehan denied any sexual relationship with the woman, and insisted the payment, done in accordance with House guidelines, was little more than a severance payment. Many of his constituents didn’t agree, and let him know via a series of noisy rallies outside his Springfield district office.

Vitali will seek Dem nod for 7th District seat in Congress
Delco Times POSTED: 01/29/18, 8:36 AM EST | UPDATED: 2 HRS AGO
HAVERFORD >> Longtime state Rep. Greg Vitali is running for Congress.
Vitali, D-166 of Haverford, Monday became the latest Democrat to throw his hat in the ring for the Democratic nomination to fill the seat being vacated by incumbent Republican Rep. Pat Meehan. Meehan said last week he would not seek re-election after a firestorm of controversy erupted over a news that he used taxpayer funds to settle a sexual harassment complaint from a former staffer. Vitali, who has represented the 166th District since 1992, has long been one of the fiercest environmental activists in the state and that played a role in his announcement. “Climate change is the single greatest long term threat to our world,” Vitali said in making his announcement. “I cannot sit idly by as Donald Trump and the current Congress endanger our future and make this problem worse. The time is now for all people of good conscience to stand up, stand together, and take back our government for the good of all the people.” Vitali is considered by many to be the leading environmental legislator in Pennsylvania. 

Upper Darby schools to start branding campaign
Delco Times By Kevin Tustin, ktustin@21st-centurymedia.com, @KevinTustin on Twitter POSTED: 01/29/18, 8:14 PM EST | UPDATED: 35 SECS AGO
UPPER DARBY >> The Upper Darby School District will be officially be branding itself with the help of a Philadelphia firm. The school board at its January meeting unanimously approved a $70,000 contract with Magnum Integrating Marketing to conduct three phases of branding work that will be spread over 18 months, starting this school year and continuing through next year. Representatives from Magnum presented their proposal to the board at a December committee meeting that outlined the work that will be done. Phase one will consist of research that includes brand evaluation, feedback from a social survey and constituents interviews and to establish objectives. This work will last up to six months that will include a presentation to the board on the research. Phase two, which will commence in the next school year, will be about developing the brand. Work here includes logo designs for the 14 schools and the district seal, creating a brand style guide and electronic filed for marketing use. The final phase involves social media engagement of the brand, online surveys, website analytics and post-launch interviews. School directors welcomed the opportunity for the district to solidify its image against other local schools.

“Some of the biggest gains were posted by the district’s Turnaround Network, some of the lowest-performing schools in the city. Schools are placed in that network with extra supports and scrutiny with the expectation that they will post rapid gains. Potter-Thomas jumped from a score of 9 in 2015-16 to a score of 41 in 2016-17. Principal Dywonne Davis-Harris said the supports made all the difference. Potter-Thomas, like others in the turnaround network, got an assistant principal, reading and math teacher coaches, reduced class sizes in the primary grades, additional teacher development time in the summer and during the school year and a staffer to assist with family engagement.”
Best, most improved schools in Philly honored
Inquirer by Kristen A. Graham, Staff Writer  @newskag |  kgraham@phillynews.com Updated: JANUARY 29, 2018 — 2:57 PM EST
They are charters and traditional public schools; elementaries, middle and high schools. And on Monday, they were named the city’s top and most improved performers, honored with cheers, banners, trophies, and handshakes from Mayor Kenney and Superintendent William R. Hite Jr. Twenty-six schools earned laurels for their marks on the Philadelphia School District’s school performance report, an internal measure that examines 2016-17 test performance, student growth, climate, and other factors to arrive at a single numerical score. “We’re making progress across public schools in the city of Philadelphia,” Hite said at a ceremony at Potter-Thomas Elementary, a fast-improving school in Fairhill. “More of our children are learning in higher-performing schools.”

Educators and mayor celebrate Philly’s highest-scoring and most improved schools
The notebook by Dale Mezzacappa January 29, 2018 — 5:06pm
Philadelphia education leaders were in the mood for celebration Monday as they presented awards to 22 District and charter schools that made major improvements or maintained high scores on the School District's measure of success, the School Progress Report. District officials, along with Mayor Kenney, chose to mark the occasion at Potter-Thomas Elementary School in Fairhill, located in one of the city’s most-challenged neighborhoods. The student population is almost entirely low-income and Latino, and two in five students are English learners. The SPR score (on a scale from 0 to 100) at Potter-Thomas jumped from just 9 in 2015-16 to 41 in 2016-17 – almost entirely due to improvement in the percentage of students reaching proficiency in reading and math. “I see potential, I see possibility, I see genius, I see hope” in every student, said principal Dywonne Davis-Harris. “We maintain a safe haven for our students to enable them to grow.” That theme was echoed by both Kenney and Superintendent William Hite.

The 50 Pa. public high schools with the highest SAT scores
Penn Live by Jan Murphy | jmurphy@pennlive.com Posted January 30, 2018 at 05:45 AM
Here are the 50 Pennsylvania public high schools with the highest combined average SAT scores from the students who expected to graduate last year along with some related information from each school's School Performance Profile (student ethnicity pie charts are posted above a school's name). Keep in mind, a perfect score is 1600 – 800 for reading and writing and 800 for math. The scores presented for the reading and writing exam and math exam may not exactly add up to total score presented due to rounding. The other thing to keep in mind is the SAT's format changed in March 2016 so the College Board cautions against comparing a school's earlier years' scores to the 2017 scores. To see SAT scores for all Pennsylvania public high schools for 2017 and earlier, click here.

Nazareth Area School District passes preliminary budget with 3.44% tax hike
Kevin Duffy Special to The Morning Call January 29, 2018
Residents within the Nazareth Area School District may see an increase in their tax bill if the preliminary budget for the 2018-19 school year isn’t pared down. School board directors Monday passed a preliminary budget that calls for a tax increase of 1.83 mills, or 3.44 percent, that would take the district to 55.101 mills overall. The district will apply for exceptions tied to special education and retirement benefits in order to exceed the district’s tax increase cap under the Act 1 index of 2.4 percent, or 1.278 mills. They also approved an $88.6 million spending plan for 2018-19, which represents a 4.57 percent increase over the current year.


“We have been experimenting with taxpayer-funded choice for two decades, and the evidence is clear. We have wasted billions in tax dollars, with no comprehensive evidence that charters, online schools and vouchers have resulted in increased academic performance of American students.”
What taxpayers should know about the cost of school choice
Washington Post Answer Sheet blog By Valerie Strauss January 26, 2017 
School choice proponents often attack their critics by saying that anyone who doesn’t support choice programs — charter schools, voucher programs, tax scholarship credits — love the status quo and don’t care that children are trapped in failing traditional public schools. So let’s stipulate from the start:
*There are some perfectly awful publicly funded traditional public schools and some severely troubled districts, especially in America’s cities. Kids shouldn’t be trapped in them.
*There are some great charter schools, which are publicly funded but run privately, some of them by for-profit companies. In some cities, some charters provide better experiences than the traditional public school.
*All choice supporters aren’t interested in destroying the traditional public system, and no supporter of the traditional public system that I have ever heard of thinks the traditional schools don’t need improvement.
Now let’s move on.

Nearly 9,000 DACA teachers face an uncertain future
NPR By Claudio Sanchez January 29, 2018
Of the 690,000 undocumented immigrants now facing an uncertain future as Congress and President Trump wrangle over the DACA program are about 8,800school teachers.
The real possibility that they’ll be deported if the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program is allowed to expire has put enormous stress on them. Maria Rocha, a teacher in San Antonio, Texas, says it’s gut wrenching, but she’s trying not to show it in front of her third-graders. Rocha has been teaching at KIPP Esperanza Dual-Language Academy for three years. It’s even harder, she says, because some of her students are also at risk of being deported.

“Memphis is not the first diocese to work with charter leaders to “convert” struggling urban Catholic schools into public charter schools, but its “conversions” are certainly the most prominent.”
Charter schools are not the future of Catholic education
Thomas Fordham Institute Flypaper Blog by Kathleen Porter-Magee January 30, 2018
Last week, the Catholic Diocese of Memphis, Tennessee, faced with continued financial struggles and the failure of the most recent state voucher bill, announced a plan to close all ten of its “Jubilee Schools” at the end of next year. When the network first opened on the eve of the Year of Jubilee, in 2000, it was dubbed the “Memphis Miracle,” and it was considered a model for how to revitalize urban Catholic schools serving our poorest communities. Now it’s a cautionary tale—a warning for leaders seeking innovative ways to save urban Catholic schools. The way the diocese is choosing to close its schools is once again putting Memphis in the spotlight. At the close of the 2018–19 school year, the diocese of Memphis will withdraw its schools completely from the urban communities it has served for decades. In the place of the closed schools, assuming the state authorizer assents, will be nine new public charter schools. Religious instruction in these new charters will be banned from the school day, but diocesan leaders hope that the students “will continue to receive an excellent education that prepares them to be giving members of their communities.”

Trump's State of the Union Address and Education: What to Watch For
Education Week Politics K12 Blog By Alyson Klein on January 29, 2018 9:00 AM
President Donald Trump will give his first honest-to-goodness State of the Union address since taking office Tuesday night. So just how is education likely to show up in the speech?  Education was a sleeper star of last year's pseudo SOTU. (It technically wasn't a State of the Union address because Trump had just taken office.) The speech included a big shout-out for school choice in general, and specifically for Denisha Merriweather, then a graduate student, who benefitted from Florida's tax-credit scholarship program. (Merriweather is now working at the U.S. Department of Education to champion choice .) Trump also talked about other issues that impact K-12 schools, including child care, health care, and immigration. This time around, folks in Washington are betting that school choice won't be nearly as big a theme. But another education issue—the fate of so-called "Dreamers," undocumented immigrants who were brought to this country as children—is almost certain to take center stage. The areas likely to get big focus in the speech also includes jobs and the economy, trade, infrastructure, and national security, according to a senior White House advisor. What's going on with those issues, and what else might come up in the SOTU? Here's your quick preview:


Advertising in schools?
A number of school districts across the country have turned to advertising as a way to fill budget gaps. Some districts have offered corporate naming rights to buildings and others have allowed ads on buses and lockers. A reporter for the Harrisburg Patriot-News is investigating the prevalence of ads in Pa. schools and needs your help. Please contact him if you’re aware of any of the following in your area:
·  Ads placed on sports uniforms, school buses, lockers, or other areas of school grounds.
·  Corporate sponsorship of sports fields, buildings, parking lots, or other school property.
·  Ads on school websites or newsletters.
·  Any other examples of advertising or sponsorship in the school environment or curriculum.
You can reach reporter Daniel Simmons-Ritchie at simmons-ritchie@pennlive.com or on 717-255-8162


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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