Started in November 2010, 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
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These daily emails are archived and searchable at http://keystonestateeducationcoalition.org
Follow us on Twitter at @lfeinberg
Save the date: PA Schools Work Delaware County
Work Group Conference
Saturday, February 2, 2019 8:45 am – 12:00
pm at DCIU
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf and legislators should work together to enact pension commission recommendations | Editorial
The Inquirer Editorial Board Updated: January 11, 2019 - 4:00 PM
In 2017, Harrisburg politicians figured out a way to keep the public eye off their historic mismanagement of the state’s pension funds until after the 2018 election cycle. They cleverly created one of those study commissions and ensured that it wouldn’t release its study results until after the 2018 election. But that’s where the procrastinating ended. Taxpayers and government workers should be pleased with the fact that the Public Pension Management and Asset Investment Review Commission took its responsibilities very seriously. Members produced an exhaustive, deeply-researched report last month that lays out a clear prescription for fixing the funds and saving more than $330 million a year. Very significantly, they released their report to the public. The chairman of the commission was Rep. Mike Tobash, (R., Dauphin). The vice chairman was Democratic Treasurer Joe Torsella, making this a truly bipartisan effort. Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf, who already endorsed the report, and Republican legislators should follow the commission’s spirit of bipartisanship and professionalism and tackle at least three of its recommendations as soon as possible.
http://www.philly.com/opinion/editorials/governor-tom-wolf-treasurer-joe-torsella-democrat-republican-pension-billion-wall-street-investments-20190111.html
Blogger note: How did we arrive at a point where there is an unfunded pension liability of over $70 billion and school districts are required to pay over 30% of their payroll into the pension fund?
From boom to bust: A timeline of Pennsylvania's public pension systems
The Morning Call lists key dates in the legal, political and financial history of Pennsylvania's public pension systems for state workers and school teachers
Steve Esack Contact Reporter Call Harrisburg Bureau January 10, 2019
https://www.mcall.com/news/nationworld/pennsylvania/mc-nws-pennsylvania-pension-time-line-20190110-story.html
“Wolf talks openly about his goals: providing adequate funding for public education, tackling the opioid epidemic, and strengthening government ethics, among other initiatives. But lurking in the background once again are financial strains, not unlike the ones the governor faced throughout his last term. The state is projected to have a $1.7 billion shortfall in the fiscal year that begins July 1, according to an analysis late last year by the state’s Independent Fiscal Office.”
Unfettered by reelection concerns, will Gov. Wolf return to progressive roots in second term?
Inquirer by Angela Couloumbis, Updated: 11 minutes ago
HARRISBURG — Since cruising to victory two months ago to win another four-year term, Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf has signed executive orders to push redistricting reform and reduce carbon emissions, and declared that the state needs to take a serious look at legalizing recreational marijuana. Nearly every time, leaders in the Republican-controlled legislature, with whom Wolf has been at a detente since his first, tumultuous year in office, complained that the governor was doing an end-run around them to advance his liberal views. So when Wolf, 70, takes the oath of office at his second inauguration Tuesday, the question many will be asking is: Who will show up? The politician who launched his first term as an unapologetic progressive or the more pragmatic statesman he became?
http://www.philly.com/news/tom-wolf-unleashed-progressive-pennsylvania-governor-legislature-divided-20190114.html
“The General Assembly has already taken appropriate steps in the recent past to de-emphasize the use of standardized tests as the sole path to graduation. The next logical step in that process is to reduce the overemphasis of those standardized tests in the statewide teacher evaluation system.”
Promoting student-centered education policy in Pennsylvania
Lancaster Online Opinion by RYAN AUMENT | Special to LNP January 13, 2019
State Sen. Ryan Aument, a Republican who resides in Mount Joy, represents the 36th District.
I am honored to have been selected to lead one of the most important policy discussions facing Pennsylvania today. As the new chairman of the state Senate Education Committee, I understand that the issues before us are as diverse as our commonwealth. It is therefore crucial that we work together to understand and address those issues so that all Pennsylvanians will have the opportunity to achieve success and experience upward economic mobility in an increasingly competitive and dynamic global environment. To that end, I will be reaching out to all of the members of the Education Committee to gather their input, hear their policy priorities and collect feedback. I intend for the work of this committee to be member-driven and bipartisan, with an emphasis on collaboration through an open, ongoing dialogue about the issues that we collectively face. Further, we will be results-oriented. Accordingly, I believe we have an obligation to focus the committee’s energy on legislation that genuinely has a chance at becoming law. This is not to say that we will not debate and advance an issue for further discussion, but I intend to prioritize advancing those bills on which there is agreement, while also continuing to engage in meaningful conversations to build consensus where it is lacking. By building consensus and arriving at workable solutions, we can create sustainable change in Pennsylvania’s education system for the benefit of our students.
https://lancasteronline.com/opinion/columnists/promoting-student-centered-education-policy-in-pennsylvania/article_1b316dfe-1533-11e9-80ef-bb5ef483c3c2.html
“Implementation has not been very clear”
Confusion over statewide Safe2Say program remains 2 days before going live
Lancaster Online by ALEX GELI | Staff Writer January 12, 2019
A promising new program promoting school safety in Pennsylvania is off to a rocky start.
Come Monday, educators, students, parents and community members will be allowed to submit anonymous tips through a new threat reporting system called Safe2Say, which will include an an app available on Apple and Android devices, a website and a 24-hour hotline. Tips will be reviewed by the state attorney general’s office and forwarded to schools and, if necessary, local police to help ward off school violence. Participation is required by all public and private schools in the state, according to the legislation, which was signed into law in June. But many Lancaster County school officials here say they’re concerned with the lack of direction from the AG’s office, which enlisted the nonprofit Sandy Hook Promise to provide training statewide, between then and now. “While it is a good idea, the implementation has not been very clear and seamless for us,” Penn Manor Superintendent Mike Leichliter said. Leichliter said he attended a regional training session in December with hundreds of other educators at the Lancaster County Convention Center in downtown Lancaster. The training team seemed overwhelmed by the number of attendees, he said. It started late. The app and website weren’t ready, so they had to use a demo site. This left many wondering what procedures to follow, how to train students and faculty, and how to promote the program, Leichliter said.
https://lancasteronline.com/news/local/confusion-over-statewide-safe-say-program-remains-days-before-going/article_38117c0e-15d6-11e9-8b4e-131d68ac756c.html
Safe2Say - Our view: School tips program gets shaky start
GoErie By the Editorial Board January 13, 2019 Posted at 2:01 AM
The concept seems promising — a platform for anonymous tips from students who might have gotten wind on social media or via the school grapevine about a possible school shooting, suicide or other act of violence. The execution, however, has been lacking. As reporter Valerie Myers details on the front page, the Pennsylvania Legislature last June mandated that all of the state’s 500 school districts integrate an anonymous tip system through the Safe2Say app, website and hotline. Legislators set the launch for Jan. 14. In October, the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office and Sandy Hook Promise said they would join forces to implement the system. Sandy Hook Promise is a nonprofit based in Newtown, Connecticut, where the Sandy Hook school massacre occurred in December 2012. Under the Safe2Say system, tips will go to a call center operated by the Attorney General’s Office, which will prioritize them and pass them on to schools, school districts or local 911 centers, depending on the nature of the information. In the October announcement, Sandy Hook Promise indicated that thorough training would be forthcoming. “Together, Sandy Hook Promise and the Office of Attorney General will provide training for all students, staff and parents in each school district,” the announcement said. So far, so good.
As Myers reports, a number of school superintendents in the Erie region say that’s not what occurred, at least not in an organized, consistent basis. They cited poor communications, mixed signals and short notice for what training there was.
http://www.goerie.com/opinion/20190113/our-view-school-tips-program-gets-shaky-start#
“The biggest concern now is that the state hasn’t adequately prepared schools to accept and act on tips, some local school superintendents said. “We’re supposed to launch something Jan. 14 when nobody knows what it looks like or how to navigate it and we therefore can’t train staff or students,” North East schools Superintendent Frank McClard said Wednesday. A single regional training session offered on short notice at the Bayfront Convention Center in December was far from comprehensive, he and others said.”
Safe2Say - Erie-area schools must accept anonymous tips starting Monday
GoErie By Valerie Myers Posted at 12:01 AM Updated at 6:45 AM
But some school officials say state training hasn’t prepared them to act on information received. A new school safety initiative will go live statewide Monday but without all of the thought and training needed to make it work, some local school officials contend. The Safe2Say Something app, website and hotline will start accepting anonymous tips Monday from students in the state’s 500 school districts plus hundreds of private, charter and cyber schools. The initiative was mandated by state lawmakers in June for implementation Jan. 14. The Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office and Sandy Hook Promise announced a partnership in October to implement the reporting system. Students and others are encouraged to report social media posts, boasts and other signals that someone might be planning a school shooting, suicide or other act of violence. Sandy Hook Promise is a nonprofit organization based in Newtown, Connecticut, where 28 children and adults were killed in a shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December 2012. The statewide reporting system can save lives but also could be used to bully and harass students, educators said.
http://www.goerie.com/news/20190113/erie-area-schools-must-accept-anonymous-tips-starting-monday
2 Pennsylvania Democrats land spots on powerful House Ways and Means panel
Laura Olson Contact Reporter Morning Call Washington Bureau January 11, 2019
Pennsylvania will have two Democrats on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee this session. U.S. Reps. Dwight Evans and Brendan Boyle are among 10 new members joining that panel, the committee announced this week. Ways and Means is the oldest committee in Congress and the chief tax-writing panel, with jurisdiction over tariffs, trade, Social Security, and Medicare, among other issues. It also has the authority to request any individual’s IRS filings, a power that putting it at the center of Democratic efforts to seek President Donald Trump’s tax returns. The appointment of Evans and Boyle means that Pennsylvania again will have two majority members on that panel. Last session, Republican Reps. Pat Meehan, of Delaware County, and Mike Kelly, of Erie County, were on the committee.
https://www.mcall.com/news/nationworld/pennsylvania/capitol-ideas/mc-nws-pa-gains-seats-ways-means-congress-20190110-story.html
How the Shutdown Is Starting to Impact Schools
Education Week By Denisa R. Superville on January 13, 2019 3:00 PM
More than three weeks into what's now the longest federal government shutdown in history, school district officials are making plans to cope with the impacts on students, families, and their own operations should it drag on. The current closure is different from earlier shutdowns because the agencies from which school districts receive critical federal dollars—chiefly the department of education—are funded during the partial shutdown. But there is still a lot at stake for school districts if the shutdown persists for months—as President Trump had threatened during a meeting with Democratic congressional leaders earlier this month. The biggest concern right now is the National School Lunch Program, which is administered through the Department of Agriculture and served more than 30 million children in 2016. The USDA said that it has enough money for reimbursements for the program, which provides free-and-reduced-price lunches to low-income children, through March.
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/District_Dossier/2019/01/shutdown_impacts_schools.html?cmp=eml-enl-eu-news2&M=58721106&U=1422203&UUID=0515751a8f7e2dd8179e5cd04a881ece
Teaching: Respect but dwindling appeal
Americans trust and support teachers, but they draw the line at wanting their own children to join a profession they see as undervalued and low-paid.
PDK Poll 2018 Download the complete 2018 PDK poll report
Two-thirds of Americans say teachers are underpaid, and an overwhelming 78% of public school parents say they would support teachers in their community if they went on strike for more pay, according to the 2018 PDK Poll of the Public’s Attitudes Toward the Public Schools. Even as most Americans continue to say they have high trust and confidence in teachers, a majority also say they don’t want their own children to become teachers, most often citing poor pay and benefits as the primary reason for their reluctance. These findings are part of the 50th annual PDK Poll of the Public’s Attitudes Toward the Public Schools, which queried U.S. adults about a range of issues confronting education, including teacher pay and the teaching profession, school security, options for improving the public schools, perceptions of opportunities for different groups of children, college affordability, the value of a college degree, and school schedules.
http://pdkpoll.org/results
“Bovino's letter went on to say that nearly 60 percent of students at Lincoln Orens, which has the fifth through eighth grades, refused to take last spring's state tests. Islandwide, the opt-out rate was nearly 50 percent, involving more than 90,000 students in grades three through eight who took the tests in English Language Arts and math; statewide, more than 210,000 of 1.1 million eligible pupils boycotted the exams.”
LI district: Opt-outs may bring state downgrade
Island Park's schools chief warns the middle school could be on an upcoming state list of schools seen as low academic performers, partly because of the number of students who boycotted tests last spring.
Newsday By John Hildebrand john.hildebrand@newsday.com Updated January 12, 2019
A statewide effort to deal with massive student test boycotts has sparked debate in the Island Park school district, where officials contend that one of their schools could face academic sanctions because of opt-outs there. Island Park's school superintendent, Rosmarie Bovino, recently posted a letter on the district's website advising residents that Lincoln Orens Middle School was in danger of being placed on an upcoming state list of schools regarded as low academic performers. Under a new state rating system that is based largely on test performance, such schools will be designated as requiring comprehensive support and improvement, or CSI. The state Education Department is expected to release names of the first group of schools as as early as next week. CSI schools, ranked among the bottom 5 percent or 10 percent of all schools statewide, would be subject to penalties, including potential closure, if they did not show improvement in test scores, graduation rates and other state-selected criteria.
https://www.newsday.com/long-island/education/schools-opt-outs-test-refusals-island-park-1.25831518
Blogger note: if you are up and outside before dawn look to the east; you can’t miss this…
VENUS AND JUPITER IN CONJUNCTION:
Spaceweather.com January 10, 2018
In case you haven't noticed, the day is beginning with bright lights rising in the east. The sun? No. It's Venus and Jupiter, converging for a beautiful conjunction in the pre-dawn sky. …In the mornings ahead, Venus and Jupiter will draw closer and closer together, putting on a better show with each successive sunrise. At closest approach on Jan. 22nd, they will be only 2.5 degrees apart--a double beacon in the dawn sky visible even from brightly-lit cities.
http://spaceweather.com/
Open Board Positions
for 2019 PA Principals Association Election
Thursday,
January 10, 2019 9:05 AM
Margaret S.
(Peg) Foster, principal,
academic affairs, in the Crestwood School District, has been appointed by
President Michael Allison to serve as the chairperson of the 2019 PA
Principals Association Nominations Committee to oversee the 2019
election. Her committee consists of the following members: Curtis
Dimmick, principal in the Northampton Area School District; Jacqueline
Clark-Havrilla, principal in the Spring-Ford School District; and Joseph Hanni,
vice principal in the Scranton School District. If you are interested in running for one of
the open board positions (shown below) in the 2019 election,
please contact Stephanie Kinner at kinner@paprincipals.org or (717)
732-4999 for an application. Applications must be received in
the state office by Friday, February 22, 2019.
Join A Movement that Supports our Schools & Communities
PA Schools Work website
Our students are in classrooms that are underfunded and overcrowded. Teachers are paying out of pocket and picking up the slack. And public education is suffering. Each child in Pennsylvania has a right to an excellent public education. Every child, regardless of zip code, deserves access to a full curriculum, art and music classes, technical opportunities and a safe, clean, stable environment. All children must be provided a level chance to succeed. PA Schools Work is fighting for equitable, adequate funding necessary to support educational excellence. Investing in public education excellence is the path to thriving communities, a stable economy and successful students.
http://paschoolswork.org/
Build on finance, policy, board culture skills at PSBA’s Applied School Director Training
Four convenient locations in December and January
Take the next step in your professional development with Applied School Director Training. Building upon topics broadly covered in New School Director Training, this new, interactive evening event asks district leaders to dive deeper into three areas of school governance: school finance, board policy and working collaboratively as a governance team. Prepare for future leadership positions and committee work in this workshop-style training led by experts and practitioners. Learn how to:
·
Evaluate key
finance documents such as budget and audit materials
·
Review and analyze board policies and administrative regulations
·
Build positive board culture by developing strong collaboration skills
Locations and Dates:Dec.11, 2018 — Seneca Valley SD
Dec. 12, 2018 — Selinsgrove, Selinsgrove Area Middle School
Jan. 10, 2019 — Bethlehem, Nitschmann Middle School
Jan. 17, 2019 — State College
Cost: This event is complimentary for All-Access members or $75 per person with standard membership and $150 per person for nonmembers. Register online by logging in to myPSBA.
https://www.psba.org/2018/11/applied-school-director-training-state-college/
NSBA 2019 Advocacy Institute January 27-29 Washington Hilton, Washington D.C.
Register now
The upcoming midterm elections will usher in the 116th Congress at a critical time in public education. Join us at the 2019 NSBA Advocacy Institute for insight into what the new Congress will mean for your school district. And, of course, learn about techniques and tools to sharpen your advocacy skills, and prepare for effective meetings with your representatives. Save the date to join school board members from across the country on Capitol Hill to influence the new legislative agenda and shape the decisions made inside the Beltway that directly impact our students. For more information contact federaladvocacy@nsba.org.
PSBA Board Presidents’ Panel
Nine locations around the state running Jan 29, 30 and 31st.
Share your leadership experience and learn from others in your area at this event designed for board presidents, superintendents and board members with interest in pursuing leadership roles. Workshop real solutions to the specific challenges you face with a PSBA-moderated panel of school leaders. Discussion will address the most pressing challenges facing PA public schools.
https://www.psba.org/2018/11/board-presidents-panel-2/
Annual PenSPRA Symposium set for March 28-29, 2019
Pennsylvania School Public Relations Association Website
Once again, PenSPRA will hold its annual symposium with nationally-recognized speakers on hot topics for school communicators. The symposium, held at the Conference Center at Shippensburg University, promises to provide time for collegial sharing and networking opportunities. Mark you calendars now!
We hope you can join us. Plans are underway, so check back for more information.
http://www.penspra.org/
2019 NSBA Annual Conference Philadelphia March 30 - April 1, 2019
Pennsylvania Convention Center 1101 Arch Street Philadelphia, PA 19107
Registration Questions or Assistance: 1-800-950-6722
The NSBA Annual Conference & Exposition is the one national event that brings together education leaders at a time when domestic policies and global trends are combining to shape the future of the students. Join us in Philadelphia for a robust offering of over 250 educational programs, including three inspirational general sessions that will give you new ideas and tools to help drive your district forward.
https://www.nsba.org/conference
Save the date: PSBA Advocacy Day at the Capitol in Harrisburg has been scheduled for Monday April 29, 2019
Save the Date: PARSS Annual Conference May 1-3, 2019
Wyndham Garden Hotel, Mountainview Country Club
Pennsylvania Association of Rural and Small Schools
https://www.parss.org/Annual_Conference
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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