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
emails, website, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.
These daily emails are archived and searchable at http://keystonestateeducationcoalition.org
Follow us on Twitter at @lfeinberg
Blogger Commentary: Scholarship
organizations that distribute diverted tax dollars to private and religious
schools under Florida's Tax Credit Scholarship Program get to keep just 3% for
administrative expenses. Under Pennsylvania’s EITC/OSTC programs they get to keep
20%. This is not chump change. Total diverted tax dollars under the EITC and
OSTC programs this year amounted to $210 million; that 20% is $42 million for administrative
expenses; with zero transparency.
“Half of Pennsylvania’s students live in
underfunded districts. These districts are disproportionately poor and even
more disproportionately non-white. The current system is truly unjust. We need to
support legislation that will phase out hold harmless and fully enact the Fair
Funding Formula so all our kids get a fair chance.”
Pa. should be doing right by all her students | PennLive
letters
PennLive Letters to
the Editor Posted Apr
24, 2:09 PM by Laura Johnson,
Pottstown, Montgomery County and Raymond Rose, Pottstown, Montgomery County
We are writing to
you because Pennsylvania should be doing right by all her students, not just half
of them. Unfortunately, half of our public school children are being
shortchanged. In Pottstown our property taxes are among the highest in the
state and still our schools are underfunded by more than $13 million per year.
Despite our best efforts we struggle with overcrowding and high teacher
turnover. Why is this? There are two main reasons:
One, “Hold
Harmless.” This is a rule that the state legislature created that says you can
never give a district less than they got the year before. If a school district
was getting a lot of money when it had a higher student population, it gets the
same amount even if the population drops. This benefits shrinking districts at
the expense of growing districts. It’s morally troubling, yet it’s politically
easier for the state legislators from these shrinking districts to ignore the
problem.
Two, Fair Funding.
Even though we have a fair funding formula to help allocate funding based on
need, that formula is only applied to new money introduced into the education
budget. In 2018 this was only 7.5 percent of the education budget.
Blogger note: Total cyber charter tuition
paid by PA taxpayers from 500 school districts for 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016
was over $1.6 billion; $393.5 million, $398.8 million, $436.1 million and
$454.7 million respectively. We
will continue rolling out cyber charter tuition expenses for taxpayers in
education committee members, legislative leadership and various other
districts.
In 2016-17, taxpayers
in House Minority Caucus Administrator .@RepNealGoodman’s school districts in Schuylkill
County had to send over $2.2 million to chronically underperforming cybers that
they never authorized. #SB34 (Schwank) or #HB526 (Sonney) could change that.Data source: PDE via .@PSBA
Links to additional bill information and several resources have been
moved to the end of today’s postings
|
Mahanoy
Area SD
|
$461,727.18
|
|
Minersville
Area SD
|
$457,279.22
|
|
North
Schuylkill SD
|
$739,214.93
|
|
Pottsville
Area SD
|
$0.00
|
|
Shenandoah
Valley SD
|
$459,659.61
|
|
Saint
Clair Area SD
|
$121,725.19
|
|
|
$2,239,606.13
|
Has your state
senator cosponsored SB34?
https://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/billInfo/bill_history.cfm?syear=2019&sind=0&body=S&type=B&bn=34
Has your state representative
cosponsored HB526?
Philly’s East Falls neighborhood rises to protest
proposed relocation of Lab Charter
Neighbors
say they weren't fully informed. And they are working hard to revitalize their
local District school.
The notebook Dale Mezzacappa April 24 — 8:20 pm, 2019
East Falls is a
gracious community — Grace Kelly grew up there, former mayor and governor Ed Rendell
lives there — with elegant stone and brick homes lining wide and rolling
streets. On Midvale Avenue, a steep hill that rises from the Schuylkill River
through the heart of the neighborhood, its Colonial-revival style public
elementary school comes into view just after the soaring towers of St.
Bridget’s Catholic Church. The school is Thomas Mifflin Elementary, built in
1936, that now houses 300 students in pre-kindergarten through eighth grade. According
to recent census data for the East Falls zip code, just over half its population is white
and a third is black, with small but growing contingents of Asians and Latinos.
Its residents are primarily middle- to upper-middle class. However, as in many
Philadelphia locales, the school’s demographics do not match that of its
neighborhood. Mifflin’s enrollment is about 90 percent black, a good chunk of
those students drawn from Abbottsford Homes, public housing located just across
Henry Avenue. A majority of its students are from low-income families. The more
affluent parents of East Falls, most of them white, traditionally have chosen
private schools (William Penn Charter, a centuries-old Quaker school, is in the
neighborhood). More recently, they’ve opted for public charter schools,
including Wissahickon and Green Woods, both located in the vicinity. But over
the last several years, there has been a renewed push to make Mifflin the
school of choice for residents of East Falls. Its white student
population has been inching up in the lower grades. Parents like Bonnie Emilius and Carla Lewandowski send their children there, a Friends of
Mifflin group has been formed, and there is a drive to build a playground at
the school.
Another charter school in East Falls? Some parents say:
No thanks.
Inquirer by Maddie Hanna, Updated: 9 minutes ago
At first, Carla
Lewandowski thought she’d move to the Main Line when it was time to send her
children to school. The East Falls mother of three also contemplated private
and charter schools. “My husband said,
‘We haven’t even looked at Mifflin,'" Lewandowski recalled last week. They
toured the neighborhood public school and saw a “nurturing environment,"
with a principal who “knows literally every student’s name." Their oldest
child now attends kindergarten at Thomas Mifflin School, and Lewandowski is
president of the school’s Friends group. She and other East Falls parents who
have embraced Mifflin are pushing back on a proposal for Laboratory Charter
School to move to and expand in their community — a prospect they’re angry they
learned about only two weeks ago by chance. The Philadelphia school board is
scheduled to vote on the charter’s relocation Thursday night. “I think we all
fear that a charter moving in would impede our progress, especially because I
think there’s still a stigma around public schools,” Lewandowski said. Charters
are publicly funded but independently run. In Philadelphia they educate about
70,000, or one-third of, public-school students. While charters remain
a desired option for
many families, they have
faced backlash from
supporters of traditional public schools, who see them as a drain on school
districts.
Nation’s First Apprenticeship for Public School Teachers
debuts with Norristown School District
Pottstown Mercury By
Gary Puleo gpuleo@21st-centurymedia.com @MustangMan48 on Twitter Apr 25, 2019
WEST NORRITON —
Norristown Area School District is fully on board with the first-of-its-kind
registered apprenticeship program to train K-12 public school teachers to
further develop their skills that was recently unveiled by Governor Tom Wolf. The
Apprenticeship to Mastery Program for Public School Teachers (AMP), a two-year
non-traditional apprenticeship program for K-12 public school educators, has
been approved by the Department of Labor & Industry (L&I)
Apprenticeship and Training Office (ATO). Sponsored by Choice Careers LLC, the
program will provide structured on-the-job training with Norristown Area School
District, as well as summer rotations at local businesses, a release noted.
Related technical instruction will be provided through accelerated online
courses toward a Master of Science degree in Education from Gwynedd Mercy
University (GMercyU), online training from Educational Impact, and workshops
from Choice Careers LLC. “The Norristown Area School District is excited to
partner with Choice Careers LLC and Gwynedd Mercy University to implement the
first of its kind apprenticeship program for teachers,” noted Chris Dormer,
Superintendent of Schools, Norristown Area School District. “This innovative
apprenticeship program will allow Norristown Area School District to better
recruit, attract, hire, and retain high quality instructors. This was a great
opportunity to work with Choice Careers and Gwynedd Mercy. It puts something in
place to allow us to ultimately take recruitment to another level.
Pa. education secretary discusses proposals with Reading SD
leaders
By: 69 News Posted: Apr 24, 2019
02:58 PM EDT
READING, Pa. -
Reading school leaders are learning how the city's district may benefit from
some of the Wolf administration's education proposals. Pedro Rivera, the
state's secretary of education, met with Superintendent Khalid Mumin and other
district leaders at Northeast Middle School on Wednesday. Rivera discussed the
benefits he said the administration sees in its proposals to lower the
compulsory age for school attendance from 8 to 6 years and to raise the
mandatory age at which a student can drop out of high school from 17 to 18. "Expanding
the age limits is just one part of the equation," Rivera said. "We
also have to put the systems in place and the supports in place to ensure kids
are successful and schools are successful in serving their students." Rivera
also discussed a proposal to increase the minimum annual salary for the state's
teachers to $45,000, up from where it currently currently stands at $18,500. Rivera
said Reading and three other public school districts in Berks County would
benefit from such an increase, something that state Sen. Judy Schwank, a Berks
County Democrat, also supports by way of a Senate bill she is sponsoring. The
proposal calls for the state to provide $13.8 million in additional basic
education funding to fully cover salary increases as well as associated
pension, Social Security, and Medicare costs, officials said.
Harrisburg lawmakers back mayor’s request for state
takeover of city schools
Penn Live By Christine Vendel |
cvendel@pennlive.com Updated Apr
24, 9:15 PM; Posted Apr 24, 9:14 PM
Both state
lawmakers who represent the city of Harrisburg support a state takeover of the
city school district after a series of scandals, investigations and consistent
lack of transparency. The state senator and representative who represent
Harrisburg issued statements to PennLive Wednesday agreeing with
Harrisburg Mayor
Eric Papenfuse’s call earlier in the day for Education Secretary Pedro Rivera
to petition the courts for receivership. Pennsylvania State Rep. Patty Kim (D-Harrisburg) told PennLive Wednesday
night that the school board and district cannot continue in this way. She
indicated that she had called for a state takeover of the troubled district
several months ago. “I have watched to see if things would get better but the
opposite has occurred,” Kim said. “The Department of Education has received my
request for receivership several months ago. They have been open and helpful
throughout. Students need their schools to be stable and nurturing. But the constant
chaos with leadership is too much of a distraction for teachers and faculty. We
have to go in a totally different direction.”
Harrisburg mayor urges state takeover of city schools
Penn Live By Christine Vendel |
cvendel@pennlive.com Updated Apr
24, 5:10 PM; Posted Apr 24, 2:20 PM
Harrisburg Mayor
Eric Papenfuse on Wednesday publicly called for a receiver to take over the
Harrisburg School District after a series of financial scandals, an
investigation into grading anomalies and a standoff over access to financial
records. Even though the school district has been under state oversight since
late 2012, the district’s poor academic record has declined and the dysfunction
has reached an unprecedented level, Papenfuse said. That’s because the
state-appointed Chief Recovery Officer Janet Samuels only can advise the
district, and her advice is being ignored, the mayor said. The district stopped
complying with priorities of its financial recovery plan in 2018, according to
some board members. The school board on Monday hired a controversial attorney,
James Ellison, for school board solicitor after Samuels expressed concerns
about how the application process was handled. “A receiver would have power the
chief recovery officer does not,” Papenfuse said. “A recovery officer can
suggest that the school board conduct a fair search for a solicitor, open their
books to state auditors and hire a qualified business manager, but she can’t
force them. A receiver could do all those things.”
State senator asks education secretary to consider
takeover of Harrisburg School District
Penn Live By Christine Vendel |
cvendel@pennlive.com Updated Apr
24, 6:40 PM; Posted Apr 24, 5:43 PM
A state senator on
Wednesday asked Pennsylvania’s education secretary to consider receivership for
the Harrisburg School District, the same day the
city’s mayor urged the state to take over the troubled district. “I am becoming increasingly concerned by the actions of the Harrisburg
School District with regard to transparency, personnel and fiscal management,
academic achievement and the apparent lack of compliance with Department of
Education directives,” Sen. John DiSanto, who represents Harrisburg, wrote in
his letter to Secretary Pedro Rivera. DiSanto indicated in his letter that he
had previously asked Rivera about receivership for the city district in June
2018 but that Rivera said the department at that time was not in a position to
petition for receivership. “On behalf of my constituents who live in the city
and the thousands of children who attend its schools, I would ask that you
reevaluate receivership as an option to put the District on the right path,”
DiSanto wrote.
Appointment of James Ellison fuels public distrust of
Harrisburg School Board | PennLive Editorial
By PennLive Editorial Board Updated Apr 24, 10:33 AM; Posted Apr 24, 9:04 AM
The second try did
it. Monday night, the Harrisburg School Board hired controversial attorney
James Ellison as their solicitor. The vote was 5-4 amid significant public
opposition. Ellison has a long and checkered past as a key character in several
controversies, most recently with the Coatesville Area School District. There
he was accused of over-billing and questionable legal judgment. That cost the
law firms associated with Ellison $420,000 in settlement payments. But there’s more.
In 2012, the State Ethics Commission investigated Ellison‘s practices and
ordered him to pay a fine of $2,297 fine, concluding he improperly steered work
toward Rhoads & Sinon law firm where he worked when he was chair of the
Harrisburg Authority. Person after person alluded to these controversies during
Monday night’s meeting, but their concerns were dismissed as mere accusations. “In terms of the controversy that’s all around
him, I take that to heart and I think that’s important, but I did not let that
be my deciding factor,” said board member Lola Lawson. “I’ve seen too many
witch hunts in this community.” Board member Ellis Roy, a former detective with
Harrisburg Police, said that while Ellison has been accused over the years of
bad legal judgment and billing practices, he has been thoroughly investigated
and has not been convicted of anything.
Two more districts hit the snooze button on school start
times
Inquirer by Kathy Boccella, Updated: April 24, 2019- 12:23 PM
The movement to hit
the snooze button and let sleep-deprived teenagers get a later start on their
school days is catching fire in Philadelphia’s western suburbs. This week,
school boards in two Main Line school districts — Radnor and
Tredyffrin/Easttown — approved schedules for the 2019-20 academic year that
start the school day as much as 55 minutes later for some kids, in response to
medical research that early start times are out of sync with teen body clocks. “It came down to logistics, but went back to
research as well. When does adolescent circadian rhythm [a change in biological
sleep patterns] kick in and when does it have an impact?” Radnor superintendent
Kenneth Bachelor said, adding that this fall’s 8:30 a.m. high school start time
will become the latest in the region.
What’s happening:
- The Tredyffrin/Easttown school board voted by
7-2 Monday night, after months of studying the issue, to push back the
school day for all students starting this fall. The new times will be 7:50
a.m. to 2:50 p.m. for high schoolers (currently 7:20 a.m. to 2:20 p.m.);
8:27 a.m. to 3:10 p.m. for middle schoolers (now 7:50 a.m. to 2:33); and
9:10 a.m. to 3:45 p.m. for grade schoolers (8:45 a.m. to 3:20 p.m.)
- On Tuesday, the Radnor school board voted, also
7-2, for its 2019-20 schedule, with a big move back for high schools and a
minor one for middle schoolers. Its new start and end times are 8:30 a.m.
to 3:10 p.m. at Radnor High School (currently 7:35 a.m. to 2:27 p.m.),
7:50 a.m. to 2:40 p.m. at the middle school (now 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.), and
9:07 a.m. to 3:40 p.m. at its three elementary schools (now 9 a.m. to 3:30
p.m.)
In both school
districts, the later start times were widely supported by school officials,
parents, students, and experts on sleep and psychology such as Judith Owens, an
internationally known pediatric sleep expert who was brought to Radnor twice to
speak on the topic.
ACLU urges Elanco to reverse course on controversial
bathroom, locker room policy
Lancaster Online by
ALEX GELI | Staff
Writer Apr 23,
2019
The American Civil
Liberties Union is urging the Eastern Lancaster County school board to reverse
course on a new bathroom and locker room policy that critics say illegally
singles out transgender students. “It is profoundly stigmatizing to be told
that your very presence in a restroom is unacceptable simply because you are
transgender,” Ria Tabacco Mar, an attorney for the national ACLU, told LNP. “It
is also illegal, as numerous federal courts have recognized.” An addendum in
the district’s Physical Privacy policy, approved
by the board last
week, states students are to use bathrooms and locker rooms that align with
their biological sex, rather than gender identity, until private, single-user
facilities are available districtwide. That’s despite the district’s previous
decision to
allow a transgender student who identifies as male to use the boys’ facilities
at Garden Spot High School. Reversing those accommodations, board President
Glenn Yoder has said, would be a “gamble with very high stakes.” Yet critics
say that’s precisely what the board did by adding the controversial addendum.
Turnstile teaching
At 26 Philly
schools, teachers churn through jobs at an alarming rate, hindering some of the
city’s most vulnerable children.
Inquirer by Jessica
Calefati, Dylan Purcell and Kristen A. Graham, Updated: 10 minutes ago
Jaclyn Fabbri knew
that Jay Cooke Elementary School had a rough reputation when she agreed to
teach middle-school English there. But the young teacher had high hopes as she
walked through the North Philadelphia school’s bright red double doors for the
first time. That feeling didn’t last long. After her first year at Cooke,
almost half the faculty left. Last summer, after only two years, she left, too
— along with almost a third of her fellow teachers. “I thought this was a
school that believed in working for the kids,” Fabbri said. Cooke employs about
30 teachers. Since 2012, however, at least 131 educators have cycled through
the century-old brick school building — on average, more than four teachers for
each position. Experts say a stable teaching staff is crucial to a school’s
academic success, and turnover of 25 percent in a year is cause for alarm. Twenty-six
district schools, including Cooke, experience turnover far beyond that measure,
an Inquirer investigation has found. These schools lost at least 25 percent of
their teachers for four years straight or lost more than one-third in each of
the last two school years. Located mostly in North and Southwest Philadelphia,
the schools serve about 12,000 of the district’s most vulnerable students,
nearly all of them minorities.
Should Philly school nurses be able to send home
unvaccinated students? District says no.
Inquirer by Kristen A.
Graham, Updated: 17
minutes ago
For years, Lincoln
High School nurse Peg Devine had the authority to bar students from school
until they had received the vaccines children are required to have under
state law. In 26
years, she estimates, she kept 15 students out of school. Exclusion proved
powerful; no students missed more than two days before returning with proof
they had been immunized, she said. But for the last several years, the
Philadelphia School District has prohibited school nurses from excluding
unvaccinated students, a move that worries Devine and others given the recent local
outbreak of mumps and other infectious diseases cropping up across the country. Across
the district, 12,405 pupils lack either all of the state-mandated vaccinations
or have an exemption from them because of medical, religious, or philosophical
reasons. That’s roughly 10 percent of the district’s student population. “It’s
very dangerous that you’ve got kids who are not immunized, and you have
medically fragile kids,” said Devine. “It’s unprecedented.”
777 West
Harrisburg Pike, Harrisburg, PA
Mukund S.
Kulkarni Theatre, Student Enrichment Center
Join Diane Ravitch as she presents "The End of the Faux Reform Movement."
Ravitch is the author of the national bestseller "Reign of Error The Hoax
of the Privatization Movement" and the "Danger to America’s Public
Schools." There will be a book signing opportunity after the event.
For more information, contact Dr. Hannah Spector at hms22@psu.edu.
Electing PSBA Officers – Application Deadline is May 31st
Do you have strong
communication and leadership skills and a vision for PSBA? Members interested
in becoming the next leaders of PSBA are encouraged to submit
an Application for Nomination no
later than May 31 to PSBA's Leadership Development Committee (LDC).
The nomination process:
All persons seeking nomination for elected positions of the Association shall
file with the Leadership Development Committee chairperson an Application
for Nomination (.PDF) on a form to be provided by the Association expressing interest in the
office sought. The Application for nomination shall be marked received at PSBA
Headquarters or mailed first class and postmarked no later than the application
deadline specified in the timeline established by the Governing Board to be
considered timely-filed.” (PSBA Bylaws, Article IV, Section 6.E.). Application Deadline: May 31, 2019
Open positions are:
- 2020 President-Elect (one-year term)
- 2020 Vice President (one-year term)
- 2020-22 Central At-Large
Representative – includes Sections 2, 3, 6, and 7 (three-year
term)
- 2020-21 Sectional Advisors – includes Sections
1, 3, 5 and 7 (two-year term)
PSBA: Nominations for
the Allwein Society are welcome!
The Allwein Society is an award program recognizing school directors who are
outstanding leaders and advocates on behalf of public schools and students.
This prestigious honor was created in 2011 in memory of Timothy M. Allwein, a
former PSBA staff member who exemplified the integrity and commitment to
advance political action for the benefit of public education. Nominations are
accepted year-round and inductees will be recognized at the PASA-PSBA
School Leadership Conference, among other honors.
All
PSBA-members are invited to attend Advocacy Day on Monday, April
29, 2019 at the state Capitol in Harrisburg. In addition, this year PSBA
will be partnering with the Pennsylvania Association of Intermediate Units
(PAIU) and Pennsylvania Association of School Administrators (PASA) to
strengthen our advocacy impact. The focus for the day will be meetings with
legislators to discuss critical issues affecting public education. There is no
cost to attend, and PSBA will assist in scheduling appointments with
legislators once your registration is received. The day will begin with a
continental breakfast and issue briefings prior to the legislator visits.
Registrants will receive talking points, materials and leave-behinds to use
with their meetings. PSBA staff will be stationed at a table in the main
Rotunda during the day to answer questions and provide assistance. The
day’s agenda and other details will be available soon. If you have questions
about Advocacy Day, legislative appointments or need additional information,
contact Jamie.Zuvich@psba.org Register
for Advocacy Day now at http://www.mypsba.org/
PSBA members can register online now by logging in to myPSBA. If you
need assistance logging in and registering contact Alysha Newingham, Member
Data System Administrator at alysha.newingham@psba.org or call her at (717)
506-2450, ext. 3420
Save the
Date: PARSS Annual Conference May 1-3,
2019Wyndham Garden Hotel, Mountainview Country Club
Pennsylvania Association of Rural and Small Schools
https://www.parss.org/Annual_Conference
PSBA Tweet March
12, 2019 Video Runtime: 6:40
In this installment of #VideoEDition, learn about legislation
introduced in the PA Senate & House of Representatives that would save
millions of dollars for school districts that make tuition payments for their
students to attend cyber charter schools.http://ow.ly/RyIM50n1uHi
PSBA Summaries of Senate Bill 34 and House Bill 526
PSBA Sample Board Resolution in Support of Statewide
Cyber Charter School Funding Reform
PSBA Sample Board Resolution in Support of Senate Bill 34
and House Bill 256
How much could your school district and taxpayers save if
there were statewide flat tuition rates of $5000 for regular ed students and
$8865 for special ed.? See the estimated savings by school district here.
Education Voters PA
Website February 14, 2019
https://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/billInfo/bill_history.cfm?syear=2019&sind=0&body=S&type=B&bn=34
Has your state representative cosponsored HB526?
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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