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
HR1878: Glide path
for full 40% funding of IDEA now has 103 cosponsors in Congress. Is your PA
member of Congress on the list?
Blogger note: we’re still waiting for
the latest update on a pending school code bill, which had been rumored last
evening to include the charter reform package. That no longer seems to be
the case, but it ain’t over ‘til it’s over….You might consider staying in
touch with your state legislators until such time as they go home for the
summer.
Here’s what
Pennsylvania’s public education advocates think of this year’s budget plan
PA Capital Star By Elizabeth Hardison June 26, 2019
A $34 billion
budget plan approved by the state House Tuesday boosts basic education spending
by $160 million, but public school advocates say Pennsylvania’s school
districts need even more to cover ever-increasing expenses. The House-approved
appropriation is 20 percent, or $40 million, less than what Gov. Tom Wolf first
proposed to lawmakers back in February. “This lets districts tread water,” said
Susan Spicka, executive director of Education Voters of PA, a nonprofit public
education advocacy group. “I’m hoping that next year, we will see a much bigger
ask so we can really start to make progress toward building the schools our
kids need.” Spicka said that state funding isn’t keeping pace with the mounting
costs of special education, charter school tuition payments, and employee
benefits — mandated costs that districts can’t cut without violating state or
federal law. Spending on those three areas grew by a combined 7.8 percent for
the average Pennsylvania school district last year, according to an annual survey of school district budgets from the Pennsylvania Association of
School Business Officials and the Pennsylvania Association of School
Administrators. Seventy-four percent of the districts they surveyed said
they planned to levy a tax hike to make up the difference.
Why the General
Assistance floor fight was an inflection point in state politics | Thursday
Morning Coffee
PA Capital Star By John L. Micek June 27, 2019
Good Thursday Morning, Fellow Seekers.
Take a good, long
look at that image up there. That’s freshman Sen. Katie Muth offering
her floor remarks during Wednesday’s Senate vote to eliminate
Pennsylvania’s cash assistance program for thousands of the most vulnerable Pennsylvanians, including the
disabled, and those struggling with addiction. You’re probably going to be
seeing a lot of that image in next year’s
state Senate re-election campaigns, as Democrats look to tip the balance of power in the 50-member chamber.
In just a year, Republicans have seen a veto-proof 34-16 majority whittled down
to a far more slender 26-22 advantage. If you’ve seen this image, blasted out in a
tweet by the progressive advocacy group Keystone Progress, then you heard Muth, D-Berks, offering arguments on behalf
of the program. In the background, you’ll hear the voice of Senate
Majority Leader Jake Corman, R-Centre, bellowing that her remarks are out
of order. That’s because Democratic Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who
presides over the Senate, took a parliamentary left turn, calling on Muth over Corman,
even though, under the chamber’s operating rules, an action the Centre County
Republican was making was supposed to get procedural preference. His voice
rising in anger, Corman accuses Fetterman of
breaking “the rules that we all voted on unanimously,” the Capital-Star’s
Sarah Anne Hughes reported Wednesday. Corman adds
that Fetterman’s job is “to enforce the rules of the Senate,
not to be a partisan hack.”
Some board members question proposed sale of Philly
school district building to charter operator
Inquirer by Maddie Hanna, Updated: June 26, 2019- 3:47 PM
The roof at Belmont
Charter School leaks, the building doesn’t have air-conditioning, and the
playground — deemed unsafe by an inspector — is fenced off from students. The
West Philadelphia school can’t fix those problems, it says, because it doesn’t
own the building. The Philadelphia School District does. To make the repairs,
the charter operator wants to buy the building from the district. “We see it as
the only way forward at this point,” said Jennifer Faustman, Belmont’s CEO. District
officials have recommended the sale, with a provision that would enable the
district to buy the building back. Still, some school board members have
expressed reservations about selling. The school has a catchment giving
students in the surrounding area the right to attend it — stoking concern that
the district is turning over not just a building, but its presence in the
neighborhood. “Any number of charter schools could come before us and make the
same kind of demand,” Joyce Wilkerson, the school board’s president, said at
a meeting last month. “Going
forward," she said, the board will “need to consider a policy that would
clearly state we will not sell district buildings” with catchments. The sale —
which the school board is scheduled to vote on Thursday — is an example of the
complex relationship between charters and school districts. While charters are
independently run, in Pennsylvania they are funded by districts, which don’t
provide facilities. Charters must rent or buy space. But in some cases,
Philadelphia has turned over the management of struggling district schools to
charter operators. The district owns those buildings. In total, 27 charter
schools are located in district buildings, said district spokesperson Megan
Lello. Philadelphia has 87 charters that educate about one-third, or 70,000, of
the city’s public school students.
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.
In 2016-17, taxpayers in House Ed Cmte Majority Chairman Curt Sonney’s districts had to send over
$2.6 million to chronically underperforming cybers that their locally elected
school boards never authorized. #SB34 (Schwank) or #HB526 (Sonney) could change
that.
Data source: PDE
via PSBA
|
Corry
Area SD
|
$595,396.25
|
|
Fort
LeBoeuf SD
|
$462,487.81
|
|
Harbor
Creek SD
|
$313,550.38
|
|
North
East SD
|
$304,210.87
|
|
Union
City Area SD
|
$459,621.60
|
|
Wattsburg
Area SD
|
$538,068.68
|
|
|
$2,673,335.59
|
Has your state
senator cosponsored bipartisan SB34?
https://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/billInfo/bill_history.cfm?syear=2019&sind=0&body=S&type=B&bn=34
Is your state
representative one of the over 70 bipartisan cosponsors of HB526?
Lawmakers, Wolf need
to reject this backdoor attempt to arm teachers | Opinion
By Shira Goodman and Deborah Gordon Klehr Capital-Star Op-Ed
Contributors June 26,
2019
You have to keep
your eyes wide open during budget season – things get hidden in code bills,
deals get made, and bills that are supposed to do one thing all of sudden
become vehicles to do something else. This is happening right now as the
Pennsylvania House and Senate take up legislation
(SB621) sponsored
by Sen. Mike Regan, R-Cumberland. It’s a measure focused on school security
that has now become a vehicle to arm teachers. We all want our schools to be
safe places for students to learn and teachers to teach. And for the most
part, they are. Despite what we see in the news and the growing focus on school
shootings, schools are some of the safest places for our children, with only a
very small percentage of homicides of school-age children occurring on school
grounds, on the way to or from school or during school-sponsored events. We
also know that the way to keep our schools safe is to focus on investment in
services our students need, to prevent any incidents of violence.
“The Educational Improvement Tax Credit
will rise
Earlier this month, Wolf vetoed legislation that would have expanded a program that helps fund
scholarships at private schools by giving tax credits to businesses. House Bill 800 would have increased the Educational Improvement Tax Credit
Program by $100 million -- and would have created a mechanism for automatic
increases in the future. Wolf said the program "lacks proper
accountability and oversight." But the budget agreement includes a smaller
increase -- $25 million -- for the Educational Improvement Tax Credit
scholarships.
The program has grown since it was first
created.
The Pa. budget deal explained in 5 maps and charts
WITF Written by Ed
Mahon/PA Post | Jun 26, 2019 10:40 AM
(Harrisburg) -- The state House on Tuesday
moved forward with a $34 billion general
spending plan for the state. The House
passed a general appropriations bill with a 140-62 vote, sending it to the
state Senate. While Gov. Tom Wolf's administration is on board with the plan,
many Democratic lawmakers in the minority have objected. Here are five maps and
charts to explain the budget deal -- and the debate around it.
Private schools benefit from Pa. tax credits, report zero
low-income students
WITF Written by Avi
Wolfman-Arent/Keystone Crossroads | Jun 26, 2019 6:48 AM
(Undated) -- Any debate over the tax-credit
programs that subsidize private-school education in Pennsylvania could begin
here: There is very little public data on the students who benefit. Backers
often say that scholarship money raised through the Educational Improvement Tax
Credit (EITC) and the Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit (OSTC) goes to poor
families who'd be "trapped"
in "failing" public schools if they didn't have tuition assistance. Skeptics paint another
picture. Because the scholarship programs have income limits nearly twice the
state median, they say the state is foregoing tax revenue in order to fund
private schools for families who have other quality options. Based on an
analysis of right-to-know records and other state data, Keystone Crossroads
found muddled evidence to support both claims. The analysis comes with caveats
and strong indications that private schools and scholarship organizations
regularly report incomplete or incorrect information. We looked at 151 schools
that administer their own tax credit scholarship programs, and then examined
demographic data those same schools report separately to the Pennsylvania
Department of Education. Of those schools, 57 -- more than a third -- report
enrolling zero low-income students or said they couldn't determine how many
low-income students they have. Another 15 schools told the state that less than
five percent of their student body was low-income. Many of these schools are
located in the state's wealthiest suburbs, where students have access to some
of Pennsylvania's highest-rated public schools.
“Small daily or weekly newspapers,
focusing on a single town or handful of municipalities have traditionally
supplied hyperlocal news. But these outlets now produce less journalism as
hedge fund-backed media companies have brought a slash-and-burn approach to pulling revenue out of papers in Philadelphia’s collar
counties. Meanwhile, dozens of new media startups like More Than The Curve have
cropped up in Pennsylvania to try to fill gaps in coverage, either by topic or
geography, while also battling the same financial challenges that have undercut
the newspaper business.”“
How media startups in the Philly suburbs are trying to
fill the local news ‘void’
WHYY By Laura Benshoff June 27, 2019 Listen 4:48
On a cloudless
Saturday in Conshohocken, groups of people in red t-shirts roam the streets of
the Montgomery County borough, in search of tacos. It’s the first ever
Tacohocken, a Mexican food-themed bar crawl held by the hyperlocal news
site More Than The Curve. While journalism is not the focus of the event, each $20 ticket helps
support the site, which is owned by Burb Media, LLC and named for the 90-degree
turn on the Schuylkill Expressway on the way to the borough. “It’s fun to read
the comments on the posts and get some local news,” said communications
specialist Patricia Powell, who lives in Conshohocken. “I really don’t know any
other way I would get it.”
Former state Rep. Bernie O’Neill tapped for Centennial
BOE seat
Bucks County Courier
Times By James Boyle Posted Jun 25, 2019 at 11:01 PM Updated Jun 26, 2019 at
12:06 AM
Bernie O’Neill
highlighted his 25 years as a teacher at Centennial’s William Tennent High
School, five years as a Warminster supervisor and 15 years in Harrisburg as a
state representative for the 29th district while speaking with the board prior
to his selection. Former state Rep. Bernie O’Neill ended his short retirement
from elected office Tuesday night when the Centennial School Board appointed
the Warminster resident to fill a recently vacated seat. He was sworn in
immediately by District Judge Dan Finello and joined the board for the
remainder of Tuesday’s meeting. “A lot of people contacted me and asked if I
would consider doing this,” O’Neill said following the board meeting. “Right
now I’m going to get a feel for everything. There’s a lot of tension on the
board, and in the past I’ve always played a bit of a peacemaker. I have a long
history of working on both sides of the aisle.” O’Neill replaces Tara
Pellegrino in the district’s Region II, which covers residents in Ivyland and
part of Warminster between York and Davisville roads. Pellegrino is moving out
of the district and resigned about 18 months into her first term.
Still facing a $12
million deficit, Allentown School District to hold special finance meeting
before budget vote
By JACQUELINE PALOCHKO | THE MORNING CALL | JUN 26, 2019 | 9:20 AM
Still facing a $12
million deficit with just days until it must pass a balanced budget, the
Allentown School District will have special finance and education meetings
Thursday night — hours before voting on a final budget. The district will start
its special finance meeting, which is to discuss the proposed 2019-20 budget,
at 5:30 p.m., according to the district’s website. The special education
meeting, which is to discuss charter school renewal, will begin after the
finance meeting. Then after education, the board will have another meeting and
vote on the 2019-20 budget. By law, school districts must pass a balanced
budget by June 30. Last month, district officials said it had reduced its $21
million deficit to $12 million by anticipating a 3.5% tax hike and not filling positions,
including 28 paraprofessionals, five teachers and three psychologists. By
raising taxes by 3.5%, a taxpayer with a home valued at $110,000 would pay an
extra $76 annually in property taxes.
Chartiers Valley School Board approves tax increase
Post-Gazette by DEANA CARPENTER JUN 26, 2019 1:05 PM
Chartiers Valley
school directors voted 6-2 June 25 to approve $67.4 million budget that
includes a tax increase of 0.4885 mills. The millage increase would mean a
$48.85 increase in taxes per every $100,000 of assessed property value and
bring the total millage to 17.5595, or about $1,756 on every $100,000 of
assessed property value. The tax increase is expected to generate about
$1.1 million Board members Mark Kuzinski, Darren Mariano, Robert Kearney, Eric
Kraemer, Tony Mazzarini and Julie Murphy, voted for the budget. Brian Kopec and
Jeff Choura voted no. Sandy Zeleznik was absent. The district is
using $602,253 from its risk management and $934,591 from debt service
fund balances to balance the budget and is not using any of its unassigned fund
balance to do so.
Bethel Park school board votes to decrease tax rate
Teacher's
union sharply critical of decision
Post-Gazette by DEANA CARPENTER JUN 26, 2019 12:09 PM
Taxpayers in the
Bethel Park School District will be getting a bit of a break on their 2019-20
school taxes as the school board voted 6-3 on an $89 million budget that
decreases the district’s millage rate from 22.8763 mills to 21 mills. Board
members David Amaditz, Donna Cook, Connie Ruhl, Cynthia Buckley, Ron
Werkmeister and Jim Means voted for the decrease at the board’s June 25
meeting. Board members Ken Nagel, Pamela Dobos and Barry Christenson voted no. At
a previous meeting, the board approved the millage rate to stay at 22.8763, but
at the June 25 meeting, Mr. Werkmeister made a motion to amend the agenda to
decrease the millage rate. The new millage rate of 21, which nets a reduction
1.87 mills, will mean that taxpayers will pay about $2,100 per every $100,000
of assessed property value instead of the $2,287 per every $100,000 for the
2018-19 school year. To make up for the millage reduction, the district will be
using between $4.5 million and $5 million in fund balance to balance the
budget, leaving Bethel Park with a fund balance of about $15 million. The union
representing Bethel Park teachers was sharply critical of the decision to
decrease the tax rate, calling it “short-sighted” and “irresponsible.” The Bethel
Park Federation of Teachers said in a statement issued Thursday that the
decision went against the recommendation of the superintendent and took action
without any public discussion.
School meal debt in
Lancaster County has skyrocketed since passage of 'lunch shaming' la
Lancaster Online by
ALEX GELI | Staff
Writer June 27,
2019
Pennsylvania's
“lunch shaming” ban, while widely supported, might be costing school districts
more money. At the end of the 2018-19 school year, parents still owed Lancaster
County districts $118,501 on their children's cafeteria accounts. That's seven
times more than in 2017, when Pennsylvania passed a law that banned serving
students alternate meals if their accounts were in the negative. And the sharp
increase doesn’t even include figures from two districts — Hempfield and
Manheim Central — that did not provide data for this school year. Schools here
had only $16,180 in debt after the 2016-17 school year, LNP records show.
An Inaccurate Census
Count Jeopardizes Educational Opportunities
NSBA Website by Tom
Gentzel, Executive Director June 25, 2019
The profound
mission of public schools to ensure that all children have access to education
is extraordinary not only as a bedrock principle of American society, but more
importantly for its far-reaching positive impact on the lives of children.
When it comes to the fundamental right to access education, it doesn’t matter how children got here. Whether they were born in the United States or arrived with parents or without, with documents or without, seeking political asylum or pursuing economic opportunity — the inviolate duty of public schools to educate all children in our country remains steadfast and essential. The ability of public schools to carry out their mission is severely undermined when the federal government undertakes measures such as the inclusion of a question on citizenship in the Decennial Census, which U.S. Census Bureau and survey experts predict will undercount the The Census Bureau projects conservatively that the inclusion of a citizenship question on the census will lead to an estimated 5.8 percent decline in the number of noncitizen responses. Some independent researchers anticipate the decline would be much higher, with nearly one in 10 households and 45 million people “at risk for not being counted.”
https://www.nsba.org/News/2019/Gentzel-census-op-ed
When it comes to the fundamental right to access education, it doesn’t matter how children got here. Whether they were born in the United States or arrived with parents or without, with documents or without, seeking political asylum or pursuing economic opportunity — the inviolate duty of public schools to educate all children in our country remains steadfast and essential. The ability of public schools to carry out their mission is severely undermined when the federal government undertakes measures such as the inclusion of a question on citizenship in the Decennial Census, which U.S. Census Bureau and survey experts predict will undercount the The Census Bureau projects conservatively that the inclusion of a citizenship question on the census will lead to an estimated 5.8 percent decline in the number of noncitizen responses. Some independent researchers anticipate the decline would be much higher, with nearly one in 10 households and 45 million people “at risk for not being counted.”
https://www.nsba.org/News/2019/Gentzel-census-op-ed
Teach For America's Defenders and Detractors Are Both
Wrong
Recent news coverage has sparked a
resurgent—and deeply divisive—debate over TFA
Education Week By Jeffrey R. Henig June 25, 2019
On June 18th,
ProPublica published a news story with the headline "How
Teach For America Evolved Into an Arm of the Charter School Movement." Some sensibilities were bruised. The story was about the
evolution of Teach For America away from its founding mission "to tap
idealistic graduates of elite universities to teach at traditional public
schools in high-poverty areas" into "an informal but vital ally of
the charter school movement." (Disclosure: I was briefly quoted in this
article.) As evidence of this shift, ProPublica reporter Annie Waldman
described the many ways TFA connects to the education reform movement,
including naming its wealthy donors who have also been prominent funders of
charter schools. Waldman's revelation concerns the Walton Family Foundation. In
2013, Walton gave a grant to TFA, reimbursing the organization for every
teacher it placed in a charter school 50 percent more than it paid for a
teacher placed in a traditional public school. Reactions to the story were
immediate, strong, and deeply divided. Some celebrated the article for
unmasking a destructive alliance between TFA and forces angling to replace
traditional public schools with more privatized alternatives. "Damn,
ProPublica has become invaluable in a short space of time," declared Charles
Pierce, a
left-of-center pundit. Diane
Ravitch, arguably
the nation's foremost critic of the contemporary education reform movement,
blogged that it was "an eye-popping article, an exemplar of investigative
reporting."
Testing Resistance
& Reform News: June 19 - 25, 2019
FairTest Submitted
by fairtest on June 25, 2019 - 3:18pm
As the last
classrooms close for summer break, it's a good time to look back -- the past
year has been among the best ever for the testing reform movement: more states
eliminating exit exams; successful campaigns to rollback test-driven school
grading schemes and the fastest ACT/SAT-optional growth rate in history.
The deadline to
submit a cover letter, resume and application is August 19,
2019.
Become a 2019-2020 PSBA Advocacy Ambassador
PSBA is seeking
applications for two open Advocacy Ambassador positions. Candidates
should have experience in day-to-day functions of a school district,
on the school board, or in a school leadership position. The purpose of the
PSBA Advocacy Ambassador program is to facilitate the education and engagement
of local school directors and public education stakeholders through the
advocacy leadership of the ambassadors. Each Advocacy Ambassador will
be responsible for assisting PSBA in achieving its advocacy goals. To
achieve their mission, ambassadors will be kept up to date on current
legislation and PSBA positions on legislation. The current open
positions will cover PSBA Sections 3 and 4, and
Section 7.
PSBA Advocacy
Ambassadors are independent contractors representing PSBA and serve
as liaisons between PSBA and their local elected officials. Advocacy
Ambassadors also commit to building strong relationships with PSBA members with
the purpose of engaging the designated members to be active and committed
grassroots advocates for PSBA’s legislative priorities.
PSBA: Nominations for The Allwein Society are open!
This award program
recognizes school directors who are outstanding leaders & advocates on
behalf of public schools & students. Nominations are accepted year-round
with selections announced early fall: http://ow.ly/CchG50uDoxq
EPLC is accepting
applications for the 2019-20 PA Education Policy Fellowship Program
Education Policy & Leadership Center
PA's premier education policy leadership program for education, policy
& community leaders with 582 alumni since 1999. Application with program
schedule & agenda are at http://www.eplc.org
2019 PASA-PSBA School
Leadership Conference Oct. 16-18, 2019
WHERE: Hershey Lodge and
Convention Center 325 University Drive, Hershey, PA
WHEN: Wednesday, October
16 to Friday, October 18, 201
Registration is now open!
Growth from knowledge acquired. Vision inspired by innovation. Impact
created by a synergized leadership community. You are called upon to be the
drivers of a thriving public education system. It’s a complex and challenging
role. Expand your skillset and give yourself the tools needed for the
challenge. Packed into two and a half daysꟷꟷgain access to top-notch education
and insights, dynamic speakers, peer learning opportunities and the latest
product and service innovations. Come to the PASA-PSBA School Leadership
Conference to grow!
NPE Action National
Conference - Save the Date - March 28-29, 2020 in Philadelphia, PA.
The window is now open for workshop proposals for the Network for Public
Education conference, March 28-29, 2020, in Philadelphia. I hope you all sign
on to present on a panel and certainly we want all to attend. https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/NBCNDKK
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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