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, 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
If any of your colleagues would like to be added to the
email list please have them send their name, title and affiliation to KeystoneStateEdCoalition@gmail.com
Check Before You Choose: Before You Choose a Cyber
Charter School, Here Are Some Questions You Should Ask
Taxpayers in Senate Minority
Policy Committee Chair Lisa Boscola’s school districts paid over $20.8 million
in 2018-2019 cyber charter tuition. Statewide, PA
taxpayers paid over $600 million for cyber charter tuition in 2018-2019.
|
Allentown City SD
|
$6,062,793.00
|
|
Bethlehem Area SD
|
$3,567,270.43
|
|
Catasauqua Area SD
|
$440,400.75
|
|
East Penn SD
|
$1,565,172.19
|
|
Easton Area SD
|
$2,509,432.41
|
|
Nazareth Area SD
|
$1,466,990.75
|
|
Northampton Area SD
|
$2,243,502.21
|
|
Salisbury Township SD
|
$404,100.49
|
|
Saucon Valley SD
|
$1,113,650.62
|
|
Whitehall-Coplay SD
|
$867,501.92
|
|
Wilson Area SD
|
$632,054.60
|
|
|
$20,872,869.37
|
Data Source: PDE via PSBA
Why are cyber charter tuition rates the same as brick and mortar
tuition?
Why are PA taxpayers paying twice what it costs to provide a cyber
education?
BEFORE YOU CHOOSE A CYBER CHARTER SCHOOL, HERE ARE SOME
QUESTIONS YOU SHOULD ASK.
PA Schools Work August 2020
·
Does the Cyber Charter have certified
teachers?
·
How many hours of teacher instruction?
·
How does your local school district measure
up against the Cyber Charters?
·
If schools reopen, will it be easy for my
child to come back?
·
Will my kid need me to work with them during
the day?
When the COVID-19 global pandemic hit
Pennsylvania in March, public schools were forced to close and took on the
unprecedented challenge of shifting school education plans to remote platforms
— sort of like building a plane while you’re flying. PA Superintendents, School
Board Members, educators, paraprofessionals, and staff all showed that
#PASchoolsWork in the face of any challenge.
And while many schools already offered
virtual learning options, today more than 90% of Pennsylvania public school
districts offer an online learning program for their students. This option
keeps students connected to the school district teachers, curriculum, and
community, while allowing for a seamless return to school when the time is
right.
Many Pennsylvania school district’s COVID-19
reopening plans force parents to make difficult decisions about their child’s
education. Some parents are considering cyber charter schools as one option. On
this page, you will find the resources you need to help you make the best
decision for your child and your community. Be sure to check before you choose!
Pequea Valley calls for 'substantial change' to cyber
school funding
KYLE KUTZ for LNP | LancasterOnline August
17, 2020
When: Board
meeting, Aug. 13.
What happened: The
board adopted a resolution to reform funding for cyber charter schools.
Proposed by the Pennsylvania School Boards Association, this resolution calls
for charter schools to revise “unfair” tuition rate calculations, which “create
discrepancies in the amount of tuition paid by different districts for the same
charter school education.”
Quotable: “School
districts are struggling to keep up with growing charter costs and are forced
to raise taxes and cut staffing,” the resolution states. “We, along with the
Pennsylvania School Boards Association, are advocating for substantial change.”
Pennsylvania adopts stricter rules on masks in school
Delco Times By David Mekeel
dmekeel@readingeagle.com @dmekeel on Twitter August 18, 2020
Schools that open this fall will be filled
with masked faces. State officials have updated a July order that
everyone in Pennsylvania wear face coverings when out in public to mandate that
students and staff wear masks inside school buildings even if they're social
distancing. Updated guidance on application of the face covering mandate —
found on the state Department of Education
website — says there are only three
reasons masks can be taken off:
- When
eating or drinking and spaced at least 6 feet apart.
- When
wearing a face covering creates an unsafe condition while operating
equipment or executing a task.
- During
"face-covering breaks" of no more than 10 minutes when
individuals are spaced 6 feet apart.
The order previously was not as specific,
giving school districts more leeway in establishing when students and staff
were required to wear masks. Some districts, including some in Berks County,
had indicated students would be allowed to remove face coverings if they were
in class seated at least 6 feet apart. In a "dear colleague"
letter sent to school district
officials Monday, Matt Stem, deputy secretary for elementary and secondary
education, said the added guidance is based on new research. "As you know,
the health and safety of Pennsylvania’s school communities is top priority, and
the guidance we release to support and maintain the health and safety of school
communities is rooted in science, data and research," he wrote. "As
more data and research becomes available, the information that becomes guidance
must evolve — something we’ve shared with you since we began releasing
reopening guidance." In particular, the American Academy of Pediatrics
released updated guidance last week that says all children older than 2 should
wear a face covering at all times to help mitigate the spread of COVID-19.
Pa. reopening guidance could change schools’ plans
Pennsylvania briefs By Dallas Post August 18, 2020
HARRISBURG — Many Pennsylvania school
districts are planning a full return to the classroom this fall, according to
data released Monday by the state Department of Education, though that could
change after state health and education officials issued new reopening guidance
last week. Some 657 school districts, public charter schools and career and
technical centers have submitted their reopening plans to the state, and 35%,
or about 230, have indicated they plan to bring students back to class five
days a week, the Education Department said. About a quarter plan to start the
year virtually, while more than 40% plan to offer a combination of remote and
in-person instruction. Some of the districts’ plans were submitted before
the Wolf administration issued its latest reopening guidance, which says full,
in-person instruction should be reserved for students in counties with a very
low rate of new COVID-19 cases. Some districts have already changed their
reopening plans in response to the guidance, and others are expected to follow
suit before the start of the school year, education officials said. “This is
going to be very fluid, and what districts think they’re going to do may look a
lot different two weeks into the future based on transmission rates,” said Mark
DiRocco, executive director of the Pennsylvania Association of School
Administrators.
Abington Heights, Valley View, Colonial, Garnet Valley, Ridley,
Penn Delco, Great Valley, Kennett Consolidated, Octorara and Lower Moreland have
been added to virtual opening list.
School Districts Reportedly Opening Virtual Only as of
August 18, 2020
Keystone State Education Coalition
Blogger note: this is work in process. Please
let me know if you have additions or corrections to this list
Hybrid, virtual or full time: The latest back-to-school
plans for Bucks, Montco districts
Bucks County Courier Times by Crissa
Shoemaker cshoemaker@theintell.com August 11,
2020 Updated August 17, 2020
School districts across the region are
wrestling with how to reopen schools in the fall. Some have delayed any
offering of in-school learning until later in the fall. Others are offering
hybrid plans that allow for maximum social distancing. A handful are allowing
students to return full time to the classroom. Here’s the latest in how schools
in Bucks and eastern Montgomery counties are planning to start their 2020-21
school years.
Conestoga Valley delays start of school, keeps full-time,
in-person instruction despite teacher protest
Lancaster Online by ALEX GELI | Staff Writer August 18,
2020
The Conestoga Valley school board during a
marathon meeting Monday night stuck with its plan to offer full-time, in-person
instruction, despite a push by teachers and parents to shift to a hybrid
learning model and in defiance of the state’s latest reopening guidance. Board
members also agreed to delay the start of the school year by one week, from
Aug. 24, to Aug. 30, to prepare for reopening. The meeting, which lasted
three-and-a-half hours, followed a rally by Conestoga Valley Education
Association members in support of a hybrid instructional model, which would
blend in-person and online classes to reduce class sizes and enable appropriate
social distancing. Kerry Mulvihill, a seventh-grade science teacher at Gerald
Huesken Middle School, where both the rally and board meeting took place, said
a hybrid model with 50% of students in a school building at one time, is the
safer option for the fall. “I think if we reopen at full capacity, even 80%
capacity, it’s likely we’re going to be home in a quarantine soon after,” she
said at the protest.
“The Pennsylvania Department of Education told PennLive Friday
that of the districts that have reported in thus far, only 35% are planning to
open with full, in-person instruction. Another 25% – including the city of
Philadelphia, the state’s largest K-12 system by far – will open with a fully
remote platform. The remainder
are starting with blended programs, most of which will see students
attending school in-person two days a week and working from home the rest of
the week.”
Closing the digital divide: Pa. schools believe they’re
ready to teach kids online after spring’s emergency test
Penn Live By Charles Thompson | cthompson@pennlive.com Updated
5:44 AM; Today 5:14 AM
With more than half of Pennsylvania’s 1.7
million K-12 school students about to start the 2020-21 school year still
getting most of their instruction online because of the unyielding coronavirus pandemic, the
moment of truth has arrived for public school officials who struggled to
provide lessons remotely in the spring. To many school leaders, having spent
the bulk of their careers in the classroom environment, this is still going to
be a case of better; not best. But most say they are confident that, with the
spring’s dry run behind them, they have at least met the biggest challenges to
surface when Gov. Tom Wolf ordered a statewide
closure of schools last March. Wolf
closed the schools then as part of his larger effort to try to stop the spread
of the virus before it overwhelmed Pennsylvania’s hospitals and health care
systems. “I do think most districts are much better positioned to do remote
learning this year than they were last spring,” said Mark DiRocco, executive
director of the Pennsylvania Association of School Administrators.
Districts opening virtually consider transportation for
private, charter school students
Scranton Times Tribune BY SARAH HOFIUS HALL STAFF WRITER Aug 17,
2020 Updated 55 min ago
As some school leaders plan for a virtual
start, they must also determine whether buses will transport private school
students and how transportation providers will be paid. For school districts to
receive normal transportation subsidy payments for the 2019-20 school year, the
state required districts to pay contractors or negotiate payments for the days
schools were closed. The state has not provided guidance on transportation to
the districts that plan to start the year with remote learning. “Those are
topics we’re looking at now,” Abington Heights Superintendent Michael Mahon,
Ph.D., said. “We’re looking at what our obligations are.” Under normal
circumstances, if a district provides transportation to its students, state law
requires the district to transport private school students too, if the school
is within 10 miles of the district’s boundary. The Pennsylvania Department of
Education is reviewing the issue and plans to release guidance in the coming
weeks, spokesman Eric Levis said.
Getting kids to school safely in a pandemic is one thing.
Retaining bus drivers is another.
Inquirer by Patricia Madej, Posted: August 18, 2020
As school districts try to figure out whether
they can reopen safely for in-person classes during a pandemic, another
complication lies ahead: how to get kids to school. Keeping kids safe on school
buses involves many now-familiar safety practices: enhanced cleaning, blocked
off seats, and face masks, for example. It’s still unclear how many students
will need school buses this fall. About 1.5 million students in
Pennsylvania were transported by school buses daily in recent years, according
to the state Department of Transportation, but that figure will no doubt change
as more districts begin the
year virtually and parents consider driving
children themselves. Those unknowns create serious questions about the future
of school bus drivers, a group already facing
worker shortages. “We’re really concerned about that,
because we don’t believe we’ll get those drivers back,” said Mike Berk,
executive director of the Pennsylvania School Bus Association. “We think
they’ll move on, and that’s going to take an already depleted workforce and
create real problems potentially down the road.”
Could coronavirus and America’s racial reckoning lead to
more diverse top-tier high schools in Philadelphia?
Chalkbeat Philadelphia By Dale Mezzacappa Aug
17, 2020, 6:08am EDT
Philadelphia’s high school admissions process
has long been the subject of controversy because of the stark
underrepresentation of Black and Latino students at the city’s top public
schools. Past administrations have attempted to make changes, only to be
stymied by backlash from mostly white families who say the magnet schools keep
them in the city. But with the country’s racial reckoning and a pandemic
halting standardized tests, this could be an opportunity for a breakthrough. Superintendent
William Hite told Chalkbeat he thinks Philadelphia might be more receptive to
reimagining the admissions process following the police killing of George Floyd
in Minneapolis and the ensuing calls for racial justice. At the same time, the
coronavirus pandemic and virtual schooling have upended the standard measures
the district uses to determine student qualifications, not just state test
scores but also attendance and grades.
House Republicans say no data behind Gov. Tom Wolf’s
recommendation to postpone fall school sports
By FORD TURNER THE MORNING
CALL | AUG 17, 2020 AT 5:44 PM
HARRISBURG — Top Republicans in the state
House said Monday there is no data behind Gov. Tom Wolf’s “strong
recommendation” to postpone youth and school sports during the pandemic. “We
now know that the administration has made the unilateral decision to strongly
recommend the cancellation of fall sports without the Department of Health
having any corresponding data to justify their decision,” Majority Leader Kerry
Benninghoff of Centre County said in a written statement. Benninghoff cited a
response from the department to a Right-to-Know request filed by fellow
Republican Rep. Seth Grove of York County that sought “specific data” used by
the administration to make its recommendation. When Wolf publicly mentioned that
recommendation for the first time Aug. 6, it
surprised the athletic community and launched a heated debate. In a subsequent
letter, the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association told Wolf that
youth would play sports anyway in the fall, and that postponing
school-sanctioned sports would just shift risk elsewhere. Meanwhile,
in an interview Monday the PIAA indicted it was
seriously considering moving ahead with
the fall sports season despite the governor’s stance.
PIAA official: ‘Fairly comfortable’ fall sports can
proceed despite Gov. Wolf’s recommendation
Morning Call By MICHAEL RUBINKAM ASSOCIATED
PRESS | AUG 17, 2020 AT 1:01 PM
The governing body for Pennsylvania
interscholastic sports signaled again Monday that it’s seriously considering
moving ahead with the fall season despite the governor’s recommendation
that all youth athletics be canceled until 2021. “We feel
fairly comfortable that we can get school sports up and running,” Melissa
Mertz, associate executive director of the Pennsylvania Interscholastic
Athletic Association, said in a radio interview. The PIAA board plans to make a
final decision on fall sports when it meets Friday. The PIAA had been making
plans to start the season as scheduled when Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration
issued a “strong recommendation” in early August that scholastic and
recreational youth sports be put off until January to help prevent the spread
of the coronavirus. The surprise announcement prompted the PIAA to push back the
start of mandatory sports practices for two weeks while it
decided its next move. “We were shocked by that because up until that point we
had not received any pushback” from the Wolf administration on restarting
sports, Mertz said Monday on WITF’s “Smart Talk.” “It’s caused us to tap the
brakes.” The Wolf administration says that youth sports increase the risk of
spreading the virus and should be canceled for now. It noted the Big Ten,
Pac-12 and other college conferences have postponed football and other fall
sports because of the pandemic.
Superintendents Warn of More Layoffs as Enrollment Drops,
Remote Learning Rises
Education Week By Daarel Burnette II on August
17, 2020 2:34 PM
With the prospect of students opting out of
public school this fall or attending via less staff-intensive remote learning
models during the pandemic, a growing number of superintendents are warning
their staffs to expect another round of layoffs in the coming weeks. Superintendents
already had been pressing state
legislatures to untether K-12 revenue from how many students walk through the
door, the traditional way of allocating funds. They worried that a
significant number of parents would choose to
home-school or send their children to private school, and that would mean mean
less money from the state. Those efforts to retool the connection between
attendance and funding failed in several states. Fiscal conservatives argued
that their states, looking at the prospect of a deep recession, can't afford to
give money to districts for students they aren't educating. Superintendents'
predictions are now coming true.
Get Ready for a Teacher Shortage Like We’ve Never Seen
Before
If we force teachers to return to schools
during an out-of-control pandemic, I don’t know how many will stick around.
New York Times Opinion By Kelly
Treleaven Aug. 17, 2020
Ms. Treleaven teaches middle school English.
HOUSTON — Usually on the first day back to
work after summer break, there’s this buzzing, buoyant energy in the air. My
school is a small school-within-a-school designated to serve gifted children,
so there are only 16 teachers and staff members. We typically meet in a
colleague’s tidy classroom, filled with natural light and the earthy smell of
coffee. We hug, remark on one another’s new haircuts. Sure, there’s an element
of sadness about not being able to sleep in or pee on our own schedules
anymore, but for the most part, we’re eager to get back to doing work that we
believe is the most important work in the world. Coming back this year was
different. It was Thursday, Aug. 6, the same day that the Houston area reported
its new single-day high for
deaths from Covid-19. Instead of gathering, we all tuned in to a Zoom meeting
from our separate classrooms. There was no buzz in the air, and we weren’t
hugging and chatting. We were talking about how long we had: a few weeks of
virtual teaching before students returned to our classrooms on Sept. 8. Or
maybe sooner. We’ve been told our start date is subject to change at any time.
Blogger commentary:
Parents considering cyber charters due to COVID might not be
aware of their 20 year consistent track record of academic underperformance. As
those parents face an expected blitz of advertising by cybers, in order for
them to make a more informed decision, you might consider providing them with
some of the info listed below:
A June 2 paper from the highly respected Brookings Institution stated,
“We find the impact of attending a virtual charter on student achievement is
uniformly and profoundly negative,” and then went on to say that “there is no
evidence that virtual charter students improve in subsequent years.”
In 2016, the National Association of Charter School Authorizers,
National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, and the national charter lobbying
group 50CAN released a report on cyber charters that found that overall, cyber
students make no significant gains in math and less than half the gains in
reading compared with their peers in traditional public schools.
A Stanford University CREDO
Study in 2015 found that cyber students on average lost 72 days a year
in reading and 180 days a year in math compared with students in traditional
public schools.
From 2005 through 2012 under the federal No Child Left
Behind Act, most Pennsylvania cybers never made “adequate yearly progress.”
Following NCLB, for all five years (2013-2017) that Pennsylvania’s School
Performance Profile system was in place, not one cyber charter ever achieved a
passing score of 70.
Under Pennsylvania’s current accountability system, the Future Ready PA Index, all 15 cyber charters that operated
2018-2019 have been identified for some level of support and improvement.
PSBA Fall Virtual Advocacy Day: OCT 8, 2020 • 8:00
AM - 5:00 PM
Sign up now for PSBA’s Virtual Advocacy Day
this fall!
All public school leaders are invited to join
us for our fall Virtual Advocacy Day on Thursday, October 8, 2020, via Zoom. We
need all of you to help strengthen our advocacy impact. The day will center
around contacting legislators to discuss critical issues affecting public
education. Registrants will receive the meeting invitation with a link to our
fall Virtual Advocacy Day website that contains talking points, a link to
locate contact information for your legislator and additional information to
help you have a successful day.
Cost: As a membership benefit, there is no
cost to register.
Registration: School directors can register
online now by logging in to myPSBA. If you
have questions about Virtual Advocacy Day, or need additional information,
contact Jamie.Zuvich@psba.org.
Save The Date: The PSBA 2020 Equity Summit is happening
virtually on October 13th.
Discover how to build a foundation for equity
in practice and policy.
Learn more: https://t.co/KQviB4TTOj
Adopt the 2020 PSBA resolution for charter school funding
reform
In this legislative session, PSBA has been
leading the charge with the Senate, House of Representatives and the Governor’s
Administration to push for positive charter reform. We’re now asking you to
join the campaign: Adopt the resolution: We’re asking all school
boards to adopt the 2020 resolution for charter school funding reform at your
next board meeting and submit it to your legislators and to PSBA.
287 PA school boards have adopted charter reform
resolutions
Charter school funding reform continues to be
a concern as over 280 school boards across the state have adopted a resolution
calling for legislators to enact significant reforms to the Charter School Law
to provide funding relief and ensure all schools are held to the same quality
and ethics standards. Now more than ever, there is a growing momentum from
school officials across the state to call for charter school funding reform.
Legislators are hearing loud and clear that school districts need relief from
the unfair funding system that results in school districts overpaying millions
of dollars to charter schools.
Know Your Facts on Funding and Charter Performance. Then
Call for Charter Change!
PSBA Charter Change Website:
The Network for Public Education Action Conference has
been rescheduled to April 24-25, 2021 at the Philadelphia Doubletree Hotel
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.