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Keystone State Education Coalition
PA Ed Policy Roundup for May 28, 2015:
About that Tennessee Achievement School District being
touted as a model for PA….
Northwestern PA School Funding Forum
May 28, 2015 7:00 PM Jefferson Educational Society 3207 State St. Erie , PA 16508
"Sometimes these
reformers pop up again in unexpected places. Huffman was in Pennsylvania
the other day where he testified in front of their senate and also wrote an op-ed for one of the local papers with the
title ‘Want Pa. schools to flourish? Try this Tennessee model that
worked.”
I’ll Huffman and I’ll Puffman and I’ll Blow Your
District Down
Gary Rubenstein's
Blog Posted on May 22, 2015by garyrubinstein
Kevin Huffman was
the first Teach For America alum to become a state education commissioner.
Despite having only taught for two years between 1992 and 1994 and having
had no role related to schools for the next seventeen years (he was a VP of TFA
for a time) he was appointed to his position in Tennessee in 2011 by the
current Governor, Bill Haslam. In November 2014 after the Governor was
re-elected, Huffman ‘resigned’ saying that “it feels like the right time to pass the baton.”
Huffman was one of the ‘Chiefs For Change’ a group of reform-minded ‘leaders’
who have nearly all resigned or been fired over the past few years.
"So far there have been
two years of data and, by any objective standards, the experiment is
floundering. Of the six original ASD schools, two now have lower scores,
two have about the same scores, and two have improved scores."
Follow The Yellow Brick Load
Gary Rubenstein's
Blog Posted on May 26, 2015by garyrubinstein
Tennessee’s
Achievement School District (ASD) is the golden child of the reformers.
The mission of the ASD is to take schools in the bottom 5% of the state
and, within five years, propel them into the top 25% in the state. Like
the Recovery School District (RSD) in Louisiana, the primary turnaround
strategies used in the ASD is to convert the schools into charter schools.
Throughout the country it is being touted as a successful model to be replicated
in numerous states including Nevada and Pennsylvania. So far there have been two years of data and,
by any objective standards, the experiment is floundering. Of the six
original ASD schools, two now have lower scores, two have about the same scores,
and two have improved scores. Of the two that have improved scores, one
of them, Brick Church College Prep, is, supposedly, proving what’s possible
and, according to ASD superintendent Chris Barbic, on track to get into the top 25% a year ahead of schedule —
after just four years.
RTK requests were filed with
177 schools on May 15th. If I counted
correctly, as of this morning 7 PA charter schools have provided the requested
records; 74 have invoked the 30-day extension, leaving 96 schools that have not
yet responded.
Charter Schools: Tracking
PSBA's Right-to-Know Requests
PSBA filed a Right-to-Know
request with Pennsylvania charter
and cyber charter schools on May 15, 2015. PSBA is tracking the response from
each charter in the table below and updating it on a weekly basis. According to
Right-to-Know Law, public entities have five days from receipt of an open
records request by the agency’s open records officer to either 1) provide the
requested records (indicated by a green check); 2) deny the request and give
reasons for the denial (indicated by a red X); or 3) invoke a 30-day extension
for specific legal reasons (indicated by an (E)).
Update from the Campaign for Fair
Education Funding
On June 10th the bipartisan Basic Education Funding Commission, made up of state
legislators and representatives from the Governor's Office, is expected to
release its recommendations for a new funding formula.
Chesco superintendent is
against particular tests
Philly.com by Justine McDaniel LAST
UPDATED: Thursday, May 28, 2015, 1:08 AM
WEST CHESTER The
superintendent of a top-performing Chester
County
Testing mandated by
the state and federal governments have created a burden that stifles teaching
and learning, Jim Scanlon, West Chester Area School District superintendent,
said in a letter to parents last week. He
asked parents to write to their legislators about testing and said he was
gathering stories to show lawmakers that the tests were having a negative
effect on students and staff. The letter
acknowledged the usefulness of testing but said the time required for
preparations had become "extreme."
The district, which ranked fifth of 500 in the statewide School
Performance Profile, starts testing April 13 and continues through May 27,
Scanlon said.
Tim Eller is executive director of the
Keystone Alliance
Parents, imagine
sitting at the dinner table with your child, who is a third-grader in York City
School District York City
School District
Hey, big spender: Harrisburg
Penn Live By Christine Vendel | cvendel@pennlive.com Email
the author | Follow on Twitter on
May 27, 2015 at 7:00 AM, updated May 27, 2015 at 10:11 PM
To put Harrisburg 's $1.1 million legal tab last year in
perspective, consider the Cumberland
Valley School
District
Editorial: It's right and
fiscally sound to pay for pre-K now instead of paying prison costs later
THE ISSUE: Gov. Tom Wolf’s proposed budget calls for $256.5 million for preschool education funding for the
2015-16 school year, up from $136.5 million this school year. Pennsylvania ’s Pre-K Counts, a state program
for at-risk and low-income kids, would receive $100 million more, so it could
serve an additional 11,600 children. Head Start, a federal preschool program
for children of families living in poverty, would receive $20 million more, so
it could serve an additional 2,400 children.
If you’re a fiscal
conservative, concerned by the billions of dollars spent annually on
incarceration, you should support increased funding for preschool
education. “The choice is simple: Pay
for early education programs delivered with high quality to Pennsylvania
kids now, or pay far more later for the costs of crime in Pennsylvania .”
Public schools and your money
JOHN BAER, DAILY NEWS POLITICAL COLUMNIST POSTED: May 27,
2015, 12:16 AM
TODAY'S TOPIC, an annual one for me, is how your tax dollars
enter the maw of public education and to a significant extent just sit there. That's right.
Despite cutbacks, layoffs and the "education crisis,"
especially in Philly, a vast majority, as in 97 percent, of Pennsylvania's 500
school districts hold interest-bearing "reserves" to be used, or not,
for anything they want. The statewide
total, according to state Education Department data, now tops $4.4 billion. I write about this counterintuitive condition
every year because it strikes me as flat-out wrong.
Philly school employee
charged with steering $1 million contract to friends and family
WHYY Newsworks BY KEVIN MCCORRY MAY 27, 2015
A Philadelphia grand jury has
recommended criminal charges against Priscilla Wright, 50, who until January
was the Philadelphia
School District
"Stuart Whiteleather,
the district’s business administrator, said the increase in PSERS contributions
from 2014-2015 to 2015-2016 went from $9,109,366 to $10,979,198."
Methacton adopts $101M
proposed final budget with no tax increase
By Brendan Wills,
The Times Herald POSTED: 05/27/15,
2:33 PM EDT
WORCESTER >>
The Methacton school board approved a $101,207,570 proposed final budget with a
0 percent tax increase Tuesday night in a 8-0 vote. Board member Maria Shackelford was not
present at the meeting. The $101,196,624
in expenditures outstrips the predicted $100,217,187 in revenues. The hole left
in the budget will be filled by utilizing $979,437 of the district’s fund
balance. The use of the fund balance coincides
with a little more than $2 million windfall the district experienced in
2014-2015 through various one-time revenue sources, including the sale of the
bus fleet to First Student, which accounts for $1.8 million in extra revenue,
said board President Christian Nascimento.
BREAKING: State Sen. Matt
Smith Resigning
PoliticsPA Written by Nick Field, Managing Editor May 27th, 2015
State Senator Matt
Smith, a Democrat representing the 37th
district, is set to resign his seat in the legislature. Senate Minority Leader Jay Costa announced Smith
will be stepping down to take over as President of the Greater
Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce.
Smith’s district consists of Allegheny and Washington Counties. He has
served since as State Senator since 2013. Before that, he represented the 42nd
district in the PA House from 2007 to 2012.
DN Editorial: Cursives!
Foiled again
If Council doesn't get serious about school
funding, that's all she wrote
Daily News Editorial
May 277, 2015
WE KNEW we were
being naïve when we imagined that City Council would come back from the last
week's campaigning and roll up its sleeves to address the hard issues of school
funding in Philadelphia .
Any one of the issues would have been fine: how to come up with the $105
million the district requested of the city, how to fill the $85 million
deficit, the erosion of essentials like school nurses and books, or maybe the
discouraging disparity - 33 percent, according to a recent study - between
funding for rich districts vs. poor ones like ours. Oh, were we naïve. Yesterday, City Council
devoted a large part of the school-budget hearing on what it thinks is the
problem facing the schools: the decline of cursive writing as part of mandatory
curriculum in Philadelphia
public schools.
Phila. City Council hears
more pleas for increasing school funding
TRICIA L.
NADOLNY, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER LAST
UPDATED: May 28, 2015, 1:08 AM
One day after a
heated hearing between City Council and School District
officials, on Wednesday, parents, teachers, and advocates had their turn and
delivered a straightforward message to Council: We need more funding. "I will stand with City Council and ask
those tough questions of the district about what they're planning to do with
our money," said Susan Gobreski, executive director of the nonprofit
Education Voters Pennsylvania. But "I am here to say to City Council:
Please let's pay that bill that we've been sent." In the audience at the hearing, a group of
students held large, brightly colored signs that read, "$105 M" - a
nod to the $105 million Mayor Nutter's proposed property-tax increase would
potentially haul in for the School District .
The Ongoing Struggle of Teacher Retention
Getting experienced educators to work in the highest-need schools
requires more than bonus pay.
The Atlantic May 2015 by PAUL BARNWELL
Standing in front of my eighth-grade class, my heart
palpitated to near-panic-attack speed as I watched second hand of the clock.
Please bell—ring early, I prayed. It was my second day of teaching, and some of
my middle-school male students were putting me to the test.
In a span of three minutes, the group in room 204 had
morphed from contained to out of control. Two boys were shooting dice in the
back of the room, and as I instructed them to put their crumpled dollar bills
away, several others took off their shoes and began tossing them around like
footballs. Before I could react, one boy broke into my supply closet. He
snatched handfuls of No. 2 pencils and highlighters and sprinted out of the
room, slamming the door behind him.
Why failure is crucial for
a student’s success
PBS Newshour BY JOHN
MERROW May 27, 2015 at 3:47 PM EDT
If you’re at all
like me, somewhere in your home you have at least one can of WD-40®, because
the stuff works wonders. If you teach science, I believe that you ought to have
a large WD-40 poster on your classroom wall. Not to advertise the product but
to teach a basic lesson about learning: failure is an essential part of
succeeding. You may know the story
of WD-40. More than 60
years ago the three employees of the San Diego-based Rocket Chemical Company
were trying to develop a product that would prevent rust, something they could
market to the aerospace industry. They tried, and, being methodical, they kept
careful records. They labeled their first effort Water Displacement #1, or
WD-1. I’ll bet you have figured out how
many times they failed before they were finally successful. Students need to know that adults try and
fail and fail and fail — and keep on trying. More than that, they need to
experience failure. While I am a big fan of both project-based learning and
blended learning, I believe the most critical piece of the pedagogical puzzle
is what we ought to call “Problem-based learning.”
Sign up here to receive a weekly
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Sign up to support fair funding »
Campaign for Fair
Education Funding website
Our goal is to
ensure that every student has access to a quality education no matter where
they live. To make that happen, we need to fundamentally change how public
schools are funded. The current system is not fair to students or taxpayers and
our campaign partners – more than 50 organizations from across Pennsylvania -
agree that it has to be changed now. Student performance is stagnating. School
districts are in crisis. Lawmakers have the ability to change this formula but
they need to hear from you. You
can make a difference »
NAACP PA STATE CONFERENCE YOUTH & COLLEGE
DIVISION:
FAIR SCHOOL FUNDING MOBLIZATION WORKSHOP
Saturday, May 30, 2015 9:00 am
St. Bernard Hall, Friendship
Circle Senior Center - First Floor
1515 Lansdowne
Avenue Darby, PA 19023.
East Campus of Mercy
Fitzgerald Hospital
Please RSVP to
panaacpyc@gmail.com by May 25
Northwestern PA School
Funding Forum
May 28, 2015 7:00 PM Jefferson Educational
Society 3207 State St.
Erie , PA 16508
Panelists
Conneaut School
District
Mr. Jarrin
Sperry, Superintendent, Ms. Jody Sperry, Board President
Corry School
District
Mr. William Nichols,
Superintendent
Fort LeBoeuf
School District
Mr. Richard Emerick,
Assistant Superintendent
Girard School
District
Dr. James Tracy,
Superintendent
Harbor Creek
School District
Ms. Christine
Mitchell, Board President
Millcreek School
District
Mr. William Hall,
Superintendent Mr. Aaron O'Toole, Director of Finance and Accounting
Keynote Speaker
Mr. Jay Himes,
Executive Director, Pennsylvania Association of School Business Officials
PILCOP: Adequately and
Fairly Funding Pennsylvania Schools: What are the Needs and Where Does the
Money Come From? (Live Webinar)
June 8, 2015, 12:00 — 2:00 P.M.
June 8, 2015, 12:00 — 2:00 P.M.
Staff attorney
Michael Churchill will speak about what schools need and where the money comes
from in this Pennsylvania Bar Institute (PBI) webinar on June
8. Click here to register.
Governor Wolf has
proposed $500 million in new funding for public schools starting this July. He
has proposed as shale extraction tax and increases in personal income and sales
taxes to pay for this. This Philadelphia
Bar Association Education Law Section and PBI are hosting a webinar that will
focus on how much public schools need and differing proposals on how state
funds should be distributed this year and in the future. Other focuses will
include the current local tax burdens for public schools and issues concerning
how the state should raise revenues to pay for these programs. The program will also provide information
about the components of a good funding formula and look at the work of the
Basic Education Funding Commission and the state-wide Campaign for Fair
Education Funding, of which we are a leading member.
