Daily postings from the Keystone State
Education Coalition now reach more than 3250 Pennsylvania education
policymakers – school directors, administrators, legislators, legislative and
congressional staffers, Governor's staff, current/former PA Secretaries of
Education, PTO/PTA officers, parent advocates, teacher leaders, 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 and Twitter
These daily emails are archived and
searchable at http://keystonestateeducationcoalition.org
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The Keystone State Education Coalition
is pleased to be listed among the friends and allies of The Network for Public Education. Are you a member?
Keystone State Education Coalition
NCAA Bans Coursework
Completed by Athletes in 24 K12 Inc. Virtual Schools; I can't help but wonder how much their CEO might
have been paid if K12's schools' test scores had merely been average instead of
dismal.
Deadline for PSBA officer nominations is
April 30th
PSBA Leadership Development Committee seeks strong leaders for the association.
Members interested in becoming the next leaders of PSBA are encouraged to complete an Application for Nomination no later than April 30. As a member-driven association, the Leadership Development Committee (LDC) is seeking nominees with strong skills in leadership and communication, and who have vision for PSBA. Complete details on the nomination process, links to the Application for Nomination form, and scheduled dates for nominee interviews can be found online by clicking here.
PSBA Leadership Development Committee seeks strong leaders for the association.
Members interested in becoming the next leaders of PSBA are encouraged to complete an Application for Nomination no later than April 30. As a member-driven association, the Leadership Development Committee (LDC) is seeking nominees with strong skills in leadership and communication, and who have vision for PSBA. Complete details on the nomination process, links to the Application for Nomination form, and scheduled dates for nominee interviews can be found online by clicking here.
"Grell said there is a window of opportunity for the
Legislature to implement reforms by June 30. But realistically, he said, there
doesn't appear to be enough will to tackle the problem in an election year."
Rep. Grell tells
Mechanicsburg school board that without reform, pension costs could double by
2017-18
By Roger Quigley |
Special to PennLive updated April 23, 2014 at 8:03 AM
If there is no action on pension reform in the state
Legislature, most school districts could expect to see their pension costs
double by the 2017-18 fiscal year, a state representative told the
Mechanicsburg Area School Board Tuesday night.
That was the bad news from midstate Rep. Glen Grell, a proponent of
reforming the state pension system. In the case of the Mechanicsburg district,
Grell said this year's pension cost of $2,149,561 would more than double to
$4,399,100 in the 2017-18 fiscal year. Grell,
a Republican who represents the 87th District, was invited to
the board's workshop meeting to provide a history of the pension problem and
what can be done to fix it.
Charter schools say proposed
formula for special education funding unfairly punishes them
By Jeff Frantz |
jfrantz@pennlive.com on April 23, 2014 at 6:49 PM
Charter school operators are saying if a proposal to overhaul
special education
funding in Pennsylvania is passed, it will be difficult for them to
operate. The proposal -- and a pair
of identical
bills making their way through the state House and Senate -- is based
on the recommendations of the Special Education Funding Formula Commission
designed to reimburse schools for the actual costs of teaching children with
special needs. Currently, every school
district gets funded on the assumption that 16 percent of students have special
needs. By basing it on the state average of the student population with special
needs, some schools are overfunded while others are underfunded. The more
students with serious special needs a district has, the more likely it is to be
underfunded. The proposal creates a
three-tiered formula, which would pay both traditional school districts and
charter schools on a per-pupil basis. But, charters schools say there is a
catch.
For Harrisburg schools,
a good plan is sprung as a done deal: Editorial
By PennLive Editorial
Board on April 23, 2014 at 11:57 AM
Monday night, the Harrisburg School Board took all of about
three minutes to “discuss” and approve sweeping amendments to the district’s
financial and academic recovery plan. That speedy action, coming before the
public had a chance to see the latest changes and offer informed comments,
unfortunately taints an otherwise creative and carefully balanced roadmap
forward for the district. Recovery
officer Gene Veno delivered a slide presentation about the latest revisions to
the board last week in a secret “work session.” While the meeting may have fit
within the broad exemptions allowed by the state’s so-called “Sunshine Act,” it’s
unclear why Veno or the board did not share information about the impending
changes with the public shortly thereafter. Instead, Veno and the board kept
all information about the latest changes to the plan under wraps until Monday
right before the final board vote.
Many of the updated plan’s elements had been discussed in
previous public sessions, but there’s no excuse for failing to give the public
a meaningful chance to see and comment on the final package. Which is a shame, because it’s a solid plan should
help the district continue its financial recovery while pushing harder for
academic progress.
"Nevertheless, the SRC did not have the authority"
to suspend part of a 2008 law that prohibits districts from limiting enrollment
at a charter unless the school agrees, the judge ruled. Glazer also said the SRC could not prohibit
charters from seeking payment from the state Department of Education for
students enrolled beyond the limit set by the district. Payments from the
Department of Education to the charters are deducted from money the state sends
to each district."
Judge rules against SRC
in charter case
MARTHA WOODALL, INQUIRER
STAFF WRITER LAST UPDATED: Thursday, April 24, 2014, 1:08 AM
POSTED: Wednesday, April 23, 2014, 8:00 PM
PHILADELPHIA The Philadelphia School Reform Commission's powers
to suspend portions of the state law covering charter schools may have hit a
snag. A Common Pleas Court judge ruled Monday
that the law that led to the state takeover of city schools in 2001 did not
give the SRC the power to cap their enrollment to ease the district's financial
woes. "This court clearly
recognizes and understands the severe conditions which exist in the Philadelphia School District
Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/local/20140424_Judge_rules_against_SRC_in_charter_case.html#1qjRfaD3E8QUmgP8.99
Lower court sides with
charters and against School District in
enrollment cap dispute
the notebook by Dale
Mezzacappa on Apr 23 2014
The School Reform
Commission suffered another legal setback Monday in its effort to impose
enrollment caps on charter schools and take other actions that run counter to
the Pennsylvania School Code. In
a ruling involving cases
brought by five charter schools and later consolidated, Judge Gary S.
Glazer of the Court of Common Pleas ruled that the SRC did not have the power
to unilaterally suspend some sections of the school code involving charter
schools. The SRC has repeatedly sought
to suspend portions of the school code regarding charter growth
and the teachers' contract, partly as a way to keep the
District solvent during a time when revenues have not kept up with
expenses. "A school district cannot
condition the grant or renewal of a charter on compliance with provisions that
violate the Charter School Law," Glazer wrote. The ruling comes as the District plans to adopt a revised charter policy on Thursday that sets many
conditions for charter schools. It also plans to renew five with
enrollment caps specified.
"The lawyers present will be
specifically asking City Council members to extend the 1 percent sales tax,
which would provide an additional $120 million in revenue for the city’s public
schools. Along with this, they will urge City Council to find an
additional $75 million, as Superintendent William Hite has announced that without
the $195 million more in city funding, more cuts will have to be made to the
District."
Lawyers to call on City
Council for more school funding
thenotebook by
Jeseamy Muentes on Apr
23 2014 Posted in Latest news
The Public Interest Law
Center of Philadelphia and Education Law Center
will host the “Lawyers Day of Action for Education,” a call to action by local
attorneys to persuade City Council members to provide more money for the School District .
Leading lawyers will take part in a press conference and meeting with
Council members from 11:45 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Thursday in the Council Caucus
room at City Hall. Among the
Philadelphia attorneys who will speak are Rudolph Garcia of Buchanan Ingersoll
& Rooney, Matthew Olesh of Fox Rothschild, Susan DeJarnatt of Temple
University, and Jennifer Clarke of PILCOP.
A report released by Representative James R. Roebuck, chair of
the House Education Committee, found that
one of every six charters in the state is “high-performing.
None of the state’s cyber charters is high-performing. Pennsylvania
has 162 brick-and-mortar charters, with 86 in Philadelphia . It has 14 cyber charters. Representative Roebuck recommended that
public schools might learn from the practices of the state’s 28 high-performing
charters. Public schools outperform
charter schools. Cyber charters perform worst of all schools. Charter schools,
with a few exceptions, do not improve their performance over time.
Come to Brunch (Pittsburgh
Do you like jazz? Do you
like to eat? Do you want to support a simply incredible, grassroots effort led
by local parents to help some of the most struggling students in Pittsburgh ? If you answered yes to any of these
questions, clear your lunchtime calendar for Saturday May 10th.
Seriously. Go to your calendar and write in “11AM, Jazz Brunch, Manchester Elementary School 1612 Manhattan Street , 15233.” Here’s
why: This fundraiser is being held by a
new initiative called the Pittsburgh Struggling Student Association, or PSSA (a
delightfully ironic acronym, given that those letters usually stand for the
state’s system of standardized high-stakes tests), organized by parents in the
Manchester neighborhood on the Northside (who may or may not have intended for
their acronym to be delightfully ironic).
Nonprofit Quarterly
WRITTEN BY RICK
COHEN 23 APRIL 2014 14:26
An increasingly popular
route for high school basketball stars into top-flight NCAA college basketball
programs is to spurn public high schools and opt for private prep schools. This
past year, 10 of the 12 scholarship players for Syracuse University came from private or prep schools,
including senior guard C.J. Fair, who reached Syracuse from Brewster Academy in
Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, instead of Baltimore City High School in his
hometown. The majority of the scholarship players at Duke, Florida ,
and Arizona
also came through the prep school route. It takes only a brief glance at the list of the top-ranked 25 high school basketball teams to see how few are traditional public
schools and how many are private academies or Catholic parochial schools. Is anyone surprised to discover that charter
schools—privately managed, but authorized as schools in public school
systems—are beginning to look like private prep schools when it comes to
recruiting and training basketball stars?
In Pennsylvania ,
Bob Lombardi, the executive director of the Pennsylvania Interscholastic
Athletic Association said that his members are voicing “loud and clear
complaints” about charter schools. Charter schools have an advantage over
traditional schools, being able to recruit basketball players from a wide
geography while traditional high schools are limited to students playing in the
districts where they live.
NCAA Bans Coursework
Completed by Athletes in 24 K12 Inc. Virtual Schools
Education Week By on April
23, 2014 5:00 PM
The National Collegiate
Athletic Association (NCAA) won't accept coursework completed by student
athletes at two dozen virtual schools operated by K12, Inc., as of
2014-15, at any Division I or Division II college or university. K12, the Herndon, Va-based online education
company, was notified on April 9 of the development, after learning in 2012
that its schools were placed under NCAA "extended evaluation" review
for the eligibility of their courses, according to Mary Gifford, senior
vice president of education policy and external relations, during a phone
interview today. She called that "a good process where the NCAA reviews
courses on an individual basis," but was less sanguine about this latest
development.
Blogger Commentary:
K12, Inc.’s Agora Cyber
Charter used PA tax dollars to pay for more than 19,000 local TV
commercials. In 2013, Agora, which
reported the second-highest enrollment level among Pennsylvania
Agora never made AYP under
NCLB, but Business Week reported that it had made over $31 million for K12,
Inc. in just one academic year. K12’s
CEO Ron Packard was paid $5 million in 2011 alone and $13 million from
2009-2013. In a time when we are talking
about firing teachers based upon the test scores of students that they may not
have even taught, I can't help but wonder how much Mr. Packard might have been
paid if K12's schools' test scores had merely been average instead of dismal…..
Jeff Kwitowski, K12’s
SVP of Corporate Communications, responds to NCAA’s notification of eligibility
and lack of standards for digital courses
K12 Inc.'s Blog Submitted
by Jeff Kwitowski on Tue, 04/22/2014 - 3:31pm
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), a private
membership-based organization, recently notified a number of schools affiliated
with K12 Inc. that coursework from these schools will not be used in the
initial-eligibility certification process for Division I and II athletics
following the 2013-2014 school year. Eleven of the schools are part of a single
network of schools in one state and two of the schools are full-time blended
schools. All are approved public schools that meet state content and
instructional time standards and graduation requirements.
The individual schools impacted by this decision are currently
waiting for the NCAA to provide the specific coursework they reviewed in making
its decision. All schools have the option to appeal.
According to the NCAA’s revised legislation for nontraditional
courses, students and instructors must have “ongoing access to one another” and
“regular interaction” throughout the duration of the course. However NCAA does
not provide schools any measurable standard or rubric used to determine what
they believe is a suitable level of student-teacher interaction. Despite
repeated requests, the NCAA will not publish specific student-teacher
interaction guidelines for nontraditional courses, including online and digital
courses.
Centre
Daily Times BY DAVID HUTCHINSON April 19, 2014
David Hutchinson is chairman of
the Public Issues Forums of Centre County.
What: Public Issues
Forums of Centre County: “What Should be the Role of State Standardized Tests
in our Schools?” When: 6 to
8:30 p.m. Thursday Where: Schlow
Centre Region Library, 211 S.
Allen St. , State College
Read
more here: http://www.centredaily.com/2014/04/19/4141700/public-issues-forum-what-should.html#storylink=cpy
People keep asking us what they can do to
help with the public education funding crisis. Next Thursday, Philadelphia
attorneys can help by simply taking their lunch break at City Hall.
LAWYERS DAY OF ACTION FOR EDUCATION Thursday, April 24th
co-hosted
with the Education
Law Center
Join your fellow attorneys at City Hall on Thursday, April 24 to
tell City Council that Philadelphia cannot function without good public
schools, and high-quality public schools require adequate funding. We will ask
City Council to extend the sales tax to provide $120 million in recurring
annual revenue to Philadelphia's public schools.
We will hold an optional webinar on
Wednesday, April 23 at 4:00 p.m. to prepare you with talking points and more
background information. RSVP for the webinar or day of action here.
Please RSVP, forward this email to your colleagues and
join us on the 24th in sending a unified message to City Council members that
the legal community supports public education.
Public Citizens for Children and Youth
(PCCY) will Host an Education Funding Forum in Delaware County on May 7th
On May
7th, PCCY will host a forum that discusses the state of school
funding in Delaware
County 501 Bywood Avenue ,
Upper Darby PA 19082 from 6:30pm-8pm.
Attendees will get a budget update from Sharon Ward of the Pennsylvania
Budget and Policy Center , hear from School Board members representing
Upper Darby, William Penn, and Haverford
School Districts
Please
RSVP by clicking here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1OjFpJwTHnZwRqh0Q5Tdp0KHYaI1Jg0XNvGpmeYMmIyA/viewform
PSBA Advocacy Forum and Day on the Hill
May 5-6, Mechanicsburg & Harrisburg
Make an impact on the legislative process by attending PSBA’s Advocacy Forum and Day on the Hill, May 5-6. Day one will provide legislative insights on pensions, training on being an effective advocate, and media relations. Dr. G. Terry Madonna, leading Pennsylvania political analyst, will discuss the legislative landscape in his usual lively and informative style. How to Be an Effective Advocate -- Hear from former Allwein Advocacy Award winners Larry Feinberg, Roberta Marcus and Tina Viletto on how to successfully support your issues. At noon, Rep. Dave Reed, Majority Policy Chairman, will address participants.
On day two, participants will start with a breakfast at the Harrisburg Hilton with Lt. Gov. Jim Cawley as guest speaker and then hit the ground running with visits to legislative offices in the State CapitolSpace is limited so register early. Click here for more details and to register online.
May 5-6, Mechanicsburg & Harrisburg
Make an impact on the legislative process by attending PSBA’s Advocacy Forum and Day on the Hill, May 5-6. Day one will provide legislative insights on pensions, training on being an effective advocate, and media relations. Dr. G. Terry Madonna, leading Pennsylvania political analyst, will discuss the legislative landscape in his usual lively and informative style. How to Be an Effective Advocate -- Hear from former Allwein Advocacy Award winners Larry Feinberg, Roberta Marcus and Tina Viletto on how to successfully support your issues. At noon, Rep. Dave Reed, Majority Policy Chairman, will address participants.
On day two, participants will start with a breakfast at the Harrisburg Hilton with Lt. Gov. Jim Cawley as guest speaker and then hit the ground running with visits to legislative offices in the State CapitolSpace is limited so register early. Click here for more details and to register online.
Registration
fee of $50 includes lunch and dinner on May 5 and breakfast on May
6.
Educating the Voter: A Forum on Public
Education featuring Democratic gubernatorial candidates - April 30th 6:00 pm
Phila Central Library
Presented by Committee of Seventy, Congresso and
Philadelphia Education Fund
Wednesday,
April 30, 2014 at 6:00PM
Join Democratic gubernatorial candidates Katie McGinty, Tom Wolf, Allyson Schwartz and Rob McCord for a discussion on public education.
Please
click here to
register.
PSBA members in Bucks, Montgomery, Chester and Delaware
Counties
PSBA Buxmont Region 11 and Penns Grant
Region 15 Combined Region/Legislative Meeting -- Thursday, May 15, at William
Tennent High School
- Buffet
dinner/registration, 6 p.m. ($8 charge for dinner) - Program, 7:30 p.m. -- Minority
Senate Education Committee Chair Hon. Andy Dinniman will introduce guest
speaker Diane Ravitch, author and education historian, and former Assistant
Secretary of Education. Retiring House
Education Committee Chairman Paul Clymer will also be honored for his long time
(1981) public service.
How the Business Community Can Lead on
Early Education
Economy
League of Greater Philadelphia
Join
business and community leaders to learn about how you can help make sure every
child arrives in kindergarten ready to succeed. On April 29th, the Economy
League of Greater Philadelphia and the United Way of Greater Philadelphia and
Southern New Jersey will host a forum featuring business leaders from around
the country talking about why they’re focused on early childhood education and
how they have moved the needle on improving quality and access in their states.
Featured
Speakers
- Jack Brennan, Chairman Emeritus of The
Vanguard Group
- Phil Peterson, Partner, Aon Hewitt and
Co-Chair of America’s Edge/Ready Nation
- And more to be announced!
- Date & Time Tuesday, April
29, 2014 | 5-7 PM
Registration begins at 5 PM;
program from 5:30 to 7:00 PM
- Location Federal Reserve Bank of
Philadelphia
10 North Independence Mall West Philadelphia,
PA 19106
Registration:
http://worldclassgreaterphila.org/worldclasscouncilforum
PILCOP Special Education Seminars 2014
Schedule
Public
Interest Law Center of Philadelphia
Tuesday, April 29th,
12-4 p.m.
Wednesday, May 14th,
1-5 p.m. and 6-8 p.m.
2014 PA Gubernatorial Candidate Plans for Education
and Arts/Culture in PA
Education Policy and Leadership Center
Below is an alphabetical list of the 2014
Gubernatorial Candidates and links to information about their plans, if
elected, for education and arts/culture in Pennsylvania. This list will be updated, as more
information becomes available.
Hope to more updates and support for career training programs online. This is the new trend and effective way on proving education.
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