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
Follow us on Twitter at @lfeinberg
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?
The "Public Good"
Is Not a Dirty Word: Rebuilding Our Collective Responsibility
EPLC Education Notebook Monday, April
7, 2014
Education
Policy and Leadership
Center
SB1085: Pa.
George Bonekemper of Pennsburg
worked for 33 years in public education in positions ranging from classroom teacher
to superintendent and spent 12 years in higher education as a coordinator of
professional development schools. He also served 12 years on a local school
board.
After
16 years without significant change, reforms to the Pennsylvania ’s charter school laws must be
made immediately. Current Senate Bill 1085 increases the problems by extending
charter schools to higher education institutions without providing any
safeguards for the local taxpayers and students in terms of financial and
academic accountability. The net cost
for school districts for students attending charter schools increased from $434
million in 2006-07 to $1.15 billion in 2011-12. According to the auditor
general’s special report in 2012, education funding reform would save taxpayers
a million dollars a day. The flawed funding formula had Pennsylvania spending over $3,000 more per
student compared to the national average, making it the highest spender of the
five states with the highest charter enrollment.
"If school district schools are achieving better
academic results, even if those results are also below state standards,
nonrenewal of the charter will place students in schools that
better satisfy state educational requirements," writes Senior Judge
Colins.
WITF by Ben
Allen, General Assignment Reporter | Apr 8, 2014 9:49 AM
(Harrisburg )
-- In a decision
posted this morning, the Commonwealth
Court has affirmed the York City School District
Board of Directors's decision to revoke the charter for New Hope Charter
School
In Pittsburgh
Penn Live By on
April 08, 2014 at 9:20 PM
PITTSBURGH _ He wasn’t on stage on Tuesday night,
but Gov. Tom Corbett -- and
his cuts to public education -- was target No. 1 as this year’s crop of
Democratic gubernatorial candidates touted their policy prescriptions for
Pennsylvania’s cash-strapped public schools.
The Republican governor’s name was never far from the mouths of
candidates Tom Wolf, Katie
McGinty, Allyson Schwartz and Rob McCord during
a televised, one-hour, education-only forum held on the campus of a magnet
school in the city’s East Liberty
section. Each of the hopefuls heaped
blame at Corbett’s feet for a litany of offenses ranging
from what they said was his lackluster support for early childhood education
programs to the absence of an equitable funding formula for the state’s 500
school districts.
Dem gubernatorial candidates
pledge boost in education funding
Pittsburgh
Tribune-Review By Melissa
Daniels Tuesday,
April 8, 2014, 9:39 p.m
The four candidates
fielded questions on the state's funding formula, testing, charter school
accountability and teacher performance Tuesday night during the first
issue-based debate of the Pennsylvania
Democratic gubernatorial primary. Many
of the approximately 300 people in attendance at Pittsburgh Obama Academy in
East Liberty wore stickers boasting the names of their candidate of choice
during the 90-minute education debate, hosted by the Pennsylvania Interfaith
Impact Network and education activism collective Yinzercation. The platforms of state Treasurer Rob McCord,
former Department of Environmental Protection secretary Katie McGinty, U.S.
Rep. Allyson Schwartz of Philadelphia and York County
All support a new state formula to equalize school district
funding. All support reforming charter school funding, and all say they would
boost funding for early childhood education. http://triblive.com/news/adminpage/5903816-74/education-funding-candidates#axzz2yHv2EzWt
PA Senate Education Committee
Unanimously Advances Special Ed Funding and Basic Ed Commission Bills
April 8, 2014 Read bill
summaries here:
Blogger commentary: There is a profound and marked contrast
between the views expressed by Helen Gym in this White House blog posting and
the views manifested by "education reformers" such as the Waltons and
the Philadelphia School
The "Public Good"
Is Not a Dirty Word: Rebuilding Our Collective Responsibility
The White House Blog
posted by Helen Gym on April 04, 2014 at 10:17 AM EDT
Helen Gym is being honored as a Cesar E. Chavez Champion of
Change.
I was raised in Columbus , Ohio
There is no question
that our collective spaces are becoming increasingly diminished. In Philadelphia , our
drastically underfunded public school system—where my three children attend—is in virtual freefall
from spiraling political and financial disinvestment. Our school district has
closed dozens of public schools and stripped essential services from each and
every school community.
In
2013 the Walton Family Foundation provided $1.87 million in grant funding to
the Philadelphia Schools Partnership
"Dump the losers" With Walton funding in the mix, PSP's O'Neill
(BLOCS), Bravacos (REACH
Foundation), Yass (Center for
Education Reform) have Mark Gleason as their point man to privatize
Philadelphia public education. Here's
some background……
"Jerome V. Kramer, the editor in chief of Book since
its inception, said in an interview that he understood Barnes & Noble's
motivation. ''If you're a public company beholden to your shareholders and
you're responsible for providing good quarterly reports, experimenting in the
magazine publishing industry is not the best place to be,'' he said. Because the magazine was so dependent on Barnes
& Noble, Mr. Kramer and Book's publisher, Mark J. Gleason, said they had
little hope it could be saved. A venture started by Mr. Gleason and Mr. Kramer
is Barnes & Noble's partner in Book."
Book Magazine Will Be Closed
New York Times By JACQUES STEINBERG Published: October 22, 2003
Book magazine, which profiles authors and their works in much
the way that People magazine reports on celebrities, said yesterday that it
would cease publication after its November/December issue because its co-owner,
Barnes & Noble, was withdrawing financial support. The
magazine, which was founded in 1998, has lost more than $1 million this year
and needed more cash. Barnes & Noble, which invested $4.2 million in the
publication in 2000 and gave the operation a loan of $2.5 million a year later,
has decided to make no further investment.
At its peak, Book had
nearly 1.4 million subscribers, but only because Barnes & Noble offered a
free, one-year subscription to customers who signed up for its Readers
Advantage program. After Barnes & Noble ended the free subscription program
in March 2002, Book's circulation declined to 150,000.
PA House Rs seek pension
sponsors
Post-Gazette early
Returns by Karen Langley and Kate Giammarise on Tuesday, 08 April 2014 3:58 pm.
A sign of possible
movement on pensions here at the Capitol: House Republicans say they are about
to circulate a request for co-sponsors for a plan they have been discussing
with the Corbett administration.
"It is reflective of a bicameral effort between the House, the
Senate and the administration," said Jay Pagni, who serves as a spokesman
for Budget Secretary Charles Zogby (as well as for Gov. Tom Corbett). Legislative language is being drafted, said
Steve Miskin, spokesman for House Republicans.
Philly Parents weigh prospect
of turning schools over to charter operators
the notebook by Kevin
McCorry for NewsWorks on Apr 08 2014
Tara Magras has close
ties with Edward T. Steel Elementary in Nicetown.
She lives a block from
the school, volunteers there almost everyday, entrusts her three young children
to the faculty and staff. Although she
concedes that the school's "test scores are low," the prospect of
Steel becoming a charter school makes her uneasy. "I don't have anything against
charters," she said in an interview outside of the school. "It's just
that I like the teachers here."
Magras' reaction comes on the heels of the Philadelphia School
District
City Controller Faults
Secrecy Amid School District’s Financial Mess
CBS Philly By Mike Dunn April 8,
2014 12:17 PM
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — Philadelphia ’s Controller says a culture of secrecy
pervades the School District , making it
difficult for anyone to get to the root of the district’s massive deficits.
At a city council budget
hearing on Tuesday, Controller Alan Butkovitz was questioned by Councilman
David Oh, who voiced frustration that council is rarely given a true sense of
the school district’s financial books.
“We try to get information from the school district about their
finances, what’s working, what’s not working,” Oh said. “And we can never get
that information. And we end up in a crunch situation, having to try to get
money, squeezing blood from a stone out of the citizens of this city. And
there’s a real issue about whether we’re putting good money after bad.” Butkovitz agreed and said the secrecy goes
back decades.
Scream all you want, caring
about Philly schools isn't optional
Philly Daily News by HELEN
UBINAS POSTED: Tuesday, April 8, 2014, 3:01 AM
"SCREW YOU!" That, generally, was the chord that was
struck by last week's column about Bartram High belonging to all of us. Last I checked there were more than 600
comments in response to the column where I suggested that collective negligence
and complicity and - yes - racism helped turn a city school into a war zone. In case you missed it, besides recent
lunchtime brawls and an assault on a conflict-resolution specialist by a
17-year-old student, teachers and students described an environment where chaos
reigns. Since, the district has added police and implemented other policies at
the school to reduce violence. Great, but as I said, unless we own our part in
disastrous urban schools, the efforts will amount to nothing more than a
Band-Aid.
Standardized curriculums are
stifling creativity
This week, my
10-year-old will finish his seventh school day marked by PSSA testing in the
past two weeks. I have told my children that I consider these tests to be a
very poor measure of what I believe to be important. My son rebuts that if he
doesn't do well, his school will lose money or his teacher will get in trouble.
He confides that this is a source of anxiety. Somewhere along the line, someone
conveyed to him that his test performance has dire consequences for people he
cares about. I send my children off to
school these days with a sense of dread. I know that they are in the hands of
caring and capable teachers and administrators. Yet, I know that
something is seriously amiss and that these people don't have the power to
change it.
Plan calls for reopening Hannah Penn, hopes for salary
concessions
A draft 2014-15 budget
for the York City School District
"The budget is not
just a collection of numbers," Supt. Eric Holmes told the board. "The
budget is an educational philosophy – what you want to do as a school
district."
“The work of Benjamin Herold and
his colleagues in this series asks — and answers — all the right questions
about Philadelphia
Education Writers
Association Single-Topic News or
Feature Medium Newsroom
FIRST PRIZE: Philadelphia Public School
Coverage of Philadelphia School
Network for Public Education's
Anthony Cody won an award for entries in
his Living in Dialogue opinion blog on edweek.org about the Common Core
State
Education Week By on April
7, 2014 5:43 PM
Reports about special
education, charter schools, and school closings are among the first-prize
winners in the annual contest of the Education Writers Association announced on
Monday.
Some 260 news
organizations, ranging from as small as a three-person operation to newspapers
and broadcast outlets with hundreds of employees, submitted some 430 entries in
26 categories in the 2013 National Awards for Education
Reporting. Out of those, 72 entries were chosen for awards of first,
second, or third prizes. (The links below are to EWA's collection of each
submission.)
Toomey touts bill aimed at
protecting students from sexual predators
By John
Kopp, Delaware County Daily
U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., is trying to get a child abuse
prevention bill to unanimously pass the Senate by the end of the month. The Protecting Students from Sexual and
Violent Predators Act would require schools to perform criminal background
checks on all employees and contractors who have contact with students. It also
would prevent schools from knowingly transferring employees who have engaged in
sexual misconduct. The legislation
unanimously passed the House of Representatives last year. Toomey sponsored a
companion bill that has sat in committee since being introduced in late October.
Putting Student Data To The
Test To Identify Struggling Kids
NPR from WLRN
by SAMMY MACK April 08, 2014 5:46 PM ET
All
Things Considered 5 min 45 sec
At Miami Carol City Senior High in Florida , a handful of teachers,
administrators and coaches are gathered around a heavy wooden table in a
conference room dubbed the "War Room," looking through packets of
information about several students. There
are others at the table, too: analysts from the group Talent Development
Secondary, which monitors student data; City Year, a nonprofit that provides
mentors; and Communities in Schools, which connects kids with health care and
social services. It's a lot of cooks in
the kitchen, but they're all here to help students who are just starting to
show signs of trouble. The process works
like this: analyst Jennifer Savino gathers information on attendance, behavior
and performance in math and English. Then, based on some dropout risk studies from
Johns Hopkins University
Congress: Bipartisan Charter,
Research Bills Sail Through House Education Committee
Education Week Politics
K-12 Blog By on April
8, 2014 1:06 PM
After months of gridlock
on a range of K-12 issues, the House education panel gave swift, bipartisan
approval Tuesday to two education bills. One, a reauthorization
of the Education Sciences Reform Act, is aimed at making education research
more timely, relevant, and accessible. It was approved by a quick, unanimous
vote. The other, a charter
school bill, is aimed at growing more high-quality charters and encouraging
them to better serve students with disabilities and English-language learners.
That bill also won swift approval, but not before a number of committee
Democrats lambasted charter schools for siphoning off resources from other
public schools—before voting for the legislation anyway. The bill passed 36 to
3.
Is the Stress of Poverty to
Blame for Academic Failure?
Education Week FInding Common Ground Blog By on April
8, 2014 6:39 AM
Today's guest blog is written by Pamela Cantor, M.D. Pam is the
President and CEO of Turnaround for Children.
Every three years, 15
year-olds from around the world take a test to measure proficiency in reading,
math and science, and every three years, the results for American students
disappoint. Here are the latest: 36th place in math (behind Slovakia
but just ahead of Lithuania ),
28th in science, and 24th in reading (5 notches below Vietnam ). Disappointing, but not
the whole story.
In US schools where the
poverty rate is less than 10% our students finish at or near the top of the
world. However, in schools where the poverty rate climbs past 75% the US drops toward the bottom of the pack, (after Cyprus and Kazakhstan ). What does that tell you? One thing it tells
me is that schools with high concentrations of poverty are at high risk for
academic failure. Dig deeper and discover what is at the root of this
risk: a predictable, recurring set of cognitive, social, and emotional
obstacles to learning that stem from the stress of poverty. The good news is
that knowing this enables us to design schools to address these obstacles and
help all children, no matter their zip code, succeed.
Chicago charters do no better
than traditional public schools, new study finds
An examination of every score that Chicago students earned on
state-mandated standardized tests last year reveals that charter schools —
which Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D) has been promoting — don’t perform any better than
traditional public schools. The analysis,
conducted by the Chicago Sun-Times and the Medill Data Project at Northwestern University U.S. history.
Today there are more than 130 charters in Chicago
and more are scheduled to open this year, and nearly one of every seven Chicago public school
students attends charters or other schools run by private entities, according
to the Chicago Sun-Times.
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
Dinnimann will introduce guest speaker Diane Ravitch, author and education
historian, and former Assistant Secretary of Education.
Pennsylvania Governor's
School for the Agricultural Sciences
Deadline to Apply: April 25, 2014
When: July 13 to August 9, 2014 Penn State
University
PGSAS provides a broad
overview of the diverse fields of agriculture and natural resources. Interested
high school students and their parents should review this website to learn more
about requirements and the application process.
Pennsylvania Governor’s
School for Engineering and Technology
Application must be
postmarked by April 18, 2014.
July 20, 2014 - August
2, 2014 Lehigh University
| Bethlehem , Pennsylvania
The Pennsylvania
Governor’s School for Engineering and Technology (PGSE&T) is a two-week
summer residential program for talented high school students of science and
mathematics. Sponsored by the Pennsylvania Department of Education and hosted
by the P.C. Rossin College of Engineering and Applied Science at Lehigh University
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
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
nominations for offices now open!
Deadline 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.
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.
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