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Keystone
State Education Coalition
PA
Ed Policy Roundup Aug 31, 2017:
“While
Rubinstein’s language was hyperbolic, data from the Pennsylvania Department of
Education confirms his claim about KIPP middle schools in Philadelphia — at
least until recently. KIPP’s 35 percent college graduation rate was for the
graduating class of eighth graders in 2007 — the first cohort of KIPP students
who graduated from KIPP Philadelphia middle school. That cohort contained just
33 students in eighth grade, but when the same cohort entered fifth grade
at the school it had 86 students. “
Replacing
students who leave -- the debate over "backfilling"
Some charters have engaged in the practice of not
"backfilling" if enrollment declines, raising concerns that their
achievement data is skewed. District-run neighborhood schools must take all
area students who apply.
The notebook by Greg Windle August 29, 2017 — 3:34pm
The flexibility that charter schools have in choosing whether or
not to fill vacated seats with new students, also known as “backfilling,” has
long been the subject of controversy. Critics of charters argue that a school’s
statistics can be improved by choosing not to replace students who leave, but
neighborhood public schools do not have that option—they have to accept every
student in the catchment area who shows up wanting an education. “We have
heard estimates that there are 1,400 empty seats in charter schools during any
given year, even while many charters claim to have long wait lists,” said
councilwoman Helen Gym in a statement this month citing the District Finance
Office. “Empty seats in charters — whether they open up because students are
forced to leave or leave on their own — is a major point of contention for
those who care about improving accountability and leveling the playing field
between charter and public schools.” KIPP Philadelphia cites a college-graduation
rate, 35 percent for students who graduated from its original city
middle school, as far exceeding the 9 percent rate for low-income students
nationally. But the statistic has come
under fire from education blogger Gary Rubinstein, a public school math
teacher in New York City, who called it “nothing more than a lie generated
by KIPP’s PR department” because it did not replace students who left between
fifth and eighth grades.
“The
Inquirer’s analysis of the state’s 88 charter schools found that almost all of
the schools differ by at least 10 percentage points from their districts in at
least one of three major demographic categories — race, socio-economic status,
or English language proficiency.”
Are
charter schools contributing to segregation? What New Jersey can tell us
Inquirer by Maddie
Hanna & Jonathan
Lai - Staff Writers AUGUST
31, 2017 3:01 AM EDT
The Red Bank Charter School, one of New Jersey’s longest-running,
occupies an old home joined with a former elementary school building. Its
brightly decorated classrooms are filled with a mix of faces: white, Hispanic,
and black students, dressed in navy blue and khaki. “What makes the school
special is, we are integrated. That’s hard to do,” said Meredith Pennotti, the
charter school’s principal. Critics see it differently. By competing for
students in Red Bank, the charter school has been accused of contributing to
segregation of the Monmouth County borough’s traditional public schools, where
82 percent of students in the same grades are Hispanic, compared with 44
percent in the charter. Advocates and public school officials in several New
Jersey districts with charter schools have leveled similar accusations,
spurring legal challenges and a federal investigation, and stoking debate about
the distribution of resources and the persistence of school segregation, even
in diverse communities. New Jersey’s charter schools often don’t mirror the
demographics of other public schools in their districts, an Inquirer analysis
found — though whether they should, and how closely, is a subject of contention
in both courts and communities. Nationally, studies comparing charter and
traditional school enrollments and tracking student transfers have found
greater segregation of students as a result of charters.
Blogger
note: here are two related prior blog postings detailing similar issues with
the charter school populations at two flagship high-performing charters: Success
Academy in New York and Boy’s Latin in Philly.
“every cohort loses at least a third of
its students from freshman to senior year”
Jersey Jazzman Blog Thursday,
July 20, 2017
A follow-up to yesterday's
post: As I noted, NBC's Sunday Night with Megan Kelly broadcast
a story earlier this month about Boys Latin Charter School, a
"successful" charter school in Philadelphia which claims to
have ten
times the college completion rate of its neighboring high schools. To his credit, reporter
Craig Melvin didn't swallow the claims of the school whole, and pushed back on
the idea that Boys Latin serves an equivalent student population to those
surrounding high schools. But he did miss two important points: First, and as I
documented in the last post, Boys Latin raises funds outside of the monies it
collects from public sources. The amounts add up to thousands of dollars per
pupil per year.
·
Fewer
students with disabilities.
·
Fewer
Limited English Proficient students.
·
Fewer
economically disadvantaged students.
·
Higher
cohort attrition rates.
Something else we know about SA -- their philanthropic
infrastructure gives them an enormous resource
advantage:”Jersey Jazzman Blog Monday, August 21, 2017
"THE" Jose Vilson had a Twitter
thread up this past week about an encounter with a parent whose
child is enrolled in one of the Success Academy Charter Schools. I won't quote
it here because I really want you to read the whole thing, then come back so we
can talk...
Whenever I hear anecdotes about charter schools, my first reaction is to go to the data. Not because I don't think stories like this parent's are worthwhile -- to the contrary, they are very important and should be told. But I do believe data can help to confirm what we might already suspect. And what do I suspect about Success Academy? I've been teaching long enough to know that schools and teachers vary significantly in their effectiveness, and both can make a difference in the lives of children -- particularly children who are living in economic disadvantage. But I also know that the reformy claims of "miracle" schools are almost always way overblown. Yes, some charter schools get better results than we would expect. Yes, some may engage in a few innovative practices that might be worth considering. But schools like Success Academy almost always have structural advantages -- advantages that have nothing to do with their governance -- over the schools against which they compare themselves:
Whenever I hear anecdotes about charter schools, my first reaction is to go to the data. Not because I don't think stories like this parent's are worthwhile -- to the contrary, they are very important and should be told. But I do believe data can help to confirm what we might already suspect. And what do I suspect about Success Academy? I've been teaching long enough to know that schools and teachers vary significantly in their effectiveness, and both can make a difference in the lives of children -- particularly children who are living in economic disadvantage. But I also know that the reformy claims of "miracle" schools are almost always way overblown. Yes, some charter schools get better results than we would expect. Yes, some may engage in a few innovative practices that might be worth considering. But schools like Success Academy almost always have structural advantages -- advantages that have nothing to do with their governance -- over the schools against which they compare themselves:
The State of Redistricting Litigation
(August 2017 Edition)
A round up of where key redistricting cases across the country
stand.
The Brennan Center by Michael Li, Thomas Wolf, Alexis
Farmer August 30, 2017The League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania and a group of Democratic Pennsylvania voters filed suit on June 15, 2017 to have the state’s 2011 congressional map invalidated as an illegal partisan gerrymander under the state constitution.
Pa.
court to decide whether to hear partisan gerrymandering suit similar to case
before U.S. Supreme Court
WHYY Newsworks BY LINDSAY LAZARSKI, WHYY AUGUST 31, 2017Tom Rentschler, an attorney and former high school teacher, has lived in Berks County for most of his life. He remembers as a young adult going to the grocery store and bumping into his local congressman. But Rentschler, 53, says over time he and other voters in Berks County have lost their voice. "I just don't think we have anyone speaking for our county," he says. Berks County once made up a large portion of the 6th U.S. Congressional District. But the last time districts were redrawn in 2011, Berks' more than 400,000 residents were sliced and diced into four separate congressional districts. Rentschler says his family's economic well-being and future depends on the success of the region as a whole. And having separate representatives in congress undermines those prospects. "To me that just weakens the county and the city's chances for federal funding. It could be for law enforcement, it could be for poverty programs, it could be for health programs, social programs. It just weakens the Reading and Berks County community, and to me that's the biggest impact," he says. Rentschler lives just outside of the city of Reading in Exeter Township, which remains in the 6th District. So does most of Reading's suburbs. But Reading, the largest city in Berks, was carved out of the 6th District entirely, separated from its neighboring suburbs, and grouped into the largely rural 16th District, which encompasses much of Lancaster County.
Tension
rises between Pa. House GOP and Wolf; state's general fund teeters near zero
WHYY Newsworks BY KATIE MEYER, WITF AUGUST 30, 2017
The main fund Pennsylvania uses to pay its bills would have hit
zero this week, if not for a $700 million transfer from the state’s Motor
License Fund. The transfer buys the state a little time, according to a
spokesman for Gov. Tom Wolf, and allows it to at least make payments to school
districts for the start of the school year. Wolf sent a dire letter to House
Republican leaders Monday urging them to pass the Senate budget plan quickly to
prevent an interruption of state programs. In recent weeks, the state Treasury
and the governor have been warning repeatedly that the general fund is close to
empty. Usually when that happens, the Treasury loans money to tide the fund
over. But Treasurer Joe Torsella has said he won’t do so without balancing the
budget — which is still $2.2 billion short. The short-term Motor License
transfer is highly unusual, and the money will likely run out around Sept. 15. It’s unclear what Wolf will do if that
happens and there’s still no revenue plan in sight. Treasury spokesman Michael
Connolly said options include deferring payments or freezing spending.
Does Pennsylvania spend too much, tax too
little? We crunch the numbers
WHTM By Dennis
Owens Published: August 29, 2017, 6:19 pm August 29,
2017, 6:23 pm
HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHTM) – “I hope people that are listening hear me
loud and clear,” Republican gubernatorial candidate and state Sen. Scott Wagner
said. And then he recited a mantra that numerous conservatives at the Capitol
have adopted: “We don’t have a revenue problem, we have a spending
problem.” State Sen. John DiSanto (R-Dauphin/Perry) stuck to the script during
last week’s “This Week in Pennsylvania.” “It’s a spending problem. It’s not a
revenue problem,” DiSanto said. This year’s $32 billion budget overwhelmingly
passed in the legislature. Is $32 billion too much? Do we spend too much? “We absolutely
have a spending problem,” said Nate Benefield of the conservative Commonwealth
Foundation. He, apparently, got the memo. “We are not under-taxing our citizens. We are spending more than
we should be,” he said. But are we? ABC27 compiled the state budgets of Pennsylvania’s
neighbors for comparison.
In terms of land mass, Pennsylvania is bigger than every border
state except New York. In terms of population, Pennsylvania is bigger than
every border state except New York.
But in terms of its state budget, Pennsylvania’s $32 billion is
lower than every border state except West Virginia and Delaware. Ohio
and Maryland spend more. Tiny New Jersey spends more. New York spends a
lot more. It’s a Eureka moment for many liberals. “We don’t have a spending
problem,” said Marc Stier of the left-leaning Budget and Policy Center. “We
have a problem of taxing too little and from the wrong people.” Stier’s
conclusion: Pennsylvania spends too little on schools, social programs, and the
environment because it taxes its highest earners too little.
Blogger
note: no state in the country has eliminated the school property tax
State
senators discuss possibly eliminating school property tax in Pa.
POSTED 10:44 PM, AUGUST 30, 2017, BY CAITLIN SINETT
KINZERS, Pa. -- State senators held a public forum in Lancaster
County Wednesday night to discuss what to do about the school property tax
system in Pennsylvania. That meeting was held at Pequea Velley High School in
Kinzers. Lawmakers discussed proposed bills to improve the system, that could
possibly reform or eliminate school property taxes altogether. One of the bill
that would eliminate school property taxes would increase personal income tax
and sales tax. State Senator Dave Argall said, "The way that we fund public
schools today is an outmoded, archaic, I think unconstitutional 1834 model. I
tell everyone there has to be a better way to fund public schools than the
crazy way we do it today." Argall said there will be a vote this fall on a
constitutional amendment that he said would be a step toward eliminating school
property tax.
Blogger
note: the following article provides a good understanding of the amount of
public discussion and transparency that the state requires elected school
boards to manifest when discussing and voting on spending their neighbors’ tax
dollars. There is no requirement for
charter schools, and if a charter contracts with a private management company (like
Chester Community Charter) the public knows virtually nothing about how their
tax dollars are spent.
“Contributing
factors into the budget will include the ever-increasing contributions to the
Pennsylvania Public School Employees’ Retirement pension program (PSERS) and
potential savings in charter school payments after the district launched its
own cyber academy this year. The cyber academy was established to lure back
students from (online) charter schools. With each student enrolled in a cyber
charter school that elects to attend the Upper Darby Cyber Academy instead,
there will be a reduced expenditure to charter schools in the amount of
approximately $9,500 per regular education student and $27,900 per each special
education student. Online charter school payments were expected to rise to $4.7
million this year for approximately 470 students, equal to 2.35 percent of the
overall budget. According to district spokeswoman Dana Spino, 100 regular
education students would have to return to the district from a charter school
to realize savings after the initial investment.”
Upper
Darby outlines 2018-19 school budget calendar
Delco Times By Kevin Tustin, ktustin@21st-centurymedia.com, @KevinTustin on
Twitter POSTED: 08/30/17, 9:11 PM
EDT | UPDATED: 59 SECS AGO
UPPER DARBY >> Two months into the current fiscal year,
administrators in the Upper Darby School District are wasting no time with next
year’s budget. District Chief Financial Officer Patrick Grant released the
2018-19 budget calendar at a recent school board meeting giving a detailed
outline of events pertaining to the adoption of a budget by June 30, 2018. Starting
on Sept. 1, the Pennsylvania Department of Education will release the Act 1
base index with school districts knowing their individual indices on Sept. 30.
The Act 1 index pertains to the highest possible tax increase a school district
is allowed to issue before going to voter referendum. No major action is
scheduled until a special voting session of the board on Dec. 19 when it will
approve a preliminary 2018-19 budget, or pass a resolution indicating that
taxes will not be raised above the Act 1 index. If in December the board agrees
to a preliminary budget, it will be presented on Jan. 23 and then formally
adopted on Feb. 3. A preliminary budget will not be presented if the board
adopts the Dec. 19 resolution to not raise taxes over its index. Come May 16,
the proposed final budget will be presented and made available for public
inspection with adoption on May 22.
The final budget, tax levy and a homestead/farmstead exclusion
resolution will be adopted during a special meeting of the board on June 19.
Reducing
standardized test-taking time is good for students and learning
Bucks County Courier Times Opinion By Dolores McCracken August 30,
2017
Dolores McCracken is a paraprofessional in the Council Rock School District,
and vice president of the 180,000-member Pennsylvania State Education
Association. McCracken will become PSEA president on Sept. 2.
I’ve worked in public schools for decades, and I’ve seen firsthand
the effects of over testing on Pennsylvania’s students. Time and time again, I
saw it in their faces and in their body language -- the stress and anxiety in
some; the utter boredom and frustration in others. And I’ve seen the same
frustration in their teachers, classroom aides, and support professionals.
They’ve been frustrated because they know that the seemingly endless focus on
standardized testing is taking away valuable instruction time -- standing in
the way of real teaching and real learning. I remember a student who was so
stressed about doing well on the PSSAs that she insisted on coming to school to
take them -- even though she was sick. This child’s mother wanted to keep her
daughter home from school, because she was running a fever. But the girl was so
scared of “failing” her PSSAs that she begged her mother to take her. The
mother relented, reluctantly, and drove her in -- fever and all. Only after her
teachers assured her that she could take the test another day did the girl
agree to go home, rest, and get well. This is one of thousands of examples of
what it means to over test our students. And these are the kinds of stories
that educators have been telling policymakers for years. That’s why I’m so
excited that Gov. Tom Wolf plans to scale back the time kids spend on the
Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) tests by spring 2018 – knocking
that time down by 20 percent for many students.
Spring-Ford
School Board, teachers agree to four-year contract
By Eric
Devlin, The Mercury POSTED: 08/29/17, 5:32 PM EDT | UPDATED: 20 HRS AGO
ROYERSFORD >> The Spring-Ford Area School Board and
Spring-Ford Education Association teachers union agreed to a new four-year
contract that includes an average salary and benefits increase of 4 percent a
year over the next four years, according to the district. The school board
approved the contract by an 8-0 vote Monday night. The contract makes up approximately
68 percent of the district’s $157 million annual budget, or approximately $106
million, Chief Financial Officer James Fink said. The average yearly 4 percent
increase includes salary, health care and retirement benefits. By the end of
the four-year agreement, only one health care plan option will be available,
helping to control the overall district health care costs. The new contract
will have no impact on the district’s budget this year, said Fink. The district
made some assumptions about how much it would have to spend on a new contract
when creating a budget for this year and “(we) were right on with the
assumptions that we made.”
After
decades of pushing bachelor’s degrees, U.S. needs more tradespeople
BY MATT
KRUPNICK, THE HECHINGER REPORT August 29, 2017 at 1:40 PM EDT
FONTANA, Calif. — At a steel factory dwarfed by the adjacent Auto
Club Speedway, Fernando Esparza is working toward his next promotion. Esparza
is a 46-year-old mechanic for Evolution Fresh, a subsidiary of Starbucks that
makes juices and smoothies. He’s taking a class in industrial computing taught
by a community college at a local manufacturing plant in the hope it will bump
up his wages. It’s a pretty safe bet. The skills being taught here are in high
demand. That’s in part because so much effort has been put into encouraging
high school graduates to go to college for academic degrees rather than for
training in industrial and other trades that many fields like his face worker
shortages. Now California is spending $6 million on a campaign to revive the reputation of
vocational education, and $200 million to improve the delivery of it.
In
'Historic' Compromise, Illinois Lawmakers Pass School Funding Formula
Education Week State Ed Watch By Daarel Burnette II on August 30, 2017
8:16 AM
After years of political wrangling that divided the state both
politically and regionally, Illinois' Senate Tuesday gave the green light to a
new school funding formula, that provides poor and rural districts with more
money and expands tax credit scholarships. Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner
said he will soon sign it into law. Illinois was one of the last states
in the country that had a funding formula that relied mostly on property taxes,
an antiquated and legally questionable way of basing school funding. The
process, critics and several state supreme court justices across the country
have argued, leaves property-poor districts, and those, presumably, with a
disproportionate number of poor students, with significantly less money to go
around. The funding formula passed Tuesday pitches in $350 million more
from the state annually to shore up property-poor districts with extra money.
The state's rural, suburban, and Chicago districts have been at odds for years
over how to redesign the funding formula, which both Republicans and Democrats
said was flawed.
Editorial:
Rauner’s Big School Victory
The Illinois Governor wins a choice program for poor students.
Wall Street Journal By The Editorial Board
Aug. 30, 2017 7:05 p.m. ET
Illinois residents have watched for years as their taxes go up
while public services and schools deteriorate. But GOP Gov. Bruce Rauner will
deliver Prairie Staters some good news Thursday by signing into law an
inaugural state private-school choice program. The Democratic legislature this
week approved a $100 million tax-credit scholarship program along with a new
school funding formula that provides an additional $450 million for the
insolvent Chicago Public Schools. The Governor earlier this summer vetoed
legislation that appropriated $300 million more for Chicago schools, but
Democrats lacked the votes to override him. Mr. Rauner demanded a private
school tax-credit scholarship program in return for his signature, and
Democrats ultimately conceded despite union protests. Illinois businesses and
individuals will receive a 75% tax credit for donations that support
scholarships for low-income kids to attend private schools. Families earning up
to 300% of the poverty line—$73,000 for a household of four—will be eligible in
the first year and could continue to receive scholarships if their income rises
to 400%. The program is capped at $100 million, which is still the largest
first year allocation of any state scholarship program. Kids who attend failing
schools or come from low-income families will have priority.
How
to get kids to look away from their screens and take pleasure in books
Washington Post By Nora Krug August 28
In the summer, there were lots of excuses: camp, the pool,
the beach, lazy days when it didn’t seem so bad if your kids were still in
their pajamas and maybe watching a little TV or noodling around on an iPad. It
was vacation, right? They’d read when school started. Wouldn’t pressuring them
lead to resistance? Now they’re back in school and you’re up against something
perhaps even more daunting: homework. (Also, soccer practice, piano lessons,
play dates and on and on.) How do you squeeze book-reading into this already overpacked
schedule? More important: How do you help kids see reading as something
separate from school, from testing, from work? How do you foster a love of reading for pleasure? The simple
answer is to read — yourself, with and to your kids — whenever you can. Make
books a part of your routine, your home decor, your conversations. It’s true,
those screens are ever tantalizing, but be strong and be prepared for a little
light cajoling, time management and some inventiveness, especially when it comes
to defining what it means to read a book. Here are a few ideas from librarians
and education experts:
PSERS
accepting nominations for open board position
The PSERS Board of Trustees will be conducting an election for the seat that is to be elected by the members of PA’s public school boards. This election will be for a three-year term on the PSERS Board commencing Jan. 1, 2018, through Dec. 31, 2020. School directors who desire to run must:
The PSERS Board of Trustees will be conducting an election for the seat that is to be elected by the members of PA’s public school boards. This election will be for a three-year term on the PSERS Board commencing Jan. 1, 2018, through Dec. 31, 2020. School directors who desire to run must:
·
Submit nominating petitions with 25 signatures of school directors
from at least five different school districts
·
Submit a completed biographical form and candidate affidavit
To receive a nomination packet and additional information on the
duties and responsibilities of Board of Trustees members, interested school
directors may contact Lori Koch at lorkoch@pa.gov or write to this address:
Lori Koch, PSERS Election Coordinator, 5 N. 5th Street, Harrisburg, PA
17101-1905.
September 19 @ 5:00 PM - 8:00 PM Hilton Reading
Berks County Community Foundation
Panelists:
Carol Corbett Burris: Executive
Director of the Network
for Public Education
Alyson Miles: Deputy Director of Government
Affairs for the American
Federation for Children
James Paul: Senior Policy Analyst at
the Commonwealth Foundation
Dr. Julian Vasquez Heilig: Professor
of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies and the Director of the Doctorate
in Educational Leadership at California State University Sacramento
Karin Mallett: The WFMZ TV
anchor and reporter returns as the moderator
School choice has been a hot topic in Berks County, in part due to
a lengthy and costly dispute between the Reading School District and I-LEAD Charter
School. The topic has also been in the national spotlight as President
Trump and U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos have focused on expanding education choice. With this in mind, a
discussion on school choice is being organized as part of Berks County
Community Foundation’s Consider It initiative. State Sen. Judy Schwank and
Berks County Commissioners Chairman Christian Leinbach are co-chairs of this
nonpartisan program, which is designed to promote thoughtful discussion of
divisive local and national issues while maintaining a level of civility among
participants. The next Consider It
Dinner will take place Tuesday, September 19, 2017, at 5 p.m. at the DoubleTree
by Hilton Reading, 701 Penn St., Reading, Pa. Tickets are available
here.
For $10 each, tickets include dinner, the panel discussion, reading
material, and an opportunity to participate in the conversation.
Apply Now for EPLC's 2017-2018 PA Education Policy Fellowship
Program!
Education Policy and Leadership Center
Applications are available now for the 2017-2018 Education
Policy Fellowship Program (EPFP). The Education Policy Fellowship Program is sponsored
in Pennsylvania by The Education Policy and Leadership Center (EPLC). Click here for the
program calendar of sessions. With more than 500
graduates in its first eighteen years, this Program is a premier
professional development opportunity for educators, state and local
policymakers, advocates, and community leaders. State Board of
Accountancy (SBA) credits are available to certified public accountants. Past
participants include state policymakers, district superintendents and
principals, school business officers, school board members, education
deans/chairs, statewide association leaders, parent leaders, education advocates,
and other education and community leaders. Fellows are typically sponsored by
their employer or another organization. The
Fellowship Program begins with a two-day retreat on September 14-15,
2017 and continues to graduation in June 2018.
Using Minecraft to Imagine a Better World
and Build It Together.
Saturday, September 16, 2017 or Sunday,
September 17, 2017 at the University of the Sciences, 43rd & Woodland
Avenue, Philadelphia
PCCY, the region’s most
influential advocacy organization for children, leverages the world’s greatest
video game for the year’s most engaging fundraising event for kids. Join us
on Saturday, September 16, 2017 or Sunday,
September 17, 2017 at the University of the Sciences, 43rd & Woodland
Avenue for a fun, creative and unique gaming opportunity.
Education Law Center’s 2017
Annual Celebration
ELC invites you to join us
for our Annual Celebration on September 27 in Philadelphia.
The Annual Celebration will take place this year on September
27, 2017 at The Crystal Tea Room in Philadelphia. The
event begins at 5:30 PM. We anticipate more than 300 legal,
corporate, and community supporters joining us for a cocktail reception, silent
auction, and dinner presentation. Our
annual celebrations honor outstanding champions of public education. This proud
tradition continues at this year’s event, when together we will salute these
deserving honorees:
·
PNC Bank: for the signature philanthropic cause of the PNC Foundation, PNC
Grow Up Great, a bilingual $350 million, multi-year early education initiative
to help prepare children from birth to age 5 for success in school and life;
and its support of the Equal Justice Works Fellowship, which
enables new lawyers to pursue careers in public interest law;
·
Joan Mazzotti: for her 16 years of outstanding leadership as the Executive
Director of Philadelphia Futures, a college access and success program serving
Philadelphia’s low-income, first-generation-to-college students;
·
Dr. Bruce Campbell Jr., PhD: for his invaluable service to ELC, as he rotates out of
the chairman position on our Board of Directors. Dr. Campbell is an Arcadia
University Associate Professor in the School of Education; and
·
ELC Pro Bono Awardee Richard Shephard of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius
LLP: for his exceptional work as pro bono counsel, making lasting contributions
to the lives of many vulnerable families.Questions? Contact Tracy Callahan
tcallahan@elc-pa.org or 215-238-6970 ext. 308.
STAY WOKE: THE INAUGURAL
NATIONAL BLACK MALE EDUCATORS CONVENING; Philadelphia Fri, Oct 13, 2017 4:00 pm
Sun, Oct 15, 2017 7:00pm
TEACHER DIVERSITY WORKS. Increasing the number of Black
male educators in our nation’s teacher corps will improve education for all our
students, especially for African-American boys.
Today Black men represent only two percent of teachers nationwide. This
is a national problem that demands a national response. Come participate in the inaugural National
Black Male Educators Convening to advance policy solutions, learn from one
another, and fight for social justice. All are welcome.
Save the Date 2017 PA Principals Association State Conference
October 14. 15, 16, 2017 Doubletree Hotel Cranberry Township, PA
Save the Date: PASA-PSBA
School Leadership Conference October 18-20, Hershey PA
Registration now open for the
67th Annual PASCD Conference Nov. 12-13
Harrisburg: Sparking Innovation: Personalized Learning, STEM, 4C's
This year's conference will begin on Sunday, November 12th and
end on Monday, November 13th. There will also be a free pre-conference on
Saturday, November 11th. You can
register for this year's conference online with a credit card payment or have
an invoice sent to you. Click here to register for the
conference.
http://myemail.constantcontact.com/PASCD-Conference-Registration-is-Now-Open.html?soid=1101415141682&aid=5F-ceLtbZDs
http://myemail.constantcontact.com/PASCD-Conference-Registration-is-Now-Open.html?soid=1101415141682&aid=5F-ceLtbZDs
Registration Opens Tuesday, September 26, 2017