Thursday, December 7, 2017

PA Ed Policy Roundup Dec. 7: Gov. Wolf: less testing; later testing. Health coverage for 180K Pa. kids on the line as Congress ignores CHIP

Daily postings from the Keystone State Education Coalition now reach more than 4050 Pennsylvania education policymakers – school directors, administrators, legislators, legislative and congressional staffers, Governor's staff, current/former PA Secretaries of Education, Wolf education transition team members, superintendents, school solicitors, principals, charter school leaders, PTO/PTA officers, parent advocates, teacher leaders, business leaders, faith-based organizations, labor organizations, education professors, members of the press and a broad array of P-16 regulatory agencies, professional associations and education advocacy organizations via emails, website, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn

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Gov. Wolf: less testing; later testing. Health coverage for 180K Pa. kids on the line as Congress ignores CHIP



Congrats/Condolences to all the new Pennsylvania school directors who took the oath of office for the first time this week!  Have your new board members send their email addresses to signup for the PA Ed Policy Roundup and/or follow us on twitter @lfeinberg



Blogger note: we’ve been experiencing some spam filter issues the past few days interfering with email deliveries. If you did not receive the Roundup emails this week you can view them at our blog site here, here and here.

Sen. Pat Toomey chosen for committee to finalize tax legislation
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette by DAN MAJORS dmajors@post-gazette.com 9:38 PM DEC 6, 2017
Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey on Wednesday night was tapped by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to serve on the Tax Reform Conference Committee that will hammer out the final tax cut legislation to be sent to the president. Mr. Toomey, who was considered instrumental in the shaping and passing of the tax bill in the Senate last week, will be one of eight Senate Republicans taking part in the negotiations with members of the House of Representatives Conference Committee. The Senate and House have each passed a version of a tax reform bill, but there are substantial differences between them that must be worked out so the two chambers can pass the same bill on to President Donald Trump before Christmas. The House voted to go to conference on Monday. The Senate approved the move Wednesday night in a 51-47 vote along party lines.

Grinch, students ask Sen. Toomey's help on tax legislation
Trib Live by DEBRA ERDLEY  | Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2017, 5:06 p.m.
This time, the Grinch delivered. Accompanied by a contingent of about 50 University of Pittsburgh students and faculty members, a costumed Grinch delivered more than 1,000 letters to U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey's downtown Pittsburgh office Wednesday after­noon. The group, organized by the Pitt Graduate Student Organizing Committee and the United Steel Workers union, was turned away when members sought permission to take an elevator to Toomey's 14th-floor office to deliver the letters. But a Toomey staffer who said there was no one available to talk with members of the group came down to the security desk to accept the Grinch's deliveries. The letters, penned a week before final exams, sought the Pennsylvania Republican's support for the elimination of provisions in a House version of the sweeping tax bill that many say would harm access to higher education. Among the provisions in question were the elimination of federal tax deductions for interest on student loans and taxing graduate student tuition waivers and tuition remission for faculty children as income. Those provisions were not in the Senate version of the bill but could remain in the final version of the legislation, now pending for reconciliation in a conference committee.

Tax Bills Could Expand Private School Benefits and Hurt Public Education
New York Times By ERICA L. GREEN DEC. 4, 2017
WASHINGTON — As Friday night turned into Saturday morning, Vice President Mike Pence cast a tiebreaking vote in the Senate to extend a tax benefit available for higher education to families paying tuition for private elementary and secondary education — or even homeschooling their children. The vote on the amendment by Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, was emblematic of the sweeping tax bills entering final negotiations between House and Senate Republicans. Provisions in both measures could change families’ approach to elementary and secondary education, and every type of school stands to benefit except those attended by 90 percent of the nation’s students — public schools. Under the House and Senate bills, families who can afford to put money away for private or sectarian schools each month would be able to watch their savings earn interest and capital gains free of taxation. In the Senate bill, even home schoolers could withdraw up to $10,000 a year for school expenses in their own living room — from tax-favored savings accounts. By contrast, the drastic curtailing of state and local tax deductions in both bills could hamstring local governments’ efforts to finance their public schools.

Day three of Pa. gerrymandering trial brings insights to legislative process, but secrecy remains
By Lindsay Lazarski, WHYY December 7, 2017
On day three of the federal trial contesting Pennsylvania’s congressional map, key Republican staffers testified that partisan data was used during the 2011 redistricting process. Behind the scenes, a dispute over the depositions of House Speaker Michael Turzai (R-Allegheny) and Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati (R-Jefferson) has bubbled up in court documents. In the case, a group of Pennsylvania voters claim they have been harmed by partisan gerrymandering and are calling for a new map in time for the 2018 congressional midterm elections. At the time of the last redistricting in 2011, Scarnati held his current leadership role and Turzai was majority leader in the House.  In the lead-up to the trial, there was fierce debate over whether and to what extent the two leaders would participate. Both hoped to avoid the proceedings altogether by claiming “legislative privilege.” The court denied that claim, compelling both to be deposed.

Health coverage for 180K Pa. kids on the line as Congress ignores CHIP
Jason Addy, 505-5437/@JasonAddyYD Published 1:47 p.m. ET Dec. 6, 2017
Days after celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Children’s Health Insurance Program in Pennsylvania, advocates are again pleading with lawmakers in Washington, D.C., and Harrisburg to fund the program.  Congress took no action to reauthorize funding for the federal program by the Sept. 30 deadline, leaving more than 180,000 Pennsylvania children at risk of losing their health insurance if lawmakers do not fund the program soon. Teresa Miller, acting Secretary for the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services, said state officials are trying to figure out how much money is still in the program and how far it can be stretched, but she warned lawmakers are quickly running out of time to save CHIP. “This program will no longer exist if Congress and the Pennsylvania General Assembly don’t take action,” Miller said, adding the state’s CHIP funding will only last into the first quarter of 2018.

“The program, which costs about $500 million a year in Pennsylvania, receives nearly 90 percent of its funding from the federal government.”
Pennsylvania official warns CHIP program could end by late March without federal funding
Trib Live by WES VENTEICHER  | Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2017, 6:03 p.m.
About 180,000 Pennsylvania children could lose health insurance early next year if Congress doesn't reauthorize spending for the Children's Health Insurance Program, according to Department of Human Services Secretary Teresa Miller. The state-administered program, known as CHIP, covers children whose families make too much money to qualify for Medicaid but who might not be able to obtain or afford private insurance. Created two decades ago, the program had a history of bipartisan support until this year, when Republicans and Democrats in Congress disagreed over where to get the money to pay for it. “I, for one, never expected us to be in a place where we were so close to seeing the CHIP program end,” Miller said Wednesday. Miller has been holding events to raise awareness about the potential funding shortfall and plans to visit Pittsburgh on Thursday.

Pa. kids will take fewer tests, given later in the year, Gov. Wolf announces in Montgomery County
Inquirer by Kristen A. Graham, Staff Writer  @newskag |  kgraham@phillynews.com Updated: DECEMBER 6, 2017 — 5:19 PM EST
Amid a national pushback against standardized tests, Pennsylvania students will soon take fewer state exams and they will be administered later in the school year, Gov. Wolf announced Wednesday. “We were learning to the test, we were teaching to the test” too often, the governor said during a stop at Colonial Middle School in Plymouth Meeting. “That’s not the way learning is supposed to go. This is about putting the focus more to classroom teaching.” So next spring, the start of the administration of the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment, known as the PSSAs, will be moved back one week, to April 9. And beginning in 2019, the exam window will move to late April, with districts given greater flexibility in when they choose to give students the exams. The exam window will also shrink from three to two weeks. Spring break now often falls in the middle of the PSSA window, causing scheduling headaches and throwing off test-takers, teachers say. The change is likely to affect more than one million students in public schools across the commonwealth. Students in third through eighth grade in traditional public and charter schools take the tests annually.

Local school officials cheer Wolf decision to scale back standardized testing
Tribune Democrat Staff and wire reports December 6, 2017
HARRISBURG – Pennsylvania’s governor announced Wednesday changes to the state’s regimen of standardized tests that are designed to reduce their impact and length. The Pennsylvania System of School Assessment, the state’s standardized testing system, will last two weeks next year, down from three, said Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf. The testing will also be moved to later in the school year, giving students a few more weeks of learning beforehand. The tests themselves would also be shorter – at a time there’s been a national cry to reduce the importance of such exams for public school students, state officials said. David Volkman, the state Education Department’s executive deputy secretary, said in a news release that the agency was responding to pressure to refocus on learning. “This improved schedule, along with the changes we made to the structure of the tests earlier this year, will address those concerns while maintaining the accuracy of the assessment,” Volkman said.

Delaying state exams to later in the school year draws praise from educators
Penn Live By Jan Murphy jmurphy@pennlive.com Updated 6:21 AM; Posted 6:20 AM
Not only will elementary and middle school students spend less time taking state exams, next year they will take them closer to the end of the school year. Gov. Tom Wolf delivered that bit of good news about the high-stakes Pennsylvania System of School Assessment exams in math, English literacy and science given to third through eighth graders at a Montgomery County middle school on Wednesday. "We are continuing to respond to the concerns of students, parents and teachers about the amount of classroom time spent of standardized tests," he said to those gathered at Colonial Middle School. "After reducing the classroom time devoted to the PSSA and moving the test window to later in the school year, students and teachers will have more classroom time to focus on learning before taking the test."

Efforts to reduce standardized testing succeeded in many school districts in 2017. Here’s why and how.
Washington Post Answer Sheet Blog By Valerie Strauss December 6 at 1:51 PM 
 I recently wrote about a new book by Harvard University professor Daniel Koretz, “The Testing Charade: Pretending to Make Schools Better,” which details exactly what the title suggests: how the standardized-test-based accountability movement in public education pursued by Republican and Democratic administrations has failed to improve schools. Parents, students and public education advocates have been telling policymakers for years about the many problems with excessive high-stakes standardized testing, including narrowed curriculum and evaluation systems that assessed teachers on the scores of students they didn’t have. While there is still a great deal of it in districts around the country, 2017 saw some reductions in the amount of testing as well as the high stakes attached to student scores. This post discusses what happened in this arena in the past year. It was written by Monty Neill, executive director of the National Center for Fair & Open Testing, a nonprofit group known as FairTest that works to end the abuse of standardized tests, and by Lisa Guisbond, assessment reform analyst at FairTest.

Rating agency holds Pa.'s credit ranking steady with an iffy outlook
Fitch, a global credit rating agency, maintained the ranking on Pennsylvania at AA-minus, meaning the risk of it defaulting on loans is very low.
Penn Live By Jan Murphy jmurphy@pennlive.com Updated 12:45 AM; Posted Dec 6, 7:37 PM
After seeing Pennsylvania's credit rating got knocked down a notch in Standard & Poor's rankings in the fall, having another major credit rating hold the state's ranking steady at AA-minus on its general obligation bonds is a sigh of relief. But don't exhale too much. Fitch Ratings, in its latest rankings released on Tuesday, removed its "rating watch negative" (meaning a good probability that its ranking would be downgraded) and assigned Pennsylvania a "negative outlook," meaning it still could be downgraded but it is not as imminent.  In particular, Fitch's analysis cites the state's rising fixed costs particularly in education and Medicaid, modest revenue growth, need for recurring revenue, and a "particularly contentious decision-making environment," as the reasons behind its ranking decisions.

“As it stands, Topper's bill covered the state's two largest insurance programs, Medicare and CHIP, the Childrens Health Insurance Program.”
Transgender services ban gets sidelined after Pa. lawmakers learn their insurance covers the same
A belated discovery that their own health care coverage pays for gender reassignment services has brought a temporary halt to legislative attempts to bar Pennsylvania's Childrens Health Insurance Program from paying for such services.
Penn Live By Charles Thompson cthompson@pennlive.com Updated 12:46 AM; Posted Dec 6, 3:44 PM
An effort to bar the use of state taxpayer dollars to pay for sex change surgeries and other transgender services in Pennsylvania ran aground this week after lawmakers were confronted with an inconvenient truth: Their own, taxpayer-funded insurance plan covers the very same things. House Bill 1933's prime sponsor, Rep. Jesse Topper, confirmed Wednesday he has pulled his bill back for amendments that would extend the proposed ban on transgender services to all tax-funded coverages.

Philly launches effort to expand K-12 computer science classes
WHYY By Taylor Allen December 6, 2017
The Philadelphia School District is launching a new effort to bring computer science classes to all K-12 schools in the city. The project, called CS4Philly, is aimed at encouraging students to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and math. It is the brainchild of Philly startup CEO Bob Moul, whose ultimate goal is to expand tech education across Pennsylvania. Mayor Jim Kenney said he wants Philadelphia students to be prepared for good-paying jobs that will boost the city’s economy. “As a city, we pledge, to ensure that all Philadelphia children and youth can become full, digital citizens with equity and access to the digital economy,” he said. Superintendent William Hite said the district has already started supplying schools with more computers, adapting curricula and urging students to take advantage of more online learning resources.

Saucon Valley school board approves handbook with 'softened' anti-discrimination language
Michelle Merlin Contact Reporter Of The Morning Call December 7, 2017
The Saucon Valley School Board unanimously approved a high school handbook Tuesday that includes an anti-discrimination section in a move that follows racial incidents last year. Despite the vote, some board members had concerns about the handbook. One criticized it for softer language than past drafts, and another criticized language to recognize “any protected classes.” Previous drafts of the handbook included more specific language to punish racist behavior. Last month the board reviewed a version that included a “hate speech” section that referenced a list of five derogative words that a student group proposed banning. But the draft didn’t specify which words would be banned. Another draft that was online Monday designated racial, ethnic or protected-class intimidation as behavior that could warrant discipline. But the final version did not have that section. District officials said such offenses would be covered by the part of the handbook that deals with harassment and intimidation.

Too Many Children in California Can’t Read, Lawsuit Claims
New York Timmes By CHRISTINE HAUSER DEC. 6, 2017
Parents and educators at struggling schools in California say students there are not reading well, and lawyers this week sued the state, arguing that it had failed to provide the children with the resources they needed to learn. The lawsuit was filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court on Tuesday on behalf of parents, teachers and students at three schools — La Salle Avenue Elementary School in Los Angeles; Van Buren Elementary School in Stockton; and Children of Promise Preparatory Academy, a charter school in Inglewood. It said California had failed to follow up on its own report by state literacy experts that found there was a “critical need” to address the skills and development of students, particularly those who are learning English, have disabilities, are economically disadvantaged, or are African-American or Hispanic. The suit, announced in a statement, is the first in the United States to seek recognition of the constitutional right to literacy, the lawyers said. It alleges that the state failed to intervene when students achieved low proficiency rates in reading and fell behind at the three schools, which are among the lowest performing in the state.

Walton-Funded Study: State Takeover of Tennessee Schools Doesn’t Work.
Deutsch29 Blog by Mercedes Schneider December 5, 2017
The December 2017 issue of Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis (an American Educational Research Association–AERA– publication) includes a study entitled, “The Effects of School Turnaround in Tennessee’s Achievement School District [ASD] and Innovation Zones [iZones].” Below is the TN ASD logo– which ironically represents “impossibility in its purest form.” Interestingly, the study is funded by both Tennessee’s Race to the Top (RttT) grant from the US Dept. of Ed. and the Walton Family Foundation. The principal finding is that state takeover of Tennessee schools in order to “turn around” such schools is a bust, and it is better to allow the schools to remain with the home district and provide additional resources to the district in order to “raise student achievement” (which, of course, means to raise test scores).



Register for New School Director Training in December and January
PSBA Website October 2017
You’ve started a challenging and exciting new role as a school director. Let us help you narrow the learning curve! PSBA’s New School Director Training provides school directors with foundational knowledge about their role, responsibilities and ethical obligations. At this live workshop, participants will learn about key laws, policies, and processes that guide school board governance and leadership, and develop skills for becoming strong advocates in their community. Get the tools you need from experts during this visually engaging and interactive event.
Choose from any of these 11 locations and dates (note: all sessions are held 8 a.m.-4 p.m., unless specified otherwise.):
·         Dec. 8, Bedford CTC
·         Dec. 8, Montoursville Area High School
·         Dec. 9, Upper St. Clair High School
·         Dec. 9, West Side CTC
·         Dec. 15, Crawford County CTC
·         Dec. 15, Upper Merion MS (8:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m)
·         Dec. 16, PSBA Mechanicsburg
·         Dec. 16, Seneca Highlands IU 9
·         Jan. 6, Haverford Middle School
·         Jan. 13, A W Beattie Career Center
·         Jan. 13, Parkland HS
Fees: Complimentary to All-Access members or $170 per person for standard membership. All registrations will be billed to the listed district, IU or CTC. To request billing to an individual, please contact Michelle Kunkel at michelle.kunkel@psba.org. Registration also includes a box lunch on site and printed resources.

NSBA 2018 Advocacy Institute February 4 - 6, 2018 Marriott Marquis, Washington D.C.
Register Now
Come a day early and attend the Equity Symposium!
Join hundreds of public education advocates on Capitol Hill and help shape the decisions made in Washington D.C. that directly impact our students. At the 2018 Advocacy Institute, you’ll gain insight into the most critical issues affecting public education, sharpen your advocacy skills, and prepare for effective meetings with your representatives. Whether you are an expert advocator or a novice, attend and experience inspirational keynote speakers and education sessions featuring policymakers, legal experts and policy influencers. All designed to help you advocate for your students and communities.


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