Started in November 2010, 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
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These daily emails are archived and searchable at http://keystonestateeducationcoalition.org
Follow us on Twitter at @lfeinberg
Diane
Ravitch Speaking at Penn State Harrisburg April 25th at 7:00 p.m.
777
West Harrisburg Pike, Harrisburg, PA
Mukund
S. Kulkarni Theatre, Student Enrichment Center
SB34/HB526: Montco districts could save $20M a year under
cyber-charter reform bills
Pottstown Mercury
by Evan Brandt
ebrandt@21st-centurymedia.com @PottstownNews on Twitter April 22, 2019
Montgomery County
taxpayers would collectively save $19.6 million in school taxes each each year
if a pair of cyber-charter school reform bills now under consideration in
Harrisburg become law. That is the estimate made by the Montgomery County
Intermediate Unit and presented during its March 29 legislative breakfast. ore
than 34,000 students in Pennsylvania attend cyber charter schools, which are
run by private companies or non-profits. Unlike brick-and-mortar charter
schools which are authorized by local school districts, cyber charter schools
are authorized by the PA Department of Education. Pennsylvania has 15
cyber-charter schools and to date, none of them have reached a School
Performance Profile score of 70 or better, which is considered adequate by the
state. All Pennsylvania cyber charter schools had graduation rates below 86.6
percent, the state average, according to state figures.
Montco Intermediate Unit Analysis of Cyber-Charter Costs
Pottstown Mercury
by Evan Brandt Apr 19, 2019
Education Voters Cyber Charter Report
Pottstown Mercury
by Evan Brandt ebrandt@21st-centurymedia.com @PottstownNews on Twitter Apr 19, 2019
Register to vote in Pa.: Today is the last day for the
2019 primary election. It takes just a few minutes.
Inquirer by Jonathan Lai, Updated: 49 minutes ago
Next month,
Philadelphians will choose nominees for mayor, City Council, and other offices.
Suburbanites’ choices include candidates for district attorney and county
commissioners. But if you want to have your say, you first need to register. U.S.
citizens who are Pennsylvania residents and 18 or older by Election Day are
eligible to vote in the May 21 primary. If you’re newly eligible to vote, or
new to Pennsylvania, or have changed your address, you should register or
update your registration. If nothing has changed, you should still check your
status — things happen, and you may want to double-check. Register to vote
online: Use this online
form to submit a new application or update an existing application, such as
changing your address or party registration. It takes only a few minutes. (We tested it.)
Blogger note: Hoping everyone had a good
holiday and spring break. Here are links to last week’s postings if you’d like
to catch up:
Many Online Charter
Schools Fail to Graduate Even Half of Their Students on Time
Keystone State Education Coalition PA Ed Policy Roundup April 19, 2019
https://keystonestateeducationcoalition.blogspot.com/2019/04/pa-ed-policy-roundup-april-19-many.html
AG DePasquale
investigating $110 million in taxpayer dollars paid to Lincoln Learning
Solutions by PA Cyber Charter School
Keystone State Education Coalition PA Ed Policy Roundup April 18, 2019
Study: No evidence
that hardening schools to make kids safer from gun violence actually works
Keystone State Education Coalition PA Ed Policy Roundup April 17, 2019
In 2016-17, taxpayers
in House Majority Whip Kerry Benninghoff’s school districts in Centre &
Mifflin Counties had to send over $1.9 million to chronically underperforming
cybers that they never authorized.
Keystone State Education Coalition PA Ed Policy Roundup April 16, 2019
“School districts
statewide could save a stunning $250 million every year if cyber charter
schools were paid according to their costs”
Keystone State Education Coalition PA Ed Policy Roundup April 15, 2019
Blogger note: Total cyber charter tuition
paid by PA taxpayers from 500 school districts for 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016
was over $1.6 billion; $393.5 million, $398.8 million, $436.1 million and
$454.7 million respectively. We
will continue rolling out cyber charter tuition expenses for taxpayers in
education committee members, legislative leadership and various other
districts.
In 2016-17, taxpayers
in House Majority Caucus Administrator Kurt Masser’s school districts in Columbia,
Montour, Northumberland and Schuylkill Counties had to send over $4.2 million
to chronically underperforming cybers that they never authorized. #SB34
(Schwank) or #HB526 (Sonney) could change that. Data source: PDE via .@PSBA
Links to additional bill information and several resources have been
moved to the end of today’s postings
|
Danville
Area SD
|
$271,180.66
|
|
Line
Mountain SD
|
$425,734.62
|
|
Mount
Carmel Area SD
|
$644,484.67
|
|
North
Schuylkill SD
|
$739,214.93
|
|
Shamokin
Area SD
|
$1,506,985.07
|
|
Southern
Columbia Area SD
|
$208,888.60
|
|
Warrior
Run SD
|
$457,774.04
|
|
|
$4,254,262.59
|
Has your state
senator cosponsored SB34?
https://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/billInfo/bill_history.cfm?syear=2019&sind=0&body=S&type=B&bn=34
Has your state representative
cosponsored HB526?
My journalistic seven-year itch | John Baer
Philly Daily News
by John Baer | @jbaernews | baerj@phillynews.com Updated: April 22, 2019 - 5:00 AM
I’m thinking about
breaking up with the legislature.
I’ve already been
cheating on it a bit. Writing about some national politics, which, come on, is
hard to resist these days. It’s not that our legislature’s 253 members,
especially its leaders, don’t deserve attention and my journalistic, um,
affections. They do. But lately it occurs to me our decades-long relationship
is something of a one-way street. For example, seven years ago, I wrote a
book, On the Front Lines of Pennsylvania Politics(The
History Press), that, in part, detailed the legislature’s legacy of corruption,
inefficiency, regressive policies, antidemocratic incumbent protections, and
aversion to reform. I suggested, given our heritage as the cradle of democracy,
home to the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, we should be the national
model for good government. Didn’t turn out that way.
As suburbs roar, Pennsylvania Democrats pick top 2020
target
AP By MARC LEVY April
18, 2019
HARRISBURG, Pa.
(AP) — To understand Pennsylvania’s fast-changing political geography, look no
further than Tom Killion. After Democrats recently flipped six state Senate
seats in the suburbs of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, Killion is one of the
chamber’s last Republicans standing in those areas — and target No. 1 for
Democrats in 2020. That’s when Pennsylvania will be a closely watched
battleground in the presidential contest. Killion’s Delaware County-based seat
has been held by Republicans going back to the 1800s, but President Donald
Trump may complicate things for him next year. “Have you been watching the
elections?” Killion responded in an interview, when asked if his district was
getting tougher to win. For now, Killion is a chief sponsor of legislation that
sounds like a progressive Democrat’s wish list: reducing gun violence, reaching
100% renewable energy by 2050 and imposing a tax on natural gas production to
underwrite a multibillion-dollar infrastructure package. That last policy point
is atop Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf’s agenda. Located in Pennsylvania’s
southeastern corner, Killion’s district is part of the heavily populated and
politically moderate suburbs of Philadelphia. Once a bastion of Republican
power, voter registration has shifted to favor Democrats over the past couple
of decades, and Trump’s election seemed to accelerate Republican losses and
bolster Democrats’ political activism there. Killion has served in the
Legislature since 2003 and has stood with Republicans on some of Harrisburg’s
most partisan bills. He has attained a 69% lifetime rating from the American
Conservative Union, in line with other suburban Republicans in Pennsylvania’s Senate.
Why some Pa. teachers are using lab experiments rather
than textbooks to teach evolution
WITF Written by
Sarah Schneider/WESA | Apr 18, 2019 8:42 AM
Sixteen-year-old
Isabelle Walker sits at a black lab table wearing a lab coat. She stares down
at a petri dish. "We're trying to see how different bacterial colonies
grow in different conditions," she said. Walker and her classmates
at Pittsburgh Public's Science and Technology Academy in Oakland know that the
experiment they're conducting will show that bacteria adapt. But early on,
that's about all they know. According to their teacher, Edwina Kinchington,
that's part of the process. "We want you to learn it as you go
along," she tells her 10th grade microbiology class. "Why are we
doing this? Because bacteria are everywhere. Some are good, some are bad. Some
cause disease, some don't." The students add a common strain of bacteria
to a test tube along with a plastic bead. Over a few days, they transfer the
bead to a new test tube. Only the bacteria that attach to the bead transfer to
the tube.
Manheim Central plans to phase-in 6% tax increase over 6
years for high school renovation project
Lancaster Online by
ALEX GELI | Staff
Writer April 21,
2019
To help pay for its
$40 million high school renovation project, Manheim Central School District
will need to raise taxes by 6% over the next six years. That’s according to
Lauren Stadel, director of RBC Capital Markets, who presented financial details
surrounding the revamped school at a community meeting hosted this week by the
Manheim Central school board. The board discussed the building’s proposed
physical changes — such as expanding the 221,000-square-foot building by 36,000
square feet — as well as the financial toll, which caused some board members to
express caution. “We need to look at the whole picture and consider the total
amount we’ll be paying back,” said Leonard Szpara, who was the lone “no” vote
when the board approved
the project in
November 2018. The district plans to take out two $20 million bonds to be paid
off by 2041, Stadel said. By that time, the district would’ve paid $71.8
million with interest. To offset costs, the district plans to use about $1.9
million in reserves. A millage increase of .860 — 6% of the current 14.3317
millage rate — will be phased in through 2025.
The average SAT score last year for every public high
school in the Lehigh Valley
By Nick Falsone | For
lehighvalleylive.com Today 7:28
AM
Although there’s
been a movement in recent
years to
make the SATs and ACTs optional for college admission, the tests still
represent a major milestone for many high schoolers in their quest toward
higher education. The numbers support this. In 2018, thousands in the Lehigh
Valley took the SAT test, according to the Pennsylvania
Department of Education. A perfect
SAT score is 1600, but few score perfect. The average score among all test takers
from public high schools across the Lehigh Valley was 1079.3 last year. Some
local high schools’ students average better scores than others. Socio-economic
factors are likely at play. Poorer districts tend to have fewer students taking
the tests and lower scores while wealthier districts generally have more
testing per capita and higher scores. But that’s not always the case. Students
from comparable schools in some cases scored differently from one another on
average in 2018. We looked at the average SAT test scores last year from every
public high school in the Lehigh Valley. The Pennsylvania Department of
Education is the source of the data below.
Randi Weingarten calls on superintendents: Listen to your
teachers
"This
de-professionalization is killing the soul of teaching," she said.
The notebook by Greg Windle April 19 — 12:29 pm, 2019
American Federation
of Teachers president Randi Weingarten spoke Thursday in Washington, D.C.,
about how teachers are leaving the profession at record-breaking rates and how
the AFT can help. She wants to create partnerships between local unions and
superintendents so that decisions are made based on feedback from teachers —
not dictated by the whims of national foundations. That requires reversing a
trend to standardize teaching and learning. “The disinvestment in education and
the failure of many states to make teaching a viable career go hand-in-hand
with another major crisis,” Weingarten said. “The de-professionalization of
teaching.” Weingarten’s address at the National Press Club, billed as “Freedom to Teach,” was followed by a panel discussion with
education and union leaders from states and districts that have moved toward
this approach.
Silicon Valley Came to Kansas Schools. That Started a
Rebellion.
New York Times By Nellie Bowles April 21, 2019
WELLINGTON, Kan. —
The seed of rebellion was planted in classrooms. It grew in kitchens and living
rooms, in conversations between students and their parents. It culminated when
Collin Winter, 14, an eighth grader in McPherson, Kan., joined a classroom
walkout in January. In the nearby town of Wellington, high schoolers staged a
sit-in. Their parents organized in living rooms, at churches and in the back of
machine repair shops. They showed up en masse to school board meetings. In
neighborhoods with no political yard signs, homemade signs with dark red slash
marks suddenly popped up. Silicon Valley had come to small-town Kansas schools
— and it was not going well. “I want to just take my Chromebook back and tell
them I’m not doing it anymore,” said Kallee Forslund, 16, a 10th grader in
Wellington. Eight months earlier, public schools near Wichita had rolled out a
web-based platform and curriculum from Summit Learning. The Silicon
Valley-based program promotes an educational approach called “personalized
learning,” which uses online tools to customize education. The platform that
Summit provides was developed by Facebook engineers. It is funded by Mark
Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, and his wife, Priscilla Chan, a
pediatrician.
777 West
Harrisburg Pike, Harrisburg, PA
Mukund S.
Kulkarni Theatre, Student Enrichment Center
Join Diane Ravitch as she presents "The End of the Faux Reform Movement."
Ravitch is the author of the national bestseller "Reign of Error The Hoax
of the Privatization Movement" and the "Danger to America’s Public
Schools." There will be a book signing opportunity after the event.
For more information, contact Dr. Hannah Spector at hms22@psu.edu.
Electing PSBA Officers – Application Deadline is May 31st
Do you have strong
communication and leadership skills and a vision for PSBA? Members interested
in becoming the next leaders of PSBA are encouraged to submit
an Application for Nomination no
later than May 31 to PSBA's Leadership Development Committee (LDC).
The nomination process:
All persons seeking nomination for elected positions of the Association shall
file with the Leadership Development Committee chairperson an Application
for Nomination (.PDF) on a form to be provided by the Association expressing interest in the
office sought. The Application for nomination shall be marked received at PSBA
Headquarters or mailed first class and postmarked no later than the application
deadline specified in the timeline established by the Governing Board to be
considered timely-filed.” (PSBA Bylaws, Article IV, Section 6.E.). Application Deadline: May 31, 2019
Open positions are:
- 2020 President-Elect (one-year term)
- 2020 Vice President (one-year term)
- 2020-22 Central At-Large
Representative – includes Sections 2, 3, 6, and 7 (three-year
term)
- 2020-21 Sectional Advisors – includes Sections
1, 3, 5 and 7 (two-year term)
PSBA: Nominations for
the Allwein Society are welcome!
The Allwein Society is an award program recognizing school directors who are
outstanding leaders and advocates on behalf of public schools and students.
This prestigious honor was created in 2011 in memory of Timothy M. Allwein, a
former PSBA staff member who exemplified the integrity and commitment to
advance political action for the benefit of public education. Nominations are
accepted year-round and inductees will be recognized at the PASA-PSBA
School Leadership Conference, among other honors.
All
PSBA-members are invited to attend Advocacy Day on Monday, April
29, 2019 at the state Capitol in Harrisburg. In addition, this year PSBA
will be partnering with the Pennsylvania Association of Intermediate Units
(PAIU) and Pennsylvania Association of School Administrators (PASA) to
strengthen our advocacy impact. The focus for the day will be meetings with
legislators to discuss critical issues affecting public education. There is no
cost to attend, and PSBA will assist in scheduling appointments with
legislators once your registration is received. The day will begin with a
continental breakfast and issue briefings prior to the legislator visits.
Registrants will receive talking points, materials and leave-behinds to use
with their meetings. PSBA staff will be stationed at a table in the main
Rotunda during the day to answer questions and provide assistance. The
day’s agenda and other details will be available soon. If you have questions
about Advocacy Day, legislative appointments or need additional information,
contact Jamie.Zuvich@psba.org Register
for Advocacy Day now at http://www.mypsba.org/
PSBA members can register online now by logging in to myPSBA. If you
need assistance logging in and registering contact Alysha Newingham, Member
Data System Administrator at alysha.newingham@psba.org or call her at (717)
506-2450, ext. 3420
Save the
Date: PARSS Annual Conference May 1-3,
2019Wyndham Garden Hotel, Mountainview Country Club
Pennsylvania Association of Rural and Small Schools
https://www.parss.org/Annual_Conference
PSBA Tweet March
12, 2019 Video Runtime: 6:40
In this installment of #VideoEDition, learn about legislation
introduced in the PA Senate & House of Representatives that would save
millions of dollars for school districts that make tuition payments for their
students to attend cyber charter schools.http://ow.ly/RyIM50n1uHi
PSBA Summaries of Senate Bill 34 and House Bill 526
PSBA Sample Board Resolution in Support of Statewide
Cyber Charter School Funding Reform
PSBA Sample Board Resolution in Support of Senate Bill 34
and House Bill 256
How much could your school district and taxpayers save if
there were statewide flat tuition rates of $5000 for regular ed students and
$8865 for special ed.? See the estimated savings by school district here.
Education Voters PA
Website February 14, 2019
https://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/billInfo/bill_history.cfm?syear=2019&sind=0&body=S&type=B&bn=34
Has your state representative cosponsored HB526?
Any comments contained herein are my comments, alone, and
do not necessarily reflect the opinions of any other person or organization
that I may be affiliated with.
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