Thursday, July 2, 2020

PA Ed Policy Roundup for July 2, 2020: Webinar: Keeping Your Students: How to Communicate About and Market Your Own Cyber Academy This Summer


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, 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.

These daily emails are archived and searchable at http://keystonestateeducationcoalition.org
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PA Ed Policy Roundup for July 2, 2020
Webinar: Keeping Your Students: How to Communicate About and Market Your Own Cyber Academy This Summer


Just a heads-up that the Ed Policy Roundup will be offline Friday through Monday. Have a safe and happy Fourth of July weekend.


Open to superintendents, deputy superintendents, communications staff and board members who regularly interface with the public.
Who: LEARN - PA school superintendents working for charter school reform, and PASA - PA Association of School Administrators
Date: Thursday July 9 2020 Time: 10 a.m. - 11:30 am
As schools face an uncertain 2020-21 school year, many parents are eyeing cyber charter schools as an option for their children. Some say they won’t return until there’s a vaccine, and cyber charters have launched an unprecedented advertising campaign to capture those parents. 
This webinar will provide you with a basic framework (including samples) that you can use to communicate about and market your own, in-house cyber program, to help you retain as many of your own students as possible. The session will address critical messaging, talking points, and materials that you can easily develop. The session is designed to be practical and useful – not a time waster! 
Speakers:
Frank Gallagher, Superintendent of the Souderton Area School District 
Mark DiRocco, Executive Director, PASA
Beth Trapani, Communications Consultant who will share insights and tools to turn around skeptical parents who may be considering a cyber charter school.
For more information: sharon@learnpa.org

Pennsylvania finishes year $3B behind because of pandemic
Trib Live by ASSOCIATED PRESS  | Wednesday, July 1, 2020 3:39 p.m.
HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania state government finished its fiscal year about 9% short of its initial revenue estimate, a result of the state’s coronavirus-related shutdowns and delayed tax-filing deadlines, the Department of Revenue said Wednesday. The state collected $32.3 billion for the 12 months through Tuesday. That was about $3.2 billion less than projected at the beginning of the fiscal year. June’s shortfall alone was $577 million, with most of it, or $444 million, due to reduced economic activity during the COVID-19 pandemic, the department said. It estimated that the rest of the shortfall is because due dates for various taxes were moved to July or later.

EDITORIAL: City schools trapped in spiral
The York Dispatch Editorial Board July 2, 2020
York City School District is trapped in a death spiral.
It's stuck under years-long state management that limits how money can be spent. Charter schools are annually sucking more than $25 million from its budget. Miserly state lawmakers foist the responsibility for funding public education on local officials, thereby fostering a system that rewards students in rich communities and punishes those in poor ones. And York City taxpayers are fed up with paying taxes that are up to double what's paid in richer districts with more valuable property.  It's no wonder that, under these conditions, York City Superintendent Andrea Berry presented a slash-and-burn budget for the 2020-21 school year containing $6.2 million in cuts. And, sadly, it's no surprise the district's school board went even further, last week approving a budget that axed 44 positions, including 32 teachers. And, even so, York City's 2020-21 budget still boosted taxes. That's how bad things really are. Really, what choice did district officials have? York City school officials are trapped in a budgetary spiral that's plagued poor, largely minority communities throughout the U.S. for decades. Under-represented at the statehouse, their calls for funding reform fall flat.

Our declaration of independence: Pa. wants redistricting reform. Lawmakers have failed to listen | Opinion
By Carol Kuniholm  Capital-Star Op-Ed Contributor July 2, 2020
The Fourth of July commemorates the abiding right of the governed to alter or abolish any form of government that ignores the people’s voice. The Declaration of Independence lists repeated injuries and usurpations that deprived the colonists of a voice in the establishment of laws, concluding: “In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injuries.” Supporters of redistricting reform consider those words this year with sadness. Some of us have spent 30 years asking for redress of an unfair redistricting process and an increasingly intransigent Legislature. More recently, we have attempted every lawful avenue of request, petitioning our legislators in every way we know, with meetings, calls, emails, letters, postcards, op-Eds, billboards, radio ads, petitions, resolutions of support. All have been met with silence, or with empty statements of support by those who could schedule a vote or easily move this reform forward.

Will SCOTUS ruling force Pa. to fund religious schools? Not quite, officials say
Lancaster Online by ALEX GELI | Staff Writer July 2, 2020
A U.S. Supreme Court ruling that’s expected to pave the way for public funding of religious institutions may have little to no impact on Pennsylvania. On Tuesday, the nation’s highest court ruled in favor of parents in Montana seeking to use a state-funded tax credit program to send their children to religious schools, an action previously banned by the state’s constitution. But because no such program exists in Pennsylvania, the court’s decision likely won’t have the same effect here. Next to no impact on Pa. The Pennsylvania constitution, like Montana’s, bars public funds for religious education, but the state does not have a tax credit program that directly sends taxpayer money to private schools like Montana does. It does, however, give tax credits to businesses that donate to religious education organizations or fund scholarships for students attending religious schools through the Educational Improvement Tax Credit and Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit programs. While the state doesn’t directly fund religious schools, critics say these programs indirectly support religious institutions at the expense of public schools. A spokesperson with the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development, which coordinates the programs, said since it’s private, not public, money going to these schools, the Supreme Court decision may not "have an impact at all."

Philly Survey: Most students, staff say they will return to school if safety measures are in place
They also favor a mix of online and in-person learning, with the most support given to an alternate-day staggered schedule for students.
The notebook Neena Hagen July 1 — 5:26 pm, 2020
Most students, parents, and school-based staff who responded to a Philadelphia School District reopening survey indicated that they would feel comfortable returning to school in person if a number of safety measures recommended by the Centers for Disease Control were put in place. As far as schedules, staff, and parents favored a mix of online and in-person learning, with the most support being for a system in which different students would attend on different days.  The survey, which was open on the District website from June 15 to June 22, was filled out by about 35,000 respondents, who were asked to rank reopening scenarios from most desirable to least desirable. Released Wednesday, the survey results will inform Superintendent William Hite’s plans to reopen schools amid a recent surge in coronavirus cases across the country.

Pa. charters deny ‘cherry-picking’ students, but data show special ed disparities
WHYY By Bill Hangley July 1, 2020
This article originally appeared on The Notebook.
Pennsylvania’s charter schools are “gaming the system” to maximize special education payments, and then using the money to subsidize their regular operations, costing Pennsylvania taxpayers millions, according to a new study by the advocate group, Education Voters of PA. “This report presents evidence of systemic cherry picking by charter schools of students with low-cost disabilities,” said Susan Spicka, executive director of Education Voters of PA. “It exposes fundamental flaws in the state’s funding formula that drive enrollment practices at charter schools and limit options for many students with disabilities.” By forcing districts to pay charters a flat fee for all special ed students regardless of their needs, the report finds, Pennsylvania policy creates incentives for charters to over-enroll students needing low-cost services, and drive the harder-to-serve students back into district-run schools. Fixing the enrollment imbalance could save Pennsylvania taxpayers as much as $100 million a year, the report found.

Bellefonte’s return to school plan: Parental responsibility, masks for all, online options
Centre Daily Times BY MARLEY PARISH JULY 01, 2020 09:57 AM , UPDATED JULY 01, 2020 10:19 AM
Bellefonte Area School District plans to reopen schools this fall, but families will be responsible for ensuring children are healthy enough to attend and can opt for virtual learning. Marion-Walker Elementary School Principal and pandemic coordinator Karen Krisch presented the district’s return to school plan during Tuesday night’s board meeting. Assuming Centre County maintains its “green” status of Gov. Tom Wolf’s reopening plan — the least restrictive phase — students and staff will be invited back for in-person instruction this fall. In a letter sent to district parents and guardians, Interim Superintendent Tammie Burnaford said Bellefonte’s learning plan is being developed by a task force with guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, state Department of Health, World Health Organization and American Academy of Pediatrics. If Centre County stays in the least restrictive reopening phase, all students and staff can return to school full time.

Wyoming Area planning to reopen schools with desk shields and clear masks for teachers
Citizens Voice By MICHAEL P. BUFFER STAFF WRITER Jun 30, 2020
Wyoming Area School District administrators are working on three separate school-reopening plans, and the district will have movable desk shields for students and special clear masks that allow students to see their teachers’ mouths. “We will be presenting those to you as soon as all of the plans are completed with all of the details,” Superintendent Janet Serino said at Tuesday’s school board meeting. Gov. Tom Wolf closed all schools in the state March 16 to prevent the spread of COVID-19, and schools after that began providing online and remote education. Elementary and secondary schools in the state’s yellow and green reopening phases may resume in-person instruction and activities beginning July 1 under a phased reopening approach, the state Department of Education announced June 3. Wyoming Area will have a plan for a complete return, a plan for the green phase with current social restrictions and a plan in case Luzerne County goes back to the yellow phase, Serino said. The green phase plans will be a hybrid involving in-person and remote instruction, and the yellow phase plan involves all students getting Chromebooks to take home for remote instruction, Serino said. The board also voted 5-4 to adopt a budget for 2020-21 that would spend $38.6 million and increase the tax rate by 3.5%, 

Focus on Opening Schools, Not Bars
Resuming classroom instruction is crucial. Infection control inside and outside classrooms can let it happen.
New York Times Opinion By Jennifer B. Nuzzo and Joshua M. Sharfstein July 1, 2020
Dr. Nuzzo is an epidemiologist and Dr. Sharfstein is a pediatrician.
The way states lifted social distancing restrictions imposed to fight the coronavirus sadly demonstrates our priorities. Officials let bars, restaurants and gyms open, despite warnings from public health experts that these environments pose the greatest risk for spreading the disease. Yet political leaders seem to have paid scant attention to safely reopening schools. The consequences of those backward priorities — Covid-19 rampaging through states that reopened quickly — makes it even more vital that we extensively prepare to reopen classrooms as safely as possible this fall. Research suggests that the sudden switch to online instruction has cost some students a full year of academic progress. These harms disproportionately affect children in homes without computers and stable internet connections, deepening educational inequality and widening racial and economic divides. The disruption of learning can have lifetime effects on students’ income and health. The school shutdowns left millions of children without access to meal programs and school-based health services. Reports of child abuse slowed since school employees couldn’t identify and notify the authorities about children they thought were being harmed. And the need for parents to supervise their children on school days or arrange child care has disrupted the economy and made it even harder for many families to get by.

What the Supreme Court's Ruling on Religious Schools Means in Practice
Education Week By Evie Blad on June 30, 2020 3:46 PM
Education groups and activists on all sides of the debate over private school choice agree that a Tuesday ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court will be tremendously consequential. But it may take some time for the ripple effects to spread. In a 5-4 decision in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, the court held that a Montana prohibition on families from using state tax-credit scholarships at religious schools was an unconstitutional violation of religious freedom.
Here's a rundown of what that means, and what comes next.

Private and Religious School Backers See Broad Victory in Supreme Court Decision
The court drew its decision narrowly when ruling against a Montana tax break that excluded religious schools. But denominational school advocates will push a broad application.
New York Times By Erica L. Green July 1, 2020
WASHINGTON — A Supreme Court ruling on Tuesday against Montana’s exclusion of religious schools from a state scholarship program may have been drafted narrowly, but the victory for denominational education has breathed new life into far broader efforts to use public funding for private and parochial schools. In a 5-4 decision, the court ruled that the state of Montana could not use a provision in its Constitution to exclude religious schools from its private school scholarship program. While the court’s ruling did not go beyond addressing Montana’s constitutional provision, which prohibits the use of public funding for denominational institutions and purposes, voucher opponents and proponents agreed that the decision effectively rendered such amendments toothless. The provisions, known as Blaine amendments, exist in 37 states and generally restrict government aid to religious institutions. The amendments were named for James G. Blaine, who in the 1800s sought legal mechanisms to deny religious schools public funding, a popular stance at a time rife with discrimination against Catholics.

Trump Is in Trouble in Pennsylvania, but ‘He’s Been Way Behind Before’
The president’s campaign and allies have sketched out a comeback path in the battleground state, which he narrowly won in 2016, hoping to capitalize on factors like energy policy.
New York Times By Trip Gabriel July 2, 2020, 5:00 a.m. ET
In political speeches for 40 years, Joseph R. Biden Jr. has evoked his scrappy childhood in Scranton, Pa. He kicked off his presidential run last year in Pittsburgh, and as he takes tentative steps out of home confinement in Wilmington, Del., the campaign trail has often led to the state next door. Yet surprisingly, Mr. Biden is enjoying no special boost in his native Pennsylvania. A New York Times/Siena College poll of six battleground states released last week showed that the former vice president’s net approval in Pennsylvania was largely the same as elsewhere: Fifty percent of registered voters viewed him positively and 48 percent saw him negatively. President Trump, mired in the lowest point of his presidency, was viewed favorably by just 43 percent of voters in the six battlegrounds. It helped explain why he trailed Mr. Biden in all six states and by 10 percentage points in Pennsylvania, a dire picture of the president’s chances of re-election. Still, with four months to go until Election Day, Mr. Trump could well become competitive again. Leaders of his campaign in Pennsylvania, seizing on Mr. Biden’s failure to shine as a favorite son, have sketched out a comeback path for Mr. Trump. Its steps include the Republican Party’s advantage in new voter registrations; a return to in-person organizing while Mr. Biden’s ground game remains virtual; and a range of issues — including energy policy, reopening the economy and defunding the police — that Republicans believe will peel away swing voters in a state Mr. Trump narrowly won in 2016.


PSBA Advocacy Ambassador program brings legislators to you
POSTED ON JULY 1, 2020 IN PSBA NEWS
PSBA’s Advocacy Ambassador program is a key resource helping public school leaders connect with their state legislators on important education issues. Our six ambassadors build strong relationships with the school leaders and legislators in their areas to support advocacy efforts at the local level. They also encourage legislators to visit school districts and create opportunities for you to have positive conversations and tell your stories about your schools and students. PSBA thanks those school districts that have worked with their advocacy ambassador and invites those who have not to reach out to their ambassador to talk about the ways they can support your advocacy efforts. Interested in becoming an Advocacy Ambassador? PSBA is seeking ambassadors to fill anticipated vacancies for Sections 1, 2 and 6. For more information contact jamie.zuvich@psba.org

PSBA seeking Allwein Society nominations
POSTED ON JUNE 29, 2020 IN PSBA NEWS
PSBA is accepting nominations for The Allwein Society, the association’s 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. Learn more and submit your nomination online.

PSBA Fall Virtual Advocacy Day: OCT 8, 2020 • 8:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Sign up now for PSBA’s Virtual Advocacy Day this fall!
All public school leaders are invited to join us for our fall Virtual Advocacy Day on Thursday, October 8, 2020, via Zoom. We need all of you to help strengthen our advocacy impact. The day will center around contacting legislators to discuss critical issues affecting public education. Registrants will receive the meeting invitation with a link to our fall Virtual Advocacy Day website that contains talking points, a link to locate contact information for your legislator and additional information to help you have a successful day.
Cost: As a membership benefit, there is no cost to register.
Registration: School directors can register online now by logging in to myPSBA. If you have questions about Virtual Advocacy Day, or need additional information, contact Jamie.Zuvich@psba.org.

Apply Now for EPLC's 2020-2021 PA Education Policy Fellowship Program!
Applications are available now for the 2020-2021 Education Policy Fellowship Program
The Education Policy Fellowship Program is sponsored in Pennsylvania by The Education Policy and Leadership Center (EPLC).  The 2020-2021 Program will be conducted in briefer, more frequent, and mostly online sessions, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The content will be substantially the same as the traditional Fellowship Program, with some changes necessitated by the new format and a desire to reduce costs to sponsors in these uncertain fiscal times.
The commitment of EPLC remains the same. The Fellowship Program will continue to be Pennsylvania's premier education policy leadership program for education, community, policy and advocacy leaders! The Fellowship Program begins with two 3-hour virtual sessions on September 17-18, and the Program ends with a graduation event in June 2021.
The application may be copied from the EPLC web site, but it must be submitted by mail or scanned and e-mailed, with the necessary signatures of applicant and sponsor.
If you would like to discuss any aspect of the Fellowship Program and its requirements, please contact EPLC Executive Director Ron Cowell at 412-298-4796 or COWELL@EPLC.ORG

Adopt the 2020 PSBA resolution for charter school funding reform
In this legislative session, PSBA has been leading the charge with the Senate, House of Representatives and the Governor’s Administration to push for positive charter reform. We’re now asking you to join the campaign: Adopt the resolution: We’re asking all school boards to adopt the 2020 resolution for charter school funding reform at your next board meeting and submit it to your legislators and to PSBA.

Over 270 PA school boards have adopted charter reform resolutions
Charter school funding reform continues to be a concern as over 270 school boards across the state have adopted a resolution calling for legislators to enact significant reforms to the Charter School Law to provide funding relief and ensure all schools are held to the same quality and ethics standards. Now more than ever, there is a growing momentum from school officials across the state to call for charter school funding reform. Legislators are hearing loud and clear that school districts need relief from the unfair funding system that results in school districts overpaying millions of dollars to charter schools.

Know Your Facts on Funding and Charter Performance. Then Call for Charter Change!
PSBA Charter Change Website:

The Network for Public Education Action Conference has been rescheduled to April 24-25, 2021 at the Philadelphia Doubletree Hotel


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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