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Keystone State Education Coalition
PA Ed Policy Roundup for
September 16, 2014:
Take the money and run: after years
of spending Pennsylvania taxpayers' dollars on thousands of TV commercials and
windfall corporate compensation with dismal academic performance, K12 Inc. is
getting the boot. Can we get our money
back?
Concerned with adequate,
equitable, predictable, sustainable #paedfunding? Follow new @PACircuitRider and @CircuitRiderSE accounts on
twitter
EDITORIAL: Education funding
in Pa.
Tom Corbett and Tom Wolf are breaking out the big guns.
The embattled Republican governor and his Democratic challenger
are waging a war of numbers — to say nothing of big-money television ads — over
education funding.
Wolf, the York
businessman, continues to hammer away at what has been a constant criticism of
the governor, that he slashed $1 billion from education funding via the austere
budgets of his first term. Corbett is
now countering with an ad of his own, pointing a finger at former Gov. Ed
Rendell for papering over serious budget concerns with millions in federal
stimulus dollars. When those one-time funds expired, Corbett says he was left
holding the bag. He points out, correctly, that he actually has increased the
basic education subsidy, and notes that this year’s subsidy of $10.05 billion
is the highest in state history. It’s
easy to see why Corbett is fighting back. Education funding has hung around his
neck like a millstone during his first term.
Take the money and run: after years of
spending Pennsylvania taxpayers' dollars on thousands of TV commercials and
windfall corporate compensation with dismal academic performance, K12 Inc. is
getting the boot. Can we get our money
back?
K12 Inc. Loses Ground in
Contract With Major
Cyber Charter
School
Education Week Marketplace K12 Blog By Michele Molnar on September
12, 2014 5:40 PM
The board of Agora Cyber Charter School, the second largest
virtual school in Pennsylvania, has dealt several blows to K12 Inc., the
publicly traded company that manages the school and provides key technologies
and services to run it and educate its students.
The board voted unanimously in meetings over the past few weeks
to transition Agora into a self-managed entity, hiring executives to lead the
10,800-student virtual school, and contracting with new vendors for its student
information system, learning management system, and computers, beginning July
1, 2015. Now, it appears Agora is
working on developing its own curriculum for grades 6 to 8 over the next year,
a step that might suggest the K12 Inc.curriculum Agora currently uses could
also be in jeopardy of being dumped as well. "It's sort of the worst possible
scenario for K12," said Trace Urdan, a senior analyst for Wells Fargo
Securities in San Francisco . K12
gets about 13 percent of its revenues from Agora, and about 10 percent
from the Ohio Virtual Academy
Tobacco group spent large in
second quarter on lobbying.
Capitolwire.com — Under The Dome™ Monday, September 15, 2014
With the announcement the Philadelphia cigarette tax bill
could get a House vote this week, there’s likely to be one group –besides the
Philly school district – very interested in the outcome (and likely to affect –
or have already affected - that outcome): tobacco manufacturing companies. One
of the largest such companies spent more money lobbying state lawmakers in the
run-up to the budget deadline this year than all of 2013. Altria, the parent
company for Phillip Morris and other tobacco manufacturing companies, spent
$405,961 between April and June this year. In 2013, the company spent $395,698
on lobbying expenses. Altria spent only $88,503 in the first quarter of 2014,
according to the state lobbyist database. During the time Altria ramped up its
lobbying efforts, there was a significant push to give the City of Philadelphia the option
to increase a citywide tax on cigarettes to add money to its school district's
coffers. The company opposed the proposal, which would have increased the
per-pack tax by $2 and generate $83 million for the city's schools. The
increased cost could have depressed tobacco sales within the city or sent
smokers outside city borders or to “underground markets” to buy cigarettes, a
lawmaker said. The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote in July that Altria
lobbyists – employed at two of Harrisburg 's
largest firms, Gmerek Government Relations and Greenlee Partners – pushed for
an amendment to sunset the taxing authority after five years. The amendment
sapped the bill's momentum. Republican leaders said they would take up the bill
during this fall's session, but issues with other parts of the overall
legislation remain.
Efforts to get cigarette tax
passed for schools rampup
KRISTEN A. GRAHAM, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER LAST UPDATED: Tuesday, September 16,
2014, 1:08 AM POSTED: Monday, September 15, 2014, 6:58 PM
With tens of millions of dollars and more than 1,000 Philadelphia School District
jobs on the line, all eyes shifted to Harrisburg
on Monday as lawmakers returned from their summer break.
District leaders say they need a $2-per-pack cigarette tax
passed quickly to help fill an $81 million deficit, and prevent mass layoffs
and larger class sizes. Philadelphia officials said they would keep
the pressure on high until the tax is passed. Mayor Nutter, a familiar face in
the state Capitol in recent months, plans to travel to Harrisburg again this week.
Court won't hear Bethlehem
By Adam Clark,Of
The Morning Call September 14, 2014
The latest on Bethlehem
Area School
District 's fight with the Dual Language
Charter School
A Pennsylvania appeals court
has refused to hold a second hearing on Bethlehem
Area School
District 's argument against the Lehigh Valley
Dual Language
Charter School Commonwealth Court to the state Supreme
Court, Bethlehem Area School District Superintendent Joseph Roy said.
Meanwhile, the Bethlehem Area School Board and state Charter School Appeal
Board are expected to hold their own hearings on the school's proposal.
Yesterday the House Education Committee
held an informational meeting on HB 2373, a bill dealing with Pennsylvania Florida Pennsylvania
Public Money Finds Back Door
to Private Schools
New York Times By STEPHANIE SAUL Published: May 21,
2012
Post-Gazette sues state over
email retention practice
Requests records be kept for 2 years
Bill Shackner / Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette September 16, 2014 12:00 AM
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette sued the state Monday in Commonwealth Court ,
asking a judge to halt a practice across the executive branch of destroying
emails after five days and instead order they be preserved for at least two
years. In a complaint seeking an injunction
and emergency hearing, lawyers for the newspaper said the state’s practice
violates the due process rights of the public seeking release of public records
under Pennsylvania ’s
Right-to-Know Law.
The complaint noted acting Education Secretary Carolyn
Dumaresq’s recent statement that she and employees throughout her agency
“delete and cleanse” all their emails nightly. Although the department
subsequently sought to recant her statement, the lawsuit said “there is clearly
daily purging” by the department, a practice the lawsuit contends does not
comply with the state’s email retention policy.
DN Editorial: Separate
realities
Daily News Editorial POSTED: Monday, September 15, 2014,
3:01 AM
AS THE Pennsylvania General Assembly returns to session today,
we like to imagine their reaction if they returned to the statehouse finding
the place hadn't been cleaned over the summer, that there were no security
guards at the doors, and half their staff had been cut so they had to answer
their own phones.
How long do you think that situation would last? A day? An
hour?
Yet those are largely the circumstances awaiting schoolchildren
in Philadelphia
when they began their school year last week: cuts to staff including cleaning
and security, made by Superintendent William Hite to assure the schools would
open on time.
Trial of charter school
founder costs taxpayers a bundle
MARTHA WOODALL, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER POSTED: September 16, 2014, 1:08 AM
As Dorothy June Brown undergoes a mental exam to determine
whether she is competent for retrial on charges that she defrauded the schools
she founded of $6.3 million, the charters' legal bills from the first trial
have been tallied. Records that The
Inquirer obtained under the state Right-to-Know Law show Brown's three Philadelphia charters
spent more than $925,000 in taxpayer money on the case.
Spring-Ford eyes eliminating
per capita tax
By Frank Otto, The Mercury POSTED: 09/14/14,
10:17 AM EDT |
Chesco solar plan pits green
against green
TRICIA L. NADOLNY, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER Tuesday, September 16, 2014, 1:08 AM
A wooded swath between subdivisions and a school in western Chester County Coatesville Area
High School
But the project has drawn fire from unlikely foes:
environmentalists.
Kennett High is honored for
academic standards
By Fran Maye, Daily Local News
September 125, 2014
Legislators Back to
– This?
Yinzercation Blog September 15, 2014
Welcome back, legislators. I know today is your first day back
in session after two months off for your summer break. A lot has happened since
the beginning of July. But it’s hard to leave the sunshine and put away your
flip-flops. I get it. So maybe you just need to ease into things.
Maybe that’s why the very first thing the Senate Education
Committee will consider when it meets tomorrow morning is a bill that would
allow teachers and other school staff to carry concealed guns. Because you
can’t actually be serious. You’re planning to sip your coffee, shake the sand out
of your briefcase, and then vote a quick “no” on this ridiculous legislation,
right?
Classical music crisis:
Author says schools today aren't building audiences
Trib Live By Mark
Kanny Monday, Sept. 15, 2014, 9:00 p.m.
Just as everyone who plays college sports doesn't go on to a professional career, the same is true for students in university classical-music programs. But college music schools aren't preparing students for a life that doesn't include a job with symphony orchestras, which are struggling with their own financial problems, according to veteran educator Robert Freeman.
Just as everyone who plays college sports doesn't go on to a professional career, the same is true for students in university classical-music programs. But college music schools aren't preparing students for a life that doesn't include a job with symphony orchestras, which are struggling with their own financial problems, according to veteran educator Robert Freeman.
In his new book “The Crisis of Classical Music in America ,
Lessons From a Life in the Education of Musicians” (Rowman and Littlefield),
Freeman says schools are giving intense instruction to classical-music students
but are not building an audience for the music.
The wild rumpus is ending as
Philly's Rosenbach prepares to return bulk of Sendak collection
WHYY Newsworks BY ELISABETH
PEREZ-LUNA SEPTEMBER 16, 2014
For fans and researchers, one place has become synonymous with
Maurice Sendak's body of work -- the prestigious Rosenbach
Museum and Library in Philadelphia .
But the will of the prolific artist and writer may deprive the
city of most of this literary treasure.
When artist and writer Maurice Sendak died in 2012, he left
behind hundreds of illustrations, sketches, books and essays. His best-known
works are two childen's books -- "Where the Wild Things Are"
and "In the Night Kitchen" -- that tackle serious, disturbing
issues and gave him international recognition.
But starting next month, "where the wild things are"
will no longer be Philadelphia .
Max and his monster friends are moving on as a long and fruitful collaboration
that started in the late 1980s between the artist and the Rosenbach reaches an
end.
Q. and A.: Yong Zhao on
Education and Authoritarianism in China
New York Times By DIDI KIRSTEN TATLOW
SEPTEMBER 14, 2014 6:00 PM
Yong Zhao, a professor
of education at the University
of Oregon China ,” he is
now an authority on Chinese and American education and the author of “Who’s
Afraid of the Big Bad Dragon: Why China Has the Best (and Worst) Education
System in the World,” being published this week.
There, Mr. Zhao examines how China’s contemporary examination-driven
system emerged from an authoritarian, imperial culture, and how it has become
an object of admiration among some policy makers in the West after Shanghai
students ranked at the top in the Program for International Student Assessment,
or PISA, test twice in a row. That throws up a puzzle that he unpicks: Chinese
educators, parents and students believe their system is broken and have been
trying to change it for decades. At best it produces a narrow kind of
intelligence. At worst it replicates a rigid culture in which everyone competes
for a few elite jobs that are dispensed, and controlled, by the state. So why
is the West trying to “catch up” with China ?
A warning to U.S.
Yong Zhao is a respected education
scholar who has been a fierce critic of high-stakes standardized testing, both
in China and the United States .
Zhao, the presidential chair and director of the Institute for Global and
Online Education in the University of Oregon’s College of Education, has
written a new book entited “Who’s
Afraid of the Big Bad Dragon: Why China Has the Best (and Worst) Education
System in the World” that my colleague, Post education writer (and former
China correspondent) Jay Mathews, said in
a columnwas “the best I have ever read on Chinese schools. The book, released Sept. 15, analyzes the
success of Chinese schools and finds that U.S. education reformers are
drawing the wrong lessons. He issues a warning to U.S. education reformers about
operating under what he calls “the spell of authoritarianism.” Yong Zhao gave
me permission to publish the introduction to his book. Here it is:
PUBLIC Education Nation October
11
The Network for Public Education will hold a historic event in one month's time.
The Network for Public Education will hold a historic event in one month's time.
PUBLIC Education Nation will deliver the
conversation the country has been waiting for. Rather than featuring
billionaires and pop singers, this event will be built around intense
conversations featuring leading educators, parents, students and community
activists. We have waited too long for that seat at someone else's table.
This time, the tables are turned, and we are the ones setting the agenda. This event will be livestreamed on the web on
the afternoon of Saturday, October 11, from the auditorium of Brooklyn New
School, a public school. There will be four panels focusing on the most
critical issues we face in our schools. The event will conclude with a
conversation between Diane Ravitch and Jitu Brown.
Please join us for a symposium
on:
“Funding
Pennsylvania's Public Schools: A Look Ahead”
This event is co-sponsored by the
University of Pittsburgh Institute of Politics and the Temple University
Center
When: Friday, October 3, 2014, 8:30 am to 12 pm
Where: Doubletree Hotel Pittsburgh in Green Tree, PA
Session I:
"Forecasting the Fiscal Future of Pennsylvania's Public
Schools"
A panel of legislators and public
officials will respond to a presentation by Penn State Professor William
Hartman and Tim Shrom projecting the fiscal trajectory of Pennsylvania’s 500
school districts over the next five years and by University of Pittsburgh
Professor Maureen McClure discussing the implications for school finance of an
aging tax base.
Session II: "Why Smart
Investments in Public Schools Are Critical to Pennsylvania's Economic
Future"
Following an address by Eva Tansky
Blum, Chairwoman and President of the PNC Foundation, a panel of business
and labor leaders will discuss the importance of public school funding
reform to the competitiveness of regional and state economies.
We look forward to your
participation!
Back to School
Special Education Boot Camp Saturday, September 20, 2014 8:30 A.M.- 3:00 P.M.
Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia
United Way Building 1709 Benjamin
Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia, 19103
Join presenters from: Temple University · McAndrews Law
Offices · ARC
PA Education for All
Coalition · Delaware Valley Friends School
PA Dyslexia and Literacy Coalition
Attend workshops on: Early
Intervention · Dyslexia · Discipline · Charter
Schools
Inclusion · Transition
Services
Details and Registration: http://bit.ly/1nSstB7
Education Law
Center Celebrating Education Champions 2014
On September 17, 2014 the Education
Law Center will hold its annual event at the Crystal Tea Room in the Wanamaker
Building to celebrate Pennsylvania’s Education Champions. This year, the event
will honor William P. Fedullo, Chancellor of the Philadelphia Bar Association;
Dr. Joan Duvall-Flynn, Education Committee Chair for the Pennsylvania State
Conference of NAACP Branches; and the Stoneleigh Foundation, a Philadelphia
regional leader on at-risk youth issues.
Pennsylvania Arts Education
Network 2014 Arts and Education Symposium
The 2014 Arts and Education Symposium will be
held on Thursday, October 2 at the State Museum
of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg, PA. Join us for a daylong convening of
arts education policy leaders and practitioners for lively discussions about
the latest news from the field.
The Symposium registration fee is $45 per person.
To register, click
here or follow the prompts at the bottom of the page. The Symposium will include the following:
Register Now – 2014 PAESSP
State Conference – October 19-21, 2014
Please join us for the 2014 PAESSP State Conference, “PRINCIPAL
EFFECTIVENESS: Leading Schools in a New Age of Accountability,” to be
held October 19-21 at the Sheraton Station Square Hotel, Pittsburgh,
Pa. Featuring Keynote Speakers: Alan
November, Michael Fullan & Dr. Ray Jorgensen. This year’s conference will provided PIL
Act 45 hours, numerous workshops, exhibits, multiple resources and an
opportunity to network with fellow principals from across the state.
PASA-PSBA School Leadership
Conference (Oct. 21-24) registration forms now available online
PSBA Website
PSBA Website
Make plans today to attend the most talked about education
conference of the year. This year's PASA-PSBA
School Leadership Conference promises to be one of the best with new
ideas, innovations, networking opportunities and dynamic speakers. More details
are being added every day. Online registration will be available in the
next few weeks. If you just can't wait, registration
forms are available online now. Other important links are available
with more details on:
·
Hotel
registration (reservation deadline extended to Sept. 26)
·
Educational
Publications Contest (deadline Aug. 6)
·
Student
Celebration Showcase (deadline Sept. 19)
·
Poster
and Essay Contest (deadline Sept. 19)
Voting for PSBA officers
and at-large representatives opens Sept. 9
PSBA Website 9/8/2014
The slate of candidates for 2015 PSBA officer and at-large
representatives is available online. Photos, bios and
videos also have been posted for candidates. According to recent PSBA
Bylaws changes, each member school entity casts one vote per office. Voting
will again take place online through a secure, third-party website -- Simply
Voting. Voting will open Sept. 9 and closes Oct. 6. One person from the school
entity (usually the board secretary) is authorized to register the vote on
behalf of the member school entity and each board will need to put on its
agenda discussion and voting at one of its meetings in September. Each person authorized
to cast the school entity's votes received an email on Aug. 13 and a test
ballot was sent to them on Aug. 28. In addition, a memo from PSBA President
Richard Frerichs will be mailed in the coming days to all board secretaries and
copied to school board presidents and chief school administrators.
- See more at: http://www.psba.org/news-publications/headlines/details.asp?id=8465#sthash.faopm8Xr.dpuf
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