Category: Education

Boys Latin Hears Rand Paul At Commencement

Boys Latin Hears Rand Paul At Commencement — Yesterday’s (June 10) commencement speech at Boys’ Latin of Philadelphia Charter School was given by Sen. Rand Paul, the outspoken, anti-corruption advocate from Kentucky and Tea Party favorite.

He used the opportunity to promote education and the empowerment of parents.

“I’m lucky to speak to a group of students who are not only an exception
to the rule, but come from a school that produces exceptional students
as a rule,” he said. “Boys Latin is a great example of the kind of
education I think we need to move toward, where parents can choose what
kind of education their children receive, where parents can choose an
education their children may not have otherwise had.”

The school has 368 students — all boys, 99 percent of whom are black and 86 percent of whom are eligible for a free lunch.

Hat tip Breitbart.com.

Boys Latin Hears Rand Paul At Commencement

Boys Latin Hears Rand Paul At Commencement

Cyber Schools Threatened By Pa. Cuts

Cyber Schools Threatened By Pa. Cuts — The Pennsylvania House Education Committee will hold hearings, Monday, on proposals that threaten to slash funding for cyber schools, reports Commonwealth Foundation. And cyber schools already receive only 81 percent of what traditional districts receive per student!

These drastic cuts will make it difficult—if not impossible—for cyber schools to compete. Indeed, many will be forced to close if funding is reduced, the Foundation says.

Cyber schools are public charter schools that more than 32,000 Pennsylvania students have chosen as the school that best fits their needs. These kids should not be treated as separate and unequal second-class citizens by shortchanging their education funding.

The schools give children a chance to escape bullies and bad teachers, who do exist.

For those without children or whose children are beyond school age, the existence of cyber schools helps dissuade the unions from being completely unreasonable in their contract demands and placing even more of a burden on you home or business property tax.

The state’s porcine educational establishment sees them as a threat.

To send a message to our governmental leaders visit here

 

Cyber Schools Threatened By Pa. Cuts

Corbett Puts Brake On Common Core

Corbett Puts Brake On Common Core — Penn Delco School Director Lisa Esler reports that Gov. Tom Corbett has put the brake on the implementation of Common Core — a corporation-conceived national educational curriculum being pushed by Washington.

Good for the Governor.

Mrs. Esler also says that the below resolution will be proposed at the next Penn Delco School Board meeting:

The Penn-Delco School District
Aston, PA 19014

Resolution Opposing Common Core State Standards Initiative

May 2013

Whereas, a solid education of children is the responsibility of the parents, supported by the locally elected Penn Delco School Board based on a strong foundation of accountability and transparency, that is built by open communication about the policies, programs, curriculum and the funding of these education processes; and,

Whereas, the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) Initiative is not a state-led initiative, as it is being presented, but is instead a subpar and unproven experimental set of national standards lacking empirical data to support them, that are still in the early stages of development, and local school board members, school leaders, teachers and most importantly parents were not included in the discussion, evaluation and preparation of the Common Core; and,

Whereas, through a collaboration between three non-governmental organizations, National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, both of which are Washington D C based trade associations with zero grant of legislative authority from states to draft national standards. The primary drafters, Achieve, Inc., is a non-profit progressive education group with a political bias based in Washington DC; and,

Whereas, Common Core State Standards Initiative was financed by private groups that stand to profit from the sales of textbooks and testing equipment to support these new experimental standards which by-passed our state legislature and impose these controls over the Pennsylvania Content Standards and Testing; and,

Whereas, Common Core State Standard Initiative binds us to an established copyright over standards, from which we cannot delete, replace or add beyond an additional 15% even if parents, teachers, and the local school board all agree, ignoring academic freedom, teacher autonomy, stifling creativity, innovation, eliminating  a laboratory environment & best practices; and,

Whereas,  General Educational Provisions Act prohibits federal authority over curriculum and testing; however, the U.S. Department of Education’s Cooperative Agreement confirms Common Core’s test-building and data collection is federally managed, thereby violating Federal Law; and,

Whereas, Common Core State Standards Initiative violates Constitutional and statutory prohibitions, pressuring states to adopt the standards, even before they were written, and tied financial incentives to “Race to the Top”. If States did not adopt the Common Core Standards they faced penalties, and loss of funds; and,
Whereas, the federal government is imposing an unfunded mandate on our state for unproven Common Core instruction, training, and testing platforms without any pledge of financial support from federal, state or local government; and,

Whereas, neither the Pennsylvania Secretary of Education nor the Governor of Pennsylvania are authorized by the Pennsylvania State Constitution to change public education standards and curricula without prior passage of legislation in the Pennsylvania General Assembly whose mandated responsibility in Article III, Section 14 is “to provide for the maintenance and support of a thorough and efficient system of public education to serve the needs of the Commonwealth.”; and,

Whereas, the CCSS requires collection and sharing of massive amounts of personal student and teacher data creating substantial risk of privacy breach; Now Therefore be it

RESOLVED, That The Penn Delco School District does not subscribe to a one size fits all top down approach to education and recognizes that CCSS as an inappropriate overreach of untested, experimental education standards that are not developed from the results based evidence of their efficacy nor on demonstrated best practices;

RESOLVED, that the Penn Delco School District rejects the collection of personal student data for any non-educational purpose without the prior written consent of a parent;

RESOLVED, That the Board of School Directors of Penn Delco School District hereby officially advises the State Board of Education, the Pennsylvania Secretary of Education, the Governor of Pennsylvania, the Senate and House of Representatives’ Education Committees and the Independent Regulatory Review Commission that it opposes the Common Core Standard Initiative.



Corbett Puts Brake On Common Core

Gifted Education Hearings Loom In Pa.

Gifted Education Hearings Loom In Pa.— Members of the House voted unanimously, last week, in support of a resolution that calls for a study of gifted education in school districts throughout Pennsylvania, reports State Rep. Jim Cox (R-129)

House Resolution 139 tasks the nonpartisan Legislative Budget and Finance Committee to conduct a comprehensive study of the process for identifying children as gifted; the process for developing and implementing gifted individualized education plans; the programs and services provided to gifted students; the cost of providing such programs and services; and a demographic breakdown of the children who benefit from such programs and services. The resolution directs the committee to report its findings to the House Education Committee this fall.

In addition to House action on gifted education, the speaker of the House this week appointed four House members to the new Special Education Funding Commission, formed as a result of Act 3 of 2013. The speaker appointed Representative Bernie O’Neill (R-Bucks County), Representative Michael Peifer (R-Monroe/Pike/Wayne counties), Representative Mike Sturla (D-Lancaster), and Representative Mark Longietti (D-Mercer County). Additional members of the commission include the majority and minority chairmen of the House and Senate Education committees, four members of the Senate, the secretaries of Education and Budget, and the deputy secretary for elementary and special education.

The commission will hold public hearings this summer to work to develop a new special education funding formula. It has until this fall to recommend a new funding formula to more effectively pay for special education throughout the state.

 

Gifted Education Hearings Loom In Pa.

Common Core Makes Your Child But A Number

The children of Pennsylvania have been assigned unique, irremovable numbers that will track them from pre-k through college and career, activist and educational expert Dr. Peg Luksik told a packed house at the Knights of Columbus Hall in Newtown Square.

The assigning was part of a Common Core plan adopted by the state Board of Education in July 2010. Every teacher has also been assigned a number she said.

“They can track down who’s doing and who’s not. There are repercussions for those that don’t,” she said.

Common Core is the attempt to impose a national education standard, usurping state authority and local control. Mrs. Luksik said that despite insistent claims to the contrary by its proponents it is a federal mandate — she noted the distribution of federal money is tied to its approval — and mandates a curriculum in the fields of English, math, biology, history and civics.

She said the mandates will include teaching population control ethics and unquestioning acceptance of man-made global warming.

“If you could pull your child out of public school, do it now,” she said. “If you are a teacher stay as long as you can in the system and fight it out.”

But she pointedly noted that those in private schools and charter schools and even homeschoolers will be eventually ensnared as well, since the GEDs required by the homeschooled
will be be based on Common Core as will school accreditation and teacher
certification.

She mocked how the new policy was being marketed noting the way its proponents used the word rigorous.

“When you use rigorous over and over again, it’s not accidental.”

She said the program was pushed by corporate titans such as Bill Gates and was designed to create workers rather than thinkers.

She said, however, this rather Orwellian concept can be defeated with a simple resolution passed by the state legislature, and hearings by skeptical committees have already started.

Mrs. Luksik’s talk was sponsored by the Delaware County Patriots. Joanne Yurchak of the group began the night describing how she attended one of those state committee hearings. She said that the Democrats seemed even more hostile to the plan than the conservative Republicans.

 

Common Core Makes Your Child But A Number

Common Core Makes Your Child But A Number

Sneaky New Fed School Policy Topic

Sneaky New Fed School Policy Topic — The Common Core State Standards Initiative, which is an attempt to  nationally unify state educational standards, will be the subject of a May 20 talk by Pennsylvania educational activist Dr. Peg Luksik.

Concerns that she will address include the transfer of the authority that state governments and local school districts have over education to the federal government.

The event will be held at The Knights of Columbus Mater Dei Hall, 327 N. Newtown Street Road (Route 252), Newtown Square, 19073. It starts at 7 p.m. and is sponsored by The Delaware County Patriots.

Call 610-572-3442 for  information or questions.

 

Sneaky New Fed School Policy Topic

Hearing On Bullying Bill in Pa. House

Hearing On Bullying Bill — The House Education Committee, last week, recently held a hearing on legislation aimed at protecting students who are the targets of school bullies reports State Rep. Jim Cox (R-129).

House Bill 156, the Pennsylvania Safe Schools (PASS) Act, would require all teachers to undergo a bullying prevention training program every five years and also require acts of bullying be reported to the state.

Pennsylvania is currently ranked by the U.S. Department of Education as having one of the most insufficient anti-bullying laws in the nation.

 

Hearing On Bullying Bill

Where To Find A Teaching Job

Wesley Derr tells us that openings for teaching jobs in Pennsylvania can be found here. So if you want to get rich have at it. Become a union rep and you won’t even have to work that hard.

House Bill Gives Vets In-State Tuition

House Bill Gives Vets In-State Tuition — The State House sent to the Senate last week legislation to grant in-state tuition rates to eligible veterans, their spouses and dependents at Pennsylvania’s public institutions of higher learning, says State Rep. Jim Cox (R-129).

House Bill 472 would apply in-state tuition rates of Pennsylvania’s state-owned and state-related universities and community colleges, such as Kutztown University, to eligible veterans seeking to study in Pennsylvania.

Currently, a full-time semester at a state-owned university averages $4,310 for Pennsylvania residents, while an out-of-state veteran would pay $9,223 for tuition at the same university.

The bill aims to level the playing field for veterans who, because of the nature of military service, may not have residency status in the Commonwealth.

House Bill Gives Vets In-State Tuition

House Passes Special Ed Bill

House Passes Special Ed Bill — The Pennsylvania House voted unanimously last week in support of legislation to address the state’s distribution of special education funding, reports State Rep. Jim Cox (R-129)

House Bill 2 would create a 15-member legislative commission on special education funding to develop a new formula for distributing any increases in funding over the levels distributed in the 2010-11 school year.

The commission would be expected to develop a more effective funding formula that must meet certain requirements, including: establishing three cost categories for students receiving special education services, ranging from least intensive to most intensive; obtaining a student count for each school district averaged for the three most recent school years to correspond to each cost category; assigning a weight to each category of disability; and developing a fair system for distributing increases among school districts to determine the amount of funding that each school will receive under the new formula.

In addition, the commission would be required to issue a report of its findings no later than Sept. 30.

Currently, state funding for special education is distributed based on an estimate that special education students make up 16 percent of the overall student population in each school district.

House Bill 2 now goes to the Senate for consideration.

 

House Passes Special Ed Bill