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Public education is always changing and keeping up with these changes is a challenge. PSBA helps keep our members informed and keeps you current with the issues facing public education.
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Charter School white paper released by PSBA's Research Center:
The second paper produced by PSBA's Education Research and Policy Center shows how charter schools are actually performing in Pennsylvania.
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Education News
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Schools face 'perfect storm' over pension fund :
Like an impending financial disaster that has been building for years, school districts across the state are facing the fact that the amount of money they will be obligated to contribute to their employee pension funds will soar in the coming years.
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Plan to rework 'No Child' prompts concerns for rural areas:
Senate Republicans raised questions Wednesday about whether President Obama's plan to turn around struggling schools would fly in rural America. One Democrat said she worried that many states would be shortchanged of federal funding they need to improve teaching.
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Education chief pitches No Child rewrite plan:
Saying the United States is "falling behind" in education, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan worked Wednesday to persuade lawmakers that the Obama administration's plan to rewrite a federal education law is the right move for the nation's students and schools.
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Education Secretary Pushes 'No Child Left Behind 2.0':
The White House proposal to rewrite No Child Left Behind faced its first major test Wednesday as Education Secretary Arne Duncan defended the plan before two congressional committees: Some of the biggest concerns about the proposed rewrite came from Democrats.
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New Numbers for Swine Flu:
About 12,000 Americans died from swine flu between its emergence last April until mid-February, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated on Friday.
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Obama promise: Brighter education futures for kids:
President Barack Obama is promising parents and their kids that with his administration's help they will have better teachers in improved schools so U.S. students can make up for academic ground lost against youngsters in other countries.
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Battle brewing over state pensions:
Measures to meet the funding needs of the Public School Employees Retirement System seem likely to set off a spate of political wrestling matches in Pennsylvania.
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Area legislators non-committal on pension reform:
Asked for their positions on bills in the state House and Senate to reform the Public School Employees Retirement System, area legislators say they need more information.
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Obama Outlines Sweeping Education Revamp :
The Obama administration plans to upend how the government measures and encourages success in the country's public schools as part of a sweeping proposal to rewrite President George W. Bush's signature No Child Left Behind law.
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'Pension tsunami' threatens schools:
The bottom line: Pennsylvania and its public schools are facing a financial nightmare of historic proportions.
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Can school employees' retirement system be fixed?:
Pennsylvania's School Employees' Retirement System has survived the Great Depression, two world wars and multiple economic downturns. But if state lawmakers and school district officials have their way, it won't survive the "pension tsunami" — at least not in its current form.
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The school employee pension mess: What went wrong?:
Back in 2002, Act 38 certainly seemed like a good idea. School districts and the state were reeling from the recession following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. So was the state-run Public School Employees' Retirement System, which had lost billions on investments during the downturn.
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Math and English classes could be standardized:
Governors and education leaders on Wednesday proposed sweeping new school standards that could lead to students across the country using the same math and English textbooks and taking the same tests, replacing a patchwork of state and local systems in an attempt to raise student achievement nationwide.
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Pension spike spurs senior initiative:
The two suburban Philadelphia men, stunned by the prospect of property taxes increasing by an average of $550 per homeowner in two years as school pension obligations soar, are rallying seniors to lobby the Legislature for a senior property-tax freeze now.
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Other districts pay for the SRO position:
Although one school district in Franklin County has declined to hire a school resource officer for lack of funding, other local districts are finding it practical to pay for the positions.
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Perfect pension storm swirls:
The "perfect storm" is brewing and it could cost Luzerne County taxpayers millions of dollars.
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NEWS RELEASE: 16 Finalists Announced in Phase 1 of Race to the Top :
Today the Department of Education announced that 15 states and the District of Columbia will advance as finalists for phase 1 of the Race to the Top competition.
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Pa. in the running for Race to the Top funds:
As one of 16 finalists, Pennsylvania is still in the running for a share of $4.35 billion in federal Race to the Top money, but fewer than half of the finalists will become winners next month.
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COMMENTARY: It's usually not school board's fault:
I always seem to be beating on school boards. What doesn't come through is how much I admire people who are willing to serve in this role. It's an impossible job.
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15 states, D.C. make first cut in Race to the Top school reform contest:
Fifteen states and the District of Columbia survived the first cut Thursday in the Obama administration's unprecedented $4 billion school reform contest.
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Scholar's School Reform U-Turn Shakes Up Debate:
Diane Ravitch, the education historian who built her intellectual reputation battling progressive educators and served in the first Bush administration’s Education Department, is in the final stages of an astonishing, slow-motion about-face on almost every stand she once took on American schooling.
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Investing in education:
Federal stimulus dollars have paid for an autistic support teacher in State College, Promethean white-boards in Philipsburg-Osceola and reading intervention programs in Bald Eagle Area, Bellefonte and Penns Valley schools.
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Obama announces failing schools grants :
President Obama announced $900 million in grants, part of his 2011 budget, to help turn around the nation's lowest-performing schools.
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School Fires Its Teachers In The Name Of Progress:
Central Falls, Rhode Island, is the smallest city in the smallest state — but it's at the center of one of biggest debates in education. That is: How to turn around failing public schools? As part of a federal initiative, district officials have embarked on a major overhaul of their only high school, and have announced the firing of all teachers.
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Language lessons rare:
To learn how to speak Spanish, many midstate elementary students will have to stick with episodes of "Sesame Street" and "Dora the Explorer."
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Public gives school-budget options an F :
School districts caught in the thickets of a thorny budget season will get little more than grief from the public no matter how they propose trimming costs, a Morning Call/Muhlenberg College Poll finds.
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School officials make plea for help with pension crisis:
A spike in pension costs that could financially cripple school districts is still two years away, but action must be taken now, state and local education officials say.
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OJR board urges state to reform pensions:
The Owen J. Roberts School Board has unanimously approved a resolution urging state legislators to take action on school employee pension reform. The district is currently facing a potential $1.6 million shortfall in the 2010-11 budget and administrators have pointed to mandated increases in the district's contribution to the Pennsylvania Public School Employees Retirement System (PSERS) as one of several large expenditure hikes the district must deal with.
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Opinion: Pension reform met with protest:
As area school boards adopt preliminary budget plans, the wave of proposed tax increases is bringing into clearer focus the looming state pension crisis.
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Editorial: Time to retire this mess:
It is now estimated that the cost of taxpayers' contributions to pension funds for state employees and teachers will soar from less than $1 billion now to nearly $6 billion in three years.
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No Child Left Behind to change:
When the Obama administration said that it would seek changes to the No Child Left Behind Act, the details were scarce, but local educators were optimistic.
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Pension day of reckoning nears:
Skyrocketing pension contributions are among the chief concerns of local school leaders as they work to balance budgets for 2010-2011.
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Study: States Must Fill $1 Trillion Pension Gap:
These are tough times for state governments, many of which are contending with huge budget deficits. Many states are likely to face an especially daunting challenge in the years ahead, according to a report issued Thursday. The states have promised big pension and retirement benefits to their employees without putting aside money to pay for them.
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Plan would let students graduate early:
Pennsylvania is among eight states that will pilot a plan that could result in some students earning a high school diploma and entering college at the end of 10th grade.
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Get to work on pensions:
Even in a state with a record of habitually passing its budget late, the governor's introduction of a new budget proposal occupies the Legislature's attention.
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Pennridge keeps public in the loop on pension crisis:
Pennridge School District plans to begin offering more information to local residents on how the pension crisis may impact them directly.
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Pension increase to fall on taxpayers:
Taxpayers across the state will be hit hard over the next several years as school districts are required to make major increases to their teachers retirement system, school officials said.
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Schools a priority in Rendell budget:
While some may criticize Gov. Ed Rendell’s $29 billion state budget proposal for spending too much or cutting funding for their pet program, school districts have little to complain about.
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State school boards assn. reps trying to ease teachers' pension pain:
According to officials of the Pennsylvania School Boards Association, this story writes its own dire headline: "Pension System Busted: Astronomical Tax Increases Expected!"
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Increases planned for public schools under Rendell budget plan:
State Education Secretary Gerald Zahorchak said the governor's proposed budget for 2010-11 reflects hard choices, including providing more money for public basic education while holding steady the money for public higher education.
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Bill tries to tackle pension shortfall :
With the support of the Pennsylvania School Boards Association, state Rep. Glen Grell, R-Cumberland, and Sen. Gene Yaw, R-Lycoming, crafted House Bill 2135 to begin talks in addressing the long-term need to reform the Public School Employee Retirement System, or PSERS.
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Pa. pension time bomb still set to explode in 2012:
The optimistic sorts amid the ranks of Pennsylvania lawmakers have long been hoping that Wall Street gains would help solve a problem that legislators did much to create -- the pension funding crisis that looms just over the horizon.
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Pa. high school graduation exams get final nod :
Graduation exams are on their way into high school classrooms. That follows more than two years of uncertainty, political scrutiny and back-and-forth rhetoric about the merits of a series of graduation tests for high school students.
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Pennsylvania bill would alter teachers' pension plan:
Faced with the prospect of soaring school district contributions to the state's school pension fund, the Pennsylvania School Boards Association Wednesday joined forces with a pair of Republican lawmakers to introduce a bill to reduce pension benefits and provide individual retirement accounts for school employees hired after July 1, 2010.
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Group looking for new ways to shore up state pension fund for school employees :
The Pennsylvania School Boards Association yesterday proposed giving future school employees a different set of retirement benefits - which critics call inferior - to shore up a state pension fund.
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Pa. votes final-exam Keystone tests to get a diploma:
After years of debate, Pennsylvania is going ahead with a plan to offer school districts state-approved final exams that students would have to take to get diplomas.
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State board OKs high school graduation tests; some Berks educators dismayed:
The verdict is in - Pennsylvania high school students will have to take a series of tests called the Keystone Exams to graduate. And many local educators aren't happy about it.
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Panel approves new Pa. high school graduation exams:
Blasted by critics as a "one-size-fits-all" approach, high school graduation exams are on their way toward becoming reality in Pennsylvania by 2015, after a state panel Thursday approved regulations to implement them.
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Panel approves Keystone Exams for Pa. schools:
State regulators signed off Thursday on tougher graduation requirements for Pennsylvania students, a move designed to improve the value of a high school diploma that critics called costly and unnecessary.
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New bipartisan state budget package reached; Gov. Ed Rendell not on board:
House and Senate sources confirmed that leaders from at least three of the four legislative caucuses are on track to announce their consensus view of what a belated 2009-10 state budget should look like.
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Legislative Leaders Announce Budget Agreement:
HARRISBURG – A bipartisan group of legislative leaders today announced an agreement in principle on the 2009-10 state budget.
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Pa. education board's passage of Keystone Exams draws ire, praise:
State Board of Education members didn't do their homework when they approved a proposal for high school graduation tests, some legislators complained Thursday.
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State Legislatures Wrestle With Charter Laws:
Amid a strong push by the Obama administration to ensure that states don’t constrain the growth of the charter school sector, a number of legislatures this year debated measures on how many charters to allow, or whether to have such schools at all. But even with the extra attention from Washington, the outcomes have proved decidedly mixed.
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DCED schedules Act 32 training workshops:
Act 32 enacted on July 2, 2008, amends the Local Tax Enabling Act, Act 511 of 1965, to consolidate the collection of Earned Income Tax (EIT) on a countywide basis. A number of training workshops have been scheduled by the Dept. of Community and Economic Development. To get dates and locations of Act 32 Implementation Training and Workshops, see the DCED website.
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Compromise makes proposed state graduation exam optional:
The Pennsylvania School Boards Association has opposed the graduation competency exams, now called the Keystone Exams, because they mandated students pass the tests before they could graduate. But under a new proposal between the PSBA and the state Department of Education, the exams will be optional, and local districts will have greater ability to develop their own exams to be used in place of the state tests.
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