State urging charter school reform | Centre Daily Times

State urging charter school reform | Centre Daily Times:

Pa. auditor general calls for charter school reforms

The state auditor general is calling for charter school reform, including that of PA Cyber Charter School, which educates more than 75 students from Centre County.

It comes on the heels of a longtime audit led by Auditor General Eugene DePasquale that he said showed “how poorly” charter school law is protecting students and taxpayers.

The goal for reform, DePasquale said, is to ensure education dollars help students learn, instead of help individuals profit.

WE NEED TO REVISIT PENNSYLVANIA’S CHARTER SCHOOL EXPERIENCE, AND ACT NOW — NOT LATER — TO OVERHAUL THE CHARTER SCHOOL LAW AND DO A VERY THOROUGH TUNE-UP ON ALL ASPECTS OF CHARTER SCHOOL OVERSIGHT AND REGULATION.

Eugene DePasquale, state auditor general

“The bottom line is this: Nearly 20 years have passed since charter schools were authorized to be established,” DePasquale said in a prepared statement. “We need to revisit Pennsylvania’s charter school experience, and act now — not later — to overhaul the charter school law and do a very thorough tune-up on all aspects of charter school oversight and regulation.”

A report released by the state Thursday said auditors found leaders of some charter schools “had intermingled relationships that put individual self-interests above student needs while controlling hundreds of millions of taxpayer education funds from nearly every district in the state.”

“The problems I continue to point out with the charter school law should not be taken as an indictment of charter schools and performing arts in general,” DePasquale said. “We have some excellent charter schools and performing arts centers in Pennsylvania providing outstanding educational opportunities for students. Most of the problems we see in our audits can be traced directly back to gray areas in the 20-year-old charter school law, not issues caused by the charter schools themselves.”

Administrators at local public schools are hoping charter schools can be held to a higher standard because they’re publicly funded institutions.

“Charter schools are not playing by the same rules and are governed by unelected bodies although they utilize public funding,” Philipsburg-Osceola Area School District Superintendent Gregg Paladina said. “They must be held to a higher standard if they are responsible for the education of students.”

About 150 students in the region are enrolled in PA Cyber, according to figures provided by the state.

Like other public schools that serve Centre County residents, State College Area is a district that’s invested in improving education and enhancing communication with the community on the local public education system.

SCASD HOPES TO BETTER INFORM COMMUNITY ABOUT PUBLIC EDUCATION SYSTEM THAT INCLUDES SCHOOL DISTRICTS AND CHARTER SCHOOLS

Superintendent Bob O’Donnell said school administration and the board will hold a “state of SCASD finances” later this year and will focus on the charter school impact.

As a district, they’re paying about $250,000 this school year toward the online charter school. Last school year, SCASD funded $6.2 million from its district budget to local charter schools for 430 students, according to a report from the district.

LOCAL PUBLIC SCHOOL DISTRICTS INVEST MILLIONS IN CHARTER SCHOOLS

But State College Area also offers its own virtual program.

“Our wish is to make sure that students whose families desire an online experience have the opportunity to meet with our highly-trained teachers who utilize our quality curriculum,” O’Donnell said. “These state-mandated charter school payments constrain our decisions for opportunities within our schools and make it difficult to slow local tax growth.”

The CDT was unable to reach local charter school leadership by deadline.

Charter school law reform, as presented by DePasquale, includes improvement in accountability, effectiveness and transparency of charter schools, by creating an independent statewide charter school oversight board.

“In the case of PA Cyber Charter School, publicly elected school boards from nearly every school district in the state are sending state and local tax dollars to the cyber school with zero input and accountability,” he said.

91-PAGE AUDIT DONE ON PA CYBER

The 91-page audit report on the Beaver County-based cyber school showed concerns in seven categories, including a problem in curriculum and management; a board that fails to govern; unmonitored attendance; failure to collect tech equipment from former students; financially detrimental arrangements with performing arts centers; failure to maintain sufficient documentation to support teacher certifications; and high advertising costs.

The audit spans from May 2011 through March 2016.State urging charter school reform | Centre Daily Times:

Read more here: http://www.centredaily.com/news/local/education/article103613472.html#storylink=cpy

Yuba City strike magnified tension over funding formula | EdSource

Yuba City strike magnified tension over funding formula | EdSource:

Yuba City strike magnified tension over funding formula

Yuba City Teachers Association President Dina Luetgens speaks outside of Yuba City High following the vote Monday in which 97 percent of teachers approved the contract.

A tense, closely watched seven-day teachers strike at Yuba City Unified that ended this week was, at its core, a dispute over interpreting the Local Control Funding Formula, the state’s 3-year-old school funding law.

Yuba City teachers argued that extra money the formula provides districts for low-income kids, foster youth and English learners should go to fund across-the-board raises to help retain teachers. The school board said not unless these “high-needs students” also got something tangible in return, as the funding law intends.

Yuba City teachers were the first to walk out over the issue, but Stockton Unified, whose teachers authorized a strike without setting a date, could be next. Teachers there say that funding formula dollars should go to an across-the-board raise since nearly all students in the district qualify as high-needs. Negotiations deadlocked over the board’s proposal for a 6.5 percent raise in exchange for more instructional time. 

The same fight over what’s permissible under the funding law is playing out less visibly in contract negotiations and settlements throughout the state.

In Yuba City, a district with 13,000 students on Route 99 midway between Chico and Sacramento, the board held firm to its basic position, but also compromised after negotiations that ended at 5 a.m. Monday. Teachers got a 3-year, 11.1 percent raise, less than they wanted but more than the board had initially offered. About half of that increase is coming from funding targeted for high-needs students and will require that teachers do additional work: spend time collaborating with each other within the existing school week and attend three professional development days — two this year and one next year.

Teachers, smarting over a loss of seven days pay from the walkout but anxious to return to the classroom, voted Monday 506-15 to approve the contract. The school board unanimously approved it Wednesday.

“We brought teachers the best deal we could, for now, with the current school board, with the district office and board prepared to keep unqualified subs in the classroom,” sleep-deprived Yuba City Teachers Association President Dina Luetgens said Monday after the vote. A 26-year chemistry teacher at Yuba City High School, she said, “It was important to stand up for the future of our schools so that more great teachers don’t leave the district” for nearby districts for more pay.

Superintendent Nancy Aaberg said that the teachers strike, the first in the region, “was completely not necessary.” But the district is satisfied it was able to give a substantial raise while keeping the focus on the funding law’s intent — improving the education of underperforming students. Aaberg, who had Yuba City strike magnified tension over funding formula | EdSource:

Big Education Ape: Amid teacher shortage, Fresno Unified recruits educators from Starbucks to Mexico | Fresno Bee - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/08/amid-teacher-shortage-fresno-unified.html

Big Education Ape: California’s teacher shortage is becoming a crisis | The Sacramento Bee The Sacramento Bee - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2015/03/californias-teacher-shortage-is.html

Man who hit mayor with pie says it was ‘least violent action I could take’ | The Sacramento Bee

Man who hit mayor with pie says it was ‘least violent action I could take’ | The Sacramento Bee:

Man who hit mayor with pie says it was ‘least violent action I could take’

The man who hit Kevin Johnson in the face with a coconut cream pie Wednesday night said he told the Sacramento mayor before the attack that “he has to do better to represent the people.”

In an interview at the Sacramento County jail Thursday afternoon, Sean Thompson, 32, said for the past eight years, the mayor has focused his actions mainly on the new arena and the strong-mayor initiative.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article103361597.html#storylink=cpy

“He had a lot of opportunities to help people and he hasn’t taken any of them,” Thompson said.

Johnson was hit in the face with a pie at a benefit dinner at Sacramento Charter High School, and got into a brief physical altercation with his assailant.

“Let me be clear, the mayor was assaulted,” said Johnson spokeswoman Crystal Strait.

Thompson said that he has been an activist for four years, he has been arrested multiple times and always remained peaceful but said he felt like he hasn’t accomplished much.

Asked why he resorted to a violent act, Thompson said, “Pie throwing was the least violent action I could take.”

Thompson, 32, was arrested on a felony charge of assaulting a public official and misdemeanor charge of battery on school property, according to the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department’s website. He was booked into the Sacramento County Jail at midnight.

In a booking photo released by the Sacramento Police Department, Thompson appeared to have two sets of stitches around his left eye.

“During the assault, the subject sustained a minor injury and was transported by the Sacramento Fire Department to a local hospital for treatment,” the police statement said.

Strait said the mayor was talking to dinner guests when a man approached him from the side, grabbed him by the arm, yanked him off balance and slammed a pie into his face.

“He brought (the pie) with him. He pulled it out of a bag,” she said.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article103361597.html#storylink=cpy

 Asked if he would do it again, Thompson said, “Absolutely. I would do it twice.”

Johnson’s glasses were knocked from his face, said Erika Bjork, a witness who was a few feet away when the incident occurred.

Bjork said she was sitting at a table at the event as Johnson and his wife, Michelle Rhee, approached to greet guests seated near her. She said Johnson was talking to a couple across the table from her and was about to pose for a photograph when he was struck.

Bjork, a spokeswoman for Sacramento Republic FC who was attending the event on the club’s behalf, said Thompson did not say anything to the mayor before the incident.

Johnson confronted Thompson and the pair “scuffled in the dirt,” Bjork said. She said she saw Johnson swing his arm, but that “there was not a bunch of punches thrown. He struck back in some way. This was not like some bloody punch-fest.” Strait confirmed that Johnson hit Thompson.

The mayor’s security guard, a Sacramento police officer, and others jumped into the scuffle. Thompson was handcuffed by the security guard and restrained for a few minutes until more police officers and a fire truck arrived, Bjork said.

Strait said a member of the mayor’s staff also intervened and received a minor injury.

Sgt. Bryce Heinlein, a Sacramento police spokesman, said Johnson was questioned by police officers on the scene. He said the full report – including Johnson’s statement and witness accounts – will be forwarded to the District Attorney’s Office.

Heinlein said he does not expect Johnson to be charged “based on witness statements and the totality of the circumstances.” He said the mayor was “taken by surprise by the assault.”

Strait said Johnson didn’t realize he was being hit with a pie. “The mayor just felt he was being punched in the face,” she said.

“Let me be clear, the mayor was assaulted tonight,” Strait said Wednesday night. “He is home with his family…The whole thing is just shocking.”

Bjork said many of the roughly 200 guests at the event were not aware of what happened until several minutes later.

Johnson was given a sweatshirt to change into. After the mayor and Rhee spoke with police, Johnson addressed the audience. UFC fighter Urijah Faber was in attendance, and Bjork said Johnson jokingly asked “Where were you, man?” Johnson then posed for a group photograph with many of the students and chefs who attended the event.

The incident has sparked strong opinions online, with some arguing that Johnson overreactedMan who hit mayor with pie says it was ‘least violent action I could take’ | The Sacramento Bee:

Turkey’s Battle With Muslim Cleric Careens Through U.S. Classrooms - WSJ

Turkey’s Battle With Muslim Cleric Careens Through U.S. Classrooms - WSJ:

Turkey’s Battle With Muslim Cleric Careens Through U.S. Classrooms

American charter schools have become embroiled in a proxy fight between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Fethullah Gulen

Lawyer Robert Amsterdam is working for the government of Turkey to investigate schools and other institutions he says are connected to Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom Turkish officials blame for July’s coup attempt. PHOTO: STEPHEN VOSS FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

A global proxy war between the president of Turkey and his No. 1 nemesis played out early this year in an otherwise routine public-school board meeting in Fremont, Calif.

On the agenda during the January meeting was a pitch from the chief executive of a California charter-school chain, which had proposed opening an outpost in the Silicon Valley suburb.

Also in attendance, and bearing a long list of objections, was a lawyer representing the Republic of Turkey.

The attorney, from London-based Amsterdam & Partners LLP, “has been following us around lately” trying to block the chain’s projects, Caprice Young, chief executive of Magnolia Public Schools, told the Fremont board. “He is a representative of the Turkish government who seems to believe that we are affiliated with a religious group with whom we are not affiliated.”

From the Archives

0:00 / 0:00

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan pinned the coup attempt that gripped the country on a self-exiled cleric living in the U.S. named Fethullah Gulen. Gulen denies any involvement. Here’s a closer look at this influential preacher. Photo: AP (Originally published July 18, 2016)

Magnolia is among hundreds of targets in a battle between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his former political ally Fethullah Gulen , a Muslim cleric with millions of global followers, who left Turkey in 1999 and lives in Pennsylvania.

Turkish officials blame Mr. Gulen for orchestrating a July 15 coup attempt. They accuse him of trying to subvert the democratically elected government via positions his sympathizers hold in the judiciary, police and academia.

Turkey has asked the U.S. to extradite Mr. Gulen on charges unrelated to the putsch. U.S. officials have said they would consider all evidence Turkey presents as part of an extradition request; privately, many senior U.S. officials said they are skeptical of Turkey’s claims against Mr. Gulen.

Mr. Gulen’s network is hard to define. His supporters run schools and foundations around the world with clear ties to him. His links to other institutions are less clear, including to U.S. schools such as Magnolia. The chain was founded by two Gulen sympathizers and counts Gulen admirers among its teachers, said its CEO, Dr. Young. She said Magnolia has no legal, financial or governance connection with him.

Robert Amsterdam, whose firm was hired by Turkey, said he has about 25 employees and consultants fanned out around the globe to prove a theory, an effort that predated the coup attempt and has gathered momentum since. Roughly 150 schools in the U.S., and hundreds of other academic institutions and businesses around the world, he claims, channel millions of dollars annually to the Gulen movement.

“This is truly a global political and criminal movement,” said Mr. Amsterdam. “In the U.S., they’re teaching 60,000 students. I don’t know how they have time to teach when they spend so much time gaming the system.”

A Turkish embassy official in Washington referred inquiries to Mr. Amsterdam.

On a recent day, Mr. Gulen sat on a gold-colored couch in a book-lined office in a former summer camp in Saylorsburg, Pa., a Pocono Mountains town. He agreed to meet and be photographed but declined to speak, citing health concerns.

Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen at his Pennsylvania compound. PHOTO: IANTHE DUGAN/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

His representatives referred inquiries to Yuksel Alp Aslandogan, executive director of the Alliance for Shared Values, a nonprofit that promotes Mr. Gulen’s ideas and his “Hizmet” movement. Mr. Gulen denies involvement in the failed coup, denies trying to subvert the government and is opposed to violence, said Mr. Aslandogan. The cleric, he said, is 77 or 78 years old.

Mr. Aslandogan defended the movement, saying: “There are hundreds of businesses and NGOs within the Hizmet movement that have been legally operating around the world…and have been praised by local authorities and heads of state for their contributions to the country in which they operate.”

Some U.S. schools on Mr. Amsterdam’s hit list were founded by Gulen sympathizers but Mr. Gulen doesn’t run them, said Mr. Aslandogan, who himself helped start a school in Chicago.

‘Money laundering’

Mr. Amsterdam is aiming to tie the schools on his list to Mr. Gulen and expose what he said is a “money laundering” scheme. Some schools, he said, illegally use public funding to pay for immigration lawyers to win visas for teachers and administrators from Turkey. The schools then expect these Turkish employees to donate to the Gulenist movement, he said, and pressure them to donate to American politicians who advocate for Mr. Gulen.

The schools, he said, illustrate why Mr. Gulen should be extradited. They “give him political influence in a very big way,” he said.

Caprice Young, CEO of Magnolia Public Schools, one target of Mr. Amsterdam’s team, says the California charter-school chain was founded by sympathizers of Mr. Gulen but has no affiliation with him. PHOTO: MICHAL CZERWONKA FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Mr. Aslandogan said the schools Mr. Amsterdam accuses of impropriety “are American institutions serving American children and their parents. Any illegal or unethical action Turkey’s Battle With Muslim Cleric Careens Through U.S. Classrooms - WSJ:

 

2016–17 Exemplars of 21st Century Learning - Year 2016 (CA Dept of Education)

2016–17 Exemplars of 21st Century Learning - Year 2016 (CA Dept of Education):

State Schools Chief Tom Torlakson Announces
California Districts, Schools Chosen as 2016–17
Exemplars of 21st Century Learning

SACRAMENTO—State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson announced today that two California districts, three schools, and one early learning program have been chosen throughout the nation as 2016-2017 21st Century Learning Exemplars. This honor is designed to identify learning environments where students obtain an authentic 21st century learning experience.

Of the four districts recognized, half are from California. In total, 16 organizations were chosen to earn this prestigious designation, which is given out by the national coalition Partnership for 21st Century Learning (P21) .

“I am pleased that for the second year running, more than one-third of the schools and districts are from California,” said Torlakson. “This is a tribute to our state’s continued efforts to make great strides in preparing our students for the challenges and opportunities of 21st century careers and college.”

The 2017 California P21 Exemplars are:

School Districts

• Downey Unified School District, Downey
• Encinitas Union School District, Encinitas

K12 School Exemplars

• Valencia High School, Placentia
• Sanger High School, Sanger
• Roosevelt Elementary School, Burlingame

Early Learning Exemplar

• The Goddard School, Ladera Ranch

The P21 Exemplar Program identifies schools and districts that serve as national models for what 21st century educational practices look like, providing educators and communities with a variety of examples to replicate. Schools are recognized for a variety of programs, ranging from designing and 3D printing, to dual language learning for transitional kindergarten students, to agriculture focused career pathways.

P21 uses this rubric  to evaluate schools for exemplar status through onsite visits. Key exemplary practices are identified in the Patterns of Innovation report . Under the leadership of Superintendent Torlakson, California became one of 20 P21 Leadership States in 2012, recognizing its commitment to integrating the P21 framework.

The application period for the 2017–18 P21 Exemplar Program will open on October 15, 2016. More information is available on the P21 Web site .

# # # #

Tom Torlakson — State Superintendent of Public Instruction
Communications Division, Room 5206, 916-319-0818, Fax 916-319-0100

 Here is the current map of P21 Leadership States: 

P21 Leadership States design new standards, assessments, and professional development programs that ensure 21st century readiness for every student. To become a P21 Leadership State, a state demonstrates commitment from the governor, the chief state school officer, or high level state organization, and submits an application to P21 that describes the state’s plan to embed 21st century learning within standards, assessments and professional development programs.  

• Arizona
• California
• Illinois
• Iowa
• Kansas
• Kentucky
• Louisiana
• Maine
• Massachusetts
• Mississippi
• Nevada
• New Jersey
• North Carolina
• Ohio
• Oklahoma
• South Carolina
• South Dakota
• Vermont
• West Virginia
• Wisconsin
•