Award-winning principal urges legislators to say ‘no’ to Gov. Cuomo - The Washington Post

Award-winning principal urges legislators to say ‘no’ to Gov. Cuomo - The Washington Post:

Award-winning principal urges legislators to say ‘no’ to Gov. Cuomo

Here is a letter that an award-winning New York high school principal is sending to every member of her state’s legislature in regard to Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s proposals to reform teacher evaluation (for the second time in three years). Among Cuomo’s proposals is requiring  that student standardized test scores account for a full 50 percent of a teacher’s evaluation rather than the current 20 percent. Assessment experts warn against linking test scores to educators’ evaluation for a variety of reasons, but the practice has become a central feature of the school reform agenda of U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan.

The principal is  Carol Burris of South Side High School in New York. She was named New York’s 2013 High School Principal of the Year by the School Administrators Association of New York and the National Association of Secondary School Principals, and, in 2010, she was tapped as the 2010 New York State Outstanding Educator by the School Administrators Association of New York State.

In this post, Burris refers to “value-added” methods (VAM) of measurement that purport to be able to determine the “value” a teacher brings to student learning by plopping test scores into complicated formulas that can supposedly strip out all other factors, including the conditions in which a student lives. Different districts use different formulas and numerous experts in the field have said that VAM is not a reliable or valid tool for teacher evaluation. You can read about why here. She also mentioned the PARCC test, a Common Core standardized test being used in a number of states this spring.

[Gov. Andrew Cuomo and baloney]

Here’s the Burris letter:

Dear members of the New York State Assembly and Senate:

In 2012, the legislature dramatically changed the way teachers and principals were evaluated by instituting a system called APPR. That legislation created categories of performance, scoring bands and consequences for teachers rated developing or ineffective.

I did not then, nor do I now, understand why you would want to be in the business of evaluating teachers. Teachers are employed not by the State of New York, but by their locally elected school boards. I do not believe that our legislature has created systems to evaluate police officers, school superintendents, firefighters, the custodians who work in government offices, SUNY professors, or the men and women who take tolls on our bridges and tunnels. I suspect that you would recoil at the thought of legislating how every public servant is rated. And so you should. The good people of New York did not elect you for that purpose.

I appreciate the position that the legislature was in several years ago. The New York State Education Department was attempting to secure Race to the Top funds at a time when our state revenues were low. Due to pressure from the governor, the 

Award-winning principal urges legislators to say ‘no’ to Gov. Cuomo - The Washington Post:

Pearson and Spygate: The Story Continues (Who Done It?)

The War Report on Public Education with Dr James Avington Miller Jr | BBS Radio:

Pearson and Spygate: The Story Continues (Who Done It?)

The War Report on Public Education with Dr James Avington Miller Jr | BBS Radio

Bob Braun

Join host Dr. James Avington Miller Jr. as he continues to expose how Pearson is invading the privacy and taking away the first amendment rights of our students.

Bob Braun of the Bob Braun's Ledger will return to continue his great reporting on the nefarious union between the NJ Department of Ed and Pearson.



Also joining us for the hour will be Ken Previti - retired teacher and blogger for Reclaim Reform.
http://reclaimreform.com/

And a last minute update!

Also joining us on the show on Sunday will be Leonie Haimson - Executive Director of Class Size Matters and Co-chair of the Parent Coalition to protect student privacy.
http://www.classsizematters.org/

The more we learn, the scarier it gets...

Click on the website below to listen live and join the discussion:

http://bbsradio.com/thewarreport

2:00 PM PDT
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A direct listen-in line only
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http://bbsradio.com/thewarreport

The War Report on Public Education with Dr James Avington Miller Jr

http://bbsradio.com/thewarreport

BustED Pencils Trending News: Pearson and Spygate.

Too much sugar? Too much TV? Too much testing? Live from Next Door Brewing

Literally join Jed and Tim at 5:00 pm CST  live from Next Door Brewing Company as we talk public school activism with parents, teachers, and citizens prior to Too much sugar? Too much TV? Too much testing?  We want YOU to come and talk to US.

Madison public school activists will hold a panel discussion at 5:30 CST

at Next Door Brewing Compnay on 2439 Atwood Ave, Madison, Wisconsin 53704.  

BustED Pencils Trending News: Pearson and Spygate.

Posted on March 18, 2015 by Tim Slekar

What a week for the giant test publishing company—Pearson.  As was first reported on Bob Braun’s Ledger on Friday March 13th, it was confirmed that Pearson was spying on New Jersey students taking the common core aligned PARCC test. BustED Pencils talked to Bob on Sunday, March 15th for a detailed discussion of the “authorized” (by the… Read more »

BustED Pencils Trending News: Pearson and Spygate.

The Axe is grinding: Is PAR teacher evaluation discriminatory? | Cloaking Inequity

The Axe is grinding: Is PAR teacher evaluation discriminatory? | Cloaking Inequity:

The Axe is grinding: Is PAR teacher evaluation discriminatory?

Julian Vasquez Helig gave no statistical rebuttal to my data, therefore his comments are meaningless. Brian Crowell

I am usually up for a challenge. It was a lazy Saturday afternoon and Brian Crowell was up to his usual schtick critiquing Peer Assistance and Review (PAR), a community-level teacher evaluation approach. I previously discussed PAR in the post Can we Evaluate #Teachers Without Using High-Stakes #Testing? He posted the following on my Facebook feed:

Brian Crowell Challenges Head of California Federation of Teachers to Repudiate PAR at CFT Convention March 21, 2015 at 2:37am

My name is Brian Crowell. I have been actively investigating  discrimination  produced by PAR ( Peer Assistance and Review) for the last 3 years. My data base keeps growing and shows overt discrimination of against Veteran Teachers and Teachers of Color among those referred to PAR in cities throughout Calfornia. I am live blogging from the CFT Convention. I ran into CFT President Joshua Pechault. I told him “you have a problem with PAR”. I said I ‘m Brian Crowell. He said “yes I know who you are, you filed that case with PERB ( Public Employment Relations Board”… I ran down to him the overt cost cutting that districts have used in referring veteran teachers to PAR. I explained to him how management is not barging in good faith with their overt cost cutting through PAR and  the racial discrimination that has occurred as a result of teachers of color being pushed into the program. He mostly looked down at his feet as he listened. He acknowledged all of my salient points. In the end he said he would follow the case (a case he was already following) which set the a precedent for academic freedom in the State of California. Bottom line; Pechault is resorting to bureaucratoic measures to avoid dealing with this issue. My union friend delegate tried to get a resolution to the CFT Floor to oppose PAR. It was blocked by the Rules Chair. She will try again tomorrow but CFT openly supports age and racial discrimination with PAR. In closing. I’m a member of NEA and AFT and I can’t get representation for my informal settlement conference. The fight continues…

I responded in the comments of his Facebook post

 I have seen some of the “data” Brian referenced. I wasn’t convinced. Let the debate continue. There needs to be an alternative to VAM.

A few months back Brian had hijacked a post about something else with comments about PAR. At the time I had asked him to see his data, he sent it, and I wasn’t convinced by it at the time. Brian then messaged me:

If you have an argument let me see it. Otherwise be quiet.

So analyzing LA Unified PAR data on a Saturday evening is not exactly how I want to spend a Redbox night, but I did anyways because I was curious if Brian is right about PAR. I asked him for his data and he sent LA Unified PAR. The Axe is grinding: Is PAR teacher evaluation discriminatory? | Cloaking Inequity:

How To Sell Off a City - In These Times #‎DumpRahm‬ ‪#‎Chuy2015

How To Sell Off a City - In These Times:

How To Sell Off a City

Welcome to Rahm Emanuel’s Chicago, the privatized metropolis of the future.

 In June of 2013, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel made a new appointment to the city’s seven-member school board to replace billionaire heiress Penny Pritzker, who’d decamped to run President Barack Obama’s Department of Commerce. The appointee, Deborah H. Quazzo, is a founder of an investment firm called GSV Advisors, a business whose goal—her cofounder has been paraphrased by Reuters as saying—is to drum up venture capital for “an education revolution in which public schools outsource to private vendors such critical tasks as teaching math, educating disabled students, even writing report cards.”

GSV Advisors has a sister firm, GSV Capital, that holds ownership stakes in education technology companies like “Knewton,” which sells software that replaces the functions of flesh-and-blood teachers. Since joining the school board, Quazzo has invested her own money in companies that sell curricular materials to public schools in 11 states on a subscription basis.

In other words, a key decision-maker for Chicago’s public schools makes money when school boards decide to sell off the functions of public schools.

She’s not alone. For over a decade now, Chicago has been the epicenter of the fashionable trend of “privatization”—the transfer of the ownership or operation of resources that belong to all of us, like schools, roads and government services, to companies that use them to turn a profit. Chicago’s privatization mania began during Mayor Richard M. Daley’s administration, which ran from 1989 to 2011. Under his successor, Rahm Emanuel, the trend has continued apace. For Rahm’s investment banker buddies, the trend has been a boon. For citizens? Not so much.

They say that the first person in any political argument who stoops to invoking Nazi Germany automatically loses. But you can look it up: According to a 2006 article in the Journal of Economic Perspectives, the English word “privatization” derives from a coinage, Reprivatisierung, formulated in the 1930s to describe the Third Reich’s policy of winning businessmen’s loyalty by handing over state property to them. In the American context, the idea also began on the Right (to be fair, entirely independent of the Nazis)—and promptly went nowhere for decades. In 1963, when Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater mused “I think we ought to sell the TVA”—referring to the Tennessee Valley Authority, the giant complex of New Deal dams that delivered electricity for the first time to vast swaths of the rural Southeast—it helped seal his campaign’s doom. Things only really took off after Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s sale of U.K. state assets like British Petroleum and Rolls Royce in the 1980s made the idea fashionable among elites—including a rightward tending Democratic Party.

As president, Bill Clinton greatly expanded a privatization program begun under the first President Bush’s Department of Housing and Urban Development. “Hope VI” aimed to replace public-housing high-rises with mixed-income houses, duplexes and row houses built and managed by private firms.

Chicago led the way. In 1999, Mayor Richard M. Daley, a Democrat, announced his intention to tear down the public-housing high-rises his father, Mayor Richard J. Daley, had built in the 1950s and 1960s. For this “Plan for Transformation,” Chicago received the largest Hope VI grant of any city in the nation. There was a ration of idealism and intellectual energy behind it: Blighted neighborhoods would be renewed and their “culture of poverty” would be broken, all vouchsafed by the honorable desire of public-spirited entrepreneurs to make a profit. That is the promise of privatization in a nutshell: that the profit motive can serve not just those making the profits, but society as a whole, by bypassing inefficient government bureaucracies that thrive whether they deliver services effectively or not, and empower grubby, corrupt politicians and their pals to dip their hands in the pie of guaranteed government money.

As one of the movement’s fans explained in 1997, his experience with nascent attempts to pay private real estate developers to replace public housing was an “example of smart policy.”

“The developers were thinking in market terms and operating under the rules of the marketplace,” he said. “But at the same time, we had government supporting and subsidizing those efforts.”

The fan was Barack Obama, then a young state senator. Four years later, he cosponsored a bipartisan bill to increase subsidies for private developers and financiers to build or revamp low-income housing.

However, the rush to outsource responsibility for housing the poor became a textbook example of one peril of privatization: Companies frequently get paid whether they deliver the goods or not (one of the reasons investors like privatization deals). For example, in 2004, city inspectors found more than 1,800 code violations at Lawndale Restoration, the largest privately How To Sell Off a City - In These Times:

Toward Fiscal Sustainability: A New Approach in Prudent Fiscal Management of Chicago

Click here to go to Jesus "Chuy" Garcia for Mayor of Chicago Website

‪#‎Chuy2015‬ ‪#‎imwithchuy‬

30 Reasons to Be Thankful You're a Teacher | Roadtrip Nation in EducationRoadtrip Nation in Education

30 Reasons to Be Thankful You're a Teacher | Roadtrip Nation in EducationRoadtrip Nation in Education:

30 Reasons to Be Thankful You’re a Teacher

Posted: November 25, 2014 by: Katrina

The blaring alarm at 6 AM, the papercuts from trying to quickly grade tests, struggling to find a balance between caring-too-much for your students and not-caring-enough about your own need for sleep. Teaching comes with a lot of baggage, and often times it’s not even your own. But there’s a lot to be thankful for when it comes to being a teacher. Check out 30 reasons you should give yourself a high five for being a teacher!

1. Becoming an expert handwriter.
2. The light bulb. Corny, but it’s like seeing a unicorn.
3. Scented markers.
4. Free parent training.
5. Daily cardio because you’re never sitting (hopefully).
6. Always knowing what’s in fashion.
7. Seeing your students succeed long after you’ve been their teacher.
8. Laughing everyday (preferably not at students).
9. A stronger immune system.
10. Perfecting “the look” a la Cesar Millan.
11. The ability to decipher hieroglyphics bad handwriting.
12. Knowing 50 ways to use construction paper.
13. Time to explore your passion—whether on vacation or in the classroom).
14. Having a (sometimes) captive audience.
15. Working with other people who are as inspiring as you are.
16. Knowing you’re building a legacy everyday.
17. The opportunity to inspire a new generation—literally.
18. Being part of a community that cares if you’re out sick or celebrating your birthday.
19. How being someone’s “favorite teacher” can make you feel like you won an Oscar.
20. Your brain never turns to mush because of the new skills, technology, and changes occurring in education.
21. All the deals, discounts, and specials to make teachers feel appreciated.
22. Being the gateway to “retro” pop culture like David Bowie and Saved by the Bell.
23. The challenge to be a better, kinder, more patient person.
24. Endless Starbucks cards.
25. Knowing your smile, high five, or compliment could turn around a kid’s day.
26. Having kids…without having kids.
27. Using magical powers to turn something boring or uncool into a challenging and memorable experience.
28. Always knowing the latest boy band, and all it’s members.
29. Knowing how to repurpose anything and everything.
30. Living on in the stories your past students will tell their own children one day.

30 Reasons to Be Thankful You're a Teacher | Roadtrip Nation in EducationRoadtrip Nation in Education:

ROADTRIP NATION AND PARTICIPANT MEDIA’S THE ROAD TO TEACH TO PREMIERE IN AUSTIN AT SXSWEDU

Screening to take place at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema as a part of the eduFILM program

Los Angeles (March 2, 2015) – Participant Media and its TEACH campaign teamed up with Roadtrip Nation over the summer to capture The Road to TEACH, a cross-country adventure spotlighting inspiring individuals working to change the face of education. The hour-long documentary, which is scheduled to air on Participant Media’s television network Pivot on March 18, has been selected to premiere at SXSWedu on March 11 at Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Austin. The SXSWedu Conference & Festival promotes innovation in learning through the avenue of creative arts.

The Road To TEACH is inspired by Davis Guggenheim’s documentary film TEACH, Participant Media’s subsequent TEACH campaign highlighting the positive impact our nation’s teachers have on future generations, as well as Roadtrip Nation’s travel and learn philosophy. Admission into the festival marks Roadtrip Nation’s first time showcasing its work at SXSW.

“Roadtrip Nation is thrilled that our work with Participant Media and the TEACH Campaign will be recognized at SXSWedu. There is perhaps no better place to premiereThe Road to TEACH than at a pinnacle conference which celebrates the power and impact of education,” said Roadtrip Nation cofounder, Mike Marriner.  

“The Road to TEACH celebrates the inspiring journey of three students speaking with leading voices in education from around the country,” said Chad Boettcher, EVP Social Action and Advocacy for Participant Media. ”We’re proud to premiere the documentary at the festival.”

Following a five-week cross-country journey that takes place on Roadtrip Nation’s iconic green RV, The Road to TEACH features three student road-trippers: Nadia, Rafael, and Grace, who stop in various cities around the country to interview a diverse range of influential professionals. The three sat down with leading voices such as Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education; Kelly Meyer, creator of the American Heart Association's Teaching Gardens; Charles Best, founder of DonorsChoose; Robert Florio, veteran and special education teacher with Troops to Teachers, and many more.

As the road-trippers explore the eclectic world of education, they also contemplate their futures and begin to understand the vast opportunities, personal rewards, and vital need for passionate young people to make a commitment to teach the next generation.

The film encourages viewers to reassess conventional perceptions of the field of education by highlighting rare insights from teachers, policymakers, and activists. It also leaves students with the message that teaching is not only a vocation but also a strategic tool to enhance social justice across the nation.   

The film’s premiere will take place at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema on March 11.  The Road to TEACH will also air on Pivot on March 18, and will be available live and on-demand through the Pivot TV app. Additionally, the insights from interviews will be accessible to thousands of students through Roadtrip Nation’s career exploration curriculum and online multimedia resources, reaching over 6,000 schools and representing five million young people across the country – continuously inspiring viewers to explore different careers.

For more information, follow #RoadtoTEACH.

About Roadtrip Nation

Roadtrip Nation creates self-discovery resources designed to help young people build fulfilling lives and careers around their interests. Combining self-reflection with real-world exposure, Roadtrip Nation tools enable youth to connect their interests to relevant life pathways and stay engaged with their futures. For more information, visit roadtripnation.com and roadtripnation.org.

About Participant Media

Participant Media (http://www.ParticipantMedia.com) is a global entertainment company founded in 2004 by Jeff Skoll to focus on feature film, television, publishing and digital content that inspires social change. Participant's more than 60 films include Good Night, and Good Luck, Syriana, An Inconvenient Truth, Food, Inc., Waiting for ‘Superman’, The Help, Contagion and Lincoln. Participant launches campaigns that bring together government entities, foundations, schools, and others to raise awareness and drive people to take action on issues from each film or television show. Pivot (http://www.Pivot.tv), the company’s television network, is available in over 47 million homes, with a diverse slate of talent and a mix of original series, acquired programming, films and documentaries. TakePart (http://www.TakePart.com) is Participant’s digital news and lifestyle magazine and social action platform for the conscious consumer. Through its films, social action campaigns, digital network, and its television network, Participant seeks to entertain, encourage and empower every individual to take action.

About SXSWedu

The SXSWedu® Conference & Festival fosters innovation in learning by hosting a diverse and energetic community of stakeholders from a variety of backgrounds in education. The four-day event affords registrants open access to engaging sessions, interactive workshops, hands on learning experiences, cinematic portrayals, early stage startups and a host of networking opportunities. By providing a platform for collaboration, SXSWedu works to promote creativity and social change.ROADTRIP NATION AND PARTICIPANT MEDIA’S THE ROAD TO TEACH TO PREMIERE IN AUSTIN AT SXSWEDU

For Students Who Want to Be Teachers, New Documentary Explores Obstacles

By Jacob Bell on March 20, 2015 10:39 AM

Guest post by Jacob Bell

Though many students have an interest in becoming educators, they may also have apprehension about joining a profession that can sometimes sound less than desirable. A new documentary follows a trio of students deciding whether to pursue such a career.

"The Road to TEACH" follows the cross-country road trip of three 20-somethings who are considering careers in education despite discouragement from parents and peers.

Throughout the trip, the trio interviews education leaders about current triumphs in the system and the challenges—budget cuts, decline in the number of young people becoming teachers—it continues to face.

"We have so many teachers retiring in the next ten years, and we need to think of new ways—out-of-the-box ways—to inspire the next generation to teach," Lisa Zimble, director of the TEACH campaign for Participant Media, a collaborator for the documentary's production, said. (Participant Media also produced the films "TEACH" and "Waiting for 'Superman.'")

These ways, Zimble added, include improving teacher preparation and retention, giving mentors to new teachers in their first years, and inspiring students to become teachers so they "can experience the joy of teaching" earlier in their schooling.

Roughly half of all teachers in the U.S. are Baby Boomers, according to a 2009 report from the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future. Because of this, U.S. public education could lose more than 1.72 million teachers to retirement in the next few years. And problems with teacher attrition are well known, with somewhere north of 30 percent of teachers leaving within the first five years of their careers.

The documentary prompts deep thinking about what it means to successfully recruit next generation teachers, Zimble said.

"The Road to TEACH" was shot between August and September of 2014, culminating in a forum discussion in Washington. The show formally debuted at the SXSWedu education conference on March 11 and premiered on Pivot, a Participant Media television channel, on March 18.

The Newseum, in Washington, also hosted a screening on March 12. Around 100 people attended the latter screening, which was followed by a brainstorming session where representatives from teacher recruitment organizations and the U.S. Department of Education talked about the issues raised in the film.

For Students Who Want to Be Teachers, New Documentary Explores Obstacles

'Take Back the PARCC' event to raise awareness of controversial standardized test | NJ.com

'Take Back the PARCC' event to raise awareness of controversial standardized test | NJ.com:

'Take Back the PARCC' event to raise awareness of controversial standardized test

The fight against the PARCC testing system is still rippling throughout New Jersey as the exam period enters its last week on Monday, with the largest district in Gloucester County set to bring even more awareness to the controversial test on Thursday, March 26. 

The Washington Township Education Association and Washington Township School Support Staff Professional Association will hold a "Take Back the PARCC" event at Rowan College at Gloucester County at 7 p.m. in the Instructional Center, in an effort to spread the word about how PARCC will impact students, staff, parents and the statewide educational system as a whole. 

The event -- aimed at parents, teachers, school board members, legislators and taxpayers from throughout the area -- fill focus on the high stakes associated with the test as well as a look at exactly how the computer-based exam works. 

"This test differs vastly from other tests," said NJEA Communications Director Kathryn Coulibaly at a similar forum about PARCC held in February. "We certainly have a point of view, but we want people to see for themselves."

Issues with the test, ranging from the impact a high percentage of students opting out will have on federal and state funding to the big bills districts have piled up preparing for the exam, have spurred legislative attempts to curb its impact as well as grassroots organizing against it. 

A representative from one of those organizations, Susan Cauldwell from Save Our Schools, will be on hand at the Thursday Take Back the PARCC event as well. 

Washington Township Board of Education President Ginny Murphy has said the implementation of the exam as well as the Common Core curriculum it's tied to has already cost the district $5 million, and they're concerned about the sustainability of the expense. 

"These are not one-time costs," said Murphy at the Februrary PARCC event. "Technology is constantly changing. That's a permanent increase to our budget. I think 'Take Back the PARCC' event to raise awareness of controversial standardized test | NJ.com:

Parents Can Opt Out - United Opt Out National

Click Here to go to United Opt Out National: 

Click Here to go to the Website- United Opt Out Team

Click Here to go to the Website FairTest

Wolf, legislators push for charter school reform - GoErie.com - Erie, PA

Wolf, legislators push for charter school reform - GoErie.com - Erie, PA:

Wolf, legislators push for charter school reform

Gov. Tom Wolf addresses the media March 18 in the lobby of General McLane High School in Washington Township during a visit to promote his 2015-16 budget and specifically his plans to increase funding for public education in Pennsylvania. CHRISTOPHER MILLETTE/ERIE TIMES-NEWS

Legislators on both sides of the aisle are working on common cause: charter school reform.

Bills working their way through both the House and the Senate would change the way charters operate and are funded, including one by state Sen. Sean Wiley aimed at decreasing the cost of charters and increasing their academic performance.

And Gov. Tom Wolf has proposed a budget that includes his own set of charter reforms, including the establishment of a uniform tuition rate and the elimination of fund balances.

Voices demanding charter reform aren't new, but they are reaching new levels in Harrisburg.

"We've been essentially trying an experiment with the advent of charter schools, and in Pennsylvania it has been over a 15-year experiment," said Erie schools Superintendent Jay Badams, who has been a vocal opponent of current charter school law. "As with any experiment, you should check your results and adjust accordingly.

"Finally, not just our legislators but the public is finally starting to ask the same question: 'How is this experiment faring?'"

Wiley's proposed reforms are aimed at both cost and performance.

Under the current law, districts pay cyber charter schools the same amount as brick-and-mortar charters, and districts might pay different amounts to send students to the same cyber charter school.

Senate Bill 128 would create a competitive bidding system in which online public education providers can bid to become the primary cyber charter provider in a designated region.

Only online schools or programs that score at or above the statewide academic performance average would be eligible to bid.

Another bill, House Bill 530, would create a funding commission to make recommendations about how charters are funded. It would also set limits on charters' allowable unassigned fund balances and provide for the refund of excess fund balances to tuition-paying districts, and allow for longer charter renewals for high-performing charters, among other reforms.

Charter reform has become a visible issue because the state is working to identify both the proper way to fund education and the costs borne by school districts, said Wiley, of Millcreek Township, D-49th Dist.

The cost of cyber charters, in particular, to districts is more than $420 million a year, he said.

"What I've attempted to do with our legislation is really have a comprehensive approach, where we can systemically change the system and make it better," Wiley Wolf, legislators push for charter school reform - GoErie.com - Erie, PA: