Alcohol and college life

This year, The Princeton Review named Penn State the #1 Party School in America.

"This American Life" does a great job of looking at just what this means while investigating drinking at college.

Be careful; listening may change your perspective.

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=396

Thank you!

I am very appreciate of the support I received from you for election to the Delaware Valley School Board. Thank you, and I look forward to continued collaboration regarding the present and future educational needs of our district and community. Please stay involved.

Vote for the first FOUR (and Charles Pike)

Here is the official order of the candidates on the Nov 3, 2009 ballot:

Delaware Valley School District School Director
(Vote for not more than FOUR)

Pam Lutfy (Democratic/Republican)
Sue Schor (Democratic/Republican)
Jack Fisher (Democratic/Republican)
Bill Greenlaw (Democratic)
Robert Goldsack (Republican)

Vote counts from the primary:

Pam Lutfy (1,337 total votes)
Sue Schor (1,269 total votes)
Jack Fisher (1,132 total votes)
Bill Greenlaw (1,106 total votes)
Robert Goldsack ( 674 total votes)

For those that care about political parties: ALL the candidates in this school board race are registered Republicans.

Three of the candidates prevailed in both primaries, the other two candidates rounded out the field of four in the Democratic and Republican primaries.

Please ask all your Republican friends NOT to select the party line vote option, but to vote for the BEST candidates in the school board race.

PA law allows School Board candidates (and candidates for the Court of Common Pleas) to petition to be put on the ballot in the Democratic and Republican primary, regardless of the party affiliation of the candidate. Pennsylvania considers these offices as non-political All of the candidates sought to be listed on both the Democratic and Republican primary ballot.

Charles Pike is the only candidate on the ballot for the two year slot, so it looks like Chuck will be on the DV School Board starting in December. Early Congratulations to Chuck!

Get your absentee ballot aplication NOW!

There is less than a week left to get your absentee ballot application done! If you will not be in the County on November 3, apply for an absentee ballot.

The application must be received by the Board of Elections (in Pike County) by Tuesday October 27, 2009.

After the application is in, they will mail you a ballot. Vote and return the ballot.

You can cast one of the first votes for Greenlaw, Lutfy, Schor, Pike, and Fisher.

A link to absentee ballot applications (and other election information) can be found here: http://www.futureofpikecounty.org/Elections.html

Merit Pay

There is an interesting discussion of merit pay at the Education Sector's "The Quick and the ED" blog.

The blog entry highlights a couple of perspectives on merit pay:

• "money is an ineffective motivational tool" for encouraging effective teachers.
  

and, seemingly conversely, another view:

• While beginning teacher turnover can be high, rewarding effective teaching may help "to make sure that it’s your most effective teachers who are least likely to quit"

The blogger feels that these perspectives may not be inconsistent:

• "I don’t think there’s really much distance between these perspectives. Professionals engaged in creative work are more likely to be motivated by autonomy, and by the feeling that they are part of a larger, socially important enterprise, and by working for an organization that employs other similarly-minded professionals, and by being paid well. Successful organizations put all of these pieces together, because if they don’t, someone else will and hire away all the good people."
• "To recruit and retain good teachers, schools need a lot more than merit pay–they need strong leadership, good facilities, safe working conditions, and the right kind of organizational culture. You can’t paper over the lack of those things by simply tacking on a salary bonus, even a big one, to the existing steps-and-lanes pay scale. That’s what most most “merit pay” plans have been, historically, and that’s why they haven’t worked."
  

The comments on this blog entry are interesting. On commenter indicates s/he has "served as a consultant to labor unions and a middle manager supervising unionized workers." The commenter makes the point that successful merit based systems should have bargaining unit buy-in and the the administration must be seen as an entity that will not abuse the system:

• "The Denver ProComp system has survived, despite its struggles, in part because many Denver teachers saw the school superintendent (now a U.S. Senator) as a good-faith CEO who would block abuses of a performance pay system. The union’s participation in designing ProComp gave them a comfort level in supporting it."

I agree. For a merit-based system to be effective all stakeholders must participate in the design and it must be administered in a way that is seen as fair and impartial.

Pike County Press Exclusive: Senator Baker Speaks On Budget Impasse

Posted by Vic on Aug 27th, 2009 and filed under Featured. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Baker: “It’s what Governor Rendell has always done; create a crisis to get what he wants.”

Story and Phot By Pat Camuso

HARRISBURG- Last week a Republican effort in the Pennsylvania State Senate failed to override some of Governor Ed Rendell’s line-item vetoes within the proposed budget; this, as negotiations languish and the budget stalemate continues. On Friday, the Pike County Press caught up to State Senator Lisa Baker (R-20) who said she will not compromise the personal values that got her elected by yielding to Rendell’s political gamesmanship.

In July, the Governor vetoed almost $13 billion in spending as he approved $4 billion to pay state workers during the budget impasse.

Baker explained that in hope of keeping essential and time-sensitive core government functions funded without interruption while budget negotiations continue, the Senate on Wednesday considered overrides of some of Rendell’s line-item vetoes but, according to Baker, these efforts failed categorically – blocked by Senate Democrats – falling 3 votes short and along partisan lines with one exception. According to Baker, Senator Lisa Boscola (D-18) was the only Democrat to vote along with Republicans for the overrides.

The vote to override a governor’s veto required a two-thirds majority. With one vacancy in the Senate, 33 “yes” votes were needed to approve an override. If an override was approved in the Senate, it would have been sent to the General Assembly for consideration. If the General Assembly also overrode a line-item veto, the funding would have been made immediately available.

According to Baker, among the line items voted on were several which the Governor vetoed despite the fact that Senate Bill 850 funded them at exactly the amount he recommended:

• Assistance to Drug & Alcohol Programs, $41.8 million
• Homeless Assistance, $25.6 million
• State Food Purchase (Food Banks), $18.0 million
• Domestic Violence, $12.5 million
• Rape Crisis, $7.1 million
• Veterans’ Educational Assistance, $7.0 million
• Farmers’ Market Food Coupons, $2.2 million
• Veterans’ Outreach Services, $1.7 million
• Veterans Assistance, $428,000
• Disabled Veterans Transportation, $350,000

Baker said that an override vote also took place on several additional line items under which the lack of state funding is having an immediate and dramatic negative impact on Pennsylvania residents, including:

• County Child Welfare, $1.04 billion
• PHEAA Grants to Students, $386.2 million
• Child Care Assistance, $198.1 million
• Child Care Services, $159.8 million
• Community Mental Retardation Programs, $158.4 million
• Children’s Health Insurance, $86.9 million

Baker explained that given a record $3.2 billion deficit, spending is at the core of the budget impasse. “The biggest disagreement in this budget is that the Republicans are proposing less spending than the Governor is,” said Baker. “If we don’t reign in spending now, we are going to be in bigger trouble in the future. There are many line-item vetoes that we can agree on; the crux of it is coming to terms with that billion to a billion and a half dollars in greater spending that he [Governor] wants.

“The Republican Senate’s core principles have been: less spending than last year; no broad-based tax increase; and a spending plan that takes into account the sustainability of stimulus money.”

Baker explained that because of our tough economic times people across the Commonwealth are tightening their belts and reigning in their spending practices as they face many financial challenges. “They [citizens] believe that the government has an obligation to reign in spending,” said Baker. “They certainly aren’t interested in a broad-based personal income tax.”

“My frustration with Governor Rendell is that initially he was leveraging state workers forcing them to go without paychecks; he has now traded state workers for vulnerable citizens who rely on programs and services.” Baker laid out a laundry list of state and state-funded county programs and services – people – that she believes are being used as hostages by Rendell to give him an advantage in the budget debate.

“They are being leveraged,” said Baker “It’s what Governor Rendell has always done; create a crisis to get what he wants.”

The Governor was unavailable for comment at press time but is on the record as saying that he was happy with Senate Democrats who blocked the override attempts while urging everyone to return to the negotiating table. Rendell contends that a tax increase is necessary because of shortfalls in state revenue and critical increases in public school funding.

Full PSSA Results released?

Breaking news: PSSA results will be released erlier than ever, in stark contrast (and probably in part due) to the fact that the Pennsylvania budget is well overdue.

From yesterday's press release by the Pennsylvania Department of Education:

“Pennsylvania’s investments in increasing student achievement are working, and for the sake of our economic future we cannot afford to lose momentum now,” Secretary of Education Gerald L. Zahorchak said. “The last stage of any race is the hardest, and we need to accelerate our progress in helping the toughest-to-reach students succeed in the classroom.”

Governor Rendell’s proposed budget would build on student success by continuing to fund schools using a six-year formula enacted by the General Assembly last year. The formula, crafted as a result of the legislature’s “Costing-Out Report,” is intended to ensure all schools have the tools needed to bring all students to proficiency while minimizing the burden on local property taxpayers.

Interestingly, the results have not been posted anywhere yet. When the results are posted I will confirm this link and offer assessment of the DVSD performance. Of particular interest will be the grade 11 Reading and Math scores and some of the subgroup scores. We will see if the disparity between the DV schools in some elementary school grades has eased or increased from last year.