Chalk up another one for the Emperor. For all his public posturing and eyebrow wiggling about the tech school budget, instead of doing the hard work of talking to the other districts and working collaboratively toward a common goal, the Bensalem school board approved the budget, making Bristol's unanimous veto and Morrisville's delay actions irrelevant. The budget is now law.
BUCKS COUNTY TECHNICAL HIGH SCHOOL
Tech school budget approved
Expenditures for 2008-09 are up 4.4 percent over this year’s expenses.
By JOAN HELLYER
STAFF WRITER
Bucks County Technical High School will be able to implement its estimated $21.7 million budget for 2008-09, now that enough sending districts have approved the financial plan, the school’s administrative director said.
The budget had been in limbo for about a month by a perceived lack of movement in efforts to revise the school’s funding formula for future budgets, officials said.
It left the comprehensive high school that serves the Bensalem, Bristol, Bristol Township, Morrisville, Neshaminy and Pennsbury school districts just short of the approvals needed to enact the budget. The tech school bylaws require at least four of the six sending districts and at least 28 board members from the districts served by the school, which is in Bristol Township, to approve the budget.
The Bristol, Neshaminy and Pennsbury school boards approved the proposed budget in April, with 26 board members from those districts voting in favor of it.
However, the Bristol Township board unanimously rejected the budget to protest inaction on proposed changes to the funding formula involving special education students. In addition, the Bensalem and Morrisville school boards delayed votes on it.
The logjam ended Wednesday night when the Bensalem board voted unanimously to approve the budget after the tech school’s joint board committee agreed to tackle the funding formula issue this summer.
Morrisville’s board again postponed its vote on the tech budget last week, but that will have no impact now because enough sending districts and board members have already approved it, officials said.
The 2008-09 budget is almost $1 million greater than this year’s budget, administrators said. Each district’s cost share will increase 4.4 percent, they added.
About 1,500 students in ninth through 12th grade attend the school, which offers studies in approximately three dozen trades.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Schools News Around the Blogosphere
The big "unfunded mandate" is the one the unions demand
Keep the promise to the children - educate them
Providence Journal
Julia Steiny
The big “unfunded mandate” is the one the unions demand, asking to be constantly paid more and more, for the status quo as well as the “extras,” no matter what the academic outcome for the kids.
Fewer Kindergarteners Will Take a Screening Test
Rollback Set in Schooling of the Gifted
New York Sun
Chancellor Joel Klein last year said he wanted to expand screening so that programs often dominated by well-connected and affluent white parents could include a more diverse group of students.
Parents question proposed changes to Pennsylvania's gifted-student regulations
Pennsylvania is taking steps to make gifted education available to more students, but that has done little to quell long-standing tension between parents and school districts over how the state's brightest are educated.
Schools CEO to earn up to $500,000 a year
By Kristen A. Graham
Inquirer Staff Writer
The ink is dry and the details finalized - incoming Philadelphia schools chief Arlene Ackerman will earn a package worth up to $500,000 annually in salary and perks, a review of her contract shows.
Long school holidays 'should end'
British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) (UK)
Long school holidays should be abolished to prevent children falling behind in class, a think-tank says. The Institute for Public Policy Research said studies suggested pupils' reading and maths abilities regressed because the summer break was too long.
Ohio teacher training: What does it take to make the grade?
Cleveland Plain Dealer
Why teacher training matters: A growing body of research argues that education schools - despite some exemplary exceptions - produce inadequately prepared teachers. Students who have three ineffective teachers in a row will score as much as 50 percentage points lower on standardized tests than those who have three effective teachers in a row.
Educations "Wag the Dog": Geniuses Lost
By Dick Kantenberger
It is like someone shouted "FIRE" in a theater, but nobody moved. Is the theater empty? No, it's full of people, but still nobody moved or even cared. We are losing hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of potential geniuses every year in the United States because we are just not finding them before it's too late, which in most cases is about the time they are suppose to start 9th grade.
Algebra I stumping high school freshmen
Detroit Free Press
Thousands of high school freshmen across Michigan are failing Algebra I, the first of four math courses this class of students must take and pass to fulfill what are among the toughest graduation requirements in the nation.
U.S. Experts Bemoan Nation's Loss of Stature in the World of Science
Washington Post
Some of the nation's leading scientists, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's top science adviser, today sharply criticized the diminished role of science in the United States and the shortage of federal funding for research, even as science becomes increasingly important to combating problems such as climate change and the global food shortage.
Idaho asks the feds for a fresh start on No Child Left Behind
Idaho Statesman
Idaho's State Board of Education wants a fresh start for hundreds of public schools facing sanctions under a tough federal education accountability mandate.
Keep the promise to the children - educate them
Providence Journal
Julia Steiny
The big “unfunded mandate” is the one the unions demand, asking to be constantly paid more and more, for the status quo as well as the “extras,” no matter what the academic outcome for the kids.
Fewer Kindergarteners Will Take a Screening Test
Rollback Set in Schooling of the Gifted
New York Sun
Chancellor Joel Klein last year said he wanted to expand screening so that programs often dominated by well-connected and affluent white parents could include a more diverse group of students.
Parents question proposed changes to Pennsylvania's gifted-student regulations
Pennsylvania is taking steps to make gifted education available to more students, but that has done little to quell long-standing tension between parents and school districts over how the state's brightest are educated.
Schools CEO to earn up to $500,000 a year
By Kristen A. Graham
Inquirer Staff Writer
The ink is dry and the details finalized - incoming Philadelphia schools chief Arlene Ackerman will earn a package worth up to $500,000 annually in salary and perks, a review of her contract shows.
Long school holidays 'should end'
British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) (UK)
Long school holidays should be abolished to prevent children falling behind in class, a think-tank says. The Institute for Public Policy Research said studies suggested pupils' reading and maths abilities regressed because the summer break was too long.
Ohio teacher training: What does it take to make the grade?
Cleveland Plain Dealer
Why teacher training matters: A growing body of research argues that education schools - despite some exemplary exceptions - produce inadequately prepared teachers. Students who have three ineffective teachers in a row will score as much as 50 percentage points lower on standardized tests than those who have three effective teachers in a row.
Educations "Wag the Dog": Geniuses Lost
By Dick Kantenberger
It is like someone shouted "FIRE" in a theater, but nobody moved. Is the theater empty? No, it's full of people, but still nobody moved or even cared. We are losing hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of potential geniuses every year in the United States because we are just not finding them before it's too late, which in most cases is about the time they are suppose to start 9th grade.
Algebra I stumping high school freshmen
Detroit Free Press
Thousands of high school freshmen across Michigan are failing Algebra I, the first of four math courses this class of students must take and pass to fulfill what are among the toughest graduation requirements in the nation.
U.S. Experts Bemoan Nation's Loss of Stature in the World of Science
Washington Post
Some of the nation's leading scientists, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's top science adviser, today sharply criticized the diminished role of science in the United States and the shortage of federal funding for research, even as science becomes increasingly important to combating problems such as climate change and the global food shortage.
Idaho asks the feds for a fresh start on No Child Left Behind
Idaho Statesman
Idaho's State Board of Education wants a fresh start for hundreds of public schools facing sanctions under a tough federal education accountability mandate.
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