Just two months before Pennsylvania was scheduled to begin its Common Core Standards rollout, Governor Tom Corbett put the brakes on by ordering a delay earlier this week. According to the spokesman for Department of Education Tim Eller, Corbett’s decision was made after the governor consulted with a number of lawmakers.

The news comes after the state House and Senate made it clear that legislators were split on the imminent CCS adoption, which would have put the state’s schools in line with most states currently in the process of adopting Common Core.

Pennsylvania isn’t the only state reconsidering Common Core. Indiana has also recently announced that it prefers to wait and has put their adoption plan on hold. According to PennLive, a number of other states are considering doing the same.

Along with the new standards was a graduation requirement for students, starting with the Class of 2017, to pass subject-specific state tests in Algebra I, biology and literature called Keystone Exams to earn a diploma. Eller said the governor directed the department to make “minor modifications to the regulations” governing the standards and Keystone Exams.
“Governor Corbett remains committed to ensuring that all Pennsylvania public school students – regardless of zip code – have access to a quality education,” Eller said in an e-mail.

Eller hopes that whatever the concerns are that trouble legislators this close to the adoption date, they can sort through them quickly to avoid causing a delay for the state’s education establishment.

Support for the Common Core Standards comes from bodies as varied as businesses, early childhood development experts, higher education committees, and even the military. They believe that Common Core adoption is the key to producing high school gradates who are not only college-ready but are also have the necessary work skills to get a job directly after graduation.

Still, opposition to CCS doesn’t just come from one side of the aisle. Republican and Democratic lawmakers both have expressed reservations about the adoptions for a host of reasons.

At last week’s education committee hearings, some opponents said they didn’t like tying graduation to passing a test. Some didn’t like the emphasis on tests. Some considered the standards another educational fad. Some thought the implementation costs were too pricey in light of the $900 million in cuts school districts saw two years ago that have yet to be restored. And some felt it narrowed the curriculum or was too top down from government, leaving schools with little room to make decisions how best to educate their students.

The post Pennsylvania Putting the Brakes on Common Core Until July appeared first on Education News.

Philadelphia school superintendent William R. Hite Jr. knows all about controversy. Since taking over the struggling, debt-mired school district, he has taken positions that have put him at odds with the city’s powerful teachers union.

Yet the task before him calls for a lot of radical thinking. Philadelphia’s public schools are underfunded, undersubscribed and chronically underperforming, and Hite knows that to fix all these problems he is going to have to tread on some very sensitive toes.

His latest proposal, submitted as part of a plan to win up to $120 million in additional state funding for the district, is bound to be more of the same. To win over Pennsylvania lawmakers who have traditionally balked at providing money for the city, he is calling for an end to teacher seniority. In a presentation of a proposed budget to the members of the School Reform Commission, Hite explains that the state legislators are unlikely to be interested in turning over more money if they think they’re signing off on more same-old-same-old thinking.

On the table is a budget so bleak that schools would not have counselors, books, or extracurriculars next year. To add even some of those basics back, Hite and the School Reform Commission have requested $304 million – the $120 million from Harrisburg plus $60 million from the city, with the rest in labor concessions.

Mayor Nutter this week proposed giving the district $95 million by taxing cigarettes at $2 per pack and raising the liquor-by-the-drink tax to 15 percent.

But that still leaves a big hole for Harrisburg to fill. And, Hite said, outside the city, “Philadelphia is thought of as a cesspool.”

People believe that the district operates inefficiently, wastes money, and “protects individuals that are not serving children,” Hite said.

This isn’t the first time that Hite has called for renegotiating the contract between the city and the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers to take out the rules governing seniority. In his opinion, financial incentives should be linked to student outcomes and school and district performance — and not to the ability to survive yet another year without getting fired.

According to Hite, compensation is only one of the problems that arise out of a rigid seniority system. Also problematic is the strict last-in-first-out rule that dictates which teachers get laid off in case of budget cuts.

Although the district is still a long way from having money in hand, such talk from Hite has at least won the ears of Pennsylvania’s Republican lawmakers.

That sounds about right, said Steve Miskin, spokesman for Pennsylvania House Republicans. Still, Hite’s publicly tying the breaking of a bedrock principle of unions to more funding surprised him.

“It’s stunning and refreshing to hear from a Philadelphia superintendent,” Miskin said. “I think we would definitely be willing to sit down and talk to him, and hear his ideas.”

Erik Arneson, a Senate Republican spokesman, agreed that a seniority change would help Philadelphia’s cause.
“There are numerous members of our caucus who strongly believe that changes like that should take place before additional state funds are committed,” Arneson said.

The post Philadelphia’s Hite Seeking an End to Teacher Seniority appeared first on Education News.

According to Bobbi Kurshan, the executive director of academic innovation at the Penn Graduate School of Education since last fall, University of Pennsylvania system should take advantage of its unique position and work to foster more education technology start-ups under its auspices. Ed tech brought more than $1.1 billion in venture funding last year, and if Kurshan – who has significant private sector experience – has her way, some of that money will come to Pennsylvania in the form of new business.

A successful ed tech startup needs more than seed funding and business advice. It also needs support from education researchers as well as from teachers and schools that will use its product. Bringing all of them together is a difficult proposition, but not as difficult in a university system setting. The University of Pennsylvania is in an excellent position to provide access to all those benefits in one place.

Trying to bring those four constituencies closer together is one goal of the business-plan competition, begun in 2010. Ten early stage companies – including Autism Expressed of Philadelphia – will vie for a total of $145,000 in seven prizes in what is one of the richer competitions geared toward the ed-tech world.

The prize money has grown substantially since the Milken Family Foundation provided $25,000 for the best plan and $15,000 for the runner-up in in the first competition. This year, K12 Inc., a publicly traded online education company in Herndon, Va., will contribute $25,000 for the best business plan incorporating technology to address challenges in kindergarten through 12th grade online learning.

Each participant gets 10 minutes to pitch the judges, who will have 24 hours to decide who gets the prize money.

While the higher education system in Pennsylvania is looking to the future, the Philadelphia school district is still grappling with the way to keep schools open. Mayor Michael Nutter, along with the City Finance Director Rob Dubow are working to put together a budget proposal to fund the city’s schools which will total about $60 million in additional funding.

Nutter isn’t clear on how the money will be found, but has already said that he wants to keep city revenues flat.

Nutter has previously rejected raising property taxes to fund the schools and Dubow has now added that a wage tax hike is off the table. Nutter has previously indicated that he wants to lower rather than raise wage taxes.

The city introduced cuts prior to the recession which had to be suspended to cover a growing budget deficit.

So without touching the city’s two largest taxes (which are projected to provide about 69 percent of revenue next year), how will the city find $60 million?

In bits and pieces, it seems. A proposal that may have wide support is raising the “liquor by the drink” tax from 10 percent to 15 percent. A Nutter spokesman recently said the mayor supports such a hike, which would bring in an estimated $20 million in new revenue. Raising the tobacco sales tax is also said to be on the table. And, of course, the city could cut spending or forgo some of Nutter’s proposals for new expenditures, like $1 million to increase library hours and another $1 million to offset tuition hikes at the Community College of Philadelphia.

The post Philadelphia Seeks to be Hotbed of Ed Tech Despite Local Challenges appeared first on Education News.

What will Philadelphia schools look like if the anticipated revenue streams from the city and the state, as well as concessions from unions, don’t materialize this summer? According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, not much like schools.

Although there will still be buildings and classrooms and presumablystudents, there will be no counselors, librarians, summer school staff or extra-curricular activities. This will all be in addition to more than 3,000 layoffs including at least some instructional positions.

The changes will be implemented to close more than $300 million in deficits from the district’s $2.7 billion total budget.

It’s no wonder that the district Superintendent William R. Hite Jr. called this the “catastrophic” budget. It was Hite’s intention to draw the grimmest picture possible as he lobbies state and city lawmakers for more money at the same time as he sits down with union reps to renegotiate existing contracts.

But $220 million in additional school-based cuts is a very real possibility. Union officials have said they would not bow to demands for big concessions, and while Mayor Nutter has signaled his support for the district’s request, early signs from the state are not promising and City Council seems skeptical.

Even Jerry Jordan, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, said this budget picture could come to pass.
“Clearly, this is a possibility,” Jordan said. “Our kids are in the middle.”

Commissioner Wendell Pritchett called it a “sobering presentation” that would cut not frills, but “basic things that every child should have.”

This year the district has had to borrow $300 million just to meet its operating expenses, an option that is not on the table next year according to Chief Financial Officer Matthew Stanski. He said that to keep borrowing instead of developing new revenue streams would be just pushing forward the inevitable problems and putting the district on the path to insolvency.

Instead, principals will be receiving budgets that will ask them to make cuts up to 25% with enough money only to fund the absolute minimum: costs for classes at to the contractual maximum and the teachers to staff them. Hite said that this is the limit of what the district can presently afford.

There is little room left to maneuver, Hite said. Many costs are rising – the district will pay more for employee benefits and must contribute more to pension funds – or fixed, including $280 million in debt service and $729 million for charter schools.
(The School Reform Commission on Thursday night budgeted up to $15 million over two years for a new cyber school, but officials have said that the figure was a ceiling and that the virtual school would bring back students now in cyber charters, meaning savings for the district.)

Charter advocates are pushing hard for a number of expansions, but those seem unlikely.

“We are not crying wolf,” Hite said. “Our budget situation is dire.”

The post Philadelphia Superintendent Sees ‘Doomsday’ Budget Projection appeared first on Education News.

This month, students in Pennsylvania are getting ready to take the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment exams — but  not all students. According to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, there is a growing number of parents who are protesting the growth of the testing culture in the state by opting their children out of the exam.

Pennsylvania isn’t the only place where anti-testing rebellion has taken root. Since 2001, when testing was made a mandatory method of student assessment by the No Child Left Behind Act, administrators, teachers and parents have been quietly – and not so quietly – lobbying to have the mandate reversed. In PA, where parents have the right to withdraw their kids from the exams for religious reasons, many of the parents admitted that religion wasn’t the main reason for their decision when contacted by the Tribune:

When pressed on how their objections are tied to religion, some parents contend that low test scores lead to cuts in school resources, rather than increases, which exacerbates gaps in racial or economic achievement. They believe that violates many religions’ social justice missions.

By law, districts cannot deny an opt-out request.

“The purpose (of No Child Left Behind), while in one sense is admirable — why not reach for the stars? — is also unreachable,” said Timothy Slekar, an associate professor and head of the Division of Education, Human Development and Family Studies at Penn State-Altoona. “The idea that every student in every fifth-grade classroom is going to read at a proficient level, that’s just not the case.”

Slekar not only opted out his son from the PSSA, but he also founded a group – United Opt Out – that teaches parents nationwide how to exclude their children from standardized exams administered in their states. The group made a show of force this week by protesting in front of U.S. Department of Education in Washington D.C. and subsequently marching on to the White House.

If not everyone is showing up to march in Washington in frigid weather, the number of people who are opting their kids out of standardized tests is still growing. In Pennsylvania, more than one of five kids skipped the exams in reading and math between 2010 and 2012, while the number was higher than 35% in science. The data is courtesy of the Pennsylvania Department of Education.

There could come a point where opt-outs have an unintended consequence: If fewer than 95 percent of students at a given school fail to take the PSSA tests, the school automatically fails to make adequately yearly progress, or AYP.

“It could skew the results” if enough students opted out,” Lane said. “But that’s not the parent’s worry. Their job is to worry about their child — not the district, not the school.”

Hempfield Area School District Superintendent Andy Leopold said the district has received one opt-out request this year.

The post More Parents Opt Out Kids From Standardized Tests in Pennsylvania appeared first on Education News.

Who should have control over higher education funding – the schools or their students? That is the question being increasingly asked in a debate that is reminiscent of the one being waged over vouchers in K-12 schools.

The volume of the debate is getting louder, especially in Pennsylvania where Republican lawmakers are looking at ways to tie the state’s higher education budget to students, giving them more freedom to choose a school that fits them best.

This year, Pennsylvania plans to spend more than $500 million on the four so-called “state-related” universities — Penn State, Pittsburgh, Temple and Lincoln — and another $412 million on the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, a collection of 14 smaller schools scattered around the state.

At the same time, the state is spending $361 million on student aid that is handled by the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency, or PHEAA, which oversees student grants and scholarships.

Since the state spends money in both ways, it’s logical to ask which way is more effective in delivering quality education to students. Asking this very question was State Senator Mike Folmer – a Republican from Lebanon and the chairman of the Senate Education Committee – when the heads of the four largest state-supported universities came to testify about the budget bill. Specifically, they were asked to speculate what would change if the higher education funding was tied entirely to the student and not to the school.

Unsurprisingly, the administrators didn’t look kindly on the funding change, saying that allowing the money to follow the student would “undermine the system and compromise its quality.” Putting the higher education funding on a less firm ground would serve the weaken the pubic universities and thus close an avenue that many lower-income students rely on to obtain a college degree.

But Folmer says it is an idea that should be considered, particularly as the state budget is squeezed.

“I understand the needs of the universities,” Folmer said. “But we have to remember that those dollars come from taxpayers and we have to find the best way to spend them.”

Meanwhile, the costs of higher education keep increasing.

The state system is expecting a 2.8 percent tuition increase next year in their budget proposal, Garland said.

Although the issue is not expected to take center stage this year, the fact that it is being brought up at all serves as an indication of what is to come in the future of higher education reform.

The post Should Funding Attach to Students in Higher Education? appeared first on Education News.

Philadelphia’s school closings provoked such an outpouring of community response that the city may change its plans, says the supervisor. Citizens submitted 38 alternative plans, in addition to many letters and meetings, reports The Inquirer’s Susan Snyder.

Superintendent William R. Hite Jr. praised the community’s response, saying that while it began with a lot of emotion, it evolved into thoughtful, useful ideas. The 38 formal proposals include some from activists and teachers, but also include a state legislator who represents a city district. He added that while citizens have asked for a one-year moratorium on school closings, the city can’t afford to do that.

The district projects saving about $28 million a year over five years as a result of closing 37 schools and making grade changes in several others. The plan comes as the 146,000-student district copes with the loss of 60,000 students over the last decade and a severe financial crunch.

School closings will go ahead, but he said that many of the new proposals may be better than what they had been planning. In some cases, under-enrolled schools might be used for the same students, but for a larger age range. That’s what the state legislator suggested:

State Rep. Cherelle L. Parker (D., Phila.) made several recommendations for schools in her district, which includes the Mount Airy, Chestnut Hill, Roxborough and Andorra sections of Northwest Philadelphia.

For example, she suggested that McCloskey and Edmonds Schools be converted into pre-kindergarten-through-eighth-grade schools.

“I am firmly opposed to closing McCloskey Elementary due to its relationship with the surrounding community and its academic performance,” she wrote.

The city’s two military academies might share one building, suggested Philadelphia Military Academy’s administration. In the current proposal, one of them would be sent to share a non-military middle school’s campus. Its staff pointed out that its grounds and location were better suited for the military academy’s purpose.

In addition to the proposals for repurposing and shoring up existing schools, many citizens wrote letters simply asking the city to spare their local schools from being cut. One tiny high school pointed out that its size was an asset for the 342 students enrolled there, because the students are better able to know their teachers. Its students made a video for the superintendent, pleading with him not to end their sense of “family.” Other community letters just pointed out that schools that look useless on paper, to the city, are focal points of community identity.

The School Reform Commission plans to keep listening to citizen comments during the week. February 21, 22 and 23, the Commission will hold closed hearings, and it plans a final vote on March 7.

Public feeling has been running high this year, after the School Reform Commission did not take action on public comments last year, but closed 8 schools as it had planned. The original proposal for this year’s closing had suggested 37 schools to be closed. Initial public outcry included a public demonstration by students dressed as zombies.

At the same time as public school enrollment has been falling, prompting closure plans, charter school numbers have gone up. Area charter schools have protested the city’s plan to put a cap on the number of students who could transfer into charter schools.

The post Philadelphia Community Response May Sway School Closings appeared first on Education News.

A proposed cut for higher education funding in Pennsylvania has been cancelled, says The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Karen Langley. Governor Tom Corbett announced on February 1 that an agreement among the public universities will allow the state to keep its funding level for higher education steady from 2012 to 2013.  The state will spend $1.58 billion for the second year in a row.

Universities received flat funding this year after legislators undid $245 million in proposed cuts. In exchange for their restorations, Penn State University, the University of Pittsburgh and Temple University agreed to limit any tuition increase this year to the consumer price index.

The public universities have together kept their tuition increases to the lowest rate in ten years. Temple University did not raise tuition at all, while Penn State last year kept its increase below 3%.

Like many states, Pennsylvania faces a budget crisis. Appropriations Committee Chairman Jake Corman pointed out that Medicaid and debt service, among other things, will push Pennsylvania’s spending beyond its tax revenue next year. It was not easy to see how university funding could be rescued, but a commission of business and education leaders studied the matter and presented a recommendation. The key was an agreement about tuition:

In November, an advisory commission recommended the state level-fund higher education next year and tie future increases to the success of post-secondary institutions in keeping their programs accessible and affordable. The commission was made up of leaders in business and higher education, including Mark Nordenberg, chancellor of the University of Pittsburgh.

Nordenberg said that his commission thought higher education should develop performance evaluation methods as used in business. One measure would be tuition growth, but not surprisingly, the businessmen on the commission also suggested measuring university responsiveness to workforce needs. They should also track how they are doing in reaching groups that don’t traditionally make it to university.

At the announcement this afternoon, Mr. Nordenberg thanked the governor for launching the budget season “in ways that are consistent” with the commission’s recommendations. “That report really does provide us with a constructive path moving forward,” he said.

The governor too set an optimistic tone in his Harrisburg press conference, joined by Penn State trustees and state representatives whose districts have public universities. He declared that students should not begin their working lives with a mountain of debt due to constant tuition increases. Not only has funding remained steady for two years, but 2013 will also be the second year that Pennsylvania has put 40% of its state budget toward education.

The state’s higher education system comprises not only the large Penn State, University of Pittsburgh and Temple University campuses, but also a string of smaller public universities. These fourteen universities have tuition that is as much as half as low as the large public universities’ rates. West Chester, Indiana, Bloomsburg and Kutztown are the largest campuses. In-state tuition for the current school year is $6,428.

Some other states are beginning to recover from budget problems and increase funding for higher education. A recent report by the Chronicle of Higher Education showed that 30 states expect to increase spending by as little as .1% or as much as 14%. Most states have slashed education spending in the last five years, but more are now keeping it at least level, like Pennsylvania. Projections estimate that it will take some time for rates to return to pre-2008 levels.

The post Pennsylvania Higher Ed Funding Won’t Be Cut, But Won’t Rise appeared first on Education News.

Zombies are a hot topic in pop culture, and students from the Philadelphia Public School District concluded that they could draw attention to their effort to keep 37 schools in their city from closing their doors by dressing up as a zombie mob. They organized a flash mob set to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” and carried signs calling on administrators to reconsider the closures.

Students aren’t the only ones protesting the proposal to close the schools, a move which will save the cash-strapped district about $28 million. Since the plan was first announced, lawmakers, parents, and teachers have all stepped forward calling it a mistake and warning that it would have a detrimental effect on Philadelphia’s kids.

The plan was announced by district Superintendent William Hiite, who said that the district could no longer afford to keep the 21 elementary, 5 middle and 11 high school operating. There are over 50,000 seats in schools around the city going empty for lack of students, and by shifting students around and closing schools, the district could achieve substantial financial savings.

Deirdre Darragh from the School District of Philadelphia said that school closures could save the city the cost of maintenance, heating and general upkeep.

The Philadelphia School District is extremely underfunded. Superintendent Hiite has said that if action is not taken soon, the district will run out of money to operate its existing public schools. In the long run, school district officials believe the relocation will also improve the quality of academics in Philadelphia. Most students will move to better performing schools under the current closure plan. Darragh sums up PPS’s aims in closing schools: “Officially we have two goals. One is to make the district financially stable. As part of that we’re closing buildings that are underused. The other is to improve academic performance for all students.”

Critics aren’t convinced. The zombies and others believe that the expenses that come from moving students around to other schools will far outstrip the $28 million in savings the district expects to realize.

There are also potential safety concerns. Merging two schools could create friction as students from different parts of the city are forced to co-exist.

Surprisingly, a number of parents have expressed concerns that closures could see enrollment rates at city’s charters to go up, which they fear will further strip the district of funding.

Those who disagree with the plan to close schools have not stood idly by.  The Philadelphia Student Union has organized many protests, in addition to its zombie flash mob. The Philly Coalition Advocating for Public Schools (PCAPS) has several planned rallies and protests. The goal of these groups is a one-year moratorium on school closures until more research into the consequences of closing schools can be done.

The post ‘Zombie’ Student Flash Mob Protests Philly School Closures appeared first on Education News.

The investigation of standardized test cheating in Pennsylvania is slowly winding down, the San Francisco Gate reports. For the past 17 months, education authorities have been looking into allegations of misconduct in the administration and grading of state reading and math tests, and now only the Philadelphia school district and two charters that operate in the city are still awaiting the release of the findings and notification of any possible sanctions.

Officials targeted test results obtained between the years of 2009 and 2011, and more than 48 districts and charters were under the microscope. Specifically, there was a question about an abnormally large number of wrong-to-right erasures on student exam papers, a situation similar to the one that triggered a mass cheating investigation in Atlanta, Georgia.

Although eventually 30 districts were cleared of any wrongdoing, evidence of tampering was uncovered in another 15.

“What we were seeing was not student work,” said Carolyn Dumaresq, the state’s deputy secretary for elementary and secondary education.

She stressed that in most cases, the misconduct was isolated to a single building or grade level within a district.

“There are a lot of professionals out there who were administering the test appropriately,” she said.

Although the problem might be considered isolated, still more than 140 professional misconduct complaints were filed against staff members at targeted schools. If allegations in the complaints are proven, offenders are faced with losing their teaching certifications.

Because pin-pointing the villain has proved tricky, especially in schools where access to test papers and answer sheets is not tightly controlled, districts themselves were ordered to conduct investigations, mete out punishments and tighten procedures governing the administration of state exams. Of the 15, 6 submitted altered plans that were accepted by the state education authorities.

Among the districts with acceptable plans, local officials meted out discipline: A principal in Berwick and a teacher in Big Beaver Falls were each given 10-day unpaid suspensions, and several reprimands and warnings were issued in Bethlehem and Scranton. Also in Scranton, a teacher was suspended without pay with intent to dismiss. School board vice president Nathan Barrett, who would not elaborate on details of the case, said at a recent board meeting that he supports the recommendation to fire the employee.

The investigation was kicked off thanks to the efforts of The Notebook, which uncovered and publicized the details of a 2009 forensic report which pointed to a high likelihood of cheating due to the number of wrong-to-right erasures. The Notebook is an independent news organization which includes the Philadelphia schools in its beat.

The post Investigation of Exam Cheating Winding Down in Pennsylvania appeared first on Education News.