Last year when Tom Corbett won election with a promise to not raise taxes, I wrote that I thought he had a tremendous opportunity to take a step back, evaluate the core mission of state government, and perhaps redefine the state’s role in public education. Six months ago the governor released his first education budget and school districts across the Commonwealth scrambled to replace the millions of dollars which were no longer available for public education. Some districts cut programs, some cut staff, some froze wages, many did a combination of these but all eventually realized that there just wasn’t much more money coming from Harrisburg.
While many of our neighbors decried the reduction in education, the facts clearly show that money alone isn’t the only or even the best solution to improving our public education. According to the Commonwealth Foundation, public school spending in Pennsylvania had rapidly increased despite declining enrollment, with little growth in academic achievement to show for it. Since 2000, public school spending in Pennsylvania rose 68 percent, from $15.3 billion to $25.8 billion in 2009-10, while enrollment in public schools declined by 26,960 students, and schools hired an additional 32,937 employees. Despite spending more than $14,000 per student, only 40 percent of Pennsylvania's 8th-grade students scored at or above proficiency levels on standardized reading and mathematics exams. In the bottom 5% of high schools, only 53 percent of 11th graders scored above proficiency in reading and math. 53%!
Pennsylvania Corbett unveiled a four-part education reform proposal Tuesday morning that has since received mixed reactions. At a news conference Tuesday Corbett said acting on an education reform agenda is a state priority. The announced agenda focuses on improvements to the charter school system by creating a statewide entity to administer charter schools and makes it easier to convert buildings to charter educational facilities. The Governor’s plan also offers vouchers that assist low-income students attending the lowest-performing 5 percent of schools in Pennsylvania, expands the Educational Improvement Tax Credit program for businesses and overhauls the teacher evaluation process to a more comprehensive method that incorporates classroom observations with student achievement. "When we have failing schools, we know we have failing students," Corbett told The Delaware County Daily Times. "We can't continue down this same path and think we're going to get a different result."
Public education is successful when schools, parents and the community all work together. There are a lot of important decisions being made. Get involved in your school district and make your voice heard. Your kid’s future depends on it!
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Monday, September 5, 2011
Valuable Education and Community Links
I was surprised at the number of emails I’ve received during my hiatus from the blog from readers who were looking for web sites offering information and basic data on issues of importance to the community. Listed below are a few sites I’ve recommended to folks, and these have also been added to the side bar on the right.
Education Links:
• PA Department of Education issues a Report Card for each public school, and this link in to their searchable data base.
• openPAgov.org is a project of the Commonwealth Foundation, an independent, non-profit research and educational institute. They present data in a very clear manner, and I’ve included these 4 links to their searchable data base of Pennsylvania’s public schools:
• Tax Data. Offers data on property taxes, taxes per student, analysis of all revenue sources searchable by County or District.
• Payroll Data. Has data on employees’ salaries, highest salaries by district, searchable by employee name, district or school by position and gender.
• Spending Data. Has data on spending and enrollment trends, district spending detail and allows users to compare district information.
• Performance Data. Includes achievement trends by group, school or district. Allows users to analyze district spending and achievement and poverty and achievement
The Community / Non Profit section has two links so far:
• Delaware Valley United Way is a web site offering information on the locally directed United Way organizations.
• Guidestar. With a free registration, Guidestar offers a searchable data base of non-profit organizations and access to information on their governance, mission and financial reporting.
The Government and Politics link are self-explanatory.
Let me know what you think, and if you have a suggestion for a site of interest please pass it on.
Education Links:
• PA Department of Education issues a Report Card for each public school, and this link in to their searchable data base.
• openPAgov.org is a project of the Commonwealth Foundation, an independent, non-profit research and educational institute. They present data in a very clear manner, and I’ve included these 4 links to their searchable data base of Pennsylvania’s public schools:
• Tax Data. Offers data on property taxes, taxes per student, analysis of all revenue sources searchable by County or District.
• Payroll Data. Has data on employees’ salaries, highest salaries by district, searchable by employee name, district or school by position and gender.
• Spending Data. Has data on spending and enrollment trends, district spending detail and allows users to compare district information.
• Performance Data. Includes achievement trends by group, school or district. Allows users to analyze district spending and achievement and poverty and achievement
The Community / Non Profit section has two links so far:
• Delaware Valley United Way is a web site offering information on the locally directed United Way organizations.
• Guidestar. With a free registration, Guidestar offers a searchable data base of non-profit organizations and access to information on their governance, mission and financial reporting.
The Government and Politics link are self-explanatory.
Let me know what you think, and if you have a suggestion for a site of interest please pass it on.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Opportunities for Local Collaboration in Delaware County
One of the more interesting examples of community wide collaboration around education has been having tremendous impact on young people in Cincinnati. 5 years ago childhood educators, school superintendents, college presidents, business leaders, foundation directors and a number of community leaders came together because local students were lagging behind other communities in college attainment rates. Community leaders were concerned about remaining competitive in a global economy if local students weren’t able to get into college and do well. Leaders initially met to discuss college readiness, but the focus quickly shifted to high school freshman and keeping the kids in school…. Then to middle school students …. Then to grade school and eventually focused on the importance of kindergarten and quality early learning experiences. The initial meeting of community and education stakeholders met to discuss college attainment rates but quickly focused on the entire education continuum.
This collaborative was unique both in the quality of the partnership and the nature of the problem being addressed. Partners in a collaborative must come together and agree not just on common goals, but shared ways to measure success towards those goals. They must communicate on a regular basis. And there must be a “backbone” organization, like United Way, that is focused full-time on managing the partnership. The key to making a community collaborative like this work is setting a common vision and finding a common language, and in this case the common language was data. The participants didn’t let each other get focused on ideological or political issues. They focused on the data, and implemented thoughtful data driven programs as a single working collaborative. Everyone worked together from the same playbook.
Three years later the results were dramatic. Kindergarten readiness had jumped 9%, 4th grade reading increased 7% and math increased 14 %; and the high school graduation rate was up 11%. College graduation rates for students from local urban high schools had jumped by 10 %.
Delaware County has hundreds of nonprofit organizations, most of which work independently, and many local, county, state and federal government agencies each focused on a very unique part of the education continuum. When it comes to solving social problems, society often behaves like a drowning man whose arms and legs thrash about wildly in the water. We expend a great deal of energy, but because we don’t work together efficiently, we don’t necessarily move forward. It’s encouraging to see community collaboratives work, and I hope that the educational funding issues we are facing here in Pennsylvania will spur similar local efforts that can better prepare our children for a prosperous future. They deserve it!
This collaborative was unique both in the quality of the partnership and the nature of the problem being addressed. Partners in a collaborative must come together and agree not just on common goals, but shared ways to measure success towards those goals. They must communicate on a regular basis. And there must be a “backbone” organization, like United Way, that is focused full-time on managing the partnership. The key to making a community collaborative like this work is setting a common vision and finding a common language, and in this case the common language was data. The participants didn’t let each other get focused on ideological or political issues. They focused on the data, and implemented thoughtful data driven programs as a single working collaborative. Everyone worked together from the same playbook.
Three years later the results were dramatic. Kindergarten readiness had jumped 9%, 4th grade reading increased 7% and math increased 14 %; and the high school graduation rate was up 11%. College graduation rates for students from local urban high schools had jumped by 10 %.
Delaware County has hundreds of nonprofit organizations, most of which work independently, and many local, county, state and federal government agencies each focused on a very unique part of the education continuum. When it comes to solving social problems, society often behaves like a drowning man whose arms and legs thrash about wildly in the water. We expend a great deal of energy, but because we don’t work together efficiently, we don’t necessarily move forward. It’s encouraging to see community collaboratives work, and I hope that the educational funding issues we are facing here in Pennsylvania will spur similar local efforts that can better prepare our children for a prosperous future. They deserve it!
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Impact of Corbett's Education Budget
Governor Corbett presented his 2011 – 2012 to a joint session of the Pennsylvania Legislature today and he kept his promise of a balanced budget and no new taxes. It isn’t pretty. If you’re interested in the details on which department gets what, the new governor has created an Online Budget Dashboard with the details of his budget proposal which includes some deep cuts in educational support. (http://www.portal.state.pa.us/imageserver/budget2011/GBD_2011.html
As Winston Churchill observed there is an opportunity in every difficulty, and I believe Governor Corbett’s budget will present communities with a tremendous opportunity to strengthen their local education infrastructures.
Successful education is dependent on three very important factors: Family, School District and the local community. With expected deep cuts in state educational support, local districts will be challenged to effectively engage community leaders and parents to participate in and strengthen the education process. If the state budget passes as presented, local school districts will be expected to do more with less, and effective engagement with parents and community leadership organizations will be critical. The financial crisis may well prove to be an incentive for communities to build a collaborative effort of school, community and parent stakeholders, to assess the district’s strengths, community challenges and needs, to develop an educational vision, and to plan the community’s educational future. It’s not rocket science to consider getting people together to discuss an important issue like education, and a few general rules for effectively engaging stakeholders should be considered:
• Establish ownership among participants,
• Build on the strengths of local individuals and organizations,
• Promote participation by community-wide stakeholders,
• Get everyone working together and focused on the same issues,
• Develop specific actions with measurable results.
By engaging diverse stakeholders, including residents, non-profits, businesses and others to develop sustained collaborative efforts to strengthen education, the District could be in a better position to link unique community resources together with its educational resources to provide a more effective, nurturing learning environment. As I said, it isn’t rocket science, but getting a community’s assets all working together to support education could be a very empowering tool.
As Winston Churchill observed there is an opportunity in every difficulty, and I believe Governor Corbett’s budget will present communities with a tremendous opportunity to strengthen their local education infrastructures.
Successful education is dependent on three very important factors: Family, School District and the local community. With expected deep cuts in state educational support, local districts will be challenged to effectively engage community leaders and parents to participate in and strengthen the education process. If the state budget passes as presented, local school districts will be expected to do more with less, and effective engagement with parents and community leadership organizations will be critical. The financial crisis may well prove to be an incentive for communities to build a collaborative effort of school, community and parent stakeholders, to assess the district’s strengths, community challenges and needs, to develop an educational vision, and to plan the community’s educational future. It’s not rocket science to consider getting people together to discuss an important issue like education, and a few general rules for effectively engaging stakeholders should be considered:
• Establish ownership among participants,
• Build on the strengths of local individuals and organizations,
• Promote participation by community-wide stakeholders,
• Get everyone working together and focused on the same issues,
• Develop specific actions with measurable results.
By engaging diverse stakeholders, including residents, non-profits, businesses and others to develop sustained collaborative efforts to strengthen education, the District could be in a better position to link unique community resources together with its educational resources to provide a more effective, nurturing learning environment. As I said, it isn’t rocket science, but getting a community’s assets all working together to support education could be a very empowering tool.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
School Choice Coming to Pennsylvania?
While a pledge to balance his budget presents a tremendous challenge, it also affords Governor-elect Corbett an incredible opportunity to identify the core mission of state government and perhaps redefine the state’s roles in many areas especially public education. One interesting aspect of Governor-elect Tom Corbett's vision for education reform, Pennsylvania schools would be graded "A through F" so parents can clearly gauge how well their children's schools are performing.
Mr. Corbett’s Education Plan also supports flexible funding for students by linking funding directly to students and the schools they choose to attend. The plan considers it critical that students in failing schools be able to choose an educational alternative and the state will allow funding to follow the student’s academic choice. Corbett feels students have a right to attend a good school and not be forced to attend a failing one by virtue of their zip code.
It’s been reported that Pennsylvania Senate Republican leaders are developing a new education bill, which would phase in a school choice / voucher program over 3 years. Year 1 could provide grants of several thousand dollars for low-income students attending public schools graded "F" to attend the public, private or parochial school of their choice. The voucher program would expand in the second year to poor students already in private schools and further expand in year three to include low-income students, regardless of their school district.
School Choice and voucher programs have been debated by Pennsylvanians for years, and it looks as though the debate is starting to heat up. The 2011 Pennsylvania education budget will offer Tom Corbett a very difficult challenge, and educational reform offers Tom Corbett a very unique opportunity for succeeding in refocusing funding of public education in Pennsylvania.
Mr. Corbett’s Education Plan also supports flexible funding for students by linking funding directly to students and the schools they choose to attend. The plan considers it critical that students in failing schools be able to choose an educational alternative and the state will allow funding to follow the student’s academic choice. Corbett feels students have a right to attend a good school and not be forced to attend a failing one by virtue of their zip code.
It’s been reported that Pennsylvania Senate Republican leaders are developing a new education bill, which would phase in a school choice / voucher program over 3 years. Year 1 could provide grants of several thousand dollars for low-income students attending public schools graded "F" to attend the public, private or parochial school of their choice. The voucher program would expand in the second year to poor students already in private schools and further expand in year three to include low-income students, regardless of their school district.
School Choice and voucher programs have been debated by Pennsylvanians for years, and it looks as though the debate is starting to heat up. The 2011 Pennsylvania education budget will offer Tom Corbett a very difficult challenge, and educational reform offers Tom Corbett a very unique opportunity for succeeding in refocusing funding of public education in Pennsylvania.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Tom Corbett's Education Plan
I ended my last post with “while the 2011 Pennsylvania education budget will offer Tom Corbett a very difficult challenge, true educational reform offers Tom Corbett a very unique opportunity for success”. Tom Corbett is on record that he believes Pennsylvania’s economic growth and job creation depend upon one foundation – “a solid education that prepares students to compete in a global economy. All Pennsylvania children, regardless of zip code, race, education or socioeconomic status, deserve access to a first class education to help them achieve their full potential. ”
Given the Commonwealth’s current financial circumstances pitting Mr. Corbett’s pledge of no tax increase against a massive projected deficit, and Mr. Corbett’s belief in the importance of education, what can we expect from the new administration? Over the next couple of posts, I’ll be reviewing some of the publicized highlights of the Corbett Education Plan including:
• Promoting Flexible Funding for Schools and Students by giving greater flexibility to districts and schools and linking funding directly to students and the schools they choose to attend and make that funding transferable with the student.
• Enhancing Educational Opportunities by providing better access to great schools and educational opportunities that prepare our children to succeed in the 21st Century.
• Ensuring Effective Teachers and Leaders by creating a more efficient and fair evaluation system for teachers and school leaders that maximizes growth and education in our schools and among other things links student achievement to compensation.
• Embracing Results-Based Accountability by developing a system of accountability based on student performance which will force schools to place students at the center of our educational system.
• Creating Safe Learning Environments in Pennsylvania schools.
Tom Corbett has pledged to create a 2011-12 operating budget without any tax increases, an admirable promise that will require some very difficult decisions in Harrisburg with consequences cascading down throughout the region, Delaware County, its school districts and eventually to its local communities. Stay tuned…
Given the Commonwealth’s current financial circumstances pitting Mr. Corbett’s pledge of no tax increase against a massive projected deficit, and Mr. Corbett’s belief in the importance of education, what can we expect from the new administration? Over the next couple of posts, I’ll be reviewing some of the publicized highlights of the Corbett Education Plan including:
• Promoting Flexible Funding for Schools and Students by giving greater flexibility to districts and schools and linking funding directly to students and the schools they choose to attend and make that funding transferable with the student.
• Enhancing Educational Opportunities by providing better access to great schools and educational opportunities that prepare our children to succeed in the 21st Century.
• Ensuring Effective Teachers and Leaders by creating a more efficient and fair evaluation system for teachers and school leaders that maximizes growth and education in our schools and among other things links student achievement to compensation.
• Embracing Results-Based Accountability by developing a system of accountability based on student performance which will force schools to place students at the center of our educational system.
• Creating Safe Learning Environments in Pennsylvania schools.
Tom Corbett has pledged to create a 2011-12 operating budget without any tax increases, an admirable promise that will require some very difficult decisions in Harrisburg with consequences cascading down throughout the region, Delaware County, its school districts and eventually to its local communities. Stay tuned…
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)