Educational Reform

Enrollment in alternative schools continues to rise. In Pennsylvania the REACH Foundation estimates that over 350,000 students and their parents have chosen school options other than public schools that include: private schools, charter schools, cyber charter schools and home schooling. Until 11-12 years ago there were hardly any cyber charter schools and prior to 2001 there were only two cyber charters operating in Pennsylvania. 

Cyber charter schools are virtual public schools where students are taught from home via the internet and a computer. The students are given a computer, an internet connection, and textbooks. They take classes via the internet as well as lessons designed to move at their own pace. Students in grades K-7 complete 900 hours of instruction and students in grades 8-12 complete 990 hours of instruction.

Any student who lives in Pennsylvania can enroll in PA Cyber and receive a curriculum approved by the Pennsylvania Department of Education. Supported through state and local tax dollars, PA Cyber educates over 6,000 K-12 students every day.

Western Pennsylvania’s roots in cyber charter schools go back to the Midland School District. Midland started to lose its steel industry in the late 1970s and when the Crucible Steel Mill closed in 1982 people moved out of the area to look for new jobs. Midland’s declining tax base forced city officials to close their public high school in 1986. The high school kids were left with no alternative but to be bused to a high school in Ohio, some ten miles from Midland. But there was concern in Harrisburg because Pennsylvania tax dollars were now going to Ohio to support Pennsylvanian students. 

The Pennsylvania Cyber Charter Schools originally designed to educate 50 students from Midland, had over 500 students enroll in its first year of operation. Cyber schools have proven to be not only popular for many families who want to have more flexibility for their children but also out of necessity for other families that are under-served by conventional schools.

Charter schools are one of the fastest growing innovations in educational reform. Former President Bill Clinton called for the creation of 3,000 charter schools by the year 2002 and President George W. Bush called for $200 million to support charter schools.

In 1991 the nation’s first charter school law was passed in Minnesota and a year later the first charter school opened in St. Paul. Charter schools are self-managed elementary or secondary schools that receive public money and must be established as nonprofit, nonsectarian entities. They are founded by teachers, parents, colleges, universities or others who wish to provide parents and students with an alternative to the local public schools and they play an important part in school reform. Those who wish to establish a charter public school in Pennsylvania have to apply to the local school board of the district where the school will be located.

Some charter schools specialize in certain subjects, such as in the arts and in mathematics, while others simply try to provide an alternative to nearby public schools. An estimated 1.2 million children are currently enrolled nationwide and in Pennsylvania there are 120 charter schools in operation. The governing body can hire a not-for-profit to operate them but the charter issuing authority tracks the quality of schooling.

The schools must meet certain performance standards and agree to meet certain regulations and statutes that apply equally to charter schools and public schools. Employees of a charter school are considered public employees and the schools receive funds from both the state and at the local level. The school district has to write a check to the charter school for each one of the children living in that district.

You can find information and profiles of charter schools through the following Website: Center for Education Reform together with those schools that are specifically focused such as arts-based and Montessori schools.

In my next blog I will review how Charter schools and the Internet merged to form Cyber-Charter Schools. While charter schools only serve limited areas, cyber charters can be accessed from anywhere in the world.

With one week until the presidential election, the Democratic and Republican parties’ nominees have spoken at conventions, they have spoken around the country and they have set up Web sites which allow us to see where they stand on educational issues.  One thing the two candidates have in common was a failure to highlight NCLB as a significant issue.

John McCain, in his speech at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota, called education the “civil rights issue of this century.” On his Website he states that he would “build on the lessons of No Child Left Behind,” and he emphasized choice and flexibility within the system.

McCain believes school principals should have greater control over spending and he wants to focus federal monies on the neediest children through early childhood programs. He said he would “fully fund” the law but believes the current funding level is adequate.

Barack Obama, in his speech at the Democratic National Convention in Denver, said “he would recruit an army of new teachers” and also increase their pay. In a speech he gave on September 9 in Ohio he called the law’s goals “the right ones.” But he criticized the reliance on multiple-choice tests to make accountability decisions and he spoke of the need to fix the broken promises of No Child Left Behind. On his Website he advocates developing a curriculum and assessments that teach children critical thinking and problem-solving skills that will enable them to do more than fill in a few bubbles on a standardized test. The Obama campaign focused on the proposal to double the amount of money the federal government spends on charter schools. They said the law was $14.8 billion short of its authorized amount in fiscal 2008.

With a growing consensus that NCLB is not working, whoever wins on November 4 will have the opportunity to influence and re-shape the law.

The testing required under No Child Left Behind has become a source of controversy for many educators that believe they are required to “teach-to-the-test” and for the states that incur the costs of additional training and remediation. But, tucked away in the woods, there are some happy campers – those in private industry that dominate the market in testing. With private enterprise playing a growing role in supplying an array of educational materials from test-prep packets to computers, business is booming. Pearson, Harcourt Educational Measurement, McGraw-Hill, and Riverside Publishing are the four leaders in the educational industry that have seen their profits soar. There are also private companies engaged in scoring the tests and, as such, these private testing companies determine which students, schools, and districts across the nation are “failures” and which are “successes.” 

Alan Lesgold, dean of the School of Education at the University of Pittsburgh stated: “People are making money. They make money whenever there’s change. Barnacles do real well when the tide is going out or the tide is going in.”

According to the non-partisan Government Accounting Office states will most likely spend $1.9 billion to $5.3 billion between 2002 and 2008 to implement the tests mandated under NCLB. Open-ended and essay questions cost far more to score than multiple-choice questions. The U.S. has no national curriculum or national exam and some states use more open-ended questions which cost about $7 to score per test while other states use multiple-choice tests that cost less than $1 per test. In the current economic climate, it is far more likely that multiple-choice tests will be preferred; such tests emphasize rote memorization rather than the more sophisticated open-ended and essay questions.

In order to raise test scores, schools will hire coaches to introduce teachers to standards and provide feedback. With student tutoring, teacher mentoring, test-preparation services and supplemental materials, states that receive Title I funding under NCLB are faced with an ever increasing burden.

Public education remains the responsibility of the state and it is financed partly through local property taxes.  Pennsylvanians pay more than $14 billion in property taxes each year, most of it to local school districts. How the schools get funded varies widely across the nation but the State of Pennsylvania pays a lower share of education costs than most other state governments. Today approximately 43.5% of K-12 funding comes from local sources, 48% comes from state-level sources and the remainder of approximately 9% comes from the federal government. Reliance on local property taxes to finance schools has been challenged in the courts and this remains a problem in all fifty states. Recently there has been a move to increase state efforts to equalize funding across districts and now an increased proportion of funding comes from the state rather than local governments.

Equity in school funding is really about fairness in the amount of per-student spending. Pennsylvania’s highest need districts generate the least amount of local revenues while the wealthiest districts generate more local funds with less tax effort. Governor Rendell’s education budget proposal for 2008-09 adjusts each school district’s gap to reflect the level of local wealth and the district’s existing tax burden. Of Pennsylvania’s 501 school districts, 93% have fewer resources than needed to enable students to achieve grade level.

With dwindling public funding and a growing need for pre-K childcare, raising money through alternate means has included a movement to involve business and civic leaders in investing in early learning resources.  Pennsylvania made history by becoming the first state to pass an education tax credit for corporations. HB 996, the Educational Improvement Tax Credit (EITC) provides companies with a 75% tax credit for donations and the credit increases to 90% if the company commits to making the same donations for two consecutive years. In Pennsylvania businesses are able to take advantage of the EITC Program to fund programs with a tax cap of $300,000. During 2007-08, 44,000 children across Pennsylvania benefitted from EITC scholarships. Over 3,600 companies have pledged in excess of $350 million dollars to the programs. According to Governor Rendell “It makes perfect sense to have our business leaders play an active role in this effort, since today’s children are tomorrow’s workforce.”

One month before the general election, the United States is faced with the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. There has never been a more important time to be aware of how our children faced with enormous debt will need to be competitive in a global market.

According to the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) U.S. standing in education attainment is falling. While American children are succeeding in reading, math performance is mediocre and in science American students were outscored by their peers in 18 of the 38 participating countries.

As we lose ground in our science and technology role in the world and at home, China and India are rapidly transforming their education systems and gaining ground with degrees in science and engineering going from half that of the United States twenty years ago, to more than twice that of the United States now. . The number of engineering degrees in the United States is decreasing and over 50% of current science and engineering workforce is nearing retirement. The U.S. desperately needs to educate students and prepare them for the global job market.

While other countries are infusing technology into their classrooms the United States is lagging behind. Funding in Pennsylvania has increased for special education and certain early-childhood programs, but funding for technology was reduced by $45 million. The U.S. Department of Education proposes to cut the federal government’s investment in Enhancing Education Through Technology (EETT) program.  EETT is part of Title II Part D of No Child Left Behind Act and was intended to support education technologies.

Strengthening science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is vitally important to a slowing economy. The STEM Education Coalition is made up of organizations representing the technological workforce. Their aim is to raise awareness in Congress of the critical role that technology plays in enabling the United States to become a technological leader in the global marketplace.

We have serious economic problems to face in the immediate future but we also need to look to the long term and fund a commitment for basic science and technology education. There is little doubt that with new leadership the NCLB Act will be changed in the months ahead; hopefully new leaders will understand the importance of investing in educating our young in science, technology, engineering and mathematics so that the United States may once again compete in the international markets. It is vitally important that we move ahead with goals to maximize technology in our schools. 

During his State of the Union address in January 2008, President Bush called on Congress to pass bipartisan legislation to strengthen the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB).  In his address he stated:

“The 2007 Nation’s Report Card shows NCLB is helping raise achievement for children, in all different backgrounds, in every part of the country.  Students are achieving record success, with minority students, poor students, and students with disabilities reaching all-time highs in a number of areas.  We must build on this progress by reauthorizing and strengthening the law to increase accountability and flexibility for States and districts, reduce the number of high school dropouts, and provide extra help for struggling schools. “ 

While seventy-two percent of Pennsylvania schools are meeting their target and showing improvements in test scores, the 2008 PSSA results underscore how students in under-funded schools are facing even greater challenges, with a high number of students testing below grade level compared with those in districts with adequate funding.  You can find a profile on your school district by researching through the attached link on Great Schools.

The district in which a student lives may affect the quality of education received and school districts with the largest funding gaps have an average of 78 percent more students below grade level. For instance, Title I money under NCLB targets concentrations of low-income families rather than the small rural districts even though studies show that 35% of rural students live in poverty. More than half of all public schools in the United States are Title I schools.  Since the inception of No Child Left Behind in 2002 the difference between actual appropriations and authorized appropriations through fiscal year 2009 for the Rural School Achievement Program and Low-Income School Program is $922 million.

Parents of children in schools identified for improvement that are receiving Title I funds have to be notified on how the school compares with other schools in the district and in the state, what the school is doing to address low achievement and how the parents can become involved together with providing them an opportunity to comment before an action is taken. Students from low-income families in schools that fail to meet state standards for at least three consecutive years can receive supplemental services in addition to transferring their child to a school of their choice.

Following up on my two earlier blogs, I want to review one of the more controversial educational reforms in Pennsylvania’s schools at the moment: the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) with federal standards-based accountability (SBA) provisions that have impacted every public school in the nation.

The government requires states to set standards in line with the federal NCLB program. One of the principal features of SBA provisions is a focus on the school districts for accountability. In Pennsylvania we administer the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) and all students in grades three through eight are tested each year; we use third grade scores in reading and mathematics as a base line for future accountability.

Each year school districts publish test results of student achievement which are then evaluated against the state’s Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP)  targets. Testing at the end of the year leads to consequences the following year; incentives for student performance are included as are interventions for schools that are not meeting the standards. Teacher competence is also tested and certified.  Students are expected to achieve proficiency in math, reading and writing tests and science will be added in 2008. If a school fails for three out of four years, the school district must provide assistance to struggling students, and if it continues to fail it can be restructured or closed.

SBA policies define and measure outcomes that shape the way students are to be taught and have greatly influenced teaching and teachers’ practices and attitudes; schools are encouraged to align curriculum with state standards with focus on student achievement because of pressure to meet the AYP target.  One of the concerns that have been raised is that non-tested subjects, such as social studies, art, music and languages, have seen a reduction in the amount of teaching time in order to concentrate more time on tested subjects such as reading and mathematics. Another major concern with the provisions of the program is that support is more focused on low-performing students and that high-achieving students will not receive an appropriately challenging curriculum and instruction.

The NCLB legislation attempts to get public schools to provide quality and equality to all students and to be held accountable if they are not doing so. However, preparation costs of testing and remediation costs are assumed by the states and the local school districts which places a heavy financial burden on them.

Although public education is not a “right” granted by the Constitution the importance of a basic education and the benefits of a good education to individuals are undeniable.  It does not make sense for a state to deny any child a free education and create a society of illiterates dependent on public assistance for the rest of their lives. Education prepares individuals to participate in society and gives them the ability to live and to contribute productively and civically. The United States has a huge number of immigrants and must absorb the children of these families into the mainstream through the public school system. Improving educational outcomes is an investment that promotes social integration and assimilation.

Improving the quality of public education in our elementary and secondary schools came into focus at the federal level when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik I (the first orbiting launch into space) and the nation’s defense came under the spotlight.  In 1958, to help ensure improvements in the teaching of science, mathematics, and foreign language to American students, Congress passed the National Defense Education Act (NDEA). Up until that time most federal involvement in the schools had been at the state and local levels with federal funding aimed at providing school lunch programs and vocational training but little else; the role of the federal government historically had been attuned more toward funding higher education.  

The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965 was the first major program of the United States government that was designed specifically to secure more federal aid to improve the academic achievement of the most disadvantaged and deprived children. Under this legislation, Title I money was available for the poorer public school districts.

The education debate has now turned more to the role of increasing pressure for students to perform well on standardized testing and to ensure equal access to education throughout the nation during the elementary and secondary years of public school. Student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness remain a high priority with schools and states being held accountable through the most recent reauthorization of ESEA, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB).  In my next blog I will review the provisions of the NCLB and the impact on states and at the local levels of this major federal move into public education.

One of the most major public policy issues in America today is education. Public education in the United States has seen more than a century of reform yet it seems we still have a long way to go. In the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania we have 501 school districts that are faced with providing school reform with an accountability system of consequences for student performance and a funding system more dependent on local taxpayers and property taxation than found in most states in the nation.

During Bill Clinton’s presidency, education policies looked at the role of education in sustaining the United States in the world economy, the importance of educational disparities, and the need to support early childhood education through programs such as Head Start. American students were found not to be performing well when compared to students abroad and Clinton’s administration emphasized testing and improving the qualifications of teachers through expanded funding and regulation of all areas of education.

Republicans in Congress opposed efforts to allocate more federal funds and advanced such schemes as vouchers or tax credits in support of private schools. This was not a novel idea: more than 200 years ago, in 1778 Adam Smith argued that parents were in the best position to decide how their children should be educated and that vouchers would give parents the money to hire suitable teachers.

When George W. Bush came into power he advocated reform through the “No Child Left Behind” Act (NCLB). While teachers and their union have many complaints about the implications of “teaching to the test”, education reformers like the accountability provisions of NCLB.

I will review the impact of the different aspects of the NCLB program in schools in Pennsylvania to discover whether this educational reform movement has accomplished its goals and added any value to narrow the achievement gap.

We will be hearing a lot of proposals on educational reform in the run up to the November 2008 presidential elections. I would also hope to review where the candidates stand on these educational reform issues.