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Altering the Empowerment Act: Necessary reform or aggressive state takeover?
The Senate Education Committee voted 9-1 to approve a significantly altered Education Empowerment Act (SB 1192). The changes in the law would dramatically increase state control over local schools and local school districts. Is this a necessary reform or an aggressive state takeover of local schools?
Read the Education Law Center’s analysis for more information. The text of the bill can be found here.
Read the Education Law Center’s analysis for more information. The text of the bill can be found here.
Tags: act, committee, education, empowerment, reauthorization, senate
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Len Rieser on -
As I mentioned in my Public School Notebook blog, I think it's a huge mistake to take this step at the same time that Congress is revising the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which deals with many of the same issues. We're certain to end up with conflicting, overlapping, and excessive mandates -- perhaps creating interesting new projects for lawyers, but definitely diverting energy and money from services to children.
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Permalink Reply by Lawrence A. Feinberg on -
From Senator Piccola's website:
http://www.piccola.org/newsreleases/default.asp?NewsReleaseID=2148
Senator Jeffrey E. Piccola
News Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
4/23/2010
CONTACT:
Diane McNaughton
Phone: 717-787-6801
Weekly Column
Fate of Failing Schools to Be Debated
Many schools in this region are failing our kids. Too many young people are graduating from high school without the ability to succeed in college, find a family-sustaining job, and compete on the global stage.
To turn around schools that are producing persistent and profound failure, I have worked with my Senate colleagues, education experts and concerned citizens to develop a rescue plan, using added incentives, penalties, and supports. A bill I introduced with bipartisan support will renew the Education Empowerment Act, first enacted in 2000 and set to expire on June 30th, and bring Pennsylvania into continued compliance with the federal No Child Left behind Law, and any new educational excellence laws that follow.
My legislation was approved by a vote of 9 to 1 by the Senate Education Committee on Tuesday. This bill will affect the two school districts in Pennsylvania that bear the dubious distinction of missing academic targets for nine consecutive years—the Harrisburg School District and Chester-Upland—and it will set into motion the multi-tiered warning process for other schools that are chronically underperforming, which include Steelton-Highspire, York, Lancaster, Lebanon and Reading School Districts.
Over the past six months, we held hearings on this bill throughout the state, incorporating the community’s ideas and setting the stage for more dramatic change in the classrooms.
While I am generally a proponent of local control, when local control fails to make a difference year after year we must say, “Enough is enough.” Declaring a district as an empowerment zone is a move designed to be positive, not punitive.
At its most practical level, this law will mean that the control of the day-to-day operations of the Harrisburg School District will return to the elected school board, but major decisions will be submitted to a new, three-member Statewide Academic Accountability Board for approval. These decisions include the hiring and firing of superintendents, the ratification of budgets, collective bargaining, and the incurring of debt. The existing seven-member local board of control would be dissolved.
We must remove schools from local politics and put kids first. While some schools in our area are making progress, their improvements are far too sluggish. My bill now awaits the approval of the full Senate. We need to act now to rescue chronically underachieving schools, to preserve tax dollars and, ultimately, our children’s future.
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Permalink Reply by Lawrence A. Feinberg on
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Although the "Empowerment" Bill pushes state oversight as one solution there is no evidence of any benefit for students. Here's a quote from the Patriot News editorial of April 23rd (link follows):
"The Piccola bill would remove local control from a district such as Harrisburg and place it in the hands of a state-appointed board. It would increase state oversight of many districts, including Steelton and Lebanon. The assumption, of course, is that the wise heads at the Department of Education know better than a local school board or local educators.
Yet with the 2000 Empowerment Law, the Chester-Upland School District — unlike Harrisburg — was placed directly under state control. So it did better, right?
Wrong. In 2008-09, just 18 percent of Chester-Upland’s 11th-graders passed the state PSSA reading test. "
School control: Numbers show state oversight isn't answer
By Patriot-News Editorial Board
April 23, 2010, 6:12AM
http://www.pennlive.com/editorials/index.ssf/2010/04/school_control...
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Permalink Reply by Lawrence A. Feinberg on
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In addition to state control, the "Empowerment" bill would strongly encourage the operations of failing schools and districts to be turned over to charter school companies or to private education management organizations. However,there does not seem to be any conclusive evidence that charters add value to student performance overall.
The Stanford/CREDO study in June 2009 looked at charter school performance in 15 states and the District of Columbia. Only 17% of charters had academic performance that was better than traditional public schools; 37% were worse and 46% showed no significant difference.
Here's a link to the report:
http://credo.stanford.edu/
NEW STANFORD REPORT FINDS SERIOUS
QUALITY CHALLENGE IN NATIONAL
CHARTER SCHOOL SECTOR
Report Recognizes Robust Demand, Supply and Exceptional Charters, Faults Quality Controls, Authorizers and Charter Caps
Stanford, CA – A new report issued today by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes
(CREDO) at Stanford University found that there is a wide variance in the quality of the nation’s several thousand charter schools with, in the aggregate, students in charter schools not faring as well as students in traditional public schools.
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Permalink Reply by Lawrence A. Feinberg on
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So if state oversight and charters are not improving student performance, just who are we empowering with the "Empowerment" bill?
Here's are a few possibilities noted in the press:
In Pa. governor's race, predictable giving
By Tom Infield The Philadelphia Inquirer
Date: Friday, February 26 2010
“An advocate for charter schools, Corbett received $136,000 in cash and in-kind donations from Vahan H. Gureghian, a Gladwyne lawyer and charter school executive.”
http://www.allbusiness.com/government/government-bodies-offices-reg...
Charter school appeals to block release of records
June 11, 2009
By Dan Hardy
Philadelphia Inquirer Staff Writer
The Chester Community Charter School has filed a court appeal to a recent Pennsylvania Office of Open Records ruling that gave The Inquirer access to a wide range of financial records from the management company that operates the school.
The Delaware County school, the state's largest charter, and Charter School Management Inc., a private, for-profit management company, have repeatedly denied requests by the newspaper for details about how millions of dollars in public money were spent and how much the company and its owner, Vahan H. Gureghian, were making.
http://www.openrecordspa.org/news_files/9f7b8d79b9233df670ae22345a2...
On April 7th and 8th the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that three wealthy Bala Cynwyd investors who support charter schools gave $1.5 million to the Democrat Anthony Williams' gubernatorial campaign.
Posted on Wed, Apr. 7, 2010
Williams' jaw-dropping coffers for Pa. top post
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/home_region/20100407_Williams__jaw-d...
$750,000 was donated by Democrats for Education Reform: http://www.dfer.org/
An additional $250,000 from a political action committee called Students First: http://www.studentsfirstfoundation.us/
Posted on Thu, Apr. 8, 2010
Bala Cynwyd investors donate $1.5M to Williams
Three Bala Cynwyd investment moguls who say they share State Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams' passion for charter schools and education reform have given his gubernatorial campaign as much as $1.5 million.
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/home_region/20100408_Bala_Cynwyd_inv...
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Permalink Reply by Lawrence A. Feinberg on
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Follow the money.
This is a link to the campaign finance reporting website maintained by the PA Department of State. This site allows the public to search, browse and even download information from campaign finance reports filed with the Pennsylvania Department of State (DOS), Bureau of Commissions, Elections & Legislation (BCEL).
http://www.campaignfinance.state.pa.us/ContributionSearchResults.as...
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Permalink Reply by Lawrence A. Feinberg on
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Just a little housekeeping: any opinions expressed are my own and are not made on behalf of my school district, my school board, my wife or my dog..........
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Permalink Reply by Lawrence A. Feinberg on
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Follow the money.
This link includes a chart showing salaries of chief executive officers and chief administrative officers for several charter schools in Philadelphia for fiscal 2007-2008, and the current salaries of some area superintendents.
http://www.philly.com/philly/education/90194127.html
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