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School Voucher Q & A: Senate Bill 1 Impact on Urban and Suburban School Districts

Live Chat Friday, April 22nd, 1-2 pm. Check here for responses to questions about Senate Bill 1.

 

By way of background, I have been a school board member in Haverford Township since 1999.  A long time ago, I attended grade school at the Thomas Creighton Elementary School in Philadelphia (now on the SB1 list of 144 failing schools) and graduated from Central High School in Philly.

For the past several years I have served as Chairman of the Delaware County School Boards Legislative Council, which advocates for public education on behalf of the 74,000 public school students in Delaware County's 15 school districts, and have also been appointed to a fourth 2 year term as a member of the National School Boards Association's Federal Relations Network, which advocates for public education at the federal level.

In 2006 I founded and now co-chair the Keystone State Education Coalition, a grass roots education advocacy group of several hundred school board members from school districts throughout Pennsylvania. In 2010 I was elected to represent the 27 suburban school districts of Delaware and Chester Counties on the PA School Boards Association's Board of Directors.

I provided testimony on school choice and SB1 before the PA Senate Education Committee last October and before the House Democratic Policy Committee this past February in Philadelphia.  I will be taking questions focusing on the impact of SB1 on suburban school districts.

 

Beth Olanoff, Executive Director of the Pennsylvania League of Urban Schools (PLUS) will be taking questions focused on the impact of SB1 on urban school districts.

 

Tags: Choice, SB1, School, Schools, Suburban, Vouchers

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Permalink Reply by Beth Olanoff on April 22, 2011 at 2:12pm

Hi,  Susan,

From your description, it appears as though your child has a disability (dyslexia) which requires special education to meet his needs.  The federal law - Individuals with Disabilities Education Act - requires school districts to meet the special needs of children with disabilities even to the extent of paying for a private school for him if your school cannot provide appropriate services.So in this regard, parents do have the right to obtain the appropriate education for their child.

Interestingly, vouchers are not designed specifically for this type of issue and would represent a fairly small amount of reimbursement for your private school tuition, since SB 1 vouchers are in the amount of the per student state funding to your district.

Baruch and Sandy, want to weigh in here?

 

Permalink Reply by Sandy Zelno on April 22, 2011 at 2:17pm

Hi Susan, Beth, and Everyone,

I think this last post is extremely important to this issue.  However, I think our time is running out for today.  The best hope I can offer for some good input on this type of discussion is that another School Talk forum will be held on April 27 from 1-2 PM and will specifically be devoted to educating students with disabilities. It's important--that's why we are devoting a whole time slot to the issue.   I hope to see everyone join us then.

Permalink Reply by Lawrence A. Feinberg on April 22, 2011 at 2:17pm

Hi Ray -

 

Among the "Choice" proponents there seems to be an abiding faith that the market will insure that schools that do not perform will close because the customers will vote with their feet.

 

While that may be true in business, our actual experience in Pennsylvania with charter schools does not bear it out.  Charters were enacted about 12 years ago and I beleive there are about 146 operating - only one charter has been closed for academic reasons since the law was enacted.

Furthermore, if you actually get the PSSA data that was used to prepare the list of 144 failing schools for SB1, THERE ARE 29 CHARTER SCHOOLS THAT SHOULD BE ON THAT LIST BASED ON THEIR TEST SCORES.  And there are several private religous schools that opted to take the PSSA voluntarily who are on that list.  

 

Here's the detail:

http://keystonestateeducationcoalition.blogspot.com/2011/02/questio...

 

Permalink Reply by Lawrence A. Feinberg on April 22, 2011 at 2:20pm
Thanks Everyone!
Permalink Reply by Dr. Edward J. Maritz on April 22, 2011 at 2:22pm

Beth

 

We are out of time today on the forum but yes I would be happy to ask my fellow board colleagues to consider and posssibly adopt a resolution.   I will ask Sandy Zelno to send along some information to asssit me in that endeavor.  Thank you to everyone for a great discussion.

Permalink Reply by Ray Firth on April 22, 2011 at 2:24pm
Sandy - I would also suggest we need to discuss other forms of "real competition" so there is a level playing field and parents/students can choose among public and private options , using all of the public funds available per student.

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