Corbett’s PA: Finding more ways to punish kids
(Signe Wilkinson for the Philadelphia Daily News, 3/14/2012)
On Wednesday, the State Board of Education voted 3-2 to implement mandatory Keystone graduation exams beginning with this year’s ninth grade class. The exams are end of course state-level tests which will determine 1) whether you pass the class; and 2) count toward graduation. A failure to pass the exams could result in our children not receiving their diplomas and failing schools at early stages of their high school career. The exams are an unfunded mandate – costing at least $600 per child – and were opposed by a majority of Pennsylvania superintendents. But this was not a decision governed by educational expertise. Instead it’s a perfect example of the extremist and cold-hearted ideology of the worst of the Corbett administration, including State Board of Education member Kirk Hallett, who shrugged off criticism of the exams by saying “That kid is damned anyway.” Parents United is researching ways for students to opt out of the Keystone exams. With failure rates of 50% and above for Philadelphia 11th graders, the implementation of these exams with zero supports is designed to punish our children and set them up to fail. This was the testimony I turned into the board before their vote.Dear Commissioners
I am a Philadelphia public school mother of three children writing to you today following an opening of schools in Philadelphia that most of us would find unimaginable. Writing to you about the Keystone exams is simultaneously emotional, frustrating and necessary. According to our own superintendent, Philadelphia managed to open “functional types of schools” lacking in the resources that “we typically expect in schools.” Can you imagine what it means as a parent to hear that about the schools you are sending your children to? Then