Before his election President Obama carved out what many regarded as a more progressive and enlightened position on education reform. Recognizing that No Child Left Behind (NCLB) had become widely unpopular because of its
If Harrisburg doesn't come through with the state aid the Philadelphia School District is banking on, cuts to its newly adopted $3.2 billion budget could come from the classroom, officials said Wednesday.
The School Reform Commission approved a spending plan that pays for new labor contracts, bigger pension obligations, and $180 million for Superintendent Arlene Ackerman's strategic plan. The budget relies heavily on federal stimulus money and $1.68 billion in state aid - a figure that Gov. Rendell proposed but that the legislature has not approved.
State aid accounts for 55 percent of the district's budget.
Michael Masch, district chief business officer, defended the budget as "sound" and based on the best information available. He noted that the district had shown improved test scores for the last seven years.
A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi (R., Delaware) pointed to an April 27 letter to all Pennsylvania superintendents, in which state Republican leaders warned that there was "no guaranteed level of funding" and that the state's financial position had "changed significantly" since Rendell's proposal.
Last year, the district counted on Rendell's proposal and ended up having to make $144 million in cuts. The budget already contains efficiencies, Masch said, but more would be considered if Harrisburg doesn't come through.
"If revenue shortfalls can't be eliminated solely through operating efficiencies," he said, "we will consider changes that affect our educational programs, but only as a last resort."
Those might include rolling back initiatives to reduce class sizes and add counselors, scaling back summer school, and delaying proposed expansions for charter schools, Masch said.
The budget passed, 4-0. Commissioner David Girard-diCarlo said he supported the budget "reluctantly," and Commissioner Johnny Irizarry abstained.
Irizarry declined to immediately say why he did not support the budget.
While praising Masch and Ackerman for doing the best they could, Girard-diCarlo warned th
By Katy Murphy
Thursday, May 27th, 2010 at 12:16 pm in OUSD central office, Tony Smith, budget,leadership changes
Last week we reported on District budget data that appears to show substantial growth in spending for administrative support since 2008-09, including growth in the number of administrative staff positions.
The Notebook has received detailed explanations from Chief Business Officer Michael Masch for the increase in employee numbers, indicating that for the most part, the increase in number of administrative staff positions from 896 to 1135 reported in the budget book did not reflect the creation of new central office jobs.
A New Vision of School Reform
Before his election President Obama carved out what many regarded as a more progressive and enlightened position on education reform. Recognizing that No Child Left Behind (NCLB) had become widely unpopular because of its overemphasis on standardized tests, he declared, "Don't tell us that the only way to teach a child is to spend too much of the year preparing him to fill out a few bubbles in a
California has to produce a budget that promotes job creation and makes economic sense. We shouldn't make budget decisions that cut jobs and short-change our overall recovery and long-term growth. The California Jobs Budget will protect and create 465,000 jobs in the private sector and local communities, while also protecting funding for schools, public safety, and a basic safety net.
Taking a cue from their peers in New Jersey, New York City high school students are planning to boycott school next Wednesday in protest of budget cuts and looming teacher layoffs.
Milwaukee school performance: Performance and location of traditional public schools, charter schools and private schools that participate in the Milwaukee Parental Choice (voucher) program, according to the study.
Tucked on the south side of Milwaukee off Oklahoma Ave., Veritas High School has about 180 students, a college preparatory curriculum and a reputation for helping kids succeed.
According to a new study, the charter high school also has the distinction of being the only non-selective public high school in the city meeting at least 75% of the state's standards in reading and math.
That scarcity of good schools available to all children in Milwaukee - especially at the high school level, on the north and northwest sides, and in a few areas of the densely populated south side - is the focus of a new study by a Chicago nonprofit that has been tracking the distribution of "performing schools" in urban districts since 2003.
Overall, the study found that out of 353 schools studied in the 2008-'09 school year, only 13% of students enrolled in traditional public schools, charter schools and private schools that participated in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (and that reported data for the study) were attending a school that met Wisconsin's state standards in reading and math.
When the bar was lowered to include schools meeting at least 75% of the state's standards in reading and math - the cutoff to be considered a "performing" school for purposes of the study - the percentage of kids being served with a decent education rose to about 33%.
Add in the selective schools that require an entrance exam before admitting students - which are generally higher performers - and that number rose a bit higher to 37%, said Jose Cerda, vice president of public policy and communications at IFF, a community development financial institution that supports nonprofits in the Midwest."Our position is that all students should have the option of attending a performing school near where they reside," Cerda said. "What we're trying to do is rate the capacity of this system - where does it have the most capacity and where does it have the least?"
Cerda said Milwaukee would need between about 56,000 and 78,000 more seats at performing public and private schools to serve all children in the city.
The range of more than 20,000 seats exists because the majority of private schools that participated in Milwaukee's voucher program that year did not submit test-score data for the study. In 2008-'09, 126 private schools participated in the voucher program, but only 23 submitted data for the study. It's possible that some of those 20,000-plus children are at schools that meet most or all of the state's standards, researchers said.
To rank the need for performing school options in Milwaukee, the IFF study analyzed the schools in each of the city's 20 ZIP codes and found:
• More than two-thirds of the need for performing schools is located in eight ZIP codes: 53209, 53206,
