An Outbreak of Common Sense in the Commonwealth?

AYP? Ummm, NOT SO MUCH: Once the federal government
required all charter schools 

to analyze their test scores
the same way as traditional public 

schools, there were no more
smiles or banners for cyber-charters; 

zero of which actually
made Adequate Yearly Progress.

So apparently all hope for sanity in Pennsylvania, hanging by the thinnest of threads, is not lost.

It was announced in Tuesday's papers that Pennsylvania Secretary of Education Ron Tomalis Monday rejected all eight applications for new cyber-charter schools.

You can read Elizabeth Chute's article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette here; the Harrisburg Patriot-News article here; or the article in The Philadelphia Public School Notebook here.

Or, if you're an originalist, you can read PDE's press release here.

As this blog sputtered on about Sunday, it seemed ludicrous that the state would be considering allowing eight more cyber-charter schools -- a 50 percent increase -- when not one of them had met the federal benchmarks set out under the No Child Left Behind law.

There is still a small chance that some of the eight cyber-

charter schools rejected by Ron Tomalis, shown here, will

ultimately be approved.

But Tomalis did not cite this statistic among the reasons for his rejection.

This is what he did say:

“The proposals submitted by the applicants lack adequate evidence and sufficient information of how prospective students would be offered quality academic programs. In addition, the financial plans presented call into question each applicant’s ability to maintain a long-term, viable educational program for the benefit of Pennsylvania students.”

While this may seem like a sudden epidemic of common sense, it is probably proper to add a pinch of caution here, as Benjamin Herold of Newsworks did in his Notebook article.

Rhonda Brownstein

Herold quoted Education Law Center executive director Rhonda Brownstein, who said: "as we saw last year, the department rejected seven applications in January, only to approve four of those applicants in June after they re-applied.”

This year’s applicants may also resubmit their applications, or choose to appeal their denials.

All of this news comes as the House Republican Caucus announced an ambitious  set of proposals to reform several aspects of Pennsylvania's charter school laws.

The suggested changes deal only with funding, which is indeed a hot mess, and not with the actual success of charter schools, only 30 percent of which make the Adequate Yearly Progress, or AYP, required by the federal law; or cyber-charters, none of whom made AYP.

Pa. Rep. Mike Reese (R)

And GOP dogma does require the following statement from Rep. Mike Reese (R-Fayette/Westmoreland): "Pennsylvania’s charter schools and cyber charter schools have generally worked well and have benefitted many Pennsylvania families, particularly those students in low-performing school districts."

How 30 percent and zero percent equates to "working well" is a kind of math we'll have to address some other time, because the proposed funding changes are worth considering.

Here are the key provisions:

• Special Education Funding. Re-introduce legislation to create a commission to address inequities in the special education funding formula. The commission will be charged with determining how the Commonwealth should fund charter and cyber charter special education students.
• Pension/Doubledip. Introduce legislation to allow deductions for school district pension payments prior to calculating payments to cyber charter schools. This one change will save approximately $165 million for school districts over the next five years. Blogger's Note: (This was the subject of an Aug. 19 post in this space.)
• Cyber Funding Reforms. Reese will introduce legislation to make the following additional changes to the current cyber charter funding formula for non-special education students: 

1. A new “Cyber Program” deduction to spur on competition between school districts and cyber charter schools. School districts will be permitted to deduct 50 percent of the costs of any cyber program they offer to their own resident students. Blogger's Note: (This would affect cyber-charter schools begun in the Pottstown, Spring-Ford and Boyertown school districts to directly compete with the outside schools.)
2. Districts would be allowed to make additional deductions in calculating their payments to cyber charter schools; these deductions represent costs that occur in a brick-and-mortar setting, but not necessarily in a cyber setting. The proposed new deductions are:
3. The “Extracurricular Activities” deduction will allow districts to deduct 50 percent of the costs they incur for extracurricular activities. This deduction will not change the availability of extracurricular activities to cyber charter students who choose to participate in their home school district’s activities.
4. The “District Pupil Services” deduction will allow districts to deduct 100 percent of the costs associated with certain services that are offered in a brick-and-mortar setting but are not necessarily offered by cyber charter schools. These deductions will include student health services, food services and library services.

Those are the changes the traditional public school districts would probably like, as it addresses some of the complaints they have made over the years.

"There are some promising pieces in it that could benefit school districts across the commonwealth," the Pennsylvania School Boards Association wrote in a release reacting to the proposals.

"PSBA has been in favor of eliminating such items as the pension double dip and creating a funding formula that more accurately aligns with the true costs of operating cyber charter schools, both of which promise to be addressed in future legislation," the organization said.

Other significant parts of the proposal include:

• Direct Payment of Charter Schools. Recognizing the concerns of charter and cyber charter schools not being timely paid by school districts, the Commonwealth will provide their funding directly.
• Longer Charter Terms for Predictable Financing. The term of a charter will be lengthened from the current three years for an initial charter and five years for renewals, to five years for the initial charter and 10 years for renewals. Longer terms will allow charter schools to more easily secure predictable and consistent bank financing; the shorter terms have made private financing difficult for a number of charters in the state.

Both of these seem reasonable on the face of them.

And don't think that the irony of this flurry of charter and cyber-charter school news coming during "Pennsylvania School Choice Week" has been lost on the Digital Notebook staff.

Eighty-four events to mark the week have been scheduled across the Commonwealth.

Pottsgrove Not Ready to Take "Voucher Lite" Students

Students looking to escape "low-performing schools" won't be able to look to Pottsgrove School District as a place to get their education any time soon.

Facing a state deadline of today, the Pottsgrove School Board Tuesday night declined to take any action which would allow it to accept tuition students from "low-performing schools," as part of the state's new Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit program, which some are calling "voucher lite."

The scholarships are part of a law signed by Gov. Tom Corbett in July that allows businesses to make donations to non-profit organizations that will provide scholarships to low-income students who live within the attendance area of a school identified by the state as “low achieving.”

The businesses which make those donations will receive tax breaks worth as much as 90 percent of their contribution.

Based almost entirely on the state’s standardized PSSA test scores, only four public schools in Montgomery County were labeled as “low-achieving” schools by the state. One of them is Pottstown High School. The other three schools are in Norristown.

The only other area that might look to send students to Pottsgrove is in Reading, where several schools were identified as "low-achieving" by the Pennsylvania Department of Education.

Kyle Berman

Pottsgrove School District Solicitor Kyle Berman walked the board through the various pitfalls the district might face if it tried to do a fast turn-around and accept students right away.

First of all, because no Pottsgrove schools were identified as low-performing by the state -- a determination made by looking at combined math and reading scores on standardized tests -- "you don't have to worry about your students wandering off to neighboring districts."

Secondly, to participate the district would have to designate which of its schools would accept students from outside the district.

Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, the money doesn't quite work.

The Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit program, as its called, is only for low-income students who would otherwise attend low-performing schools. It provides $8,500 for regular education students and $15,000 for special education students.

The problem is that the Pennsylvania Department of Education has set each district's tuition, Berman said, based on "real numbers," adding sartdonically, "I don't know what the legislature based their numbers on."

Photo by Sanatoga Post

Pottsgrove Business Manager David Nester

In Pottsgrove's case, tuition is between $12,000 to $13,000, Business manager David Nester told the board Tuesday night.

That means it would be up to a low-income family to come up with the difference between the scholarship and tuition, as much as $4,500.

"That doesn't strike me as a real option for a low-income family," said school board member Mike Neiffer.

Special education is even more complicated because the state does not set tuition for a district's special education tuition, but the scholarship only provides  $15,000.

"We have some special education students that cost $40,000 or $50,000 to educate," Neiffer said. "Are you telling me a low-income family is supposed to make up the difference? That makes no sense."

Further, the scholarship money goes directly to the family, which then in turn pays the district or receiving school and if a student is accepted and not all the tuition paid, "to the extent that they don't pay, its up to you to chase them down for the rest of the money," Berman said.

If, for any reason, more students apply to a public receiving school than it has places to offer, the students it will take must be chosen by lottery, Berman said. But once a student has been accepted, they must be given preference in allotting classroom seats in subsequent years.

However, the district only has to commit to taking students for a single year and can opt out of the program after a year's experience if it chooses, Berman said.

"Every year you have to opt-in again," he said.

"With all these areas of impermanence, we really don't see this as being educationally sound," Berman said, speaking for the district's administration.

But Pottsgrove should not view its decision to make no decision yet as unique.

Clarion Area Junior/Senior High Schools is one of only two
public schools that has signed up to receive students through the
"voucher lite" program.

Berman said so far, only two public schools have signed up to receive students through this program. Both are in Clarion County. They are Clarion Area Elementary School and Clarion Area Jr./Sr. High School.

Further, a look at the state's list of receiving schools shows that of 175 schools approved to receive students whose tuition will be partially paid through what would otherwise be in Pennsylvania's tax coffers, 144 have some kind of religious affiliation.

Berman explained that in most years, a district will have until Feb. 15 to make a decision, so the board may revisit the matter prior to that.

The board gave no indication of any desire to do that, but only time will tell.

Livin' the Green Life

Shelby Clayton gets her hands, or at least her gloves dirty.

The native rain garden installed in the Barth courtyard

Blogger's Note: Witnesseth it here first dear reader. Behold yet another submission from the unsleeping hand of John Armato, press agent extraordinaire! (Also, a darn good story)

Barth Elementary School experienced a “green” year in 2012.

With the financial help of grants from the Department of Education and PECO, partnerships with many community organizations, and a great deal of enthusiasm, energy, and effort from students, staff, and parents Barth students were able to gain a great deal of knowledge about energy and ecology.

The year began with students using hip waders which were purchased through grant money to have hands-on exploration of local streams.

Partnering with the Montgomery County Parks and Heritage Service, students traveled to the Central Perkiomen Valley Park and received education on point and non-point sources of pollution and watersheds.

Native plants were used in the
Barth courtyard.

Next stop for the students was a field trip to Memorial Park where students were able to apply what they learned from the previous field trip and classroom experiences to improve the stream while taking part in an Earth Day cleanup.

From left, Nayeli Cruz, Dezmyre Aiken,
Paige Jones, and Emily Weber.

The Barth courtyard was the scene of the next project which involved a total redesign with emphasis on an eco-friendly environment.

Partnering with Pond Works, a local aquatic design and maintenance company, students were able to develop and install a natural bog filtration system for the courtyard pond.

A solar powered fountain and solar lighting were also installed in the courtyard.

DeShawn Rivers enjoys his time in the garden.

Lorry Filson, from the American Native Nursery, worked with students to design and plant a native rain garden.

The native rain garden consists of plants native to the state of Pennsylvania and has as one of its main purposes to reduce erosion and runoff while at the same time providing a unique educational experience for students.