Pennsylvania State 2008-09 Budget

Thanks to jon for the link. Is there anyone out there "in the know" who might be able to let us know why we were not eligible for more?

Jon has left a new comment on your post "Pennsylvania Budget Deal":

There's an article in today's Phila. Inquirer at this link:

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/local/24058084.html

It has an accompanying graphic at this link:

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/gallery/24050274.html

Anyway, the graphic lays out state education funding increases for each district in the 5-county Phila. metro area, based on the recent PA budget deal.

What I learned from this is:

1. Morrisville gets the minimum 3% funding boost;
2. The boost is only in the state's "basic education funding", which for M'ville is only on the order of $2.9-3.0 million, not $5.45 million.

So, PA's funding of M'ville basic ed goes from $2,882,794 in 2007-08 to $2,969,278 in 2008-09, an increase of $86,484. This equates to only about $26 for the home assessed at the M'ville average of $18,000.

Not that much really.

Pa. support for schools jumps

By Dan Hardy Posted on Tue, Jul. 8, 2008

Inquirer Staff Writer
Philadelphia and its Pennsylvania suburban school districts will share $82.6 million in new basic education funding next school year under the state budget signed Friday by Gov. Rendell.

The increase in basic education funding represents the largest dollar increase in the program since 1991.

"Even though we are in an economic slowdown, this was our number-one issue this year," said Rep. Dwight Evans (D., Philadelphia), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.

Philadelphia will get about $50.8 million, a 5.8 percent basic subsidy hike. Other districts will receive increases based on need and how highly taxed they are, ranging from $4.9 million for Upper Darby in Delaware County, a 22.4 percent increase, to $22,900 for Jenkintown in Montgomery County, or 3 percent.

Of the 64 school districts that make up Philadelphia and its Pennsylvania suburbs, 37 will get the minimum 3 percent increase.

Rendell had initially proposed minimum increases of only 1.5 percent for the wealthiest districts, but unhappy Republicans in the legislature added $17 million to the budget to boost everyone's funding by at least 3 percent.

Overall, the basic education subsidy will increase by $275 million statewide, or 5.5 percent. The subsidy formula represents the largest single item in kindergarten-through-12th-grade funding.

Spending on other K-12 programs will bring the total education increase to $347.4 million, or 3.3 percent. Education is the largest single spending category - $9.7 billion - in the state's $28.3 billion budget.

Rendell did not get everything he asked for. His proposed increases for several programs were trimmed by 1.3 percent. Additionally, his Classrooms for the Future program to put laptop computers in every high school core-subject classroom was cut from $90 million to $45 million, delaying the complete rollout of the program by a year.

While the Philadelphia School District will receive $34 million less in basic subsidies than it had been slated to receive in earlier versions of the budget, the shortfall will be made up in other subsidies, said Rendell's senior policy adviser, Donna Cooper.

Just as important as increased basic funding for school districts, Rendell administration and school-reform advocates said, is the way that funding will be distributed.

The $275 million increase will be handed out according to a funding formula based on a 2007 study of the cost of an adequate education for children in each school district.

The use of the new funding formula, said Janis Risch, of Good Schools Pennsylvania, a reform group that has campaigned for increased funding, "is a tremendous step forward - it . . . begins to really address the education funding inequities experienced by students and communities."

But the legislature, shying away from committing itself to similarly large increases in future years, included only a vague commitment to meet new "state funding targets" by the 2013-14 school year.

The Rendell administration had wanted lawmakers to commit to increasing basic education funding by a total of $2.6 billion during six years, including the coming school year.

Nevertheless, Rendell aides and Democratic leaders say they see the language that did make it into the legislation as a call to keep increasing state funding until then, using the Rendell formula.

"I think we dramatically advanced the conversation on closing the adequacy gap" among school districts, said Cooper, Rendell's policy adviser. "The legislation has put into law language saying there is a [new funding] target to achieve and they will try to achieve that within six years - that is a giant step forward."

Republicans see the matter differently, saying the legislation is only a commitment to study funding further and come up with some kind of new subsidy scheme.

"It is very clear that the only commitment is to utilize the [Rendell] budget formula for one year - there is no commitment beyond that," said Senate Majority leader Dominic Pileggi (R., Delaware).

The only other thing the new legislation commits the legislature to doing, Pileggi added, is examining the funding formula and the study on which it was based to determine how best to provide money to the districts most in need.

Timothy Allwein, the legislative liaison for the Pennsylvania School Boards Association, which supports the Rendell funding formula, said that at the very least, the "target" funding language provides a framework for further discussion.

Rendell suffered at least a partial defeat on one other initiative that he had strongly backed when the legislature delayed implementation of a plan for mandatory state subject tests for at least a year.

The legislature and many school boards had strongly opposed the tests, which some students would have to pass to demonstrate mastery in basic subjects before they could graduate from high school. Some larger school districts, including Philadelphia, have supported the testing requirement.

The state Board of Education had proposed new regulations, saying that the tests would be offered to students starting in 2010, with seniors having to pass them or show their mastery of basic skills in other ways by 2014. The school bill that was passed this year forbids those regulations from being "further promulgated, approved or proposed" before next July.

Cooper, the Rendell senior staffer, said that funding is still in the budget bill for both the development of the tests and the development of a model curriculum to ensure that students are learning what was included in the exams. The state Department of Education will go ahead with developing those tools, she said, and school districts will be able to voluntarily use the tests, even if the state cannot for now mandate them.

Archives- Election 2007

I received this scan today along with the reminder that the election for the new school board, the one that the Emperor threatened the late Ed Frankenfield with, is fast approaching.

They suggested that this could be added to our collection of memorabilia from 2007 to eventually see if the candidates, indeed, are keeping their word.

Does anyone have items from the 2005 election cycle? These are the same people whose seats would be up in 2009.

Now appearing: The Democrats

Reithmeyer for school board; Panzitta, Rivella, and Sherlock for borough council.

Skills of the American Workforce

Thanks to the emailer for this post from the Sunday Parade Magazine. Take a look at that last Q&A. It's far more complex than the Emperor thinks it is.

Website for the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce

Executive Summary of the report PDF format, 26 pages

Power Point presentation (PDF format only)

The first Commission Report (June 1990), PDF format, 164 pages

Fixing Our Schools
Former Labor Secretary William Brock leads the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce, created to report on the state of U.S. education.

How can we fix American education?
First, we have to agree that we have a problem. In the last 25 years, spending has risen 240% while performance has barely changed. Only 68% of students graduate from high school, and many states require only eighth-grade skills in reading and math to get a diploma. We need to start with better early-childhood education. We need the very best among us to become teachers, and we need to ensure that standardized tests of rote knowledge don’t drive education away from the very things that have made America special: critical thinking, creativity, innovation, and teamwork.

You’ve said publicly that we are failing our teachers. How?
We recruit new teachers largely from the bottom 30% of entering college students, train them, and then assign them to the toughest jobs in the most challenging schools with very low pay. When the results fall short, we tell them, “You just have to work harder.” Most feel that they have no voice in their schools. This is no way to treat professionals.

Why isn’t education a bigger political issue?
Primarily because there is no quick fix. It’s complex. Perhaps most of all, no one really wants to admit that we are leaving millions of children behind. Education is the key to better jobs, higher incomes, and greater growth in what has become an extremely competitive global economy. Nothing is more important than education. Absolutely nothing.

Special Ed Woes at BCTHS

From this morning's BCCT

School facing special education legal challenges
Such challenges are typically resolved by offering additional education to special education students as compensation, an administrator said.
By JOAN HELLYER

Two legal challenges have prompted Bucks County Technical High School administrators this summer to review their procedures for handling special education students, an official said.

The challenges, which will be handled by a hearing officer, are common in every school district, said Kevin Gentilcore, the school’s supervisor of pupil services. However, they are the first to be filed against the tech school in its 50-year history, he said.

“We’re not happy that we have a couple cases. We’re looking at all of our procedures and those of our sending districts to make sure we are all legally sound and have processes in place to continue to have positive relationships with our students and parents,” Gentilcore said.

He would not identify the students involved in the due process cases, citing confidentiality restrictions, and declined comment on the cases.

But generally speaking, Gentilcore said, due process cases come about after a parent, guardian or other party connected to the student “feels that his or her Individual Education Plan was not appropriately implemented.” The interested party could claim that since the IEP was not properly implemented, the student did not learn and achieve as much as expected, he said.

The IEP is developed in a joint effort by public school officials, the student, and his or her guardian as required of public schools by the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. It is designed to meet the unique educational needs of a child, taking into consideration how the disability affects the student’s learning, education department officials said.

The IEP describes how the student learns, how he or she best demonstrates that learning, and what teachers and service providers are required to do to help the student learn more effectively, officials said.

The cost to implement an IEP depends on the student’s individual disability, they said, and can range from a few thousand dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars per year.

Typically such challenges to IEP implementation are resolved by offering the student additional education as compensation, Gentilcore said.

The comprehensive technical high school off Wistar Road in Bristol Township already has procedures in place to ensure that a student’s IEP is being followed, the supervisor said.

Initially, when a special education student is accepted into the school that serves the Bensalem, Bristol, Bristol Township, Morrisville, Neshaminy and Pennsbury school districts, the sending school reviews the student’s IEP.

Then, representatives from the sending school and BCTHS meet with the student and his or her parent or guardian to make sure the IEP is appropriate in a technological setting, Gentilcore said. It is adjusted as needed to accommodate the technical environment.

It’s also reviewed by representatives of the home school and the tech school, as well as the student and parent or guardian, on an annual basis, he said.

School officials now are in the process of doing “preventive maintenance” by making sure they are handling the IEP cases correctly in light of the legal challenges, Gentilcore said.

“We figure let’s be ahead of the curve here. There’s probably nothing more to do than we are already doing, but we are in a heightened sense of awareness,” the administrator said.

Gentilcore believes the cases can be tentatively resolved by the time the school’s joint board committee meets again in late August. The board will have to approve the settlements before they can be enacted, he said.

Special Facilities Committee Meeting Tomorrow

Reminder about the special meeting of the facilities committee tomorrow night. This is not a full board meeting. This would only be the facilities committee.

Does anyone know who the facilities committee members are? It's not well publicised.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Facilities Committee Meeting
The Morrisville School District's Facility Committee will hold a meeting on July 9, 2008 at 7:00 pm in Conference Room F-10 of the Middle/Senior High School, 550 W. Palmer St., Morrisville, PA. Marlys Mihok Secretary

Site: HS F-10
Time: 7:00PM

Open Door vs. Closed Door

Thanks to the emailer who mentioned this.

Are you a solid wall or an open door?

By TOM NORLEN

No matter what our job title may be, there is most likely always an element of customer service involved in our responsibilities. When it comes to serving others, both knowledge and attitude are important. Every day we need to accomplish a variety of activities. To do so requires interacting with people who are necessary in the process of resolving an issue, purchasing an item, answering a question, providing a service, etc.

There is often a great difference between what another person knows and what is in their heart. People can become a Solid Wall that stops us in our tracks and leaves us frustrated, or they can be an Open Door that provides true and meaningful service and satisfaction.

What might be some of the characteristics of the “Solid Wall” personality? This person can be hard. He or she can be difficult to pass through. The Wall can be a stopper of the flow of positive efforts and ideas. You cannot see past the Wall. It blocks your vision. The Wall can be a divider. The Wall might be decorated with nice pictures and a coat of paint, but underneath are drywall, studs and sharp nails. The Wall is set and solid, often rigid. The Wall can cast a shadow. Have you ever met a “Wall” personality? Sadly to say, we find these people at every turn, and perhaps they are not even aware of how they are perceived by others.

What might be some characteristics of the “Open Door” personality? This person has hinges and can be flexible in movement. You can see through the Open Door. Light can enter through it. The Door moves as needed to open the way. By its very nature the Door is inviting you to enter. It is welcoming. The Open Door says, “Come in and let's solve this together.” A breath of fresh air is able to flow through the Open Door. You often leave this Door with satisfaction, a smile on your face and a bounce in your step. Have you ever met an Open Door? You are blessed if you know a whole collection of Open Doors!

I have witnessed the Open Door attitude in all walks of life. The garbage man sets the cans down in our yard and doesn't just throw them in the street. A principal greets a new student with a smile. The cashier makes eye contact with you and her thank you is sincere. The customer service rep on the phone is friendly and actually helps you. A supervisor at work understands about an unexpected event in your family life. A contractor does a quality job and takes care to clean up. The list is endless.

May your life be filled with Open Doors and may you show great appreciation for each one of them. Please don't take them for granted. They are as precious as gold. I challenge and encourage anyone reading this article to evaluate how you relate to others.

You can have all the head knowledge in the world and leave another person feeling empty if you don't balance this knowledge with compassion, patience and respect. The smallest actions in life can often produce the biggest results. I thank God for the Open Doors in my life.