Hite's Plan for Schools

With all the woes that the School District of Philadelphia has gone through and is currently going through, Superintendent Hite is looking for new ways to improve the way the School District "does business."  Hite wants to allow the strongest schools to run themselves beginning in 2016, and turn some struggling schools over to private contractors. The plan would require more than $300 million in new recurring revenue from the city and state for the next school year and a total of $970 million over five years in order to execute. Hite's "Action Plan v3.0" would also reorganize the district. The current eight networks - groupings of schools run by an assistant superintendent - would remain.

But three networks would be added: a "turnaround" network for the bottom 5 percent or 10 percent of schools.

I understand that the School District is in a tough fix financially, but in my opinion, Superintendent Hite is going about this all wrong. He makes a good point that almost half of the district's students do not meet the state's standards  in reading and math, AND that the district has thousands of students that are over-age and have not yet graduated. I'm aware that the School District need urgent care, but I think that the solution is what it should have always been: provide public schools with the resources they need so that principals and teachers can do their job and so that students can have a quality education and actually learn. Simple as that. When is the District gonna learn?

Wolf's Roar

Any supporter of education in Philadelphia would have undoubtedly voted for Tom Wolf for governor over Tom Corbett. Now, with his kicking of Bill Green to the curb, I'd be surprised if he didn't have the support of all education supporters. Technically Bill Green was just replaced by another member of the SRC, Marjorie Neff, but nevertheless, Tom Wolf is the real MVP.

Tom Wolf only demoted Green after he ignored Wolf's plea with the SRC to not approve any more charter schools #karma. In my opinion, Neff should have always been the chair of the SRC because she's the ONLY one on the commission with actual experience in education. ISN'T THAT INSANE??!!? Anyway, Wolf's bold move was solely based on the fact that he didn't want any more charter schools approved, AND I DON'T EITHER!With every new charter school that is brought up in Philadelphia, a large chunk of money that would have gone to public schools is now gone. Charter schools hurt the district, and hurt the opportunity of the average student to get a good and affordable education. With that being said, I approve Wolf's decision to demote Green, although it is not yet known whether Wolf has that authority. No matter, I'm eager to see what else Wolf will do to improve education in Pennsylvania. Who knows? Maybe the SRC may be on its way to non-existence.

Standardized Testing: A Principal's Perspective

In the wake of No Child Left Behind, the Common Core, and Race to the Top, standardized testing has been a plague on schools, and education reform is needed now more than ever before. An article in the Washington Post shows that the effects of federal government's overreach into the education system has severely stunted the states from creating challenging standards for education and has taken the opportunity of quality education from students across America. Because of the bribery from No Child Left Behind and Obama's Race to the Top initiative, schools are forced to conform to the federal government's standards of education, which in my mind are blindly constructed. As I have said in my previous posts, the federal government is too far from direct contact with the students, and their implementing of standards for students is completely absurd. 

 Principal Carol Burris oh South Side High School in New York has seen the effects of the government's overreach into school first-hand. There, test-based requirements for graduation are having the opposite effect on students; instead of pushing them to succeed, they are falling behind. The "graduation rate gap" there has expanded and the percentage of graduating ELL students is a measly 31 percent. These special education students are drilled to pass a test rather than given an education in which they are immersed in the knowledge and attention that they need. Standardized testing has deprived these students of reaching their full potential.

Education is not a platform for politicians to win elections. Education is a basic need and right to every child in America. If the federal government keeps stretching their boundaries into our schools, then we better stock up on wood-barrel #2 pencils.

Free College?

Although "FREE COLLEGE" sounds like a very good idea, it is mostly likely not going to happen any time soon, especially with a Republican Congress...However, Obama is still going to push this idea in his State of the Union Address. He proposed a plan to work with states to make community college education free for two years of study. As a large supporter of the value of education, I think it's a pretty good idea!

How are we going to pay for this initiative you ask? No need to think very hard on this, it's the obvious answer - TAXES. Obama offered a tax proposal to cover the cost of this program.
According to Obama, the tax increases would only affect the wealthiest 1% of Americans, which sounds fine to me. It's time for big corporations to start giving back!

What would be the effects of this initiative? Results are questionable. According to statistics, people with associate's degrees, on average, still make lower in weekly earnings than the median wage. This brings up the question, "what's the point?" According to statistics, you need at least a bachelor's degree to make more than the median wage. This is true, however, with this initiative, more opportunities are available and make four year's worth of higher education much more affordable and accessible. 

All in all, I'd support this kind of education reform. With all this exposure that this initiative is getting from the media, it would be a great platform for a future Democratic candidate for president to run on. Hopefully, this will be the first step in lowering the tuition costs of all higher learning institutions

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The Sad Truth about Higher Education

While the cost of higher education has risen exponentially in the past few decades, some parents and students are asking themselves an important question - is college worth the cost? In a recent episode of CNN's This Hour, Prof. Richard Arum of New York University and Prof. Kathy Davidson of the City University of New York weighed in with their thoughts. Both agreed that having a college degree is essential in creating an intelligent society and a promising future; they also  agreed that the system of education is completely flawed. Students are paying hefty college tuitions and are graduating with an average of $30,000 or more.The horrible truth is that students are just not getting the type of education that is tantamount to the money that they are paying to get a degree, and if we keep going down this road, people are just going to stop going to college. What will happen then?

The fact of the matter is the education that should be equivalent to the tuition cost of many colleges is not as rigorous or demanding as it should be. Local and state governments need to start taking a look at what is happening in terms of academic experience and student growth, see that there is a problem, and do something about it. Meanwhile, the cost of higher education has risen 1000% over the last century, and that is just not acceptable. Prof. Davidson stated that 80% of the students that graduate from CUNY have no student debt, and attests this to the fact the New York invests 51% of their operating costs into colleges. "Either we pay collectively as a society," she said, "or our students pay, and then we pay in the future by not having a future..." Davidson reported that other states invest as low as 8% and that's why college tuition has skyrocketed.  Without education, there would be no leaders, no industry, no America. In my opinion, having a future in which we all help to make education affordable and available is MUCH better than not having a future at all.

Common Core for Colleges?

Well that's what it looks like with President Obama's new set of initiatives for the 2015-2016 school year. Obama's education department recently released an outline of how they plan to rate two-year and four-year colleges/universities based on accessibility, affordability, and student success/outcome. President Obama wants to tie the $150 billion in federal funding that goes to colleges every year to this rating system in order to help make higher education more affordable and accessible to more students. President Obama said himself, "Colleges that keep their tuition go down and provide a quality education are going to see their funding go up...It is time to stop subsidizing schools that are not providing good results." Now this sounds awfully like the Common Core that has been criticized many times by high school students, parents, and teachers, and I'm sure this system will not be any less criticized.

CBS news reports, "The education department is still working on the best ways to determine what constitutes 'low-performing' or 'high-performing' as well as ways to recognize improved performance over time. In the mean time, they will use the percentage of students in college receiving Pell grants and with parents who have not attended college to measure accessibility, and net cost and family income quintiles to measure affordability. As for success, the education department will evaluate completion rates, transfer rates, and labor market success.

Yes, it's true, colleges are becoming more and more expensive as the years go by, and yes, this is a problem. However, with this system, I'm sure there will still be much opposition.It's just like the Common Core that many people today are opposed to; it has the same sense of collectivism and arrogance. Government officials are not the ones in schools, how do they know how to accurately rate schools? In essence, most colleges are business and will do anything to get the moolah. That may mean admitting more low-income students to boost accessibility or even allow more students to graduate to boost completion rates. When money is on the table, I'm sure many schools will sacrifice quality education for the dough. Obama's intentions are in the right place, but this approach is not far off from the already socially-disapproved Common Core.

Everything's Bigger Down South

When we think of the South, some things that come to mind are big hats and big boots, but we almost never think about the massive education funding gaps. In Durant, Mississippi, the last time the state provided full funding for education was in 2008. Now the funding gap has grown to $1.5 billion, and Mississippi could fall $260 million short in the 2016 year. Currently, Mississippi ranks last in state ratings of student achievement, but this isn't a result of student incompetency. Instead, the lack of resources available and the overall quality of education are to blame.

In Durant, textbooks are not up-to-date and do not meet the Common Core standards. In other words, the most basic of resources in schools are unavailable in a school district of only 588 students. However, the sad truth, according to former superintendent Glenn Carlisle, is that "if [they] buy new textbooks, [they're] not going to have the teachers." Though when they do hire new teachers, the Durant School District hires people right out of college with less experience because they're cheaper. THAT'S ABSURD! Students deserve much more than random lessons from the Internet and amateur teachers, there's not much that Durant can do.

The vast majority of Mississippi's school districts have raised property taxes to help close the gap, but their efforts have not been very successful. Other school districts in the state sued to make the state pay for what is owed to the school district (the Durant School District is actually in violation of a law that requires that students have textbooks or electronic devices in every subject to take home). Education advocacy groups have taken a more reasonable approach to try to amend the state's constitution to guarantee sufficient education funding.

The fact that the Durant School District has broken a state law and the state hasn't assisted in any way to amend the violation puts forth an air of hypocrisy on the state legislature. The state's failure and/or inability to enforce its own law is both sad and outrageous. Government needs to start putting education in the forefront of its priorities. Without quality education, the future of America will be the America's biggest failure.