CORBETT NAMES ZOGBY BUDGET SECRETARY/How poverty affected U.S. PISA scores

CORBETT NAMES ZOGBY BUDGET (not Education) SECRETARY

According to an article in the Patriot News, Charles Zogby, a former secretary of the state Department of Education, will head Gov.-elect Tom Corbett's Office of the Budget. Zogby, 48, of Fairview Twp., headed the education department under Govs. Tom Ridge and Mark Schweiker from 2001-03.  Before that, he served as Ridge's director of policy from 1995-2001. Since 2003 he's served as senior vice president of education and policy for K12 Inc., an online school curriculum developer and provider.  A member of Corbett’s Education Transition Team , Mr. Zogby is also a Board Member of the REACH Foundation, a leading advocate for vouchers and school choice in Pennsylvania.

http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2010/12/gov-elect_tom_corbett_names_ch.html

Washington Post Answer Sheet Blog

Posted at 10:11 AM ET, 12/ 9/2010

How poverty affected U.S. PISA scores

Stephen Krashen, professor emeritus at the University of Southern California, wrote the following, which was posted on the Schools Matter blog.

 “American students in schools with less than 10% of students on free and reduced lunch averaged 551, higher than the overall average of any OECD [Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development country. Those in schools with 10% to 25% of students qualifying for free and reduced lunch averaged 527, which was behind only Korea and Finland.  In contrast, American students in schools with 75% or more of children in poverty averaged 446, second to last among the 34 OECD countries.”

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/research/how-poverty-affected-us-pisa-s.html