PA House Education Committee Summer Hearings

The House Ed Committee is scheduling a series of summer hearings around the state.

Here is the tentative schedule; we will post times and places as they become available:

 

July 27 and 28               Philadelphia

August 3 and 4              Harrisburg

August 17 and 18           State College

August 24 and 25           Pittsburgh

September 14^th              Allentown

The House is scheduled to be back in session on September 26th.

Here is a link to the members of the 2011-2012 House Education Committee:

http://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/cteeInfo/cteeInfo.cfm?cde=12&body=H

The following items are from the hearings announcement:

Purpose:  To examine the range of educational opportunities available to our children, geographically and statewide, in order to ensure their best chance of success. Furthermore, to identify the challenges facing each region whether it is the lack of options or educational environment issues such as violence, drop outs, or 

English language learners and to develop/refine proposals focused on:

·        

• ·        providing choice (in and out of the current public school system),
  ·        expanding and improving our charter schools, and/ or
  ·        growing the EITC program. 

Goal: To develop a range of educational opportunities across the State that complement and supplement each other, all focused on best preparing our children for success both in the classroom and beyond.

Background:  Our educational school K-12 system is comprised of 500 school districts, with a total enrollment of 1,780,413 and employs 127,901 teachers and 108,926 support staff.  In addition to the traditional public schools, there are 140 public charter schools—including 11 public cyber charter schools—educating over 90,000 students (approximately 5% of student enrollment).

Pennsylvania also has a system of nonpublic schools enrolling over 250,000 children.  The education services of all the schools are supplemented by our 29 intermediate units.

Conclusion:  The majority of our children will continue to be educated within the public school districts.

Our challenge is to create a range of educational options available to Pennsylvania’s families to ensure our children receive the best education and statewide alternatives that can also co-exist in our communities.