Sunday, October 7, 2012

Outrageous

Emailed Sunday October 7, 2012:

Hon. Jeffrey Piccola, Majority Chairman, Senate Education Committee
Hon. Andy Dinniman, Minority Chairman, Senate Education Committee
Hon. Paul Clymer, Majority Chairman, House Education Committee
Hon. James Roebuck, Minority Chairman, House Education Committee

cc:

Eleanor Chute, Pittsburgh Post-Gazeete
Mary Neiderberger, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Dan Hardy, Philadelphia Inquirer
Ben Herrold, WHYY Newsworks/the Notebook
Steve Esack, Allentown Morning Call
Jan Murphy, Patriot News


October 7, 2012

Gentleman,

I urge you to take a minute and read the full articles for the two items posted below.
This is outrageous.

The favor of your reply is requested.

Thanks and Best Regards,
Larry Feinberg

Lawrence A. Feinberg
Keystone State Education Coalition
Follow us on Twitter at @lfeinberg



Corbett's education chief changes PSSA testing rules for charter schools without federal approval
Rules change appears to have inflated success rate of some charter schools.
By Steve Esack and Eugene Tauber, Of The Morning Call 4:13 p.m. October 5, 2012
A review of PSSA math and reading scores shows charter schools outperformed traditional public schools in 2012.  That's because state Education Secretary Ron Tomalis, at the behest of charter school advocates, changed the testing rules in a way that makes it easier for charter schools to meet state benchmarks.
But the change Tomalis quietly instituted was done so without receiving the required approval from the federal Department of Education.


 “As a result, 44 of the 77 charter schools that PDE has recently classified as having made AYP for 2011-12 in fact fell short of the targets for academic performance that other public schools had to meet, some even declining in proficiency percentages rather than making gains.”
PDE using unapproved formula to artificially inflate charter school AYP numbers
PSBA 10/5/2012
The Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) has implemented a new way of determining whether charter schools have met student achievement milestones for Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) under the federal No Child Left Behind law.
The new method is less stringent than the standards that must be met by traditional public schools, and which until this year were also applied to charter schools. As a result, 44 of the 77 charter schools that PDE has recently classified as having made AYP for 2011-12 in fact fell short of the targets for academic performance that other public schools had to meet, some even declining in proficiency percentages rather than making gains.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.