Author: elcadmin

Support Proposed Higher Ed Act: Open Doors for Youth in Foster Care and Those Experiencing Homelessness

ELC advocates for older youth in foster care and those experiencing homelessness who face significant hurdles to accessing higher education and staying in college. As a result of these barriers, less than 3% of foster youth earn a college degree. But a new proposed law would make a huge difference to support these vulnerable youth. Learn about how the legislation will help foster and homeless youth access higher education by downloading this whitepaper.

ELC urges you to support the Higher Education Access and Success for Homeless and Foster Youth Act of 2015 (S. 2267/H.R. 4043). This law would help improve access to higher education for foster and homeless youth by ensuring that they have the support and financial aid they desperately need to help them graduate from college. Notably, the law includes a provision that would require colleges and universities to develop a plan to help homeless and foster youth access housing between semesters – which is a huge issue for these youth.

The law would also remove barriers and make college more affordable for homeless and foster youth by:

  • Clarifying which homeless young adults can be considered independent students to get the full financial aid they need;
  • Streamlining the FAFSA questions for homeless and foster youth;
  • Easing the verification and determination process for homeless youth; and 
  • Providing homeless and foster youth with in-state tuition rates to minimize the impact of their mobility and reduce barriers to college attendance

The law also supports homeless and foster youth with college retention, success, and completion by:

  • Designating single points of contact at institutions of higher education to assist homeless and foster youth to access and complete higher education, and other resources; and
  • Ensuring college access programs collaborate with child welfare agencies, homeless service providers, and school districts to identify, conduct outreach to, and recruit homeless and foster youth to tell them about opportunities for higher education and training.

What can you do to help? Call your Representative and Senators and urge them to co-sponsor or support the bill. You can look up your Represenentative and Senators here.

 

 

What parents of special ed and ELL students should know about testing (Interview)

An interview with Maura McInerney of the Education Law Center

Dec. 15, 2015 – Philadelphia Public School Notebook – by Brianna Spause

The Notebook interviewed Maura McInerney, senior staff attorney for the Education Law Center, in November about what parents need to know regarding testing of special education students and English Language Learners. A shorter version of this interview appears in our Dec. 2015-Jan. 2016 print edition.

 

Notebook: What do parents of English Language Learners and Special Education students need to know regarding standardized testing?

Maura McInerney: For both sets of parents, it’s important for them to know what their rights are. Students with disabilities and English language learners [ELLs] are entitled to accommodations on standardized tests. It’s important to discuss these issues with their schools well in advance of when the testing is taking place.

For students with disabilities, the decision of what accommodations will be provided is made by the [Individualized Education Program] IEP team. That includes whether the child will take the test or not, and what type of test the child will take. For example, there’s a PSSA, but there’s also something called the PASA, which is available for students with disabilities.

In the context of the IEP plan, there is a set of decisions about accommodations in respect to the testing itself and what will the environment look like for that student. There are many different types of accommodations.

Many students with disabilities get minimal accommodations. The most popular one is probably extended time – when in fact, they have a right to many more. They can have the test read to them. Instead of writing answers, it can be audio- or videotaped. Those issues need to be discussed with families.

With students who are ELL, many times the issue of accommodating standardized tests doesn’t even arise. You don’t have that meeting as you would with an IEP team to discuss it. Those issues need to be raised with the student’s teacher – particularly with the English as a Second Language teacher, who often knows the children very well.

For ELLs, allowable accommodations, for example, are qualified interpreters and sight translators for the Math PSSA and the Keystone Algebra I and the science tests – both the PSSA and the Biology.

Unfortunately, due to budget cuts in the School District, accommodations are rarely available. Often, it doesn’t come up.

All of these accommodations are voluntary, none of them are mandatory for ELL.  In other words, while providing accommodations for ELLs is mandatory, the specific type of modification to be provided is left to the discretion of schools.  It’s a significant issue that needs to be raised with families.

For children who have chronic conditions like diabetes or asthma, they are also entitled to accommodations in testing.

 

Notebook: What are some of the challenges ELL and special ed students face when taking these tests?

McInerney: I think that the most common challenge that I hear is the anxiety that it causes for children with emotional support needs or children who are ELL. I know that some ESOL [English as a Second Language] teachers have said that it can sometimes erode the child’s trust to be given this exam. They may not be able to do it [or] feel like a failure. It sometimes can undermine their trust in the system and their trust in the teacher, which is obviously something we want to sure up.

Some challenges [with special ed students] can be addressed by ensuring that IEP teams are discussing the options that are available and in place. I think it’s a matter of expanding the accommodations for children who are ELL, and quite honestly, I would consider different testing for them and to have the input of teachers in developing those tests.

ELL students are tested in their 7th-or 8th-grade class. These children, especially if this is their first year of ESOL instruction, are used to being with their ESOL teachers. They have more of a trust relationship with that person. One of the things that would be helpful [is] if they could be tested in that environment. If they have a teacher there that can assist them that might be a less anxiety producing experience for them.

It’s also the fact that we test kids who may have just come into this country. If they come after April 11, they will be tested in reading,  math, science, with absolutely no English language at all; no proficiency level.

 

Notebook: How well are these students performing on standardized exams?

McInerney: We know that almost 65 percent of ELL in Philadelphia scored below basic on the PSSA. Actually 69.12 percent of students who receive special education services score below basic. A lot of instructors have said that it doesn’t really make sense for them to take some of these tests because they also have to take the ACCESS tests which measure proficiency in language. The ACCESS tests cover four content areas of social studies, science, math and English. They look at listening, speaking, reading and writing proficiency across those domains and content areas.There’s a lot of problems with the ACCESS test but those are the proficiency tests that they take.

In addition, they are also taking the PSSAs and the Keystones. There are certainly benefits to having at-risk student populations take standardized tests because we want to ensure accountability. We want to ensure that schools are paying attention to these populations, knowing what their reading and math level is. I know from participating in IEP meetings that I certainly use that gauge to say, are they making progress towards their goals?

The important thing is to provide effective and individualized accommodations for many of these students. For example, if you have an ELL who has just come to this country, is at the beginning level, this child is asked to take a test in a language that they don’t know at all. Although they are allowed to essentially wait a year to take the reading test they are required to take the science [and] mathematics tests. In those instances, that child is sitting in a classroom that is providing instruction in English, and they are just learning the language. The idea that they would be able to do well on these tests is really quite astounding.

I think that we need to take a look at who is being tested [and] at what level does it make sense, especially with respect to the beginners and those who are just entering. And then, are those children getting the accommodations they need in order to get an accurate sense of whether they’re learning the material.

 

Notebook: What challenges does using the Keystone exams as a graduation requirement present to ELL and special ed students?

McInerney: It’s a huge obstacle [because] once we impose it as a high-stakes test, every child has to pass it. There are varied options to the Keystones. There is a project-based option, but that is also a standardized test. It is not that different than the Keystone exam. We believe in accountability and we think it is very important to ensure that students who are graduating from high school have learned what they need to go on to higher ed and to participate in the work force. Those are very important goals that we want to highlight. However, if we are going to impose these Keystone exams, we need to provide sufficient resources for our students to pass them.

If we are imposing high stakes tests, we need to ensure that there are interpreters and translators, that there is sufficient instruction time to ESOL students, which is a huge issue in the School District right now. We now have the bare-bones schools in many instances that are not able to provide the resources to bring these very at-risk students up to where they need to be. I think to test them in a system where you haven’t provided adequate resources to enable them to graduate is a huge problem.

 

Notebook: Do you think that using standardized tests is an effective way to measure the academic progress of these students?

McInerney: I think that with respect to some students, it can be a good, accurate, objective measure, but for students who really don’t receive the accommodations they need, who don’t have an individualized plan for how they’re going to take these tests, I think that is sometimes is not an accurate measure.

I have difficulty saying that for all children with disabilities, it’s not accurate. I think for some students it is and for other students, it’s not. I think it depends on how the test is administered. There are cohorts of students for whom particular standardized tests are not appropriate. For certain students who may have disabilities there may be certain tests that do not make sense for them to take the test. That’s a decision that needs to be made by the IEP team.

We certainly encourage as much information as we can gather about at-risk populations because we know that having that objective measure is important to make sure we’re not being left behind. There are different ways to look at that issue and to ensure that we have some objective measure of how they’re doing. We want to ensure accountability, but we really need to take a step back and look at the way that we’re doing it. At the current time, we have a one-size-fits-all universal approach that I don’t think is valid for all students.

 

Notebook: What measures do you think the the state could take to make sure that the testing is fair to ELL and Special Ed students?

McInerney: In both instances, and with respect to ELL, there are no mandatory accommodations at all for these students. I think that is something we need to look at. In addition, I think that we need to look at whether this test makes sense for all ELL students. I think we need to take a step back and critically analyze whether it makes sense to give it to all students in the same way. I think that for some students it does not make sense. Right now we have very vague accommodations that are available to ELLs. Everywhere you look it says all of this is voluntary, none of this is mandatory. I think we’re putting all ELL students at a distinct disadvantage.

In addition, we have a deeper problem that we have very little state standards embedded in law with respects to what ELL students are entitled to. We don’t state the minimum level of ESOL instruction that should be provided, where other states do. We shouldn’t just be looking at standardized testing in a vacuum, we should look at it in the broader view of what kind of education are we providing to our students. I think that certainly the state needs to look very  critically at whether they are providing the right test to the right students with adequate and individualized accommodations available to all.

It’s a matter of funding sometimes. In a high wealth school district, they may have accommodations that are simply not available to students in the School District of Philadelphia for whom that standardized test may have a more dire consequence. I think with children with disabilities it’s similar. There needs to be more guidance with respect to what accommodations should be made to certain students.

 

Brianna Spause is an intern at the Notebook.

President Obama Reauthorizes ESEA, Affording Groundbreaking Provisions for Children in the Foster Care and Juvenile Justice Systems

The following is a joint press release for immediate release by Juvenile Law Center, National Center for Youth Law, Education Law Center of Pennsylvania, and American Bar Association.

Contact:
Katherine Burdick, Juvenile Law Center   215-625-0551
Jesse Hahnel, National Center for Youth Law   510-835-8098 x 3003
Maura McInerney, Education Law Center of PA   215-238-6970  x 316
Priscilla Totten, American Bar Association   202-662-1094

Washington, DC (December 10, 2015) – President Obama today signed into law the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which is the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), a key federal law governing education, originally signed into law in 1965 and last reauthorized as No Child Left Behind in 2002. The ESSA is the first major overhaul of federal education law in over a decade. Among many new provisions, the law now requires states to ensure certain protections for vulnerable youth in the foster care and juvenile justice systems.

“Children in foster care are often forced to change schools multiple times, disrupting important relationships and derailing children’s educations. The new provisions in ESSA are an important advance in ensuring school stability and academic success for students in foster care, and we look forward to supporting schools and child welfare agencies to ensure smooth implementation,” said Kathleen McNaught of the ABA Center on Children and the Law, who leads the Legal Center for Foster Care and Education.

The Legal Center, a collaborative project between the ABA, Juvenile Law Center and Education Law Center of Pennsylvania, along with the National Center for Youth Law and other members of the National Working Group on Foster Care and Education, have worked for years to educate members of Congress on the unique challenges faced by children in the foster care system.

“Eliminating enrollment delays and ensuring school stability make profound differences for students in foster care. Research shows that even one fewer placement change doubles the likelihood that students in foster care will graduate high school,” said Senior Staff Attorney Maura McInerney at Education Law Center of Pennsylvania.

Although states and districts will be grappling with implementation of ESSA’s many new provisions, the protections for youth in foster care hold great promise. The newly enacted ESSA is expected to reduce disruptions in education for youth in foster care and provide them with greater school stability, continuity and success through a number of provisions, including:

  • Allowing youth in foster care to remain in the same school even when their foster home placements are changed
  • Requiring schools to immediately enroll children in foster care after a school move
  • Requiring points of contact in every state education agency as well as many school districts
  • Requiring planning for school transportation for youth in care
  • Tracking achievement data for youth in care

“Numerous studies have found the educational outcomes of students in foster care to be tragically poor,” said Jesse Hahnel, Executive Director of the National Center for Youth Law. “Disaggregating foster student data will allow the public and policymakers to understand and respond to the student achievement needs of foster youth in a systemic way.”

By requiring the disaggregation of achievement data for various sub-groups including foster youth, African-Americans, English Learners and Special Needs students, school districts and states will be able to see important trends in achievement and use limited resources where they are needed most. Including foster youth as a subgroup will document and make public, for the first time, the extent of the achievement gap for youth in foster care.

The law also affords significant protections for youth in the juvenile justice system. “Youth involved with the juvenile justice system are also at a high risk for academic failure,” said Katherine Burdick, Staff Attorney at Juvenile Law Center. “These students are often struggling with family issues, mental health issues, substance abuse, or abuse and neglect. If we really want these students to succeed, we need to remove the barriers to academic success, not make it more difficult for them.”

New ESSA provisions will improve the rates of success for youth being rehabilitated in the juvenile justice system. Under the new ESSA, states receiving Title 1 Part D funding (funding for prevention and intervention programs for children and youth who are neglected, delinquent or at risk) must provide protections, including:

  • Providing better planning and coordination of education between facilities and local districts
  • Supporting reentry to the community for youth returning from juvenile justice placements, including timely re-enrollment in appropriate educational placements
  • Creating opportunities to earn credits in secondary, postsecondary, or career/technical programming
  • Requiring transfer of secondary credits to the home school district upon reentry
  • Prioritizing attainment of a regular high school diploma

The National Center for Youth Law and the Legal Center for Foster Care and Education (a collaboration of the American Bar Association Center on Children and the Law, Juvenile Law Center, and Education Law Center of Pennsylvania) look forward to working with states to implement these new provisions.

###

The National Center for Youth Law (NCYL) is a national non-profit organization that has been working for more than four decades to improve the lives of poor children. For more information visit youthlaw.org or follow on Twitter@NCYLNews.

The Legal Center for Foster Care and Education is a national collaboration between the American Bar Association Center on Children and the Law, Education Law Center and Juvenile Law Center designed to provide a strong national voice for the education of children in foster care and a national clearinghouse for information on foster care and education.  For more information visit fostercareandeducation.org or follow on Twitter @FosterEdSuccess.

Juvenile Law Center is the world’s oldest non-profit, public interest law firm for children, working to advance the rights and well-being of youth in the justice and foster care systems. For more information visit jlc.org or follow on Twitter @JuvLaw1975.

Education Law Center of Pennsylvania works to ensure that all children have access to a quality public education, including poor children, children of color, children with disabilities, children in the foster care and juvenile justice systems, English language learners, and other vulnerable children. For more information visit elc-pa.org or follow on Twitter @edlawcenterpa.

With more than 400,000 members, the American Bar Association is one of the largest voluntary professional membership organizations in the world. As the national voice of the legal profession, the ABA works to improve the administration of justice, promotes programs that assist lawyers and judges in their work, accredits law schools, provides continuing legal education, and works to build public understanding around the world of the importance of the rule of law. Follow the latest ABA news at www.ambar.org/news and on Twitter @ABANews.

Zero Tolerance for Zero Tolerance

December 7, 2015 – The Philadelphia Citizen (Online) – BY ROXANNE PATEL SHEPELAVY

Even before the video emerged this fall of a South Carolina high school girl being thrown to the ground by a white police officer while sitting at her desk, before the story of a Muslim boy in Texas arrested in September for bringing to school a handmade clock, before an Oklahoma City school resource officer allegedly punched a 16-year-old in the face, Philadelphia Deputy Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel had had enough.

As a Philly cop for 29 years, Bethel had witnessed the escalation of the school safety movement, intended to prevent the sort of carnage that occurred at Columbine in 1999. In Philadelphia, zero tolerance for guns had morphed into a prohibition on other tools that might cause harm—like pointy-tipped scissors—and to other types of behavior that are more about adolescent defiance than actual violence. By 2013, Philadelphia police were arresting 1,600 students a year, as young as 10 years old, more than half of whom were first-time offenders.

It was a stark and literal illustration of the schools to prison pipeline: One minute, a child who may be struggling at home acts out at school, the next he’s being hauled out in handcuffs and thrown into a holding cell.

“We’re supposed to be the adults here, the ones who know better,” Bethel says. “A child could be getting abused at home, have no food at home, and then we don’t even ask them questions before arresting them? I’ve watched us use the stick for discipline for decades. But the stick hasn’t worked.”

So Bethel, who two years ago began overseeing the 84 Philly cops who work with schools, decided to upend the system as we know it. Today, Philadelphia is one place in America where an incident like that in South Carolina is increasingly less likely to occur. Since the start of school last year, Philadelphia police officers no longer take part in disciplining students for nonviolent “code of conduct violations”—like refusing to put away a cell phone or leave a classroom. All school resource officers are trained in mediation and de-escalation, something not mandated by Pennsylvania or 27 other states. And first-time juvenile offenders accused of any in-school crime are no longer arrested. Instead, they’re sent to a pre-arrest diversion program that evaluates the root of their behavior and sets them up with social services.

Launched in the spring of 2014, the program has already been more effective than even Bethel anticipated. Last school year—the first full year of diversion—police made 858 fewer arrests, a more than 50 percent drop. (This was the program’s five-year goal.) Instead, 702 students were diverted for social services. And Bethel says only six of those 702 students had another incident at school that required police intervention—compared to the one out of five juveniles arrested in Pennsylvania who are re-arrested within two years. The School District’s chief disciplinarian says vastly fewer students were referred to her for expulsion hearings. And this year so far, 150 students have been diverted, which may be even more successful than last.

“If you change the trajectory of where a child goes, if they can find the inner soul to get through and graduate high school, it can make a real difference in their lives,” Bethel says.
The pre-diversion program takes one step further a program started by the District Attorney’s office several years ago, in which 85 percent of students arrested in schools went before a Youth Aid Panel, rather than to juvenile court. That kept their records clean, but they were still arrested first—by a uniformed cop, using handcuffs, who took their fingerprints and put them in a holding cell for up to six hours. “That’s traumatic for a young kid,” Bethel notes.

Now, if a student has no arrest record, they are sent home with a letter, and the promise of a visit from the Department of Human Services within 72 hours. During the visit, a social worker (sometimes accompanied by an officer) explains to the family what could have happened if the child had been arrested; talks to them about the child’s needs; and offers to enroll him or her in a 30 to 90 day treatment or other social service program from one of six community health providers. (The services are from existing DHS programs, which had been underutilized.) Rachel Holzman, the school district’s deputy chief for student rights and responsibilities, says 95 percent of families DHS has visited under the program have used the services. This school year, DHS will also refer children to Police Athletic League programs at 18 recreation centers around town.

“We are not all of a sudden going to solve all the ills at school,” Bethel says. “But we are changing what happens with these children. We’re asking them, ‘What’s going on with you?’”

The answer, Bethel says, is often a catalog of the ills that plague communities where most of these arrests stem from: Children in poverty, with parents who are addicted, or are not around, who are sexually or physically abused at home, who are carrying a gun not because they plan to use it, but because they fear for their safety on the walk to school. This important detail in a child’s life can make all the difference. “We can’t control the variables of these children’s neighborhoods,” Bethel says, “but we can control how we interact with them.”

The national mania for arresting students follows the trajectory of our national mania for incarceration that has finally started to wane, with bipartisan talk of releasing nonviolent offenders and reducing prison sentences for drug crimes. After Columbine, states around the country passed legislation intended to prevent shootings in schools. (This has not especially worked.) In Pennsylvania, the Safe Schools Act and zero tolerance policies ballooned to include other weapons like pepper spray, and pointy scissors—even if the student never took it out of their bag. Under the policies, principals and school resource officers often felt they had no choice but to call in the cops for issues that would have been dealt with in-school in another generation.

But as the South Carolina case illustrated, school police officers are often not equipped to understand the very people they are sent to discipline (or protect). Deborah Gordon Klehr, executive director of the Education Law Center of Pennsylvania, says school resource officers in the state are not required to get training in de-escalation, adolescent behavior, prevention, the impact of trauma or the collateral consequences of arrest. (As The Atlantic reported after the South Carolina incident, only 12 states do this type of training.)

As in the rest of the American justice system, school arrests, suspensions and expulsions disproportionately affect black students; Klehr says African American girls are the fastest growing population in the justice system, and students with disabilities are twice as likely to receive out of school suspensions. “We see what happened in South Carolina happening in Pennsylvania routinely,” says Klehr, who regularly takes on city and state school systems for unfair discipline practices.

Under Bethel’s program, Good Shepherd Mediation Services has trained all 84 city cops and 300 school police officers in mental first aid and conflict resolution. They have also trained other school personnel to handle incidents themselves—which Bethel and Klehr agree is the ultimate goal. Last year, Bethel says school officials diffused 300 incidents that in other years would have required police assistance. Partly, that’s because his cops are no longer allowed in schools for code of conduct violations. But it is also because they now have the tools, and the mandate, to treat these incidents for what they are: School issues.

“We can’t arrest our way out of school climate issues,” says Klehr, who considers Bethel a visionary for his work in Philly. “We need to be providing school guidance counselors and teachers to support these kids, not arresting them. We don’t need police there in the first place.”

Even Bethel, a police officer for nearly three decades, sees the need for less police intervention, not more. Despite the success of his diversion program, Bethel insists it is just a stop-gap until we fundamentally change the way we approach juvenile justice. He’s retiring from the police department this month to work full-time on this issue, with the Juvenile Justice Research and Reform Lab at Drexel University, which has been monitoring the diversion program.(This work will be funded through a three-year Stoneleigh Foundation Fellowship.)

For the next three years, he will continue working with Philly schools, but says his goals are much broader: prevention training for students; advocating for similar programs in other districts around the state and country, which have started to notice the progress in Philly; widening pre-arrest diversion to out-of school crimes, like first time theft; and lobbying for better school safety legislation. Along with the Education Law Center, Bethel says it is time to revamp the Safe Schools Act and zero tolerance policies to allow schools more leeway in disciplining students within their walls, and to keep more children out of jails. Klehr says she is working with the governor’s office on a bill that would require conflict mediation and adolescent training for school resource officers when Districts apply for state funding.

Under Bethel’s program, Good Shepherd Mediation Services has trained 84 city cops, 300 school police officers and other school personnel in how to deescalate conflict. Last year, school officials handled more than 300 incidents themselves that in other years would have required police assistance.

In the meantime, Bethel sees his work as both potentially life-changing—keeping a student in school, instead of in jail—and a (perhaps overly-optimistic) salve for oft-troubled police-community relations. “We have an opportunity to demonstrate to people that we are not who they think we are,” he says. “All those 700 kids we diverted last year, their first contact with the police department was a positive one. Their opinion of policing is going to change, and they will grow into adults with a much different perspective. ”

Zero Tolerance For Zero Tolerance

 

Education Law Center Statement on the Every Student Succeeds Act

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

December 4, 2015

Contact: Ian Gavigan, Education Law Center-PA, 267-825-7713, [email protected]

Education Law Center Statement on the Every Student Succeeds Act

“Since its passage in 1965, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) has been a critically important federal law for ensuring educational equity and protecting the civil rights of the most at-risk students. In several ways the proposed reauthorization, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), represents an improvement over existing legislation and reaffirms the ESEA’s crucial mission ‘to ensure that all children have a fair, equal, and significant opportunity to obtain a high-quality education.’ However, the current bill could do much more to protect the rights of the country’s most vulnerable students,” said Deborah Gordon Klehr, executive director of the Education Law Center. Continue reading →

Parents, school districts urge courts to intervene in school funding crisis

December 1, 2015

Parents, school districts urge courts to intervene in school funding crisis

Harrisburg, Pa. –Parents and school districts challenging Pennsylvania’s school funding system told the state Supreme Court Monday that it should decide the case on the merits and reject the state’s plea to toss the case because of its complexity and difficulty. In a reply brief filed Monday the petitioners defended their position that the courts can and must examine claims that the state is failing its constitutional obligations to adequately fund “a thorough and efficient system of public education” in a manner which does not discriminate against low-wealth districts. Continue reading →

The role of police officers in schools

November 3, 2015 – WHYY Radio Times

Guests: Kevin Bethel, Harold Jordan and Deborah Gordon Klehr

The nation was shocked by a recent video of a South Carolina sheriff’s deputy throwing a black high school girl to the floor and arresting her after she refused to leave the classroom. Since the late 1990’s, police officers have had a greater and routine presence in American schools. The result is a dramatic increase in student arrests and the rise of the disturbing trend called the school-to-prison pipeline. The effect has been profound among blacks and Latinos. This morning on Radio Times we explore the role of police officers in schools. Does their presence serve to remedy difficult situations or cause the escalation of conflict? We’ll talk with Philadelphia Deputy Police Commissioner KEVIN BETHEL, who works with the School District of Philadelphia and the juvenile justice system to keep students in school and out of court. He’ll be joined by education activist HAROLD JORDAN of the Pennsylvania ACLU, author of a recent report Beyond Zero Tolerance: Discipline and Policing in Pennsylvania Public Schools. We’ll also hear from DEBORAH GORDON KLEHR of the Education Law Center about the need for mandating training of school police officers.

http://whyy.org/cms/radiotimes/2015/11/03/the-role-of-police-officers-in-schools/#sthash.3MWxxzK6.dpufhttp://whyy.org/cms/radiotimes/2015/11/03/the-role-of-police-officers-in-schools/

Release: Legislature and Governor tell Supreme Court it cannot enforce state constitution requiring support of a thorough and efficient system of schools

November 6, 2015

 

Legislature and Governor tell PA Supreme Court it cannot enforce state constitution requiring support of a thorough and efficient system of schools

Harrisburg, Pa. –Attorneys for the state legislature and the executive branch told the Pennsylvania Supreme Court this week that the Court is powerless to decide whether or not the state system of funding public schools violates the state Constitution. Continue reading →

Does Pa. provide a ‘thorough and efficient’ education? A panel considers.

November 5 – The Philadelphia Public School Notebook  – by Greg Windle

Last Monday, the National Constitution Center hosted a panel where four people actively involved in education policy discussed the role of the Pennsylvania constitution in improving access to quality public education. The discussion was framed around the contentious policy of “school choice,” which advocates the expansion of charters and magnet schools.

The panel members debated how to interpret the constitution’s mandate that the state provide “thorough and efficient education” for all of its students.

Mark Gleason, of the Philadelphia School Partnership, said, “What’s especially significant about that phrase is the word that’s not there. It ends with ‘education,’ it doesn’t end with ‘education system.’” Gleason concluded that the state may be obliged to provide public education under the constitution, but that “it doesn’t mean the same way, through the same system.”

However, Deborah Gordon Klehr of the Education Law Center was quick to contradict him. She read directly from the constitution:

“The General Assembly shall provide for the maintenance and support of a thorough and efficient system of public education to serve the needs of the commonwealth.”

Klehr explained that the constitution explicitly uses the term and that the state legislature is responsible for creating and maintaining that system.

Donna Cooper, of Public Citizens for Children and Youth, said she wished that “choice were a strategy for success.” But, she said, neither magnet schools nor charters help students who do not have access to them.

“You have to do it universally or you don’t move the needle,” she said.

As evidence of Pennsylvania’s lack of a “thorough” education system, Klehr pointed out that the commonwealth has “the largest gap between the wealthiest and poorest districts” of any state in the country.

Gleason claimed that Pennsylvania has, nonetheless, made progress over the last 10 or 15 years by providing some choice in low-income communities.

“We have school choice. The problem is we don’t have access to equal choice. … Families who can afford it – who live in the right zip code – have a choice.”

But Cooper argued that the expansion of magnets and charters exacerbate what is an inherently unequal system. “We can create pockets of success … but that is not a universal answer. Creating more choice comes at the expense of students who don’t have it.”

Gleason acknowledged that school choice causes stress on the larger system. But he said that if the state had a fair education funding formula, that stress would be diminished. He outlined a proposal where a weighted student formula would allot an amount to follow each child, regardless of what kind of school they attend.

Klehr pointed out that the state already commissioned a “costing out” study in 2007 to determine how much each district would need to bring all its students to academic proficiency. The formula assigned different weights, and per-pupil amounts, for factors including deep poverty and the need to learn English, and additional money to districts with high concentrations of these students.

Former Gov. Ed Rendell started using the formula in his education allocations with the goal of increasing the state’s share of total education spending to at least 50 percent. But that was abandoned by former Gov. Tom Corbett, who slashed state school aid.

“So we’ve measured it,” Klehr said, “we just abandoned it in 2011, and we’re hopeful that our General Assembly will bring that back for our students and for our schools.”

A legislative school funding commission followed a similar template in coming up with a fair funding formula in 2015. But with the state budget stalemate, there is still no agreement on how  the money should be distributed, much less on the total amount that should be spent.

Cooper blamed the state legislature, which, she said, “since 2011 has been unwilling to think about the words ‘thorough and efficient.’”

“A big piece of the solution lies with the courts,” said Klehr. “The Supreme Court has a responsibility.”

But not every failure of the system could be attributed to the interpretation of constitutional language. All the panel members agreed that Massachusetts, with a relatively similar constitution, is largely recognized as the state with the best public education system.

Cooper said that Massachusetts was not an anomaly, and many “others are doing better than us with very similarly worded constitutions.”

The fourth panelist was Ina Lipman, the executive director the Children’s Scholarship Fund, which awards tuition grants to low-income students to attend private schools. The money comes from two tax-credit programs for businesses, which get tax write-offs when they contribute to these funds.

Lipman said she thought school choice would improve if some of the state’s very small districts consolidated.

After the discussion, moderator Kristen Graham, the Inquirer’s Philadelphia schools beat reporter, interviewed Superintendent William Hite. She began by asking whether he believed that Philadelphia students were receiving a fair and equal education.

Hite responded with one word: “No.” He chuckled, and the auditorium erupted with laughter.

But the level of inequity is no laughing matter. Hite went on to talk about what the Philadelphia School District lacks due to insufficient resources.

Among other things, he said, he would use additional funds to “double down” on early childhood education including universal pre-K. He also reiterated that he hopes to get a new contract with the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers this year.

http://thenotebook.org/articles/2015/11/05/does-pa-provide-a-thorough-and-efficient-education-a-panel-considers

Fair funding campaign analyzes Pa. budget proposals

October 16, 2015 – The Philadelphia Public School Notebook  – by Catherine Offord

The Campaign for Fair Education Funding (CFEF), a statewide coalition of more than 50 organizations, recently released a report on the implications of the education proposals being debated in Harrisburg.

The report, “Lifting All Students: Why Pennsylvania Must Act Now to Fairly Fund Public Education and Secure Our Future,” details the practical outcomes for school districts across the state under both the $410 million funding increase in Gov. Wolf’s proposed budget and the $100 million increase proposed by Republican legislators.

“This report was an effort to make clear what is at stake if we get a truly robust education funding formula and an influx of funding this year,” said Ian Gavigan, policy and communications associate at the Education Law Center, a leading member of CFEF.

“It was an effort to ground the discussion in what actually happens in each district.”

In June, the campaign endorsed a fair funding formula proposed by the Basic Education Funding Commission. Although the formula has received general support in Harrisburg, debate continues over exactly how it should be implemented.

“The formula divides out the money, but it doesn’t dictate how much money is actually put in,” said Michael Race, vice president of communications at Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children.

The report supports Wolf’s plan to complement the formula’s introduction with extra funds, helping to close large funding gaps among Pennsylvania’s school districts.

Philadelphia, one of the districts hit hardest by the 2011 budget cuts, would benefit significantly. The report predicts a boost of $120 million more from Wolf’s proposal than what Republican legislators are suggesting.

“We’re regularly in Harrisburg, pushing legislators on this issue, presenting this report and other data about increasing equity and adequacy in schools,” said Gavigan, adding that he hopes both legislators and advocates will be able to use the research.

Race agrees. “Ultimately, we want it to be useful to lawmakers,” he said. “The next steps are not only ensuring that the formula is adopted, but that it’s maintained and not dismantled in future years. Then it’s a matter of ensuring that there are sufficient resources put into the formula to actually get districts what they need to educate students.”

http://thenotebook.org/articles/2015/10/16/fair-funding-campaign-analyzes-pa-budget-proposals

ELC Provides Comments on Proposed Revisions to the Head Start Performance Standards

The Education Law Center continues to press to ensure all young children have access to early learning programs. On September 17, 2015 ELC commented on the proposed revisions to the Head Start Performance Standards. Head Start programs promote health, education, and self-sufficiency for low-income children and their families.

The proposed regulations make several positive steps towards ensuring that Head Start programs meet the needs of educationally vulnerable children. In our comments, ELC identifies additional areas where the proposed language could be strengthened to provide clearer guidance. In particular, ELC’s submission provides suggestions on how to better serve and meet the needs of young children experiencing homelessness, children in foster care, and children and families with limited English proficiency. Our comments also voice support for the proposed regulations’ efforts to reduce the use of suspensions and expulsions.

Read ELC’s complete comments.

Civil and Disability Rights Activists Watch Philadelphia Class Action Suit Closely

September 1, 2015 – Nonprofit Quarterly (blog) – by Patricia Schaefer

Barbara Galarza, a mother with a daughter in the School District of Philadelphia, knew her daughter had learning issues. In 2013, the charter school she had attended since 2010 evaluated her, giving her a classification of ADHD and an individualized education plan (IEP) that would serve as a roadmap for her educational goals through the coming year.

Before she began receiving services, however, she had to transfer back into a public school in the district, which decided to conduct its own evaluation. Ms. Galarza, who has limited English skills, signed a bilingual consent form. What she did not realize at the time was that unlike the previous evaluation, which had been conducted in her daughter’s first language, Spanish, the district’s evaluation was conducted with a non-bilingual psychologist.

When the re-evaluation report was sent to Ms. Galarza, it was entirely in English. Thinking that it was the same diagnosis and recommendation as the previous evaluation, which she had read and understood thoroughly, she went in to a meeting with her daughter’s high school psychologist, a meeting that took place entirely in English. Expecting to talk about her daughter’s ADHD, what she found out instead was that the re-evaluation classified her daughter with an intellectual disability, a significantly more involved diagnosis requiring an entirely different set of services. Moreover, according to what she told writer Regina Medina of the Philadelphia Inquirer, the psychologist went on to reassure Ms. Galarza that “it’s better this way,” because her daughter would “get a lot more benefits.”

Ms. Galarza is now one of the lead plaintiffs in a federal class action lawsuit alleging that thousands of similarly situated families were denied the opportunity to fully participate in the special education process on behalf of their children because of limited English language skills. As one of the plaintiffs’ representatives, attorney Michael Churchill with the Public Interest Law Center described Ms. Galarza’s experience: “She has never seen the document, has no way of comprehending what the full scope of the meeting is. And she breaks out in tears at this information that is being given to her for the very first time.”

The issue is not an isolated or new one. According to the complaint, the School District of Philadelphia routinely refuses to provide parents with translated documents in a timely manner or provide sufficient translation, effectively preventing them from making informed decisions about their children’s education. Another of the plaintiffs’ representatives, Maura McInerney of the Education Law Center, claims the problem has persisted for many years. “After years of trying to address this issue with the District, we felt that the matter needed to be addressed by the courts.”

More than 70 percent of the nearly 26,000 families in the school district who do not speak English as a first language have requested documents in their native language. According to the complaint, in the 2013-14 school year, there were close to 2,000 students with IEPs whose home language was not English.

In 1975, Congress passed federal legislation that came to be known as the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA). The law, which has been revised many times over the years, guarantees a free and appropriate education to all students with disabilities, ages 3–21. It specifically delineates the rights of children with disabilities—and their parents—in the special education IEP process, requiring that all decisions relative to a child’s evaluation, education plan and placement be made with the parents’ meaningful involvement. The law lays out procedural safeguards to ensure parent involvement, which include explicit requirements that all relevant information be presented to parents in their native language.

What this means in Ms. Galarza’s case is that, by law, she had the right to receive her daughter’s re-evaluation in Spanish in a sufficient amount of time (at least ten days) prior to an in-person meeting to discuss it. In her meeting with the school psychologist, she had a right to an interpreter so that she could have a meaningful and productive conversation about her daughter’s new diagnosis and IEP.

Another of the lead plaintiffs, “A.G.,” was born in the Dominican Republic and was enrolled in the ninth grade there when his mother passed away suddenly. After moving to Philadelphia to live with his extended family, he was placed in ninth grade for two more years until his aunt requested that he be evaluated for special education services. Despite requesting language assistance (and despite A.G.’s enrollment in ESL classes), the District failed to provide the appropriate documents in Spanish. Even after his aunt filed a due process complaint, all subsequent documents were barely translated and after receiving an IEP with only the section headings written in Spanish, she had nothing to read at the meeting or take home to review.

The special education process can be an arduous journey for families in the best of circumstances. It is a complex, multi-tiered process, requiring numerous IEP, placement and follow-up meetings with school staff, psychologists, therapists, and teachers. While Ms. Galarza and A.G.’s aunt, Margarita Peralta, had the knowledge and self-assurance to advocate for their children, despite the language barrier, many others in their situations are unaware of the laws protecting them or are too fearful to ask for what they need.

“Federal disability and civil rights laws mandate meaningful participation by parents in the special education process,” says Attorney McInerny. “When parents are shut out, students suffer and are denied access to critical services they need to make progress. This is why our disability laws are so clear on the obligations of schools to provide language assistance.”

Ms. Galarza is more adamant. Reflecting back on the school psychologist’s insistence that her daughter’s new diagnosis was “better,” she said, “Nobody would want news like that, it’s not logical. For me that’s not normal, to be happy to get more benefits.”

http://nonprofitquarterly.org/2015/09/01/civil-and-disability-rights-activists-watch-philadelphia-class-action-suit-closely/

Release: Lawsuit Challenges School District of Philadelphia’s Failure to Translate Documents and Interpret for Parents with Limited English Proficiency and their Children with Disabilities

 

Lawsuit Challenges School District of Philadelphia’s Failure to Translate Documents and Interpret for Parents with Limited English Proficiency and their Children with Disabilities
August 21, 2015

Philadelphia, Pa. – A federal class action lawsuit filed Friday alleges that thousands of parents and their children are illegally denied the opportunity to participate in the special education process due to the fact that they don’t understand or speak English. The complaint alleges that the School District of Philadelphia refuses to sufficiently interpret or provide parents with translated documents in a timely manner, preventing them from participating in meetings and making informed decisions regarding educational placements and services. Continue reading →

Wolf warns Chester-Upland schools may not open without drastic interventions

He is proposing a plan that would drastically reduce the amount the district pays for charter special education students.

By Kevin McCorry of NewsWorks and Dale Mezzacappa on Aug 18, 2015 08:10 PM

Without immediate action, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf said Tuesday the Chester Upland School District will not be in a financial position to open its doors next month.

Wolf has a plan to rectify the situation, resting partly on the backs of area charter schools.

Wolf has asked a Delaware County Judge to approve drastic reductions in the payments Chester-Upland sends to charter schools.

Without action, Wolf said Chester Upland’s almost $24 million operating deficit would prevent it from opening in September.

“I, for the life of me, don’t know how you can open financially with what they’s staring at,” said Wolf, in a telephone interview.

Flawed system?

Wolf’s solution hinges on what many education advocates have long considered a flaw in the way the state funds charter schools for special education students.

Under the current system, charters have a financial incentive to enroll students with relatively mild educational disabilities.

It works like this: Districts must give charters whatever the districts spend, on average, on special education.

If a charter enrolls many children with less costly needs, the charter makes out financially.

And then a vicious cycle is created. With fewer mildly disabled students in the district, the district’s average cost climbs, which it then must pay to the charter.

Right now, Chester Upland sends about $40,000 to a charter that enrolls an area special education student, no matter the student’s disability.

The Wolf administration’s official court filing points out that the money sent by Chester-Upland School District to charters for special-ed is “disproportionately higher than any other school district sending students to the same schools.”

“This is patently inequitable,” added the filing.

Wolf wants to implement a new formula in Chester-Upland that would align charter special-education payments nearer to actual costs.

Wolf’s plan is based on the 2013 recommendations of the Legislature’s bipartisan special-education funding commission. It proposed a three-tiered system of funding for special education based on the severity of student need.

Those recommendations were never adopted by the General Assembly.

Under Wolf’s plan, Chester Upland’s special-ed charter bill would drop from $40,000 per student to $16,000 per student – saving the district $21 million.

“The special education issue is something that charter schools and public schools all across the commonwealth are struggling with,” said Wolf. “There’s an inducement to try to categorize more students than maybe should be categorized as special education just because of the way the formula works.”

Overall, Wolf’s proposal would decrease the amount Chester Upland spends on special-education payments to charters from $64.4 million to $39.8 million.

“As with any experiment, you need some tweaking,” Wolf added, of the way charters are funded in Pennsylvania.

Wolf also wants to cap the funding the state’s cybercharters receive for students from Chester Upland to just under $5,980, saving the district another $4 million.

The twofold approach would wipe away the district’s existing deficit, the governor said.

Wolf’s plan also calls for a forensic audit of the district’s finances and the appointment of a new turnaround specialist.

The petition to amend Chester Upland’s recovery plan was submitted by state Education Secretary Pedro Rivera and Chester Upland receiver Francis Barnes, a Corbett administration appointee.

Without action, Chester Upland’s deficit will reach $46 million by the end of the school year.

Chester Upland as ‘poster child’

The district was first classified as financially distressed in 1994. The Pennsylvania Department of Education said that from 2003 to 2012, the district overspent $44.4 million.

Over the past five years, the state has sent Chester Upland $74 million in extra, one-time infusions of aid.

“I don’t really care who’s fault it is. Over the last 20-some years, I guess there’s plenty of blame to go around. But, regardless, it’s our problem,” said Wolf. “I thought we needed drastic action in Chester Upland, and this is my best effort at that drastic action.

Wolf’s plan assumes that the General Assembly will approve his bid to raise state education aid by a half-billion dollars. Negotiations over the state budget have dragged on since the fiscal year ended on June 30.

Education Law Center staff attorney David Lapp described Chester Upland as the “poster child” for what’s wrong with how Pennsylvania funds special education in charter schools.

He lamented that the recommendations of the special-ed funding commission were still sitting on the shelf.

“Unfortunately, the General Assembly was unwilling to compromise and nothing got fixed. Meanwhile, until the state Legislature complies with their constitutional mandate to provide adequate, equitable, and predictable funding for all students in all schools, we can expect more of these fights over whether to rob Peter or Paul.”

Chester County Community Charter

If approved by the courts, Wolf’s plan for Chester Upland would have a large impact on the level of funding to Chester Community Charter School – the largest brick-and-mortar charter in the state.

Payments to charters account for 46 percent of Chester Upland’s budget, and most of that goes to CCCS. The school has 3,126 students, nearly as many as the 3,300 attending schools in the Chester Upland district.

CCCS is run by the for-profit Charter School Management, Inc., owned by Vahan Gureghian, a prominent Republican in Montgomery and Delaware counties and major donor to political candidates. He was the largest individual campaign contributor to former Gov. Tom Corbett.

CCCS has traditionally enrolled a high proportion of special education students, most of them classified in the less expensive categories. According to the latest report to the state, nearly one in four CCCS students is in special ed – about the same rate as that in the Chester Upland district as a whole, but far above the statewide rate of 15.6 percent.

At CCCS, more than 27 percent of the students are classified as having a “speech and language impairment,” the least expensive disability. That is close to twice the state rate of 15.4 percent and 11 times the Chester Upland rate of 2.4 percent for that category.

By contrast, the CCCS percentage for the more costly categories of autism, emotional disturbance and intellectual disability are far below Chester Upland’s rates.

As the minimally disabled and least expensive special ed students are drained from Chester Upland, the district is left with students with more costly disabilities and its per-pupil spending rises. That then inflates the charter payment for the the next year.

The cost is also driven up because the state assumes that all districts have 16 percent
special education students. In cases like Chester Upland where the special education percentage is higher than 16 percent – at 24 percent, it is 50 percent higher – the total cost is divided by a lower number than it should be.

“They should be dividing by 24 percent,” said the Education Law Center’s Lapp. “If you have more than 16 percent, you get a higher number for the per pupil cost than you should.”

Due to these factors, since 2012, Chester Upland’s payment to charters for each special education student has gone up from $24,528 to $40,170 this year – an increase of 63 percent. Between last year and this, it went up 15 percent, from $34,931 to $40,170.

Charters can spend the money they receive for special education in any way they see fit.

Gureghian has declined to open the books of his management company to public scrutiny, arguing that it is a private business. He has not complied with court rulings on right-to-know requests.

Wolf said his proposal was not pointed at CCCS.

“It’s not. It’s pointed at trying to make sure that the Chester Upland School District is able to open for all kids on time,” said Wolf.

A spokesman for Chester Community Charter School did not return a request for comment, nor did the public relations firm that represents Gureghian.

CCCS was also implicated in allegations of standardized test cheating scandal, when a forensic audit for the 2009 tests found statistically improbable erasures of wrong-to-right answers.

A state investigation into what happened was aborted, and CCCS was allowed to investigate itself. No one connected with the school was ever held accountable, but when strict protocols were imposed, test scores dropped 30 points in each subject in each grade.

Gureghian and his wife, Danielle, were also disclosed to be the major donors to a PAC that gave to former state Treasurer Rob McCord, who resigned and pleaded guilty to extortion charges involving contributions to his failed gubernatorial campaign.

The Philadelphia Inquirer has reported that federal investigators are still probing the conditions under which the contributions were made.

http://thenotebook.org/blog/158874/wolf-warns-chester-upland-schools-may-not-open-without-drastic-interventions

Give a Child a Head Start – Sign Up Today! (Philadelphia)

Head Start (HS) and Early Head Start (EHS) programs work: they promote the school readiness of young children from low-income families and support the mental, social, and emotional development of children from birth to age 5.  Sadly, according to 2010 census data, slightly less than 50% of eligible children in Pennsylvania have a corresponding Head Start slot.  ELC has been working to change this by expanding access to Head Start and prioritizing our most vulnerable young children. Under the Improving Head Start for School Readiness Act of 2007,  children experiencing homelessness and those in foster care are automatically eligible for EHS and HS programs and must be prioritized for enrollment.

The School District of Philadelphia has openings and is currently accepting applications for enrollment to Head Start for September 2015.  Below is the list of locations that currently have vacancies and two flyers that have registration dates at McMichael and Pratt schools.  For additional information, please contact R. Waunda Loadholt, Social Service Coordinator at the District 215-400-6213.

Letter: “Before reform, fund properly”

July 23, 2015 – The Philadelphia Inquirer – by Adam Schott and David Lapp

Earlier this summer, the state Senate advanced a far-reaching proposal to put public schools with low test scores under direct state control. As evidenced by statements by Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams (D., Phila.) and others, the legislation appears likely to be used as a bargaining chip in negotiations around Gov. Wolf’s request that significant resources be added to the state’s education budget. Continue reading →

Save the Date: August 6th School Funding Forum in Pittsburgh

School Funding Forum in Pittsburgh, PA

Thursday, August 6th, 2-4pm

With Hear Me and our western PA partners in the Campaign for Fair Education Funding, the Education Law Center is convening a school funding forum with a focus on the most at-risk students. Join us to hear stories of students directly impacted by a lack of education resources and to discuss the latest updates from Harrisburg. While school funding issues impact all children, we hope this forum will kick-start a dialogue on what school funding means for the most at-risk students whom ELC serves, including students experiencing homelessness or in foster care, English language learners, and students with disabilities.

Location: Gates Hillman Center at Carnegie Mellon University, room 8102. Suggested parking is in the East Campus Garage; here’s a map of walking directions from the garage to the room.

The event is free and open to the public. To join us, please email Staff Attorney Cheryl Kleiman at [email protected].

Work with ELC: Attorney and Paralegal Positions

The Education Law Center, a statewide nonprofit legal advocacy organization founded in 1975, is seeking:

  • a full-time policy attorney in our office in Philadelphia, PA
  • a full-time staff attorney in our office in Pittsburgh, PA
  • a full-time paralegal in our office in Philadelphia, PA

Applicants will be reviewed on a rolling basis.

Click here to learn more.

GOP Budget Falls Short of Philly Schools Request

July 1, 2015 – Holly Otterbein, Philadelphia Magazine – Gov. Tom Wolf vetoed the GOP-led legislature’s state budget Tuesday night, in part, he said, because it would set aside far less education funding than he believes is fair.

How much less?

Earlier this year, the Philadelphia School District asked state lawmakers for an extra $206 million. The Republican bill would have provided only an additional $21.8 million to the school district, according to data from Senate GOP spokeswoman Jennifer Kocher. That’s about 11 percent of the surplus funding that district officials said they need.

Wolf’s proposed budget would also spend less on the school district than officials would like, but just slightly. His plan would allocate an extra $184 million to the city’s schools, according to district spokesman Fernando Gallard.

Although the GOP budget would have given the schools half a loaf, it still would have been enough to cover the district’s $85 million shortfall when combined with the $70 million in new revenue approved by City Council last month. The district requested money beyond that, though, because it hoped to begin investing in classrooms again after several years of severe cutbacks.

Deborah Gordon Klehr, executive director of the Education Law Center of Pennsylvania, applauded Wolf’s decision to veto the proposal.

“The General Assembly has failed our children by refusing to restore draconian funding cuts that have left our poorest districts unable to meet the needs of their students,” she said, referring to cuts made under former Gov. Tom Corbett.

Wolf and state lawmakers resumed talks on the budget at 2 p.m. today, the Associated Press reported.

Read the article on Phillymag.com: http://www.phillymag.com/news/2015/07/01/gop-school-funding-philadelphia/