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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/

Education Law Center of Pennsylvania Lauds Gov. Wolf’s Budget Veto

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Deborah Gordon Klehr, 215 346-6920

Education Law Center of Pennsylvania Lauds Gov. Wolf’s Budget Veto
Pa. needs a responsible budget that restores education cuts and reinvests in our schools

PHILADELPHIA – Deborah Gordon Klehr, Executive Director of the Education Law Center of Pennsylvania issued the following statement today in the wake of Governor Wolf vetoing the General Assembly’s budget proposal.

“Thank you Governor Wolf for rejecting a sham budget that does not meaningfully support Pennsylvania ‘s students. 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.”

“Years of state cuts to education spending, one-time fixes, and political favoritism have disproportionately impacted students in our poorest communities, even as those districts serve students who desperately need more resources. As a result, our state’s current funding system has become the most inequitable in the nation. The General Assembly ‘s budget makes little effort to correct these vast disparities between our poorest and wealthiest districts. Our Commonwealth needs a budget that invests new education dollars that are sufficient to make up for lost ground and will give all children, regardless of ZIP code, income, or race, the education they need.”

“We call on the leadership of all four caucuses to begin serious negotiations with the Governor to serve the needs of our children by providing adequate resources to our struggling school districts. This is what our state constitution requires. Our children cannot wait any longer.”

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

The ABCs of school-funding formulas

 June 28, 2015 – by Kristen A. Graham, Philadelphia Inquirer – Why does the education-funding formula now being debated in Harrisburg matter?

Pennsylvania is one of just three states in the country that lack such a formula, a situation that has led, experts say, to the single most inequitable system of allocating education dollars in the nation. But that might change if a proposal by a bipartisan commission created during the Corbett administration is adopted.

Continue reading →

PA House Education Budget Is Woefully Inadequate To Meet Student Needs

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Deborah Gordon Klehr, [email protected], 215-346-6920

PA House Education Budget Is Woefully Inadequate To Meet Student Needs:

It’s Time to Stop Shortchanging our Children

June 28, 2015

By a vote of 112-77, the Pennsylvania House of Representatives passed a budget yesterday that continues to underfund our schools and does not reflect a true commitment to ensuring that all of Pennsylvania’s children receive a quality education. On net, the House’s education budget only provides an additional $8 million for K-12 public education and the average increase per school district is only 1.7 percent. The Legislature’s budget appropriates only a fraction of what many say is required to serve the documented needs of students. It is also less than 25 percent of the new money recommended in the Governor’s budget for basic education and only 20 percent of new money recommended for special education.

“This is a woefully inadequate investment in the future of our public school children,” said Education Law Center’s Executive Director Deborah Gordon Klehr.

The Senate is expected to vote on the same budget today. “We urge the Legislature to appropriate $410 million in new dollars for basic education and $100 million in additional special education funding,” said Klehr. Restoration is needed to close the gaps created by the 2011 reductions in public school funding, which crippled our schools and exacerbated funding disparities across school districts. “First restore the cuts, then apply the funding formula as adopted by the Basic Education Funding Commission. This is a thoughtful, well-crafted formula based on the real costs of educating students, but it is only as good as the funding that is driven through it.”

The nearly $1 billion in cuts to basic education funding in 2011 cost 20,000 educators their jobs, forced students into larger class sizes, and eliminated key academic programs and basic services.

Special education had been flat-funded for six years until last year’s modest increase. This year, the Governor’s budget included an additional increase of $100 million in special education funding.  This is essential for the nearly 270,000 students with disabilities across Pennsylvania. The Legislature’s proposed $20 million, a 1.9 percent increase, is not enough to meet our students’ needs. “Children with disabilities cannot afford to wait and we cannot prolong the reductions in special education budgets,” said Klehr.

“Our goal is for all children to learn in adequately resourced classrooms. We hope the Legislature will commit to a long-term investment in our children. The current budget falls far short of this goal.”

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

 

Panel: Pa needs to overhaul school funding

June 18, 2015  – Kathy Boccella, The Philadelphia Inquirer –  A state commission Thursday called for a sweeping overhaul of Pennsylvania’s funding formula for education aid that would take into greater account factors such as poverty and numbers of non-English-speaking students, in an effort to close the nation’s biggest spending gap between richer and poorer districts.

Continue reading →

Public Interest Leadership Changes Reflect National Trend

June 15, 2015 – by Ben Seal, The Legal Intelligencer – The Philadelphia public interest community is in the midst of a flurry of leadership changes, and as longtime pillars of the community pass on their organizations’ torches, the same appears to be happening nationwide as a generational shift occurs. Continue reading →

Statement on PA Basic Funding Commission Delay

The Campaign for Fair Education Funding has issued the following statement on the announcement by the Basic Education Funding Commission that it needs more time to complete its recommendations:

It is important that the Commission produces a solution to fix Pennsylvania’s broken basic education funding system. The Commission should take the extra time if that’s what it takes to get it right.

We urge the Commission to continue its work to reach consensus on a sustainable, equitable and predictable public school funding system that addresses existing economic and racial disparities and provides sufficient funds to ensure that all children have the opportunity to succeed — no matter where they live.

We look forward to seeing the Commission’s proposal soon.

CONTACT:

Charlie Lyons, 570-242-6437, [email protected]

Deborah Gordon Klehr, Executive Director, Education Law Center; 215-238-6970; [email protected] 

 

Education Law Center names Deborah Gordon Klehr Executive Director

The Board of Directors of the Education Law Center-PA is pleased to announce the appointment of Deborah Gordon Klehr as Executive Director.

With nearly a decade of legal experience at ELC, Deborah has shown a deep commitment to the Center’s mission and is well respected as an effective and strategic leader statewide on issues of public education. Deborah brings extensive expertise on education law and policy issues, including fairness in school discipline, equal access to education for at-risk students, and fair funding for public education. She has served as ELC’s Interim Executive Director since the end of 2014. Deborah has strong working relationships with the education policy and advocacy communities across Pennsylvania and nationally.

“We are thrilled that Deborah has accepted the role of Executive Director. We know that the Education Law Center will continue to thrive under her direction. Deborah will ably lead ELC in the tireless pursuit of quality public education for all children in Pennsylvania,” said ELC Board President Dr. Bruce Campbell, Jr. “I am looking forward to continuing to work with Deborah as we take ELC into the future,” said Nancy A. Hubley, Director of ELC’s Western PA office located in Pittsburgh.

Deborah joined ELC after clerking for U.S. District Court Judge Raymond J. Dearie in the Eastern District of New York. She was selected for and served on the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania’s Juvenile Court Procedural Rules Committee and currently serves on the Executive Committee of the Campaign for Fair Education Funding. Deborah has taught education law at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education, and her article Addressing the Unintended Consequences of No Child Left Behind and Zero Tolerance: Better Strategies for Safe Schools and Successful Students was published in theGeorgetown Journal on Poverty Law and Policy. Deborah serves on several non-profit boards. She is a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School. Deborah previously taught kindergarten and first grade in Hoboken, N.J. She resides in Philadelphia with her husband and two children.

Since its founding in 1975, ELC’s mission is to ensure that all children in Pennsylvania have access to a quality public education. ELC pursues this mission by advocating on behalf of the most vulnerable students — children living in poverty, children of color, children in the foster care and juvenile justice systems, children with disabilities, English language learners, and children experiencing homelessness.

For more information, visit www.elc-pa.org or follow on Twitter @edlawcenterpa.

Ed Law Center Files Federal Court Complaint Asserting the Right of Homeless Student Placed in Shelter School to Attend Local Public School


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 4, 2015


ED LAW CENTER FILES FEDERAL COURT COMPLAINT ASSERTING THE RIGHT OF HOMELESS STUDENT PLACED IN SHELTER SCHOOL TO ATTEND LOCAL PUBLIC SCHOOL

PENNSYLVANIA – The Education Law Center (ELC) announced today that it has filed a federal complaint on behalf of C.T., an 8th-grade honor student who was placed in a shelter on an emergency basis while awaiting foster care placement and who qualifies as homeless under the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act.

The complaint asserts that New Castle Area School District, where C.T. was placed in the Krause Youth Shelter, has a policy or practice of denying students placed in that shelter access to its local public schools, despite its clear duty to enroll these students under federal and state law. As a result, C.T., and other children similarly situated, are forced to languish in a shelter school program.

C.T., who has been in the shelter school since the beginning of April, has received homework assignments and tests from his prior school district but was unable to complete them without academic instruction. According to the complaint, the shelter program provides only three hours of education a day and is staffed by a teacher certified in grades K-6 only. ELC also notes that the shelter school is unlicensed and unmonitored by any state or local education agency.

“This is precisely what the McKinney-Vento Act was designed to prevent,” said Senior Staff Attorney Maura McInerney of the Education Law Center.

“That law requires districts to ensure immediate and equal access to local public schools and expressly prohibits the segregation of students based on their homelessness status. ELC is asking the court to direct the New Castle Area School District to implement its clear duty to treat these students in the same manner as children living in their district with permanent residences.”

In addition to the McKinney-Vento Act, which mandates school stability or immediate enrollment in the local public school for children experiencing homelessness, Pennsylvania state law also ensures that children living in residential settings, including shelters, are entitled to enroll in local public schools where the facilities are located.

“This is not an isolated case. Our offices in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia have handled matters in other school districts where this is happening and we are working to eliminate this illegal practice across the Commonwealth so that students like C.T. do not lose ground and fall behind,” said McInerney.

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

 

CONTACT:

Maura McInerney
Education Law Center – Philadelphia
1315 Walnut Street, Suite 400
Philadelphia, PA 19107
[email protected]
215-346-6906

Nancy A. Hubley
Education Law Center – Pittsburgh
429 Fourth Ave, Suite 702
Pittsburgh, PA 15219
[email protected]
412-258-2120 ext. 350

Fellowship Opportunities

ELC seeks to sponsor applicants for postgraduate legal fellowships to start in the Fall of 2016. Applicants should be law students graduating in the Spring of 2016 or current law clerks and should have a demonstrated commitment to public interest law.

Read the full posting here.