Author: elcadmin

A criminalized school climate is the wrong path

November 20, 2013 – Pittsburgh Post-Gazette – In the Nov. 15 article on the decrease in court referrals from Brashear High School (“Concerns Raised Over Brashear Discipline”), Magistrate District Judge James A. Motznik presents the wrong solution for the wrong problem. Instead of advocating for increased court referrals, local judges should be pushing for smart school climate reforms that dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline while making schools safer.

Read the complete letter:
http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/letters/2013/11/21/A-criminalized-school-climate-is-the-wrong-path/stories/201311210127

New PA Policies to Improve Early Education Access for Students Experiencing Homelessness

May 15, 2013 – New policy guidance issued last week by the Pennsylvania Office of Child Development and Early Learning improves access to early learning opportunities for homeless children under the age of six.

This policy sets new standards for interagency collaboration at state and local levels to identify young children experiencing homelessness across service systems and ensure access to quality early learning programs, such as Head Start and Early Intervention.

“We are so pleased that OCDEL has stepped forward to provide important vision and leadership that will help ensure that young children experiencing homelessness get the supports and services to which they are entitled and desperately need,” said the Education Law Center’s Nancy A. Hubley, Managing Attorney for ELC’s Pittsburgh office.

Hubley works closely with the Bridges Collaborative — a network of early childhood and homeless advocates — to address the lack of education access for these young children.
According to OCDEL, more than 40 percent of Pennsylvania’s homeless children are under the age of six.

“This policy,” Hubley added, “will help ensure that staff of social service agencies, including housing programs and early childhood providers, are aware of which children are to be considered homeless and the legal rights that accompany them.”

OCDEL’s guidelines reiterate the federal requirements for supporting homeless students, as detailed across federal and state laws such as the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act.

The act, which became law in 1987, ensures that “each child of an individual who is homeless and each youth who is homeless have equal access to the same free, appropriate public education, including a public preschool education, as provided to other children and youth.”

Read the OCDEL guidelines.

 

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The Education Law Center in non-profit legal advocacy organization, dedicated to ensuring that all of Pennsylvania’s children have access to a quality public education.

 

CONTACT:
Brett Schaefer
Education Law Center
Office: 215-238-6970 ext. 334
Mobile: 215-519-6522
[email protected]

Pa. charter reform bill advances, draws criticism

November 4, 2013 – By Kathy Matheson and Marc Levy, Associated Press – A bill to overhaul Pennsylvania’s charter school law would gut local control of the alternative schools by eliminating enrollment caps and giving universities the power to authorize new charters, opponents said Monday.

Continue reading →

ELC 2013 Annual Event slideshow

Photos from the Education Law Center’s 2013 Annual Event, featuring renowned civil rights attorney Morris Dees and honoring education advocates Barbara Minzenberg and members of the Philadelphia Student Union.

Photography by Peter Tobia.

Op/Ed: Lessons from Coatesville

October 22, 2013 – by Solomon Hunter and Rhonda Brownstein –

When one or two individuals in an organization blatantly act out in discriminatory ways, it’s easy to imagine that dealing with those individuals, primarily by removing them from the organization, solves the problem. Continue reading →

Trying to live up to special-ed law amid the Philly school budget crisis

October 16, 2013 – by Kevin McCorry –

The Philadelphia School District has at least 20,000 evaluated special-needs students. Each year, the district pays millions in legal fees and lawsuit settlements based on its failure, both proven and alleged, to meet their needs. This year, due to budget cuts, the district shed close to 3,000 staff members.

Read the full story:
https://whyy.org/articles/trying-to-live-up-to-special-ed-law-amid-the-philly-school-budget-crisis/  

At symposium, a call for state education funding formula

October 10, 2013 – by Martha Woodall, Inquirer Staff Writer –

If the Pennsylvania Legislature had not scrapped a statewide education-funding formula in 2011 it had approved three years earlier, the Philadelphia School District would have received $360 million more in state aid this year and would not be in a fiscal crisis now, an expert said Wednesday.

Read the full story:
http://www.philly.com/philly/education/20131010_At_symposium__a_call_for_more_state_education_funding.html

 

Pa. advocates gear up for education funding push

October 01, 2013 – by Susan Snyder, Inquirer Staff Writer –

Its music program was eliminated, 12 percent of its teaching force laid off, and its junior high sports program was slashed. “Cuts at the state level just kill us,” said Jim Duffy, superintendent of the Fannett-Metal School District, a small system in south-central Pennsylvania.

Read the full story:
http://articles.philly.com/2013-10-01/news/42539843_1_districts-school-funding-chief-education-officer

School Library Hearing – Aug. 22, 2012

Students, educators, advocates, and researchers testified to Pennsylvania House Education Committee Members on Aug. 22 about the importance of school libraries for student achievement. Members of the committee also heard testimony on the results of a 2011 study by the State Board of Education assessing Pennsylvania’s public school libraries.

Pa. Group Alleges Discrimination in Alternative-School Placements

August 7, 2013 – by Christina Samuels –

The Pennsylvania-based Education Law Center filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice today, saying that young people with disabilities and black students are being placed in alternative schools far out of proportion to their representation in the school population.

Read the full story:
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/speced/2013/08/pa_advocacy_group_alleges_disc.html?cmp=SOC-SHR-FB

PA Education Budget: Funding for a Few

July 8, 2013 – The Pennsylvania education budget adopted June 30, 2013, fails to address underlying, systemic inequities in the state’s public school funding, locks in the massive 2011 education funding cuts, and boosts funding to a few select districts, according to an Education Law Center analysis.

“The General Assembly and the Governor have delivered education dollars in a way that cherry-picks a small group of school districts for additional funding, but ignores the remaining 479 school districts,” said Rhonda Brownstein, Education Law Center Executive Director.

The legislature identified 21 school districts for additional state funding. Some of these districts have high numbers of students learning English, some have high numbers of students in poverty, and some are fast-growing districts. But other school districts on the list received additional funding based on particularly narrow and unique characteristics rarely used in comprehensive education funding formulas, according to the Law Center.

“Poverty, number of students learning English, rapid growth — these are all important student and district factors that should be applied in a fair, accurate, and transparent education funding formula,” said Brownstein. “What’s unfortunate is that the General Assembly and the Governor have chosen to apply these factors to only a handful of districts. The impact for schools and students throughout the Commonwealth could have been greatly improved if our legislative leaders had simply used these factors to distribute education dollars to all 500 school districts,” she added.

For example, only five school districts received additional funding based on the “English Language Learner Supplement” in the current budget, yet 412 other school districts in the state have students learning English.

“It’s a good sign that our legislative leaders have recognized there are different costs associated with different types of students,” said Brownstein. “The students in these five districts should receive the necessary resources to meet state academic standards — but so should English language learners in all of our other school districts,” she added.

Of the 21 specially selected districts, eight have now had their 2011 funding cuts restored. There are 490 other school districts throughout the state that still have not. (Two school districts — Chester-Upland and Duquesne — received funding restorations last year as part of a state-takeover plan.)

A March 2013 Law Center report, “Funding, Formulas and Fairness,” examines public education funding formulas in each of the 50 states.

Pennsylvania remains one of only three states in the nation without a fair, accurate, and transparent education funding formula, according to the report.

The report shows most other states use funding formulas to calculate and distribute education dollars. The formulas share common components, such as an accurate per-student base cost, different funding variables that recognize student differences in all schools, and a funding goal that the state works towards in order to ensure adequate funding for all students.

Pennsylvania abandoned these basic principles in its 2011-12 budget and officially amended its education funding formula out of use in 2012.

“Pennsylvania school districts must now operate in fiscal limbo every year, wondering if they’ll be one of the chosen school districts receiving special allocations from Harrisburg,” said Brownstein. “It’s time for that to change. It’s time for Pennsylvania to become a national leader in the development and implementation of a sound, comprehensive education funding formula that addresses real classroom costs and meets real student needs in all of our schools.”

View the calculations for the various funding supplements:
ELC_BudgetAnalysis_2013_fundingsupplements

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The Education Law Center is a non-profit legal advocacy organization dedicated to ensuring that all of Pennsylvania’s children have access to a quality public education.

CONTACT:
Brett Schaeffer
Education Law Center
Office: 215-238-6970 ext. 334
Mobile: 215-519-6522
[email protected]