By: Michelle Croft and Richard Lee ACT Research and Policy
Despite (or because of) the federal requirement that all students in certain grades participate in statewide achievement testing, stories of parents opting their student out of the testing gained national attention in the media in the spring of 2015. Ultimately, twelve states—California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, Maine, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington, and Wisconsin—received a notice from the U.S. Department of Education that they needed to create a plan to reduce opt-outs due to low participation rates.
When statewide testing came in spring 2016, there were more stories of opt-outs, and information about districts failing to meet participation requirements will follow in the coming months.3 Early reports from New York indicate that 21% of students in grades 3–8 opted out in 2016, which was slightly more than the prior year. (See attached PDF below for reference information.)
Participation Rate Requirements
The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (both the No Child Left Behind and the Every Student Succeeds authorizations) requires that all students annually participate in statewide achievement testing in mathematics and English in grades 3–8 and high school as well as science in certain grade spans. Ninety-five percent of students at the state, district, and school level must participate; otherwise there is a range of consequences.
Under the No Child Left Behind authorization, the school would automatically fail to meet Adequate Yearly Progress if the school—or subgroups of students within the school—did not meet the participation rate requirement. The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) provides states with greater flexibility to determine how to incorporate the participation rate into the state’s accountability system. However, in proposed regulations, the state will need to take certain actions such as lowering the school’s rating in the state’s accountability system or identifying the school for targeted support or improvement, if all students or one or more student subgroups do not meet the 95% participation rate.
Michelle Croft is a principal research associate in Public Affairs at ACT. Richard Lee is a senior analyst in Public Affairs at ACT.
This report highlights significant investments made by both Republican and Democratic policymakers in state-funded pre-k programs for the fourth year in a row. In the 2015-16 budget year, 32 states and the District of Columbia raised funding levels of pre-k programs. This increased support for preschool funding came from both sides of the aisle–22 states with Republican governors and 10 states with Democratic governors, plus the District of Columbia.
In contrast, only five states with Republican governors and three states with Democratic governors decreased their pre-k funding.
Overall, state funding of pre-k programs across the 50 states and the District of Columbia increased by nearly $755 million, or 12 percent over 2014-15. While this progress is promising, there is still work to be done to set children on the path to academic success early in life. Still, less than half of preschool-aged students have access to pre-k programs.
Increasing the number of students in high-quality preschool programs is broadly viewed as a way to set young learners on a path to a secure economic future and stable workforce. This report includes several state examples and an overview of the pre-k programs they have in place. Data tables on total state pre-K funding and state pre-kindergarten funding by program are appended. [Megan Carolan contributed to this publication.]
Education Commission of the States. ECS Distribution Center, 700 Broadway Suite 1200, Denver, CO 80203-3460. Tel: 303-299-3692; Fax: 303-296-8332; e-mail: ecs@ecs.org; Web site: http://www.ecs.org
Congress is making momentous decisions that could fundamentally reshape U.S. health care with a serious negative impact on our most vulnerable children. The House of Representatives already voted in favor of $880 billion in cuts to Medicaid, the program that covers one in three American children.
Local critics have focused on the immense harm that would come from taking $2 billion away from Pennsylvania by 2020 and threaten healthcare that reaches 2.8 million residents.
Pennsylvania schools stand to lose more than $40 billion in Medicaid reimbursements that pay for healthcare for disadvantaged children and special-education services delivered on site. That will mean employing fewer nurses, physical therapists, speech pathologists, and other professionals. Vision, hearing, asthma and mental health screening programs may go away. It will also become more difficult to integrate the necessary support and technologies that empower disabled students to learn alongside their peers.
We know that our most vulnerable families need access to high quality medical care, safe and affordable housing, and jobs with family-sustaining wages so that students are well positioned to take full advantage of learning opportunities available in our public schools. We use the term “collective impact” to describe the team effort needed to support our neighbors in need.
Abandoning a 50-year, bipartisan commitment to children’s health undermines society’s “collective impact” and will have long-term repercussions. Studies demonstrate that children enrolled in Medicaid experience a lifetime of reduced disease and disability compared with their uninsured peers. They also do better academically and go on to secure higher paying jobs and contribute more in taxes.
Slashing Medicaid will have the opposite effects: higher healthcare costs, increasingly strained government budgets, students less able to benefit from educational opportunities and a workforce less prepared to take on the challenges of a technology-driven global economy.
The sad reality is that the most vulnerable students — those in need of medical treatment or physical assistance — would lose the most. But they won’t be alone. Many of the services funded by Medicaid are legally mandated. As federal funding dries up, schools will have to reallocate money from elsewhere.
When federal and state mandates on schools are not funded at the state and federal level, the burden for paying for these mandates is shifted to the local taxpayer. The potential cut in Medicaid reimbursement to schools combined with state-mandated pension payments and unfunded state-mandated charter school tuition payments adds to the financial burdens of school districts, leading to a combination of unpopular cuts in educational programs combined with unpopular property tax increases.
Our great country can do better than this.
Michael Faccinetto is president of the Bethlehem Area School District School Board and president of the Pennsylvania School Boards Association. Joseph Roy is the superintendent of the Bethlehem Area School District.
East Stroudsburg Area School District and its taxpayers paid cyber charter schools $3.7 million last year. That total has climbed consistently for at least the last five years.
The Pennsylvania school code requires that all state funding follow a student regardless of his or her choice of school. Funds are allocated directly to public school districts. Then, charter schools seek a tuition reimbursement from the district that sends the student.
Public schools are obligated to pay, but institutions have clashed on how much. Calculations are currently based on the expenses of the sending school. They do not consider what it actually costs the charter school to educate a student.
“In my opinion, it’s destructive to the public education system,” said Principal Bill Vitulli of Smithfield Elementary School. “Is it reasonable to pay cyber charter schools who don’t have nearly the same costs we do?”
Vitulli also manages the district’s own cyber program, East Stroudsburg Area Cyber Academy. It currently has about 90 students enrolled full-time and closer to 60 attending part-time, he said. All classes are taught by district instructors.
“Cyber charter schools don’t really have any different expenses than we do in our program,” he said. “They might have to hire more staff, but they don’t have all the costs of building maintenance, sports teams or after-school activities.”
Vitulli estimated an annual cost of $2,500 to educate a single, nonspecial student in the district cyber program. He did not have an exact figure available, he said.
Chief Financial Officer Jeffrey Bader said cyber academy costs are included in district’s other expenses; however, he estimated the program costs less than $4,000 a year per student.
Right now, the district pays charter schools $12,735 for each student or $29,731 for each special education student.
In October 2015, East Stroudsburg school district had 202 students enrolled in nine different cyber charter schools, according to Pennsylvania Department of Education records. That total includes 51 special needs students, who have higher tuition costs.
Commonwealth Charter Academy had the largest population of East Stroudsburg area students that year. CCA had 84 district students enrolled as of October, including 21 special education students. It remains one of the most attended by students from Monroe and Pike Counties for the last five years.
“Our costs aren’t the same; they’re just different,” said CEO Maurice Flurie, who formerly worked as assistant superintendent for Lower Dauphin School District.
“The general expectation is that it’s less, but that’s not necessarily true,” he said. “Some things cost exponentially more, like equipment maintenance or technology infrastructure.”
It costs CCA a little over $11,000 a year to educate a nonspecial student, Flurie said. CCA currently has more than 9,000 students enrolled across the state.
“We have costs no school district has,” he said. “When traditional schools have Keystone Exams or PSSA tests, kids ride the same buses to school — there’s no added costs. We have to put teachers on the road, rent spaces and feed staff. It costs us $800,000 to $1 million a year just to administer tests.”
Testing performance is one of the indicators used by the state Department of Education to measure educational effectiveness. Those numbers comprise a weighted score, called a School Performance Profile.
Online education programs generally have lower SPP scores than brick-and-mortar schools. Cyber charter schools scored an average of 50.9 between all 14 institutions operating in Pennsylvania.
CCA scored 47.5 during the last school year.
“We care about our kids making progress over time,” said Flurie. “In most cases, students come to us because something wasn’t working at their other school. That’s not appropriately reflected in an SPP score.”
About 72 percent of CCA students are at least one grade level behind at enrollment, Flurie also said. While about 80 percent return the next year, about 20 percent seek another institution.
“It doesn’t take into account the amount of kids leaving and coming in,” he said. “Some students plan on being with us just for middle school, so they’re going to test better as a ninth grader at a new school.”
East Stroudsburg had a district-wide SPP score of 69.6, based on the average results of its ten individual schools. Its cyber program does not have a separate score. Those students’ performances are reflected in the results of the physical school they would have attended.
“The general consensus is that cyber school isn’t necessarily the best way to teach,” said Principal Vitulli of East Stroudsburg’s program. “Success in cyber learning — even in our district — is not as good as being in a brick-and-mortar school.”
The program has grown substantially since he took over three years ago, Vitulli also said. He estimated the program on its own could likely rate well above the 50.9 average SPP cyber school score.
“It’s hard data to get,” he said. “You can’t compare because cyber schools are not being held to the same standards as brick-and-mortar schools.”
There were few fireworks Wednesday as Education Secretary Betsy DeVos testified before a House appropriations subcommittee on the Trump administration’s 2018 budget proposal. DeVos deflected much of the skepticism she received and continued to push the administration’s support of school choice.
President Trump’s proposal, which has drawn sharp criticism from educators and lawmakers alike, calls for $1.4 billion to expand school choice — namely vouchers and charter schools — but slashes $10.6 billion from after-school programs, teacher training and federal student loans and grants.
In her opening statement, DeVos said Trump’s budget proposal would return power to states and school districts and give parents a choice in their child’s education.
Democrats, including New York Rep. Nita Lowey, accused DeVos of taking money from public schools to fund school choice.
“We’re not proposing any shifting of funding from public schools to private schools,” DeVos responded. “In fact, all of the proposals set forth in the budget commit to fully funding public schools as we have.”
“If you’re pouring money into vouchers, the money is coming from somewhere,” Lowey said.
Many Republicans, while upset about proposed cuts to career and technical training programs, expressed support for DeVos.
“We are beginning to see the early stages of a much-needed, robust discussion about how we begin the process of getting our federal budget under control,” Rep. Steve Womack of Arkansas said.
Democrats questioned DeVos about whether she would allow federal funds to go to private schools that discriminate against particular populations.
Rep. Katherine Clark of Massachusetts brought up Lighthouse Christian Academy, a school in Bloomington, Indiana that receives $665,000 in state vouchers and denies admission to children of LGBT parents.
“Is there a line for you on state flexibility?” Clark asked.
“You are the backstop for students and their right to access quality education. Would you in this case say we are going to overrule and you cannot discriminate, whether it be on sexual orientation, race, or special needs in our voucher programs?” Clark added. “Will that be a guarantee from you to our students?”
DeVos sidestepped the question.
“The bottom line is we believe that parents are the best equipped to make choices for their children’s schooling and education decisions,” DeVos said. “Too many children today are trapped in schools that don’t work for them. We have to do something different than continuing a top-down, one-size-fits-all approach.”
DeVos’s appearance before Congress was her first public seating since a rough confirmation hearing before the Senate back in January.
Too often in policy debates, each side comes to the table with talking points and an agenda, rather than an open ear and a commitment to find common ground. When it comes to schools, whatever differences we may have on issues like Common Core, testing, and accountability, our unifying goal must always be to ensure that all children receive a quality education, regardless of zip code, and to find solutions that accomplish that.
In order to move educational equity from a shared priority for policymakers and practitioners to a reality for students in our state, education leaders and advocates have pushed for more intentional conversations and actions to address the underlying problems that prevent so many of our students from working on a level playing field.
This commitment to equity reflects many of the recommendations outlined earlier this year in the joint report from the Aspen Institute and the Council for Chief State School Officers titled “Leading for Equity: Opportunities for State Chiefs.” The suggested policy and engagement actions include pushing for greater funding, investing in professional development, and proactively engaging and listening to communities so they can hold state leaders more accountable in meeting goals.
The passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act gave us an opportunity to reignite conversations in our state about what it will take to create quality educational opportunities for all students and how we can work together to achieve that vision.
As part of our effort to design a new state education plan, we created stakeholder workgroups made up of educators and the broader community to inform our efforts. We knew it wasn’t simply about changing policy or talking to community members – it was about listening to those who have been most affected by inequities and working with them to meet students’ needs.
Teachers have been at the core of that engagement. They are the ones who, on a day-to-day basis, educate, mentor, and bolster our children. In Pennsylvania, we’ve been fortunate to have exceptional teachers from across the state come together to form the Pennsylvania Teacher Advisory Committee, which will serve as a pipeline for teacher voices and input into our collective work.
Giving teachers a seat at the table allows them to share their stories and those of their students and provide timely insight on how changes in state education policy could make a positive difference in classroom practice – or where it might not have its intended effect. Policy makers must understand how their work might alleviate or exacerbate systemic inequities statewide for students most impacted by a legacy of inequitable access and opportunity.
Equity is also about assessing and meeting all the unique needs of our children, and not just the ones that can be measured in test scores. One of our state’s more successful ventures in this arena has been the launch of Pennsylvania’s Superintendents Academy, a two-year professional development program that addresses challenges faced by students, including poverty and mental health. This setting provides an important opportunity for superintendents to discuss how inequities outside of the classroom affect schools and what can be done to systematically support the whole child.
If we want to change students’ lives for the better, everyone – from the secretary of education to teachers to anyone in between – must not shy away from the difficult conversations that a discussion about equity sometimes surfaces, or avoid pointing out the real inequities that continue to affect many children.
With so many advances in technology, we have more opportunities than ever before to engage and connect with others that don’t share our own background. Let’s keep talking. More importantly, let’s keep listening, and work together to act on what we’re hearing.
Pedro Rivera is Pennsylvania’s secretary of education. @pedroarivera2
Mairi Cooper is the 2015 Pennsylvania Teacher of the Year. @patoy2015
WASHINGTON – The House education committee approved a bipartisan bill to reauthorize the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act on Wednesday.
The Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act, with Rep. Glenn Thompson, R-Pa., and Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi as the lead co-sponsors, passed unanimously out of the committee. It now moves to the full House for consideration, and could become the first major education legislation sent to President Donald Trump during this Congress.
Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., the committee chairwoman, and Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., the top Democrat, both said there is a skills gap between what students are provided in educational settings and the demands of the current workforce.
“This legislation will empower state and local leaders to tailor programs to meet the unique needs” of students in their community, Foxx said in the Wednesday committee meeting. “Local leaders will be better equipped to respond to changing education and economic needs.”
As we reported earlier this month, the legislation is tailored to give states more flexibility in their plans for Perkins funds and for prioritizing programs that meet their particular workforce environments. It is very similar to a 2016 bill that easily passed the House, although this year’s version does impose somewhat stricter requirements on state CTE spending, as well as the process by which state plans are approved or rejected. In several respects, it matches the emphasis on greater state and local control in the Every Student Succeeds Act.
Scott said the bill promotes equity in career and technical education while updating the Perkins law to reflect the changing economy. However, he said the bill isn’t perfect in its current form and that the authority of the education secretary in the bill over funding issues isn’t as strong as he would like.
Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, D-Ore., introduced and then withdrew an amendment to the bill to beef up secretarial authority she expressed concern that the bill in its current form would allow states to use federal funds on failing CTE programs. (Disputes over secretarial authority led last year’s bill to stall out in the Senate.) She said lawmakers should continue to discuss this issue as the bill moves ahead.
On Tuesday, Foxx expressed optimism about the bill’s prospects in public remarks at a CTE event. In addition to more freedom for states, Foxx said the Thompson-Krishnamoorthi bill creates greater transparency and accountability for CTE programs.
Read the full CTE bill below, which Thompson introduced as a substitute on Wednesday and which makes a few technical changes to the legislation he and Krishnamoorthi introduced earlier this month.
The bill passed by the U.S. House to repeal the Affordable Care Act, now being considered by the Senate, would make deep cuts to Medicaid — which threatens millions in special education dollars for local school districts.
The money pays for items such as therapy equipment, portable stair climbers, or a device that might help visually impaired students do their schoolwork, as well as certain aides.
Medicaid, the health insurance coverage for low-income and disabled individuals that is jointly paid for by states and the federal government, reimburses schools for health-related services for special education students.
In Pennsylvania, schools receive about $143 million annually for these services.
Federal law requires schools to have individualized education plans for each special needs child and to provide appropriate services.
In other words, said Steve Robinson, spokesman for the Pennsylvania School Boards Association, schools are mandated to meet the needs of special education students. The federal cuts would push costs to either the state or local communities.
“The state is going to be challenged to come up with those dollars,” he said.
“Under the proposed change, there could be restrictions to: hearing-impaired services, nursing services, occupational therapy services, personal care and physical therapy services, psychological and social work services, speech and language and specialized transportation services, among many other critical support systems,” said Casey Smith, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Education.
In a letter opposing the bill, the School Superintendents Association and a host of other organizations in the Save Medicaid in the Schools Coalition noted to congressional leaders that “school-based health services are mandated on the [s]tates and those mandates do not cease simply because Medicaid funds are capped by the [American Health Care Act]. As with many other unfunded mandates, capping Medicaid merely shifts the financial burden of providing services to the [s]tates.”
Pittsburgh Public Schools uses some of these funds to pay for things like care assistants for medically fragile students who might need one-on-one support and for programs such as the district’s CITY Connections, which helps students with disabilities ages 18-21, said Amy Filipowski, executive director of the program for students with execeptionalities at the district.
“We would lose that reimbursement as a district and have to fund that … on our own,” she said.
ACA is working well in Pennsylvania, state insurance commissioner tells U.S. senators
The bill, which cuts Medicaid spending by more than $800 billion, passed the House earlier this month in a narrow 217-213 vote.
San Antonio — As information about the academic struggles of Pennsylvania’s cyber charters has become more accessible, the full-time online schools have increasingly enrolled students from the state’s least-educated communities and most-disadvantaged school districts, according to a new study to be presented here Sunday as part of the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association.
The result, according to researcher Bryan Mann of Penn State University?
Cyber charter have become an inequitable corner of Pennsylvania’s school-choice system, leaving the state’s neediest students with another bad option that their peers from better-off school districts largely avoid.
“This may be the educational policy equivalent of asking someone in a food desert to pick between two fast food restaurants and hoping they make a healthy choice,” Mann wrote in a pre-conference email interview.
In Pennsylvania and across the country, full-time online charter schools have come under withering scrutiny. Studies by the Center for Research on Educational Outcomes at Stanford University have found at both the national and state level that students in the schools learn at a dramatically slower pace than their peers in traditional brick-and-mortar schools. Last fall, Education Weekpublished a major investigation into the sector, highlighting concerns about students not using the schools’ educational software and about extensive lobbying efforts by the for-profit management companies that dominate the industry…
Read the full story here: May require an Education Week subscription.
Representatives of several education leadership associations recently released the 2016-17 State of Education report highlighting the many successes and challenges facing public education in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Paul M. Healey, Ph.D., PA Principals Association Executive Director, spoke at the news conference on April 24, 2017.
San Antonio — As information about the academic struggles of Pennsylvania’s cyber charters has become more accessible, the full-time online schools have increasingly enrolled students from the state’s least-educated communities and most-disadvantaged school districts, according to a new study to be presented here Sunday as part of the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association.