Article Roundup

Part of the job of being a School Director is keeping up to date with the topics that are gaining attention in the education community. Outside of reading a couple of books, I try to keep up to date by reading many of the journals, magazines, and digests that come my way. It seems that once you are a school board member you get on a special mailing list.

Here is a partial list of articles I have been reading that I found interesting:

-From the, "Hey, things could be a whole lot worse" department- at least we are not going the route of the Belmont High School in Los Angeles. The nation's most expensive high school was just built and they are talking about tearing it down. Ouch! $350 million of taxpayer money will be spent. Check out the story here. Built on an old oil field and right next to an earthquake fault, costs have skyrocketed for this project.

- The American School Board Journal ran an article in its November issue outlining the plans both Obama and McCain have for education. The article started by pointing out the fact that education seems to be on the back burner for BOTH candidates. With a war going on and an economy in free fall it has been much easier for them to put education on the second tier of issues that concern voters. The ASBJ broke down the platform for the candidates as follows:



School Choice seems to be a major difference. Additionally, Obama does have a greater focus on early childhood education. The article lists the cost of Obama's plans to be in the neighborhood of $18 billion, $10 billion of which would go to early childhood learning. The article does not list any costs for McCain as he intends to redirect existing funds to pay for his plans.

- Two Western PA School Districts have merged. The Center Area and the Monaca School Districts, just northwest of Pittsburgh, have decided to merge their two districts. This merger was not forced by the State but instead was taken on independently by the districts. See the article here. Excerpt from the article below:

With local school boards facing spiraling prices for fuel, employee health insurance and other operating costs -- and opposition to increases in property taxes that largely pay for them -- the idea of consolidating to save money is becoming an increasingly common discussion topic.

-There is a another report that hails the benefits of full-day Kindergarten. I have written before that there will be a move towards mandated full-day kindergarten in this state. Please see this article detailing a report by Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children that outlines the benefits of full-day kindergarten. Excerpt below:

Schools with students attending full-day kindergarten in 2004-05 improved their third-grade reading scores on the 2007-08 Pennsylvania System of School Assessment tests twice as much as schools where students did not attend full-day programs, according to the report.

That's all for now.

Thanks for reading.

James

Pennsylvania Department of Education Pre-K Findings

Pennsylvania Department of Education has released a report that shows the "Positive Impact in Children's Lives Made By Pre-K Counts". Excerpt below:

According to the report:
• 94 percent of Pennsylvania Pre-K Counts children finished the school year with age-appropriate skills and behavior or emerging age-appropriate skills and behavior.
• 95 percent of children in Pennsylvania Pre-K Counts are affected by at least one risk factor for school failure; 75 percent are affected by two or more risk factors.
• 63 percent of lead teachers have obtained, or are working towards, teacher certification in early childhood education.
• Average class size of 16 children per lead teacher and teacher aides surpasses best practices in the field.
• Pennsylvania Pre-K Counts is serving three- and four-year-olds in every region of the state in school- and community-based programs.
• When compared to the National Institute for Early Education Research’s benchmarks for quality early education program, Pennsylvania Pre-K Counts meets or exceeds nearly every quality benchmark.

This information goes to what I said in a previous post about the strong possibility that PDE mandates full-day kindergarten for all school districts in the State. They are continually pushing this information out there in hopes of finding broad-based support for the change. I have no idea on the time-frame but I would guess it would happen before Rendell leaves office.

James