Disappointed but not surprised. When we continue to measure a teacher's value or a student's value for that matter by a test that fails to accurately capture what students know, we are starting from the wrong place. I just find it ironic that Mr.Corbett gives a speech about the benefits of charter schools in a charter school that failed to meet AYP last year. In fact NONE of the charters in York City did well on the PSSA, which is all this administration is using to measure "failing schools". Mr. Corbett, restore funding to public schools so children can have the luxuries of things like small class size, kindergarten, guidance counselors and art and music education!

I was wondering why the administration is pushing the expansion of charter schools despite evidence from a recent study from Stanford University which found:

"Charter schools of all ages in Pennsylvania on average perform worse than traditional public schools,
and charter school students grow at lower rates compared to their traditional public school peers in their
first 3 years in charter schools..."

Does the administration's proposal to expand the number of charter schools, while cutting all other public schools, have anything to do with the fact that one of the Republican Party's biggest contributors is Vahan Gureghian, a charter operator who has made huge sums from his school in Chester County and that the administration's budget secretary Charles Zogby was a longtime, high-level executive of K-12, the operator of the Pennsylvania Virtual Charter school, a position he took right after resigning as Secretary of Education?

It is not true that the cuts in state funding were the same percentage across the board. In fact, some wealthier school districts lost as little as 6t% of their state funding while other poorer school districts lost up to 21%.

My source is the Education Law Center spreadsheet of state funding cuts to education.

The callers are thus far missing the entire point of this legislation which is to push the school system toward privatization via increasing the availability of funds to send students to Charter schools and private schools while simultaneously eroding funding to public schools which will further their decline and thereby allowing even more aggressive legislation to send tax dollars to for profit schools.

This proposal is part of an agenda to benefit the Charter school lobby.

Catholic schools reject students with behavioral issues and far fewer mandates to meet, which enables them to operate for less money; they pay staff less, etc.

I subscibe to the adage "When the student is ready the teacher will appear". Except when we are in school, we must learn what we need and want when we need it and want it. Mandatory education was designed to keep children out of the work force as long as possible. The biggest problem with the classroom today is there are too many students who don't want to be there and they destroy the chances of educating those who have some desire to benefit from it. The schools have become the holding tank for these students. The solutions to the conflict need to be focused on getting the troublemakers out of the class or the school. You can't have the schools be a holding tank for those who are headed nowhere. This is what isn't fair to the children. Private and parochial schools don't have to keep these students and don't. That's why they do better. You don't follow the rules or care; your gone. We are looking at this from the wrong end. Reinstitute apprentice programs and work training sites.

Thomas: There needs to be enough basic education for ALL youth to enable them to make political and daily life decisions...complete job apps, insurance forms, read news, etc. We must do all we can to motivate all students to learn. That being said, those in the upper grades who do not want to learn and persist in making it impossible for the others to learn should be streamed in a different direction. But that's what we have Career & Tech centers and alternative schools for. I think we all should be brainstorming for ways we could impart knowledge in less institutional settings, saving money on building maintenance and administration. I've always believed students would benefit by learning in less formal small-group settings.

Just to let everyone know. We plan to produce additional programs on the governor's plan within the next few weeks that will include those who don't support aspects of it. Today's program was designed to give someone in the administration an opportunity to lay it out but it is too important an issue to not re-visit soon.