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A NEW FORM OF SEGREGATION?
PERHAPS UNITENDED

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MILWAUKEE (AP) - Charter schools are among the nation's most segregated, an Associated Press analysis finds - an outcome at odds, critics say, with their goal of offering a better alternative to failing traditional public schools.

National enrollment data shows that charters are vastly over-represented among schools where minorities study in the most extreme racial isolation. As of school year 2014-2015, more than 1,000 of the nation's 6,747 charter schools had minority enrollment of at least 99 percent, and the number has been rising steadily.

The problem: Those levels of segregation correspond with low achievement levels at schools of all kinds.

In the AP analysis of student achievement in the 42 states that have enacted charter school laws, along with the District of Columbia, the performance of students in charter schools varies widely. But schools that enroll 99 percent minorities - both charters and traditional public schools - on average have fewer students reaching state standards for proficiency in reading and math.

"Desegregation works. Nothing else does," said Daniel Shulman, a Minnesota civil rights attorney. "There is no amount of money you can put into a segregated school that is going to make it equal."

Shulman singled out charter schools for blame in a lawsuit that accuses the state of Minnesota of allowing racially segregated schools to proliferate, along with achievement gaps for minority students. Minority-owned charters have been allowed wrongly to recruit only minorities, he said, as others wrongly have focused on attracting whites.

Even some charter school officials acknowledge this is a concern. Nearly all the students at Milwaukee's Bruce-Guadalupe Community School are Hispanic, and most speak little or no English when they begin elementary school. The school set out to serve Latinos, but it also decided against adding a high school in hopes that its students will go on to schools with more diversity.

"The beauty of our school is we're 97 percent Latino," said Pascual Rodriguez, the school's principal. "The drawback is we're 97 percent Latino ... Well, what happens when they go off into the real world where you may be part of an institution that's not 97 percent Latino?"

The charter school movement born a quarter of a century ago has thrived in large urban areas, where advocates say they often aim to serve students - by and large, minorities - who have been let down by their district schools. And on average, children in hyper-segregated charters do at least marginally better on tests than those in comparably segregated traditional schools.

For inner-city families with limited schooling options, the cultural homogeneity of some charters can boost their appeal as alternatives to traditional public schools that are sometimes seen as hostile environments.

They and other charter supporters insist that these are good schools, and dismiss concerns about racial balance.

Araseli Perez, a child of Mexican immigrants, sent her three children to Bruce-Guadalupe because she attended Milwaukee Public Schools and she wanted something different for her children. The schools in her family's neighborhood are more diverse racially, but she said race was not a factor in her decision to enroll her children at the charter school five miles away.

"We're just happy with the results," she said. Her youngest child, Eleazar, now in seventh grade, is on the soccer team and plays the trumpet at the school, which boasts test scores and graduation rates above city averages. Perez said her children frequently came home from Bruce-Guadalupe showing off an award they won.

Her daughter Monica Perez, 23, went on to a private school and then college before becoming a teacher's assistant.

"I don't think I felt the impact of going to an all-Latino school until I went to high school," Perez said. "When you go to a Latino school everyone is Roman Catholic and everyone knows the same stuff."

There is growing debate over just how much racial integration matters. For decades after the Supreme Court ruled in 1954 that segregated schools were unconstitutional, integration was held up as a key measure of progress for minorities, but desegregation efforts have stalled and racial imbalances are worsening in American schools. Charter schools have been championed by the U.S. education secretary, Betsy DeVos, and as the sector continues to grow it will have to contend with the question of whether separate can be equal.

National Alliance for Public Charter Schools spokeswoman Vanessa Descalzi said today's charters cannot be compared to schools from the Jim Crow era, when blacks were barred from certain schools.

"Modern schools of choice with high concentrations of students of color is a demonstration of parents choosing the best schools for their children, rooted in the belief that the school will meet their child's educational needs, and often based on demonstrated student success," Descalzi said. "This is not segregation."

White teachers have traditionally outnumbered black and Hispanic teachers in Milwaukee schools, which have not been seen as places where Latino parents want to send their children, according to Enrique Figueroa, a professor at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee and a longtime advocate for Latino students in the city. He said he sees no problem with the concentrations of Latino students in some charters.

"I think the more an individual knows about his or her identity or culture, the better that individual is at asserting himself in any situation because you are strong about who you are," he said.

Charter schools, which are funded publicly and run privately, enroll more than 2.7 million nationwide, a number that has tripled over the last decade. Meanwhile, as the number of non-charter schools holds steady in the U.S., charters account for nearly all the growth of schools where minorities face the most extreme racial isolation.

While 4 percent of traditional public schools are 99 percent minority, the figure is 17 percent for charters. In cities, where most charters are located, 25 percent of charters are over 99 percent nonwhite, compared to 10 percent for traditional schools.

School integration gains achieved over the second half of the last century have been reversed in many places over the last 20 years, and a growing number of schools educate students who are poor and mostly black or Hispanic, according to federal data. The resegregation has been blamed on the effects of charters and school choice, the lapse of court-ordered desegregation plans in many cities, and housing and economic trends.

The Obama administration and some states created programs to promote racial and ethnic diversity in charters, but they have been applied unevenly, said Erica Frankenberg, an education professor at Penn State. School choice, she said, leads to stratification unless it is designed in a way to prevent it.

"Word spreads by networks that are segregated," said Frankenberg, who has found that black, Latino and white students in Pennsylvania choose charters with higher racial isolation when they have options that are more diverse.

The options to promote diversity depend entirely on what is available under state law, according to Sonia Park, director of the Diverse Charter Schools Coalition, a 2-year-old network of 100 schools that are deliberately cultivating integration. Only some places have weighted lotteries, transportation budgets for charter students or the ability to draw students from urban and suburban districts.

Decades of research have shown that schools with high percentages of minority students historically have fewer resources, less experienced teachers and lower levels of achievement.

Like many other American cities, Milwaukee has seen an exodus of white students since a busing program in the 1970s. Whites now account for only 14 percent of the 78,500 students in the public school system. City schools often have one predominant ethnic group, and many charters are at the far end of that spectrum.

Despite successes at schools like Bruce-Guadalupe, charters with the highest levels of racial isolation rank among the worst.

Nationwide, about half of students reach state proficiency standards in traditional public schools, and on average charters are only a few percentage points behind. Among schools that are 99 percent minority, however, only about 20 percent reach proficiency levels at traditional public schools and about 30 percent do so at charters, according to the AP analysis.

At the Milwaukee Math and Science Academy, more than 98 percent of the 335 students are African-American and nearly all qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. Less than 20 percent of students score at state proficiency levels for reading and less than 25 percent do so for math. The principal, Alper Akyurek, acknowledges that the school has significant room to improve test scores, but so too do the neighborhood schools his students would be attending otherwise.

Akyurek said he is certain race is not the primary consideration of families coming to his charter school on the city's impoverished north side.

"I think safety is No. 1," he said.

Jamain Lee, 13, has seen his grades improve since he enrolled two years ago from a school where he was bullied and frequently got into fights. His mother, Alicia Lee, said teachers at the neighborhood school would stand by and even record fights. She is unconcerned about the lack of diversity.

"You focus on, 'Is my child learning? Are they having fun learning? Do they want to go back when they come home?'" Alicia Lee said of her decision to enroll her four children in the charter school.

Howard Fuller, who was superintendent of Milwaukee schools from 1991 to 1995, rejects criticism of racially isolated charters. He says the imbalances reflect deep-rooted segregation, and it is unfair to put the burden on charters to pursue integration.

In a city where many black students live in poverty, and some reach high school not knowing how to read, he said there are other, more pressing problems.

"It's a waste of time to talk about integration," he said. "How do these kids get the best education possible?"

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Associated Press writer Jocelyn Gecker in San Francisco contributed to this report. Fenn reported from New York and Melia from Hartford, Connecticut.

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US charter schools put growing numbers in racial isolation

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MILWAUKEE (AP) - Charter schools are among the nation's most segregated, an Associated Press analysis finds - an outcome at odds, critics say, with their goal of offering a better alternative to failing traditional public schools. - IVAN MORENO, LARRY FENN, MICHAEL MELIA, Philadelphia AP

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LIGHT READING ABOUT SCHOOL FUNDING IN PA.

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LIGHT READING ABOUT SCHOOL FUNDING IN PA.

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The Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Thursday reinstated a lawsuit challenging the state's school-funding system, a victory for struggling districts long seeking relief from what they say is an unjust structure that relies too heavily on property taxes and doesn't meet schools' needs.

The decision - a departure from past court rulings dismissing such challenges - restores a lawsuit first brought by the William Penn School District in Delaware County. But its outcome could impact districts across the state, including Philadelphia's.

It was hailed as a "landmark" by plaintiff attorneys, who said it could redefine the state's educational landscape, praised by Gov. Wolf, and assailed as "very alarming" by Republican legislators.

But any impacts wouldn't be immediate; the decision overturns a Commonwealth Court ruling and sends the case back to trial court.

Courts "must take great care in wading deeply into questions of social and economic policy, which we long have recognized as fitting poorly with the judiciary's institutional competencies," Justice David Wecht wrote in the majority opinion.

But "it is fair neither to the people of the commonwealth nor to the General Assembly itself to expect that body to police its own fulfillment of its constitutional mandate."

The opinion - joined by four justices and accompanied by two dissenting opinions - enables a trial court to hear arguments in the William Penn lawsuit, which contends that Pennsylvania's school-funding system violates the state constitution's guarantee of a "thorough and efficient system" of education as well as its equal-protection provision.

"Our judiciary has a clear legal duty to ensure the legislature's compliance with its constitutional obligation," said Maura McInerney, a lawyer with the Education Law Center. "Our court must give meaning and force to the legislature's obligation to furnish education that is both thorough and efficient."

Pennsylvania's school-funding system has long been a source of contention, with some of the nation's most dramatic spending gaps between low- and high-income districts and, over the years, an increasing reliance on property taxes.

Petitioners Jamella and Bryant Miller, parents of a daughter in the William Penn system, have seen both sides of the divide. They used to live in Upper Moreland Township, which had a far healthier tax base. Now, they reside in a district that has some of the highest tax rates in the state, but spends far less per pupil than Lower Merion Township - in the 2014-15 school year, $9,500 compared with more than $17,000 in Lower Merion - and they said their daughter and her classmates lack adequate supplies, facilities, and opportunities.

"Families like ours have a disadvantage simply because of our zip code," Jamella Miller said Thursday.

A jubilant Jane Harbert, superintendent of the William Penn district, said that "it just brings tears to my eyes that we're allowed to go further with this. We're fighting a battle not just for William Penn but for the whole state of Pennsylvania."

Former Superintendent Joseph Bruni, who spearheaded the suit, said he had waited a long time for this.

"It still has a way to go, it still has to be proven. But these school districts will have their day in court, which is what they've been asking for," he said. The petitioners include six districts, six families, the Pennsylvania Association of Rural and Small Schools, and the NAACP Pennsylvania State Conference.

Bruni also said that the state's new focus on accountability should buttress the case since data show that kids in poorer school districts like William Penn don't achieve as well as children in wealthier districts.

"That's one of the reasons the courts even considered it," said Bruni, who retired in February 2016. In recent years, the achievement gap between rich and poor schools has "just become more glaring."

Besides William Penn, the petitioning school systems are in Lancaster, Johnstown, Wilkes-Barre, Shenandoah Valley, and Panther Valley, near Tamaqua. Lawyers for the districts had argued that the state's adoption of academic standards - not in place when prior funding lawsuits were dismissed - meant it had a duty to provide adequate funding to meet them.

In its opinion, the court noted that the state's academic measures may change, making them "ill-suited ... to serve as a constitutional minimum now or in the future."

But it pointed to a broader demand from the districts: that the General Assembly must provide the "support necessary to ensure that all students have the opportunity to obtain an adequate education that will enable them to ... participate meaningfully in the economic, civic, and social activities of our society."

The court also referred to other states where courts have weighed in on education funding, including New Jersey. "Courts in a substantial majority of American jurisdictions have declined to let the potential difficulty and conflict that may attend constitutional oversight of education dissuade them from undertaking the task of judicial review," the opinion said.

While Pennsylvania recently adopted a new funding formula - directing added money to districts with more poor students or students learning English, among other factors - it only applies to a fraction of the state's education spending.

Gov. Wolf, who was elected in 2014 promising to sharply increase education funding, said Thursday that "while we have made progress to invest hundreds of millions more in our schools and enact a fair funding formula that takes into account the needs of students in their districts, we know more must be done."

"This ruling validates my long-held position that the commonwealth must further examine the equity and adequacy of public school funding," said Wolf, who along with the state Education Department and legislative leaders is a defendant in the William Penn lawsuit.

The ruling drew fire from House Republicans. Along with ignoring work by the commission that developed the state's new funding formula, "and besides ignoring the clear delineation of the separation of powers, this activist court just threw out more than 150 years of jurisprudence," said spokesman Steve Miskin.

"This decision should be very alarming for all Pennsylvania taxpayers and communities."

A change to Pennsylvania's funding structure could be a game-changer for perennially funding-challenged Philadelphia, the state's largest district. Mayor Kenney hailed the ruling as "great news for our children, for this city, and for the Commonwealth."

Philadelphia's financial situation has improved slightly since the suit was filed, said Sheila Armstrong, a district parent and petitioner in the lawsuit. But her two children, a third grader at Spring Garden Elementary and a sophomore at Mastbaum High School, still don't have textbooks to take home, and their teachers must dip heavily into their own pockets to equip classrooms.

"They're not meeting the needs of the students," Armstrong said of the district and of the state, its primary funding source.

While there is no requirement for how quickly the trial court must hear the lawsuit, lawyers said Thursday they would ask the court to move as swiftly as possible.

"I'm ready," Armstrong said. "I'm hype to get this going."

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Pa. Supreme Court opens door to school funding overhaul

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The court's opinion enables a trial court to hear arguments in the lawsuit brought by the William Penn School District, which contends that Pennsylvania's school-funding system violates the state constitution's guarantee of a "thorough and efficient system" of education. - Maddie Hanna, Kristen A.

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TEACHERS AND SOCIAL MEDIA....WAS THIS THE RIGHT DECISION?

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A woman denied a teaching degree on the eve of graduation because of a MySpace photo has sued the university.

Millersville University instead granted Stacy Snyder a degree in English last year after learning of the Web-published picture of her, which bore the caption "Drunken Pirate."

Snyder received "superior" or "competent" ratings on her final student-teacher evaluation in all areas except "professionalism," in which she was labeled "unsatisfactory," according to the suit filed Wednesday.

"I dreamed about being a teacher for a long time," said Snyder, 27, of Strasburg, who has two young sons. She now works as a nanny.

The photo, taken at a 2005 Halloween party, shows Snyder wearing a pirate hat while drinking from a plastic "Mr. Goodbar" cup. It was posted on her own MySpace site.

"There were errors in judgment that relate to Pennsylvania's Code of Professional Practice and Conduct for Educators," wrote professor J. Barry Girvin, who supervised Snyder's work, according to the suit.

Snyder did her student-teaching at Conestoga Valley High School in 2006. Conestoga Valley officials told the college they would stop accepting student-teachers from Millersville if she went unpunished, the lawsuit said.

Although Snyder apologized, she learned on May 12 - the day before graduation - that she would not be awarded an education degree or teaching certificate.

Jane S. Bray, dean of the School of Education, in a meeting that day accused Snyder of promoting underage drinking, the suit states.

The federal lawsuit - filed against the university, Bray, Girvin and Provost Vilas A. Prabhu - seeks at least $75,000 in damages. Millersville spokeswoman Janet Kacskos referred questions to a state System of Higher Education spokesman, who declined comment.

"The bottom line is we want the college to bestow the degree and teaching certificate that Stacy earned during four years of hard work and sacrifice," said Snyder's lawyer, Mark W. Voigt.

News Corp., which operates FOXNews.com, is the parent company of MySpace.

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Would-Be Teacher Denied Degree Over 'Drunken Pirate' MySpace Photo Sues University

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A woman who lost a teaching degree on the eve of graduation because of a MySpace photo has sued Millersville University.

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§ 11.13. Compulsory school age. Except as otherwise provided by law, compulsory school age refers to the period of a child's life from the time the child enters school (which may be no later than at the age of 8 years), until the age of 17 or graduation from a high school, whichever occurs first.

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It only took 62 years!

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Exactly 62 years ago, on May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that segregated schools were unconstitutional.

The Brown v. Board of Education decision was historic - but it's not history yet.

Just this week, a federal judge ordered a Mississippi school district to desegregate its schools.

The case on which the judge was ruling was originally brought during the summer of 1965. The first named plaintiff, "Diane Cowan, minor," was a fourth-grader at the time. Now she's Diane Cowan White, a 57-year-old clerk with the U.S. Postal Service.

The legal saga that bears her name continues because, for 50 years, the Cleveland, Miss., school district has failed to integrate.

The town of 12,000 people - like many, many towns and cities in America - is racially segregated. A railroad track runs through town. Black people live on the east side of the tracks; white people live on the west side.

(Last year, The Washington Post published a stunning set of visualizations showing how American cities are separated along railroad tracks and highways. Suffice it to say Cleveland is not unique.)

In the early 1960s, the town's schools were explicitly segregated by race. There were white schools and black schools, and no matter where children lived, their school attendance was determined by their race.

So began the case against Cleveland School District - and a five-decade saga of resistance and inadequate action.

There was some backlash to a judge's first order, instructing the district to desegregate. The Wall Street Journal wrote that according to a historian, some Cleveland residents proposed segregating schools by sex if they couldn't segregate them by race, to keep black boys and white girls from interacting at school.

But Cleveland agreed to allow black students into white schools, and vice versa. However, the federal government later alleged that the district established "dual residency" policies to cheat and send students to schools based on their race instead of their neighborhood. The district also built new schools in locations designed to keep black students in all-black schools, the U.S. said in a motion in the '80s, and assigned faculty based on race.

Fifteen years passed. Schools remained segregated.

So Cleveland agreed to make an effort - to stop distributing faculty based on race, to encourage students to transfer to classes where they'd be in the minority, to set up exclusive and attractive classes to give them an incentive to make such a transfer, to establish appealing magnet schools in majority-black communities.

Fifteen years passed.

And ... schools remained segregated.

In 2011, the U.S. revived the case with a motion stating that Cleveland lacked the will to "meaningfully integrate."

"In a school district where approximately 67 percent of the students are black and 30 percent of the students are white, half of Cleveland's schools - the schools on the east side of the railroad tracks - are all black or virtually all black," the federal government wrote. The other schools were disproportionately white.

A judge noted that "despite the District's attempts to attract Caucasian students to the majority-African-American Eastside High, today, the school is attended by 99.7% African-American students."

And in the eyes of residents, it is both separate and unequal, The New York Times reports: "Testimony given in court by both white and black residents described a stigma associated with the black schools and a perception among families that white students received a better education."

The district said, basically, it would try harder - with better course offerings to tempt white kids to cross the railroad tracks, or with an intense high school magnet program.

But the U.S. argued that none of that had worked before. This time around, it didn't accuse the school district of active resistance or any ill will - just of failure.

Time for the nuclear option: merging both high schools into a single school with around 1,000 students, and similarly combining middle schools.

Some residents thought that would be too big and that the town couldn't afford new buildings.

They also argued that forcing integration by merging would cause white families to turn to private schools, causing a drop in enrollment.

No dice, said the judge: The fear of white flight doesn't override students' constitutional right to an integrated education.

"The delay in segregation has deprived generations of students of the constitutionally-guaranteed right of an integrated education," Judge Debra Brown wrote. "Although no court order can right these wrongs, it is the duty of the District to ensure that not one more student suffers under this burden."

The Associated Press writes that the case may be eye-catching, but it's not unique:

"Merging black and white schools was a common desegregation method in the 1960s and 1970s, and the opinion is a reminder that desegregation lawsuits never ended in some places. As recently as 2014, the U.S. Justice Department was still a party to 43 such suits in Mississippi alone."

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After 50-Year Legal Struggle, Mississippi School District Ordered To Desegregate

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Exactly 62 years ago, on May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that segregated schools were unconstitutional. The Brown v. Board of Education decision was historic - but it's not history yet. Just this week, a federal judge ordered a Mississippi school district to desegregate its schools.

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Substitute teacher won't be called back after refusing to unfriend current students on social media

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A substitute teacher in New Hampshire chooses not to work at a school after being instructed to unfriend students on Facebook.

A Wisconsin teacher asks his students to follow elected officials on Twitter and report back on what they tweet.

These examples highlight the complicated nature of social media interactions between teachers and students: Some instructors want to use Facebook and Twitter as teaching tools, yet there is concern that appropriate boundaries are maintained.

Carol Thebarge, a 79-year-old substitute teacher in Claremont, N.H., brought this issue to light recently when she was told by school officials to unfriend her more than 200 current students on Facebook. If she didn't, they said, she would no longer be called on to substitute. She announced Thursday (on Facebook, of course) that she would not comply.

"I call my Facebook an extended classroom," Thebarge, who said she's worked as a substitute teacher for 35 years, told USA TODAY Network. She added that she's counseled a number of students on sensitive subjects such as bullying and depression through Facebook's messaging feature.

School administrators delivered the ultimatum to Thebarge shortly after Christopher LeBlanc, a 29-year-old math teacher at the same school, was arrested in March and charged with sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl. Reports have said the student and LeBlanc communicated through text messages, but news reports have not mentioned Facebook.

School officials did not return calls from USA TODAY Network about Thebarge.

District Superintendent Middleton McGoodwin told the New Hampshire Union Leader that LeBlanc's arrest made the school board more cautious about teacher-student relationships outside of the classroom.

Regarding Facebook, McGoodwin said that their policy prohibits teachers and students from being "friends" on social network sites. He added that Thebarge wasn't fired because she does not have a contract as a substitute, according to the Union Leader, but that she could no longer teach at Stevens High School if she continued to be Facebook "friends" with students.

"It is a very slippery slope," Mike Kasper, a senior policy analyst at the National Education Association, an organization of public education professionals, said about private online communication between students and teachers.

"You may have the best of intentions in the whole wide world, but things can be easily misinterpreted," Kasper said. He added that this was his personal belief and did not represent the NEA's official policy. The association has not issued guidelines on social media use, but does recommend that educators, parents and teachers collaboratively come up with guidelines for their communities that all parties feel respect safety concerns.

Some school officials are trying to find a middle ground. For example, the New York City Department of Education developed guidelines that say teachers can create professional social media sites, such as Facebook pages created for a class or project, but should not communicate with students through their personal pages.
Twitter, the more 'visible' option
Chris Lazarski, who teaches high school in Wauwatosa, Wis., said he thinks Twitter is a good social media option because it's very public.

"I don't want to be that guy who was fired for something that was misinterpreted," he said. "That's why I like Twitter - because it's visible."

But Lazarski also said he's seen some of his students' personal Twitter accounts and what they were tweeting publicly was, well, "just kind of horrible and gross. "

That was why he decided to have them set up a second, professional account that they use for school. He teaches them to write a bio and use the search function for research.

"I want them to keep their personal Twitter, but I want them to know and to see that there's another way," he said.

He asks students in his public policy class to follow elected officials and use it to research what they represent. He asks them to consider what the individual is tweeting, and how he or she uses the platform to engage the public.

Lazarski said that people say teens are "digital natives" but that just means they've grown up with the technology, not that anyone has shown them how to use it.

"We should talk and have this conversation with kids because they're using it and they're not using it right," he said.
Is there middle ground?
According to a 2012 survey by the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project, 95% of teens have consistent online access and 81% of them use some kind of social media. The study also found that 77% of teens use Facebook and 24% use Twitter.

Stephen Balkam, CEO of Family Online Safety Institute, an organization that focuses on best practices for Internet safety, said the organization's views on teachers interacting with students on social media have changed over the years.

Facebook pays membership dues to the institute, and the institute sits on Facebook's Safety Advisory Panel.

Balkam said that given the number of students on social media sites, there is a need for educators to have a presence in that space.

"To have a blanket ban on social networking sites like Facebook is a bit like saying there's a fight on the playground but we don't know where the playground is, but even if we did, it's locked," he said.

Thebarge said school officials risk missing an opportunity with strict policies against teachers using social media sites.

"We can't throw the baby out with the bathwater," she said.
Follow @lagrisham on Twitter

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Teachers, students and social media: Where is the line?

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A substitute teacher in New Hampshire chooses not to work at a school after being instructed to unfriend students on Facebook. A Wisconsin teacher asks his students to follow elected officials on Twitter and report back on what they tweet.

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Emotions were high inside the Harrisburg School Board meeting Monday night as The Harrisburg Education Association pleaded with the board for help following violent encounters in the classrooms at elementary schools throughout the district.

First grade teacher Johanna Brown describes what's going on in her classroom at Downey Elementary, saying to the school board, "Are we getting hurt? This bruise is from last Friday."

Brown described a student in her room, saying, "She will kick and hit her classmates. She will throw the entire contents of her desk at every single student just to get attention."

The emotional plea to the school board for help also came from fellow teachers.

"I have been kicked, hit, punched scratched. I've had a student physically restrain me in front of my other students, grabbing my arms from behind where I was unable to move," First Grade Teacher Amanda Shaeffer said.

Educators asked the board for more training when it comes to mental health and trauma situations, along with better communication with administrators.

Parents and grandparents got up to speak too, one woman stating her foster son has been bullied by other children and the teacher needs help.

"She needs help. The kids in her room are so out of control, how are you supposed to be sitting here working when someone's going underneath another child's desk with permanent marker writing all over their sneakers," Lorraine Badget said.

Since July, the Harrisburg Education Association says more than 40 teachers have left the district.

The district claims a variety of reasons including retirement, but acknowledges there is a problem.

"We know there is a different type of support that is needed and we are also working with other agencies like Pressley Ridge and others to help and to address these the problems," Superintendent Dr. Sybil Knight-Burney said.

They say they're willing to create a task force, something teachers say they would like to see, comprised of board members, administrators, teachers, parents and even the community.

While they say their voices were heard tonight, they're hoping a resolution comes soon.

"Actions speak louder than words. We know we need these things, I know it takes time, but we need to do it faster. We need to get these kids the help that they need more quickly," President of the Harrisburg Education Association Jody Barksdale says.

The Harrisburg School District sent the following statement in response to the allegations made by the Harrisburg Education Association:

The District is committed to promoting a safe and healthy work and learning environment for our faculty, staff and students. As we all can agree, student achievement is our primary mission.

Concerning the District's staffing positions, the facts are as follows: The District had 55 instructional vacancies in July 2017, the District hired 130 direct and indirect support staff between April to August 2017, inclusive of 30 professional staff. We currently have 38 professional job vacancies as a result of resignations due to a host of reasons and retirements.

Urban education is fraught with challenges, opportunities and experiences. The administration of the Harrisburg School District is dedicated and working extremely hard, providing year-long educator development and teacher mentoring programs. Additionally, processes for Positive Behavior Intervention and Supports (PBIS) and/or Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) are in place throughout all schools. Further, the District has an open door policy to advance communication and address any and all concerns from administrators, faculty, staff and/or students.

As a School District, our effectiveness and success hinges on all stakeholders taking a positive and committed stance on moving the quality of education forward for every student; this includes professional responsibility, accountability and true ownership of the work that puts students first and continues to move our District in the direction of academic growth and achievement.

As a District, we will continue to strive to overcome isolated challenges and resolve differences. Furthermore, we endeavor to build a culture of collaboration among all stakeholders that is focused on improving teaching and learning in every school throughout the District.

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Harrisburg School District teachers describe violent students, ask board for help

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Emotions were high inside the Harrisburg School Board meeting Monday night as The Harrisburg Education Association pleaded with the board for help following violent encounters in the classrooms at elementary schools throughout the district. First grade teacher Johanna Brown describes what's going on in her classroom at Downey Elementary, saying to the school board, "Are we getting hurt?

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http://www.pennlive.com/news/2017/11/harrisburg_school_distric_says.html

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Harrisburg School District is responding to teachers' complaints about being increasing disruption in classrooms, including attacks on staff.

Here is a statement issued by the district overnight, after a Harrisburg School Board meeting Monday where a dozen teachers and parents called for more aggressive response to increasing classroom disruptions.

Here is the statement:
"We find it unfortunate that our teacher organization has chosen to engage in public discourse opposed to factual and substantive discussions. The District is committed to promoting a safe and healthy work and learning environment for our faculty, staff and students. As we all can agree, student achievement is our primary mission. "Concerning the District's staffing positions, the facts are as follows: The District had 55 instructional vacancies in July 2017, the District hired 130 direct and indirect support staff between April to August 2017, inclusive of 30 professional staff. We currently have 38 professional job vacancies as a result of resignations due to a host of reasons and retirements. "Urban education is fraught with challenges, opportunities and experiences. The administration of the Harrisburg School District is dedicated and working extremely hard, providing year-long educator development and teacher mentoring programs. Additionally, processes for Positive Behavior Intervention and Supports (PBIS) and/or Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) are in place throughout all schools. Further, the District has an open door policy to advance communication and address any and all concerns from administrators, faculty, staff and/or students. "As a School District, our effectiveness and success hinges on all stakeholders taking a positive and committed stance on moving the quality of education forward for every student; this includes professional responsibility, accountability and true ownership of the work that puts students first and continues to move our District in the direction of academic growth and achievement. "As a District, we will continue to strive to overcome isolated challenges and resolve differences. Furthermore, we endeavor to build a culture of collaboration among all stakeholders that is focused on improving teaching and learning in every school throughout the District."

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Harrisburg School District says it's committed to 'safe and healthy work and learning environment'

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Harrisburg School District is responding to teachers' complaints about being increasing disruption in classrooms, including attacks on staff. Here is a statement issued by the district overnight, after a Harrisburg School Board meeting Monday where a dozen teachers and parents called for more aggressive response to increasing classroom disruptions.

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3rd Circuit and Common Sense Ruling

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A federal appeals court on Thursday blocked the parents of a middle school student from suing a teacher over a confrontation that left their son bloody.

There is simply no evidence that teacher Abbe Sattison meant to hurt the boy when she tried to stop him from leaving Shikellamy Middle School in February 2014, the judges found.

That decision by a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit backs an earlier ruling by U.S. Middle District Judge Matthew W. Brann.

While the circuit judges backed Brann's decision to dismiss the suit filed by Brian and Deborah Betz, they criticized Brann for the "inappropriately caustic and derogatory tone" of his opinion on the case.

Brann's 125-page ruling contained "gratuitous and disparaging" remarks about the Betzes and their son, Judge Cheryl Ann Krause wrote in a footnote to the circuit court's ruling.

"Those entrusted with the solemn duties of judicial office are expected to handle proceedings in a manner that reflects the appearance as well as the reality of even-handed justice and respect for the litigants as well as for the law," Krause wrote.

According to Krause, Satteson, an eighth-teacher, had stopped another student for riding a scooter in the hall of the Northumberland County school just after the final bell of the day rang when she encountered the Betz's son, a seventh-grader, heading for an exit.

The Betz boy, identified in court documents by his initials, claimed he jokingly put his arm in front of Satteson, said "Go! Go! You're free to go!" Then, he tried to follow the scooter boy out of the building.

Satteson and another teacher told the Betz boy he didn't have permission to leave, but the Betz's son kept moving toward the door. When Sattison stood in front of the door with her arm up, the boy tried to duck under it, struck her elbow and fell to the floor, Krause wrote.

The boy hit his head, bled profusely and ultimately needed nine staples to close the wound, the judge noted.

Krause, like Brann found that the case came down to Satteson's intent. She can't be sued, the circuit judge determined, because "a reasonable jury could not conclude that Satteson intended to injure (the boy) - only that she attempted to prevent him from leaving school."

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Parents blocked from suing middle school teacher over confrontation that left their son bloody

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A federal appeals court on Thursday blocked the parents of a middle school student from suing a teacher over a confrontation that left their son bloody. There is simply no evidence that teacher Abbe Sattison meant to hurt the boy when she tried to stop him from leaving Shikellamy Middle School in February 2014, the judges found.

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WAS THIS SPOT IN CUMBERLAND COUNTY  WORTHY OF SAVING BECAUSE OF ITS CONNECTION TO THE BILL OF RIGHTS?

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WAS THIS SPOT IN CUMBERLAND COUNTY  WORTHY OF SAVING BECAUSE OF ITS CONNECTION TO THE BILL OF RIGHTS?

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http://www.pennlive.com/news/2017/10/bell_tavern_historic_marker.html#incart_river_home

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CHANGE THE WAY WE EDUCATE II?

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Education savings accounts are about opportunity. They are giving more students a chance at an education that best meets their needs instead of forcing them to attend a low-achieving public school.

That's how Sen. John DiSanto, R-Dauphin County, explained legislation he will be introducing in September to bring to Pennsylvania this latest version of a state-funded school choice program beginning to pop up in other states around the nation.

His proposal would make flexible state-funded accounts available to students who live in attendance areas of the state's lowest performing schools. The money in those accounts could be used for a variety of pre-approved education-related expenses including attending a private or parochial school. More details about the proposal are below.

"I believe that all of our children, no matter their background, have potential to accomplish great things. Increased educational options are a significant step forward in helping many children receive a better education to achieve their dreams," he said at a Tuesday news conference in a crowded room of supporters at the Joshua Learning Center of Harrisburg.

Among those who spoke in support of the proposal was Lance Deane, a new teacher in Harrisburg School District. He grew up in Harrisburg and attended district schools through eighth grade with kids who ended up dead or in jail.

His mom, wanting something better for him and his brother, approached the Joshua Group's founder and director Kirk Hallett about a tax credit scholarship so her sons could attend and eventually graduate Bishop McDevitt High School. Deane and his brother went on to become the first in their family to get a college education.

"That's a story that I'm not sure I'd be able to tell if Mr. Kirk didn't give me the opportunity," Deane said. "Mr. Kirk and them try their best here at the Joshua Group to help as many people as they can but unfortunately with their work, they can't help everybody. It's bigger than me. It's bigger than him ... I think by giving a child an opportunity to go where he wants, it'll pay off in the long run."

Sen. Mike Regan, R-Cumberland County, said giving students the opportunity to get an education in a supportive atmosphere will save the state money in the long run by keeping them out of prison and off parole.

"What this did for Lance's life truly changes the entire dynamic of what could happen here," he said.

Lavelle Mohammad, principal of Harrisburg Nativity School that serves middle school-age students living in the Harrisburg School District, said students who come to his school are dissatisfied with the education they are getting in the city schools where attendance and graduation rates are low. Some middle-schoolers arrive reading on a third-grade level, he said.

"This bill provides an opportunity for the school administrators like ourselves to provide a better service to [those students] than what's being provided for them right now," he said.

DiSanto's proposal would target this program to students who live in attendance areas of district schools identified by the state Department of Education as performing in the bottom 15 percent statewide. The 2017-18 list includes nearly 400 schools (see below); some are located in Dauphin, Lancaster, Lebanon and York counties.

That is the same population of students who are eligible for the Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit program, which offer scholarships funded by businesses that receive a state tax credit in return for their donation to a scholarship organization.

That program, along with scholarships offered through the similar Educational Improvement Tax Credit program, fulfill a need. But DiSanto said education savings accounts "would widen opportunity to many more kids."

Some other key points about his proposal:

Parents would be required to withdraw their student from public school to be eligible to receive an education savings account.

Money in those accounts could only be used for pre-approved education providers and expenses including private or parochial school or higher education tuition, textbooks and curriculum, testing and industry certifications, and therapies for students with disabilities. It would not be permitted to be spent for a student to attend another public school or charter school.

The amount of funding in the accounts to be held by the state Treasury would be based on the statewide average per-pupil state funding, currently about $5,700, annually. Special education students would receive more based on the severity of their disability.

Money could roll over in an account from one year to the next. Any balance left in the account upon high school graduation could be used for post-secondary education expenses. Treasury would regularly audit the funds and accounts would be frozen if funds are misused.

Schools that enroll students with education savings accounts would be required to have the student take the state exams or a nationally norm-referenced test to measure their learning gains in math and reading.

There is no income limit for eligibility to receive an education savings account.

Once a student has an education savings account, they remain in the program regardless of whether their home school district's performance improves.

Students would not be permitted to participate in the education savings account program and be eligible for a tax credit scholarship through either the Educational Improvement Tax Credit program or the Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit program.

Money also could not be used to enroll the student in a district school or charter school.

Districts that lose students to the education savings account program would be able to keep any additional state funding they receive in excess of the statewide average per-pupil amount. That's one of the upsides DiSanto noted about his proposal for districts. Another is it would allow districts to lower class sizes and make them more attentive to the families they serve.

The proposal already has drawn support from 17 Republican senators. Rep. Stephen Bloom, R-Cumberland County, who was among those in attendance at the news conference, told DiSanto his proposal would also enjoy support from many members in the House of Representatives.

While convinced that a 2002 U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing government aid in school choice programs to flow to parents - not schools - removes the constitutionality argument from the education savings account discussion, DiSanto admits there are other obstacles his legislation still will need to overcome.

One is the general resistance to change, he said. Another is the entrenched special interests, namely teachers unions and public school advocates. And a third could be Gov. Tom Wolf.

While the Wolf Administration is still reviewing the proposal, the governor's spokesman J.J. Abbott said, "Governor Wolf opposes vouchers and any program that diverts precious state funding away from Pennsylvania's public schools. Governor Wolf has fought tirelessly to increase state funding for public education at all levels by more than $800 million to help districts, teachers and students succeed. Taking funding away from public schools would only further the inequity and inadequacy of state funding for local education and could lead to property tax increases, as funding cuts did under the last administration."

DiSanto hopes Wolf will come around to see the merits of what he is proposing instead of continuing to regulate and fund education the same way the state has for years. He said, "If we really want to move Pennsylvania ahead, we need to do things different."

2017-18 list of schools performing in the bottom 15 percent by PennLive on Scribd

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Education savings accounts widen Pa. school choice options for more students, senator says

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Education savings accounts are about opportunity. They are giving more students a chance at an education that best meets their needs instead of forcing them to attend a low-achieving public school. That's how Sen.

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SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE BEING DISCUSSED IN HARRISBURG

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Should Pennsylvania move to create a school year calendar that more logically reflects the needs of students? Should districts be able to determine their own school years? What are the main barriers? Which do you agree with?Pros and Cons?

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There haven't been many major changes to the structure of school systems in the past century. We've learned so much more about how people learn, yet schools have pretty much stayed the same. And that's unfortunate, because a few changes could make school better for students, teachers and society as a whole.

10. Healthier Environment

With obesity rates rising, we've all heard calls to make the school environment healthier. This can be done by making physical activity mandatory and serving healthier food, which has been shown to improve grades and teach students healthy habits.

While gym class may not teach anything academic, it keeps students active. Studies have found that physical work is important and helps students learn. Gym is just as important as math, science and other academic classes because schools should take a healthy body and healthy mind approach to education.

Getting students active is only half the battle - it's also important for them to eat nutritious food. Most schools don't serve healthy food, simply because unhealthy food is cheaper. So while money would have to be spent to upgrade school lunches, it would be a smart investment because there's a correlation between healthy meals and improved grades. Also, with better nutrition students tend to be in a better mood, making classes run smoother.

9. More Life Skills Classes

If a person graduates at age 18 with a high school diploma, they're probably versed in history, math, science and literature. But does this mean they're ready for all the trappings of adulthood? Most simply aren't. Experience and training in life skills like budgeting, time management, nutrition and even some social skills can be sorely lacking. For example, how many students coming out of high school know exactly how credit and credit cards work? Not enough of them, as many young people get into trouble with their first credit card. In fact, credit card companies are aware of their ignorance and prey on them. If time was taken to teach students important life skills, it could be one of the most useful things they learn.

The counter-argument is that parents should be teaching their children these things. While that's true, not all parents will or even can. If life lessons were taught in class, it would ensure that everyone learned the basics of surviving in the real world.

8. Tenure Reform

There are wonderful teachers that touch the lives of countless students. There are also teachers who haunt your dreams well into adulthood. These horrible teachers keep their jobs for decades, tormenting class after class. If they acted that way in other jobs, chances are they would have been fired. But because they're teachers, they get to keep their jobs.

Bad teachers can also affect taxpayers. In New York City, there were facilities for teachers accused of misconduct called reassignment centers. There were about 600 teachers in 13 centers around the city, and they were paid to sit in a room and do nothing. They would sit there for months, or even years. It was estimated that in 2012 it cost $22 million to pay teachers to sit and do nothing. Some of the teachers had been accused of sexual harassment, yet were still paid.

While the reassessment centers have been shut down, they show a fundamental problem with teachers' unions. Getting rid of poor and sadistic teachers is an incredibly hard thing to do, which is awful because a bad teacher could change the direction of a student's life in profound ways. Teachers' unions are important, but there has to be an easier way to get rid of the bad apples.

7. No Homework Over the Weekend or Holidays

This may sound like coddling students, but why do people who work deserve a break on weekends and holidays more than students do? The truth is that everyone needs a break. People are more productive when they have them. Also, weekends off would give students time to be involved in extracurricular activities without their work suffering because they're forced to rush through it. Instead, it would be better to have dedicated time for work and then free time to unwind and recharge.

6. Mandatory Study Hall

It's understandable that teachers would want to maximize their teaching time and then have students do their work at home. And studies have found that a reasonable amount of homework is correlated with higher achievement in school. But while homework is important, research has found that giving students a mandatory study period can be incredibly effective, simply because it's a dedicated time to ensure some work gets done. When homework is done at home, students have to find the motivation to do the work. They may rush through it, get distracted or simply won't attempt it. Mandatory study hall in place of one class guarantees them time to do homework, which leads to better test results.

5. Stop Standardized Testing

In theory, standardized testing makes sense. It's a quantifiable way to see if a student knows the material. But there are just too many problems with it. Standardized tests tend to be biased against people of lower income, as well as African-Americans and Latinos. In fact, the gap is so big that some school boards have a target percentage for each race. In Virginia, 46% of black students had to pass standardized math tests, while 68% of white students and 82% of Asian students had to pass. No one is sure why the gap exists, as studies have been inconclusive. It's also important to note that standardized testing has prejudiced roots. According to Columbia University Professor Nicholas Lemann, standardized testing was developed in the 1940s as a way to keep Jewish students out of Ivy League schools.

Another problem is that the tests are created by companies who have little knowledge about the school system they're testing. The tests are rigid and don't take many factors into consideration. As Chicago Teachers' Union president says, "...standardized testing programs often aim to judge students against measures that have little or nothing to do with what the classroom teacher has taught or is expected to teach."

Standardized testing is also expensive, with millions of dollars paid to companies to create and mark the tests. It's an incredible amount of money that could be spent on more effective tools, like healthier food. Yet schools continue to use this biased and expensive system to measure the worth of their students.

4. Merit Pay for Teachers

A fundamental aspect of capitalism is paying a person a competitive rate for their performance. In some lines of work, bonuses are also paid out for reaching certain quotas. But teachers aren't paid this way - a good teacher and a poor teacher who have worked the same number of years are usually paid the same. That's unfair to taxpayers, good teachers and students. And that's why some people, including President Obama, think that merit pay is a better method. Merit pay would mean that teachers are given a salary based on their performance, and then given bonuses for meeting certain quotas.

There are two main roadblocks to merit pay. The first is that people are concerned that teachers may just focus on getting the bonus and manipulate the situation by giving students the answers rather than do real teaching. Unions also continuously block the idea, because it goes against their fair pay rules. But despite the criticism, studies have shown that merit pay does help students get better grades.

3. Pay Students

Student motivation is a serious problem. How do you explain to a 14 year old that they need to do well on their math test so they can get into college and then get a good job? The human mind simply doesn't work that way - the time span between the task and the reward is too vast. However, if students were paid bonuses for doing well, then there's a more immediate and tangible reward for completing the task. Paying students, even just to attend class and do their homework, has been found to help students in troubled areas. In schools that have paid students, grades improved, attendance increased and the percentage of people graduating went up.

2. Later Start Time for High Schools

In the United States, the average starting time for high schools is 7:59 am. Schools start that early to save money on bussing, as bus drivers tend to do two different routes. First they pick up and drop off middle and high school students, and then handle grade school children.

While earlier start times may save money, it isn't ideal for teenagers. It comes down to biology. At about the age of 14, circadian rhythms shift and teenager start to stay up and wake up later. Their brains don't even release melatonin, a hormone that induces sleep, until after 11:00 pm. Also, teenagers need about nine hours of sleep to function at their best. To wake them up earlier interrupts their natural sleep cycle and makes them less productive students. In a study of 9000 schools, researchers found that grades in all classes got better if the classes started after 8:30. They also found that there was a decrease in the amount of car accidents involving teenagers, because they were much more alert.

1. Year Round Schooling

School schedules aren't very productive. Students spend nine months of the year building their knowledge and skills, and are then released for three months. Then in September they're either expected to suddenly recall everything from the previous year, or spend the first few weeks reviewing and relearning.

The reason we have summer breaks is that before the early 20 th century, many cities had different school schedules. The schedule then standardized across the country to make it easier to do standardized testing and distribute textbooks. Prior to summer vacations, cities had their students go to class for about the same amount of time as contemporary students, but their breaks were spread throughout the year. Studies have routinely shown that having students attend school all year round would be more productive and effective. There would be less review, and students would have continuous practice. But the idea of summer vacation is so engrained in our cultural consciousness that change is difficult.

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10 Major Changes Our Schools Should Make - Toptenz.net

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There haven't been many major changes to the structure of school systems in the past century. We've learned so much more about how people learn, yet schools have pretty much stayed the same. And that's unfortunate, because a few changes could make school better for students, teachers and society as a whole.