Education Issues

The state House Democratic Policy Committee yesterday kicked off the first in a dozen statewide town meetings to solicit feedback on education reform and push its own reform agenda. Committee members said they are holding the meetings because Gov. Ridge has been slow in responding to a request for an education summit at which parents, students and community leaders could voice concerns about education. The committee's efforts are largely viewed as an attempt by school choice opponents to ensure that Ridge's now stalled voucher plan isn't resurrected.

There aren't too many places where you can check out sporting goods, digital player pianos, scissors and glue, not to mention an exhibit of Aedes triseriatus - mosquito larvae wriggling in a plastic container full of water. Then again, there aren't too many events like the annual convention of the New Jersey Education Association - a 150,000-member union that includes 90,000 of the state's public-school teachers. With 50,000-plus attendees expected yesterday and today at the Atlantic City Convention Center, the event is billed as the country's - and perhaps the world's - largest gathering of educators.

WHENEVER national publications offer a checklist of fun and charming places to visit in Philadelphia, Point Breeze and Grays Ferry usually aren't neighborhoods that make the cut. Both areas have been plagued for years by poverty, blight, crime and struggling schools. Although there's no easy way to cure those deep-rooted urban ailments, Kenny Gamble's Universal Companies has given itself the task of trying to create a path forward for both communities, thanks to a $100,000 neighborhood planning grant it received earlier this month from the Wells Fargo Regional Foundation.

Seventh-grader Marchanda Keels, of Austin Meehan Middle School, was among the 200 middle school students who marched to City Hall yesterday. As part of Law Week, they carried banners to call attention to education issues. The rally was organized by the Philadelphia Bar Association, Temple Law School, and Philadelphia's Teens, Crime and the Community group.

IF HISTORY is any indication, the next governor of Pennsylvania will lead us for eight years. Pennsylvania needs a leader who will make education a priority as we journey through the first decade of the 21st century. The state's education system is at a critical crossroad. We must elect a leader with a plan for reform and the courage to make difficult decisions to improve public education for all. The Pennsylvania Partnership for Public Education is committed to engaging the candidates for Pennsylvania's highest office in discussions on key issues facing education: Education funding.

This summer, it handed out 40,000 backpacks filled with school supplies to students in Camden and other low-income areas. This week, one of its founders promised to bail out an after-school program that was set to shutter after state funding cuts. Now, Better Education for Kids (B4K), an organization bankrolled by two hedge-fund managers, is using its cash to help elect candidates who agree with its ideas on education, including tenure reform, voucher programs, and teacher merit pay. The group's political action committee has spent money in four competitive districts, including in Burlington County's Seventh Legislative District, where it has fronted more than $31,000 to send glossy fliers promoting Troy Singleton, a Democrat running for the Assembly, according to financial disclosures filed with the state this week.

A peaceful demonstration over education issues turned ugly yesterday when about 25 people stormed the School District Administration Building to protest the removal of an Overbrook High counselor. Two school police officers were knocked down, but not seriously injured, according to John McLees, the district's director of school security. City police were called, but there were no arrests, he said. "They suddenly ran from the street toward the front door," said School District spokesman Charles Thomson.

Beginning Tuesday, North Penn School District Superintendent Alan Elko will begin holding monthly coffees with residents to discuss education issues. The meeting times will alternate every month between 7 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. to accommodate varying work schedules. A complete schedule of the meetings is available from the school district. The coffees are open to all residents of the North Penn area and will be held in the district's educational service center at Church Road and Hancock Street in Lansdale.

Residents of Cherry Hill, Haddonfield, Voorhees and the other 14 Camden County municipalities in the Sixth Senatorial District have the sort of Election Day problem that other voters in New Jersey might envy - two qualified candidates competing. Both 18-year-veteran Republican Assemblyman John Rocco and six-year incumbent Democrat Sen. John Adler are respected legislators with experience and knowhow. But the choice in this race so vital to which party controls the New Jersey Senate is John Adler.

The Board of Education yesterday named a national panel of education experts to render an opinion on School Superintendent David Hornbeck's method of rating schools. The six panel members were named eight months after Hornbeck and board members agreed to an independent review. Moreover, the announcement comes two weeks before the School District is scheduled to release its second annual "performance index" rankings for city schools. Board members Jacques Lurie and Thomas A. Mills lobbied for the review nearly a year ago, when the first school rankings were disclosed, and said that Hornbeck's method overstated school gains by including untested students.

WHENEVER national publications offer a checklist of fun and charming places to visit in Philadelphia, Point Breeze and Grays Ferry usually aren't neighborhoods that make the cut. Both areas have been plagued for years by poverty, blight, crime and struggling schools. Although there's no easy way to cure those deep-rooted urban ailments, Kenny Gamble's Universal Companies has given itself the task of trying to create a path forward for both communities, thanks to a $100,000 neighborhood planning grant it received earlier this month from the Wells Fargo Regional Foundation.

This summer, it handed out 40,000 backpacks filled with school supplies to students in Camden and other low-income areas. This week, one of its founders promised to bail out an after-school program that was set to shutter after state funding cuts. Now, Better Education for Kids (B4K), an organization bankrolled by two hedge-fund managers, is using its cash to help elect candidates who agree with its ideas on education, including tenure reform, voucher programs, and teacher merit pay. The group's political action committee has spent money in four competitive districts, including in Burlington County's Seventh Legislative District, where it has fronted more than $31,000 to send glossy fliers promoting Troy Singleton, a Democrat running for the Assembly, according to financial disclosures filed with the state this week.

A panel of leaders from every sector of education in the city gathered last night at the Franklin Institute and pledged to work together to ensure quality education for all Philadelphia students. Anthony Conti, chairman of the World Affairs Council, which hosted the event, said the group's mission is to bring education issues to the forefront of the local policy agenda. He noted the achievements of Bodine High School, a special-admissions school that graduates 100 percent of its seniors and where for three straight years instructors received the Ruth Hayre Community Service Award, named in honor of a former president of the Philadelphia Board of Education.

LABOR DAY weekend not only brings the end of summer, but the end of the teachers' current contracts. Contracts for all school workers, from principals and cafeteria staffs to blue-collar employees, expire Sunday. Not that you'd know it. This year's negotiations with the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers have been so quiet that both sides must have been trained by the Chinese government on how to conduct a news blackout. Not that we think the labor negotiations should be played out in public for theatrical value.

Patsy Tollin, the second-grade teacher recently dismissed by the Baldwin School, allegedly to appease a wealthy couple, is lucky. She enjoyed a 22-year career on the Main Line before she was sent packing. There are many others who were dispatched much earlier in their careers for challenging the authority of an administrator or wealthy parent. Some were forced to find employment outside teaching, their chosen profession. How do I know? I taught at some of the area's most prestigious private schools for 15 years.

Thomas and Babette Hankin believe they are "duty-bound by God" to educate their seven children. But the secular public school system, "with its humanism, evolution, denial of God," is "an unclean thing," they say. So the Bucks County couple homeschooled their children underground for 10 years. Then the school district found out and threatened to intervene. Now, in a test case watched by homeschoolers nationwide, the Hankins have sued the Bristol Township School District, saying the government has no right to monitor their children's "holy and sacred education," and that complying with the state's home school law would be a sin. They base their case on the Pennsylvania Religious Freedom Protection Act, which allows a person to challenge any state or local law if it "substantially burdens" that person's religious beliefs.

Montgomery County Orphans' Court Judge Stanley Ott has granted three current Barnes Foundation students the right to participate on a limited basis in the forthcoming hearings on the institution's petition to move its famed art collection to Philadelphia from Lower Merion. The judge said the students must focus on the effect the proposal "may have upon the educational process and curriculum of the foundation's art department. " In February, Ott had rejected a bid for standing by an earlier group of students.

IF HISTORY is any indication, the next governor of Pennsylvania will lead us for eight years. Pennsylvania needs a leader who will make education a priority as we journey through the first decade of the 21st century. The state's education system is at a critical crossroad. We must elect a leader with a plan for reform and the courage to make difficult decisions to improve public education for all. The Pennsylvania Partnership for Public Education is committed to engaging the candidates for Pennsylvania's highest office in discussions on key issues facing education: Education funding.

This week, while children across the state are sharpening their pencils and readying their backpacks, some youngsters in Pennsylvania won't be enrolled in school. A month from now, many of them still will be waiting. They are among the state's 23,000 foster children, kids placed temporarily in other homes because their parents cannot oversee their care. For these children, moving from home to home means changing schools and school districts frequently. Amazingly, paperwork required by school districts stands between these children and the classroom.

Can offering big corporations tax breaks and the chance to make a profit really be the best strategy to improve education for the nation's poorest children? Gov. Ridge seems to think so. And so, to some extent, does President Bush. Last week, with much fanfare, state officials announced that Pennsylvania companies - 230 at last count - were lining up to get tax credits in return for contributions to nonprofit groups that provide scholarships and supplemental educational services to students.