Education Policy

The state Senate Education Committee will take its show on the road to Bucks County on April 19. The committee, chaired by Republican James Rhoads of Schuylkill County, will have a hearing on education policies from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Mercer Museum in Doylestown. The hearing will focus on four areas of education policy: instruction and curriculum; improving student performance; management and school administration, and labor relations. The hearing is one of six throughout the state.

Before Christmas, President Bush is expected to sign legislation that could fundamentally alter the way most school districts do business - primarily by forcing them to pay more attention to the academic performance of poor and minority students. A bill ordering some of the most sweeping changes in federal education policy in 35 years passed the House overwhelmingly on Thursday and is expected to win Senate approval on Tuesday. It would increase education spending by $4 billion over the present $18 billion a year.

Whether he's defending Michelle Obama for her stance on healthy eating or agreeing with President Obama's education policy, Gov. Christie is somehow able to serve up occasional praise for the darlings of the left while simultaneously being a darling of the right. On Tuesday night, at a New York City gala honoring Time magazine's Top 100 most influential people (Christie made the list), the guv toasted, of all people, JFK. Politico quoted Christie's toast to the 35th president, "who has influenced my public life from the first time my grandmother took me to the museum of broadcasting in New York and showed me the inaugural address: John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

LAST week, a federal judge refused to suspend an innovative 24/7 policy developed by the Haddonfield School District that punishes students for off-campus drug and alcohol use. The district, trying to curb substance abuse, would bar students from extracurricular activities if they're accused of breaking the law. The policy was cheered by many because it was a reasonable attempt to do what a number of Haddonfield, N.J., parents were failing to do...

This year is not the best time for a major education policy watchdog in Philadelphia to fade out existence. But that is exactly what's happening to the Citizens Committee for Public Education, headed by Gail Tomlinson. Ms. Tomlinson, who has been a one-woman band at the undersupported Citizens Committee in recent years, said, "Amen" when asked if she welcomes the chance to do something else with her life. In fact, the Citizens Committee board, which once supplied the volunteer researchers and enough funding to keep the operation vibrant, doesn't now have enough money to carry on. Perhaps the 119-year-old group could regroup down the road if only it could find a civic funding godfather or two. The fact that the committee will be sorely missed by school administrators and union officials is an illustration of its independence.

The Philadelphia Board of Education believes in marriage. Members at a West Philadelphia meeting last night voted 6-1 to amend a sex- education policy to encourage students to abstain from sex until "marriage or some other mutually monogamous relationship. " Until yesterday, the five-month-old policy, which expands sex education in schools and allows condoms to be distributed to high school students, did not explicitly refer to marriage. Instead, it encouraged students to abstain from sex until they entered a "mutually monogamous relationship," which board members took to include traditional marriage, as well as other relationships.

One of the state's foremost higher education advocates resigned Wednesday, announcing that he will take a new post as a visiting professor in Rowan University's College of Education. For the last 15 years, Darryl Greer, 60, has served as president of the New Jersey Association of State Colleges, an organization created by former Gov. Tom Kean in 1985 to represent the state's nine state colleges in Trenton. His resignation is effective Dec. 31. Greer will teach master's- and doctoral-level courses in Rowan's department of educational leadership.

THE BATTLE in Harrisburg over school vouchers has placed state Rep. James Roebuck Jr. in political peril to a newcomer with well-heeled campaign contributors. Roebuck, 67, who has represented West Philly's 188th District since 1985, says he is using his post as the ranking Democrat on the state House Education Committee to stymie legislation that would allow tax dollars to be used to pay for private-school tuition. He is being challenged in Tuesday's primary election by Fatimah Muhammad, 27, who favors the voucher plan and tells a compelling story about being homeless as a child and about how education improved her life.

A top aide to U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah (D., Phila.) will be Mayor Street's next education secretary. And when she takes office, Jacqueline Barnett will have an extra job beyond steering education policy for City Hall: wresting back control over Philadelphia schools, taken over by the state in 2001. "I don't think anybody intended for it to be forever," Street said, arguing that it was time to "start creating the groundwork to be able to modify that arrangement so that the mayor and our appointees pursuant to the Home Rule Charter start taking back control over education in the city of Philadelphia.

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration has approved seven more requests for waivers from the No Child Left Behind law, recognizing the continued inability of states to live up to lofty standards that have caused thousands of schools to be marked as failing. Education Secretary Arne Duncan announced that Arizona, Oregon, South Carolina, Kansas, Michigan, Mississippi, and the District of Columbia would join 26 states already exempt from key provisions in the law. The law was supposed to force schools to be accountable by raising education expectations and setting a goal for all students to be proficient in reading and mathematics by 2014.

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration has approved seven more requests for waivers from the No Child Left Behind law, recognizing the continued inability of states to live up to lofty standards that have caused thousands of schools to be marked as failing. Education Secretary Arne Duncan announced that Arizona, Oregon, South Carolina, Kansas, Michigan, Mississippi, and the District of Columbia would join 26 states already exempt from key provisions in the law. The law was supposed to force schools to be accountable by raising education expectations and setting a goal for all students to be proficient in reading and mathematics by 2014.

THE BATTLE in Harrisburg over school vouchers has placed state Rep. James Roebuck Jr. in political peril to a newcomer with well-heeled campaign contributors. Roebuck, 67, who has represented West Philly's 188th District since 1985, says he is using his post as the ranking Democrat on the state House Education Committee to stymie legislation that would allow tax dollars to be used to pay for private-school tuition. He is being challenged in Tuesday's primary election by Fatimah Muhammad, 27, who favors the voucher plan and tells a compelling story about being homeless as a child and about how education improved her life.

WASHINGTON - President Obama said Saturday that children and the economy would benefit from the changes he is making in education policy and from his plan to spend billions to upgrade schools and keep teachers on the job. Obama used his weekly radio and Internet address to push his $447 billion jobs bill through the prism of education. He recapped steps he has authorized to let states opt out of unpopular proficiency standards because Congress has been slow to update the law. "If we're serious about building an economy that lasts, an economy in which hard work pays off with the opportunity for solid middle-class jobs, we had better be serious about education," Obama said.

For most students, high school is a place where adults run the show. But for 16-year-old Erin Agnew, it has been an opportunity to join the men and women who craft policy for Pennsylvania's educational system. Agnew, who will be a junior this year at Springfield Township High School in Montgomery County, was chosen in the spring from a pool of high school students to serve as an advisory member on the Pennsylvania State Board of Education's Council of Basic Education, which sets policy for pre-kindergarten through 12th grade.

PERHAPS if Dom Giordano had listened to his mother's advice ("Keep your mouth shut and your ears open to learn"), your readers might have been saved from his misguided op-ed earlier this week. He admits he was doing his usual talk-show format during last week's Children's March to Save Public Education, which was led by the Pennsylvania State Conference of NAACP Branches and other education-advocacy groups. History has shown time and again that the moral authority of children has often been successfully utilized by advocacy organizations to achieve social and political progress.

Whether he's defending Michelle Obama for her stance on healthy eating or agreeing with President Obama's education policy, Gov. Christie is somehow able to serve up occasional praise for the darlings of the left while simultaneously being a darling of the right. On Tuesday night, at a New York City gala honoring Time magazine's Top 100 most influential people (Christie made the list), the guv toasted, of all people, JFK. Politico quoted Christie's toast to the 35th president, "who has influenced my public life from the first time my grandmother took me to the museum of broadcasting in New York and showed me the inaugural address: John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

Gov.-elect Tom Corbett reached back into the Ridge administration Thursday to select his nominee to lead the Pennsylvania Department of Education. Ronald J. Tomalis, 48, served from 1995 to 2001 as executive deputy secretary of education under Education Secretary Eugene Hickok, who championed vouchers and charter schools, among other initiatives. From 2001 to 2004, Tomalis worked in the U.S. Department of Education, where he managed implementation of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, popularly known as No Child Left Behind.

LAST week, a federal judge refused to suspend an innovative 24/7 policy developed by the Haddonfield School District that punishes students for off-campus drug and alcohol use. The district, trying to curb substance abuse, would bar students from extracurricular activities if they're accused of breaking the law. The policy was cheered by many because it was a reasonable attempt to do what a number of Haddonfield, N.J., parents were failing to do...

SITCOM STAR. Talk-show host. Cookbook author. Director. Dancer. Singer. Blogger. And on Wednesday, if the School Reform Commission approves a reality-show proposal from the A&E network, Tony Danza will add "Philadelphia teacher at Northeast High" to his resume. The best we can say about this idea: Maybe it won't be a disaster. Allowing cameras into a classroom of a big urban school district might shed important light on the struggles that teachers and students face, and add an important dimension to our conversation about public education.

No favoritism As an African American, it saddens me that so many of us are voting for Barack Obama because we believe that he will do what is in our best interest because he is a black man. Friends tell me that he will "have our backs," that he knows what it's like to struggle, that he will look out for us. They say it almost as if they believe that Barack will show favoritism toward black people. Quite frankly, I don't want a president who will place the interests of one group of people over another.