PAESSP Political Notes
January 23, 2004
The United States Senate passed a voucher bill that would provide $13 million to students in the Washington D.C. schools, allowing them to attend a school of their choice. This first federally-funded voucher bill is expected to be followed with more students eligible this coming year as President Bush has proposed an additional $50 million for vouchers.
Meanwhile the U.S. Congress is still trying to get the 2004 budget passed which is nearly four months overdue. The Senate, this week, approved and has sent the final part of the budget to President Bush for his signature.
Although the Pennsylvania legislature was in session this week, no legislation that directly affect school districts was sent to the Governor for his signature. On February 4, 2004, the Joint Legislative Budget and Finance Committee is scheduled to release its study on the feasibility of placing all public school employees under the Commonwealth’s health care plan. Estimates have shown that school districts could save many millions of dollars by enrolling all employees into the state’s plan. What affect this would have on Act 93 plans is unknown at this time.
The State Board of Education met this week in Harrisburg and considered or discussed a number of topics. The validity of the PSSA study is progressing with test data from six large schools districts being analyzed. It is anticipated that a report will be released sometime in May 2004. The board voted on final adoption of revisions regarding pupil attendance found in Chapter 11 regulations. Changes included: clarifying admission requirements for foster children to registrar and attend school, participation of special education students in graduation ceremonies and early admission of beginning students.
A committee of the board reviewing Chapter 49 regulations is attempting to clarify language and bring it into consistency with the Act 48 of 1999 language. One area being deliberated is allowing supervised classroom observation to count towards meeting Act 48 requirements.
The board continues to work its way through proposed revisions to Chapter 4 in the areas of academic standards and assessment. The major revisions to the draft were made in November and the board continues to debate and study them. They are hopeful to have this project complete in the near future. They did remove the proposed language that would allow students’ participation in interscholastic sports to be a substitute for gym class requirements. Another proposed language item dropped was requiring school districts not to change their strategic plan except in a six-year cycle. However, language requiring that representatives of elementary, middle and high school and educational specialists must be part of the strategic planning process remained, although some educational groups raised concern about the language.
The Pennsylvania Department of Education has announced that AYP data will be released next week. There is some concern in how the media will interpret the data based on other states and their release of data.