News in brief
Teacher quality study finds signs of progress
Pennsylvania still getting low grades on funding
Notebook editor to receive Gimper Award at gala
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News in brief
Teacher quality study finds signs of progress
A new study of the School District's stepped-up efforts under the Vallas administration to hire, support and retain new teachers finds "positive trends in teacher recruitment and retention" in Philadelphia.
"Recruitment numbers are up, the downward slide in the percentage of certified teachers is reversing, turnover among new teachers has been reduced, and the District's overly centralized method of hiring and assigning new teachers to schools is no longer in existence," wrote co-authors Ruth Curran Neild, Elizabeth Useem, and Elizabeth Farley in their summary of a report titled "Quest for Quality: Recruiting and Retaining Teachers in Philadelphia."
The authors noted several signs of the positive impact of new teacher initiatives coordinated by Tomás Hanna, now the District's senior vice president of human resources, including:
. Applications to teach in Philadelphia increased by 44 percent between 2002 and 2004 due to new marketing efforts.
. School District reports say that retention rates for new teachers through their first year climbed from 73 percent to 91 percent, and that more of them are also coming back for a second year.
. The percentage of new Philadelphia teachers who were fully certified rose slightly in fall 2003, though it is still only 57 percent.
But data from the Pennsylvania Department of Education show that one of the challenges faced by the School District - a federal requirement that all public school teachers in core academic subjects meet standards as "highly qualified" by June 2006 - appears to be even further from reach than previously reported.
According to the state's report, only 85 percent of Philadelphia public school teachers in 2003-04 satisfied the state's definition of "highly qualified," down from 90 percent in 2002-03. Statewide, about 97 percent of Pennsylvania public school teachers meet the state's standard for "highly qualified" teachers.
The drop in Philadelphia's percentage of "highly qualified" teachers, in the midst of such a major District push on teacher recruitment and retention, appears to reflect a closer examination of credentials by the state and a determination that many Philadelphia middle school teachers in seventh- and eighth-grade classrooms lack a certification demonstrating their content-area expertise.
Pennsylvania still getting low grades on funding
Reflecting the state's disparities in school funding among school districts, Pennsylvania earned a grade of only C- for resource equity from Education Week magazine in the recently-released "Quality Counts 2005" report. This report annually compares and grades the states on a wide array of education indicators.
For school funding equity, Pennsylvania's ranking remains near the bottom, at 43rd in the nation, though the state has inched up a notch from recent grades of D+.
A big factor in the determination of Pennsylvania's perennially low score on school funding for "Quality Counts" is a measure that Education Week calls the "wealth neutrality score." This index tracks whether wealthy school districts are spending significantly more per pupil than poorer districts.
Pennsylvania's statewide school funding system is still heavily dependent on revenue from property taxes, and so wealthy districts are often able to spend more on education than poorer ones.
A change in the methodology used by the magazine for grading schools this year could account for the change in Pennsylvania's score, rather than enhanced funding equity.
The annual funding ratings are based on measures of school funding taken two years earlier, and so this year's results are from 2002, the year before Governor Ed Rendell took office.
In its annual survey of the states, Education Week found that 31 states are considering major changes in how they pay for education.
Janis Risch, communications director of the fair funding advocacy group Good Schools Pennsylvania, commented, "Until we have a responsible school finance system in place, every quality of life indicator for every Pennsylvanian will suffer."
"It's crucial that the governor and the legislature this year continue to take steps to reduce the opportunity gap," Risch added.
Notebook editor to receive Gimper Award at gala
Public School Notebook editor Paul Socolar is one of six awardees to be honored by the Urban Education Fund at its April Gimper Awards ceremony.
The Gimper Awards honor community members who "have gone beyond the call of duty in contributing in a positive way to an educational agenda having an impact on urban youth." Socolar was chosen for his leadership at the Notebook, which recently completed its first decade of informing and involving the community on education issues through this publication.
Also receiving awards from the Urban Education Fund this year are Robert W. Bogle of the Philadelphia Tribune, U.S. Congressman Chaka Fattah, Carol Clark Lawrence of PNC Bank, Susan Lytle of the Philadelphia Writing Project, and prominent Philadelphia educator Dorothy Sumners Rush.
The Gimper Awards Gala is held April 9, from 7 to midnight at the Pyramid Club at 1735 Market Street, and tickets benefit enrichment opportunities and academic supports for young people. For more information, call the Urban Education Fund at 215-877-5394.