News in brief
Parent academy opens classes at three centers
Deeper cuts proposed in U.S. education budget
Six- and seven-year olds still not all in school
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News in brief
Parent academy opens classes at three centers
A new support organization for parent involvement in Philadelphia schools was officially launched this winter – the Parent Leadership Academy.
Currently housed in three schools in three regions of the city, the PLA intends to provide free programs for parents on topics relating both to personal development and school involvement.
“Our primary goal is to help parents further develop their leadership and planning skills to encourage more active and more in-depth parent participation in our schools and our communities,” says the PLA mission statement.
The Parent Leadership Academy is co-sponsored by the William Penn Foundation and the School District and is governed by a board largely made up of School District parents and community representatives.
Free workshops, seminars, and classes are planned for parents at the different PLA sites on topics ranging from School District budgets to GED preparation. An eight-session class on “School District Basics” is one of the initial offerings.
The first PLA center opened officially January 19 in a newly renovated wing of the Academy at Palumbo (formerly Palumbo School), 12th and Catherine St. in South Philadelphia.
The other PLA centers are Meehan Middle School, Ryan and Sandyford Road in Mayfair and Cleveland Elementary School, 19th St. and Erie Ave. in North Philadelphia. The centers include classroom and meeting space as well as a collection of parent resources.
For more information, contact Florence Mickens, PLA Program Manager, at 215-400-5551.
Deeper cuts proposed in U.S. education budget
Last year, President George W. Bush’s budget proposal for 2005-06 called for a one percent cut in federal spending on education – the first time in a decade a president proposed to cut spending on education. Congress restored most of the specific programs Bush targeted for elimination. But the final budget for the year stuck close to the $56 billion overall education spending figure proposed by the President.
This year, President Bush proposes to cut even more deeply into federal education spending. He has again called for the elimination of over 40 programs but this time wants to reduce expenditures by over $2 billion, or 3.8 percent.
Like last year, the plan is meeting strong resistance from Philadelphia education advocates and from some local members of Congress.
Among the education programs targeted for elimination by the President in 2006-07 are grants for vocational education, the GEAR UP college readiness program, education technology state grants, Arts in Education, the National Writing Project, and “Smaller-learning community” grants. A major new proposal in the Bush budget package is an expansion of programs supporting math and science education.
Funding for Title I, Head Start, and child care assistance remains flat in the President’s budget. Critics described the lack of an increase for inflation as a de facto budget cut.
An independent analysis of the President’s budget proposal by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) used administration documents to project the five-year impact of the proposed cuts and plans to cap discretionary spending. The Center found that the budget cuts would accelerate over time and would impact nearly every area of domestic spending. The projected reduction in K-12 education spending would reach 8.5 percent by 2011, CBPP figures show. Special education funding cuts would climb to 12 percent by 2011.
A statement on the budget released by Philadelphia Citizens for Children and Youth on February 23 urges members of Congress “to thoroughly debate and consider the long-term human and fiscal consequences the Bush budget would impose on Pennsylvania children and families.”
The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities analysis is available online at www.cbpp.org. Philadelphia Citizens for Children and Youth can be reached at 215-563-5848.
Six- and seven-year olds still not all in school
Children in Philadelphia, and throughout Pennsylvania, are not mandated to attend school until they reach age eight – generally the time that children are in or just finished with second grade.
State legislation known as House Bill 377, introduced by State Representative James Roebuck, Jr., of Philadelphia, would lower the age to six in Philadelphia alone. An exemption is included in the legislation for children who are home-schooled. This legislation has already passed Pennsylvania’s House of Representatives and is awaiting action by the Senate Education Committee.
The School District of Philadelphia estimates that the bill would affect approximately 700 students annually, who enter school overage. “They come in, and they’re too old for kindergarten or first grade, and they’re lost from day one,” commented Paul Vallas, CEO, School District of Philadelphia.
According to Donna Piekarski, the head of the District’s Office of Early Childhood Education, a further consequence of children entering school at older ages is that they are at a higher risk of being held back in the future. She added, “They get into a vicious cycle of thinking, ‘Now I’m older than everyone else, but I don’t know what I’m supposed to know.’”
Piekarski maintained that the legislation “will help us with that population of children that we’re now losing in the seventh or eighth grade. Sixteen-year-olds are not going to sit in class with 12-year-olds.”
As Roebuck observed, “The policy of not requiring a child to be enrolled until they are eight years old is a legacy from the days of plowing fields with horse teams and children working in coal mine breaker buildings and textile plants, when every hand was essential on a farm and every income essential to the well-being of an urban working family.”
Pennsylvania is one of only two states that have retained the compulsory age at eight years.