COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

EDUCATION COMMITTEE HEARING

MAIN CAPITOL BUILDING ROOM 140

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 17, 2011 10:09 A.M.

HEARING ON EDUCATIONAL ISSUES

BEFORE: HONORABLE PAUL CLYMER, MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HONORABLE JAMES ROEBUCK, MINORITY CHAIRMAN HONORABLE MARK GILLEN HONORABLE MARK LONGIETTI HONORABLE MIKE O’BRIEN HONORABLE BERNIE O’NEILL HONORABLE THOMAS QUIGLEY HONORABLE BRAD ROAE HONORABLE KEN SMITH HONORABLE WILL TALLMAN HONORABLE DAN TRUITT HONORABLE JAKE WHEATLEY

ALSO PRESENT:

PATRICIA WHITE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR (R) DUSTIN GINGRICH, RESEARCH ANALYST (R) KEVIN ROBERTS, RESEARCH ANALYST (R) NORMA AVILES, LEGISLATIVE SECRETARY (R) CHRISTOPHER WAKELEY, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR (D) ERIN DIXON, RESEARCH ANALYST (D) TRACEY McLAUGHLIN, RESEARCH ANALYST (D) MARLENA MILLER, LEGISLATIVE ASSISTANT (D)

INDEX

TESTIFIERS

WITNESS PAGE

REPRESENTATIVE CLYMER 4 CHAIRMAN

REPRESENTATIVE ROEBUCK 4 CHAIRMAN

BARBARA SUPINKA 6 AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS (AFT)

MICHAEL CROSSEY 9 PA STATE EDUCATION ASSOCIATION (PSEA)

DR. JOANNE BARNETT 53 PA VIRTUAL CHARTER SCHOOL

JEANNE ALLEN 82 CENTER FOR EDUCATION REFORM

REPRESENTATIVE ROEBUCK 104 PRIME SPONSOR, HB 1657

OTTO BANKS 122 REACH ALLIANCE

CERTIFICATE 138

CHAIRMAN CLYMER: Well, good morning everybody, we’re glad that you could be

with us this morning. this is a beautiful day here in Harrisburg, we had a wet weekend but I’m

sure Pennsylvania farmers were very happy to get the rain. Driving in yesterday, as I drive up on

I-78, everything looked so green and it looked like the farmers will be able to reap a full harvest

– I’m not being a farmer but it looked very encouraging.

So as I said, welcome to this, this is our fifth committee hearing on educational issues; issues important in providing a quality education to all Pennsylvania students. The three issues under consideration at today’s hearings and the hearings scheduled for tomorrow, Thursday are school choice – vouchers, charter cybers, charter schools and cyber charter schools and I suppose some testimony will also touch upon school violence and the adequate funding of public education.

As I mentioned at past hearings, whatever choice of schooling for the student parents must be involved; they must take an active interest in their child’s education. Secondly, primary consideration must be given to reading, writing and arithmetic if a student is to succeed in the education process, learning these basics are essential. I know there are mandates that must be lifted to allow school administrators to have more flexibility within the teaching process and we’re working very hard to remove some of these onerous mandates.

So, we have our agenda, let us begin today’s hearing to learn how the State can improve the process of providing each child with an education that will provide for them a broader future.

At this time, the chair recognizes Chairman Roebuck for comments.

CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I certainly am pleased to again be a part of the process in discussing educational options, educational programs for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and I look forward to continuing dialogue on the issues that

Chairman Clymer has articulated, and I think that what I’ve seen over the series of hearing that

I’ve been a part of is a very real honest effort to try and put on the table possible solutions that will improve the quality of education in this State and that is critical. We need to have that open debate, we need to have that discussion, we need to give and take and try to understand different viewpoints and out of that, come up with those policies that work. So, I look forward to today and tomorrow and then to the hard work of trying to negotiate, to compromise, to shape meaningful educational reform. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

CHAIRMAN CLYMER: Before we being, I’m going to ask the members to introduce themselves. We’ll start over to my left let's see, all the way over with Bernie O’Neil, Bernie.

REPRESENTATIVE O’NEIL: You just introduced me, thank you.

REPRESENTATIVE GILLEN: State Representative Mark Gillen from Southern Berks

County.

REPRESENTATIVE TRUITT: I’m Dan Truitt from the West Chester area in Chester

County.

REPRESENTATIVE LONGIETTI: Good morning, Mark Longietti from Mercer County.

REPRESENTATIVE O’BRIEN: Good morning, Mark O’Brien, Philadelphia.

DUSTIN GINGRICH: Dustin Gingrich, Education Committee staff.

PATRICIA WHITE: Patti White, Executive Director.

JONATHAN BERGER: Jonathan Berger, Education Committee staff.

KEVIN ROBERTS: Kevin Roberts, Education Committee staff.

REPRESENTATIVE SMITH: Ken Smith, Lackawanna County 112th district.

REPRESENTATIVE ROAE: Brad Roae, Crawford County. REPRESENTATIVE QUIGLEY: Tom Quigley from Montgomery County.

CHAIRMAN CLYMER: So at this time we’ll have our first presenters, the chair is

pleased to welcome The Pennsylvania State Education Association. President is Michael Crossey and also with Mr. Crossey will be the American Federation of Teachers – AFT – Barbara

Supinka so Barbara Supinka. So, we’re pleased to have you and whoever wants to begin their testimony first, please feel free to begin.

BARBARA SUPINKA: Good morning, I am Barbara Supinka and I am here on behalf of the American Federation of Teachers, Pennsylvania. I thank you for this opportunity to testify

before the committee. I’m here today to speak in opposition to vouchers and in support of your

continued focus on improving Pennsylvania’s public schools. Earlier this year, our president Ted

Kirsch stated the reasons for our opposition to SB 1 in testimony to the Senate. He raised our

four major issues with vouchers, I would like to repeat those today.

First, vouchers do not have a track record of raising student achievement; second,

vouchers are lacking in accountability to taxpayers, and while vouchers are marketed as parental

choice, it’s the private schools that end up really doing the choosing. Third, vouchers have

already led to hundreds of millions of dollars being diverted from Pennsylvania public schools, a

new voucher program could take another billion dollars out of schools that are already under

financial pressure. Finally, Pennsylvania schools have been making progress and we need to

invest in proven strategies for raising achievement in low performing schools rather than turning

our back on them.

Since that testimony of President Kirsch, several things have happened that only serve to

underline these points. Rather than repeat all of the evidence in our Senate testimony, I will refer

you to it and I will focus on presenting the newest information on these issues. First, on the voucher track record on student achievement; I want to turn your attention to the latest review of research on school vouchers conducted by the Independent Center on Education Policy in

Washington, D.C., the report published last month is entitled “Keep Informed About School

Vouchers: A Review of Major Developments and Research.” Its first finding is that students receiving vouchers do not have better test results. We cannot say this enough, whenever advocates change gears and make different claims about vouchers to this committee, it is because they cannot argue that vouchers lead to better academic performance. The center’s report also

examined instances when advocates have claimed that the research shows that voucher schools

have higher graduation rates. I suspect that some of you have already heard that talking point

here, the CEP report takes pains to note that in the Milwaukee study that found this, once the

authors controlled for student background characteristics the impact of vouchers on graduation

rates disappeared. In other words, differences in graduation rates are caused by differences in

pre-existing student characteristics, not by attendance in a voucher school. Again, student for

student there is no voucher advantage here.

Second – accountability; the Keystone Research Center recently published a review of our current voucher program, the Educational Investment Tax Credit, the title of the report was

“No Accountability: Pennsylvania’s Track Record Using Tax Credits to Pay for Private and

Religious School Tuition.” Among the findings is that we have no real way of knowing if the

voucher organizations are properly using public funding and that at least some organizations

have excessive administrative cost. The key conclusion, and I quote, “As a result of the complete

absence of any data, Pennsylvania knows nothing about the outcomes of the program that has it

its 10-year life span received roughly a third of a billion dollars to educate school children at

religious and other private schools.” In our testimony in February, we noted that 13 out of 74 Philadelphia charter schools were under federal investigation for financial mismanagement. That

number apparently has now risen to 17 according to press reports. That 17 is 20 percent of the charter schools in the district. Voters and taxpayers have good reason to question our State’s track record on financial accountability for school choice programs and simply put, no one should have confidence that expansion of vouchers is a wise use of taxpayer dollars.

Third, funding; we now need to look at the billion dollars that will come out of a public school’s budget under a major expansion of vouchers as being in addition to the cuts in State support that our public schools have been hit with as part of the new budget. For urban schools in particular, a voucher program similar to SB 1 would be a case of adding insult to injury when you add in the budget’s elimination of charter reimbursement funding. The Keystone Research

Institute estimates that 40 percent of the funding in the program would go to pay for the tuition of children who are already enrolled in private schools.

Finally, on supporting public schools; when President Kirsch testified he cited the different report from the Center on Education Policy that showed that Pennsylvania was a leader in closing the achievement gap. New research from the Center released just this month indicates that we continue to be a leader. If you focus on overall achievement, all students and the subset of students who qualify for Title I aid based on poverty continued to show strong gains over times in both math and reading, and in every category except high school math there was a reduction in the achievement gap between Title I and non-Title I students. If you focus just on the percentage of students who are rated at the proficient level or better, the results show that

Title I students actually achieve proficiency at a greater rate than the non-Title I students in every subject including high school math. Our schools are rising to meet the challenge, we ask you that you help them, not pull the rug out from under them. Thank you. MICHAEL CROSSEY: Thank you, Barbara. Good morning Chairman Clymer,

Chairman Roebuck, and members of the House Education Committee. My name is Mike

Crossey, I’m a 34 year teacher in the Keystone Oaks School District inside Allegheny County

outside of Pittsburgh. On behalf of my 193,000 colleagues, thank you for the opportunity to

speak with you today about the purported school reform called vouchers and also a little about

charter schools.

There has been considerable media and public attention paid to the issue of education

reform in Pennsylvania, yet the so called solutions up for debate tax payer funded vouchers and

expanding charter schools without accountability accomplish neither, they only remove the

resources from public neighborhood schools. Today we should be asking how do we ensure that

all of our publics neighborhood schools can improve educational opportunities for all of the

students who attend? The answer to that question is not cutting funding for neighborhood public

schools by almost $900 million with a disproportionately negative impact on the communities

with the highest levels of poverty. The answer is not vouchers for students and it is not rapid

unaccountable charter school expansion. Ultimately, there is no silver bullet solution for an

answer.

State and local policies should support concrete and evidence based strategies that can be

put into action where the need is greatest. Pennsylvania must prioritize it’s resources and its human capital in a fiscally responsible manner by focusing on all students in struggling schools. I offer the following research-based interventions for your consideration and in your packet we have attached PSEA’s "Solutions that Work" to provide further information and detailed citing.

This proposal suggests that Pennsylvania should invest in early childhood education; require site-based decision making for schools where students are struggling to succeed; provide additional learning time for students; provide all students with a full range of opportunities to prepare them for work or post-secondary education; involve families by establishing district programs that promote and encourage parents, families, and communities to be actively involved and engaged in their public schools and in their child’s education; provide resources for students and encourage coordination between schools, law enforcement and social service agencies to ensure that all students can achieve high standards; provide alternative placements for disruptive, potentially violent students to foster their own success and that of their classmates; provide students with the training and resources to communicate with adults about bullying, threats, or any other abusive behaviors; and ensure that school buildings and classrooms meet the high standards for cleanliness and safety. Included in our packet is a full explanation of "Solutions that Work" which I encourage you to review.

By this committee’s own recognition, the majority of our children will continue to be educated within the public school system, therefore we should invest our resources into making the public school system the best that it can be rather than distracting efforts and resources onto unproven programs like taxpayer funded vouchers. Vouchers do not work, I’ve attached a summary of the current research to my testimony including an accurate analysis of recent research that proponents of vouchers have used to demonstrate their efficacy. In fact, theirs is a selective reading of the evidence in select studies, the majority of which were produced by voucher advocacy organizations. I encourage you to study the research carefully. This is why voucher proponents oppose basic testing requirements.

The General Assembly should insist that choice schools have their students take the

PSSA (Pennsylvania State Standardized Aptitude) tests and be held to the same accountability standards as public school counterparts. We should at the very least measure the educational progress. It is worth noting that 34 private schools in Pennsylvania participated in the 2009-2010

PSSA testing program – 13 of these 34 schools had less than half of their students reaching the proficient level in reading, 3 of them had 10 percent or less of their students achieving proficiency. In contrast, 77 percent of students in traditional public schools taking the PSSA’s in

2009-'10 scored at the advanced or proficient levels in math while 71.5 percent scored advanced or proficient in reading.

Vouchers do not provide real choice, none of the voucher bills provide choice to parents, only to the private schools that determine which students they will accept. That could easily result in selective discrimination by these schools. Vouchers are expensive, the cost projections for a voucher program in Pennsylvania range from hundreds of millions of dollars to close to a billion dollars. After cutting nearly $1 billion from public education, where will the money for a voucher program come from? Charter schools may be a viable option for some Pennsylvania students, but continuing questions about the cost of existing charter schools and the academic performance of their students should first be answered before moving with any rapid expansion of charters.

In April 2011, a study by Stanford University’s Center for Research on Education

Outcomes examined charter school performance in Pennsylvania and concluded that charter schools in Pennsylvania perform worse on average than traditional public schools. That certainly raises question when one looks at a proposal like HB 1711 which proposes to charterize schools in school districts that are among the lowest performing 10 percent of school districts on reading or math tests in any of the last 3 years. This means that schools could be charterized based on a school district performance on one test in one year. By that measure, nearly 60 percent of

Pennsylvania’s existing charter schools would fall into the category of lowest performing schools. In fact, components of this bill would allow a State level panel to usurp local school board’s traditional local control of their own school districts and operations and authorize the

creation of charter schools. PSEA strongly opposes such efforts as well as any efforts to remove

already bargained for rights in any public school conversion to a charter school. If charter

schools are going to be expanded in Pennsylvania, PSEA encourages this committee and other

lawmakers to look at HB 1657 as a starting point for the type of changes that should be

incorporated.

In closing, PSEA strongly believes the General Assembly and all stakeholders should

focus our collective efforts and resources on implementing specific interventions in

Pennsylvania’s struggling schools to immediately begin improving the learning environment and

options for all students. This is the type of education reform that is needed and the support of all

Pennsylvania students and their parents need.

I thank you, and I’d be glad to answer any questions you have.

CHAIRMAN CLYMER: The chair thanks our testifiers this morning for coming before

us and providing important information. I am going to try to set the standard of limited questions.

I hope the members of the committee will so recognize that, but I know how it is.

Barbara if I can ask you a question, that is you say that there are proven strategies that are

available to get the failing schools to be resurgent, what is that proven strategy? Because that’s

the reason, one of the reasons that we’re looking at vouchers and school choice, because some of

these schools have been failing year, after year, after year and there doesn’t seem to be any game

plan. There’s always the 3 year plan and the 5 year plan, but they keep failing. So what would

you suggest to be a strategy to get these failing schools back into the higher level? BARBARA SUPINKA: Well, I think the first thing is acceptance of the fact that the impact that poverty has on students in failing schools and students who have challenges before them. And Mike mentioned a number of them, we know that smaller class size, especially at the primary grade levels, things like early childhood programs being expanded, I know that most of you have heard all of those before; full day kindergarten, reviewing best practices, involving the community in the process, they all have been research-based and proven and some of them do take more funds and sometimes that becomes the driving force rather than the recognition, as I started out by saying that the recognition that poverty and the impact that poverty has on some of the students in those schools.

CHAIRMAN CLYMER: The State has invested heavily in early childhood education, we have provided literally millions if not billions of dollars in those very programs because we do believe in them, I mean there’s no one here that says that we do not think that is the right direction to go. We also invest in free breakfasts and free lunches, so we are trying to provide the very things that you have indicated, and yet we still have, the problems are still very apparent.

That’s why, of course, we are looking at alternatives. So just you don’t have to respond to that but yes, go ahead Barbara, Michael, if you want to say something

MICHAEL CROSSEY: I don’t mean to jump in there but you know, and we thank you.

Those efforts are paying off. Our Pennsylvania schools are doing better than ever before. If I could just brag about our public school system for a few minutes here, we’re doing really well.

Since 2002, with the help of legislative programs that you have helped to initiate, Pennsylvania is the only State in the nation that in every test measured on the PSSA’s at every grade level measured since 2002, Pennsylvania’s the only State in the nation that has made improvement in every grade level in every test given since 2002, we’re the only State in the nation that can say that. We’re doing fantastic, Pennsylvania is ranked number one in the nation at 8th grade reading

levels according to the PSSA’s. We’re number six in the nation at the 4th grade level and we’re

also in the top 10 in the nation in reading again, at the 4th and the 8th grade level according to

the National Assessment for Educational Progress. So with your help and with some of the

programs that the panel here has helped to put together, we’re doing well. We still have a long

way to go, but what we’re saying now is don’t cut programs that work. Allow us to continue to

work with you and to do the things that we need to do to help every child be successful.

CHAIRMAN CLYMER: Michael, I do have a question for you then.

BARBARA SUPINKA: May I just make a comment, just in terms of closure on that

issue, and I did cite in my comments that the Center on Education Policy has indicated exactly

what Mike is saying, that Pennsylvania was and has closed the achievement gap, and I think it’s

important to note that as a staff person that services different locals and school districts, over this last round of budget cuts that we’ve gone through in the public schools, these are the programs that work and they’re also the programs that are being cut; full day kindergarten programs are being cut as a result of the budget challenges so we’ve made progress as Mike indicated, but I also see as a result of the recent impact of the budget cuts those are the programs where those kinds of programs are being cut. Thank you.

CHAIRMAN CLYMER: The question I have then is, we’ve heard testifiers throughout the course of these hearings telling us that those who support vouchers, those who support charter schools and cyber charter schools that they do use the PSSA testing, cause I asked that question specifically at one of the hearings and they said yes, we do not oppose being tested, we are tested, we welcome the testing to take place. And we do have before us Representative

Killion’s legislation on reforming the charter schools. So my question is this, if we can expose more accountability, cause your concern is charter schools do not have that accountability, would

that change your mind or give you support the fact that charter schools do have a place in the

education process?

MICHAEL CROSSEY: Charter schools definitely have a place in the educational

process, there’s no doubt. Some charter schools are doing very well. But at the same time, a

rapid expansion of charter schools and the charterization of public schools or just even school

buildings doesn’t make sense when there isn’t the accountability provisions in place right now

and you know, it usurps local school district control. I’ve always believed that a local school

board and the parent’s involvement is the best way to go. You know, there’s nothing in the bill

by Representative Killion, and I’ve only seen a summary of it, but it allows for a rapid expansion

based on one test in one year you could charterize a school district. It’s an assault I believe on our collective bargaining rights, it doesn’t do anything for students, and the research says that on whole, charter schools are no better than our public schools.

They certainly have a place in our system, but they’re not a silver bullet and they’re not the solution to the problems that exist. As Barb very clearly mentioned, what we need to be doing are the programs that work for all children. She mentioned several of them, there are several more and what we need to do is, especially right now, is focus our resources and they’re tight resources right now, focus our resources on programs that are accountable, programs that

work, programs that involve parents and programs that allow every child to be the best they can

be.

CHAIRMAN CLYMER: Well, I’m going to recognize Chairman Roebuck but I will tell

you that we know that parents are making choices for charter schools and if they were failing they would not be doing that. But I don’t want to take the time away from other members, so at

this time, the Chair recognizes Chairman Roebuck for questions.

CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: Thank you, Mr. Chairman I want to go in a little bit further

into this issue that’s been raised which I think is emerging in my mind as a critical issue about how we improve schools, and it does relate directly to the issue of poverty. Over and over again

it’s clear that poverty is a major factor limiting school success, but it goes deeper than just a

measure of economic vulnerability, it has to do with family structure. One of the things – my

wife teaches, and one of the things that she often says to me is how do you expect a kid in the K-

8 school I would point out, how do you expect a kid to be on task who’s just seen his mother beat

up by her boyfriend, whose father is in prison, whose family structure is fractured? How do you

expect that kid to be on grade level? How do you expect a kid who is hungry, I go out and I buy

gas, I’ve gone to gas stations at 10:00 at night where you pump your own gas and there’s a

young person out there saying Mister, can I pump your gas for you? And they’re trying to get

money either for whatever reason probably because they are hungry, so I mean we have

programs in place but unless you address the deep roots of poverty, that just not a feeding

program in the school, it’s the lack of an employment, it’s a lack of family stability, and I think maybe this whole conversation points to the critical problem in that we’re expecting the schools to remedy what is a societal problem. So I put that out just because I think we need to address, I mean certainly support the programs you relate to, but those programs don’t solve poverty in this country. They might open up a greater degree of opportunity for some kids to succeed, but the other problems still remain, so I just want to put that out and if you have a comment I’d be glad to hear it or not, but I'll— BARBARA SUPINKA: Well, I think I started out by mentioning that the first recognition is that you have to recognize the impact of poverty on the schools and that just as you said, poor performance and poverty impacts their scores, how they operate, I taught in the Pittsburgh public schools and I saw what you’re referring to in my experience and years of teaching. I taught special education on the north side of Pittsburgh, I saw the kinds of things, I saw kids coming to school who had seen violence, shootings, etc. the night before and then we did indeed provide them food which is obviously important for them to function physically and intellectually for their brain, but they had to get past the emotion that they just lived through and then be able to perform in schools. So, I couldn’t agree with you more and that’s why I think the first thing as I mentioned is the premise that you have to really, really accept that poverty has an impact.

Driving here today I heard on the radio that poverty for children has increased and they even went the next step in how that will directly relate achievement in math and reading of these students and these children.

MICHAEL CROSSEY: I would also comment on that that we agree 100 percent with you that the achievement gap is a result of the adequacy gap. You know, and there is no doubt we ask the State to provide the funding necessary. The 50 districts and in the last couple of years we were using the costing out study and we were able to drive more resources into certain school districts, and the 50 districts that received the largest increase in State funding, their number of students at grade level increased 47 percent. So resources certainly help, but you’re right, and as a teacher, somebody and I spent my entire career before I stepped into this role teaching students and I had just that example. One day I had a seventh grade student come into my classroom and he was just completely off the wall, and I actually said to him, I said we need to talk and I said cause you’re driving me crazy today and my patience just never ends and I’m about to lose my patience I said what’s going on? And he said oh, my mom’s back on drugs and I said, not an

excuse you’re mom’s been on drugs since I’ve known you for a year and a half and gave me, he

said well, last night she came home and she was high and the guy who’s living with us broke a

beer bottle and hit and she ran out of the house and he said he sat there, had another beer and

then he left. And I said, what’d you do? And he said, well I just sat on the couch all night waiting

for somebody to come home and I said, did you eat breakfast and he said no, I just came to school. Said okay, I said so let’s get you some breakfast here and we got him breakfast and we sent the social workers and the counselors to work trying to find his mom and things but you’re

right. How does a child like that come to class ready to be on task? You know, I was fortunate

cause I was in a district that had the resources available to help that child but you’re right, we

need to attack those larger problems so that we can do what we need to do to help the child be

successful.

CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: Let me just then make one other observation about the

discussion that this occurred between Chairman Clymer and the panel, and that is I think it’s

important that we not forget that charters are public schools. They’re not private schools, they’re

not some kind of quasi-public school, they are public schools and I think when we talk about the

way in which we address charters, we have to remember they are within the structure of the

public school system. They’re not somehow separate from that and I also am concerned we not

confuse vouchers with charters because, and I think one of the things that’s happened and I was

going to allude to this afternoon is that many of the advocates for vouchers that somehow

suggested to parents in my district, oh with a voucher you can go to a charter school – that’s

simply not true. So, I think we have to be clear as this debate goes forward that we articulate it

carefully because a lot of parents are clearly confused about what we’re talking about up here. They don’t understand what we’re proposing or what the various proposals would get them in terms of helping their children to get a good education. I think we’ve got to be very careful when we do that so with that I’ll close, and thank you Mr. Chairman.

CHAIRMAN CLYMER: Thank you. Chair recognizes Representative Roae for questions.

REPRESENTATIVE ROAE: Thank you Mr. Chairman, and thank you folks for your testimony. What came up at the hearings last week was that Pennsylvania ranks 42nd on SAT

(Standardized Aptitude Test) scores in the United States and I’m kind of not real happy about that, I think we should be higher than that. I heard in the news today one-third of the students in the United States that take the ACT (American College Test) exam to get into college don’t meet the minimum bench marks for any of the topics on the ACT exam, so it is good that progress is being made, but it’s also a concern I think your testimony said 77 percent of Pennsylvania students are proficient in math, 71 percent in reading you know, that still means there’s 23 percent who aren’t in math and 29 percent who aren’t in reading. I’m sure poverty does play a role, kids that are in bad households, kids that are poor, kids that have whatever, I don’t, other

States deal with those same things as well and we’re 42nd on SAT scores. As far as funding, it was brought up last week, education funding in Pennsylvania has doubled in the last 15 years and there was, there is less money in this new budget than there was a year ago, most of it’s the federal stimulus money that disappeared, there’s actually more State money in education, but I guess the point I’m getting at is we keep increasing spending, we’re almost last as far as SAT scores go in the whole country. I think what it is, a lot of people are just growing impatient with the almost monopoly that the public schools have. My kids are in public schools, we have a good school in my opinion where I live, but when you have very low performing schools, schools where less than half the kids graduate, schools where 10 percent of the kids are at grade level,

shouldn’t those kids have an opportunity to go to a different school? Would your organization

support the kids that go to the worst schools in Pennsylvania at least having an opportunity to go

to a school where they could get a good education?

MICHAEL CROSSEY: I would say that we fix the schools that are struggling and not

performing up to the standard that other schools might be performing. I think we know what works, it’s working in all but 144 school buildings in the State of Pennsylvania according to the last research that we saw identified by the State senate I think they identified 144 school buildings. We know what’s working all around the rest of the State, I don’t really know about the

SAT test score itself but I can tell you that 70 percent of the high school students who graduate in Pennsylvania go onto higher education, so there seems to be a disconnect there between the number of students who go onto higher education and the SAT test scores themselves.

But we know what works, mentoring programs between grade levels, transition programs between elementary and middle school, transition programs between middle school and high school, I would say that what we do is we look at the programs that work and we look at the schools that are not functioning where they need to be functioning, and let’s concentrate and put together in those schools, let’s work together in those schools. We don’t need to throw out the baby with the bathwater, we’ve got some schools that are not working, we readily admit that. But let’s look at those schools and then do what’s right in those schools instead of throwing out the system.

REPRESENTATIVE ROAE: With your "Solutions that Work" in your testimony, there’s nine things that are listed and I noticed that I don’t really seen anything on the list that has to do with tenure reform. After 3 years most teachers are tenured, and pretty much even if they’re not a good teacher it’s difficult to get rid of them, there’s nothing in here about merit pay to pay the best teachers more money so we can keep the really good teachers. There’s nothing in here about if economic furloughs take place make sure we keep the best teachers rather than going by seniority, there’s nothing in here about stopping teacher strikes so that educational process is not interrupted, cause nobody learns anything when the kids can’t go to school. Would your organization look at adding things like that to "Solutions that Work" in an effort to improve our public schools?

MICHAEL CROSSEY: We have looked at some of them and some of them are addressed maybe not in "Solutions that Work" but in our "Vision 20/20" document which we’ll be glad to provide to you or to anyone on the panel. We have addressed several of those issues over the last couple of sessions that we’ve been in either testifying before different committees.

Merit pay does not work in public education, I’m not sure it works most any place; the most recent example of merit pay is the financial industry that was driven by merit pay and we see what that did to the country in 2008, just the drive for more and more profits. Merit pay does not work in education, we need an era of cooperation and collaboration and we will work on all of those things as far as teacher evaluation is concerned, we right now have individuals working with the Pennsylvania Department of Education on programs that will reform the evaluation system in the State of Pennsylvania. So we’re doing an awful lot of those things that you suggest and we’ll be glad to work with you individually or through a committee process to talk about any of those issues.

BARBARA SUPINKA: And just as Mike mentioned, as I said I was a teacher in

Pittsburgh prior to being a staff person and we have won national acclaim on our teacher evaluation program that’s been developed in Pittsburgh and we have a document that really explains that, I’d be more than glad to share that with the committee through your Executive

Director to just show you what’s being done.

And I think just a brief comment on the solutions that you mentioned, I think it would be hard, you started out with a question saying would your organization support, and I think it would be hard to say a no to you if we knew and if the research provided that those things worked. But what we’re sitting here saying that independent research groups are saying that vouchers don’t work. That a number of these things don’t work. So I think that’s a respectful response to the question you started out by asking in terms of would we support that. If we thought they worked, we would buy into anything; we’re not about trying to see kids fail as public, and I know you know that, but bottom line is we’re willing to do anything, roll up our sleeves, if what we’re suggesting doesn’t work come on down, we’ll participate as Mike said in committees and whatever. We are not adverse, but some of the things that are constantly and repeatedly mentioned, we do not believe solve the problem.

REPRESENTATIVE ROAE: I guess my point was if I was trying to improve the schools, which I want to try to improve the schools; if we gave the best teachers a big raise we fired the worst teachers and we made sure that the teachers are there, that there’s no strikes that interrupt the school year, I think that would go a long ways towards being a solution that works to improve our school system. If you can keep the best of the best and pay them well, get rid of the worst and keep everybody there teachers and students uninterrupted I just think that would be a good thing.

BARBARA SUPINKA: But the assumption is that’s what the problem is, and we just spent time talking and sharing in a dialogue that the problem is much greater, it’s not about a bad teacher that makes a school fail. I mean, that just doesn’t seem to fit in saying that, it’s about other things that make that school fail and we’re trying to say that we know some of the things

that might help. Thank you.

CHAIRMAN CLYMER: The Chair recognizes Representative Michael O’Brien for

questions to my right.

REPRESENTATIVE O’BRIEN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning, folks. So,

both of your organizations represent teaching professionals, correct?

MICHAEL CROSSEY: Yes.

REPRESENTATIVE O’BRIEN: So, to be teaching professional you need a bachelor’s

degree, correct?

MICHAEL CROSSEY: Yes

REPRESENTATIVE O’BRIEN: You need certification, correct?

MICHAEL CROSSEY: Correct.

REPRESENTATIVE O’BRIEN: If you could share with us, how many of your members

have advanced degrees, percentage wise?

BARBARA SUPINKA: I don’t have a statistic but it would have to be very large and I

know it is because, I was going to say most of our people have Master’s Degrees and plus

additional—

REPRESENTATIVE O’BRIEN: Plus ongoing education requirements.

BARBARA SUPINKA: Yes

REPRESENTATIVE O’BRIEN: Okay. Now, we took testimony from Secretary Tomalis

and as part of the questioning, the Secretary had said that charter schools do not require

certification, private schools do not require certification, and in some cases do not require a minimum requirement of a Bachelor’s degree. I found that rather shocking to be honest with you. Could you take a second and perhaps, you guys are teachers, let’s turn the table for a second, the

thing I always hated: compare and contrast. If you could compare and contrast for a moment the

benefits to a student of a trained professional versus maybe somebody like me who, I know a

little bit about government that may be a broad end to teach a civics class. Don’t be kind, do a

compare and contrast for me.

BARBARA SUPINKA: I would throw out first of all, is that often times when you look

at not having certified professionals, and I’m talking about certified professionals in the

traditional sense of the word in Pennsylvania with education, you have the pedagogical component and most often that’s what they try to cut out when they’re or doesn’t exist is the pedagogical things that teachers do. It’s not just that we stand up and teach, everybody teaches in

a different way, excuse me, students learn in a different way, so I have to know a whole host or a

whole bag of tricks of delivery of trying how to teach kids. Those are the kinds of things that

one, you learn in pedagogical classes in college and in second, from experience and being a trained teacher. So, I think it’s clearly a disadvantage if you don’t have the certification, you don’t have the training, it’s like you’re starting from scratch and kind of learning on the job.

Which in some situations, depending on the subject area as you said you could come in and teach a civics course but are you going to come in and do with that patience for special ed students in that civics course, are you going to deliver programs tied to a student’s IEP (Individualized

Education Plan), are you going to those kinds of things that require the broad based training that we have and teachers have who are certified?

REPRESENTATIVE O’BRIEN: What do you mean by pedagogy?

BARBARA SUPINKA: You’re asking?

REPRESENTATIVE O’BRIEN: Yes, What you just described— BARBARA SUPINKA: I thought you were asking me what I meant by pedagogy.

REPRESENTATIVE O’BRIEN: But what you just described is the pedagogy?

BARBARA SUPINKA: That’s correct

REPRESENTATIVE Okay.

MICHAEL CROSSEY: And the only thing I would add to that, cause Barb did such a good job of talking about the need for certification, I would just like you to think about it in a

different way. We believe that you should have certified professionals teaching the class,

teaching our students, that they’re going to be the best ones to get the students from here to here

and if you want little different frame of reference to how to think about that, ask yourselves

would you get in a plane with somebody who’s a pilot, if I said I’ll fly you to wherever you’re

going next, but I’m not certified to fly a plane and I’m not licensed to fly a plane, you want to get

in the plane with me? I’d be willing to be everyone says no because you want a licensed,

certified pilot flying the plane to get you from here to there. We believe that a certified teacher

should be in every classroom, certified in the subject area that they teach. I’m a certified teacher,

I actually have seven different certifications, but at the same time I’m not certified in phys ed.

You don’t want me teaching your children physical education. Maybe math, maybe reading,

special education is my specialty, but you don’t want me teaching something that I’m not

certified in. So I believe certification is extremely important.

REPRESENTATIVE O’BRIEN: Let me move on to one other topic if I may. So, we’re

all under agreement that charter schools are public schools, correct?

MICHAEL CROSSEY: Correct.

REPRESENTATIVE O’BRIEN: Funded with taxpayer dollars, correct?

MICHAEL CROSSEY: Correct. REPRESENTATIVE O’BRIEN: Okay. Now we have a situation in Philadelphia with flash mobs. Recently, a bunch of young fellas from Mastery Charter School which is highly regarded, not only in Philadelphia, regionally, nationally very, very highly regarded. Now, these young fellas waylaid someone in my district, beat the stuffing out of them, just young, dumb for no reason at all, okay? Now, in the newspaper report of this, the charter school, the charter school, made comments about bringing these young fellas before the committee on expelling them, they considered if their acts warranted expelling from the charter school. As public schools, do you have that option?

MICHAEL CROSSEY: No, not that I’m aware of.

REPRESENTATIVE O’BRIEN: No, so if these young fellas are given a break by the judicial system convicted of a misdemeanor, probation, reported probation, but allowed to go on with their life and they were expelled from Mastery, they would go to local public school is that correct?

BARBARA SUPINKA: Yes.

REPRESENTATIVE O’BRIEN: Okay, correct. And the local public school would have to accept then. Now, if my good friend Representative Conklin from Centre County were here who has a special interest in special education, he would certainly take us down the path of a least restrictive environment for special ed students. So, where do we go, what path do we go? If we create an environment that public education, that public education is the place of last resort where do we go if the private schools and charter schools cannot deal with special needs students and have them in classrooms with young fellas like this? Certainly, I feel that we go down the path that we create a series of educational Darwinism, a comment using no need to response.

Thanks for your time. CHAIRMAN CLYMER: The Chair thanks the gentlemen. The Chair recognizes

Representative Truitt for questions.

REPRESENTATIVE TRUITT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I actually have a bunch of questions but fortunately a lot of them are short answer kind of questions. The subject of

certification just came up so I can’t help myself but to ask the question, if we had a professional

chemist offered to teach a class for free in the public schools, a chemistry class would that be

allowed?

MICHAEL CROSSEY: They would certainly be able to come in and work with a

chemistry teacher and certainly come in and lecture and make the students aware of what, a

special lesson, certainly.

REPRESENTATIVE TRUITT: But they couldn’t teach, do they, they’re not allowed to

be on the same level as a regular teacher in that school then?

MICHAEL CROSSEY: They are not. Just because someone is an expert in a field

doesn’t mean that they know how to teach.

REPRESENTATIVE TRUITT: So if computer science professional with a Master’s

degree in computer science and a well known public figure in the community who’s known to be

very good at teaching and good with kids but doesn’t have a teaching certification, you can’t

teach in the public schools, right?

MICHAEL CROSSEY: That is correct.

REPRESENTATIVE TRUITT: If Albert Einstein was still alive and he offered to teach a

physics class in the public schools, he wouldn’t be able to do that either, right?

MICHAEL CROSSEY: That’s correct. REPRESENTATIVE TRUITT: How many of the teachers in our 144 failing public schools are certified?

MICHAEL CROSSEY: As far as I know, all of them.

REPRESENTATIVE TRUITT: All of them, okay. A separate subject, I want to talk about charters and public schools and why people choose those schools. You rattled off a lot of statistics about the effectiveness of private schools and charter schools and I once heard that 82 percent of all statistics are made up, of course that always makes me laugh, and I’ve got to be honest with you, I personally don’t trust much of the data that I hear from either side on this argument. I have a background that involves a lot of work with numbers and so forth, I can cherry pick any set of data and make it say anything I want so I really don’t trust most of the data. What matters to me when I look at the accountability of private schools and charter schools is the fact that families choose to send their kids there. And can you give me a sense, do you, I represent the West Chester School District, we don’t have issues with violence, we certainly don’t have issues with the quality of the education there. Why do families of 600 children still choose to take their kids out of one of the best school districts in the State and send them to charter schools?

MICHAEL CROSSEY: I couldn’t answer that.

BARBARA SUPINKA: I don’t know the answer to that and I understand the question’s rhetorical.

REPRESENTATIVE TRUITT: And that’s okay, and I don’t mean to be harsh on you in particular, but what I’m finding is through the hearings that there isn’t really an understanding of why it is that families choose private schools and charter schools and I think part of it might be institutional pride, right? We don’t want to believe that somebody else is doing a better job, not necessarily in all areas, it’s my personal belief that some charter schools are doing a great job and some are doing a lousy job; some private schools are doing a great job and some are doing a lousy job. Some public schools, you know schools in all categories, some of them are doing a great job, some are doing a lousy job. But we’re not figuring out what it is that some schools are doing right and other schools aren’t doing right. You did mention, look for what’s working—

BARBARA SUPINKA: Best practices.

REPRESENTATIVE TRUITT: —but what I’m hearing unfortunately in your testimony is that we want to look at what some public schools are doing right and translate that to other schools. but what I haven’t heard in the testimony in FIVE days of hearings now is that there’s any serious effort to look at what the private schools are doing right and why families choose private schools and what the charter schools are doing right and why 600 kids from a great school district like the West Chester School District are in charter schools, what are these charter schools doing right that these families leave? Do you have any, and I haven’t read your documentation yet, I apologize, I haven’t had time, but is there anything in your plan or have you thought about what we can do TO instead of having a adversarial relationship between the different kinds of schools, some means of making it a more cooperative relationship where we can figure out what these other styles of schools are doing right? Do you understand what I’m asking?

BARBARA SUPINKA: Oh, I understand perfectly. When I referenced, I referenced best practices, I didn’t seclude those in any way to public schools, best practices in my profession in our profession of education and that’s done by professional groups, teachers of math trying to discuss, I mean those best practices I didn’t just say look at the, and I know you’re not saying this, I didn’t just look at the best practices in public schools. but going back to why parents choose other schools or charter schools and the example you gave, I’m from Pittsburgh, I’m not real familiar with West Chester, but I guess that’s near Philadelphia area? Okay. And I know that often times one of the things that we didn’t mention and what really works in schools is assuring a safe and secure school to parents and often times in urban districts or many parents, and I’m not talking about West Chester, they choose other schools because they’re trying to escape the difficulties that again, the poverty and the those kinds of things bring to schools. I doubt that they’re looking at research information and saying, oh, ABC school does better in math or in reading, I’m going to put my child there. They have, they’re escaping some of the challenges that we’re saying need to be addressed. And then in terms of schools like West Chester, again, I’m just speculating I don’t know why those parents, I think that’s a great question, but I don’t know the biases or anything about those to know why they’re choosing or the religious kinds of things some folks, I’m Catholic, some folks commit to a Catholic education. That’s they’re choice. I’m just trying to comment so to speak about some of them.

MICHAEL CROSSEY: And I would answer you that we’d be glad to look, though the research maybe shouldn’t come from PSEA, but we’d look at any research that said why a particular school whether it be private, charter, public, is doing well and then what I believe is we should take those concepts of what works and we should have the public school do that. From my point of view, especially after a close to a billion dollar cut in education funding what we should be doing with taxpayer money with the scant resources that we have is making every public school be the school of choice and then if somebody chooses to go somewhere else, they’re welcome to do that. But I think with taxpayer dollars what we ought to do is build the best public education system we can build and have that be the school of choice and somebody else makes a different decision, that’s their decision, but I think with taxpayer dollars we should

build the best public education system we should build.

REPRESENTATIVE TRUITT: I would agree that we want to build the best public

education system we want to build, but I don’t see and this is where, this is the breakdown I

think I’m seeing here is. As Chairman Roebuck says, the charter schools are part of our public

school system and why do we have to treat the private schools like an outside entity? That’s part

of our public school system in my view, it’s part of our total, maybe not public school system but

it’s part of our total educational system and I think we have an obligation to all kids in

Pennsylvania to provide the best possible education system and it’s the labeling of things as

private or public or charter or cyber I think those labels are causing or creating artificial barriers

where information is not transferring back and forth between the different style schools as to

what’s working and what’s not working and I guess that’s really just a comment, but thank you

for your testimony.

CHAIRMAN CLYMER: The Chair thanks the gentlemen, the Chair recognizes

Representative Longietti.

REPRESENTATIVE LONGIETTI: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As I lead into this, I really do think that we need to look at data and we can always question the methodology of a study, is it done appropriately? But we’ve got to make public policy decisions based on data you

know, people say run government like a business, I’m not sure that always applies, but

businesses look at data, they look at are you meeting your benchmarks, where’s the shareholder

price? They make decisions based on data and so I think it really is important to look at that.

Now as I understand it since 1997 we’ve gone down this experiment of charter schools in

Pennsylvania so we’ve had quite a few years into it and as I see the numbers at least from one thing that I read, there was a 359 percent increase in charter school enrollment from 2001-2008 and obviously that’s increased even significantly since then because your testimony says now it’s

90,000 students and back then it was 67,121 students. And when I read the charter law, the first thing that jumps out at me is the legislative intent, the very first item is, "improve pupil learning," improve pupil learning. Now, from what I see in your testimony to the Stanford

University study shows that overall, charter schools performed worse on average in Pennsylvania than traditional public schools so that causes me concern and then when I look at HB 1711 and it

talks about charterizing as you called it, the lowest performing traditional public schools that

leads me to believe looking at that study, well charterizing it doesn’t necessarily solve the

problem; it’s not some magic solution. What, if anything, does 1711 do for the charter schools

that are not making the grade? Obviously there are some good charter schools out there, but

you’re saying in your testimony 60 percent of them would fall into that lowest performing

category, does it address dealing with those schools?

MICHAEL CROSSEY: No, it doesn’t.

REPRESENTATIVE LONGIETTI: And kind of picking up on some of your testimony,

what occurs to me is we’ve had this experiment with charter schools, I thought we were

supposed to look at it and see what works and apply it and there was some mention made about

well, there are private schools that succeed. I agree with that, there are private schools that

succeed. I don’t know if there’s any way for you as a public entity to get into the private school

and find out what it is that they do to succeed and there are public schools that succeed. Has the

Department of Education, has State statute or regulation had any focus at all on looking at what

works particularly in tough environments, high poverty schools that succeed what works and then translating that and applying that to struggling schools? Has there been any focus statutorily, regulatory, or by the Department on that?

MICHAEL CROSSEY: Not that I’m aware of, I mean we would be glad to work with the

Department you know, work with the committee to, we have given a copy of our "Solutions that

Work" to the Department or if we haven’t yet we will because we just published it over the summer if that hasn’t been sent over yet we will make that available. We’re very much willing to work with the Governor and the Secretary of Ed to make things work

REPRESENTATIVE LONGIETTI: That seems to me where the focus ought to be and some of that responsibility’s obviously on this side of the table to make that happen, but it just seems like we’re trying all these different things, well let’s try charter schools let’s see how that works, well overall that doesn’t necessarily work. Okay, let’s try vouchers, we haven’t done that yet in Pennsylvania, well in other State’s they’ve tried it and it really hasn’t worked overall, but there are succeeding private schools, there are succeeding traditional public schools, there are succeeding charter schools doing great things under very difficult circumstances but nobody’s looking at that in the Department of Ed and saying well, let’s replicate that and that seems to me it ought to be where the focus is.

My last question, comment is yesterday I was in Scranton, we had a hearing the

Superintendent from the Scranton School District testified and basically the night before they had a school board meeting where they had to make some very, very difficult decisions because the State budget very, very significantly cut Scranton School District and one of those decisions was they eliminated their tutoring program. And as I understand it, schools across the

Commonwealth are doing that because we, I didn’t vote for it but, the legislature eliminated the educational assistance program money which supported tutoring programs. What is that going to

do to traditional public schools when we have to eliminate tutoring?

MICHAEL CROSSEY: It’s, I’m one who taught mostly special education throughout my

career the after school tutoring program that we had in place for students was just critical to

keeping children in place, especially in places where you have larger class sizes. Some students,

they need that little extra help. As Barb mentioned when she was doing her testimony one of the

important things is sometimes you have to frame it a different way. I did an awful lot of tutoring

and I would note that sometimes I would teach it the textbook way or the traditional way and I would have a child sitting there looking at me with that glaze on his eyes and I would say, okay, now wait a minute, now think about it a little differently, let’s do it this way and all of the sudden you see that glint in their eye that they got it. That’s the advantage of small class sizes, that’s the advantage of tutoring programs where you have a chance to individualize the instruction and work with the child one-on-one or in a small group where you can get to that child and the child doesn’t go home at the end of the day going I’m lost, I have no clue and then they come back to school the same way and the next day they think, I can’t do this. But when you have a child and you see that glint in their eye and you know they got it, and they come back to school the next day ready to go, that’s the importance of a program like the tutoring program. We’re very disappointed that that one was eliminated in the budget.

BARBARA SUPINKA: And as a supported service obviously students that have

challenges really benefit from the tutoring programs and anything that’s removing that support

obviously impacts their achievement.

REPRESENTATIVE LONGIETTI: Thank you, my very final comment, I’m not looking

for an answer on this just a personal observation. SAT scores – they’re of some significance to me but they’re one of the least impressive pieces of data and I relate to that from personal experience. I was a very good student in high school, scored below average on SAT, was at the top of my class in college, took the LSAT (Law School Admission Test) for law school and bombed it the first time and canceled my scores, I knew I bombed it. And much to the chagrin of my professors I went and took a prep course. They said don’t do that, it should test your aptitude, scored in the 85th percentile after taking the prep course, so I think it really doesn’t necessarily predict student performance and there’s a way to study for those tests if you study for them, but that’s just my personal comment, thank you.

CHAIRMAN CLYMER: The Chair thanks the gentlemen and recognizes Representative

Quigley, question.

REPRESENTATIVE QUIGLEY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman and thank you both for your testimony. I just wanted to touch on something that was read in the beginning of the testimony from I guess the president of the AFT regarding reporting requirements as it relates to the existing Education Improvement Tax Credit program and I read that study from the Keystone

Organization and I think what they’re driving at is something different than what in fact is in the law right now that the scholarship organizations and pre-kindergarten scholarship organizations annually report the following information to the Department of Community Economic

Development by September 1 of each year: The number of scholarships awarded to eligible pre-

K students; total and average amount of scholarships awarded to eligible pre-K students; the same thing for students from K-8; the total on average amount of scholarships awarded to eligible students from K-8; number of scholarships awarded to eligible students in grades 9-12; on a county by county basis the total number and total dollar amount of scholarships awarded to residents of each county in which the scholarship organization or pre-kindergarten scholarship

organization awards those things.

The other thing is the education improvement organizations, this is the benefit of

the EITC to the public schools, same thing by September 1; the name of the innovative educational program or programs and the total amount of the grants that were made to those

programs; a description of how each of these grants was utilized and description of any

demonstrated or expected innovative educational improvements; the names of the public schools

and school districts where innovative educational programs that receive the grants were

implemented; and the same thing on a county by county basis, the total dollar amount of the

grants that were made to each public school in each of those counties. So, the notion that there is

no reporting on the EITC program whether it relates to the private schools through the scholarship organizations or the public schools through the EIO’s is not correct. The DCED

(Department of Community and Economic Development) and the Department of Revenue do in fact have that information. So I just wanted to point that out because that’s been something that’s come up a couple of times here that, oh, there’s no reporting and it’s all unaccountable and that’s not really the case.

BARBARA SUPINKA: I think I said whether they were properly using public funding, is that what you’re referencing?

REPRESENTATIVE QUIGLEY: What does that mean “properly using the public funding?”

BARBARA SUPINKA: Well I don’t know, that’s what I’m saying, is that reporting what you, and I don’t know because I’m quoting a statistic from our research department, but I’m just saying that I think that’s what you’re questioning in my comments, the proper use of funding. REPRESENTATIVE QUIGLEY: Right.

BARBARA SUPINKA: Okay, and the fact that they report it, is it just a number that they report or, I don’t know how that operationally defines proper I guess.

REPRESENTATIVE QUIGLEY: Right, and I guess proper is in the eye of the beholder—

BARBARA SUPINKA: Exactly, exactly.

REPRESENTATIVE QUIGLEY: Right, but I’m just saying the fact that there are numbers available, dollar amounts, accountability and again, not just to the private or religious schools but the educational improvement organizations which of course are tied to the public schools.

The other thing I wanted to ask, when we talk about the vouchers or the charter schools where parents in these failing school districts will be given the opportunity to get their children out of a failing school, and certainly I agree with the comments from Chairman

Roebuck that the idea of the impact of the societal impacts poverty, crime, failing families for lack of a better term, but it occurs to me that those situations that were described have been with us you know, you could argue almost forever and the unfortunate news is that 30 or 40 years from now it’s still going to be with us. And it seems to me that the opponents of the vouchers or the charter schools are saying that until we can find a way to save everybody we’re not going to let those who want to be saved give the opportunity to go to the charter school or to use a voucher or the Educational Improvement Tax Credit program to get themselves out of that bad situation.

MICHAEL CROSSEY: I don’t believe that that’s what we’re saying. I believe what we’re saying is that in times of scant resources, let’s find the programs that work. We’ve identified several of them, there are several more of them documented in the research that we’ve

given to the committee and I think what we’re saying is let’s use whatever resources we have

and let’s put them in the public schools so that all children can benefit from them rather than

have some students move out of the public school system leave the rest behind, we’re saying

let’s not leave any child behind, let’s make sure that the resources we have are doing the best job

we can do for every child.

REPRESENTATIVE QUIGLEY: So do you think at some point in the future, we’re

never going to have people who fall through the cracks or we’re never going to have people who

are just not going to make it?

MICHAEL CROSSEY: I believe there’s always going to be some that don’t make it but I

think our job is to try to make and to try to reach every child and that’s what I did as a classroom

teacher, that’s what I’ll advocate here now that I’m working in Harrisburg and have the chance

to work more with the legislature, my job is going to try to be how do we try to improve the

public school system where it needs improved and how do we help every child be the best they

can be?

CHAIRMAN CLYMER: The Chair thanks the gentlemen but also observed that in

reporting we think there’s some difficulty in the Philadelphia school system making adequate

reports as well, so it’s widespread, that’s part of the problem as well. But the Chair now calls on

Representative Wheatley for questions.

REPRESENTATIVE WHEATLEY: Thank you, Mr. Chair and to our panelists good

morning. I want to begin by saying I think education is one of the most political and combustible subject matters we happen to deal with on a day-to-day basis and unfortunately we get into a habit of playing a blame game; one side versus the other. I come from both of my life and the place that I represent, a situation that no longer can we tolerate that on any side because too many kids are losing day to day what they need to be to be competitive and in the 21st century and what that means to us from a personal perspective but from a family and communal perspective is we are eliminating tons and tons of potential skills that can propel our country to great things. And so when I hear at least from my perspective, when I engage in this conversation I’m really looking for, what can we do both on the short term basis and a long term basis to provide opportunities, real opportunities for children to succeed and be competitive?

I think there are a little bit of validity on both sides. I heard a little bit about the exchange around data, I will say one thing about data that there is data on both sides that will verify this, that far too many black and brown kids and kids who come from poor neighborhoods tend to not succeed in this system, the current system, whatever it is, it’s kind of like what I said about healthcare. We have a healthcare system, it’s just failing a majority of Americans. We have an educational system, it’s just failing the majority of kids – especially a majority of kids who come out of urban areas. Reasons to me is less important in the sense of what do we do at this point?

How do we help people who are in burning buildings right now, how do we help them? So, with this being said I guess I’m going back to the issue of certification. I can agree that we need certified professionals in front of kids. I think what’s important though is even when we have certified professionals to make sure that they’re quality teachers that they actually are teaching and they have the support to do what they need to do.

You mentioned Pittsburgh’s evaluation, I represent Pittsburgh and know a little bit about the history of Pittsburgh, I will tell you that inside some of our traditional public schools we have what I think are institutionalized case Caste systems where you can have children who are in the same school being taught very differently, some with higher expectations being taught for higher things and some that they have lower expectation being taught basically survival. So, what do we

do? I’m asking you from your perspective, what do we do as policy makers if we wanted to really help those in burning buildings today, what do we do to change that difference? Because

that’s more of a administrative difference and change that primarily is done by contractual relationships for adults, has very little to do with the student, has more to do with the adults. So how do we one: jump past that hurdle? Two: What happens on a long term basis when we do not allow for and I’m not going to say a tracking, but some way to evaluate growth in both positive and negative growth that happens to children in classrooms when they have professionals – be they’re certified professionals or non-certified professionals teaching them? Because it would

seem to me if we’re going to really solve this on a long term basis we need to know what

actually brings value into the classroom both in the instructional sense as well as curriculum

sense, and what does that do over time? So you would seem to me you would need this tracking

system, that’s why I was for PVAAS (Pennsylvania Value-Added Assessment System), I thought

PVAAS was a great step forward and also believe that the next logical step to that is to start to

figure out ways to also figure out who makes or how you make positive impacts in classrooms

and how you track that over time.

So, anyway I’m going to stop there and let you respond to that because I think it’s very

important at least for me, I can’t say for anybody else. For me, it’s not about who’s at fault, to

me it’s about what do we do today to make sure we stop whatever’s happening and provide

opportunities, real opportunities for kids to succeed short term, long term.

BARBARA SUPINKA: Well, I think we’ve gone through a number of what we characterize or our organization characterizes and I know that Mike and PSEA agree in terms of best practices for students and a lot of those are being instituted in the Pittsburgh public schools. I’m a little at a loss only because the challenges we have by the removal of funding cuts some of

those programs, the full day kindergartens, early childhood programs, teachers are laid off, all of

those things impact the day to day operations of the school. And so I guess we look at best practices, we acknowledge the impact primarily and first of the poverty issue again, the schools

aren’t responsible for poverty. The schools and what’s happening in the schools are a byproduct

in a lot of cases of poverty and so, I guess I respond by saying the best practices, putting things in place, involving the community in those discussions at a local level, personally, thinking of schools as community centers that offer a whole range of services to families and students.

REPRESENTATIVE WHEATLEY: And I thank you for your answer, I think what I was looking for is more of what can teachers do and this half of the conversation, and maybe I should have been more clear in my question, because I was always taught your circumstances do not define you, right? So, poverty and the issues of poverty once we get to the school and the classroom doors the teacher and the administrator in that building forget how I came to that building, if I made it to that classroom it’s their responsibility to educate me. Point blank, there’s no other excuse. So, in that building in that classroom, they then become the focal point of how I get educated. So there are questions around our process and how we deliver this service called education. When you have seniority issues which we do this here it’s fine, I came out of household, seniority has its place but seniority can’t be the only determinate of who picks and chooses how they educate or where they educate children, so it has to be something around if I’m

the most needy child and I get into that classroom, shouldn’t I have the best and brightest

professional educating me on the subject matter that is most important? When we talk about

certification there was a school in Pittsburgh that for five years did not have a certified math

instructor in its building and we wonder why that for those five years those children out of that building were the lowest ones in math scores. Well, there are reasons for that. When you have

picking and choosing and pecking orders and that determines who gets what, when and where

and how then that means children who already are behind don’t get what they need when they

get to the classroom. So, I’m asking from a teachers perspective what could you all do right now,

tomorrow to change the reality of some of these kids in this classroom, because the same

question would be asked of us as policy makers, what can we do tomorrow to change the reality

for these kids, meaning from a regulatory perspective.

BARBARA SUPINKA: Well, I’m going to reference years of being involved in the

Pittsburgh public schools, I don’t know if I’ll answer or satisfy with an answer for you but the

contract candidly has always enabled – and I’m going to speak real specifically, we’ve had over

the years in Pittsburgh a Professional Education Partnership committee, we call it out PEP

committee. That PEP committee was a vehicle to deal with some of the things that you’re

referencing, jointly in the labor management. And I’m going back 20 years when Al Fondy was

still around in the Pittsburgh public schools. And so we sat down as a group of representatives

from labor and management and if the school had to be changed or something had to be done or

posting contractual items had to be changed, that committee decided it and agreed upon it and it

was done. So, we for a long time in Pittsburgh had a vehicle and as I said, called PEP. I know

you know that they’ve instituted in Pittsburgh most recently our programs where we’re going to

have senior teachers referencing similar to our days when we had the Teacher's Center, and those

are the teachers that are going to be functioning in some of the schools, the kinds of schools that

are your most needy schools. So, that’s how on a direct level we’ve tried to address, I didn’t

realize you were really referencing contractual kinds of issues, I thought we were talking about best practices. REPRESENTATIVE WHEATLEY: I’m actually, because I know that’s a slippery slope getting into contractual discussions with politicians and with you on the other hand, but what I’m really asking is a broader question and I just really want to make a point that we normally get into this conversation around vouchers, charters, private schools, Catholic schools, so on, choice or whatever but quite frankly, they’re all there’s probably in this universe if we’re going to get a system together that’s trying to get the most and to make sure as many succeed as possible you’re probably going to have some mixture of all of those things going into this pot. And instead of demonizing the concept, let’s focus the energy and the attention on how do we get the resources – because I do believe you need resources to make this work, how do you get the resources matched with the ability for parents and students, because not all students learn the same and at the same speed so some might need a different setting, a different environment, how do you put the mix together that allows for no matter where you are, no matter where you come from that you have the greatest opportunities for success, and success meaning to be educated and competitive in a 21st century environment. Sometimes that might mean allowing some children some ability, financial ability, to take their public tax money and choose to go somewhere else. Sometimes that might be the best situation for them. Sometimes that might mean a drastic change in how we deliver what we traditionally see as public schools, meaning to allow for innovative creations like charter schools to grow and flourish because I would say that our charter school law is really meant not for the rest of the Commonwealth but is meant for

Philadelphia, because if you look at where the majority of charter schools, they’re in

Philadelphia. They’re not in other parts of the State, and it’s been a consistent pattern of blocking them from growing in other parts of the State, but neither here nor there. They’re going to be a mixture and in that mixture we all can’t be landlocked in our philosophies and protecting our territories. You all have to do what you have to do, you are a union and you protect your members. As policy makers, I think we have to be a little less stringent in our philosophy and a little more open to how can we develop a system that allows for every child, regardless of where they come from, to have the highest and best opportunity to succeed? And that, in my opinion, will probably be some mixture of all these things and then some more creative things that we haven’t thought about or talked about that we will need to really deliver that service. So that’s really where I was getting at that I’m hoping that as we move on this conversation, you all and others from the right or left won’t be so strident in that it has to be done this way and that’s the only way it can be done but we will be open to all types of creative ideas around delivering this thing we call education in the Commonwealth. So thank you.

CHAIRMAN CLYMER: The Chair thanks the gentlemen and recognizes Representative

Tallman for questions.

REPRESENTATIVE TALLMAN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you folks for being here. Just to give a little bit of my background, I served two terms on a school board here in the

State of Pennsylvania and my last two years as its president, my wife is certified secondary math, taught for several years and is no longer doing that but she’s maintaining her certification so she’s doing the con ed requirements there.

My first question is I guess to Mr. Crossey, because as we were moving through the budget process we received hundreds of e-mails from members of your organization and the e- mails are canned, canned e-mails and they all said the same thing, please maintain fair, equitable, and adequate funding. And so, I had the unique ability to have the address from where that person, not where they taught, but the address, and so I would send my response back saying and

I’m going to use Hanover School District if they lived in the Hanover School District, Hanover got last year, not last year but the year prior PDE drags getting information to us for some

reason, $1,402 per student, ADM (Average Daily Membership) and Philadelphia gets over

$6,500 do you consider that fair and equitable and adequate for the students and taxpayers of

Hanover School District?

MICHAEL CROSSEY: I would think that you know, what we were pushing for is the continuation of the costing out study and the costing out study was based on a formula that said that based on the wealth in the district and the ability to pay and the tax effort in the district how

much money should go to each school district per ADM, other than that I’m certainly not an

expert in school finance other than the fact that we were following a formula that was instituted

by the State Legislature to say that this is what adequate and equitable funding is. Specific school

district funding I've got to say I couldn’t talk specifics in any particular school district.

REPRESENTATIVE TALLMAN: Have you looked at the current basic ed funding

formula?

MICHAEL CROSSEY: The costing out study? The formula was followed this year.

REPRESENTATIVE TALLMAN: The current basic ed funding formula for last year and

the prior years after that was driven by the costing out formula – allegedly.

MICHAEL CROSSEY: Yes

REPRESENTATIVE TALLMAN: Well, I’m going to ask a simple question here, student

population, part of that funding formula we take a quantity and we do some simple math, or addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and then we take the natural log of that derived

number and if it’s less than or equal to one, you will not get any increase in funding based on

school population. Do you understand logs?

MICHAEL CROSSEY: No. REPRESENTATIVE TALLMAN: Well, I ask school boards that same question when I have the opportunity to meet with them, the school funding formula is not adequate for school districts. It’s not equitable and it is not fair. That costing out study had those very terms in it, that’s what the General Assembly did. PDE one block over developed a formula and it was hijacked, that formula was hijacked to favor certain parts of the State, and so we do not have fair equitable funding in this State, especially for those of us that live in the south central triangle of the State that the funding formula is not adequate.

So, let me as you a further question because teacher pay is somewhat of an issue. Would you say that, would your two organizations be interested in being a market driven pay scale and

I’m secondary English, let’s say, and another person has their secondary chemistry certifications

I know how you guys work, you’re on steps. Would you say that if I’m going to offer a job to a secondary English person coming out of college, freshman so we don’t have the step issue; we’re going to start step one would you say that starting pay for those two should be equal?

MICHAEL CROSSEY: Yes.

REPRESENTATIVE TALLMAN: So you are not in favor of a market driven—

MICHAEL CROSSEY: No.

REPRESENTATIVE TALLMAN: Well I’m going to just relate a story, when I finished college my good buddy I went through high school with came out with a secondary chemistry, worked a couple of years and now we’re in our early 70's I’m dating myself and in public education did not find that to be his career of choosing and then went off and got approximately a $10,000 pay raise working for National Lead working in St. Louis so and John Newtson was a good chemist and so education lost because we didn’t base the pay on the market place. So you both would say you don’t want to do that? BARBARA SUPINKA: Well, I guess I understand what you’re asking in terms of an

English teacher and a chemistry teacher. Would we start the chemistry teacher at a higher step on

the salary schedule because we need a chemistry teacher? Is that basically what you’re saying?

REPRESENTATIVE TALLMAN: Well, I’m looking more market driven, but yes.

BARBARA SUPINKA: Well, but market driven the way I’m interpreting that being an

educator is that we have a number of English applicants but we have an opening in chemistry

and we have a priority because we don’t have any chemistry applicants, and I guess whether all

in all, that decision can be made in my opinion at the local level through a collective bargaining

process. If there’s some reason that there’s an area that is in severe shortage or whatever to entice

a candidate, I think those decisions can be collectively bargained at the local level through

contractual process. I hope I’m answering your question.

REPRESENTATIVE TALLMAN: Well that follow-up question, and your organization

would be in favor of allowing a school district to do that?

MICHAEL CROSSEY: We do it now.

BARBARA SUPINKA: Yeah, we, but again whether we’re in favor of it, the decision is

made at the local level with the local union, school district union and the local school board

who’s ever bargaining for them. So it’s the local.

MICHAEL CROSSEY: Right, and we do that now, we do that now, I mean the school district has the ability to put somebody at a higher step so if you know, if they, I mean my school district did that. They had, it was an English teacher and they wanted to, she had won some awards and stuff and they wanted to bring her into our school district to teach and they didn’t start her off at step one, they started her off at I believe it was step 10 and my school district did that and we were fully supportive of that and said that’s the school district’s decision when they

hire somebody where to place them on the salary scale that’s been collectively bargained.

REPRESENTATIVE TALLMAN: Just, Mr. O'Brien brought up the certification issue, I

find it interesting, I've worked with youth all of my life. I'm not a certified teacher. I find it

interesting that Mr. Truitt and I cannot teach math in the local schools. My wife went to school

when our youngest was in sixth grade, she was able to maintain a college schedule at that point

in time. We had a non-traditional college student, so we got to know the professors a little better and I used to tell some of her professors, I would have conversations with them, this was while I was on the school board, and I would say, you know, you're not allowed to teach in the public schools, yet these people are teaching the teachers. Do you find that interesting? Including pedagogy. The guys that are teaching the teaching. The professors that are teaching the teaching courses. Do you find that interesting that they're not allowed to teach?

MICHAEL CROSSEY: Because somebody can teach somebody at an adult level doesn't necessarily mean that they could teach a young child. I could tell you that I spend my entire

career teaching in middle school and high school, I spent one year, actually one semester

teaching in an elementary school, and I was very uncomfortable. I thought I did a better job with

the high school students that I was trained to teach. Because somebody is a college professor doesn't mean that they can be an elementary school teacher. It's not just about the content, it's about the ability to transfer the information, the ability to reach the student that is important, as important, I believe, as knowing the content inside and out, which is the reason Representative

Truitt when he asked the question about a college professor, Albert Einstein. Brilliant person.

But that doesn't mean that he can teach school. There is a difference. I taught government and civics for awhile. I don't believe I could do your job. BARBARA SUPINKA: May I just make a comment? There are programs specifically structured if you want to teach. You would be partnered and in the guidance of a certified teacher and it's often times accelerated, not maybe accelerated to a 2 week period like a number of years ago when they tried to do an alternate certification path for somebody to be able to be certified to be a teacher in 2 weeks, but there are programs available to mentor and work with folks who are clearly talented, clearly have credentials but don't have the certification. The certification is in the law. It's the requirement of the Commonwealth. The only other, just real quick, since Albert

Einstein's name came up twice, he was an AFT member. I just wanted you to know that.

REPRESENTATIVE TALLMAN: That's a good point, by the way.

BARBARA SUPINKA: It's true.

REPRESENTATIVE TALLMAN: My last question, here. We have 14 academically challenged school districts. We have test data from 2004-2009. The State of Pennsylvania, this is in addition to their already funding that they get from the State, has poured multiple millions of dollars into these school districts with no increase in academic performance. My question to you two would be, what level of funding increase do you feel in the distressed, academically distressed school districts, do you feel would be the silver bullet to drive?

BARBARA SUPINKA: I don't have a silver bullet number to give you.

REPRESENTATIVE TALLMAN: But would you say even more increased funding?

BARBARA SUPINKA: I said from our perspective and I'm sure we both said the same thing about best practices, the kinds of things that need to be put into place, so if those things require costs, than that would increase the funding. If they don't, then they can be put in in other ways or by putting local partners together, community involvement in coming up with solutions and they didn't cost more money, then no. But I don't have the number, and are you really asking

for a number?

REPRESENTATIVE TALLMAN: Or a percent.

BARBARA SUPINKA: I don't have, I don't have that.

MICHAEL CROSSEY: I don't think there is a number. I don't think there is a number

because it's got to be individualized for that school district. What does that school district need,

what does that school building need? As Representative Longietti said when he talked about the

tutoring program, if you look at that school district and decide it needs that tutoring program, then those resources should be made available to that school district. I believe, if I go back to

Representative Wheatley's original comment, what would we do today? One of the things I

would ask you today is put that tutoring program back into place. It made a difference every

school district it was in. That is one thing that I would sit there and say, let's not reform the

whole world here, let's say one program, that program works. We know it works. Target it to the

struggling school districts, yes, that's going to cost some more resources. But it's a program that

we all know works.

So if we're really interested in doing what works, let's put that program in place first. And

then let's talk about what else works. One of the things— And everything doesn't cost money.

Some programs do. You have to have the resources to do the job. But a program that doesn’t

work is looking at a school district and a school building and saying, how do we maximize instructional time?

I'll give you a very quick example of one of the things that we did in my school district.

One of the things we saw was that we had a certain percentage of our students who were constantly going off to the magistrate's office. We've all got them, we've all got a handful of students that end up in the magistrate's office more than they should. Every time they left our

building to go to the magistrate's office they were gone for a full day. We sat down and had a

conversation with the district magistrate and he said, let's change this. So we worked out a

system where the magistrate came to the high school, which is where most of our students were

having the most problem. Our middle school and high school was combined. He came to the, and

instead of a student losing a full day of instruction when they had to visit the magistrate's office,

they lost one period. We would have one of our support professionals working down with the

magistrate and they would watch the roll call of which student was up next and 15 minutes

before the child was supposed to appear before the magistrate she would come up and get them out of class, bring them down to the magistrate's office, they would have their hearing and if a child said, well, I'm doing better in such and such the magistrate might say okay, great.

Sometimes I would have a child, because many of my students were involved in the juvenile justice system, I would have a child come up and say, Magistrate Larotunda wants a note from you. I would sit down and write a note and he's doing this, he did his homework last week, he missed this, and we worked very well. But it maximized instructional time. There is another example of something that can be done that doesn't cost money.

Everything doesn't cost money, but I don't think you can, I don't think there's a blank check, I don't think there is a silver bullet.

REPRESENTATIVE TALLMAN: By the way, I compliment you on that, on what you did there.

Just real quick—

CHAIRMAN CLYMER: This has to be the last question, because we are way behind in our scheduling and I want to move forward. Will, if you can ask one quick question, please. REPRESENTATIVE TALLMAN: I'm not going to ask a question, I'm going to make a

comment. One comment. The Pennsylvania League of Urban Schools were here two weeks ago.

I asked that question and they have gotten hundreds of millions of dollars to improve their

academics, and she said they would need a couple hundred million more, and I disagree with

that. Thank you.

CHAIRMAN CLYMER: Thank you.

The Chair thanks our testifiers today, they've been very informative, very helpful, thank

you for your honest answers and we look forward to using your testimony as we proceed on

these very important issues. Thank you for being with us this morning.

MICHAEL CROSSEY: Thank you for your time.

BARBARA SUPINKA: Thank you for the opportunity.

CHAIRMAN CLYMER: The Chair now recognizes Dr. Joanne Barnett of the

Pennsylvania Virtual Charter School. Dr. Joanne Barnett, if you are with us today. Dr. Barnett, I

see you have a gentleman with you, could you introduce the person who is with you this

morning.

DR. BARNETT: Kevin McKenna, it is legal counsel for our school.

CHAIRMAN CLYMER: Kevin, what is your last name again?

KEVIN McKENNA: McKenna. M-C-K-E-N-N-A.

CHAIRMAN CLYMER: Thank you very much.

KEVIN McKENNA: You are quite welcome, Representative.

CHAIRMAN CLYMER: Well, I apologize for the delay but I think we needed that discussion this morning from these two individuals. We are looking forward to yours as well, so you may begin as it is convenient. DR. BARNETT: Good morning Chairman Clymer and Chairman Roebuck, and members

of the Education Committee, members of the legislature, and other members in the audience. My name is Joanne Jones Barnett, I am the Chief Executive Officer of the Pennsylvania Virtual

Charter School. I have served as the CEO of PA Virtual for the past 7 years. My tenure began at

this school in 2003 with the responsibility of developing the middle school program. In 2004, I

was appointed the CEO. Our school community is comprised of 3400 students, our Board of

Trustees, 243 dedicated staff, 2800 parent partners and dedicated staff that works with us. This

past year, our school had the honor of celebrating 10 years of partnership, innovation, and

excellence in public education. While I sit here representing Pennsylvania Virtual Charter

School, the accomplishments of our school are not unique, they are found by my colleagues, some of whom are in the audience today and the other cyber schools that are in this State.

What I'd like to do today is not read word for word my testimony, but give you some highlights and then open the floor for questions. I’m sure you may have many of them.

When my sojourn began in the charter school arena in 2003, I found myself bombarded with a lot of myths and constantly found myself in the situation where I had to dispel those myths. I have sat before various education committees of the House and the Senate on numerous occasions, as have many of my colleagues. We seem to continue to give the same information, and yet the myths prevail. So today, here I am 8 years later with the task of once again providing the facts that I hope will refute many of those myths.

Every time we get together and we think in the charter school community that we are making headway in dispelling the myths, another piece of proposed legislation like HB 1657 reminds us that the myth still exists. Before I get into talking about the myths that we see in HB

1657, let me just correct a myth that I heard a little while ago. There seems to be this prevailing notion that charter schools don't have certified teachers, or we have a preponderance of

uncertified teachers. Let me be very clear. First of all, the law stipulates that 75 percent of our

staff – that is State law – stipulates that 75 percent of our staff must be certified. But, everybody should know, and hopefully we can jot this down, that HQT (highly qualified teacher) and

NCLB (No Child Left Behind) has upped the ante. Now 100 percent of our staff needs to be certified in their content areas. So when you hear the notion that we have uncertified staff

teaching students in charter schools, that is not the case. I am pleased to report that the

Pennsylvania Virtual Charter School has 100 percent certified staff in all content areas.

Let me say at the outset, I want to applaud and I support Representative Roebuck's

recognition that charter schools and cyber charter schools should be treated like the public

schools that they are. I applaud his attempt in the bill to do that. I agree with him 100 percent in

his belief. However, in my testimony this morning I will show that the proposed actions in HB

1657 appear to be based on many of the prevailing myths. Consequently, though unintentionally,

the bill does not treat charter schools and cyber charter schools as the public schools that they

are.

In a press conference to introduce the bill, Representative Roebuck described the purpose

of the bill in this way: "This comprehensive bill would improve oversight and accountability for

charter public schools – both traditional and cyber – and relieve school districts of $187 million

in mandated costs for cyber charter schools by having the State fund those costs. This is a more

fair way to fund these schools than increased reliance on local property taxes." Although HB

1657 refers to traditional charter and cyber schools as public schools, as my testimony will show

this morning, its proposed model to fund specifically cyber charter schools moves them from the

realm of being a public school to some other unknown classification of school. My purpose is to address three of the tenets in HB 1657, specifically accountability; the

renewal of charter tied to student performance; and the funding of cyber charter schools as being

funded by the State. My goal is to help to dispel the myths and to show why the action would not be in line with how public schools are treated in the Commonwealth.

Let me begin with the myth that there is not any accountability or there is a need for increased accountability for charter school public schools, both traditional and cyber. The myth runs rampant about accountability. When I thought about it, the myth probably stems from a misinterpretation of the stated purpose of charter schools in general, and cyber charter schools in particular when the U.S. Department of Education Web site and also on the PDE Web site. When you look at both of those Web sites, it has this notion of, and I'll quote, "…the freedom from

many of the regulations that apply to traditional public schools." That language has probably led

to the misnomer that charter schools and cyber charter schools are renegade places that do what

they please. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, a closer reading of both the USDOE

and PDE definitions reveal that freedom, the freedom these definitions refer to is really a

freedom from the red tape and bureaucratic gymnastics that often tie the hands and hamper

change and innovation in many traditional public schools and districts. Neither USDOE nor the

PDE definition postulate a position that charters and cyber charters are free from accountability.

In fact, if you continue reading the USDOE and PDE descriptions, the requirements for charter

schools, they both spell out very specific measures of accountability for all charters.

The USDOE and PDE definitions point out that the accountability for charters and cyber

charters begins with the charter application. There is a call for a standard application in HB 1657,

there already exists a very rigorous standard application in the charter school and cyber charter

school application process. In fact, in the case of cyber charter schools, the application guidelines state: Successful applicants will be knowledgeable in the implementation of all federal and state

requirements that are applicable to cyber charter schools. Successful applications will include all

of the following information per sections 1719-A and 1747-A of the Charter School Law, and

describe how the school will meet the requirements of section 1743-A(c) and (d), the provisions

regarding the dissemination of information to parents and school district, and section 1748-A, the

provisions requiring the notification of enrollment and withdrawal from a cyber charter school."

When you look at those application guidelines, every single aspect of that charter school from

who the board members will be, how the school will be structured, how they will do enrollment,

how they will assess students, what will be the curriculum, how they are going to account for

their money, who are going to be the chief people in the school, how they will interact with their

parents, all of those things must be spelled out in the current charter school applications. Those

are the applications for both cyber charter schools and traditional charter schools.

HB 1657 calls for a revised application procedure for the creation of a charter school or a cyber charter school by requiring the newly formed office of charter and cyber charter schools to create a standardized application to be used by all applicants throughout the State. The application form will also be expanded to capture more information about the charter school's proposed organization structure, standards for performance, and curriculum. These items already exist in the current application. Therefore, once again, there is a myth that needs to be rectified.

The current applications already capture a plethora of detailed information about the charter school's proposed organization structure, standards for performance, and curriculum. The charter school application is rigid and chocked full of accountability in both the process and the formal application. It is important to note that charter schools and cyber charter schools do not approve their

own applications. In the case of brick and mortar charter schools, their applications are reviewed

and approved or denied by the local district in which that charter school will reside. In the case

of cyber charter schools, the application for a charter is reviewed and approved or denied by

PDE. The approval of the charter application and the subsequent granting of the charter indicate

that the application has met the accountability parameters as stipulated by law. The stipulations

then become the future accountability measures by which the charter or cyber charter school

should be evaluated. So once we submit our charter application and it's approved, we can't wake up in the morning and just decide we want to do it another way. That is considered a material

violation, and I'm going to talk about another type of accountability in just a second. This notion

that charter schools are just willy nilly places where the chief operators and the boards do what they want to do is a misnomer.

Are there places where people don't necessarily follow their charter? Absolutely. Just like there are districts where people don't do what they are supposed to do. The Representative said earlier, what do you do? Do you take one sweep because of what one person does you cast them all in that venue? More importantly, for charter schools and cyber charter schools, what we don't

necessarily have in traditional districts, there are those people who authorize us. We can lose our

charters. Our charters can be revoked. So the question becomes, if the charter school application

isn't what it's supposed to be, the problem is not with the charter school that was approved, the

question needs to be asked of the people who approve the charter why did you approve the

charter in the first place? So, that accountability has to be with the people who have the oversight

of the charter schools as well. The problem can only be corrected when those entities who have responsibility for approving charters read the application guidelines and then use them as the measurement for whether or not the charter should be approved.

Accountability for charter schools and cyber charter schools does not end with the granting of the charter. Charter schools and cyber charter schools exist in a never-ending world of constant accountability. They are required to file the same accountability reports that districts are required to file, reports such as PIMS (Pennsylvania Information Management System), Act

48 reporting, E-strategic plan, Professional Development Plan, School Improvement Plan,

Staffing Report, to just name a few. Additionally, cyber charter schools and charter schools are required to file an annual report every August. As the outline of the annual report shows, the annual report provides the authorizing body – the local district or PDE – with the activities of the charter school and how the charter school has fulfilled the requirements of its charter for the year that the report covers. Again, if a school is not adhering to or fulfilling the stipulations of its charter, the question remains as to why don't the school districts and PDE pick up on those inconsistencies when the annual reports are file? I would take an aside to say that would mean removing the reports from the shelves and reading what is in them.

In addition to annual reports, charter public schools undergo numerous site visits in the form of audits from the Auditor General as PASSCAR visits. These visits include a thorough review of all programmatic, operational, and fiscal components of the school. Not only do charter public schools have programmatic and operational accountability, they also have fiscal accountability. We are required to submit all of the fiscal forms. I refer you to a testimony given by a colleague of mine, Jose Parrilla in 2007 in which he gave a detailed list of all of the fiscal accountability. Contrary to the impression given in HB 1657, there is monumentous accountability for

cyber and charter schools. Most schools are compliant. Consequently, the question remains as to

why the myth of no or lax accountability for public charter schools still exists.

Let's turn our attention to another prevailing myth contained in HB 1657. HB 1657 says its goal is to improve academic accountability of cyber and charter schools by basing renewal on these schools' charters on their students meeting academic performance requirements that our public schools must meet. I take it that academic performance should be understood to mean

Adequate Yearly Progress performance targets under NCLB. In the case of cyber charter schools in particular, if we were measured by the same performance stance or same measurements as other LEA's (Local Education Agencies) – school districts – many of us, many of my colleagues who are sitting here today would have met the performance targets and made AYP. Let me explain what I mean by using the example of PA Virtual. During the past 6 years, PA Virtual has made AYP for 3 years and missed it for 3 years. This year, PA Virtual with over 2800 students taking the PSSA made 27 out of 29 targets, but did not make AYP. We have met the State targets every single year, and yet, in some years, not made AYP. If you are looking at data, that would make you want to say, hmmm, what's the story behind these numbers? However, if PA Virtual were measured by the same performance measurements that are used to calculate the AYP of school districts in the Commonwealth, my school would have made AYP for every year for the past 6 years. All school districts in the Commonwealth have to do is to make AYP is to make it in a particular grade.

District calculation of AYP uses all of the individual student data from the district, not school level results, and organizes them into three distinct grade spans. By contrast, PA indicators are based on all tested grades in the school. That means that my school has to make all the targets with 2800 students taking the test where a district only has to make the targets reached in one particular grade span, and the district is listed as making AYP. That is why for

2009-2010 273 districts in the Commonwealth made AYP. A number of them had lower scores

and lower performance targets than my school when we don't.

Conversely, for PA Virtual and other cyber charter schools, the policy stipulates that a

charter school must make all targets in order to make AYP. What is interesting is that PA Virtual

has an enrollment larger than 60 percent of the school districts in the State. Organizationally, the

school is set-up much like and operates like a district. We have PA – and I repeat, PA certified

principals and PA certified assistant principals for our elementary, intermediate, middle school,

and high school programs. When we didn't make AYP this year after making 27 out of 29

targets, we decided, the board and I, that we have had enough and we filed an AYP appeal on the

basis that our scores would be calculated as a district and that that appeal would give us the

opportunity to really have the record show the level of student achievement that we have done.

We have closed the gaps, but looking at just the data you don't see that, because the playing field

is not level.

For the purposes of special education, PA Virtual is considered an LEA. For all federal

programs such as Title I, PA Virtual is considered an LEA. But when it comes to PSSA, the

State assessment for a federal mandate under NCLB, my school is not evaluated like other

LEA's, it is evaluated like a school. This is why cyber charter schools in Pennsylvania

consistently have met, and this is as a whole, 80 – 90 percent of performance targets, and yet

they have not made AYP. This is why many cyber charter schools have met or exceeded the

Statewide performance levels and still have not made AYP. The playing field is not level. Cyber

charter schools are held to a higher standard than school districts in the State. Let me give you an example. In our case, for Montgomery County where PA Virtual's administrative offices are located, several of the school districts in this county made AYP, but the individual schools within the districts did not make AYP individually. For instance,

Perkiomen Valley School District made AYP, but the district's only high school, Perkiomen

Valley High School, did not and is in warning status.

Allegheny County; McKeesport District made AYP despite Centennial School, Cornell

Middle School, and McKeesport High School not making AYP. Carbon-Lehigh County;

Parkland School District made AYP despite its only high school, Parkland High School, not making AYP. And the instances go on and on and on and on. There are a few instances, even in small school districts, of multi-level grade spans where this occurs. This represents a disparate impact on multi-level schools compared to school districts.

Before charter renewal is tied to student performance, the inequity in the playing field must be ratified. I am confident if it is the public will be surprised at how many students are performing in cyber charter schools and how well cyber charter schools are closing the achievement gap.

The final myth that I want to address today is the funding myth. Plainly put, HB 1657 calls for what are inequitable revisions in funding that if enacted would put cyber charter schools out of business. First, if cyber charter schools are public schools, then they should be funded like other public schools in the Commonwealth. The way schools are funded is with the funds from local municipalities and the Basic Education Subsidy. If that model of funding is going to change for cyber charter schools, then it must change for all public schools in the State. The only way this would be equitable is if the local municipalities did not receive the Basic Education Subsidy for the children enrolled in the cyber charter schools. I don't think that is what the municipalities have in mind. HB 1657 is not clear as to whether or not this would occur.

HB 1657 makes the point that we have all known, public K-12 education, the funding of public K-12 education in Pennsylvania is in need of an overhaul. A system where there is a tremendous disparity in funding from district to district and the education a student receives is contingent upon the school district in which a student resides should be and must be fixed. The current system not only impacts the cyber charter school, the current system negatively impacts small school districts, rural school districts, and districts with a declining tax base, but making the State responsible for funding cyber charter schools is not going to fix the funding problems.

The question that HB 1657 raises is how will the State be able to fund cyber charter schools when its funding was cut and the surplus will probably be needed to make up the short fall? A similar question is even if the State has a surplus to fund cyber charter schools, what happens to cyber charter schools when the surplus is used up? If the State does not have the money to fund cyber charter schools, will cyber charter school students be forced to go back to their local districts?

HB 1657 makes the point that the State, the Office of Cyber Schools and Cyber Charter

Schools will determine the amount each charter school needs. The question arises, what will be the determining factors, how will it be determined the amount that these schools should receive?

Finally, there is the myth that cyber charter schools more money than they need. This is not the case. I know that recently there have been a number of districts that have started their own cyber programs, one was on the front page of the newspaper in Norristown, the Brandywine

Academy by North Penn School District. They touted in the article proudly we are going to educate these students for $4800 or $4500. I sat there and I thought about what they were saying. I called up where they are getting their materials from, which happens to be the Chester County

IU (Intermediate Unit) and the $4500 gets you a computer, it gets you online equipment, it gets

you your materials. What they don't tell you in that cost is that the $4500 will not get you mandated Chapter 12 student support services, i.e. guidance counselors, testing, pupil help, student assistance programs that cyber charter schools, which may be not known in this environment, are required by law to provide.

So I did a little bit of mathematics, and I went to my CFO and said tell me, how much do we spend for a computer and how much do we spend for materials and how much do we spend for online school? He looked at me and he said, about $4000. I said, okay, and then we started doing some more math. And then we add the cost of teachers to that. And then we added the cost to support staff to that. And when we finished we were much up around the same number that it was in the costing out study. I remind the committee that it does not cost the same thing to educate every child. If the base cost is around $9500 to $9800, the greater the gaps a student has, the more it costs us to educate the student to close those gaps. Cyber charter schools don't get any pass on any of those mandates.

While the intent of HB 1657 might be to treat charter schools and charter public schools – traditional – and cyber as the public schools they are, the bill misses the mark. Instead, in fiscal and accountability reform, it perpetuates many of the prevailing myths and once again relegates charter schools to something less and something other than public schools.

I thank the committee for the opportunity, and will entertain your questions now.

CHAIRMAN CLYMER: Thank you, Dr. Barnett. I just have two questions. The first question is, what attracts a student to the cyber charter school program? DR. BARNETT: That is a wonderful question. The answer to that question is that there

are a variety of reasons, and I'll give you the major ones. It could be school safety, but that is not

the case for all students. We recently did a study of our families and determined that the majority

of our families who are in our school, the parents want to be actively engaged in their children's

education. This provides them the opportunity to partner with a certified teacher and have a voice

in what their children are doing. In some cases it may be that the traditional model, because it is seat time and place contingent, doesn't allow the child to move at his or her pace. So if the instruction needs to be slowed down for a child in a traditional setting that is sometimes difficult to do. If the child has grasped it and needs to move ahead, the cyber model where we are tailor-

making the instruction for that child allows that to occur.

CHAIRMAN CLYMER: My second and final question is that one of the things the

committee has heard from time immemorial is that cyber charter schools, when they accept

special ed students, that that is a windfall for the cyber charter schools, that the dollars they get are far in excess, I should say far, but in excess of the dollars really needed and required to educate a special ed student. Your thoughts?

DR. BARNETT: I am so glad that you asked that question, and I anticipated that the committee would ask the question and welcome the opportunity to respond to it.

Let's start with the first part of when we accept a student who has an IEP. As a cyber charter school, we are required to deliver all of the related services for that child. When I look at our budget, we end up spending more for our students with an IEP than we receive because if I have a student that happens to be in the upper edge of the State in Erie and that student needs a certain type of related service and the Erie School District can't do it or won't do it, whatever the situation might be, the law says, both the federal law and State law, we are still required to get a provider or get that child to a provider and pay for those services. When we look at the number

of students that go into alternate placement, and that is something we are facing now, where

people are coming to our model and the model may not be the appropriate model, but we're a

public school. We want to help them. We accept them. They take us to due process, we have to

put them in an alternate placement that may be anywhere from $60,000 - $150,000 a year for a

student, just like a traditional district, but we're not getting any more money for that. If you were

to study what we get in costs and what we spend in providing services to meet the mandates of

the IEP of our students, there is not this perceived mythical windfall that everybody thinks is left

over.

CHAIRMAN CLYMER: Thank you. The Chair recognizes Chairman Roebuck for

questions.

CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wanted to go into the part of your

testimony that you related to the process of applying to become a charter or cyber charter, and

you noted that it was a very rigid process chock full of accountability. If a group wants to form a

charter school and they go to a local district, make their application, all the accountability and the local district says no, what happens?

DR. BARNETT: They can appeal.

CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: They appeal to who?

DR. BARNETT: They appeal to, if I'm not mistaken, the appeal board, but Kevin is here.

KEVIN McKENNA: That is correct. It would be the Charter School Appeal Board,

Representative Roebuck.

CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: At what levels? Is that State?

KEVIN McKENNA: That is State. CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: Department of Education, is that right?

KEVIN McKENNA: The Secretary—

CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: Pennsylvania Department of Education.

KEVIN McKENNA: He chairs it, but there are appointments by the legislature to that appeals board.

CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: But it's the State Department of Education to which they appeal, am I right?

KEVIN McKENNA: It's chaired by the Secretary of Education. Appointees by the legislature.

CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: Fine. Okay, fine. If you are a cyber charter, a local district has the right to deny you to offer your services to a student in their district?

DR. BARNETT: No.

CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: Where does the authority to offer that service come from?

DR. BARNETT: That would come from the Pennsylvania Department of Education, because the Department is our authorizer. We report to the Department.

CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: So in both cases the Department of Education ultimately has the trump card, they can ultimately create a charter even over the veto of a local district, and they authorize cyber charters. When you say, then, that a charter can be revoked and that if they aren't working you have to go to the source of the problem, is that not then in many cases the

Department of Education which authorized and which creates the charter? I guess what I'm asking, you're saying you object to 1657 because it puts more authority, the responsibility, at the level of the Department of Education. Yet the Department of Education in the case of cybers is the one who approved you and also in the case of local districts can override a local district to approve a charter.

DR. BARNETT: And, Representative, maybe I missed this in the bill, but what I kept looking for in the bill is how is this different from what we already have in place? When we apply, and I'm going to speak specifically now for cyber charter schools because I'm very familiar with that process, when you submit your application you submit it to the office, the person who does charter schools in the Department of Education. If they say no, then you appeal to the Appeal Board, and I think what Mr. McKenna was referring to is that the appeal board is not just made up of people from the Department. In the case – and I will say this in the case of the local, the traditional charter school, the local board could come and make their case to the

Appeal Board as well. So when that appeal process is going on.

CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: But ultimately it would be the authorizing authority, the one who ultimately makes the final determination is the Pennsylvania Department of Education.

DR. BARNETT: I would say yes.

CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: I guess then the question is that I have, why then should not as in 1657, the Department of Education with cybers, over which local districts have no control, why should they not then have direct responsibility not only for creating them, but also for funding them?

DR. BARNETT: Because, that is a very interesting question, because if we're going to be a public school then why aren't we funded in the whole realm of other public schools?

CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: But what other public school do you know of where the

Department of Education can reach down into a local district and tell that local district you have to create a school in that district? DR. BARNETT: They don't create a school in the districts, what they say is that students

out of that district have the opportunity to attend this particular school.

CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: Could they do that, say, take a kid in Philadelphia wants to go

to school in Montgomery County, and say you have the right to go to Montgomery County, if

Montgomery County doesn't want you to go there—

DR. BARNETT: The law isn't set up that way, but if the law is changed, it could.

CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: Okay. Then, let me go back then, this is about your affirmation that charters are in fact public schools. Should not then, would you then, if you had a case as eluded to by one of my colleagues earlier where you have charter school kids who misbehave, engage criminal activities, get expelled, would you then favor that they not be allowed to go to another public school? Should there not be some level at the charter school level that deals with disciplinary problems and not just gives them back to someone else to deal with?

DR. BARNETT: I'm going to defer and then answer. I'm going to defer.

KEVIN McKENNA: Representative, I'm glad that Representative O'Brien came back. As

I understood your question, maybe it was misinterpreted by the prior testifiers, but as to the

mastery situation, school discipline in part is based on where the offense would occur. If it was

in school, there would be no question, or on school property, or at the bus stop. The farther you

go away from the school, the tougher it is to prosecute a child for discipline actions related to the

school.

Second point, and let's clear this additional myth. If you're expelled from a charter school

in the State of Pennsylvania, you cannot, I repeat cannot go to any other public school in the

State. If you are expelled from a district school, which is also a public school in the

Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, you can't go around and go to another district or another charter school. So whether these districts are not reading the law correctly or applying it I don't

know, but I just thought that that was amazing that those representatives sat here and said that a child could be expelled from Fox Chapel and then turn around and go to Pittsburgh Public

Schools. That's not supposed to happen. My clients, we don't allow that to happen, because the way it works under the Administrative Code and the statute, once a child is expelled, the parents are responsible for the first 30 days. If they can't provide for an education, then it's the responsibility of either the charter school or the district from which those children were expelled to provide an alternative education.

CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: So it is the responsibility of the district from which they were expelled to provide for the education?

KEVIN McKENNA: It's either the district's responsibility if they're in a district setting, or it's the charter school's responsibility if they're in a charter school.

CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: Let's then, if you take it away from just the criminal activity,

what about academic performance? You don't do well in the charter school and you're told you

have to leave, where do you go back to?

KEVIN McKENNA: That would against the law.

DR. BARNETT: Yeah, that's illegal.

KEVIN McKENNA: Just like it would be illegal if it was in a district. I think there's a lot

of misconceptions that the School Code only applies for some and not for others.

CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: I guess maybe it's a misconception, because I know that in

charter schools that is exactly what happens, because kids who don't perform well are told or

discouraged from attending the charter school. That's not revolutionary, that's— KEVIN McKENNA: That goes back to your earlier point, that's illegal, and either the district, and you were talking about the Department being the authorizer ultimately, but if it's

Philadelphia or Pittsburgh, if they're authorizing charters and then not enforcing or making sure and monitoring that the charter schools are following the law, then that's in part bad on the district but also bad on the charter schools.

CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: I certainly will look into that, because certainly there is a pattern of exactly that kind of activity, and I'm a little surprised.

KEVIN McKENNA: We agree with you, the coalition would not condone that all, and neither would my client sitting to the right or some of my other clients in the room, that's absolutely against the law.

CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: Thank you.

CHAIRMAN CLYMER: The Chair recognizes Representative Tallman for questions. He waives off. Representative Roae for questions.

REPRESENTATIVE ROAE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You had mentioned in your testimony, and this was brought up last week, too, at the hearing, that there's different standards for calculating Adequate Yearly Progress between cyber charter schools and regular schools, and

I think you said in your testimony if I followed it correctly, you outlined four school districts that made Adequate Yearly Progress, but, if they would have been calculated like a cyber school district, they would not have made Adequate Yearly Progress. Now, my question to you is, should we, I think we should have kind of a standardized calculation method that we use. Should we raise the regular public school's to the same standards the cyber charter schools have to use now, or should we lower the standards that the cyber charter schools have to use to match what the regular public schools have to use? What standards should we use? DR. BARNETT: That's a great question. I think it would require examination, and I think the reason why there's a different system utilized fort the districts and it's weighted different because those are the stats that have to be reported to the federal government. So it's a recognition that in moving students ahead the larger the pool the more difficult it can be when you have all of the grade spans that you have different ability groupings. It's like if I look at our scores, for example, the students in my lower grades are going to do much better the longer they are with me they do better, in my high school where I have a preponderance sometimes of new students, I'm getting students with their grades and who are behind, so that is what that is taking into consideration, that the district as a whole needs opportunities to account for the variability in movement in students.

So to answer your question, I'd like to see it examined, but until it is, I would want to be where the majority is, wherever that is. I'm about equity. So whatever it is, it just needs to be that for everybody.

REPRESENTATIVE ROAE: And say we did get standardized calculations for all the schools so you could more easily compare cyber, charters to regular bricks and mortar public schools. If there was a cyber charter that did not meet Adequate Yearly Progress, then the second year in a row they didn't meet it, the third year in a row they didn't meet it, would you favor the plug being pulled from funding if that school wasn't getting the job done? Should they continue to get tax money to operate if they're not meeting Adequate Yearly Progress?

DR. BARNETT: I'm going to rephrase and answer your question this way. I would say if it is a district and it is a cyber charter school and they're not performing, then actions should be

taken. REPRESENTATIVE ROAE: One final question. When you look at the costs, the tuition costs that is charged for cyber school— Well let me preface my question with I support cyber charter schools. I support public schools, I support homeschooling, I think parents have the choice of how to educate their kids. But when you figure out what the tuition payment should be,

I think it's reasonable to add in expenses like computers and internet service, expenses you have that the brick and mortar schools do not have, but I also think it's reasonable to deduct out costs for bussing, costs for building and maintaining school buildings, the football field, the expenses that cyber charter schools do not have, and then kind of looking at that as what the students should be paying. What is your feelings on that? Just to have a more equitable tuition amount that the students would be paying?

DR. BARNETT: Let's talk first about transportation. What we need to remember is that the transportation cost is already out.

REPRESENTATIVE ROAE: Okay, I didn't realize that. Thanks for pointing that out.

DR. BARNETT: That's already taken out of what, when we get 75 percent of the per pupil funding, we're not getting 100 percent and because when the, for traditional charter schools, they do transportation. Well, nobody figured that back in for us, and the district doesn't transport my students. So that's just a clarification, there.

Secondly, before we start doing a well, districts have buildings and you don't have buildings, we would really need to list what the cost for cyber charter schools are, because yes, districts have buildings, but sometimes they are paid for. Every year we have to, last year I think

I had 38 test sites, so if there are four PSSA testing's, I then have to pay for all 38 test sites 4 times. We do have to have administrative buildings, we're required to do that. We're finding that our families need us to have a regional place where we can meet with families, because you can't have families in the school and say, well, you live in Washington County, you have to travel all

the way to Norristown. So we have a requirement. When people talk about the fact that we

advertise, we're required by law to make sure that everybody across the State knows that we exist

so people can't come back later and say well, you only tell the people in good districts where

there are great students that you exist so that you're not getting students from Pittsburgh or

Philadelphia, they don't know that option is there.

So I agree that there could be some adjustment in cost, but before that is done I wouldn't

want it to just be well, the district has this and you don't have this. I would want it to be this is

what you have and must have, this is what the district has and must have, and is there a

differential. I think you would be surprised to find out that there really isn't.

KEVIN McKENNA: Representative, you should also be aware that currently under

statutorily permitted deductions there are only seven that are allowable by the districts, yet the

PDE form allows them to take 21 separate items.

REPRESENTATIVE ROAE: Thank you for pointing that out. I do appreciate the

clarification on that. Now the 75 percent figure, just for easy math, if a school district is spending

$10,000 per student they would give you $7500, 75 percent of the $10,000. Or, is it 75 percent of

the State money, or is it 75 percent of the State and the local real estate taxes and the EIT, Earned

Income Tax tax, what is it 75 percent of?

KEVIN McKENNA: It's not 75 percent Representative, it's based on the statutorily

permitted deductions, but then the PDE current form has 21. So a lot of the districts are putting

quote, unquote, allowable deduction of other financing uses. So if a district wants to finance

everything, theoretically they could not have to pay any money at all. The only allowable

deductions are special ed, non-public school programs, adult education programs, community junior college programs, student transportation – your bussing, facility acquisitions, which all the taxpayers whether the children go to districts or charter schools have already paid for, and then

other financing uses. So the real problem is the form, because they are not enforcing the law.

And I can show that to you afterwards, but they're right here in statute.

REPRESENTATIVE ROAE: So that 75 percent figure, that's just roughly what it works

out to be?

DR. BARNETT: Right. That's the base, and then what Kevin is saying it could be less

than that by the time there are other things added to it.

REPRESENTATIVE ROAE: I'd like a copy of that form after the meeting if you see me

here.

KEVIN McKENNA: Sure.

REPRESENTATIVE ROAE: Thank you.

REPRESENTATIVE SMITH: Chairman Clymer answered my first question as to who

are your students. The other question I had was within the Pennsylvania Virtual Charter School,

how many students do you have, and of that total number, how many would be considered

special education?

DR. BARNETT: We have a total number, as of yesterday, of 3420-something, and of that

number, about 475 are special ed.

REPRESENTATIVE SMITH: I'm sorry, can you say that again?

DR. BARNETT: Four hundred and seventy five. Thirty four twenty something was the

number, let's say 3400 for a round number, and of that number about 4, about 475 are special ed.

REPRESENTATIVE SMITH: Okay. Thank you. CHAIRMAN CLYMER: The Chair thanks the gentlemen and recognizes Representative

Truitt for questions.

REPRESENTATIVE TRUITT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I've got two questions, they

are relatively short. The first one is, I just want a clarification about IEP's and GIEP's. Do the

charter schools get more money for IEP students, and do they get more money for GIEP students?

DR. BARNETT: I can only speak for myself, we are not required to do a GIEP, so we

don't do formal GIEP's, and if they here, one of my colleagues might be able to answer that.

That's what I thought, they don't get money for GIEP's.

REPRESENTATIVE TRUITT: That's what I had heard somewhere else, and I found that

hard to believe.

The other question is related to the data that you talked about. Your testimony illustrated very well a point that I was making earlier that I trust very little of the data that I hear, and you explained how often it is apples to oranges comparison, and that is what I find over and over again when I see data saying that charters or cyber charters don't perform as well as regular

schools, when I drill down I find they are doing Statewide comparisons or they are comparing

just PSSA scores and not something like a PVAAS score which I think is a lot more relevant

than a PSSA score. While you were talking I looked up your schools PVAAS score and you beat

the State average, that is good. Then I start to think about, well what is really a relevant, what is

an apples to apples comparison? You need to compare PVAAS scores for a kid versus the school

district at which – or the school, at which he would have attended if he didn't attend your charter

school. Actually, more relevant than that I think is you have to compare what the kids

improvement in his scores would have been at the school he would have attended versus what he got at your school, but you can't predict what they would have gotten at an individual level, only the parents can predict that, and that is why the make the decision to send their school to a different school.

It seems to me that on a defensive level that the charter schools and the cyber charter schools should probably be generating some of their own data. I was wondering if you guys go to the trouble of comparing your students improvement versus the improvement of the average student in the school district from which they came. Is there anything like that available, or do you generate it yourself?

DR. BARNETT: We've just started, in our school in particular, we've just started a whole data area that is doing those types of study. Earlier you mentioned the Stanford study, and when I saw the Stanford study having just a modest background in educational research and statistics, the first thing I knew about the study is that the method was flawed. If you read the study carefully, they even tell you that the method was flawed, because they just take this whole bunch of students and they just do a straight analysis of the students of average. They do no correlation studies, they don't test for variability, they don't test for different groupings, all of the stuff that you have to do in statistics for the study to have relevance. That study is being touted as well, look, Stanford says. I asked our communications director to call Stanford and say guys, do you realize that you're putting this out here and that there is a problem there? And they know it is there. But as long as we keep using it, it is there. I think you give us, as the charter schools and cyber charter school community, a wonderful sort of encouragement and sort of an action step that we really do need to produce our own data so that we have the data to say and our own white papers to say to you this is exactly what our students are doing. It's difficult because so often we're spending the time trying to dispel whatever the myth is or the latest fire, unbeknownst to folks, with pretty much limited resources.

REPRESENTATIVE TRUITT: Thanks, if you can put that on your action item list I think it would behoove all charter schools and cyber charter schools to start to generate their own data that shows how your students compare to the school districts from which they were, from where they came. Now, I know that is tough for you because you probably have students form almost all 500 school districts would be my guess, so that's going to take a little bit of time, you need somebody who likes to feed numbers into a spreadsheet, but that would be very helpful.

DR. BARNETT: Thank you.

REPRESENTATIVE TRUITT: Thank you.

CHAIRMAN CLYMER: The Chair thanks the gentleman and recognizes Representative

Longietti for questions.

REPRESENTATIVE LONGIETTI: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for your testimony and appearing here today. Clearly charter schools are different than traditional public schools. They are hybrid, so to speak, statute as you indicated in your testimony there are certain statutes and regulations that charters do not need to follow to cut through red tape to allow them to innovate, I'm not sure why we don't do that for traditional public schools, but they are hybrids, they are different. If they weren't different, there would be no purpose. Why would we want to create an additional set of schools that are exactly the same as the traditional public schools?

Now, as I understand it, particularly as it relates to cyber charter, tuition rates vary significantly because you are taking kids all over the State, they can link up to your school via the internet, and so one student may be paying $5,000 and another student may be paying

$15,000 depending on where they come from in the Commonwealth. I guess my question to you is, does that system make sense? To me it doesn't seem to make sense, and shouldn't we be looking at, and I know you have problems with Chairman Roebuck's bill, but should we not be

looking at some kind of standardized rate that makes sense that all students would pay as tuition

wherever those moneys actually flow from instead of these varying rates?

DR. BARNETT: Representative Longietti, I think from where I stand it is a question of

equity. What doesn't make sense is the way we fund education in the State. It doesn't make sense

that a student who lives in one district is getting a quality of education based on what that district

can raise and a student in another district is getting something else because the PPR is $14,000 per student and it's $7,000 in another district. That doesn't make sense to me. What we attempt to do is to equalize that in a cyber charter school. Wherever you come from, it's there. We inherited the funding system, and what I'm saying to the committee is that if we fix the funding in public education, if we equalize it across the board, it will inherently be fixed in cyber charter schools.

My point is simply that just fixing it in cyber charter schools, giving us a flat rate, doesn't make

funding equity for all of the other students in the Commonwealth.

REPRESENTATIVE LONGIETTI: I appreciate that answer, and it reminds me of a

conversation I had with a constituent over the weekend where he basically told me you really

didn't fix my problem, you just said that there's another problem out here. And I understand your

point, I think the costing out study was an attempt to move in that direction for all public schools,

it's a huge problem and a very difficult one to tackle, but I still come back to the question, the

smaller problem in regard to cyber charter schools, does it, it just doesn't make any sense to me

why student "a" pays $4,000 and student "b" because they come from another district pays

$15,000, particularly when you're talking about cyber school, where they are all connecting to the same internet. It just seems like there ought to be an equalized system and I think we ought to

at least try to solve that problem, I think that's an easier one to get our arms around.

DR. BARNETT: And I guess I harp on this, and this is a big baileywick for me in terms

of equity and funding, because when the costing out study was done, you think you want to fix it

for cyber charter schools? Then why did you leave us out of the study? I know you didn't, and

that's a rhetorical you, but we weren't included in that study. Had we been included in the study,

we might not even be having this conversation now. I go back to that while you may fix it for

cyber charter schools, I'm about equity for all students in the Commonwealth and that's why I'm about choice for the student who has to stay in the district where there is this disparity in PPR,

that that student still is going to be left out. So just fixing it here doesn't fix the problem.

REPRESENTATIVE LONGIETTI: Of course the legislature walked away from the

costing out study this year, which I disagreed with.

DR. BARNETT: So if it gets a chance to come back, then I think we ought to be included

in the costing out study. But to flip it back, what I want the committee to take away from this, if

you fix the funding across the board, the funding for cyber charter schools will be fixed, it will

not have to be just a legislative item that we come to, it will be a part of the funding model. It

will be the funding model for public schools in the Commonwealth. I think that's the bigger issue, and when I heard the previous speakers is how do we define "public education" and what are "public schools" in the Commonwealth? I think it's the paradigm shift that people are having a difficult time.

REPRESENTATIVE LONGIETTI: Final question. Why should not charter schools be subject to the same fund balance requirements that traditional public schools have? In other words, there are limits on the percentage that traditional public schools can escrow away, particularly if we went to a model where the school district either was, there was some penalty if they didn't pay what they were supposed to pay or we did a State funding program where the funding comes out of the State not individual school districts. Why should we allow charter schools to have much more significant fund balances when we have something different for traditional public schools?

DR. BARNETT: I would say that I don't think anybody argues with what the fund balance ought to be, but I do want to give a little bit of history because there was a time when cyber charter schools were not required to do all, and we were new, all of the things that we are now required by law to do. So if I go back and look at our balance sheet, in the early years we may have ended up the year with 7 or 8, $900,000 in reserve. Now when I end up the year, because of all of the things that we have to do and how we know to close the gap and meet the needs of students, we're ending up with $150,000, $200,000. So when you look at those surpluses, we're not going to amass them, and I don't think anybody, and I won't speak for my colleagues because we haven't talked about it, but for myself, I don't see any problem with meeting whatever that requirement is for—

REPRESENTATIVE LONGIETTI: So at least from your perspective at PA Virtual

Cyber Charter, you don't object to going to the standards—

DR. BARNETT: Whatever the standard is. But what I would object to is someone coming down and saying, okay, now we're going to give back. Because now wait a minute, how do we do that? So I want to be very clear that somebody doesn't come back later and say well you said that was okay. I do think it's okay to have a limit, and I am only speaking for me, I'm not speaking for the coalition or my colleagues, I'm only speaking for myself. I think that having whatever that percentage is that the districts follow as the same percentage we follow if the districts are made to pay. And here's why we have to have a surplus; we don't have the ability to do what districts do. We can't float a bond, and most lending institutions, if there is a delay in the

budget, aren't going to give us a loan. So our staff still needs to be paid. That's the only thing

those surpluses do. They allow us to continue operating in the event the budget doesn't get

passed, the Governor doesn't pass the budget, and that has historically happened.

REPRESENTATIVE LONGIETTI: Thank you.

CHAIRMAN CLYMER: The Chair thanks the gentleman and acknowledges

Representative Michael O'Brien for questions.

REPRESENTATIVE O'BRIEN: After reconsideration, Mr. Chairman, not a question,

perhaps a request. Given conflicting testimony today on the disciplinary process, the expelling

process, and quite honestly, I'm not interested in getting into a pushing match in a vacuum,

perhaps it would be in the committee's best interest if an informational hearing could be put

together on the disciplinary process, who's responsibility it is for children who have been

expelled from charter schools, perhaps touch on school violence as a whole. I think that may be far more productive. That is my request, Mr. Chairman.

CHAIRMAN CLYMER: The Chair will certainly consider that recommendation. I think

it's a very good one, a very valid one, and one that's in the papers all the time, in the news media.

The Chair thanks the gentleman for that recommendation.

That concludes the members who want to raise questions, and the Chair thanks Dr.

Joanne Barnett for being with us, and the gentleman for taking time out of your busy schedule to

be with us. Very important, very good testimony, thank you.

At this time we are going to take a 15 minute break and we will reconvene at 20 after 1.

So I know members would like to get some lunch and maybe some coffee, so go get it. You will be the first person we will do after lunch. I apologize, but members have been

very active this morning, and these are very important issues, as you can imagine. Thank you.

(A 15 minute break was taken.)

CHAIRMAN CLYMER: We gave them a little bit more time because we wanted them to

make sure that if they had a sandwich they would digest it without having any indigestion

problems. So, as I said, we would go back and bring forth the Center for Education Reform,

Jeanne Allen. You had passed out testimony, do we have testimony for you?

JEANNE ALLEN: I believe so.

CHAIRMAN CLYMER: It's been passed out, so we are ready to roll. So Jeanne, you can move forward.

JEANNE ALLEN: Thank you Chairman Clymer, Chairman Roebuck, members of the committee, colleagues and friends in the committee hearing. My name is Jeanne Allen, I'm

President of the Center for Education Reform, and 18-year old research and advocacy group devoted to making schools simply better for all kids. I'm also a veteran of Capitol hill and the

Federal Department of Education. I apologize for whatever I did then or they do now that may

impact adversely on Pennsylvania.

Thank you for doing this, I know you've had a lot of hearings, I know you've spent a very

contentious and packed filled several months debating school options not just last year, but over

the last several years. I'm really grateful. As someone who has both the luxury as well as the job

of working with States and community leaders all over the country, I have to say honestly, it's

not often that we see people so intensely interested as involved as Pennsylvania has been. I like

to say it's my new home State, I actually did spend some years here at Dickinson College as well.

It's been really terrific watching, and know there's issues on which we're not all going to agree, but you've committed more time and attention than most legislatures in the last couple of years, and for that I thank you.

As I say in my testimony, my here is to reinforce the need for an extensive array of school options across the State of Pennsylvania that serve the educational needs of families wherever and whenever they have them. Those needs are actually far greater than what many perceive today. For while Pennsylvania has a proud history of developing schools and programs intended to meet children's needs, the fact is the system has fallen greatly short of that important goal, and structural changes are indeed needed to improve schools all across the State.

That is really the goal inherent in the school choice debate before you. Nothing you are considering now and nothing the people are talking to you about, nothing I'll say today is new or path breaking, but they're options and they're responses to a system that has for whatever reason, despite the best intentions, failed.

So rather than dwell on why school choice is important, I thought maybe I'd help you a little bit with a different perspective, a perspective I bring having looked at both the data in the

State, sort of the raw data, and really focus down and drill down on student achievement.

Before I get into that directly, I do want to say a word about data given the discussion and you are all right, I can give you studies upon studies and other people can, and they can look great and they can come from incredibly credible institutions, we have some really good ones,

I've got some attached here, I think there is a gold standard, but that's going to just sidetrack us.

The reality is what's good for kids in Pennsylvania, what's happening right now, and what's the best way to judge.

I will say that we do know when studies are not good, and the studies that are good regardless of the issue you are looking actually have apples to apples comparisons, use real people, and track those people over time. There is one major reason we don't have the definitive study and won't, I don't think, ever have the definitive study on why whether it's charter schools, school choice, or any other program works, and that's because we don't have the time or the money because to really understand it, you'd have to track a child, a cohort of children, over 12 years, and you'd have to compare them to where they would be if they were there before, and so there are some isolated studies that have been done. New York – Carolyn Hoxby, then of

Princeton, now of Harvard did a 2-year study, she looked at kids in charter schools, what they would have been doing had they not gone to a charter school, she compared 3 years of achievement data, she found a 10 percent gain. That's what a lot of people considered a gold standard. In fact, even attractors in New York of that movement will say, it's very clear that they're doing something right. And that movement in New York has been incredibly not contentious as a result.

But the Stanford study you've heard mentioned, and I think correctly criticized, actually took virtual children, which is really kind of hard to believe, it's actually something used in health care a lot, it took virtual kids in traditional public schools. They created a composite child to compare them to charters, but to compare them they used the PSSA results, some of the same results you heard Dr. Barnett talk about before, and they basically took anything you guys have reported out and 16 other States, 15 other States, and they threw them into a great big aggregated data set, and they said okay, if this child was let's say poor and white compared to this child that's poor and white, and they both end up in the same school, where would they be? And they did that, again, with a methodology that's questionable. So whether or not that hits the news every single day, I would just urge you, again, to look at what it is that you have in front of you and if in house studies studying your kids, and comparing those kids and the environment work. So Pennsylvania on paper appears to have relatively strong results. Year after year I've come here, I've talked to people, we've worked with a lot of your communities, we have members throughout the State and they say well we're 75 percent proficiency in math, 72 percent in reading, we only have a cohort, a graduation rate of 78 percent, that's pretty good. And on the surface, if you only had to really deal with a problem of 25 percent of kids who aren't proficient or aren't graduating, it's still bad, but it's manageable – you might think. But what do we do about those 25 percent? I'd argue, of course, that that's why you're here, we don't want to lose anyone, and there should be urgency with regard to getting those kids in great schools. But if it was just

25 percent it would be one thing. In fact, if you go under the PSEA (Pennsylvania State

Education Association) Web site they will talk about how on NAEP (National Assessment of

Educational Progress) results Pennsylvania scores better than other people, but the reality is it turns out your data is actually wrong. There is not just 25 percent.

Indeed, the PSSA has actually been reviewed and evaluated against a very objective scale called the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Dale Mezzacappa long reporter of the

Philadelphia Inquirer pointed this out numerous times. He wrote in 2009 after the most recent assessment came out, "There's sobering data in the report released yesterday by the National

Center on Education Statistics on the racial 'achievement gap.'" The study uses results from

NAPE, given periodically to a sampling of students. Pennsylvania has one of the largest gaps. In fact, you're the highest of the three States in terms of White and African-American students in fourth grade, a 33-point gap that's not narrowed much since 1992. Philadelphia alone, you know the stats, proficiency rate on the State's test is just 56 percent for math, 50 percent for reading. Other regions have spotty records, whether you represent Scranton, 74 percent math, 70 percent reading; Lancaster 55 percent and 48 percent math, reading respectively; Pittsburgh 61 and 56; those are on just your State test scores.

But again, what if those were inflated? It turns out indeed, the National Assessment reports that there is a wide variation among State proficiency standards. I've got some details on page 3 about what NAEP says about the State's, but it turns out you're not alone. Thirty-five of the fifty States included in the analysis measure proficiency much lower than the scale of what

NAEP calls proficient.

Now, NAEP is an objective barometer, it is evaluated and reevaluated regularly by a wide variety of stakeholders from across the country, and basically what they believe that kids should know and be able to do in 4th, 8th, and 12th grade is the basis for their test, the Chief State

School Officers Association actually helps them develop those assessments. But on NAEP,

Pennsylvania has an 11 percent negative difference in its proficiency versus its test scores. What that essentially means is when you look at NAEP scores compared to PSSA, your kids, your best kids, are barely 50 percent proficient in reading and math. If you start breaking it down, a

Harvard evaluation shows that you get about a "C" or a "C minus" across your 4th and 8th grade tests when it comes to how you would be calibrated against in NAEP.

So, 4th grade reading in Pennsylvania in 2009, 40 percent proficient and above – just 40 percent were proficient or above. Sixty percent of your kids across the State not proficient in reading. Eighth grade reading, 36 percent and above. Eighth grade math, 40 proficient and above and so on. These are really the statistics you have to use when evaluating whether or not you have an issue. We often like to say, and it's important, we have to help our kids most in need, we have to help kids in failing schools, those are the options. If you look at your charter schools, most of those 90,000 are clustered in poor schools, but there's also kids across districts and all of

your areas that are benefitting from, that are going to those schools because even in the better

school districts there are kids who have needs. In fact, when you start disaggregating the results

not just of PSSA but of NAEP, you find that even our better performing students, and this is the

case across the country, are performing worse than where they should be and in fact worse over

time.

If you just like at white 4th graders, for example, across the State of Pennsylvania, only

53 percent of white 4th graders are proficient in math. Twenty-two percent of low income

students, 15 percent of black students, black fourth graders, are proficient in math.

Even using Pennsylvania's own test results, one out of every four Pennsylvania students

is not competent in math and reading. Low achievement obviously is even more pronounced for

some groups. In 2009, Black and Latino students just on the Pennsylvania test were only 50 and

51 percent in reading, proficient in reading respectively. But because it's not broken down, it's

not clear enough to be able to draw the conclusions and therefore, their educational problems I

don't think tend to come to light.

In fact, throughout the last several months I've heard the discussions and been privy to

them about how to craft best school choice program. We've talked to many of your staffs, we've

talked to many of the hardworking teachers and administrators, that I'm not hearing them a line across the State of Pennsylvania. But the reality is, as much as we want to focus on how do we

craft the best program that helps the worst off kids, the least advantaged kids, many of you have

said over and over again what about the other kids? What about the rest of the districts? In fact,

what is it we can do to help all schools lift all boats and recognize that whether we are helping Philadelphia or Pittsburgh disproportionately or Scranton, what should matter is where those,

what those kids are doing, what their performance is, not where they live.

And in fact, as I was privy to in your earlier discussions, in your great questionings of the

people earlier, there was this big discussion about AYP. AYP is based on PSSA, right. It's

widely variant and widely uneven when you're evaluating scores from whether it's a charter to a

regular public school to other kinds of hybrid schools that might come online later. If your scores

are inflated, then your AYP is not exactly accurate, and then making determinations about or

trying to make bargains, if you will, based on we better do things for kids in the worst

performing schools may not always be a clear, compelling, or it may not always be the most

accurate way to look at it.

In other words, there could be more kids in Philadelphia that are in need of great school

options now, if you will, in the words of one of the Representatives earlier, kids who we have to

save now, but it doesn't mean that they're also not in Scranton, that they're also not in Lancaster,

that they're not in Harrisburg, or for that matter, in Bucks County. They're all across the State.

My job here is not to say how do you fix this immediately; the idea is how do you actually look

at public education reform and do something about not just the 25 percent that your own State's

scores report, but actually something more around 50 percent of kids who are not proficient at

any given level in 4th and 8th grade, and if you actually look at the State test scores for high

school, our kids decline the longer they are actually in school.

With all due respect, it is not a matter of just simply saying one population deserves more

than another. It is a matter of saying those worst off we absolutely need to help now, and despite anything that you hear and see from my colleagues in the PSEA, the PSBA, the various groups that come here every day, we know that they believe that they can make things work. We know that they believe there are best practices. We know that they believe that certain experience

levels of teacher work. But we also have evidence today that suggests that the most important

factor in the life of a child next to their family is a teacher. A quality teacher. Therefore, if that's

the case, then perhaps we have not been judging and evaluating teachers in the exact effective way. Perhaps the certification, as many of you have pointed out, and the Master's are not all that we know about how a teacher performs. In fact, in some cases, there is a negative correlation.

The reality is, let's get their Master's, let's get them certified, let's make sure that they're well trained, but if they are not delivering the education a child deserves today, we don't have another 5 or 10 years to wait. And if your problem is that half your State is failing to get the education they deserve, the problem is much bigger than a microcosm of the small areas, districts, and other places that any of your programs might actually address.

I share with you in my testimony the story of a friend of mine the other day who actually attended the graduation of Kaplan online learning, it's one of the various higher education sort of non-traditional ones out there, certainly Pennsylvania has a rich history of a byproduct of that, of traditional 4-year higher education, private and public. We know from all of those schools that even 75 percent of our kids that are getting to college, those that actually get to college and matriculate, are in need of remedial education.

Kaplan attracts, actually, kids who really did fail along the way. They might have dropped out, they might have gone back in, they might have not gotten into a traditional 4-year college, maybe they were pursuing a technical degree, there are 100's of these, you've all sort of seen them and heard of them. But he was just recounting as a business person he shares, he's on our board, he was just recounting that I went to this graduation, there were kids getting up that we never think about. We don't think about the fact they got up and they said, you know, I had to go back to school, I've had a child, I dropped out, I went back to school, I went to Kaplan, I went

to get my degree, and story after story of these kids getting up for their degrees kept saying I

failed. I failed. I didn't get where I needed to go. I'm so glad this happened to me, I'm so glad

there was an opportunity there to save me. Right? And that's a fraction of the kids that we

actually find, but why should any student ever stand up and say, I failed? Why do we let them

fail? You know, Sy Fliegel was a superintendent of District #4 in New York years ago, he was one of the first people I met when I was really little and I got into the education reform world,

and Sy was in 1973, came up with the idea of public school choice. He's the one that created the

notion of just public school choice. And he said, you know, people used to say I taught them, but

they failed. He said, you know, I used to say back to them, what if I said I taught you to swim but

you just couldn't swim? You drowned. I taught him, but it just didn't work. That we actually have

an obligation to own that. I know that's why you're there and you're as concerned, more

concerned about what happens in the State.

Whether it's aggregate test scores, discussions about whether or not we do have a

problem, should we do this controversial thing called expanding charter schools, what do we do

about the finer details of cyber schools, they all need work, right? What do we do, do we really

allow school choice, do we allow kids to go to private schools, how do we hold them

accountable? Where's the data? How do we know Indiana, Florida, other 10 States work? Those

things, obviously, are part of the debate. But the reality is, the people and the interests that are

most in opposition fear their loss of power, they fear the loss of money, and they really do think

they're doing a pretty good job and they use PSSA and other sorts of evidence to suggest that.

You're not, there is enough money to go around, even in today's budget environment to support the options of parents, and you can no longer abide the sort of common mythology that keeps

this action from going into the next session and the next session.

The all too familiar excuses of people that I've heard just in the last few weeks,

Pennsylvania already does well, we don't need something so extreme. Cities and regions that

don't do well, well those are the impovished ones. Those are the people who have been poor, we

have been helping Philadelphia. We've been helping Pittsburgh. Let's get on to something else.

We know that's not true. There's not enough money. We know that actually, it's where you spend

the money, not how much. We all would love to spend billions more, pay our teachers great for doing well, but there is money for school choice programs, charter schools and the like, I agree with some of the people earlier talking about equity.

Finally, there's no proof that it works. Again, I can give you studies. I've attached some.

Other people can come and talk about studies. You won't know for sure until you actually put students and children in places that you believe and their parents believe, more importantly, are best for them, track them over time, and then come back and look at it not a year down the line, not 5 years down the line, 10 years down the line with all other things being equal.

We have a generation of students that have watched this debate. I've been in this debate for more than 20 years, I remember seeing some of you when I first came here back then. Many people year in, year out, day after day as I said in the beginning, are saying the same thing. I'm not unique, I'm not special. I would simply recommend you consider reforms that are not just for the really bad off, that are not just for people who you can absolutely prove without a shadow of

a doubt are being failed right now, today, but those that we know through real data that your

State is collecting that national organizations are actually verifying that show that kids in

whether they be 1st, 2d, 3d, 4th, 8th grade, who are not proficient in their craft, who will not progress if they are not proficient, if they are absolutely not taught for whatever reasons, be

allowed to get into the school that best meets their needs, that is something that you can help do, that's something their parents absolutely should be in charge of. I think the fact that both the

public support is on the side of that, the media support as is appended to my testimony, and the

huge numbers of people that you're hearing from all across the State, show that they're willing

and ready to make a systematic change. I'd argue at the national level it crosses every party, it

crosses every socioeconomic level, we work with people of every race, creed, color, you name it,

and this is something from my friends in Democrats for Education Reform to Black Alliance for

Educational Options to the Alliance for School Choice, to we need, we are ready for and will be

in fact a solution to better education in kids in your States, a long, wide variety of school options

that put people in charge of your schools.

Thank you.

CHAIRMAN CLYMER: Thank you very much for your testimony, Jeanne. It certainly

has things many of us can agree with, that to provide reasonable options, alternatives, is a step in

the right direction.

I just have an observation, and you can comment on it. It's my question for you. You did

mention that families are very important in the motivation and the education of their child, and I

couldn't agree, but having put that to the side. I also observe that if you don't have good

leadership in the school, whether it's in the public school or whatever school, leadership is so

important at the top level where the principal is right down through the teachers in the classroom.

That can vary according to the ability of the teacher to instruct the children. What is your take on

these issues as well? I think we're in a culture that encourages students to make many wrong

choices. That's the culture that we live in. It's unfortunate, but that's the way it is. I see students when I see them walking home from school, I don't see any homework. I don't know if they take home work, maybe they do it in the classroom, but I don't see the homework. I get the impression that somehow you can get by with the minimum effort, and I think that's wrong as well. I know that in observing the school plays whether at the elementary or middle school or high school level, those students work very, very hard to succeed in the school play or whatever it is, and they're just outstanding plays. I'm amazed at the talent that's there. But, they don't get there and have these successful plays without hard work, without practice, coming in, the director has time when they have to come in after school if they want to participate in order to make sure that they get their lines down perfect and that the play is going to be a success. I don't see that, somehow, in the classroom and in homework you have that same kind of dedication. I could be wrong, but those are my observations. I just wanted to know how you, what you thought about them.

JEANNE ALLEN: School culture is absolutely intricately tied to expectations and to leadership. We know great schools have great leaders. You can have a school in the most difficult area that has the most onerous contract rules and you can still have a principal that creatively non-complies, if you will, and does everything they can to hold everyone to the same expectations. We used to say that whether it's a, we've read about the Marva Collins, the late

Marva Collins, or the Jaime Escalantes and the movies that have been written about the Joe

Clark's, and we used to say, well, that's great, but we shouldn't require every administrator to be a hero and to have to break rules to get done what they have to get done.

There is an absolute direct tie, and we've seen this in evidence, we actually do look at some highly effective schools, whether they be traditional public schools, more and more increasingly high-poverty, high-performing charter schools and some private schools that principals and leaders who have autonomy and flexibility who have control over, in that

autonomy and flexibility how do they manage, a lot of flexibility over hiring, and who set high

expectations not just for the teachers and themselves but for students are those that succeed. You

will see in those environments lots of work, lots of focus, kids just knocking it out of the park

because they really are expected to do more and to acclaim more.

Many of the things that stand in the way, from my belief, Chairman Clymer, what you are

pointing to, grated it's through society, but we've actually let our kids slide and we've let the

environments around them slide because we're worried that we're pushing them too hard.

Particularly, even in the places where I'd argue the expectations have to be highest, where kids,

it's that lower expectation level and a lot of poor areas where people say well, after all, they come to school and they don't have this and they don't have that. That's where that toughness in that expectation has to be.

If you don't have the culture that even allows that leader and those teachers to have the authority to innovate, to change, that's the flexibility bargain that was at the heart of your charter

effort when you started it. That's what at the heart of many of our cries for at least allowing the

private sector to be part of educating the public, meaning private schools, and so I absolutely

agree with you that that's an issue. I do think it gets addressed through systemic reforms over a

long time, and it takes all of us.

CHAIRMAN CLYMER: The Chair thanks the gentlelady for her remarks, and the Chair

recognizes Chairman Roebuck for questions.

CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: Mr. Chairman, let me pass for right now.

CHAIRMAN CLYMER: Absolutely. The Chair recognizes Representative Truitt for

questions. REPRESENTATIVE TRUITT: Thank you. Again, multiple questions but they are short

answers, I hope. I had myself and had an occasion to analyze the way PSSA scores are calculated

at one time. We were asking for my oldest son to be placed in a certain course and they told us

he needed to score a 1600 or something like that on his math PSSA to get there. I did an analysis

of the test and I found out the difference between about a 1600 and a 1500 was like one question.

I'm starting to see an error. You kind of touched on the idea that the PSSA might not be giving us

an accurate sense of performance. Is there another test that you would recommend? Are you

suggesting as a State that we should dump the PSSA and use a different test?

JEANNE ALLEN: I don't want to get into trouble with my friends over at PDE, but I

actually think what might be a better middle step is to have an independent organization calibrate

what it is PSSA looks like at each of those levels, compare it for you more in general than I've

done, compare to some of the more objective standards. In other words, have them really dig

deep. There's an organization that a lot of States are choosing to work with that I don't know is

working here or not called the NWEA. I forget what it stands for, but they will come in and help

align local, State, national expectations so you can actually have a much closer view of what you need. I do think PSSA needs revisions. I don't think, obviously, the test is the answer. The test gives us the eye on what is happening. But how we collect that data, what your cutoff scores are are often at the heart of this as well. What does it mean to be proficient? Those are issues that everyone is intensely looking at. It's not rocket science. It can be done fairly easily and not with billions of dollars.

REPRESENTATIVE TRUITT: And the second question—

JEANNE ALLEN: I'm sorry, that wasn't short. REPRESENTATIVE TRUITT: That's okay. The second question is more generic. I sat

down with some businessmen recently, some very smart guys who have started a number of

businesses, and I was asking them about what does it take to get entrepreneurs to start new

businesses in Pennsylvania? I'm hearing very consistently that availability of an educated

workforce is important. And then one of them pointed out to me, he said, but it seems like there's

a big lack of demand for education in this State. His perception is there is a lot of families out

there that just don't care whether their kids get an education or kids that don't care whether they

get an education. I don't know if your organization has put any thought into what are some things that we can do to drive up the demand, to make families and even the children themselves understand the importance of getting a good education. Is that something that your group has looked at?

JEANNE ALLEN: We have written a lot about this, Representative Truitt. The reality is that what we've seen and the evidence when we actually look at the good schools. Again, no matter where they are, no matter who the kids are, parents step up to the plate regardless of their place in life, advantaged or disadvantaged, when they actually have real power. This is one of the reasons we are so behind the notion of providing choices to those who most need it academically, because if you go year after year sending your child, if you are zoned to the public school and you don't have, no you have more options now than that, but if you are zoned to a public school and you don't have many options and you show up whether or not that's working for you or not, you as a parent start going, that's not my role. I don't have that authority. You can go to a school board meeting, you can show up and have a parent teacher conference, but at the end of the day if you don't have the power to leave, it's really hard to feel like you should show up. What we've seen is parents start stepping up to the plate when they actually feel like their role is important. One of the most important roles they can make is helping make the decision

about where to send their child.

I'd add one other thing back on the PSSA issue too, one of the things you do have to look

at, I would argue, is PRAXIS. When you talk about quality teachers and that was an area that

came before, I had a chance to look at how you evaluate, how you hire, what the teacher's in the

State have to take to get in, many of you know this, Representative, you mentioned earlier about your wife, PRAXIS is an eighth grade level achievement test. Just passing PRAXIS does not tell you what you can do in the classroom, even if you come from the best institution.

So if you look at, for example, by level the PRAXIS scores of teacher candidates coming out of everywhere from Penn State to the University of Pennsylvania to Shippensburg, it varies widely depending on school, but just getting a 70 or 80 percent on PRAXIS is nothing necessarily to brag about, because it's something they should have been able to do in eighth grade.

CHAIRMAN CLYMER: The Chair recognizes Representative Tallman for questions.

REPRESENTATIVE TALLMAN: I'm not sure I want to take PRAXIS then, but anyway, that's another story. A couple questions. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you Ms. Allen for being here this morning – or this afternoon, now, and sharing.

A point of clarification. You may not have this information, if you can supply it. There is an 11 percent difference between the National Assessment and the PSSA's. I am going to call that "Delta T" and being that I come from an engineering background, if I have that big of a gap between two lines of data, that means there is a problem. It's either in the capturing of the data or something. Do you have an opinion on why that 11 percent difference between the data lines are there? JEANNE ALLEN: I think so. Let me see if I can explain this right, and if not I'll follow- up with you. The number of students, so the level of proficiency expected on the PSSA is negatively correlated to NAEP because NAEP's requirement for proficiency is higher. What they are saying is that your level of proficiency misses the mark by 11 percent. That 11 percent accounts for what essentially is a 25 percent variation, 25 percent variation on the actual tests.

REPRESENTATIVE TALLMAN: Okay, thank you, that answers my question. I didn't understand it quite that way.

My second question, and I'm not sure you have given it in your testimony, but in your written testimony on page 4 second paragraph, you say that, "Meanwhile, the standards students must meet to show proficiency have actually declined 2.3 percentage points. Thus, increased scores are actually a result of lowered standards."

JEANNE ALLEN: We looked at the PSSA from 2005-2009 and there is actually an increase in scores that has been shown to be a result of a decrease of standards, the cutoff scores.

REPRESENTATIVE TALLMAN: So the cut scores were lowered?

JEANNE ALLEN: The cut scores were lower, as your scores were going higher.

REPRESENTATIVE TALLMAN: Mr. Chairman, may I ask you a question?

CHAIRMAN CLYMER: Certainly.

REPRESENTATIVE TALLMAN: I was wondering if we can get staff to provide data, I know we have PSSA data from 2004 forward, can we get what happened to those cut scores from 2004-present at some point in time, supplied to the committee?

CHAIRMAN CLYMER: Yes, we can get that information for you, Representative

Tallman. Then we will give it to the committee members, of course. I think it's something very worthwhile to pursue. REPRESENTATIVE TALLMAN: Thank you.

JEANNE ALLEN: I'll also follow forward the guts of that Harvard analysis that I am

referring to in brief here, so you've got that.

CHAIRMAN CLYMER: The Chair comes back to Chairman Roebuck for questions.

CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wanted to just to focus in on the

whole area of improving student achievement and what measure and how we measure it. One of

the things that strikes me is that when we educate young people, certainly we no longer do it in

the way when I was in school. Now, that wasn't that long ago, but the reality is that it seems to

me that there was much more of an emphasis upon, a focus upon students knowing options.

Where they might go with their lives. Not so much what school they're in, but whatever school

you're in, there's a lot of instruction that was founded or based in career choices. That seems to

have dropped out of most schools today. I remember, particularly junior high school sticks in my

mind for some reason, but I remember all those years of sitting in something called mechanical drawing, wood shop, electric shop, metal shop, I remember being exposed to languages, to different types of curriculum you might take in high school. Kids today lack that kind of

exposure unless somehow they get it, maybe through their families or some other external

source. It seems to be part of the fundamental problem in education, is that many kids go to

school, they might be enthusiastic about learning, but you don't translate learning into a clear objective in life. I don't care whether it's a charter school or a cyber charter or a private school

maybe, or even a traditional public school. That seems to be the core of what the problem is. It's

the way we do education as much as the structure you are in.

JEANNE ALLEN: One of the things I have learned from reading what other people have

said about this, frankly, is that we did a pendulum swing, you are absolutely right. We did a pendulum swing partly because as we were going through school and those career choices were clear, as I was watching, I went to New Jersey Public Schools, not unlike a lot of your schools here, and I was watching friends go off to different programs by sophomore year I was staying in another program, right? One of the reasons we got away from that, as we were increasing standards and recognized that actually in the '70s and '80s our education attainment was declining, there was a feeling that schools were actually tracking kids based on their own view of where those kids should go. That it wasn't a decision for the children, the students and the parents, they were saying oh, it looks like you got "C's" in math for the last few years, looks like you shouldn't be college prep. The shift back as we got into the '80s, a nation at risk, all that stuff you remember, national goals, Governor's get together and let's have really high academic standards, let's make sure everyone can meet them which meant that was the main focus. That's what you're being evaluated on, that's what you're judging. More and more today people are saying, maybe we went too far that way. Maybe what we have to do, there was a report recently came out called "Pathways to Excellence" that talks about reinstituting this notion of careers, and having kids be able to say, not necessarily track them out of the academic course, that some of my friends who did go to vocational school automatically stop taking math. We don't want that.

We know algebra is a gateway course, every child should take it. If that child is taking algebra can also be thinking about what comes next, that would be phenomenal. I think that goes back to what we expect of schools. I don't think we regulated, Mr. Chairman, but I think what we say is the more autonomy a school has, the more they do do things like that. The more they actually know their personalized communities, the smaller schools, the more they tend to say what is it we can do to get these kids to the next level? But we've made our school system so monolithic, we've put so many requirements on them, we've made their jobs very difficult, right, if not impossible in some ways, that we have these systems that respond with rules to children as

opposed to schools led by adults that respond and help children. I think that's where the shift

again, not to sound like I'm saying it's a panacea, but the more options the more, frankly, that

there's consequences for schools individually, whether it's cyber, charter, private, public, the

more we'll see more of that, but you also have to obviously keep talking about it, and I think that's a critical path.

CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: Although I'm not certain that if you were to go to a private school you'd have many options in terms of curriculum, in most private schools.

JEANNE ALLEN: No, I think you're right. They tend to be smaller, they have fewer resources, your average private school. I do think, though, what's there is that you have adults

who are saying did you ever think about becoming a journalist? Oh, you're a great artist. Oh, you

work really well with your hands. There is, I think you mentioned, Representative O'Brien,

Mastery earlier. What I've heard about people who have visited Mastery is there is a constant

effort in a school like Mastery. Not that it's the only one, but there is a constant effort to say

where are you, what are you doing, where are you going next, how are you getting there? I think from what we have seen and heard, the studies and the people in these schools is they feel they can because their only focus is the school.

CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: But also, it's part of process of selection in traditional private

schools. They select kids from prekindergarten as to who is going to get into kindergarten, who

gets into first grade and goes forth in the curriculum. I'm not, I think part of the challenge of a

public school in general is to take any kid who comes through that front door on day 1, no matter

what their state is or how well prepared, no matter what needs they have, and suggest that you

can somehow propel them forward in a consistent manner that gets them to a goal at the end of 12 years. Most schools don't do that, most schools don't do that. But we ask public schools to do that. When we talk about getting away from public education, I think you have to be very, very careful that we don't forget what public schools are told they have to do.

JEANNE ALLEN: Yeah, I don't think there is a magic bullet in saying a school is public other than it serves the public, right? It's the education of the public, and if it's a school that is managed and run by the government institutions that we call public today, right, versus a private or a charter public school, let me just—

CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: I was going to say, my understanding is that public means that every person who comes to that school gets admitted and is promised an education. That's not, that's unlike any of the others who don't have that obligation.

JEANNE ALLEN: I would respectfully disagree. A charter school must take anyone—

CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: That's a public school. Charters are public.

JEANNE ALLEN: And in all of the descriptions I've seen of the school choice programs, and I'm going to include private schools here, once you sign up, this is the way it's done in

Milwaukee, it's done in Ohio, it's done this way in Florida, once you sign up to participate, you have to take students who apply as part of whatever your budget requirements are. Whether it's

10, 20, if they come from a particular school. So I hear you, there is about 10 to 12 percent of private schools out there who pick and choose, my own kids go to some of those, the vast majority of private schools, whether they be in Harrisburg, Philly, elsewhere, they are there to serve. If they are Catholic schools, it's a small "c" catholic. They are brining kids in. I respectfully believe that those schools are doing everything that they can to admit students in their neighborhood to get them a great education, and that is why they are so heavily involved in campaigning for the passage of this bill. They want to keep doing that, and if we keep closing them, think about the closures and the impact on the other public schools that absolutely should be taking everyone, and are taking everyone, but just because they take everyone doesn't mean they are doing the job. Even if you're sitting there, doesn't mean you're doing it. You've got to get the job done. It's got to be a success.

CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: Thank you.

CHAIRMAN CLYMER: I'd just like to add one more thought. As I was hearing

Chairman Roebuck under discussion, I know that in faith-based private schools, they will accept the challenge of taking a student who may be disruptive, who they know may have problems and the parents have brought the child there. That child is going to be in an environment where the overwhelmingly majority of students in that school are going to be looking at things that they are going to do that are right, they're not going to be uncivil, they are going to try to embrace that student, try to help the student. They are not going to shun the student, isolate the student, and they're going to try everything, the teachers as well, to turn that student around. Because, that sets a good pattern for the school, a good reputation, this child came here in sixth grade and by the end of sixth grade that child had been turned around totally and now wants to go to seventh and eighth grade. There are good reasons why faith-based schools will take what they call

"disruptive students." Now, if the student is just going to go out of hand, well of course that becomes a different matter, because the parents know that you can't have someone in there who is just day after day after day being disruptive. Those are very few and far between to my knowledge. Most of the students that go into these faith-based schools, these private schools that do not have school choice funding, they will take them for those very reasons.

JEANNE ALLEN: We've certainly seen that in D.C. and other places too, but I would say great public educators, and I think that they are all over all of our schools, they go from public educated, they are in public schools, some of them go to private, some of them join

charters, what we hear time and time again is they want to do that with every child that walks in

the classroom, they are interested in doing it, they don't feel like they have the freedom and the

flexibility to actually do their craft. That is why many of them actually embrace in rank and file doing things differently.

CHAIRMAN CLYMER: Well we want to do all we can as a committee to take away those onerous burdens, provide mandate waivers so that public schools can have that flexibility and the freedom to exercise and teach their students.

Jeanne Allen, thank you very much for being with us this afternoon. We appreciate your indulgence over the break that we had. We certainly appreciate your give and take on the questions, as well.

Our next testifier to come before us is someone that we are all acquainted with. Chairman

Jim Roebuck is going to bring forth his, on his bill he has in the committee, he has HB 1657, there has been some commentary about that already today. We'll just wait a minute until the testimony gets passed around and then we'll let you begin your testimony.

Alright. Chairman Roebuck, your testimony has been passed around, you may begin as it is convenient.

CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, thank you members of the

Committee for this opportunity to talk about my proposed legislation. I'm going to try not to violate the rule that I had when I was Chair and that Chairman Clymer has as Chair as well, and that is I'm going to try not to read my testimony word for word. I do want to try to summarize it hitting the major points that I want to make. HB 1657 makes a comprehensive change to the charter and cyber charter school law,

most notably it will establish State responsibility for funding cyber charter schools that is fair

and relieves school districts of a major funding mandate. It does mirror other legislation that has

been put into discussion, and I want to note that certainly I represent a district that has a large

number of charter schools. In fact, I think Philadelphia has more charter schools than any other

district in the State, and I do support charter schools.

I also want to note that, I want to recognize the efforts of other legislators, notably State

Senate Education Chairman Jeff Piccola, Representative Thomas Killion, and others who have

offered charter school legislation. There is some degree of commonality in the things that all of

us have focused on, and a lot of it has to do with areas of accountability and concern about

conflict of interest, but I would note that my legislation does in fact differ from the others that have been offered in a number of ways.

The first major area of difference is in our approach to funding cyber charter schools. In terms of funding cyber charter schools, since it is the State through the Department of Education that proves, renews, and is responsible for monitoring cyber charter schools, I believe it should be the State that also is responsible for fully funding those schools and that the individual school districts are relieved of that financial burden.

This would provide to those districts an estimated $187 million in savings, relieving them of the costly mandate to fund cyber charter school students. While there have been other bills introduced in the session that provide mandate relief to school districts, the total savings to school districts from those bills combined would only be a fraction of the savings embodied in my proposed legislation. At the core, the legislation creates an Office of Charter and Cyber Charter Schools and in the testimony set forth some of the structure that specific proposal and try to also articulate clearly the goal of redirecting the fund of moneys going particularly into the cyber charter schools.

Further, I note that we try to treat the cyber charters very much as we treat both charter and public schools in terms of setting a standard against which their funding would be provided.

What I have here is a very specific proposal and I would note that the other bills coming from both the Senate and the House propose only to establish a commission to look at this issue, whereas I have tried to provide a direct solution, and hopefully it puts us somewhere further down the road to addressing this particular issue.

A second major area of difference between my legislation and that from both the other

Senate and House bills is that HB 1657 limits surpluses for charter and cyber charter schools. As we are all aware, the Auditor General's Office last September found that Statewide charter and cyber charter schools had unreserved, a designated general fund balances totaling more than

$108 million. The report found that 45 charter and cyber charter schools had fund balances exceeding 12 percent of their annual expenditures, the maximum allowable for school district.

Moreover, the report found that 31 percent carry over fund balances exceeding $1 million. The

Auditor General report includes a recommendation like that embodied in HB 1657 to set a limit on unreserved, undesignated general fund balances.

My legislation also goes beyond the other proposed charter school bills by including provisions written into legislation that were voted out of the Education Committee last session relating to charter schools. For example, 1657 would require cyber charter schools to ensure that students are in compliance with compulsory attendance law and make them responsible for accurately instituting truancy proceedings, it would provide that school districts would not

transport students on a daily basis if they are not required to transport similarly situated students in the regular public schools.

It would prohibit the consumption of purchase and sell of alcohol in a charter school facility, and it would provide penalties for filing that prohibition. It would require the Office of

Charter and Cyber Charter Schools to set an age for beginning students in cyber charter schools.

The Office would have to provide funding for students attending a cyber charter school who meet the minimum age requirements.

The legislation also does something that has been discussed at our hearings in that it would require the Department of Education to publish an annual report that identifies charter schools whose students are high performing and describe best educators to practices used in those high performing charter schools so that this information can be disseminated to other schools and other school districts. Certainly, if we have things that are working in our schools, we ought to be about replicating those levels of success. Like the other Senate and House bills, my legislation increases accountability and addresses conflicts of interest regarding both charter and cyber charter schools.

Today, then, I'm asking that as the House Education Committee considers new legislation regarding charter and cyber charter schools, they give equal consideration to my legislation, HB

1657 along with that offered by Representative Killion in HB 1348. I think that, hopefully, we can have a broad discussion of how best designed legislation is area compromise where necessary, and come out with a truly well designed and a strong bill.

Now, I want to close my remarks by recognizing again the important role that charter and cyber charter schools play in our education system. I want to also then specifically try to clear up an issue regarding the ability of school districts to place caps on enrollment increases in charter

schools. This issue is a bit real concern in my City of Philadelphia, as some charter schools have

sought to raise enrollment levels. A 2011 administrative ruling from the Department of

Education regarding the Walter D. Palmer Learning Partners Charter School and the School

District of Philadelphia made it clear by citing Section 1723(a) of the Public School Code that,

and I quote, "enrollment of students in a charter school or a cyber charter school shall not be

subject to a cap or otherwise limited by any past or future action of a board of control or any

other governing authority unless agreed to by the charter school or the cyber charter school." The

reality, then, is that there are presently no caps on charter school enrollments. The reason I raise

this issue in part is that there has been substantial argument from those who support school

vouchers asserting that vouchers are necessary because of the cap on charter schools. This is

simply not true. I would encourage that those who seek to expand school choice, public school

choice, if you will, would work to ensure that cyber and charter schools increase their enrollment

levels and establish more high quality charter and cyber charter schools.

I want to also just make one other point or two other brief points, really. One is that, and I

referenced this earlier today, there is much in the rhetoric in the debate over vouchers by voucher

proponents, they have suggested that with a voucher you might gain admission to a charter

school. This is simply not true. I think parents are truly confused by the rhetoric on the debate on

this issue. I've had parents who have come to me who have said they were advocates for

vouchers because their kids could find a way to get into their local charter school. That is simply

not true.

Secondly, I would like to make a point that from a district that has extensive numbers of

charter schools, the reasons that parents choose charters are many. Understand that some parents choose charters because they, perhaps, have only a choice of a failing public school. But far

more parents choose charters because they offer innovative academic programs. For example,

there are schools in Philadelphia that have programs specifically targeted to academic areas,

students who want to be architects. There is a school underwritten by the architectural professionals who offer them that introductory experience. There is a constitutional school, there are any number. There are all sorts of different options that expands the opportunities for students beyond what some traditional public schools offer. I might note, there is even a school that sort of replicates my high school in that it is a single gender, an all male academically based high school and in fact has a curriculum based in Latin, all students take Latin from which it derived its name, Boys Latin. These are the kinds of things that charter schools do that parents

seek out and they seek it out not necessarily because they have the choice of a failing public school, but rather because charters expand opportunity as they were designed to do.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this opportunity and I'd be glad to try to answer any

questions, though I'm sure that my testimony has been so complete that nobody will have any.

CHAIRMAN CLYMER: Thank you, Chairman Roebuck, for coming before us today and

elaborating on your legislation. I do have just a few questions. On the minimum age that you

were mentioning, do you have a specific age that you are talking about? I didn't see it in the testimony.

CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: I didn't reference that, but I think that one of the things we have is that there are charters in Philadelphia that start at 4. I think there has been some effort to align that with the existing law that would at least provide for students who traditionally start kindergarten at 5. I certainly have been an advocate for lowering the Statewide school age to 6, but as you know the Statewide school start age is still 8. CHAIRMAN CLYMER: The charter schools also have some of the same benefits of the public schools since they are public schools, and that would be free breakfast and free lunch.

Would that be correct? Okay.

You had mentioned that there are things that the charter schools are doing that are driving parents to enroll their students, their children, could they not replicate that from the charter schools to the public schools, what they are doing well? Some of the things, I think, are self- evident. We discuss them throughout these 5 days of testimony, is that charter schools provide a safe haven. I mean, that is public knowledge, and the public school should say look, we need to try and do the same the best we can. Also, there is no bullying. That is another issue. I have visited charter schools in Philadelphia, and I could see that was totally absent among the children. This was an elementary school that I had gone to.

The Office of Charter—

CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: Mr. Chairman, could I just respond in part to what you just said? I would agree, there are parents who choose charters because they see them as a place where the kids can be safe, they can study safely, and they can get a good education. It is unfortunate, however, that in my city as I think in other places, charter schools tend to mirror the existing public schools. That is to say, you have charter schools that also fall into that category of failing schools that do not meet the standards that we have set as acceptable for academic performance. That is certainly one issue as well that I think we have to address. If you look at that 144, and that is a fluid issue, I've seen names off and on of that list, but if you look at that list and take that as a barometer where schools are, we probably have to create a parallel one that would also measure the same level of accountability in some of the charter schools. But, I do think what I wanted to really address was that the charters have been able to be truly innovative in some ways that traditional public schools have not been. That is in part why I think many parents choose them as well as the issues that you eluded to in which I would readily admit.

CHAIRMAN CLYMER: And I agree that if a charter school is failing, if they have demonstrated they cannot continue to meet the standards, number one, I think the parents would recognize that and say yes, this is not for my student anymore; and we need to then create them as a failing school. It gets titled, this is a failing school like the others that we have so mentioned within the bricks and mortar of the title "public schools." I don't have a problem with that.

CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: Let me say this and I don't want to belabor this, but I had a parent who came to me because she had her kid in a charter school. Number one in his class.

When he got to the fourth grade, which is transition year in Philadelphia where you can apply to some of the academically strong special admittance schools, particularly to Masterman which is probably the best school in the State, public or private, she found that her student, her kid who was number one in his class at his charter could not qualify for that public school because his test scores were low, because his academic credentials were not strong. I think we've got to be very careful in what we do and how we look at the way we deliver educational services. I believe every student should have an opportunity for educational success, and I think a part of it means you have to monitor all schools in a way that the kid who is getting the "A's" in fact has the ability that that suggests.

CHAIRMAN CLYMER: In your legislation, you establish a charter school agency,

Office of Charter Schools. Who, how are they appointed? That is what I really need to know. How are these members appointed? Because they are given responsibility to have oversight of

the charter schools.

CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: I'm told that it's a division of the Department of Education.

CHAIRMAN CLYMER: Then how many would be in that, on that board?

CHRIS WAKELEY: It would part of the Department of Education.

CHAIRMAN CLYMER: Oh, it would be. So you would have someone, just one person

that would be ruling that? You would have an Executive Director of the Office of Charter

Schools?

CHRIS WAKELEY: Right. It's like any other division they have. There is no board, it's a

division of the Department of Education.

CHAIRMAN CLYMER: So that would be created by this legislation?

CHRIS WAKELEY: Yes, sir.

CHAIRMAN CLYMER: Okay. The Philadelphia School District is attempting to be

somewhat innovative with the renaissance schools. I know you are familiar with them. How

would you compare them to a charter school? A renaissance school to charter schools?

CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: I'm not certain exactly where that renaissance fits into the

structure of the school district. I know that the school district has in fact turned over some of the

existing public schools to charter providers. I'm not certain that that is the right category that the

renaissance schools fall into. I know we've got renaissance, we've got Promise Academies, we have a number of different options at trying to improve academic quality within the school

district.

CHAIRMAN CLYMER: I think some of those innovative schools are a result of the

influence of the charter schools in the City of Philadelphia. My last observation is that when we heard testimony about the charter schools, one of the things we did hear was that they had a dress code. I think that may not be where they all have, they have to go out and buy a uniform per say, but they would have to wear respectable trousers and shirts, and I think that is very helpful, because it takes away one student excelling in jewelry or something very special in the clothing styles that other students could not accept. That is another example that the public schools may try to emulate.

CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: There is a dress code for students in the School District of

Philadelphia, Mr. Chairman. Students in the School District of Philadelphia wear uniforms to school, that is a requirement.

CHAIRMAN CLYMER: I’m not sure I saw it when I was down there.

CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: It is a requirement in every public school in Philadelphia, that they have a uniform that they wear, if it's no more than slacks and sort of a polo shirt or whatever, but there are colors and students are required to wear them.

CHAIRMAN CLYMER: Thank you. The Chair recognizes Representative Smith for questions.

REPRESENTATIVE SMITH: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman Roebuck, I think I need more of a clarification than a question. As it has been said and you have said many times, charter schools are public schools, am I correct?

CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: That is correct.

REPRESENTATIVE SMITH: Right, okay. Now, maybe I misunderstood this, but if a student has a voucher and the student wants to go to a certain charter school, there is a possibility that the charter school does not have to admit that student with a voucher into the school? CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: I think it is my understanding that the vouchers are not

designed to provide access to other public schools. It is designed to provide access to non-public

schools.

CHRIS WAKELEY: Basically, it wouldn't make much sense for somebody to use a

voucher to go to a charter school, they would just apply to a charter school directly, because they

would get more funding through the charter school program than they would through the voucher

program. But the issue is still whether the charter school has room for that child. Right now there

are charter schools that do have certain limits on the number of their students that they have for

capacity purposes, for whatever reason. So while all of the bills that are out there on vouchers

talk about allowing for public school choice, which would include charter schools, it really wouldn't make any sense. If somebody wanted to go to a charter school they would just go through the charter school process, because the charter school would say, if they actually did

have somebody come to them with a voucher, could say we have no room, we have no capacity

to take you, just like any non-public school could say. We don't have the capacity to take you, which is allowed for in all of the legislation that deals with school vouchers. Because, remember, a voucher is only for a certain set amount of money. Depending on which bill you do, it's only worth a certain amount of money. Through the charter school law, your child goes to a charter

school and there is no tuition. The charter school is not allowed to charge you a tuition of any

type. So why would you choose a voucher over going through the charter school program? So I

think that is the point that is being made here.

So technically you could, but it really wouldn't make any sense and it still wouldn't stop the charter school from saying, we don't have any room or we don't have a program that fits your needs, which is also in all of the legislation on school vouchers, has language that says, the non- public or quite frankly if the non-public does not have a program that meets the needs of the child, then they don't have to provide, they don't have to admit them, which is an issue particularly for students with special needs.

REPRESENTATIVE SMITH: That was the point that I was coming to. I could understand if they didn't have room with respect to the number of students, but is there a possibility of discrimination against a student for whatever reason?

CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: I'm not certain, in discrimination, I'm not certain I understand.

REPRESENTATIVE SMITH: Academic ability, let's just say.

CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: I'm not certain. The process of charter school admission is supposed to be blind. It might be by lottery, it might be by application. You would assume that any kid that applies has equal chance at getting in. The issue I've heard mainly with charter schools is that there is not sufficient room for students who otherwise would get in who cannot get in because there is simply not enough room. In part, that was a product of their being caps on enrollment. Now if the caps are gone I would assume you will see some charter school enrollments increase, particularly because those who are those who are the most successful who have good academic programs will be able to service more students.

REPRESENTATIVE SMITH: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

CHAIRMAN CLYMER: The Chair thanks the gentleman and recognizes Representative

Tallman for questions.

REPRESENTATIVE TALLMAN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you Chairman

Roebuck. Your bill actually does address some issues with charters that I myself have questions in, and one of those is the funding. I'm going to take my own school district where I pay my taxes, Bermudian Springs, and then someone from Upper Merion, totally disparate amounts of money available there, so your bill has some interesting and good points to it.

My first question is, and I think this is a summary sheet here we were provided. Basically on the accountability, Dr. Barnett, I know she didn't like your bill for the most part, but anyway,

Dr. Barnett had said AYP is part of your accountability, and she said there are two different standards. Would you consider, now we'll have to get staff to do some research and actually produce both sets of standards to verify that, but would you agree to either A: you amending the bill; or B: accepting an amendment to bring charter, cyber charters into the same grading sphere

that public schools are in or LEA's?

CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: I certainly would consider any amendment that is reasonable

that you might offer if that is an issue of concern, actually I would be willing to consider it.

REPRESENTATIVE TALLMAN: Okay, the second question is on page 6, again, the

accountability, the third bullet point, "Failure of a charter to be employer of all teaching staff,

except as permitted" can somebody explain that to me in plain English?

CHRIS WAKELEY: It's the issue of contractors, and I believe these provisions are also

in the other bills, they are also in I believe Senator Piccola and Representative Killion's bill, and

this was a concern of them hiring contractors.

REPRESENTATIVE TALLMAN: So like myself, hiring me as an independent

contractor, is that the idea?

CHRIS WAKELEY: Right, I think that was the idea.

REPRESENTATIVE TALLMAN: That answers the question, thank you.

CHAIRMAN CLYMER: The Chair thanks the gentleman and recognizes Representative

Roae. REPRESENTATIVE ROAE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you Mr. Chairman

for your testimony. Part of what your legislation would do, I'm looking at my notes here so I apologize if I misspeak, but it would set up a $230 million fund that the State would basically pay the tuition with rather than the local school district paying for cyber schools, is that correct?

CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: That is correct.

REPRESENTATIVE ROAE: Now, schools that have a lot of students going to cyber schools, they would obviously get a lot of that money and schools that don't hardly have any students would get hardly any of that money. Wouldn't this basically steer that $230 million basically to a handful of districts that have most of the students?

CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: I don't know where cyber students are. I know we have charter schools, but we don't have many cyber students in Philadelphia. It's not steering it towards my district. I don't know whether, where the phenomenon where cyber charters is most popular, I know I've visited cyber sites in Central Pennsylvania, and I guess I've visited some in suburban Philadelphia, but I don't know that; I think part of the problem with cyber charters is because they are so widely scattered. There is an inconsistency in funds coming from each of those individual students to the individual cyber provider.

CHRIS WAKELEY: Generally as a percentage of their students, cyber charter schools in terms of their fiscal impact, are most highly impacted upon rural school districts. So they would, on a percentage basis, be the biggest beneficiaries of this, because they, unlike Philadelphia which has over half of the charter schools in the entire State, that is where the vast majority of people who use the charter school law go to charter schools, in rural areas there aren't charter schools, necessarily. So those students and a lot of those students are formerly homeschooled students, a significant percentage are homeschooled students. I haven't seen any exact figures, but I've heard anywhere between a quarter to a third of students of cyber charter schools formerly

had been homeschooled, which does impact those particularly those in rural areas.

REPRESENTATIVE ROAE: So your legislation just deals with the cyber charter, not the

bricks and mortar charter schools?

CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: The funding portion deals only with cyber charters, yes.

REPRESENTATIVE ROAE: Okay, thank you.

CHAIRMAN CLYMER: The Chair thanks the gentleman and recognizes Representative

Truitt for questions.

REPRESENTATIVE TRUITT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Chairman. Just a

quick observation, I just realized for the first time today that an interesting effect of cyber

schools is that they balance out the disparity of kids coming from different economic levels.

You've got one kid who goes to a cyber school, brings $5,000, another brings $15,000 with him,

and they both get the same education. I'm not saying that that means we shouldn't fix the funding

formula, I think there is a problem with the funding formula, I just thought it was an interesting

point that it balances out that inequity.

And I wanted to start off by commending you on providing a new answer to a question that I keep asking during these hearings, which is why do families choose charter schools and private schools and so forth, you mentioned the fact that they liked innovative educational

programs, and that's, no one else has said them yet, but there are other reasons as well, but I'm

glad that you pointed that out and I'm going to come back to that.

My first question is about the bill itself, legislator to legislator. I'm new to the General

Assembly, and when I look at a bill like this it seems like, I wonder why, and I asked Tom

Killion, Representative Killion the same question on the House floor one day. I said, why didn't you break this up in your case, into 10 different bills as opposed to packing it all into one bill?

And I asked this question because there are indeed some pieces in here that I like, and there are pieces that I don't like. I would think we could get some of these components through if you would break it up into multiple bills. Did you have any rationale for one method versus another?

CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: Well, I think there is a tendency to want to put everything together and have one process and solve it all at once. I'm not adverse to the approach you suggest. I'm reminded, by training in historian, I'm reminded that the United States was at the point of almost civil war in 1850 because they couldn't get a comprehensive bill through to deal with the issue of slavery in the territories and Henry Clay, the great compromiser, put together a composite bill and he couldn't get it through in one piece, but eventually it got broken down into individual pieces so that those who agreed on one part would vote for their part, and those who agreed on other parts would vote on it, and eventually the whole thing got through by doing it that way. So I have no aversion to taking that approach if that is something that would get us further down the road on resolving this issue.

REPRESENTATIVE TRUITT: The points that I have the most issues with, and I'll let you respond, is in general some of these sections feel like we're trying to micromanage charter schools from the State level, and you may have noticed in my pattern of questioning at the hearings that generally I look at the outcome and the total dollars spent, and I really don't worry too much about how the dollars were spent. If a charter school is getting great results for $5,000 per kid and half of that money is going into the owner's pocket, personally, I say he's getting better results for less money. I don't feel like I need to micromanage him, I need to micromanage the ones who are spending more money and getting less results. As a business owner, when I have employees who work for me, the ones who are dealing well, I leave them alone. The ones who aren't doing well are the ones that I micromanage. So I'm wondering if some of these things may be good ideas if we applied them to only schools that aren't performing, and I don't know if you'd be willing to modify the language so that a school that is meeting performance criteria, we don't worry about how much their fund balance is built up to, and we don't worry about how they are spending their money, but the ones that are not achieving by some objective criteria, then we say okay, you guys are sticking too much money into your fund balance and you're not spending it on the kids, are you open to modifications like that?

CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: Well, I think that there is, the basing element in my mind is accountability in terms of public policy. We as legislators over and over again say we want things transparent, we want to hold individuals accountable. I have a problem, and there have been cases with charters, where there has been just egregious actions by individual charter providers. The case that comes to mind, there were three schools in Philadelphia that hired the same accountant who billed each of them 8 hours for 8 hours of work, so she was working 24 hours a day, never slept, every day. There are principals who are principals of more than one charter facility, so they took a salary for both. In my mind, I don't care how good those schools are, there is something fundamentally wrong with that which is done in part with public money. I would agree, I like results that are good, but there has to be a level of accountability in the way we spend public dollars.

REPRESENTATIVE TRUITT: Sometimes it just seems to me like a little bit like it's sour grapes, if you will. This guy is educating kids and he's making money at it. And there's a group of people out there that don't like the fact that somebody is somehow profiting off of education even though he's getting a better result. And that is what I’m trying to get a grip on, is why we worry so much about what they're doing. If we're getting acceptable results – and I've said it before – if we're getting the same or better results for the same or less money, shouldn't we be focusing our attention digging into or micromanaging the ones that are not, people that are on the other side of that?

CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: I think that, again, I don't think of education necessarily as a business. I think that is somewhat a different kind of approach. And you mentioned you were a businessman, I can't think that you would be happy if you found you had employees who were pocketing part of your profit whether you are productive or not. And that is what in affect is happening here. If you have people pocketing money that they shouldn't be pocketing, I think that is a fundamental problem.

REPRESENTATIVE TRUITT: I'll give you a specific example here. You talk about if their fund balances are getting too big, then they have to give back the excess. You made a good point there, about I wouldn't want my employees pocketing some of my profit. But the reality is when you run the business you're focused on who is performing and who isn't. Getting back to that, so we say if their fund balance is building up, then we want them to give that money back.

Would we do the reverse and say if they have mismanaged their school and spent more money than they planned, are we going to give them the extra money that they need to make up for their errors?

CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: I think what we tried to do there was put the cyber charters in the same category, or the charters, in the same category as existing public schools which have caps on their fund balances. This does nothing more than hold them to the same level that other public schools are held to. It's not designed to punish them or be punitive, and I think part of the problem for the charters is an issue we also want to address, is that they say they don't get the money from the school districts in a reasonable manner. I think our legislation also addresses that issue by saying that the school districts would be required to give that money in an orderly way.

The need for the fund balance diminishes, but it also holds all of those public schools at the same level.

REPRESENTATIVE TRUITT: Just in closing, I'll just say as I'm looking at these bills, you mention about, again, one of the reasons that families choose these charter schools is because they are innovative, they try new stuff. And so when I look at a bill, if I feel like what we're trying to do is make the charters more like what we specifically didn't want them to be, then that is what is going to lose my support. So I just wanted to pass that along. Just so you understand how I’m evaluating this.

CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: Thank you, let me just say, that is not my intent at all. I think the more innovative schools you have where kids find the niche they want, the option they want to learn, I'm in favor of that and I certainly hope this discourage that.

CHAIRMAN CLYMER: The Chair thanks the gentleman for those questions. Chairman

Roebuck, that ends the questions for you and HB 1657. Certainly very informative, very helpful.

We thank you for your testimony and for Chris for joining the Chairman there.

CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Members of the

Committee, thank you.

CHAIRMAN CLYMER: We're going to move on to our final presenter today, and it is

Mr. Otto Banks of the REACH Alliance group. We appreciate Mr. Banks being with us today.

Do we have testimony? Mr. Banks, if you could hold for just a moment while they pass around your testimony.

MR. BANKS: Absolutely. CHAIRMAN CLYMER: Everyone has your testimony, so you may begin when you are ready.

MR. BANKS: Thank you. Of course, greetings Chairman Clymer, Chairman Roebuck, esteemed members of the House Education Committee, as well as distinguished members of the

House General Assembly. Good afternoon, and thank you for giving me this opportunity to provide testimony today.

My name is Otto Banks and I am the Executive Director of REACH Foundation/REACH

Alliance. I was the former United States Deputy Assistant Secretary in charge of our Nation's

Economic Development Policy at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, I also was a Commissioner on a Tri-County Regional Planning Commission, I was the Eastern

Region Director of Development for a publically traded alternative education corporation, and also was a city councilman and represented the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania on a National

Economic Development Policy Committee as well.

What you may not read or find out about Otto Banks is that I was also a latchkey kid. I was one of four siblings, I narrowly escaped a homeless shelter, I'm the only one to graduate from high school and then to go on to graduate from college as well. I attended Harrisburg City

Public Schools as well as parochial schools when my family could afford it, and I know first- hand what a struggle or a lack of school choice can be for low-income families; and now I advocate for families like mine, whose school choice options are limited or nonexistent.

REACH was founded in 1991 to coordinate the passage of school choice legislation in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. We are a grassroots coalition drawing upon a powerful network of Statewide members and coalition partners of non-public education, faith, business, parent, and labor organizations. In 1995 and '99, REACH led lobbying and grassroots efforts to support Governor Tom

Ridge's school choice legislation and secured an history victory with the passage in 2001 of the historic Educational Improvement Tax Credit program. Recently, much of the discussion has been focused on providing opportunity scholarships for low-income families in failing school districts, along with significantly increasing the very popular and successful EITC program. If these parameters represent the largest school choice program that can be passed in the General

Assembly, we will be whole-heartedly supportive. Again, if these parameters represent the largest school choice program that can be passed by the General Assembly, we will be whole- heartedly supportive.

REACH supports the creation of opportunity scholarships for a multitude of reasons, but none are more important than the fact that this legislation will allow more families than ever to exercise their freedom of choice by being able to select the school that best fits the needs of their children.

Currently, in large part, the quality of a child's education depends on their zip code. Far too many Pennsylvania children are trapped in failing schools that are failing or not addressing their individual needs.

Through the creation of an opportunity scholarship program, we believe – and of course, by expanding the EITC program – this dynamic will change by providing families with the freedom of choice they so desperately desire.

Many have said that school choice is a civil rights issue of our time. Choice and competition are the hallmarks of the opportunity and EITC scholarship programs. REACH believes these pillars will raise student achievement or attainment levels, increase competition in the education marketplace, and improve customer satisfaction in our education system. The REACH mantra since our inception has been to empower parents by giving them the

liberty to choose the best educational environment that fits the needs of their child. Parents truly

are the best, and ultimately the best accountability factors and standards because they know more

than anyone what is best for their children.

Choice in education is a natural extension of the choices provided to needy

Pennsylvanians in health care, nutritional purchases, and a host of other programs that are

currently offered to citizens in a free and democratic society.

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania provides low income families with medical and

dental coverage, giving them the opportunity to pick and choose their child's health-care

provider. The Commonwealth also provides food vouchers for life giving sustenance through the

food stamp program, where families are able to pick and choose their grocer of choice.

Unfortunately, the Commonwealth does not extend the same freedom of parental choice when it

comes to education for their child. For the benefit of our children, it is time to extend that choice

to education.

The arguments of various groups opposed to opportunity scholarships have been focused on issues unrelated to what is most beneficial to children. In REACH's opinion, the opportunities offered in the various school choice proposals will be of great benefit to students and their families. These proposals will provide families educational liberty that they do not currently have.

Opponents will say that the creation of opportunity scholarships is an extremely expensive endeavor. Currently, or last year, we spent over $26 billion on public education in the

Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Despite this massive investment, many of our kids remain trapped in persistently failing and unsafe schools. I am sure if you asked the parents of children trapped in those schools, they would tell you we can't afford not to create and implement

opportunity scholarships.

Critics of school choice have said that the way to solve student achievement deficits in public education is to fix the underperforming schools. We agree. However, the families with kids stuck in failing, unsafe schools do not want to wait around for the school and the system to work to resolve their problems, and they should not have to. They want immediate help and opportunity scholarships can provide the assistance that they seek.

Opponents often cite the Arkansas study of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, arguing that voucher students achievement test scores were statistically similar to their public school counterparts. However, the neglect to tell you that the choice students were more likely to have graduated from high school than their public school counterparts. And, the voucher students were also more likely to have enrolled in a 4-year college or university.

Meanwhile, as opponents argue against opportunity scholarships, children continue to flounder in failing schools and schools that do not meet their needs. While critics attempt to kill

school choice with questions, they offer no answers to the problems of children that are currently

trapped in these failing schools.

In addition to the creation of opportunity scholarships, REACH also advocates for an

increase of funding to the EITC program. This is a very important component of a school choice bill for many reasons. EITC is a very popular program that has been called the best education initiative for the past 15 years.

The EITC program serves both low-income families and the broad middle class. The proposed creation of opportunity scholarships which are focused on low-income households will ensure middle-income families receive additional EITC dollars. The creation of opportunity scholarships and an expansion of EITC will provide school choice options to not only many low-income families in Pennsylvania, but also a large number of

Commonwealth's middle-income families as well.

The EITC is a lifeboat for more than 44,000 students who can attend the school of their choice because scholarship money that they receive continues to help and assist them in their education. Many families rely on this funding to keep children in the schools of their choice.

School choice is really about a parent's ability to choose which school works best for their child. As you can tell from my comments, REACH enthusiastically supports the creation of opportunity scholarships for low-income children, but we also support the expansion in the EITC program to ensure middle-income children throughout the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania can attend the school of his or her choice as well.

We look forward to working with the committee on this issue, and I thank you for allowing me to present testimony before you today. I'd be happy to answer any questions that you may have with regard to this initiative.

CHAIRMAN CLYMER: The Chair thanks the gentleman for his testimony. Can you give us an overview as to the number of parents, organizations, that are promoting the school choice issue over the last year? We know that this comes up from time to time.

MR. BANKS: Well, that's interesting, Representative Clymer, of course there are a few organizations that are out in the forefront. However, there are 238 scholarship organizations that are in support of school choice initiative as well. There are 500 education improvement organizations who provide resources to public schools, and there are 143 pre-k scholarship organizations as well that exist that fall under the REACH umbrella, not to mention some of our other partners that are union members as well as the Christian coalition groups, the conservative

movement, in addition to many of our Catholic supporters as well – or faith based institutions.

CHAIRMAN CLYMER: That's my question, and I thank you for that response. The

Chair recognizes Chairman Roebuck for questions.

CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted, I guess I have three sort of broad questions. One, certainly you have put a lot of emphasis on the choice that parents

should have. That predisposes that you have a parent in place to be that advisor, that mentor, that

protector of that kid. How do you address the problem of kids who lack that stability in their

lives? What happens to them when they don't have the parent who goes to advocate for them to

get the scholarship, even, or to get admission into an alternative school?

MR. BANKS: That's an excellent question. Many times when you find a child that

doesn't have a parent in their life, often times there is an adult, be it someone from the juvenile

justice system, someone from Children and Youth, or possibly even a neighbor. Every child has

access to at least one positive adult who can provide direction to that particular individual. I,

myself, can be used as an example. I was a latchkey kid. Often there was no one in the

household, but yet there was an adult down the street that took time out to sit Otto Banks down and have a discussion. Once I was enrolled in private school, there were IHM Nuns who when I didn't attend class, would call to ensure that I would be in school the next day, and if they didn't see me the next day, they would stop by my house on the way to the convent. There is always someone that can be available in this child's life, be it again, someone from the juvenile justice system, from the Department of Public Welfare, there is always someone there.

CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: Second question relates to EITC and I voted for the original

EITC bill, but we have managed to change the emphasis on the bill on part by subsequent amendments to the concept. One of the things I wondered about is whether you would be in favor of opening up EITC so that the benefits could go to any young person that someone wanted to provide that support for, rather than providing for the formula that is existing in that bill, which I believe is 6633 in favor of non-public schools?

MR. BANKS: If I understand your question correctly, you want to ensure that the EIT scholarships are made available to all children across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, regardless of socioeconomic stratification or you saying—

CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: Regardless of what school they go to?

MR. BANKS: Regardless of what school they go to.

CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: I'll give you a perfect example—

MR. BANKS: So you're saying you utilize, just so I'm clear, you are actually talking about utilizing EITC scholarship dollars to pay for public school education?

CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: No, to pay for programs that benefit public school education.

For example—

MR. BANKS: Currently that is taken care of in the EIO component of the EITC program.

CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: But the way the bill is structured now, there is a percentage division, is there not, as to where the money can go?

MR. BANKS: There is a percentage division that is based on the amount that is appropriated per different area of the EITC program. So for example, there is the SO's, which are the scholarship organizations that provide resources from children from 1st grade through 12th grade. Then there is the pre-k that provide another number for those children that want to attend pre-k schools. Then there is the EIO component. So when you talk about the division and resources, those are merely set-up to determine what dollar amount will follow that child to the

school of his or her choice.

CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: Okay, but how does that break out percentage out of whatever

money we appropriate, what is the percentage division among those three organizations?

MR. BANKS: The largest share of the money is sent to the scholarship organizations, the

SO's, because there are the SO's, the EIO's, and then the pre-k SO's. And the larger percent is sent to the SO's because there are more children that benefit and utilize that component of the program.

CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: Okay. Let me then go to just one other point. There is, within the charter school law, a non-secretarian division. Would you be willing to write that into a voucher bill?

MR. BANKS: Well, sir, I don't have that ability to write that—

CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: But would you object to having that written into a voucher bill?

MR. BANKS: A non-secretarian division in a voucher bill, I would not.

CHAIRMAN ROEBUCK: Thank you.

CHAIRMAN CLYMER: The Chair thanks the gentleman and recognizes Representative

Quigley for questions.

REPRESENTATIVE QUIGLEY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you Mr. Banks for your testimony. At least in the written part you gave me a shout out there, so I do appreciate that, I work on the EITC. You may have heard earlier today when we had testifiers from the

PSEA, again, they brought up the objection about, or the contention, rather, about the reporting of the current EITC program. As far as REACH is concerned, can you just elaborate a little bit of what reporting you do about the money coming in and the money going out for the scholarships?

MR. BANKS: See, REACH Foundation/REACH Alliance, we serve two functions. We have a 501(c)(3), which is the educational component, where we travel around and educate the community on the EITC program, the business community as well as the general community on how to access the EITC scholarships. The other component of REACH, which is a 501(c)(4) focuses specifically on the advocacy in the lobbying end. Therefore, we are not a scholarship organization, we are a school choice advocacy and educational group.

Now, with regard to the reporting that occurs by the scholarship organizations, the educational improvement organization and the pre-k scholarship organizations, they are required by September 1 to provide the number of scholarships awarded as well as the dollar amount.

Moreover, many of those organizations are 501 (c)(3) organizations as well, which requires them to file, of course, their annual returns with the federal government, which essentially would open them up to federal auditing. So there is the federal level of scrutiny that occurs as well as the State level when it comes to looking into the practices as we begin to delve into the whole transparency issue, because it does exist and it is there.

REPRESENTATIVE QUIGLEY: And then, I should just add for comment, my good friend from Butler County, Representative Brian Ellis, is looking into making the reporting even more transparent to the public, so that something where the Department of Revenue that calculates, obviously, the tax credit for the company as well as DCED, that that information will be more readily available to the public.

MR. BANKS: Yes, I am aware of that. There have been some calls that we have received where individuals have requested copies of the corporations contributions to the scholarship organizations, which I think is only available now through a Freedom of Information Act request.

REPRESENTATIVE QUIGLEY: Right. And again, I don't know why that law was set up that way, but nevertheless, at least in my experience, I have seen the companies that are

contributing to EITC are more than willing, as you know they show up at the presentations with

the big cardboard checks. So they're not shy about telling people that they are involved in this

program, but nevertheless, I think in the interest of transparency and letting everybody know

what's going on, we certainly will be pushing that in the fall for disclosure.

When you look at the proposed expansion of EITC, can you just talk a little bit about the

encounters that you have with people out there who, like here with the charter schools where

there is a waiting list for people to get into charter schools, is there also a comparable, not a

physical list, but nevertheless people who are eager to get involved in EITC or wanting to get

those scholarships?

MR. BANKS: Absolutely. There are children, last year we were only able to serve about

44,000 children collectively. But I’m sure the list far expands, in terms of the availability of

resources, they are finite. So always the demands are going to exceed the availability of the

resources. We have families that constantly call our office right now looking to be able to realize

or benefit from the EITC program as well. All that we can do at this junction is really point them

in the direction where they can access these resources. Right now, the Commonwealth of

Pennsylvania has been hit hard financially. That trickles down to the families of the

Commonwealth as well. The middle class, they've been asking for a bail out, they've been asking

for support as well. I think that this body as a result of the passage of HB 1330 was a clear

indication that you've heard what Pennsylvanian's have been desiring for so long. You increased the income limits, you've increased the guidelines, and they are looking for that support as well.

So we believe by the creation of a bill that not only has the opportunity scholarship component,

because that can be targeted for very low and low-income individuals, that will free up more

resources on the EITC side so that middle-class Pennsylvanians can have access to that as well,

and they can be able to provide a quality education for their children.

REPRESENTATIVE QUIGLEY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

CHAIRMAN CLYMER: The Chair thanks the gentleman and recognizes Representative

Tallman.

REPRESENTATIVE TALLMAN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, thank you Mr. Banks for

your testimony. Real quick, and you've mentioned it in your testimony, those that are opposed to

school choice go right after Milwaukee, which I consider to be the gold standard. I've actually

studied Milwaukee County in-depth. They cite various studies, and I've actually read the study

that the League of Women Voters ladies 2-weeks ago cited, I read it in-depth. And of course I find that, they claim the methodology for some of the studies that support the Milwaukee School

Choice program is flawed, and I consider their investigation also flawed. A couple of key areas, and one of the areas, you've mentioned it here, is they say that the Milwaukee School Choice program has a much higher graduation rate than the public schools of Milwaukee. We know here in Pennsylvania that we have school districts that graduate in the 50's, the total public school graduation rate is 88 percent. It's interesting that 41 percent of African-American families in

Milwaukee County do school choice, 94 percent of them graduate. It blows away public education, and yet we're not willing to throw a lifeline to— 41 percent, let's say 41 percent of our students in Philadelphia County, we're not willing to throw them a lifeline, I find that

incomprehensible. But back to the Milwaukee School Choice program. It's also politically not reasonable to expect, and that's an urban area, it's politically not reasonable to expect, they have

an Assembly and a Senate there in Wisconsin, and the Assembly folks that represent Milwaukee

are not against school choice, they are very much in favor of it.

So here's my question to you. We have studies that say Milwaukee School Choice, the

data is flawed, and we have proponents of school choice who say Milwaukee County is the gold

standard. And you take on the Arkansas study, which is one of many that would indicate

Milwaukee County school choice does have some issues. How do you respond to people when

we talk about Milwaukee County School Choice program, how do you respond to people who

would tell you that, based on Arkansas or any other, the National Educational Policy Centers

report, any of those, how do you refute those?

MR. BANKS: Well I would say that school choice worked for me.

REPRESENTATIVE TALLMAN: Okay.

MR. BANKS: It has. You know, many of my friends that I grew up with, they are either

incarcerated or many of them have succumbed to drug addiction, and there are several hosts of

socioeconomic stressors that have led to that, but nevertheless, by me going to private school, and by having access to an environment that served as a family and created a family

environment, one that I did not have in the household, created in me a spark that essentially

served as a catalyst for my adult life of success.

REPRESENTATIVE TALLMAN: And you are to commended for that.

A phrase here in your testimony, you say that the student achievement test scores were

statistically similar. Again, this is Milwaukee and public school counterparts. I always get

interested when somebody is saying "statistically similar," and we know the phrase about

statistics. But how do you answer that, they are "statistically similar?" MR. BANKS: See, because there is a difference between achievement and attainment.

That because abundantly clear in this particular study. That is actually why I chose this study to

cite, because it was more in the middle. It didn't lean towards one direction, in favor, support of, or against, but it gave me an opportunity to look at both arguments from a different perspective, and what I found is that with achievement, it's based off of what you know now. It's how it was defined in there. Then you talk about attainment, is essentially about what you become as a result

of the education that you have been able to garner from participating in this particular program,

and then what it has shown is that these children, after 3 going onto the 4th year, have been able

to attain a lot more than their counterparts in public schools have been able to achieve. Because

when you look at, again, they said, all those scores were statistically similar, the children in

terms of their attainment, they were able to graduate. The other children, when you looked at the numbers, the raw data, they didn't graduate. But although their scores were close to the same.

The other children went on to 4-year institutions. The other children from Milwaukee Public

School didn't go on to the 4-year institutions.

REPRESENTATIVE TALLMAN: That was my next question, we have a large number of the school choice folks in Milwaukee County who go on and graduate from 4-year schools.

Again, I come back to that phrase where we are "statistically similar" and that would indicate to me that there is an issue there with are we comparing apples to oranges.

MR. BANKS: Initially someone could say, well, you know, apples and oranges are both fruit, but they are vastly different. And they are vastly different you can expect different outcomes. Currently, my son, he attends public school. We can afford to live in a good area where his public school, he attends a quality public school and he is getting a phenomenal education and I really would just like to go on record and state that as a school choice advocate, I'm not saying that one particular form of education, be it cyber, charter, or parochial, is better.

I'm just saying, and I agree that there are phenomenal public schools and public school teachers.

Obviously, my son goes to one, and I would continue to support his school as well. But every child should have access to a quality education and it should not be contingent or based upon where he or she lives or how much their parents make.

REPRESENTATIVE TALLMAN: Thank you.

CHAIRMAN CLYMER: The Chair thanks the gentleman and recognizes Representative

Truitt for questions.

REPRESENTATIVE TRUITT: Thank you Mr. Chairman, thank you Mr. Banks. For a change, I just have one open-ended question. Some earlier testimony opened up a new angle for me, a new way of thinking. I had asked the question about creating a demand for education, and what do we have to do to make parents and children want to be educated? And the testifier mentioned that school choice, being that it opens up new options for families, it actually encourages more parents to get involved. I was wondering how that compared to your experience as the Executive Director of REACH. Do you agree that if more parents have more options that they will get more involved in their kids' education?

MR. BANKS: I believe so. But also, schools should serve as beacons in the communities.

Currently, they are buildings that their children attend for 7, 8 hours a day. When I say they should serve as beacons, they should stay open a lot longer, they should serve as community centers, I think there should be more coordination of the preexisting services that currently provide support for these children, meaning, for example, in Dauphin County, the gaming proceeds are utilized for Stop the Violence programs, things of that nature in our justice system here. I think some of those proceeds could even be utilized to finance professionals, or individuals, to work in those buildings after hours, to continue to provide additional support, be it tutoring, recreational, other activities. What I'm essentially advocating for, and this is aside from school choice legislation, is the fact that it is about changing the perception of the people in the community as it relates to education. Because, we're talking about oftentimes you are talking about second and third generation drop outs. That's what I've heard throughout everyone's testimony, where they are poor, there are certain social morays that come along with it, but at the same time you have to create an environment where people feel welcome and they start looking at education differently through a different lens. Once that is achieved, I think you will be able to really work on some of these more structural issues within the educational system as well. Our children are going to these schools, they are viewed as factories, often times when parents go in there they are hostile, they are being greeted by hostile staff, I think that you keep the schools open longer, that people start to realize that a school is a place where you can get help, you can get educated, you can get taught the additional skills that you may have not had. Or, it creates an environment that you haven't had before as an adult, because a lot of times we transfer our knowledge information onto our children, so if we didn't have a successful educational experience, it's a large possibility our child might not, either.

REPRESENTATIVE TRUITT: Thank you.

CHAIRMAN CLYMER: The Chair thanks the gentleman. Mr. Banks, that concludes the testimony and questions from members of the committee. The Chair thanks the gentleman for being here today and sharing your passion on another important issue on behalf of REACH

Alliance. The Chair also thanks the members of the Committee and staff for being here today.

This ends our informational hearing for Wednesday, August 17, and we will reconvene tomorrow, Thursday, August 18, same place, same time, same station. (The hearing concluded at 3:36 p.m.)

The above is a full and accurate transcript of proceedings produced by the Official

Reporter’s Office of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives.

______

Jessica L. Rabuck, Reporter's Office