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Zach Morales learned early that high school would go more smoothly if he kept certain things to himself.
But privately, the unassuming teen is proud of his passion for reading. So he hesitates for only a moment before opening the door to his small bedroom.
"I have a vast collection of books," says Morales, sweeping an arm towards shelves packed with horror novels, Harry Potter books, and biographies of professional wrestlers.
"Every book in this bookcase, I've actually read," he proclaims.
Undeterred by a bleak budget picture, District officials announced in February that four more low-performing traditional public schools will be converted to charters as part of the Renaissance Schools initiative.
The four schools – Cleveland Elementary, Creighton Elementary, H.R. Edmunds Elementary, and Jones Middle – currently serve more than 3,000 students. Although the schools will be turned over to outside managers, they will remain neighborhood schools, continuing to serve currently enrolled students and those who live in the surrounding community.
Officials described the expansion of the Renaissance initiative as a key component of the District's formal pledge to replace or transform 50,000 seats in low-performing schools over the next five years.
U.S. News and World Report released their “Best High Schools” state lists last week, ranking eight School District of Philadelphia high schools among the honorees in Pennsylvania, and awarding Julia R. Masterman Laboratory and Demonstration school as the number one high school in Pennsylvania overall.
To determine the Best High Schools in Pennsylvania, schools were analyzed at the state level based on how students performed on state assessments. Masterman students proved to be 98 percent proficient in reading, and 100 percent proficient in math. U.S. News also recognized that Masterman students boast a 94 percent participation rate in Advanced Placement coursework and exams, and score an 83.8 on the college readiness index.
In a growing number of states a single reading test determines which third-grade students advance to fourth grade. Proponents of the rule say that kids learn to read until third grade, and then read to learn. But critics argue that holding students back does more harm than good in the long run.
At Public School 6 Lillie D. Blake on the Upper East Side, the parents association posted an urgent and direct call for donations on the school’s Web site. “For the first time in years, the PTA is ‘in the red,’” it said. The group has a $10,000 operating deficit and is $65,000 below its budget projection, donation rates are down, and costs are up. And so the parents association is turning to families and asking them to give what they can. The recommended donation is $1,000 — roughly what the PTA spends each year per child.
“Why does my gift matter?” asks Public School 8 Robert Fulton in Brooklyn’s fund-raising Web site, which has a nautical theme in which dollar amounts hover over an opened treasure chest. A $5,000 donation covers art, music, drama and dance classes for one month; $1,000 pays for a single child’s costs; $300 goes to supplies. A collection of underwater bubbles that appear to be rising out of sea vegetation remind readers that without parental support, the school might not have substitute teachers, clubs or enrichment programs.
When an Ohio high school student killed three classmates in a shooting rampage several weeks ago, it once again brought a national spotlight to a problem widely believed to be epidemic in schools.
The reality, experts say, is exactly the opposite: Violent crime in schools has decreased significantly since the early 1990s.
Dewey Cornell, a clinical psychologist and education professor at the University of Virginia, says incidents like the one in Chardon, Ohio, and the infamous mass shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado and at Virginia Tech have reinforced a perception that schools can be dangerous places.
Like almost 14 million other Americans, Monica Reyes is looking for work.
"Macy's, Walmart, Kmart, Sears, Friday's, Outback," said Reyes, ticking off her list of recent unsuccessful job applications.
A sluggish economy has made finding work difficult for people from all walks of life. Nationally, the unemployment rate is still above 8 percent. Four people compete for every job.
Few of them will have a tougher time finding work than Reyes.
Philadelphia’s new Great Schools Compact lays out an ambitious goal: replace or transform 50,000 seats in low-performing schools with better options.
But will the Compact include a push to close low-performing charter schools and help successful District-managed schools flourish? Or will it function solely to accelerate existing efforts to close District-run schools and expand the city’s burgeoning charter sector?
Those were the biggest questions on the table during a lively discussion Monday night attended by about 100 people before the School Reform Commission’s “choice, rightsizing, and turnaround” committee.
This guest blog post comes from the Philadelphia Urban Food and Fitness Alliance. PUFFA solicited questions from students, parents/guardians, and other community residents and received responses from the Food Services Division of the School District of Philadelphia.
1. Why can't our children have organic milk to drink?
The total cost allotted to a school lunch is approximately $2.73, and $1.39 is allotted for food, $1.03 for labor and 39 cents the balance for infrastructure/administrative costs. Within the budget of $1.39 for food, 25 cents is available for milk. At this time, the cost of organic milk would significantly exceed the available funds for this item.
With the dropout rate among African American and Latino male students slow to improve, many people ask how one can keep these students engaged in their education.
“The best way I think is to look for things that interest them,” said Anthony Martin, the founder of What it Takes (WIT), a Philadelphia-based e-mentoring program aimed specifically at connecting at-risk Black male students with successful Black men.
Last summer Heston Elementary School Principal Icilyn Wilson-Greene received a phone call from the West Philadelphia Alliance for Children (WePac) about an opportunity to restore the school’s library.
It was a welcome call because a large and growing number of Philadelphia public elementary school students don’t have access to a school library or a certified school librarian, and Heston was struggling to keep its own library doors open.
The School District's on-time graduation rate climbed 3 percentage points last year to 61 percent, the first time in memory that more than six of ten Philadelphia students have graduated on time. That figure is the percentage of students who entered 9th grade in fall 2007 and finished high school by 2011.
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