A major motive behind Common Core is profit, not education

Submitted by thenotebook on Fri, 05/24/2013 - 12:17 Posted in Commentary | Permalink

This commentary originally appeared on Keystone Politics and is reprinted with the permission of the author.

by Susan Spicka

My daughters just finished up their ninth day of PSSA testing in their elementary school. They will spend 5 percent of their school year filling in bubbles, and this doesn’t include the weeks of class dedicated to working on test prep before these very stressful testing days. My 5th grader cried every night before she had a test, worrying that if she didn’t do well, her school would not make AYP.

As a parent, I am very troubled by the impact that these high-stakes tests have on Pennsylvania’s children and on the public education they receive.

I have friends who chose to opt their children out of the PSSAs this year. They did not do this because they oppose the use of educational standards or testing. They opted their children out of Pennsylvania’s high-stakes tests because these tests are hurting our children and our schools.

Rising cyber-charter costs fuel push for statewide reform

Submitted by thenotebook on Thu, 05/23/2013 - 13:34 Posted in Latest news | Permalink

Click map for interactive version

by Benjamin Herold for NewsWorks, a Notebook news partner

Even as funding for Pennsylvania public schools has dwindled, the cost of sending students to independent, online charter schools has risen in more than three-quarters of Pennsylvania's 500 traditional school districts.

In many of those districts, the mounting financial impact of these "cyber charters" has been dramatic over the last four years. This had led to calls for the state legislature to rethink the rules for such schools.