Pennsylvania State Rep. Sam Rohrer, who is also a candidate for governor, will the guest speaker at the Winter Commencement at Albright College in Reading.
The school announced that 124 students from both Albright's traditional undergraduate program and Accelerated Degree Completion Program will receive diplomas at Albright College's Winter Commencement ceremony on Saturday, Dec. 19. Diplomas will be presented by President Lex O. McMillan III. The ceremony will be held in Memorial Chapel at 2 p.m.
Rohrer, who represents Berks County's 128th House District, will be the main commencement speaker, the school announced this week.
First elected to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in 1992, Rohrer is the ranking chairman of the House Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committee. He also serves on the House Finance Committee and previously served as the ranking chairman of the Game and Fisheries Committee and has spent 12 years on the House Appropriations Committee.
Best known as the architect and prime sponsor of the School Property Tax Elimination Act, Rohrer has earned statewide recognition as the champion for property tax reform.
He hopes to parlay that work in his bid for Pennsylvania governor in 2010.
Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Va., is at the top of the third annual U.S. News & World Report's America's Best High Schools rankings.
Only one high school from Pennsylvania's 676 schools made the Top 100 -- Julia R. Masterman Laboratory and Demonstration School in Philadelphia -- ranked at No. 45.
The magazine awards gold, silver and bronze designations for high schools. Pennsylvania ranked No. 25 among the 50 states, with 1 gold, 16 silver and 69 bronze awards.
Read more at the link below or go directly to the list of the Top 100 here.
Report: 83% of U.S. Adults Fail Test on Nation's Founding
A disturbing but not surprising report from The American Revolution Center about the lack of knowledge of the founding of the United States.
Some noteworthy findings from the report, titled "The American Revolution. Who Cares? Americans are Yearning to Learn, Failing to Know," include the following:
* Many more Americans remember that Michael Jackson sang "Beat It" than know that the Bill of Rights is part of the Constitution.
* 60 percent of Americans can correctly identify the number of children in reality-TV show couple Jon and Kate Gosselin's household (eight), but more than one-third do not know the century in which the American Revolution took place (18th). Half of those surveyed believe the Civil War (1861-1865), Emancipation Proclamation (1863), or War of 1812 occurred before the American Revolution (1775-1783).
* More than 50 percent of Americans surveyed wrongly attributed the quote, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" to George Washington, Thomas Paine, or President Barack Obama, when it is in fact a quote from Karl Marx, author of "The Communist Manifesto."
This is indoctrination at its worst. And this is a public school, supported by tax collars. Does the separation of church and state apply when your church is Government and your deity is Barack Obama?
If you can't make out the sound, here is a transcript of the lyrics (2nd song sung to "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" -
Song 1: Mm, mmm, mm! Barack Hussein Obama
He said that all must lend a hand To make this country strong again Mmm, mmm, mm! Barack Hussein Obama
He said we must be fair today Equal work means equal pay Mmm, mmm, mm! Barack Hussein Obama
He said that we must take a stand To make sure everyone gets a chance Mmm, mmm, mm! Barack Hussein Obama
He said red, yellow, black or white All are equal in his sight Mmm, mmm, mm! Barack Hussein Obama
Yes! Mmm, mmm, mm Barack Hussein Obama
Song 2: (sing to the Battle Hymn of the Republic - everyone!) Hello, Mr. President we honor you today! For all your great accomplishments, we all doth say "hooray!"
Hooray, Mr. President! You're number one! The first black American to lead this great nation!
Hooray, Mr. President we honor your great plans To make this country's economy number one again!
Hooray Mr. President, we're really proud of you! And we stand for all Americans under the great Red, White, and Blue!
So continue ---- Mr. President we know you'll do the trick So here's a hearty hip-hooray ----
Hip, hip hooray! Hip, hip hooray! Hip, hip hooray!
Despite a $3.2 billion budget deficit, Gov. Ed Rendell says Pennsylvania needs to spend more on public education. But new U.S. Census Bureau statistics show Pennsylvania is already among the leaders in per-pupil spending among the 50 states and the District of Columbia.
Pennsylvania spent $23.8 billion on public education in the 2006-07 school year, the most recent figures available, according to the Census Bureau.
Public schools in Pennsylvania spent $11,098 per pupil in 2007, compared to the national average of $9,666, according to the Census Bureau.
Pennsylvania ranked 13th in the nation in per-pupil spending, behind 11 other states and the District of Columbia.
From the new report, Public Education Finances: 2007:
On average, each state spent $9,666 per pupil in 2007, a 5.8 percent increase over 2006. Of total public school financing, state governments contributed 47.6 percent, followed by local sources, which contributed 44.1 percent, and federal sources, which made up the remaining 8.3 percent.
"Public school systems have to balance income and expenses, just like other publicly run entities," said Lisa Blumerman, chief of the Governments Division at the Census Bureau. "This survey shows us the unique blend that each school system applies to utilize the financial resources it has available."
In total, public school systems received $556.9 billion in funding from federal, state and local sources in 2007, a 6.9 percent increase from 2006. Total expenditures were $559.9 billion, a 6.3 percent increase.
Q: How can you tell if Gov. Ed Rendell is lying? A: His lips are moving.
Rendell has spend a lot of your tax dollars riding around the state on a bus to lie to constituents about Senate Bill 850, which reduces state spending and eliminates the need for a tax increase.
The Commonwealth Foundation has caught Rendell ... repeatedly ... lying about the impact of SB 850 on public education.
Five incumbent members of the Owen J. Roberts School Board were ousted by district voters in the May primary election.
So what does the school board do at its June meeting? The board voted 5-4 to fire Superintendent Myra Forrest, who has a five-year contract that runs through June 2010. District taxpayers will pay Forrest's $165,000-a-year salary even if she sits at home for the next year.
Over in neighboring Pottstown, two incumbent school board members were ousted in the May primary and another two will probably lose their seats in the November election.
The current lame duck board is considering a recommendation from its personnel committee to extend the contracts of the superintendent and other top administrators for another three years.
The current contracts run through 2010 and the logical thing to do is allow the new school board to make a decision on the administrators. A vote on extending the contracts was tabled at the last school board meeting, but could be brought back at a future meeting.
What's the solution? Shouldn't there be a law in Pennsylvania that prevents lame duck school boards from making rash decisions that could impact taxpayers for years to come?
Or maybe a new law isn't needed. A judge in Schuylkill County has removed eight elected members from the North Schuylkill School Board in a case involving a superintendent controversy. See story in the Pottsville Republican.
Read more about the OJR superintendent firing in today's edition of The Mercury.
In light of recent highly-publicized cases of teachers taking advantage of students, PA School Watch offers an important commentary what parents can do to protect their children while they're in the care of teachers.
From the post:
Seems like its open season on children. This is not meant to be a flip statement, but have you watched the news? Everyday children are being victimized by members of the school community. The usual reaction is, how can a teacher do that?
PA School Watch is a non-profit, non-partisan political action group with a goal of creating the safest educational environment for the children of Pennsylvania.
Pennsylvania colleges and universities produce far too many teachers for available jobs each year, forcing thousands of young people to leave the state in search of work, according to The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
Which begs the question, if there's such a glut of teachers, why are teachers in Pennsylvania paid so much money? The law of supply-and-demand is obviously not at play when it comes to personnel costs for school districts.
And why should anyone support Gov. Ed Rendell's plan to legalize video poker machines help college students pay for tuition when many of those graduates will end up leaving the state after they earn their degrees?
From the article by Craig Smith:
Thousands of graduates from Pennsylvania's 95 teaching colleges and universities every year must leave the state to find their first job. In fact, fewer than half of the state's 15,000 new teachers will find in-state jobs.
"Kids who want to go teach in their home district aren't being realistic. You have to spread your wings a little bit," said Jay Hertzog, dean of the College of Education at Slippery Rock University.
Salary and benefits are a big attraction for Pennsylvania teachers. They are reasons teachers tend to stay here, often working for 30 years or more before retiring.
The average teacher salary in Pennsylvania is about $54,000; Virginia's average teacher salary, for instance, is about $43,000, according to teacherportal.com, a Web site that tracks teacher salaries.
"It is a tough market in Pennsylvania. The market is just saturated," said Donna Skundrich, human resources manager for the Shaler Area School District.
Almost 124,000 teachers were employed in the state's 3,287 schools in the 2006-2007 school year, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, a division of the U.S. Department of Education.
The Center for Education Reform has released "The Accountability Report: Charter Schools," showing that charter schools outperform public schools in most categories.
Despite massive opposition by the public education/teachers union lobbies, charter schools are celebrating their 18th anniversary this year.
"Accountability lies at the heart of the charter school concept," says Jeanne Allen, president of the Center for Education Reform. "The singular focus on student achievement challenges all public schools to raise the bar. Knowing how charter schools are held accountable is a guidepost for all engaged in educating our nation's youth."
Ed Rendell likes to call himself the "education governor," but the sad truth is that Rendell has done little to improve public education or make higher education affordable during his eight years in office.
A new report says that 75% of future jobs in PA will require education beyond high school, but the study by the PA Partnerships for Children shows college is becoming out of reach for the average Pennsylvania family.
Students graduate with average debt of nearly $24,000, according to the report.
Matthew J. Brouillette, a former high school history teacher, coach and school board member, knows something about the public education system.
As president and CEO of the Commonwealth Foundation, Brouillette spends much of his professional time researching the impact the state's largest teachers' union has on Pennsylvania schools.
Writing recently in The Mercury, Brouillette says there's no disputing the fact that the political agenda pursued by the Pennsylvania State Education Association has caused a great deal of harm to teachers, children and taxpayers.
"I know first-hand the challenges inside and out of the classroom," Brouillette writes in a guest column. "Until we address the systemic problems associated with who controls public education and how we deliver it, simply spending more money will fail to improve our schools."
From Brouillette's column:
Even Albert Shanker, the late American Federation of Teachers labor union president, recognized the need for systemic change when he candidly said: "It's time to admit that public education operates like a planned economy, a bureaucratic system in which everybody's role is spelled out in advance and there are few incentives for innovation and productivity. It's no surprise that our school system doesn't improve: It more resembles the communist economy than our own market economy."
In spite of the inherent problems noted by Shanker, most public schools are able to teach our children to read, write, and figure. But when comparing the academic performance of our students to those in other countries, it's clear our current system is failing both our children and our nation.
Brouillette offers several solutions to improving our schools and invites the teachers' union to become part of the solution.
Has it come to this? Everyone complains about the high cost of a college education, but one young lady in California is taking it to the extreme.
Natalie Dylan, 22, a self-proclaimed virgin, is willing to have sex with the highest bidder in her quest to pay for her master's degree in women's studies.
There's plenty of interest so far. More than 10,000 men have bid on the opportunity to deflower Ms. Dylan. The bidding has reached $3.7 million.
For more on this story, check out The Telegram newspaper Web site.
If you're reading this right now, congratulations. You're one of the 87 percent of Pennsylvania residents who have functional adult literacy skills.
But there's at least 13 percent of state residents who lack basic literacy skills, according to a report released by the National Center for Education Statistics.
The report is billed as the first-ever national comparison of state and countywide statistics on adult literacy.
The information compiled in the report is a bit dated, circa 2003, and I have bet the numbers have gotten worse considering the state of our education system and the reliance of so many people on television for information. And let's not talk about how many kids are spending hours playing video games instead of reading a book.
The good news in the report is that Pennsylvania's 13 percent literacy rate is near the national average and hasn't changed since the last survey in 1992.
The lowest literacy rate is in Philadelphia at 22 percent of adults unable to read.
Here's a look at the rates in other SE Pennsylvania counties: Berks, 14%; Bucks, 9%; Chester, 7%; Delaware, 10%; Lehigh, 13%; Montgomery, 8%
To compare the literacy rates of Pennsylvania's 67 counties or see how the Keystone State stacks up against other states, go to the National Assessment of Adult Literacy Web site at http://nces.ed.gov/naal/
6 in 10 Pa. high school students fail state science test
So much for bragging about public education.
Almost every press release from Gov. Ed Rendell, regardless of the topic, concludes with the following statement: "The Rendell administration is committed to creating a first-rate public education system, protecting our most vulnerable citizens and continuing economic investment to support our communities and businesses."
The latest news about test scores for Pennsylvania high school doesn't say much about a "first-rate" education system.
Despite billions of dollars poured into public education since Rendell took office, Pennsylvania students continue to score poorly in standardized testing.
And did I mention that Pennsylvania teachers are among the highest paid in the country? And did you know that Pennsylvania leads the nation in teacher strikes?
Two good reads about the growing power of teachers' unions and the continued decline of public education. Is there a connection? You bet.
Check out an editorial in The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review that urges Pennsylvania residents to fight for the repeal of Act 84 of 1988, which made Pennsylvania a "compulsory union" state, allowing unions to bargain for extracting "agency fees" from workers who don't want to be members.
The Pennsylvania State Education Association causes untold damage to kids, taxpayers and the commonwealth. Few Pennsylvanians know how costly is this teacher union. But the public has the power to tame the beast.
With more than 185,500 members, 281 full-time employees and an annual income above $84 million, the PSEA is one of the state's wealthiest, largest and most politically active labor unions, reports The Commonwealth Foundation, a public-policy, free-market think tank in Harrisburg.
The PSEA has had cancerlike growth because of its ability to organize employees into collective bargaining units, influence legislation through its puppets that the union's political action committee helped to elect, and push for endless amounts of public financing for public schools, which usually ends up in union members' pockets.
And POLICY BLOG, the official blog of the Commonwealth Foundation for Public Policy Alternatives, an independent, non-profit public policy research and educational institute based in Harrisburg, has the numbers to show that "compulsory unionism doesn't benefit teachers, students, or taxpayers."
There is no evidence for (PSEA Head honcho James) Testerman's claim that right-to-work states cannot attract teachers. And as for academic performance, right-to-work states (despite high levels of immigration) perform almost identically to compulsory union states on the NAEP test, and higher on the SAT.
Pennsylvania teachers are the fourth highest-paid in the nation, yet Pennsylvania continues to lead the country in teacher strikes.
And as POLICY BLOG notes, "Pennsylvania ranks near the bottom in SAT scores, and only 60% of black males graduate, according to one analysis."
Only one candidate for president supports school choice, which is the only way to improve the American education system.
Sen. John McCain delivered these remarks to the Republican National Convention last week showing his support for breaking the public education monopoly that has led to decades of failing schools:
"Education is the civil rights issue of this century. Equal access to public education has been gained. But what is the value of access to a failing school? We need to shake up failed school bureaucracies with competition, empower parents with choice, remove barriers to qualified instructors, attract and reward good teachers, and help bad teachers find another line of work.
When a public school fails to meet its obligations to students, parents deserve a choice in the education of their children. And I intend to give it to them. Some may choose a better public school. Some may choose a private one. Many will choose a charter school. But they will have that choice and their children will have that opportunity.
Senator Obama wants our schools to answer to unions and entrenched bureaucracies. I want schools to answer to parents and students. And when I'm President, they will."
For more information on school choice issues, including charter schools, cyber schools and home schooling, visit SchoolChoiceSaves.org
Tony Phyrillas is the city editor and political columnist for The Mercury, a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning daily newspaper in Pottstown, Pa. Phyrillas has won several national and state awards for his columns. Phyrillas has been featured on National Public Radio (NPR) and in The New York Times and is a frequent commentator on radio and television programs. He co-hosted "Talking Politics with Tony Phyrillas & Mike Pincus" on WPAZ 1370 AM.
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Pennsylvania State Rep. Sam Rohrer, who is also a candidate for governor, will the guest speaker at the Winter Commencement at Albright College in Reading.
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