Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children launches a new initiative today, Making the Grade:  Effective Teaching in Every Classroom

Making the Grade: Effective Teaching in Every Classroom is our new project designed to create awareness about the importance of an effective teacher in every classroom and to advance the public policies required to assure that every child benefits from effective teaching every school day.

We believe that every student – in every classroom - deserves to be taught by highly effective teachers every year.

What is effective teaching?  While there are many intangibles that contribute to great teaching, a working definition is: an effective teacher ensures that each child learns at least a year’s worth of knowledge for every year spent in the classroom.

The focus on effective teaching is to ensure teachers have the tools and opportunities to do the best job possible so all students in Pennsylvania acquire the skills and knowledge necessary to compete successfully in a 21^st century marketplace.

We’ll be distributing regular emails about the Making the Grade initiative. Through the Making the Grade emails, this blog and our monthly public policy newsletter, we’ll do our best to keep you apprised of our goal to help drive an improved teacher effectiveness model in Pennsylvania.

Joan L. Benso is president and CEO, PA Partnerships for Children
 

It’s hard to believe it’s August already, which means parents everywhere will soon be gearing up for back to school!

Ah, but not so fast….as we enjoy these last few weeks of summer, here is our “bill of rights” for sunny days and muggy nights for kids in the Commonwealth:

For August 2011, all children & youth in Pennsylvania should:

1. Ride a bike
2. Eat a sticky popsicle
3. Have health insurance
4. Go swimming
5. Scream on a roller coaster
6. Be safe in their own homes
7. Catch lightning bugs
8. Catch a fly ball
9. Throw a Frisbee
10.  Be a part of “forever family”

As summer winds down, Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children will be preparing for the fall legislative session and the return of legislators to Harrisburg. Even though the 2011-12 state budget passed in June, we still have many things to accomplish when the legislature reconvenes (including the beginning of our budget advocacy for the 2012-13 fiscal year budget).

Click here to see our public policy priorities for 2011-12in the areas of child health, early childhood education, K-12 education, child welfare and youth development, but in the meantime, enjoy the rest of these lazy, hazy, crazy days. They go by so quickly.

Joan L. Benso is president and CEO, PA Partnerships for Children

As consumers, we believe quality matters. We look for quality when we purchase anything from as small as a frying pan to as large as a car.  We want quality products and services, so why wouldn’t we want quality in our child care centers and pre-kindergarten classrooms - places where children learn, play and grow for several hours every day?

The T.E.A.C.H. Early Childhood^®Pennsylvaniahas been devoted to helping staff from child care centers, Head Start and Pre-K Counts expand or complete their early childhood education and/or certification.T.E.A.C.H supports the training of teachers to work with our youngest and most vulnerable learners.

Simply put, better educated child care professionals mean better results for children. More than 51,000 children attend early learning programs in our state that are of higher quality because of T.E.A.C.H.

But now, the program is in crisis and nearly 2,000 Pennsylvania early childhood professionals may have to drop out of college ultimately reducing the quality of care for the children they serve.

Why? The scholarships are gone. The T.E.A.C.H. program will no longer be funded with any government resources. The recently passed state budget included cuts to child care and legislative leaders targeted state funds for T.E.A.C.H. as one place to make cuts.  The governor’s office approved the elimination of all the federal funding for T.E.A.C.H. as well.

But the silver lining here is since the governor’s office made the decision to cut federal funds for T.E.A.C.H., they can reverse it!

There are other ways to achieve cuts that will not have such a devastating impact on the quality of early childhood education in our state. (However, it’s important that any restoration of T.E.A.C.H doesn’t occur at the expense of subsidized child care funding.)

If the governor doesn’t take action - T.E.A.C.H. will shut down.  Program quality will decline and children will have fewer high-quality early learning opportunities.

What can you do? 

Click here to sign a petition to send a message to the governor to keep funding T.E.A.C.H.

You can also join our statewide call-in day TOMORROW, July 19. Call the governor’s office at 717-787-2500 and ask him to restore funding for T.E.A.C.H.

Please join us to help save T.E.A.C.H and spread the word.

Joan L. Benso, president and CEO, PA Partnerships for Children 

President Obama and Vice President Biden continue to meet with top congressional leaders including Republicans John Boehner and Eric Cantor and Democrats Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi to hammer out a framework for deficit reduction that could very well include deep cuts to entitlement programs. So far, there’s no deal.

At the president’s first ever Twitter town-hall meeting last week, he said “everything is on the table,” including Medicaid, in order to address the nation’s trillion-plus deficit.

Obama’s plan proposes a cut of $100 billion to Medicaid while House Republicans led by Rep. Paul Ryan want to turn Medicaid into a federal block grant program that experts say would eventually shift more costs to states and patients.

Although congressional Democrats remain opposed to any plan to convert Medicaid into a block grant program, that doesn't necessarily mean they would vote against cuts to the program as part of a broader deficit-reduction package.

Pennsylvania’s Medicaid program insures more than 2.2 million individuals, with 1.1 million of those being children. While approximately one-half of enrollees are children, they account for less than one-fifth of Pennsylvania’s total expenditures for Medicaid. By far the majority of spending (more than two-thirds) is used for services required by individuals who are elderly or disabled, including many individuals in nursing facilities. 

With the debate raging on the soaring cost of Medicaid to the states and federal government, a new study published last week by the National Bureau of Economic Research shows how health insurance for low-income people can make a dramatic difference in their lives. For example, people on Medicaid were more likely to see a doctor, use prescription drugs and get their cholesterol checked. Women were more likely to get mammograms.

It’s an important study in that it confirms that insured people – including children – are likelier to see a doctor and stay healthier than uninsured people. And of course, uncompensated care costs our communities far more than what it costs to insure someone in the first place.

While’s there no argument that we must get our nation’s fiscal house in order, we must not strip away protections that are proven to keep children and families healthier and save us money in the long run.

Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children supports a balanced approach to deficit reduction – this means we believe increased revenues must be part of any deficit reduction package and any long-term budget enforcement mechanism. Furthermore, in order to protect low-income Americans and children, we oppose any spending caps on entitlement programs, including Medicaid.

It’s imperative, for the health and welfare of our most vulnerable citizens, that key entitlement programs that protect low-income Americans be exempt from deficit reduction.

Joan L. Benso is president and CEO, PA Partnerships for Children

Many news reports today are saying children and schools took a back seat in the new budget agreement to be voted on any minute now by the full Senate; the budget bill then goes to the House before the fiscal year ends Thursday.

While the budget agreement makes several strategic restorations to key children’s programs (and we are grateful for these restorations), it is important to note that Pennsylvania’s children share the burden of these cuts, along with other Pennsylvanians. 

For the full story on investments for children in the next state budget, read our monthly legislative update, Capitol Watch for Children: 

http://www.papartnerships.org/publication_files/capitol-watch-july-2011.pdf

A study released last week concerning low-income children’s access to health care was particularly disturbing, though perhaps not surprising to some.

The study, conducted by the University of Pennsylvania, examined access to specialist care for children with private insurance vs. children insured by CHIP or Medicaid. Researchers included nearly 90 clinics providing specialist services (such as dermatology, allergy or orthopedics) in Cook County, Illinois, and called posing as mothers to get appointments for their “children,” some who were insured through an employer and some through public insurance.

In the end, the study found a disparity in access to outpatient specialty care between children with public insurance and those with private, employer-based insurance.

Some highlights (or lowlights!):

• More than half of calls to clinics requested the caller to provide information about insurance coverage before an appointment would be scheduled;
• 66% of callers with Medicaid or CHIP were refused an appointment, while just 11% of callers with private insurance were denied an appointment;
• For those children who were scheduled an appointment, 20 days was the average wait time for a privately insured child while 42 days was the average wait time for a child with Medicaid or CHIP.

Among the specialty clinics that scheduled appointments for both Medicaid/CHIP enrollees and privately insured children, children with Medicaid/CHIP had greater delays in obtaining needed specialty care.

There are about 1.3 million children currently covered by either Medicaid or CHIP in Pennsylvania and it makes me sad to think these children would be treated any differently than kids whose parents have private health insurance. Oftentimes an employer, such as a small company, can’t afford to offer health insurance to its employees leaving workers to rely on CHIP or Medicaid for their dependents, and no one should be penalized for that!

Furthermore, whether an employer offers health insurance or not, relying on CHIP or Medicaid for children’s health care is not a degrading or offensive scenario worthy of substandard treatment by doctors’ offices.

The study concluded that policy interventions that encourage providers to accept patients with public insurance are needed to improve access to care.

I hope this fairness is on the horizon for children of all income levels.

Joan L. Benso is president and CEO, PA Partnerships for Children 

Though it’s summer vacation, that doesn’t mean the business of educating our students has taken a break. There’s a new buzz phrase in education circles gaining momentum in Pennsylvania and across the country.  It’s “effective teacher,” as in, “How effective was the teacher in preparing the student to advance successfully to the next grade?”

What does being an “effective teacher” mean, anyway? And how can we ensure every child, every year, has one?

An effective teacher is the most important school-based factor influencing school achievement and one of the missing links in assuring that every child learns at least a year’s worth of knowledge for every year spent in the classroom, from kindergarten through high school.

Most Pennsylvania teachers are highly committed professionals dedicated to ensuring their students succeed – yet highly committed doesn’t necessarily translate into “highly effective.” And when it comes to evaluating a teacher’s effectiveness, most school districts use a broad evaluation process that rates educators as “satisfactory” or “unsatisfactory” without consideration of their actual effectiveness in the classroom.

In fact, state law currently precludes student performance from being used to evaluate their teachers. But since we hire teachers so students can learn, student performance should be included as part of a set of multiple measures to evaluate teachers.

Today a new bill calling for student performance to be a component of teacher evaluation was voted out of the Senate Education Committee. Senate Bill 1087, introduced by Sen. Jeff Piccola and Sen. Andrew Dinniman, would require student performance to be a factor to be considered in determining teacher performance in school districts across the state. The bill now goes to the full Senate.

The vote came on the heels of a survey of school districts by PDE that gathered information on teacher and principal evaluations. In the survey, 99.4 percent of all teachers and 99.6 percent of all principals evaluated during the 2009-10 school year received a satisfactory rating,

But Education Secretary Tomalis questioned the results showing nearly all teachers and principals received satisfactory ratings.

 “At first glance these results appear to be encouraging; however, they raise serious concerns about the quality of the evaluation system and whether it has any relevance to what happens in the classroom,” Tomalis said in a June 8 press release.

PDE compared the satisfactory ratings with state assessment data showing one-fourth of students are scoring below proficient in reading and one-third scoring below proficient in math. Tomalis questioned how nearly every teacher could be effective if there are students still scoring below proficient on basic assessments.

What is Pennsylvania doing to explore the importance of teacher effectiveness? There currently are a host of pilot projects underway in Pennsylvania to develop credible measurements of teacher effectiveness and to look at new teacher evaluation tools.

We believe every child deserves an effective teacher who prepares him or her to one day graduate ready for the rigors of college and career.

Joan L. Benso is president and CEO, PA Partnerships for Children

No one who’s a child advocate does this work for the money, glamour or fame. The reward is in knowing the efforts you put forth will someday make a difference in the life of a child. But because pushing the policy envelope can take a long time, those doing this work on behalf of children need to be committed to staying the course. Success doesn’t happen overnight.

Since 1995, Joan L. Benso has been president and CEO of our organization, Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children (PPC). Joan regularly interacts with state policymakers and staff, Pennsylvania's congressional delegation, the news media, the children's advocacy community, and funders to ensure Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children and our allies support and move an agenda that creates a better place to be a child and to raise a child.

Joan’s leadership has been consistent and strong. Under her direction, PPC has helped secure passage of some key legislation for children:

 Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP);

• The state pre-kindergarten program called Pre-K Counts;
• A new school funding formula;
• High school graduation requirements; and
• A bill of rights for children in foster care.

It was these collective victories that helped seal the deal with Voices for America’s Children as the national organization chose to select Joan as the winner of its annual child advocacy award - the Florette Angel Memorial Child Advocacy Award – to be given in Memphis in June.

As a Jewish girl growing up in Louisiana, Florette Angel saw crosses burned on her family’s front lawn after her parents resisted community pressure to fire a black employee. She carried into adulthood the lesson of speaking for those who could not. Throughout her life, Florette used well-defined objectives and proven research to draw attention to those in need who would otherwise go without a champion. She raised consciousness about and created a sense of community for issues that affected diverse groups.

Voices established the award following Florette Angel’s death in 1993. This award is annually bestowed by Voices on the chief executive officer of a member organization who has demonstrated exceptional leadership, perceptive organizational vision, innovative advocacy, and effective service on behalf of children and their families.

Over the years Joan has brought together multiple private and public organizations to join forces in solidarity and work for kids. Her leadership has helped build bridges between the advocacy community and political sphere to address existing needs for early learning, K-12 public education, health care, youth development and college and career readiness.

Joan is a force to be reckoned with and we at Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children are thrilled she will receive the Florette Angel Memorial Child Advocacy Award.

Congratulations, Joan!

PPC Staff
 

Spring 2011 may just turn out to be the toughest time to be a kid. Final exams? Prom dress shopping? First Little League game as pitcher? Heck no. It’s being caught in the budget crosshairs in the state Capitol, where quality early learning, K-12 education and child well-being must face off against each other in some kind of “Survivor” competition.

When Gov. Corbett unveiled his 2011-12 budget in March, Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children (PPC) went on record by saying we were pleased his budget kept funding stable for early childhood investments including Head Start, Pre-K Counts and child care. But at the same time, we were not afraid to express our disappointment that the governor’s budget drastically cut state support for basic education as well as eliminated the Accountability Block Grant (ABG), a flexible funding source that allows school districts to tap funds for proven strategies such as full-day kindergarten.

Nearly 350 school districts across rely on the Accountability Block Grant to fully or partially funds their full-day K programs. In fact, the ABG funds two of every three children attending full-day kindergarten in our state.

A recent survey of school districts by the Pennsylvania Association of School Administrators and the Pennsylvania Association of School Business Officialsshows that these cuts will result in significant harm to educational quality as schools across the state may be forced to cut programs that affect student learning. For example, 71 percent of school districts responding expected to cut instructional programs in the 2011-12 school year, 86 percent anticipated increasing class sizes, and 31 percent are considering cutting full-day K for next school year.

This week the House of Representatives will vote on a budget proposal that will restore $100 million to basic education funding and $100 million to the Accountability Block Grant. Those are positive steps forward.

But this is where it’s tough to be a kid. Yes, we want to protect education funding and ensure our schools can provide all children a world-class education, but not by rolling the dice on other kids’ programs. In the House proposal, legislators have reinstated education and ABG dollars by stripping money from the Department of Public Welfare:  Nearly $40 million of funds will be diverted away from quality early learning education, such as Keystone STARS and Child Care Works, which provides child care subsidy for low-income working parents.

Trading funding of one proven childhood investment for another childhood program is a giant step backward. While it is important that our lawmakers remain fiscally responsible, taking money from proven investments in early childhood to fund other school programs is anything but fiscally responsible, especially when there’s a revenue surplus that can be tapped. Cutting nearly $40 million out of proven programs such as Child Care Works and Keystone STARS doesn't seem necessary when there is a widely-reported budget surplus of more $500 million.

It makes the most sense to restore the cuts in education by using the state's surplus, not by cutting quality early childhood education. Tell your legislators to support a budget that doesn’t pit proven children’s programs against each other.

Joan L. Benso is President and CEO, PA Partnerships for Children