Chester Community Charter has a 30 point drop in PSSA scores

[JackStraw]

Test scores raise new doubt at Chester charter

[annie]

Chester Community Charter School investigation closes

Dumaresq's letter to Chester Community outlined measures that the school must take to safeguard future tests. They include storing test materials in a locked location that is monitored round the clock by a security company, administering the tests to students in a room equipped with a security camera, and hiring an independent auditing firm to ensure that the school follows proper test administration requirements.

Those measures were imposed "because of information that came to light during the investigation process," Eller said, without elaborating.

Nothing to see here, no mention that CCCS is operated by Corbett's single largest campaign contributor, move along.

[OldMama]

Disgusting. Can Corbett be any more of a disaster???

[billy ross]

Disgusting. Can Corbett be any more of a disaster???

Would you prefer that he shut down CCCS? Clearly the school has grave issues, but the parents in Chester have decided that they like it better than the public option in Chester. Until you change that situation, shutting down CCCS would be counterproductive. Pushing it to fix itself is the way to go at this juncture. I personally think that too many eggs are in the same two awful baskets, and that more options need to be provided, so that you can put the options that refuse to fix themselves out of their misery. We're not there yet, though. We're dealing with an duopoly where there are two terrible educational institutions available to these people, neither of which is an option either one of us would want for our kids. That's what the problem is, not that the governor isn't coming down hard enough on a political supporter. I sincerely hope that my buddy Joe Watkins is working to quickly increase options for these trapped people. We'll see how it turns out, but I suspect that my hopes won't be in vain. Increase the number of options and people will gravitate away from morally bankrupt providers.

Sadly, it'll be damned if he does, damned if he doesn't, in the eyes of the heritage educational establishment. If Watkins/Tomalis/Corbett provide more options to get parents/students out of these terrible situations, they're selling out to charters. If they don't provide more options, they're selling out to a charter/large campaign contributor. I have enough confidence in these people that I believe that we're going in the direction of more options available to consumers, and the producers will find themselves in an uncomfortable situation. If that turns out to be the case, then I believe that the answer to your question will be that Corbett is not a disaster at all, unless you're trying to abuse the public trust by taking money for not educating kids, in which case he's a huge disaster for your business model.

[OldMama]

Certainly there is middle ground between shutting them down altogether and letting them get away with cheating.

When you've taught special ed for 37 years and have seen the money dry up from the gov- but the requirements stay- and when you send your kids to public schools, you can judge what a prince Corbett is.

[billy ross]

Certainly there is middle ground between shutting them down altogether and letting them get away with cheating.

When you've taught special ed for 37 years and have seen the money dry up from the gov- but the requirements stay- and when you send your kids to public schools, you can judge what a prince Corbett is.

What punishment do you think the governor should have meted out? What punishment is being meted out to the public schools and/or administrators where cheating was found to have occurred? Clearly cheating shouldn't have happened, but it seems that the way the test was administered made it particularly easy to cheat, which is sort of silly.

I may be wrong, but it seems to me that the focus has been on figuring out how people cheated and restoring the integrity of the testing process, as opposed to flushing out the cheaters and punishing them. There's been dark talk of punishment to follow eventually, but it doesn't seem like it's been a priority. Maybe it's still coming down the pike, maybe it'll be forgotten. Still, not much fallout seems to have happened as of yet.

And I send my kids to the original public school set up in the colony of Pennsylvania to educate the settlers' children. William Penn himself set the school up, and he called it the Philadelphia Public School, which as far as I can tell is still its legal name, since that's what it says on the school's seal (a Quaker would never name a school after himself or herself, and the colony was named Pennsylvania after William Penn's father only after much twisting of William Penn's arm). In a further irony, their school's archrival's 'real' name seems to be 'The Public School of Germantown'. Of course, since those days the meaning of 'public school' has morphed, and interestingly it seems to continually morphing, as charter schools redefine the meaning of 'public school' yet again.

[JackStraw]

The same government that has run the Chester public schools into the ground with its own incompetence (Edison, Gregory Thornton) is the same one that looks the other way at Chester Community Charter's obvious corruption. As for the other schools in the scandal the public schools are still being investigated. Let's see if King Corbett let's them off the hook the way he did with his biggest contributor, Vahan. Who cares that he made millions off what is suppose to be a non-profit as long as Vahan is shoveling some of that public funding into Corbett's political coffers?

[annie]

What punishment do you think the governor should have meted out? What punishment is being meted out to the public schools and/or administrators where cheating was found to have occurred? Clearly cheating shouldn't have happened, but it seems that the way the test was administered made it particularly easy to cheat, which is sort of silly.

I may be wrong, but it seems to me that the focus has been on figuring out how people cheated and restoring the integrity of the testing process, as opposed to flushing out the cheaters and punishing them. There's been dark talk of punishment to follow eventually, but it doesn't seem like it's been a priority. Maybe it's still coming down the pike, maybe it'll be forgotten. Still, not much fallout seems to have happened as of yet.

They can't be prosecuted for this (any cheating from 2012 onward can be). Teachers and administrators found to have been cheating should have their licenses/certificates taken away by the state. How is this even a question? I'm no fan of the PSSAs but to describe this as silly? Wow.

How many grants, public and private, did CCCS get based at least in part on test scores that were 30% higher than they should be? How many people other than Vahan gave to CCCS because of that? Some people at the school worked very hard to skew the achievement so seriously and you place the blame on it being so easy to do?

I guess we should all just leave you to your fapping about Penn Charter.

[NickleDimer]

What punishment do you think the governor should have meted out? What punishment is being meted out to the public schools and/or administrators where cheating was found to have occurred? Clearly cheating shouldn't have happened, but it seems that the way the test was administered made it particularly easy to cheat, which is sort of silly.

I may be wrong, but it seems to me that the focus has been on figuring out how people cheated and restoring the integrity of the testing process, as opposed to flushing out the cheaters and punishing them. There's been dark talk of punishment to follow eventually, but it doesn't seem like it's been a priority. Maybe it's still coming down the pike, maybe it'll be forgotten. Still, not much fallout seems to have happened as of yet.

And I send my kids to the original public school set up in the colony of Pennsylvania to educate the settlers' children. William Penn himself set the school up, and he called it the Philadelphia Public School, which as far as I can tell is still its legal name, since that's what it says on the school's seal (a Quaker would never name a school after himself or herself, and the colony was named Pennsylvania after William Penn's father only after much twisting of William Penn's arm). In a further irony, their school's archrival's 'real' name seems to be 'The Public School of Germantown'. Of course, since those days the meaning of 'public school' has morphed, and interestingly it seems to continually morphing, as charter schools redefine the meaning of 'public school' yet again.

1) Revoke certification to work in PA schools permanently, loss of employment.
2) Penn Charter is a private school. And a pricey one at that. Four kinds of kids go there: rich kids, kids that are already performing well when they applied, kids with "connections" and kids that have a skill that could benefit the school. There's nothing public or egalitarian about it. I guess that's just a result of how people bent and twisted Quaker philosophy over time. Nothing honors the Testimonies of Simplicity and Equality quite like $25k a year for a high school education with other priveleged kids.

[billy ross]

1) Revoke certification to work in PA schools permanently, loss of employment.
2) Penn Charter is a private school. And a pricey one at that. Four kinds of kids go there: rich kids, kids that are already performing well when they applied, kids with "connections" and kids that have a skill that could benefit the school. There's nothing public or egalitarian about it. I guess that's just a result of how people bent and twisted Quaker philosophy over time. Nothing honors the Testimonies of Simplicity and Equality quite like $25k a year for a high school education with other priveleged kids.

Quaker schools struggle with that. I've found that Quakers are oddly concerned with 'public' education, because of those principles. One correction, though: there are financial aid kids at PC who haven't been recruited for special skills. Socioeconomic diversity is extremely important at that place.

However, 'public' schools where ZIP Code is the sole criterion of admission are in my opinion even less egalitarian. This
is one reason I like charter schools. They upend the flawed model where if you don't have the fortune to be born in the right ZIP, you are at a large disadvantage. Leveling the playing field long-term is very important to me. That's one of the reasons I happily pay taxes to Philadelphia and its schools. I pay much more in school taxes than I pay in tuition.

[billy ross]

Sometimes it's more important to stop the bleeding than it is to punish the miscreants. I'm not saying that there should be no punishment. However, sometimes getting people to spill the beans about their and others' misdeeds is more useful to society than punishing people. This may have been the case here, but I'm not sure. They certainly seemed focused like a laser beam on fixing the testing process. That's why South Africa had a Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Arlen Specter died on Sunday. What secrets did he take to his grave? I'd like to know what he knew about the Warren Commission. Sadly, he clammed up.

And I wasn't the one who brought up my kids' school.

They can't be prosecuted for this (any cheating from 2012 onward can be). Teachers and administrators found to have been cheating should have their licenses/certificates taken away by the state. How is this even a question? I'm no fan of the PSSAs but to describe this as silly? Wow.

How many grants, public and private, did CCCS get based at least in part on test scores that were 30% higher than they should be? How many people other than Vahan gave to CCCS because of that? Some people at the school worked very hard to skew the achievement so seriously and you place the blame on it being so easy to do?

I guess we should all just leave you to your fapping about Penn Charter.

[NickleDimer]

Quaker schools struggle with that. I've found that Quakers are oddly concerned with 'public' education, because of those principles. One correction, though: there are financial aid kids at PC who haven't been recruited for special skills. Socioeconomic diversity is extremely important at that place.

However, 'public' schools where ZIP Code is the sole criterion of admission are in my opinion even less egalitarian. This
is one reason I like charter schools. They upend the flawed model where if you don't have the fortune to be born in the right ZIP, you are at a large disadvantage. Leveling the playing field long-term is very important to me. That's one of the reasons I happily pay taxes to Philadelphia and its schools. I pay much more in school taxes than I pay in tuition.

Sure, PC doles out scholarships to poor kids that are smart - they only serve to raise the performance level of the school. I doubt you'll see any help being extended to academically average low income students who lack a special talent (sports, music, etc). You pay more in school taxes than tuition because you own a lot of property, slugger.