Thousands of Pennsylvania parents and students are urging state lawmakers to pass a school reform bill to create a "parent trigger" law.
The parent trigger portion of the measure would allow parents to replace staff or convert failing public schools to charter schools. Priya Abraham of the Commonwealth Foundation points to a recent report that reveals a decline in student achievement and a cheating scandal involving administrators.
"This is really an issue about putting control of kids' futures and education back where it belongs, and that's in giving parents control," she asserts.
The Pennsylvania Department of Education recently released the results of student test scores for 2011-2012, which show declining student performance in public schools. Statewide, 25 percent of children failed to reach proficiency in math, while nearly 30 percent cannot read at grade level. Furthermore, only 60 percent of the state's 500 school districts made "Adequate Yearly Progress," compared to more than 90 percent last year.
And while the state has doubled its spending on public schools over the past 15 years, only to produce "stagnating" SAT scores, alternate institutions operate at a fraction of the cost with 97 percent of their graduates reaching post-secondary education.
The proposed law has been tied up in the legislature for a year. But while students are stuck with the public school assigned to them only by ZIP code, the Commonwealth Foundation senior policy analyst contends the need for a change is urgent.
"The longer you wait for a child in a failing school, the more likely you're going to get to the point where they graduate or they drop out, and then it's just too late," Abraham explains. "So there isn't enough time to just keep waiting."
Hundreds of students recently gathered on the steps of the state capitol to urge lawmakers to do something, because this legislative session is nearing its end.