Recent Pennsylvania Education Reforms by Governor Corbett and the GOP Legislature

            

           A number of education reforms recently approved in Pennsylvania are already having a positive effect.

            I have posted about how Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett, a Republican, did not cut state education funding, as his critics falsely claim, but that the level of state aid to local school districts dropped only because of the end of temporary federal stimulus money – a situation to which I can attest, as a former School Director.  I also posted on how Pennsylvania made some significant reforms of the Common Core curriculum standards (See my post, Keep up the Resistance to Common Core in Pennsylvania, from September of this year, http://williamcinfici.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2013-09-06T15:50:00-04:00&max-results=25).  Now that I have completed my term filling a vacancy on the Reading School Board, I wish to note several other reforms that were approved by the Republican-majority General Assembly and signed into law by Corbett that have been having a significant effect on our School District, as well as others, I am sure, because these reforms have not received the media attention they merit.

            A major reform of the Commonwealth’s regulatory powers over failing school districts was enacted last year and has begun to affect districts by encouraging them to take the necessary steps to avoid losing local control of education.  The new law adopts several new criteria for state takeover of school districts and establishes effective measures to restore them to fiscal solvency to protect local taxpayers.  It is already helping the Harrisburg School District, for example, which was taken over by the state, to become fiscally responsible. 

           Among several other measures were approved as a result of various incidences of waste of public tax dollars, including setting a three-year limit for contracts for superintendents, increasing openness and transparency by requiring school board evaluations of superintendents’ degree of achievement of their goals and their performance be made public, and limiting massive superintendent buyouts to more reasonable severances.  In regard to curriculum, a new state mandate to include Pennsylvania history in fourth grade is also taking effect.