York Academy update on WHP-TV

WHP-TV, the CBS affiliate in Harrisburg, reported March 30 on the latest news about the York Academy Regional Charter School. WHP Reporter Christina Butler interviewed Dennis Baughman, the president of the charter school's Board of Trustees. The public charter school, which will offer an International Baccalaureate program of study, emerged from work done by YorkCounts' Metro-York Educational Opportunities Committee from 2007 to 2009. Baughman, a former school administrator in Northeastern and York City school districts, co-chaired the committee, along with community volunteer Sue Krebs.

The school was chartered by York City, York Suburban and Central York School Districts. It is hoped that the school will improve educational outcomes for city students by breaking up the concentrated poverty that proves such a challenge to urban schools. The school could also prove to have appeal for families with children looking for a high-quality education options in the city.

Baughman will provide a lengthier update to the community on April 14 as part of YorkCounts' "State of the Schools: A Countywide Education Summit." Click here for details on the summit.

Watch the WHP clip below.

New charter school could be a game-changer for York

When the York Academy Regional Charter School opens

in August, it will make living in downtown a more appealing

residential choice for families with children. The school sits

between Central Market and Sovereign Bank Stadium in the

heart of the Northwest Triangle redevelopment project. 

By Eric Menzer

Last week the news hit the City of York like a ton of bricks – Governor Corbett’s proposed education cuts could add another $10 million on top of the $15 million deficit that the York City School District was already facing. And while every school district in York County faces financial challenges to one degree or another, there is no question that the city district is in the deepest hole. Whether your perspective is one of taxpayer, parent or simply concerned citizen, it is hard to fathom what we do next when it seemed the situation was already so dire both financially and in terms of outcomes for city kids.

We also heard news recently that only three candidates had filed for five city school board seats. These used to be hotly-contested races – campaigns got almost bitter at times. Do three candidates for five seats mean that city residents are so dispirited when it comes to our school district that they can’t even fight anymore? There’s an old saying – “the night is always darkest just before the dawn.” Let’s hope that dawn is around the corner on this one, because it’s hard to imagine a darker night.

In my last few posts I have been hopeful. I have written about the cultural and demographic forces that are creating the best market and most positive outlook for cities in 50 years. So how do we square that hopefulness with the grim outlook for our school district?

In the short run, it seems hard. But there are a couple things we need to keep in mind that are more subtle than a simple “gloom versus optimism” formula.

First, there are enormous numbers of potential city residents at any given time who are not consumers of our school system – both singles and couples without kids, and those whose children are done with their primary school years. At any given time, something along the lines of 75 percent of the U.S. population does not have kids in school.

Second, the charter school movement – regardless of your political philosophy or issues of funding or achievement – has matured enough in our city to offer real alternatives for those who do have kids in school. And while many of the charter schools we’ve seen open to this point draw most of their population from their local service area, a new one will open next fall that could be a real game-changer for the city in the long run.

The York Academy Regional Charter School will offer the International Baccalaureate curriculum not only to city residents, but to those of York Suburban and Central York school districts and possibly other suburban districts. Enough has been written about how remarkable it is that these three districts came together to create this school. Less has been written about how this school can take the experience of “walkable urbanity” to a whole new level.

Imagine that you are already attracted to the lifestyle provided by downtown or city neighborhood living. Now imagine from that home, you can walk or ride a bicycle to the most unique school in all of York County – one that offers not only the social, economic and racial diversity that many of us value in our city, but a world-class education, as well. Game on for competitiveness for the city of York as a viable residential option for parents with choices about where to live.

Eric Menzer is president of the York Revolution professional baseball team and manages the Codo Development Group, a real estate development company working in downtown York. Eric is active in community affairs and civic leadership at both the local and state level. He chairs the York County Community Foundation and serves on the boards of Downtown Inc, Better York, YorkCounts and the Crispus Attucks Association. He just concluded several years as Chairman of 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania, a statewide policy-research and advocacy organization that promotes smart growth and urban revitalization, and he remains active on that board. Eric was previously the senior vice president of Wagman Construction in York. Prior to that, he served for eight years as York’s director of economic development and previously as the executive director of the York County Transportation Authority. He is a passionate baseball fan and lives in York with his wife and daughter.

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REGISTER FOR THE COUNTYWIDE EDUCATION SUMMIT

Part of the program for the YorkCounts 2011 countywide education summit will include an update on the York Academy Regional Charter School. Here's more information on the summit.

What: "State of the Schools: A Countywide Education Summit"
When: 9 a.m.-2:30 p.m. April 14
Where: Pullo Center at Penn State York, 1031 Edgecomb Ave., York
How much: Admission is free, but advance registration is requested and box lunches will be available for $5. With your registration, please indicate your preference from the lunch wrap choices: turkey, ham, chicken salad, tuna salad or veggie.
The morning session: Elaine Weiss, the national coordinator for Broader, Bolder Approach to Education, will provide the national context, and Brian Jensen from the Pennsylvania Economy League will discuss the state’s looming pension crisis. Other morning speakers include Dennis Baughman, who will provide an update on the York Academy Regional Charter School; and Dayna Laur, an award-winning and nationally recognized Central York teacher, who will talk about new ways districts can collaborate and share resources.
The afternoon session: A panel discussion will focus on school district budgets and the looming pension crisis. Panelists include:

• Thomas Gentzel, executive director for the Pennsylvania School Boards Association
• James Testerman, president of the Pennsylvania State Education Association
• Republican State Sen. Lloyd Smucker, who represents parts of York and Lancaster counties and serves on the Senate Education and Appropriations committees
• Republican State Rep. Ron Miller, who represents southwestern York County, including York, Springfield, Shrewsbury, Codorus, Manheim and West Manheim townships
• Democratic State Rep. Eugene DePasquale, who represents York and parts of Spring Garden and West Manchester townships
• Robert Krantz, superintendent from Dover Area School District
• George Ioannidis, business manager from Spring Grove Area School District
• Judith Higgins, school board member from Eastern York School District and board president of Lincoln Intermediate Unit 12
• Joel Sears, president of the York County Taxpayers Council
• Stephen Herzenberg, executive director of the Keystone Research Center

To register: Send an e-mail with your name, school district and phone number to events@yorkcounts.org, and if you plan to purchase one of the $5 box lunches, please indicate your lunch preference from these wrap choices: turkey, ham, chicken salad, tuna salad or veggie.

For details: Contact Dan Fink at YorkCounts at 717-650-1460 or at dfink@yorkcounts.org.

Pittsburgh scholarship program offers 'Promise'

Last week, new guest blogger Leigh Dalton wrote about the importance of helping at-risk teens stay on a path to graduation. Around the same time, I came across this article in USA Today about Pittsburgh Promise, a program in Pittsburgh that offers a scholarship worth up to $40,000 over four years to city school students who stay in school and earn good grades.

The program was modeled after the Kalamazoo Promise in Michigan, a program the YorkCounts' Educational Opportunities Committee considered before deciding to pursue what will open in August as the York Academy Regional Charter School.

The twist with the Pittsburgh effort is in how the fundraising was set up. From the article:

The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, the region's largest employer, provided $10 million upfront, and said it would match donations up to $90 million over nine years toward a $250 million permanent endowment.

And the kicker - an incentive for the community to join the fundraising:

For every $3 citizens raised, the center said it would chip in $2.

Which led to this:

Residents sprang into action. A group participating in the Pittsburgh Marathon raised about $20,000. Students are planning a springtime Promise Week, including fundraisers and service projects. A letter-writing campaign by parents brought in $5,800. Other parents sponsored a luncheon last year, raising more than $5,000.

 Anybody think York couldn't mobilize a community fundraising effort like that to help keep kids in school and send them to college?

Update, Feb. 16: Pittsburgh Public Schools announced the Promise Program would double its scholarship, from $20,000 to $40,000 per student. Here's Mayor Luke Ravenstahl's reaction, in a statement, as reported by the Web site Urban Media Today.
- Dan Fink

Charter school makes first hire

The York Academy Regional Charter School, a new charter school in York that will bring city and suburban students together starting in September 2011, hired its first staff person. Kathleen Eshbach was approved Dec. 13 as the school's first chief academic officer. She is assistant principal at Spring Grove Elementary School in Spring Grove School District. She will assume her new position Feb. 1. A York Daily Record story this week provided more details.

The hiring marked another significant milestone for the school, which emerged from YorkCounts' Metro-York process as a way to deal with the education challenges posed by concentrated poverty in the city. The public charter school came about through the collaboration of the three chartering school districts - York City, York Suburban and Central York.

School officials are also preparing for the effort to enroll the first group of students. The school will open with three grades - three classes each for kindergarten, first and second - with a total of around 225 students. To fill those slots, the school will soon begin the process of distributing brochures to families in the three chartering districts. Brochures and applications will also be mailed to families that had expressed an interest in the school earlier this year. Parents that want to enroll their kids in the school will be able to do so early in 2011.

Around the same time, the school will begin advertising for the first teaching positions. About 50 staff members will eventually be employed by the school, which is located in the heart of the Northwest Triangle project a short walk from Central Market, the Strand-Capitol and Sovereign Bank Stadium.

Finally, the school continues to add more information to its Web site, http://www.yorkarcs.org/. Go there and get a sense of the mission and vision of the school, see the backgrounds of the people running it, or learn about the admission process. You can also download a copy of the student application.

- Dan Fink

The charter school debate

We here at YorkCounts think educational achievement and opportunity in York County should be a concern for every citizen  regardless of what school district they live in, and we've placed a pretty big bet that the York Academy Regional Charter School will be a step in the right direction.

We have to acknowledge, though, that the question of whether charter schools are some kind of magic cure for urban education is far from settled. Three recent news articles show how complicated the issues are.

The New York Times ran a 3,600-word story May 1 that examines the mixed performance of charter schools nationwide. Yes, there are some success stories, where charter schools have helped students in urban districts outperform their public school peers. We believe the YorkCounts professionals who are involved in the York Academy will make it one of the success stories. But, one recent comphrehensive study puts the number of successful schools at about a third of the nation's 5,000 charter schools. But about half do no better and about a third do significantly worse. From the story:

"... the challenge of reproducing high-flying schools is giving even some advocates pause. Academically ambitious leaders of the school choice movement have come to a hard recognition: raising student achievement for poor urban children - what the most fervent call a new civil rights campaign - is enormously difficult and often expensive."

And we also have to acknowledge that charter schools aren't the only potential answer. In Florida, a program to promote school choice for poor families has the potential, according to education policy analyst Adam Schaeffer of the libertarian Cato Institute, to "revolutionize K-12 education in the Sunshine State." Schaeffer made the argument in an op-ed that appeared in the Wall Street Journal April 30.

Here's how the program works: Businesses can to donate to a nonprofit scholarship organization that helps poor families pay private school tuition. Businesses can claim dollar-for-dollar tax credits. A change to the enabling law would expand the program so that more money could be donated and businesses could claim a broader array of tax credits, with the goal of making more scholarships available. Evidence to assess the program's impact is still being developed; the program was created in 2001. But Schaeffer is optimistic.

"Florida's scholarship program appears to be the first statewide private school choice program to reach a critical mass of funding, functionality and political support. As an ever increasing number of students in Florida take advantage of the scholarship program, other states will find it hard to resist enacting broad-based school choice."

Finally, from the Philadelphia Inquirer last month comes a story about the revival in a West Phildelphia neighborhood near the campus of the University of Pennsylvania. The Penn Alexander School, a charter school, opened in 2001 in University City. The school was in a blighted section of the city that was full of crime and rowdy and transient college students and mostly devoid of middle-class families. Penn initiated an overhaul of the neighborhood, and the charter school was part of the plan.

And now?

The school is attracting a diverse student body. Professionals are moving in. And when they have kids, they stay - for the school. Businesses are popping up (including a gourmet grocery store). Streets are cleaner and safer.

"'The (area around the school) has turned ... into a stable family neighborhood, with kids on almost every street,' said Andrew Meloney, the West Philadelphia planner for the City Planning Commission."

So yes, we bet on the York Academy, and we're confident that the folks running the school will do it right. It won't solve every problem. But wouldn't it be cool to see the Northwest Triangle turn around like the neighborhood in West Philly?

- Dan Fink

Charter school passes latest test

The final votes are in, and the York Academy Regional Charter School passed. York City School District's 9-0 vote this week means the charter school application was accepted by all three districts that heard the application. As we've said before, school districts typically don't support charter schools, because there is some cost to the district. So to be approved by three districts by a total vote of 24-3, with two unanimous approvals and the support of the city district, is really groundbreaking for charter schools in Pennsylvania.

The votes represent the green light needed for the effort to move forward. That means the YorkCounts committee working on the charter school can proceed to the next phase, which will include marketing and funding issues.

On the topic of marketing, the school now has a bare-bones Web site, http://www.yorkarcs.org/, which recaps the background on the effort to establish a regional charter school in York. Two key points to note:

1. The social problems that weigh on a school district with high poverty rates - York City's is 85 percent - reduce student achievement, which in turn drives away families looking for a quality education for their children.
2. Given that only one county school district is ranked in among the top 100 in the state, there is room for innovation and improvement.

We've been hearing regularly from parents who are curious about the new school. With these school board votes behind us, more information for the broader community will be available soon. Keep checking back to the York Academy Web site or our site, http://www.yorkcounts.org/.

And don't forget to mark your calendar: Our annual summit is 9 a.m. to noon Friday, March 26, at Penn State York's Pullo Center. The agenda includes an update on the charter school and the United Way's Stay in School Initiative. The keynote speaker is Lynn Cummings, a community organizer and co-founder of Neighbors Empowering Pennsauken. Her work was featured in a documentary called "The New Neighbors," which has aired on public television stations around the country.

- Dan Fink