State+School+Boards+Association+issues+reform+recommendation+different+from+Corbett

=By Eleanor Chute= =//Published by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette//= =//10/12/11//= = = = = = = =The Pennsylvania School Boards Association today issued its recommendation for improving low-performing schools, and it's not the voucher program the governor proposed Tuesday.= =The PSBA, which reviewed research on what works, recommended focusing on three key areas: recruiting, preparing and improving teachers; preparing students for academic success; and providing schools with tools for success.= =The suggestions include recruiting top students to teaching; encouraging the best teachers to stay in low-performing schools; more comprehensive teacher evaluation; instructional coaching; and on-site professional development.= =The PSBA also calls for making early childhood education a priority; partnerships with parents; and support for out-of-school programming.= =It also favors on-site support for a state framework for continuous school improvement and use of databases and analyses.= =Gov. Tom Corbett Tuesday proposed providing vouchers for low-income students in schools performing in the lowest 5 percent statewide. The vouchers could be spent at another public or nonpublic school although other schools would not be required to accept the students.= =PSBA executive Thomas Gentzel said, "Proponents of taxpayer-funded tuition vouchers see such a program as the answer to failing schools. In reality, vouchers only pull a small number of students from struggling schools and leave the rest in a building that is still underperforming and now also underfunded because tax dollars have been siphoned to the private, parochial or public school where the student moves."= =Read more: [|http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11285/1181493-100.stm#ixzz1abokx4kH] = = = = = = = =News= =home=