Harrisburg’s Horrid Decade of Despair

With soaring crime, a city in bankruptcy and families on the financial brink, children trapped in Harrisburg School District have to wonder how bad it can really get.  Adding insult to their already well-publicized injury, the Patriot News just reported minutes ago that kids in the embattled district didn’t meet minimal academic standards for the tenth straight year.

Despite taxpayers forking out more than $18,000 per pupil per year, more than the annual tuition for a graduate student at Penn State’s College of Medicine, a scant 34 percent of students tested at grade level on the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment with only 35 percent in math.

What’s worse, the Pennsylvania Department of Education is currently investigating Harrisburg for cheating by changing incorrect test answers to boost scores, according to Superintendent Sybil Knight-Burney.

Unless legislators intend to leave every child left behind then laws that allow parents to choose educational options with money that follows the child seem the only way we end the race to the bottom.