Altoona Mirror. December 9, 2023
Editorial: Education state across globe is concerning
There are times when information emerges that not only is unexpected but, instead, downright shocking.
Similarly, there are instances when new findings merely confirm what people — experts as well as many individuals not regarded as experts — long have anticipated.
A front-page report in Wednesday’s Mirror was an example of the latter — on a topic relevant not only in the United States, but throughout the world.
The information contained in that article should serve as a guideline in terms of avoiding the unwanted situation ever again. Actually, there is too much at stake. The article in question was introduced by the headline “Pandemic spurred global learning drop.”
Many people recognized that outcome in their own homes regarding their children. Those parents witnessed what their children had to do to catch up on the learning ladder.
It can be deduced some children still are trying to catch up to classmates of theirs who remained determined to keep up with their learning, despite their mandated absence from their classrooms, while they did not.
It is true that some children who routinely are home-schooled can keep up with their peers who report to actual classrooms.
However, that probably is not the case for most students accustomed to in-school learning who are put in the position of not being able to learn inside a classroom where they can interact in person with their teachers and other students — and the ideas, opinions and perspectives that those other people provide.
For children not accustomed to a good home-school environment based on good discipline and heeding expected learning outcomes, there can be too many distractions eroding the learning process.
That can put those children at a disadvantage in competing against young adults whose learning was rooted in classroom discipline and an organized introduction and presentation of information, as well as the testing accompanying the overall process.
“Students around the world suffered historic setbacks in reading and math during the COVID-19 pandemic,” last Wednesday’s article began, “with declines in test scores so widespread that the United States climbed in global rankings simply by falling behind less sharply, a new study finds.
“The state of global education was given a bleak appraisal in the Program for International Student Assessment, the first study to examine the academic progress of students in dozens of countries during the pandemic,” the article continued.
The study, released Tuesday, spanning nations rich and poor, big and small, and involving testing administered in 2022, found that the average international math score fell by the equivalent of three-quarters of a year of learning, while reading scores fell by the equivalent of half a year.
According to the study, in the countries where students were tested, 25 percent now are considered low performers in math, reading and science, meaning that they struggle to perform basic math problems or interpret simple texts. The study report characterized the new results as an “unprecedented drop in performance.”
Across all participating countries, the average math score fell by 15 points since similar 2018 testing, with reading scores falling by 10 points. The bright result came from the subject of science, where there was little change from the scores recorded in 2018.
The U.S. and other nations should make digesting all of the information in the report a mandatory assignment.
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LNP/LancasterOnline. December 6, 2023
Editorial: State government officials must end the secrecy around sexual harassment — and other — settlements
Why — even after the #MeToo movement took hold in the United States — are elected officials in Harrisburg still getting this wrong?
Why are they clinging to nondisclosure agreements and nondisparagement clauses, even after such stipulations have been shown to be harmful to workplace victims of sexual misconduct?
These are rhetorical questions. We know the answers. Self-preservation is everything to politicians.
Read these facts reported by Spotlight PA and weep:
— “In all, the state House and Senate paid out $279,361 between 2017 and September of this year to settle 11 disputes, which ranged from a disagreement over office lease payments to racial discrimination and sexual harassment complaints.”
— “Of the 11 settlements, seven included strict confidentiality promises or provisions preventing the parties involved from speaking negatively about each other.”
— “One settlement, resolving a sexual harassment claim leveled by a female former top state Senate security officer against her then-boss, included additional covenants preventing her from divulging personnel and other information she may have obtained over the course of her employment.”
All of this, remember, is separate from the settlement made by Shapiro’s office to resolve sexual harassment allegations made against senior Shapiro adviser Mike Vereb, who abruptly resigned in late September.
As we noted in an October editorial, Shapiro was uncharacteristically reticent regarding the allegations leveled against Vereb. This reticence was a misjudgment. As was the settlement agreement. As we wrote, “You can’t denounce the silencing of victims and then resort to a nondisclosure agreement when it’s politically convenient.”
State Rep. Abby Major, a Republican from Armstrong County, is one of several people who earlier this year accused a former lawmaker of sexually harassing her. She told Spotlight PA that the Shapiro administration isn’t her only concern. “We are saying the whole process sucks. And this is the way it’s been done, unless someone steps up and tries to make the change. I have no problem calling out our own.”
She and other female lawmakers from the state House and Senate intend to introduce a package of bills aimed at changing how state government handles harassment cases. This effort should be supported by men, too, and it should be bipartisan — these issues are too important to be used as partisan cudgels. Both Democrats and Republicans commit misconduct. And both Democrats and Republicans are victims of not just harassment but of a process that’s designed to protect the powerful.
Major wants to see the definition of sexual harassment in the state House’s ethics rules expanded to include nonverbal acts — which is utterly sensible, because such harassment is often nonverbal.
She also wants to increase transparency surrounding the number of harassment complaints that land in the House Ethics Committee, “which typically operates under a veil of secrecy,” Spotlight PA noted.
This is essential. How is a victim of harassment supposed to trust a process that is shrouded in mystery and secrecy? How are Pennsylvania residents supposed to trust a Legislature that fails to commit to transparency and accountability?
State Rep. Charity Grimm Krupa, a Republican from Fayette County, is “pushing a bill that would allow government agencies to seek reimbursement from an offender if there is a settlement payout — and make those reimbursement requests public,” Spotlight PA reported. “Currently, settlement costs are most often shouldered by the government agency where the offender is employed, or covered through the state-funded Employee Liability Self-Insurance Program. … Unless the public specifically requests them, settlement records largely go unnoticed.”
We agree that compensation for misconduct shouldn’t fall on the shoulders of taxpayers. We also agree with the lawmakers who want to see third parties investigate sexual harassment claims.
Among the cases examined by Spotlight PA are two that illustrate the cross-party nature of secrecy in state government.
— In late 2017, state House Democrats agreed to pay $30,000 in “emotional distress damages” to a onetime employee of state Rep. Joanna McClinton of Philadelphia, who became the House speaker this year. “The employee filed a whistleblower suit against the Democrat and the state House, alleging he was fired after raising concerns about the propriety of an event McClinton was organizing involving a church with which she was involved,” Spotlight PA explained.
McClinton declined to comment. That settlement contained a confidentiality clause as well as a nondisparagement clause.
— An agreement signed in June 2021 settled what Spotlight PA called “a high-stakes lawsuit filed by a former top security guard” for the state Senate. “The guard, Sue Salov, was one of two women who accused the chamber’s onetime security chief, Justin Ferrante, of sexual harassment. Ferrante resigned his position amid an internal investigation into the allegations.”
After Salov sued the state Senate, then-President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati, a Republican from Jefferson County, “quietly authorized the chamber to pay Ferrante’s legal bills. That controversial arrangement raised questions about why leaders defended a former employee whose alleged misconduct did not involve his official duties.”
The Senate’s current president pro tempore, Republican Kim Ward of Westmoreland County, “declined to comment on the settlement, including whether it should have been made public,” Spotlight PA noted.
Ward was a vociferous critic of Shapiro’s handling of the allegations against Vereb.
Again, an elected official shouldn’t demand accountability and transparency from others without delivering it himself or herself.
And it shouldn’t take the threat of litigation from a news organization — in this instance, Spotlight PA — for state government officials to hand over documents relating to legal settlements made, directly or indirectly, with taxpayer dollars.
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Philadelphia Daily News/Inquirer. December 7, 2023
Editorial: Speed camera program helps save lives. Lawmakers should vote to keep it.
Despite the clear benefit to public safety, Pennsylvania legislators are waffling on whether to reauthorize the use of speed cameras in the state.
In the last three years, speed cameras on Roosevelt Boulevard have helped cut down on speeding violations by 95%, reduced the number of serious crashes by more than 20%, and cut injuries to pedestrians almost in half.
Given those encouraging results — amid a local and national increase in traffic fatalities — you would think making the pilot program permanent would be an easy call in Harrisburg.
Yet despite the clear benefit to public safety, Pennsylvania legislators are waffling on whether to reauthorize the use of speed cameras, along with the state’s successful work zone camera program. Without action soon, the use of these lifesaving efforts is set to expire at the end of 2023.
As lawmakers reconvene next week, they should ensure that does not happen.
Nationwide, speeding was a contributing factor in almost 30% of all traffic fatalities, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Higher speeds also make collisions deadlier for drivers, passengers, and pedestrians. When speed cameras were first installed on Roosevelt Boulevard in 2020, it was not uncommon for vehicles to be traveling twice as fast as the posted limits of 40 mph and 45 mph.
Opponents typically cast speed cameras as an ineffective money grab and an imposition on hardworking people. While no one enjoys getting a traffic ticket in the mail, state officials have designed the program so that municipalities don’t just start installing cameras as a cash cow.
Money from speed camera citations goes into a centralized statewide fund for street safety projects — not into the coffers of the municipality where the camera is located — so there’s no incentive for any community to install cameras to raise money to cover budget shortfalls or to pay for new programs.
The signs warning drivers of the cameras are also highly visible, emphasizing that the measures are meant to save lives, not to function as speed traps.
Furthermore, rather than producing significant revenue on a consistent basis, proceeds from the cameras have declined by 95% since they first went live. That reduction indicates that the cameras have successfully helped change behavior and reduce speeding.
As former City Council at-large candidate Melissa Robbins told Fox 29 in reference to getting a speeding ticket from a camera on Roosevelt Boulevard, “I never did it again, because, obviously, I don’t want to get busted!”
Unlike police enforcement, which can be uneven depending on whether an officer is patrolling a particular location, traffic cameras can change motorist behavior because they are always in the same place and can create the expectation of consistent consequences. Data show that it is this expectation of accountability, rather than the severity of the fine, that is most effective in reducing lawbreaking. Cameras also allow police officers to focus on more serious crimes instead of handing out traffic citations.
Along with the benefits of speed cameras that have been seen on Roosevelt Boulevard, cameras have improved safety for state highway workers, reducing work zone crashes by up to 50%, depending on location, according to PennDot. Given that roadside workers suffer a disproportionate amount of construction deaths, reauthorization is a pro-worker policy.
While Harrisburg drags its feet, the demand for more speed cameras in Philadelphia is growing. Safety advocates have identified several other locations in the city that would benefit from the introduction of automated enforcement. Mayor-elect Cherelle Parker, who helped implement the program when she was on City Council, has been supportive of these efforts in the past.
But without a successful vote this month to extend the program, improving public safety and slowing traffic on these dangerous stretches of roadway will be out of reach. Legislators must act and help safeguard motorists, pedestrians, and construction workers in the state.
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Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. December 9, 2023
Editorial: Legislators, you’ve got three days to fund our community colleges
The ten state system universities have gotten their state funding for this fiscal year. So have the four “state-related” universities. But some educational institutions are being left high and dry.
This includes the state’s fifteen community colleges, who very much need these funds. And why haven’t they gotten their funding when their peers have? The politics of the state legislature.
In his budget for the 2023-2024 fiscal year, Gov. Josh Shapiro proposed $261 million for the state’s community colleges, a 2% increase from the $256 million they received last year. Between 20 and 30% of the colleges’ annual income comes from the state. They generally use these funds to make tuition more affordable and to run student support programs as well as for other operational costs.
To make up the funds they haven’t gotten, some have either taken money from their reserves, which reduces their expected investment income, or taken out loans at 7 to 8% interest. Neither is a sustainable answer for institutions always running on a tight budget with a broad responsibility.
The effect of the delayed funding varies between them. The Community College of Allegheny County has funds to support the college for several more months, while Butler County Community College has already reached “dangerously low levels” in their coffers. The college already faces a $2.9 million deficit, partly due to the lingering effects of the pandemic. The Community College of Beaver County has had to draw against its line of credit with a 7% interest rate. Westmoreland County Community College may need to do the same thing.
We don’t need to rehash the benefits of community college education. These colleges do what literally no other institution can do: offer a diverse and affordable education in needed skills on schedules working people can manage.
Community colleges are included in a different part of the “fiscal code” than the others, and the legislature hasn’t passed it in part because of the ongoing battle over a “school choice” voucher system for public school children.
In other words, the education of adults, and adults who often attend community college because it’s significantly less expensive than the colleges and universities, including the state-funded ones, is being held up over a disagreement about the education of children. Their education is being held hostage in a battle over a program they have nothing to do with.
This is absurd. Legislators need to strike a deal on school funding or, failing that, break out community college funding into its own bill. And they need to do it fast.
There are currently only three scheduled session days left in the year. Unless legislative leaders add more, after that the budget won’t be able to pass for two or three months.
And by then, more reserves will run and more debt will be taken out, and Pennsylvania’s community college system will be weaker for years to come.
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Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. December 11, 2023
Editorial: Legislators need to make unexpected break a working vacation
Pennsylvania lawmakers aren’t going to be able to go to work for a while.
Yes, it sounds like the start to a particularly frustrating joke. But it’s true. The House of Representatives won’t be able to go back into chambers for about three months because of repairs.
The Pennsylvania Capital-Star reported that, when state representatives recess this week, they won’t return until March 18, except for two short instances. They will convene as required by the state Constitution on Jan. 2. They also will meet with the Senate in the Capitol Rotunda for the governor’s annual budget address Feb. 6.
Other than that, they will be on hiatus while a ruptured heating coil in the chamber’s historic, muraled ceiling is repaired at a cost of $150,000.
Yes, there is a reason. And yes, all of the representatives do have offices in their home districts where they can work.
But it’s still a bit galling to have the third highest paid lawmakers in the nation get a three-month break — especially when they just got yet another pay raise.
So yes, the chambers will be unavailable, but legislators had best take this forced absence as an opportunity.
They need to listen to constituents. They need to have conference calls and online meetings. They need to resolve the issues that are keeping so many bills languishing in committees so, when they get back to work in March, they can make swift work of issues that have been lingering far too long.
Maybe they could practice reaching across the aisle. Maybe they could find projects supported by people of the other party. Maybe they could hunt around for common ground.
There is certainly enough time.
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