Education Spending: Grass vs. Artificial Turf Football Fields

To demonstrate how school spending has grown so dramatically, the York Dispatch has a story on the great debate raging on how much to spend on the turf for the school football fields:

Whether they make it to eight years, or beyond, before wearing out remains to be seen.

Nothing lasts forever. Not even something that can cost anywhere from $400,000 to $800,000.

But Lloyd Price, the athletic director at Ringgold, says a synthetic turf field is worth the investment.

Central High School athletic director Marty Trimmer said a normal sod field would cost anywhere from $30,000 to $50,000 a year to maintain properly. Trimmer said the cost of maintenance on a turf field is one hour of grooming time a week.

________

 

Pennsylvania cyber schools struggle to meet proficiency standards

 

 

But officials with online schools that have the most York County students say they believe cyber schools are meeting the needs of students, even as displeased superintendents around York seek a local alternative they can run themselves.

"I think we've had a very successful model," said Joe Lyons, spokesman for Pennsylvania Virtual Charter School. "We don't teach to the test."

The test is the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment, which gauges student proficiency in reading and math. The federal No Child Left Behind law mandated last year that 63 percent of students be proficient in reading and 56 percent of students be proficient in math; proficient means they can do grade-level work.

The cyber schools have not had success meeting those standards. For the past two years, only three of the 11 schools made Adequate Yearly Progress in reaching the student proficiency standards.

School officials said it's mostly the subgroups of students -- minorities, special education, English Language Learners, for example -- that aren't meeting the marks.

Under No Child Left Behind, if one subgroup doesn't make it, the entire school fails to make what's called adequate yearly progress in reaching 100 percent student proficiency by 2014.

Cyber disadvantages: Lyons said cyber schools are at a disadvantage taking a pencil-and-paper test because cyber students are used to taking classes online, at home. During the PSSAs, students travel to a nearby testing site which may be unfamiliar to them.

"It's a more abrupt, leave-your-comfort-zone kind of thing," Lyons said. "We don't have the convenience of staying in the same place."

Another problem is that brick-and-mortar school districts get adequate yearly progress building by building. Cyber schools "are in one big building" in the eyes of No Child Left Behind, Lyons said, which can make overall progress appear worse in a kindergarten through 12th-grade cyber school.

Fred Miller, spokesman for Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School, the state's largest cyber school, said online schools by design have students enrolled from around the state, with very different educational backgrounds and skill levels.

"We inherit the problems of traditional schools. To a certain extent, it is (unavoidable)," Miller said. "We do find if we can keep (students) for a couple years, we can show some dramatic improvement."

A different option: Even though cyber schools are still subject to testing like any other school, Eastern York School District parent Sharon Amato still thinks it might ease the testing pressures with her fifth-grade twins if they enroll online. She's considering the option for next school year.

Too often, she said, her children are being taught specifically to perform well on the PSSA, rather than what will make them well-rounded students. A cyber school will let her have some control over that.

"My kids tell me ... learning is no longer fun," Amato said, adding that an online education would let them learn without outside distractions and extra pressure.

Dennis Tulli, director of Commonwealth Connections Academy, said not all students are meant for a traditional school.

Cyber schools "are better for some kids, because it's a niche thing," Tulli said. Commonwealth has students succeed "who could never achieve that in a brick-and-mortar school."