Authorizing the Committee on Education to hold hearings to understand Pennsylvania Act 158's changes to state graduation requirements and their impact on Philadelphia students and to learn more about the School District of Philadelphia's plan to implement and support schools and students with these new requirements.

WHEREAS, Act 158 mandates post-secondary preparedness in various pathways demonstrating college, career, community readiness; and

WHEREAS, According to Research for Action, 70% of Black students and 75% of Hispanic students would not meet the requirements for pathways set out in Act 158; and

WHEREAS, Philadelphia youth are being impacted by Act 158 and the policy articulates “alternative pathways” without giving clear guidelines to follow and expects students to find their own way through the policy; and

WHEREAS, The Philadelphia Education Research Consortium is a nonprofit education research organization that focuses on equity focused based assessments on the districts needs, the research shows that over one-third of students historically have achieved a keystone score sufficient enough to meet the pathways graduation policy; and

WHEREAS, The Philadelphia Education Research Consortium showed the more than 55% of the students will need significant support in meeting the requirements set out by Act 158, specifically in outlining the career pathways alternative requirement; and

WHEREAS, The keystone scores do not reflect the local characteristics and historical inequities and will be the cause of over 25% of students not graduating due to the new requirements passed in 2018; and,

WHEREAS, Collaboration and action from decision makers is important in reviewing the data and addressing the findings and potential solutions; and

WHEREAS, Involvement of the committee on education is important in the collaboration to help ensure the success of students in creating a comprehensive plan to help meet the Act 158 requirements in the City of Philadelphia, now, therefore, be it

RESOLVED, BY THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA, That it authorizes the Committee on Education to hold hearings to discuss how the school district of Philadelphia plans on implementing Act 158 in supporting the navigation of the new high school graduation

requirement.

End