What Does The Latest Poll Say?
Yesterday households across the state received an email from some Republican House lawmakers asking recipients to take a poll on various state tax and spending proposals. Among the questions one sticks out as particularly poor form. It reads, The governor is proposing $506 million in new K-12 spending, with nearly 32% of that money going to the Philadelphia School District… do you agree with this?
It’s pretty outrageous that any state elected official would use a citizen survey to foment hostility toward one of the most distressed school districts in the nation that educates the largest number of poor and minority students in the Commonwealth.
Better yet, if the Representatives had used the survey to inform the recipients that Philadelphia weathered 32% of the education funding cuts imposed in FY 2011, they could claim some reliability with the answers.
Some area Republican lawmakers let PCCY know off the record that they were uncomfortable with the question. We’ve also heard that constituents are calling the lawmakers’ offices and are pretty hot about the Philly bashing. And, for the record, State Representative Bill Adolph from Springfield, Delaware County stands out from the crowd because he dropped the question entirely from the survey that he sent out! Kudos to Rep. Adolph!
One of the loudest voices in the state legislature’s Philly-bashing crowd is State Representative Stan Saylor from York County. Rep. Saylor has been mounting an aggressive attack on the Wolf Administration’s proposal to restore state education cuts because the Philadelphia School District could nearly rebound from the FY 2011 state aid cuts.
PCCY has a survey question that we think makes more sense for residents of the state. Would you support new funds going to school districts that received increased state school aid over the last fifteen years despite dramatic declines in student enrollment? That’s the situation in Southeastern York, just one of the many districts in State Representative Stan Saylor’s legislative district. There student enrollment dropped by 12% in the last fifteen years but state funding rose by $2.4 million in the same period.
Representative Saylor is not alone in having districts with fewer students receiving more state funding. Representative Daryl Metcalfe, the standard bearer of the Tea Party Caucus in the House, represents South Butler school district that lost 13% of its students in the last 15 years, while its state funding grew by $1.2 million.
For those keeping score, Philadelphia’s student population grew by 4% in the last 15 years
More Cuts to Come for Schools without $400 Million
School boards across the state adopted budgets this year, many of which assumed no additional revenues from the state. As a result, 41% of school districts plan to reduce staff in fiscal year 2015-16, according to the annual report recently released by the Pennsylvania Association of School Administrators and Pennsylvania Association of School Business Officials. And 23% of districts responded in this same report that they plan to reduce or eliminate programs in the 2015-2016 school year.
These anticipated cuts are not the result of communities shirking their responsibility for their local districts. From 2008-09, to 2014-15, local revenue increased from 54% to 56% of education funding. In that same time, the state share decreased from 39% to 37% of education funding, making Pennsylvania the lowest contributing state to education funding.
As budget negotiations continue, your elected officials need to hear from you. Please contact your state representative and senator and tell them you care about education and want them to pass $400 million in new funding for basic education.
PA Senator Proposes Funding Pre-K by Closing Tax Loophole
Nationally, nearly half of all 4 year-olds live in low-income families (with incomes under 200% of the poverty level) and more than 60% start school without the proven benefits of pre-K. This week, Pennsylvania’s own Senator Casey announced a novel approach to closing the pre-K access gap for all children in low income households. The Senator called for the closure of a widely maligned corporate tax loophole to pay for the Strong Start for America’s Children Amendment to the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind. More than half of children in the U.S. start school without the essential benefits that pre-K offers.
The Strong Start for America’s Children Amendment would fund universal pre-K for five years through a federal-state partnership, targeting 4 year-olds below 200% of the Federal Poverty Level. According to Senator Casey, “This amendment is an opportunity to invest in our children and the long-term foundation of our economy while ending an egregious tax loophole that both parties agree needs to go.”
To pay for this expansion, Casey calls for closing the corporate inversion loophole. The U.S. Congress Joint Tax Committee estimates that U.S. companies are avoiding more than $30 billion in taxation in the next ten years by taking advantage of this loophole. (This loophole is available to U.S based companies if they sell 50% or more of their company to a foreign “shell” company that they themselves create, or by selling a portion of their company to a foreign entity.)
Smart Start is expected to provide pre-K for an estimated 41,000 4 year-olds in PA, close to half of whom live in our region.
Send a letter to your Senators urging them to do all they can to make Strong Start for America’s Children a reality.
Want to do more for Pre-K? Help with the Pre-K for PA virtual phone bank to get the state to substantially increase its funding of pre-K. Sign up and join Pre-K for PA volunteers from all over PA to make it happen for young children. Give us an hour and make a real difference!