Commonwealth's education budget reflects politics, not student needs
by thenotebook on Jul 05 2013 Posted in Commentary
by Michael Churchill
Pennsylvania’s state constitution charges the General Assembly with providing the state with a “thorough and efficient system” of public education “to serve the needs of the Commonwealth.” Harrisburg’s budget concoction, slapped together at the last minute, speaks more to politics than to serving the needs of the Commonwealth’s 1.75 million students who are dependent upon adequate state funding. It is a prescription for personal tragedies and a declining state economy. Unless you are a person with a stake in promoting failing schools, it is a terrible budget.
In Philadelphia, the Republican governor and legislature avoided forcing a virtual shutdown of the schools. But, at the same time, they have so severely limited their assistance, they left the District maimed with class size at the maximum, an insufficient number of counselors and tutors for students in deep need of help, little to no art and music, and cuts to programs and personnel, leaving the District barely able to provide basic services. And much of that insufficient aid is tied to unknown, “provoke a fight with the union” conditions still to be set by the state. Instead of school stability for students, the state budget opts for turmoil. No matter how the dust settles, each Philadelphia student will have at least $2,000 less spent on their education than the average student in the surrounding four counties, equivalent to $50,000 a classroom, even though suburban districts have on average far fewer students in poverty or who are English language learners. Harrisburg’s message was that successful education is less important than scoring political points and avoiding finding new revenue.
Around the rest of the state, the legislature made no attempt to determine what funding the other 499 districts needed in order to have adequate budgets to serve students. Although 75 percent of the districts reported they are planning to cut instructional programs -- languages, music, art, libraries, and books -- Harrisburg added only $32.5 million to the basic education budget proposed by the governor, and most of that went to 22 politically connected districts via 14 separate appropriation categories tailored to cherry pick the selected districts. More failing schools, not fewer, will be the outcome.
In the end, the total increase in basic education funding over last year was $122.5 million. This is less than the districts’ share of increased pension costs (created by Harrisburg mandate), which is estimated to be more than $160 million statewide. What this means is that the districts will have less to spend on actual instructional costs for students unless they have the ability to raise local taxes enough to cover all of their increased costs for health benefits, heating oil,