Swarthmore Profs Say Philly Schools Lack Needed Money: PA Funding Process Flawed | janresseger

Swarthmore Profs Say Philly Schools Lack Needed Money: PA Funding Process Flawed | janresseger:

Swarthmore Profs Say Philly Schools Lack Needed Money: PA Funding Process Flawed

Posted on August 13, 2014 by janresseger

“Each year, as predictably as classes end in June, the School District of Philadelphia faces a budget crisis for the coming school year,” write John Caskey and Mark Kuperberg, economists at Swarthmore College. “In 2014, the School Reform Commission, the school district’s state-imposed governing body, for the first time and in violation of the city charter, refused to pass a budget, arguing that there were insufficient funds to run the schools responsibly…  In the summer of 2013…. the budgets of many individual schools allowed for no counselors, no secretaries to assist principals or answer telephones, and no arts or sports programs.  With a last-minute financial-aid pledge from the city, some laid-off personnel were recalled, and schools opened on time.  But the district was still in such dire straits that Philadelphia’s newspapers launched a drive to obtain pencils, paper, and other basic supplies.  This is no way to run a school system, much less the eighth largest in the United States.  We investigate why these school crises keep recurring… We conclude that the unwieldy process for financing the district means that such crises are bound to recur unless that process is changed.”

It can be hard to sort out the truth in discussions of public finance, because, of course, politicians select the numbers that deflect blame from themselves and their policies.  In Philadelphia the politics around the funding of Pennsylvania’s largest school district are filled with rancor.  Philadelphia is a poor city in a very rural state, a city where many of the children are black and Hispanic, while Pennsylvania’s small towns are largely white.  It is helpful to be able to read an objective academic report that lays out the facts and realities of the Philadelphia school crisis, especially in these next few days when Superintendent William Hite will be forced to decide whether he can safely open school on September 8, 2014, at a time when the state legislature won’t even meet again until mid-September to consider enabling the School District of Philadelphia to levy a $2-per-pack cigarette tax that school administrators are counting on to raise $81 million to make up part of this year’s school budget. (This blog most recently covered the Philadelphia school crisis here.)

Here, according to Caskey and Kuperberg, is the way funding is set up for the school district, which—unlike many cities in other states—has no independent taxing authority.  “Of the Swarthmore Profs Say Philly Schools Lack Needed Money: PA Funding Process Flawed | janresseger: