The new charter school scheme: This is how GOP and privatizers have bled Pennsylvania schools
Teachers work for free in a school district bled by charter schools and state government neglect
As schools across Pennsylvania open their doors for the new school year, there’s one district in the state where teachers will be hard at work even though they’re not likely to get paid.
The teachers are actually already on the job, having reported for work a week early as originally expected. But when the district’s administration announced it could not meet a scheduled payroll on September 9, a week after classes start, the teachers – along with janitors, nurses, and other school personnel – held an impromptu meeting and voted to temporarily forego pay.
The teachers are employed by the financially strapped school district of Chester Upland, located about 20 miles west of Philadelphia. Years of deliberate under-funding by the state, coupled with policies that favor the rapid expansion of publicly funded but privately operated charter schools, are bleeding the district. The dedication of committed and caring educators seems to be one of the few forces binding the shattered school community together.
“We aren’t broken,” says Dariah Jackson, one of the teachers working for no pay tells Salon in a phone interview. Jackson, a Special Education and Life Skills Support teacher in grades 3-5, says, “I’m in my classroom, as are my colleagues, ready for the students to walk through the door next week.”
When asked how long is “temporary” in their resolve to work with no pay, Jackson says, “No one has set a time limit for now. We have to be here for our students. They need a place to go.”
But while Jackson and her colleagues show their determination to meet the needs of the students, there are forces acting in Chester Upland, and across Pennsylvania, focused on anything but that.
School Breakage 101
“Chester Upland is broke,” explains Wythe Keever, spokesman for the Pennsylvania State Education Association. “Actually, they’re a lot worse off than broke,” he tells Salon. “They have an operating budget deficit in excess of $20 million that is expected by the end of the year to go beyond $40 million.”
“The school district is in danger of not existing,” says Jeff Sheridan, a spokesman for Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf, in a report by Lyndsey Layton of The Washington Post.
What’s not helping for sure is an ongoing imbroglio over Pennsylvania’s state budget. Legislators and Wolf have been unable to come to an agreement on the state’s fiscal responsibilities, delaying budget completion for over 50 days. What’s the fight about?Education funding. The newly elected Democratic governor insists on increasing school funding and correcting unfair distributions – particularly those that go toonline “cyber” charter schools – while an entrenched Republican legislature continues to exhibit reluctance to adequately and fairly fund the state’s schools.
So school districts across the state are having to dig deeper into their own local resources to fund the reopening of schools. Districts like Chester Upland, that are heavily reliant on state aid, simply don’t have coffers to dig into.
But there are also long term “structural problems,” explains Keever.
As Layton recounts in her report, “Chester Upland’s financial problems date to 1994, when it was first classified by the state as being in ‘economic distress.” The district has been in and out of state receivership since.
“A similar financial collapse occurred in the district in 2012,” Layton continues, “and The new charter school scheme: This is how GOP and privatizers have bled Pennsylvania schools - Salon.com: