Don’t starve the schools
Superintendents urge state leaders to better provide for Pennsylvania’s children
Each May, school districts across Pennsylvania propose education budgets that will guide educational programs for the upcoming school year. The goal of the school district budget is to strike a balance between providing a quality education for all students and doing what is fiscally responsible for local taxpayers.
However, as superintendents, we have found that creating a balanced budget for the upcoming 2017-18 school year has been especially difficult. We have seen time and again that funding for public education from Pennsylvania has been less than adequate to keep pace with the rising expenses of providing a quality educational program. In many cases, these rising expenses are due to mandated programs that are imposed upon school districts by state and federal government.
Currently, Pennsylvania pays only 37 percent of what it costs to educate students — one of the lowest state shares in the country. When the state share of funding for publiceducation is this low, the financial burden shifts to local taxpayers. If school districts do not receive adequate funding, they are forced to short change students by curtailing programs, reducing staff or increasing local taxes for already overburdened residents.
Education funding is a triangular partnership among school districts, the governor and the legislature. Ideally, responsibility and burdens are shared and balanced, and the needs of our students are met equitably, predictably andat least adequately.
For many years now, the state share has dwindled, placing more burden at the local taxpayer level. According to the Department of Education, two-thirds of all school districts raised real estate taxes by 0.5 mills or more for the 2016-17 school year. For the upcoming school year, 46 percent of Pennsylvania school leaders project that their budgets will cut staffing, and 50 percent project that their budgets will cut education programming, according to a survey by the Pennsylvania Association of School Business Officials.
The situation is exacerbated by the fact that each year the cost of managing a school district increases. These costs are often outside the control of local school leaders. These include a broken funding system for charter schools; ballooning pension obligations that are mandatory, as well as morally and legally required; and rising costs for health care, special education and transportation. Our state leaders must provide our students with equitable and adequate basic education funding while simultaneously acting legislatively to deal with these escalating costs, which are siphoning classroom resources from our students.
To further complicate matters, the Trump administration is proposing major cuts to federal education funding — such as Medicaid ACCESS and Title II funding, after-school programs, teacher professional development and class size reduction —that will have a devastating effect on schools across Pennsylvania. This, in itself, is a topic for another day.
Despite the challenges, Western Pennsylvania superintendents are optimistic. In recent years, we have seen the Legislature and governor come together to create a funding formula for school districts. For decades, this commonwealth did not have a predictable formula for distributing billions of dollars in basic education funding for our school districts. Until recently, Pennsylvania was one of three states without a funding formula and ranked atop the list for inequitable spending on public education. Last year, after more than a year of careful study, public debate and legislative work, Gov. Tom Wolf and the Legislature supported the passage of legislation creating a new and fair funding formula.
That was an important first step toward restoring our shared partnership with the state. It also proved that when our state leaders, in different branches and of different parties, put their mind to it, they can achieve important and positive change for our students. We know leaders in the state are facing tough challenges and we know that collectively they want to do the right thing. And last year, we learned they can.
As superintendents, we ask our state leaders to continue taking steps to rebuild our partnership and better provide for the children of the commonwealth. First, we ask them to apply the same bipartisan and student-centered approach exhibited during the development of the new and fair funding formula to all aspects of legislative work related to public education. Second, we ask them to commit to achieving equitable and adequate basic education funding for all students using the new and fair funding formula by increasing subsidies beyond what was proposed in the 2017-18 state budget. Third, we ask them to tackle the major financial challenges — charters, pensions, transportation and more — facing public education.
Toward that end, nearly a dozen local superintendents —representing urban, suburban and rural school districts — issued an urgent call to the governor and the General Assembly on Wednesday, gathering at West Mifflin Area High School. It was one of five simultaneous press events held across the commonwealth that day. We shared our struggles in balancing budgets and urged elected officials to increase investments in public schools. School districts represented included West Mifflin Area, Carlynton, Baldwin-Whitehall, McKeesport Area, Yough, Plum, Clairton City, Upper St. Clair and Norwin.
As Jerry Longo, executive director of the Forum for Western Pennsylvania School Superintendents, has insightfully reminded superintendents, the Pennsylvania Constitution requires that “the General Assembly shall provide for the maintenance and support of a thorough and efficient system of public education to serve the needs ofthe commonwealth.”
Together, local school boards and superintendents, in partnership with the governor and Legislature, must restore a truly shared partnership and guarantee each child a public education in which funding is fair, adequate and equitable.