Citizen voices needed to push fair school funding

Our elected representatives in Harrisburg — legislators, governor, Republicans and Democrats alike — make decisions on school funding that affect families, children, and everyone who pays taxes. As we turn a corner from winter to spring, the state budget debates will begin in earnest with crucial spending decisions occurring in committee meetings and caucuses, far from the influence of local people affected by their actions.

Despite impassioned dialogue at school board meetings and in newspaper editorials, advocates for fair school funding say their message doesn’t get through to the halls in Harrisburg.

Pottstown School Board member Laura Johnson, who as chairperson of the Montgomery County Legislative Committee is in regular contact with state legislators, said she has heard from them that “nothing is going to happen with school funding unless people show us they care.”

Johnson and a coalition of school funding activists would like to change that. The coalition, PA Schools Work, held an online tutorial Feb. 16 on the issue to educate others about the importance of school funding reform — for all interests in Pennsylvania, not just the financially struggling districts.

The tutorial highlighted the facts of the issue:

• Pennsylvania currently ranks 47th in the nation for state funding for public schools.

• On a “dollar-per-student” basis, the state’s current funding favors districts with dwindling white student populations over districts with growing nonwhite populations.

• A so-called “fair-funding formula”adopted in 2016 applies to only 11 percent of the state’s education funding.

• The 1992 “hold harmless” clause means no district, even if it is losing population, will ever get less state funding than the year before, widening the gap in equitable funding.

“Every year, the legislature puts a little more money in the education budget, pats themselves on the back for passing a budget with no tax hike, goes home for the summer and comes back next year to find the problem is even worse,” said Susan Spicka, executive director of Education Voters of PA.

Gov. Tom Wolf’s budget proposal for 2021-22 addresses a number of education funding shortfalls including proposing distributing all of Pennsylvania’s basic education subsidy through the fair funding formula. That one change would pump enough money into some school districts to not only offer more to students but also reduce the property tax on residents.

To pay for the boost, Wolf is proposing raising the income tax rate for high income earners. The proposal, decried by the Republican-dominated legislature, would raise the personal income tax rate to 4.49 percent, which would still be one of the nation’s lowest, according to Donna Cooper, executive director of PCCY.

Under the governor’s proposal, 67 percent of Pennsylvanians would see either a decrease, or no change from what they pay now, according to PCCY. “It’s not asking that much of moderate and high income families to remedy an historic inequity in the way we fund out schools,” said Cooper.

The Feb. 16 online workshop served as a primer for education advocates who will now begin to organize community support to press lawmakers on the need for the proposed changes.

“I do think we’re making progress, but I also think it will take more voices,” Johnson said.

To help inform citizens, a six-part forum on the subject has been organized by Pottstown Health and Wellness Foundation education advocate Myra Forrest with the support of a group of Pottstown religious organizations. Presentations of the virtual forum will begin at 4:15 p.m. on Sundays Feb. 28, March 7, 14, 21 and April 11. Join the forum on Zoom at https://ministrelife.zoom.us/j/93862003402.

Until legislators feel the pressure and hear the frustration of Pennsylvania citizens demanding an overhaul of school funding and burdensome local property taxes, the state budget process will go on as usual.

To change that, local people from the front lines of education inequity are working to inform and inspire action.

Legislative action on this one thing can help families, children aspiring to succeed, and seniors struggling to pay property tax. This change can secure a better future for Pennsylvania.

It’s time to send a message to Harrisburg and tell lawmakers to finally fairly fund schools.