Corbett asked to aid poor schools
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HARRISBURG -- As 50 placard-holding students from the ailing Chester Upland schools looked on, Republican and Democratic senators urged Gov. Tom Corbett Tuesday to develop a workable plan to aid financially distressed school districts.
"We need a plan, Mr. Secretary; we need a plan," Sen. Jeffrey Piccola, R-Dauphin, told state Education Secretary Ronald Tomalis. "It's time to end the finger-pointing and the blame game. Taxpayers are fed up with the increasing costs of public education. They see it every July when their school tax bill arrives."
Sen. Andrew Dinniman, D-Chester, was even more blunt. "This administration is trying to destroy public education in the poorest districts," such as Chester Upland [outside Philadelphia], Duquesne schools and others, he contended. "This administration isn't serious about education of the poor in Pennsylvania."
The Chester Upland students asked legislators for more funding for their schools. The district recently said it would have to shut down in the middle of the school year without additional state funds. It filed suit in federal court, and teachers agreed to work without pay.
One of those teachers, Sara Ferguson, was invited to sit in the First Lady's box at Tuesday's State of the Union address. Ms. Ferguson teaches literacy and math, and she said at the time teachers announced they would work without pay, "We are adults; we will make a way. The students don't have any contingency plan. They need to be educated, so we intend to be on the job."
Mr. Tomalis said the administration cares about all students, pointing to its recent agreement to give Chester Upland an additional $3.2 million to keep schools open through Feb. 28. However, that money resulted from a federal suit filed by Chester Upland parents after the state initially refused to help the district.
The day it was filed, Mr. Corbett blamed local officials in the 3,700-student Delaware County district for its financial woes. In a radio interview, Mr. Corbett said the state had come to the aid of the beleaguered Chester Upland district for many years but that it could not "continue to bail out one school district just because they don't know how to control spending their money."
The district has blamed its situation on state funding cuts and the fact that it has lost almost half its students to charter schools.
"We will advance that money to the district," Mr. Tomalis said Tuesday, adding that another $20 million in state funds is likely to come to keep schools open through June.
But Mr. Piccola said that's only a short-term solution. Other senators said the problem with financially distressed schools goes far beyond Chester Upland, pointing to Duquesne, Sto-Rox and Steel Valley in the Pittsburgh area; Erie schools; Harrisburg and a nearby district, Steelton-Highspire; and Reading, York, Lancaster and Allentown.
Critics said problems are linked to insufficient per-pupil state funding in the "Basic Education Formula" given to the 500 school districts in the 2011-12 school year.
"All the school districts that are financially distressed are in poor neighborhoods," said Sen. Daylin Leach, D-Montgomery, but it could eventually spread to other, better-off schools.
"It seems like Democrats' only answer to school funding in general is to increase state spending," said Education Department spokesman Tim Eller.
"If we didn't care about public education and the children in the Chester Upland district, we wouldn't have done the extraordinary things we did last spring to help Chester Upland," Mr. Tomalis said.
But Mr. Dinniman complained the state won't release a list of "fiscally distressed" school districts and told Mr. Tomalis he will file a Right To Know request, or even seek a subpoena, to get that list.
Mr. Tomalis said the situation with schools keeps changing, with Reading and Erie schools developing serious financial problems just in the past three months, so it's difficult to keep an up-to-date list.
He said schools were warned that the federal stimulus funds received from the Obama administration in 2009-10 were only temporary, and they should not make long-term commitments based on short-term funds.
He said the Corbett administration actually increased state basic-education and pension funds this year, but it didn't replace the federal funds, leading to an overall drop of nearly $900 million in aid to schools for 2011-12.
Mr. Corbett will unveil his fiscal 2012-13 state budget plan on Feb. 7, and many legislators fear that public funding for schools will take another significant hit.
In 2011, most of the Legislature's debates about schools dealt with the possibility of approving taxpayer-funded "vouchers," which students could use to leave public schools and attend private, religious or public charter schools (which are separate from regular public schools).
But even many Republicans couldn't go along with the costly idea of vouchers, and it appears dead. So now a new plan is needed to improve schools and keep schools in poorer areas from running out of money, legislators said.
When told to develop a plan, Mr. Tomalis said the administration already has a plan -- a new form of teacher evaluations to help administrators better spot good and bad teachers; a system for giving higher pay to better teachers, meaning those who have scored higher on the new evaluations; and allowing school districts to furlough low-quality teachers and keep better teachers, rather than, as now, laying off teachers according to seniority.
But Mr. Piccola said a more comprehensive plan is urgently needed.
First Published January 25, 2012 12:00 am
