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DECEMBER 13, 2011 | Policy Points by COMMONWEALTH FOUNDATION
Charter School Reform
Pennsylvania charter school enrollment grew from 982 students in 1997 to 91,000 in 2010, as more parents exercised choice in their children's education. On average, charter schools receive and spend only about 83 percent of what school districts spend for each student. Allowing alternative charter school authorizers would increase opportunities
OCTOBER 10, 2011 | Policy Points by COMMONWEALTH FOUNDATION
Charter School Funding in Pennsylvania
Many school districts and other advocates complain about the charter school funding mechanism, arguing that it "drains funding" from school districts. This charge must be considered in the context of charter school funding.
AUGUST 17, 2011 | Policy Brief by ANDREW LEFEVRE
A Decade of Success: Pennsylvania's Educational Improvement Tax Credit
The EITC creates partnerships between parents, businesses, and scholarship organizations. These partnerships allow funding to follow students, giving children and their families choices of schools that best fit their needs. The success of the EITC program is demonstrated not just in the millions it has saved taxpayers and relief to high-gro
Recent Blog Posts
JANUARY 25, 2012
Bill Cosby Explains How to Really Educate a Child
We're in the middle of National School Choice Week, which means the word "education" is hot on the lips of its advocates across our state and country. Schooling is a concern of the Pennsylvania Senate Democratic Caucus, too, as Sen. Jay Costa (D-Allegheny) claimed today: "Education funding has been driven back to 2006 levels. We are no longer investing in education."
Hold up, Senator. Public education funding in Pennsylvania has doubled in the last 15 years to $26 billion a year. Meanwhile, public schools have added nearly 36,000 employees—all while student enrollment has declined by almost the same number.
While funding has skyrocketed, student performance has largely stagnated. About 82,000 students suffer the worst of it, trapped in the commonwealth's persistently failing schools, where some two-thirds cannot read or do math at grade level. The problem isn't a lack of education funding—it's a public education system that lacks incentives to improve. And that's why school choice has attracted supporters from across the political spectrum.
Supporters include veteran comedian and education advocate Bill Cosby, who last night discussed the "State of American Education" before President Obama tackled the State of the Union. "Cuts, cuts, cuts, that is what we hear, but education is not a thing that big bucks happens to be the answer [to]," Dr. Cosby—a Philadelpia native—said. "The answer is—with education comes teaching children to respect and love questions, looking for the answer, reading."
Other school choice supporters echoed Cosby's doubts about dollars at a school choice panel at Pennsylvania's State Capitol today. Sen. Anthony Williams (D-Phila.) noted that increases in funding for some school districts don't necessarily reach the classroom: "Spending more money doesn't result in spending more money on teaching the child."
In the end, we should measure the effectiveness of American—and Pennsylvanian—public education by whether our children learn and are equipped to compete for jobs in an increasingly competitive world. School choice restores the responsibility to parents and teachers for educating children, and forces public schools to improve as they compete with charter, cyber and private schools. That's an investment in education worth making.
posted by PRIYA ABRAHAM | 05:01 PM | 0 comment
JANUARY 16, 2012
The Education Monopoly Comandeers CNN
The Reading School District was featured on CNN this weekend, but not for anything positive. Reporters documented the poor air quality caused by crumbling school buildings across the nation. It appears the entire segment was encouraged by the NEA, the national affiliate of the PSEA, in their never-ending campaign to insist more time and more money will improve education.
Meanwhile, an entire decade has passed without any meaningful improvement in Pennsylvania's NAEP scores. Even the more generous PSSA tests show 36 percent of Reading students are not proficient in math and more than 50 percent are not proficient in reading.
The problem with education funding is not the amount, Pennsylvania's education spending per student increased 133 percent since 1980 after adjusting for inflation. No, the problem is how these funds are spent.
Since 2000, Pennsylvania public schools added 35,821 additional staff while enrollment dropped by 35,510.
Another obstacle to smart spending is Pennsylvania's archaic prevailing wage law. This law requires school districts to pay the prevailing wage, usually the union wage, on any construction project. Prevailing wage laws increase the cost of construction by 20 percent or more.
The president of Reading's teacher union weighed in:
"Education reform right now is about how to punish public schools," Sanguinito said, explaining that many new initiatives like school vouchers and charter schools pull funding away from public school districts. "If we were the Lehman Brothers School District they would be giving us money."
What they are really saying is competition in education is bad for their education monopoly. They'd rather force parents to send their children to failing schools than allow choice and competition. Taxpayers can't afford a school district bailout in the fashion of Lehman brothers. It's time to end the education monopoly and allow parents a voice in one of the most fundamental aspects of their children's lives.
posted by ELIZABETH STELLE | 02:55 PM | 0 comment
JANUARY 12, 2012
Crisis vs. Competition in Education
Here are two views on school choice, the idea that fostering a variety of schooling options for families—whether public, charter, cyber or private—is a good thing:
- School choice is a waste of taxpayer dollars when we already have a "funding crisis" for public schools, to quote the head of the state's largest teacher union, the Pennsylvania State Education Association, this week. "Gov. Tom Corbett's unprecedented $860 million in public school funding cuts is getting worse and forcing districts to cut more essential programs," the PSEA warned.
- School choice creates competition in our education system between public schools, charter and cyber schools and private schools-which makes the public schools improve.
So which view is true? New evidence from one of Pennsylvania's most expensive school districts—Pittsburgh—shows competition from charter schools forced its public schools to trim $40 million in wasteful spending, cut more than 200 office positions, furlough teachers and other staff, and announce nearly 400 teachers would not return in 2012-13. That might sound like an "education crisis" to the PSEA. But that's not how the school district views it.
The Education Action Group reports:
Normally, when a school district announces mass layoffs, it is followed by charges that lawmakers are not "investing" enough in public education and that the apocalypse is at hand.
Instead, Pittsburgh school officials admit the district had gotten flabby and careless with its spending, leading to, in the words of Superintendent Linda Lane, "a relatively expensive infrastructure and way of conducting business."
Pittsburgh spends more than $20,000 per student every year, far above the $14,000 per student Pennsylvania average, in part because the districts' enrollment is half what it once was, but staff and building reductions have not kept pace.
The "increasing array of other educational options (e.g., charter schools, cyber charter schools, and potentially vouchers) did help to move the needle in terms of our culture shift," said Lisa Fischetti, chief of staff and external affairs for Pittsburgh Public Schools.
Wasteful spending isn't just limited to Pittsburgh: Across the state, districts have added 36,000 staff while enrollment has declined by roughly the same amount. Pennsylvania does have an education crisis, but it's not the one the PSEA trumpets: It's that throwing money at a failing public school system has not produced better results.
Competition isn't the enemy here—it's the cure.
posted by PRIYA ABRAHAM | 01:20 PM | 0 comment
